WAITING TO BE THANKED
Juanita Stirling sat alone with her roses, trying to think it all
out. The other ladies were down in the parlor, where Mrs. Nobbs
was reading aloud; but to-night Egyptian archaeology had no charm
for the possessor of the pink roses. How could she wander through
prehistoric scenes while somebody was waiting to be thanked!
Somebody--but who? The roses knew! Yet they would not tell!
Little quivers of light fluttered in and out of their alluring
hearts, almost as if they said, "We are telling! We are telling!
Only you will not understand!" The woman gazed wistfully at
them--and sighed. The secret of the roses held her through the
long, still hours of the evening. What possible reason could the
superintendent have had for withholding the name, unless--! She
shook her head and sternly chided her cheeks for rivaling the
roses. If only Polly hadn't--but was it Polly? Had not that name
appeared before Polly spoke? She clinched her teeth in scorn for
herself. "'There's no fool like an old fool,'" she muttered
contemptuously. No doubt it was Georgiana Lake. To-morrow she
would write Mrs. Lake a note of thanks. There would be no risk in
that. Yes, she would do it! She would be a fool no longer! And
if the roses chuckled over her decision she never knew it.
The note went by the morning's mail. Its answer came in two days.
_My dear Nita_
You are a witch fit for the hanging! How did you
know--how could you guess!--I was going to send
you some of our Pink Ramblers? Only they are not
quite blossomed out enough yet. When they are you
shall have more than you can hold in your two small
hands! But to thank me for them ahead of time! It
is just like you! You always were a witch! Why don't
you come to see me? I should have been up last visiting
day only that the house was full of workmen, and
Isabel had engagements, and somebody must stay--I
was the somebody!--A visitor! Too bad! Love--
GEORGIANA.
Before the pink roses had lost a petal another box was brought to
Miss Sterling's door. Her fingers quivered with hope as she untied
the ribbon. The address was in the same firm, open hand. A
shimmer of gold met her first glance, but the scrap of white she
had longed for was missing. Without doubt the pilferer had
thwarted her again. She put the yellow beauties into water with
half-hearted pleasure. Why couldn't Miss Sniffen let her have her
own! She pounded the air with her little impotent fists. She did
not go down to tea. Unhappiness and worry are not appetizers.
The next morning it was whispered from room to room that the second
card had been filched from Miss Sterling's box of roses. Miss
Castlevaine loved so well the transmitting of newsy tidbits, that
they were not apt to remain long in one quarter.
"I'd do something about it!" she declared to Miss Major. "It has
come to a pretty pass if our belongings have to be tampered with
before we even are allowed to see them! I think somebody ought to
tell the president."
The incident, however, passed with talk, nobody being willing to
risk her residence in behalf of Juanita Sterling.
When Polly Dudley heard of it she waxed wrathful.
"I never liked Miss Sniffen," she declared, "and now I just hate
her!"
"Polly!" remonstrated Miss Sterling.
"I don't care, I do! I wish mother was on the Board, then I 'd try
to make her say something! What business has Miss Sniffen to open
your boxes, anyhow? I almost know they came from Mr. Randolph, and
that's why she's mad about it!"
"Polly, I hope you won't say that to anybody else. You've no more
reason to think he sent them than you have to think King George
sent them."
Polly chuckled.
"You haven't--intimated such a thing, have you?--to anybody else, I
mean?" The question held an anxious tone.
"Why, no, I guess not," was the slow answer, "except mother. I
think I said to mother that probably he was the one."
Miss Sterling shook her head with a tiny scowl. "Your mother must
think me an intensely silly woman," she sighed.
"Oh, I didn't say you thought so!" Polly hastened to explain. "I
only said I did."
"Please don't even suggest it again," she laughed. "I wish the
mystery could be cleared up."
The sender's name was discovered earlier than they had thought
possible.
Two days afterwards, Polly rushed in, her face alight, her eyes
shining. "Oh, Miss Nita!" she began, and then stopped, suddenly
realizing that Mrs. Winslow Teed and Miss Crilly were in the room.
"I didn't know--I thought maybe--you'd go with me to call on Miss
Lily--Doodles said--Doodles is in a hurry for me to go," she ended
lamely.
Juanita Sterling, amused at the sudden transition, had caught a
flash of triumph in Polly's eye and wondered with a fluttering
heart what she had come to announce.
"Why can't we go, too?" cried Miss Crilly.
"Miss Lily looks like a refined, cultured person," remarked Mrs.
Winslow Teed.
"Oh, Doodles says she is lovely!" Polly had recovered her
equilibrium.
The latest comer at the June Holiday Home received her visitors
with shy courtesy. Miss Crilly and Polly soon relieved her of any
embarrassment she may have felt, and talk went on blithely.
Several smiling glances thrown across the room by Polly put Miss
Sterling's mind in confusion. They might signify much or nothing,
yet she found herself missing what was being said around her in
wild conjecture as to their meaning. She wanted to carry Polly
upstairs with her. Finally she rose to go, and Polly said
good-bye, too, in accordance with Miss Sterling's hope.
They went along the corridor together. Polly squeezing her
companion's arm with little chuckles of delight.
"You can't guess what I've got to tell you!" she broke out, as soon
as they were at a safe distance from Miss Lily's room.
"Sh!" cautioned the other. Talk above a whisper was forbidden in
the halls.
"Oh, I'm always forgetting!" breathed Polly.
Once inside the third-floor room the little woman was seized by a
pair of eager arms and whirled round and round.
"He did send them! He did! He did! Now what do you think!"
Miss Sterling went suddenly limp and dropped into a chair.
"You don't know--for certain?" she cried. "I do! Mr. Randolph
sent you those roses--both boxes!"
The woman felt the flame in her face and turned quickly on pretense
of searching for something in her sewing-basket. She was so long
about it that Polly began to complain.
"You don't care very much, seems to me! I thought you'd be just as
glad as I am!"
"Why, I am glad to find out who sent them, dear, as glad as can be!
But I may as well be sewing on these buttons while you are talking.
Now, tell me how you found out--I'm dying to know!" she laughed.
"Well, it's so funny!" Polly resumed. "You see, our Sunday-School
is going to send a boy in India to college, and last Sunday we had
to tell how we'd earned what we brought. A boy in Chris's class,
Herbert Ogden, said Mr. Randolph paid him fifteen cents apiece for
carrying two boxes of roses to the June Holiday Home. So after
Sunday-School Chris went along with him and asked him if he
remembered who the boxes were for. He said, 'Oh, yes, because it
was such a queer name! They were both directed to Miss Ju-an-i-ta
Sterling!' Chris said it was all he could do to keep his face
straight. And the boy went on to say he remembered the last name
because it made him think of sterling silver! Wasn't that the
greatest?"
The exclamations and laughter satisfied even Polly.
"You'll thank him right away, shan't you?" she queried.
"I suppose I ought." sighed the possessor of the roses.
"Don't you want to?" Polly's tone showed her surprise.
"Such notes are hard to write," was the discreet answer. She bent
closer over her work than there was any need. Her cheeks were
pinking up again.
"I do believe you're growing near-sighted!" declared Polly
irrelevantly.
"No, I guess not," she replied calmly. "This button bothered
me--it's all right now," as Polly scrutinized the waist.
"I shouldn't think you'd hate to write to Mr. Randolph. I think
he's lovely!"
"I presume he is," Miss Sterling said quietly. "I'm not well
acquainted with him, you know."
"I'll write it for you," proposed Polly, "if you'd like me to."
The little woman bending over the blouse caught her breath--to
think of missing the writing of that thank-you to Nelson Randolph!
"Oh, no, dear! I won't shirk my duty. It wouldn't look quite the
thing for you to do it."
"Perhaps it wouldn't," Polly agreed, "though I'd just as lief."