A NEW CLUB
The first days in the new home, while Mr. Shirley was still in New
York and within reach, were hard to bear and unpleasant to think
of afterward. The new friends were so anxious to help her through
the hard time that they scarcely gave her time to think, but in
spite of their kindness, Ruth went to bed at night with a lonesome
ache in her throat, and got up in the morning with the wild desire
to take the first train to New York and catch papa before he should
sail.
When at last the day and hour of sailing had come and gone, Ruth
found it easier to resign herself to the inevitable, and began to
really enjoy life instead of only seeming to do so.
Glenloch was a beautiful town, just far enough from Boston to make
it seem like the country, and yet near enough so that concerts and
shopping were within easy reach. To Ruth, who, except for brief
visits East, had been accustomed ail her life to the level stretches
of the Middle West, the New England hills, just now radiant in
their autumn coloring were a constant source of delight.
She had been kept so busy seeing Glenloch, meeting Mrs. Hamilton's
friends and getting acquainted with her own special chums that she
had hardly had time to settle her belongings. Saturday morning,
therefore, found her at work in good earnest, for the girls were
coming in that afternoon, and she wanted her pretty room to look
its prettiest.
"Not homesick, I hope, dear," said Mrs. Hamilton, coming into the
room about noon to find Ruth curled up in the big armchair with
the black kitten on her lap.
"No, only resting after putting my room in order. I've been so busy
and the days have flown so fast that I haven't wholly unpacked my
trunk until this morning."
"The pictures make the room look very homelike," said Mrs. Hamilton,
glancing at the photographs which adorned desk, mantel and table.
"Are these all friends of yours?" she added with a sly smile, as
her eye caught the picture of the little Queen of Holland in quaint
peasant costume.
"No, most of them are what papa calls my 'admirations,'" answered
Ruth with a laugh. "That picture of Queen Wilhelmina is my great
joy because she looks like such a nice girl. The others are mostly
musicians and composers. Papa bought them to encourage me in my
music, because he is so anxious I shall make a success of it."
"Why, this is interesting. I haven't had time yet to find out about
your talents. Do you sing or play the piano?"
"A little of both, but I like the violin best and I've taken lessons
on it since I was eight years old. I am all out of practice now,"
she added soberly, "for I've done hardly anything at it since mamma
died. She was so fond of it that everything I play reminds me of
her, and I can't bear it yet."
"Perhaps you will feel like beginning again this winter," said Mrs.
Hamilton, putting her arm around her.
"I am sure I shall," answered Ruth gratefully, giving the kind arm
a little squeeze. "Papa thought that just as soon as I got well
started in school it would be a good plan for me to go into Boston
for violin lessons."
"That will be delightful," said Mrs. Hamilton heartily, "and I shall
have to begin practicing so that I can play your accompaniments.
Since Arthur has been ill I have neglected my piano dreadfully.
I used to play duets with him a great deal, but I suppose nothing
would persuade him to touch the piano now."
"Will he never be any better?"
"The doctor gives us every reason to hope that he will be almost
well if he can only get over this terrible depression. His father
and I can only stand by and help all we can while he fights this
battle for himself." There was a long pause while Mrs. Hamilton
looked thoughtfully out of the window as though facing problems
harder than she could solve, and Ruth racked her brain to think of
something encouraging to say.
"If I could only help I should be very glad," she said at last,
timidly.
"I am sure you would," answered Mrs. Hamilton with a grateful kiss.
"And now what are your plans for this afternoon?" she added brightly.
"Oh, the girls are coming in, and I am going to try to get really
acquainted with them. It's so interesting to have three new friends
at the same time."
"They are very nice girls, and each so different from the other
that I sometimes wonder why they are such close friends."
"I am just a little bit afraid of Charlotte still," confessed
Ruth. "She seems to know so much, and she makes such funny, sharp
speeches. But I feel as though I'd known Betty for years."
"Poor Charlotte has had a different sort of life from the others,"
said Mrs. Hamilton with a sigh, "and it has helped to bring out the
sharp comers in her nature. Her mother is an invalid, and Charlotte
has had a great deal of care and responsibility."
"Betty thinks everything that Charlotte does is just right," said
Ruth.
"Betty is one of the most loyal friends imaginable. She puts her
dearest friends on pedestals, and bestows her time and her services
freely upon them. I've known her ever since she was a baby, and
she has always been the same sunshiny little soul."
"She just suits me because she always has a kitten or two trailing
after her," said Ruth. with a laugh. "Dorothy's a dear, too, and in
fact I'm sure we are all going to be such good chums that I shan't
know which one I like best."
"That's the very nicest way," answered Mrs. Hamilton. "Bless me, is
it lunch time?" she added as Katie appeared in the doorway. "You
are an entertaining hostess, my dear, and you have made me forget
how fast time flies."
Ruth was glad that the cool afternoon gave an excuse for a fire,
for she loved the crackle and warmth, and the soft color that the
fire-glow threw over everything. As she looked around her pretty
room with a satisfied air, there was a patter of feet on the stairs,
a suppressed giggle and then a knock.
"Come in, come in," cried Ruth, throwing the door wide open. "I
was beginning to be afraid you weren't coming."
"It's my fault, as usual," said Charlotte in a resigned tone. "The
girls called for me, and just as we were going to start one of the
twins fell into a kettle of grape-juice that had been left to cool
in the summer-kitchen."
"Oh! Was he badly burned?" cried Ruth.
"No, it was cold, but he'll be purple for the next week, I suppose.
Of course I had to stop and wring him out and make him as clean as
I could. He's a sight, though."
The contrast between Charlotte's tragic tone and the picture she
gave of her small brother was too much for Ruth's gravity, and she
laughed till the tears came.
"How old are they, and do they do those things often?" she gasped
at last.
"They're six, and they do," said Charlotte briefly. "If ever a day
passes that one of those boys doesn't do something to harrow our
feelings I know that it is a sure sign that something more awful
than usual is going to happen the next day."
"It must be exciting to have a large family," said Ruth with a
tinge of longing in her voice.
"It is; desperately exciting," said Charlotte drily. "Now I call
this luxury," she added, dropping down on the fur rug. "Just imagine
having a place like this where you can be absolutely alone with
books and pictures and fire. You're a lucky girl, Ruth."
"It's a perfectly dear room, and I love it," added Ruth. "It was so
good of all of you to help plan it before you even knew me. Let's
make some fudge, girls," she added. "Who's the best fudge-maker
here?"
"Not I," answered Charlotte lazily. "I'm second to none on eating
it, though."
"Dolly's fudge is great," said Betty.
"You make it then, Dorothy, and I'll help when your arm gets tired,"
said Ruth, getting the chafing-dish from the shelf under the table.
"We'll put the cups on the mantel, girls, and cover the table with
this enamel cloth that Mrs. Hamilton gave me this morning. Isn't
she a dear? She thinks of everything to make me have a good time."
"Have you got much acquainted with Arthur yet?" asked Dorothy, who
was busily mixing the ingredients for the candy.
"Haven't seen him since the day I came," answered Ruth, looking at
Betty with a twinkle in her eye, "and I certainly didn't get very
well acquainted with him then."
"It's a shame that he shuts himself up; he's just about breaking
his mother's heart," declared Dorothy, stirring the savory mixture
with unnecessary vehemence.
"He used to be great fun, and we miss him dreadfully at all our
parties," said Betty with a sigh. "He isn't even willing to see
Frank and Joe, and they used to be such chums."
"We might form ourselves into a society for 'The Restoration to the
World of Arthur Hamilton, Esquire; T.R.T.T.W.O.A.H.E.': wouldn't
that make a fine name for a secret society?" said Charlotte, who
hadn't stirred from the rug. "Don't you want me to help you make
the fudge, girls?" she added amiably, as Dorothy and then Ruth gave
it a vigorous beating.
"Thank you, lazybones. It's done now. But you can help put things
in order," said Dorothy slyly.
Charlotte groaned. "You know that's what I hate most of all. I
should rather have made the fudge."
"Speaking of societies," broke in Betty, who had been in a brown
study for several minutes, "let's have a club of some kind."
"Good idea, Bettikins," approved Charlotte. "Let's make it a dramatic
club, and I'll do the heroes."
"With only four in the club you would have to be hero and villain
and the heroine's white-haired father all in the same play," said
Ruth with a laugh. "It would take all the rest of us to play the
other parts."
"I mean really a nice club," continued Betty, pursuing her own idea
with great seriousness, "and meet once a week and do something."
"Rather vague, that," murmured Charlotte. "If that's all there is
to it we're a club now."
"What's your idea, Betty?" asked Dorothy encouragingly. "Anything
but sewing. I utterly refuse to join that kind of a club."
"I knew a girl in Chicago," said Ruth, "who belonged to a cooking
club. They met every two weeks at the different houses to practice,
and once in two months they cooked a supper and invited other girls
and boys. She said they had great fun and really learned a great
deal."
"That's just my idea," declared Betty promptly, "only I couldn't
get it quite clear in my own mind."
"I don't like cooking," said Charlotte soberly, "but I suppose it
wouldn't hurt me to know something about it."
"The first thing, of course, is to ask our mothers and Mrs.
Hamilton," said Dorothy, who was always practical. "I know mamma
will be glad to have me learn, though I'm afraid the cook won't
like to have us in her kitchen."
"Our Hannah wouldn't mind if you met at our house every time," said
Betty.
"That can all be settled later when we find out whether we can
really do it," declared Charlotte impatiently. "In the meantime
I'm pining for a piece of that fudge; isn't it hard yet, Dolly?"
"Just right," answered Dorothy, taking it in from the window-ledge.
"Dorothy, this is certainly the best fudge I ever tasted," declared
Ruth impressively. "Mine was never half so good. Girls, I move
that in consideration of Miss Dorothy Marshall's skill as a maker
of fudge she be made president of the new club."
"Second the motion," cried both the girls at once, and as there
was no one left to vote on it, it was declared settled.
Dorothy rose, bowed, tapped on the table with the chafing-dish spoon,
and said with a fair imitation of her mother's stately manner:
"Ladies, I thank you for the honor you have conferred upon me."
Then dropping her official manner, she added, "Let's keep it a dead
secret at first from the boys, because they never tell us anything
about their old Candle Club."
"What's that?" asked Ruth with great interest.
"Oh, six of the boys belong to it, and they've fixed up one of the
rooms above our stable," answered Dorothy. "They call it the Candle
Club because at first they used candles, but now the name doesn't
fit."
"They might call themselves 'electric sparks,' now," drawled
Charlotte; "but boys are so unprogressive."
"We shall need some more officers," said Betty. "I think Charlotte
ought to be secretary because she likes to write, and Ruth--"
What Ruth was to be was not destined to be told at that meeting,
for just at that moment there was a loud knock which made the
girls jump. Ruth opened the door and for a second saw no one. Then
a plump, curly-haired boy, very purple as to his face and hands,
and rather bedraggled as to his general appearance, walked in
hesitatingly. Close at his heels followed a depressed-looking Scotch
terrier. At sight of the latter, every individual hair on Fuzzy's
spine stood up straight, and with remarks in several different
languages he fled to the top of a high-backed chair, where he sat
and glared at the enemy.
The girls were convulsed with laughter, and the small visitor,
abashed, fled to Charlotte and buried his face in her lap.
"Irving Eastman, what are you here for?" demanded Charlotte sternly,
trying to raise the curly beau so that she might look the culprit
in the face.
"Wanted to find you," came in smothered accents from her lap. "Me
and Tatterth got lonethome."
"Why didn't you stay with Stanley and the others?"
"Couldn't. Couthin Jothie came and took them out to walk, and I
couldn't go 'cauth I wath all blue."
"How did you get in here?"
"The door wath open, and I came upthtairth and then I couldn't find
you. But I found Arthur, and Tatterth and I thtayed with him."
The girls looked at each other in amazement.
"What did you do in Arthur's room, Irving?" asked Betty soothingly.
"I talked to him and he gave me thith." The purple cherub raised
his head and opening one fat hand displayed a small carved bear of
Swiss manufacture. "He thaid it could be my bear for alwayth," he
declared triumphantly.
"What did Arthur say when you walked into his room?" asked Dorothy.
"He laughed so hard I wath going to come away, but he called me
back."
"Girls, he laughed," repeated Charlotte impressively. "Irving,
I ought to scold you, but this time you are an angel in disguise.
Perhaps this is the first step in the Restoration of A. H., Esq."
"Let's take another, then, by sending him a plate of fudge,"
suggested Ruth.
"Just the thing," exclaimed Betty and Dorothy together, and they
immediately hooked little fingers and proceeded to wish.
"Irving, can you carry some fudge to Arthur?" continued Ruth,
heaping up one of her daintiest saucers. "If you will take this
without spilling any, you shall have some to take home with you."
"I gueth tho," said Irving with an angelic smile, feeling himself
the hero of the occasion.
"Just give the dish to Arthur and come right back," said Charlotte
decidedly. "It's time to go anyway," she continued, "and I must
take the Infant home as soon as possible, or mother will worry."
"He thayth 'thankth,'" said Irving in aloud voice, strolling down
the hall and leaving Arthur's door wide open behind him.
"Shut the door, Irving," said Charlotte in a loud whisper.
"I think he better have it open," answered Irving, who did not feel
disposed to take any extra steps.
"Irving," began Charlotte sternly, then stopped in amazement at
the unexpected sound of Arthur's voice.
"Never mind the door, Irving," he said, "The fudge is out of sight,
girls, or will be in a few moments. Much obliged."