WHAT THE WOODS GAVE
The world is so full of a number of things,
I am sure we should all be as happy as kings.
--_Robert Louis Stevenson._
“I WISH we could walk out to the Convalescent Home this afternoon,”
were Betty’s first words when the three girls reached Miss Ruth’s house
the next Friday, all very much out of breath from their haste. “I am
tired, school has been so dull and stupid,” said Betty, “and my head
aches. Please can we go?” Betty, from at first not wanting to go to the
Convalescent Home, now wanted very much to go, for, since then, Alice
had been telling her more about it.
“Would you like to take the walk this afternoon, Elsa?” Miss Ruth
inquired. “Is your grandmother willing for you to go?”
“Yes, Miss Ruth,” replied Elsa; “I asked grandmother about it this
noon, and she said if you thought it was all right, I might go any
time.”
Miss Ruth turned next to Alice: “Does it suit you, Alice?”
Alice also was eager for the visit, so Miss Ruth decided that there
could be no better time. The three girls were tired and fagged from
their school, and fresh air would do them more good than staying
indoors. The afternoon was sunshiny, the ground bare of snow, and
outdoors looked very tempting. And it was, moreover, the day after
Thanksgiving, when children do not always feel at their best.
“We will take a lunch with us,--unless you would rather have it now,”
suggested Miss Ruth. As no one seemed to be hungry now, the lunch plan
met with general favour.
“Excuse me then,” said Miss Ruth, “and I will have Sarah put something
in a box for us.”
“And I will run home and get my thick coat,” said Betty, who had worn
only a light jacket. “It may be cold coming back, and such a tender
little plant as I am mustn’t take cold.” In fact, however, Betty wanted
to tell her mother where she was going, as she did not have permission
for this particular day, as Elsa had.
Sarah Judd sat in the tidy kitchen knitting a white stocking, her
needles keeping time with her bobbing curls, her black cat on the
table by her elbow. At Ruth Warren’s words: “I want a lunch for my
little people, Sarah,” the woman snapped out: “I declare for it, I’m
glad you are goin’ to do it yourself. I’m tired of waitin’ on a pack of
children that make so many crumbs--”
“Now, Sarah, you know you like having the children come here,”
interrupted Miss Ruth. “We are going for a walk to-day, as it happens.
Is there bread enough for sandwiches?”
“Yes;” Sarah made her needles go very fast.
“And cookies enough for four children?”
“Yes.” Then Sarah, who could not make her needles go any faster,
jumped up with stiff quickness, exclaiming: “Land sakes! let me do
it. I know what children like; you go ’way an’ I’ll surprise you and
them, too,”--which was exactly what the mistress of the house had been
waiting for Sarah to say.
She ran up-stairs to tell her Aunt Virginia good-bye. When she came
into the library again, she found that Betty had returned and that the
three girls were standing around the centre-table where the dolls were,
trying to decide which they should dress next.
“Girls, Aunt Virginia wants to see you, because she has heard so much
about the Club,” said Miss Ruth.
“You haven’t told her the name, have you?” Betty asked anxiously, as
they followed Miss Ruth up-stairs.
“O, no! I just call it ‘the Club’ when I speak of it.”
“That’s the way I do,” Betty said, encouragingly, running on ahead.
Miss Virginia Warren was accustomed to take extremely good care of
herself. To-day she was sitting in a large easy chair with soft
cushions all around her and a dark blue afghan over her knees. She
was about sixty years old, a large, rather heavy-looking woman, very
pale because she did not like fresh air in her room and never went
out-of-doors in cold weather; and indeed, she took as little exercise
as possible all times of the year, because she lived in constant fear
of bringing on heart trouble. Her face, though white, was very fair,
and her brown eyes--in colour and in a quick way she had of raising
them--were like Ruth Warren’s, but there the likeness ended, for the
aunt’s eyes had a wilful expression; her mouth also had a selfish droop
at the corners.
Miss Virginia was dressed in a light blue wrapper, much trimmed with
white lace. She shook hands with each of the three girls,--she had
large, handsome hands, but without much life in them,--then she looked
the girls over as if they were a row of dolls.
“They seem like bright little children,” she said slowly, turning to
Ruth Warren, her voice sounding as if she lifted a weight with her
chest at each breath; “but they look so well and strong and so full of
life,”--here Betty stopped twisting herself,--“so full of life, Ruth,”
went on the slow voice, “that I should think they would tire you all
out.”
Miss Virginia, who had leaned forward slightly while she spoke, sank
back among her pillows. “They may go now,” she said, with a wave of her
large, white hand in the direction of the embarrassed children; “I am
tired already,” she repeated, “and you know almost anything brings on
heart trouble.”
Ruth Warren had heard this remark hundreds of times in the three
years since she had offered a home to this aunt who was alone in the
world; but she was unfailingly kind to the fanciful woman. “Yes, Aunt
Virginia, you must be careful,” she said, motioning for the children to
go down-stairs.
“Remember, Aunt Virginia, Sarah will come to you instantly any moment
you ring for her,” said Ruth Warren, stopping to arrange her aunt’s
pillows more comfortably, and kissing her on the forehead. But the
slow yet vigorous voice followed her out of the door: “I am growing so
feeble, Ruth, that I soon must have a regular nurse to stay with me,
especially when you are out.”
The three girls were unusually quiet when Ruth Warren joined them, for
her aunt had made them feel as if they were very troublesome.
“What shall we do about the dolls’ dresses, our work to-day?” the Club
president asked cheerfully.
“We might each make two at home,” Betty found voice to say, for the
Club: “Alice might take hers now, and Elsa and I can call for ours.”
So Alice chose two pink-and-white gingham dresses, rolled them into a
little bundle and put them into the pocket of her blue coat, while Elsa
and Betty looked on, embarrassed and quiet, even now.
But when Miss Ruth had put on the brown fur-trimmed coat and hat which
matched her brown dress, and the three girls were once out in the open
air, the shadow cast upon their spirits by Miss Virginia vanished
entirely. Each one begged to carry the straw hand-bag containing the
lunch, and they finally agreed to carry it by turns, beginning with
Elsa, the oldest.
“You have to pass my house to go to the Convalescent Home, and there
are dogs out that way,” suggested Alice, running on ahead and looking
back at the others.
“I will take a stick,” said Elsa.
“I will take my feet,” exclaimed Betty.
“We can stop at my house and ask Ben to go with us,” Alice said. “He
had to hurry home from school to do errands for mamma, but I think he
will have them finished now. He knows all the dogs, and they all know
him.”
A few moments’ walk took the Club into Berkeley Avenue, a long,
wooded road curving ahead. Soon the surroundings grew more and more
country-like. The road ran past wide farm-fields and comfortable homes
with lazy cows standing in the barn-yards and busy hens scratching in
the deserted gardens. Along the roadside, tall oak and chestnut trees
met in noble arches; all around was the faint rustle of dried leaves
and the soft swaying of bending branches.
“How far is it to where we are going?” asked Betty, impatiently,
turning to Alice.
“It’s a half-mile from my house,” answered Alice, “and we are almost
to my house. It’s that little one with a lot of windows.”
“We have come more than a half-mile,” said Miss Ruth, “so it must be
Betty’s turn to carry the straw bag.”
Betty took the bag, and darted along the road, here and there, to the
great risk of the lunch.
They were soon in front of the small wooden house, well back from the
road, and having a great many windows full of flowers. Ben, with his
shirt-sleeves rolled up, was splitting kindling-wood at the side of the
house. He came running down to meet them.
“Going to the Convalescing Home? Yes, I can go, too,” he said, pulling
down his shirt-sleeves. “I’ve done the errands, and was splitting
kindlings just for fun.”
“Won’t you please come into my house, Miss Ruth?” asked Alice, shyly.
“Mamma said she wanted the Club to meet here sometime. She would like
to see you now, I know.”
“We will come, sometime, Alice; thank you,” replied Miss Ruth, “but not
to-day. We have to be back home before dark.”
So Alice ran in to speak to her mother and to leave the dolls’
dresses, just as Ben came hurrying out, buttoning his tight little blue
jacket.
“I might hitch up Jerry to the delivery wagon and take you that way,”
suggested Ben.
“No, walking is more fun,” said Betty, who always knew exactly what she
wanted to do. A moment later Alice ran toward them, waving good-bye to
the young-looking woman who stood in the doorway. Betty flourished the
lunch-bag wildly in the air, while Miss Ruth and Elsa waved friendly
greetings and Ben shouted farewells.
“What a splendid place to live in, Alice, with the woods so near,”
said Elsa. “I love to walk in the woods and go hunting into bushes,
and discover things.” Elsa looked with eager eyes at the clumps of
scrub-oak and low bushes ahead, beyond the stone wall.
“There are snakes there sometimes, in warm weather,” said timid Alice.
“I’m not afraid of snakes,” Elsa said.
“I love ’em,--the cunning little ones,” cried Betty; which was true,
for Betty loved almost everything that was alive.
“I will tell you a very short story about a friend of mine,” said Miss
Ruth. The children fell into line at once, Betty and Elsa on the
right, Ben and Alice on the left.
“I was in a small country town one summer with this friend,” Miss Ruth
began, “and some one asked her to take a Sunday-school class of boys
who were full of mischief and fun. For awhile, that first Sunday,
everything went well; then, just as my friend was explaining the
lesson to the boys at one side, she felt something drop into her lap,
and turning, she saw a little green snake. Those boys looked at her,
expecting at least that she would scream. The snake wriggled and tried
to escape, but the boy who had brought him was too quick, and grasped
the snake; and he was so surprised when the teacher said: ‘That isn’t
the way to hold him. Don’t you see you are making him uncomfortable?’
So she took hold of him.”
“The boy or the snake?” asked Ben, quick as a flash.
“The snake,” said Miss Ruth, answering the laugh in Ben’s eyes. “And
she held him--the snake, I mean--for ten or fifteen minutes, talking
about him until those boys thought she was the nicest teacher they had
ever had.”
“Could you have done that, Miss Ruth?” asked Betty.
But just then a large black and white hound bounded from the porch of a
house they were passing and ran with great leaps toward them, baying in
a deep voice.
“Tinker! Tinker!” called Ben, darting forward. Alice drew around to the
other side of Miss Ruth, while Elsa and even Betty stepped a little
behind.
“Tinker!” exclaimed Ben again, in a steady tone. “Come here! Don’t you
bark at my Black Lace Lady!”
The great hound, on hearing Ben’s voice, had stopped short. Now,
with eyes cast down, he walked meekly to Ben, who put out his hand
and stroked the long, soft ears, saying: “Bad old Tinker, aren’t you
ashamed of yourself?”
As Alice had said, Ben was friends with all the dogs on the road. The
hound, after walking a few steps with Ben’s hand on his head, turned
and went toward his home.
“I wasn’t a bit afraid,” said Betty, coming forward again.
Ben gave a low whistle to express his thoughts. The others were
politely silent.
“What was it you called Miss Ruth, Ben?” Betty asked quickly.
“Black Lace Lady,” Ben answered, “because she had on a black lace
dress the first time I ever saw her, and it was pretty.”
“Ben always names people,” said Alice. “He calls me Peggy most of the
time.”
“What is your name for me, Ben?” asked Betty, dancing on ahead.
“You?” Ben looked at her brown curls and bright eyes for a half moment
and then said: “I am going to call you the Glad Girl.”
“That’s nice,” Betty said, with an extra swing of the lunch-bag.
“Mother calls me Sunshine sometimes--and sometimes the Tornado. What’s
your name for Elsa?”
Ben thought a moment: “I haven’t any name for Elsa yet: I am saving
that up.” Then he gazed at Miss Ruth anxiously: “Isn’t it Alice’s turn
to carry that straw bag?” Alice had found time to explain to him about
the lunch. “We can take shorter turns now, ’cause I can carry it, too.”
So the bag was given into Alice’s keeping.
“Tell us about the place where we are going, Miss Ruth, please?” asked
Elsa, who was enjoying the woods walk so much that she had kept quiet
most of the way.
“To begin with,” replied Miss Ruth, “there is a large hospital in the
city, especially for children; but large as it is, there are always
more sick children to be taken into it than there is room for. When the
children in the hospital are getting well, they are brought out here to
the Convalescent Home where they can be cared for before going to their
own homes,--which are sometimes very poor homes. And the life out here,
with the sunshine and the fresh air and good care, makes the children
ever and ever so much stronger. There are about seventy or eighty
children here all the time.”
“Poor little children,” said Elsa. Betty was walking along quietly now,
and Ben had taken Alice’s blue-mittened hand in his.
“Yes, poor little children,” Miss Ruth repeated. “The happy part of it
all is, though, that the children are growing stronger. But just think
how they have to go without the playing and running about you all can
have. Once a little girl, seven years old, whom I saw out here, and who
couldn’t walk, said: ‘I used to play when I was young.’”
“There’s the house now,” exclaimed Alice, as they came within sight of
a large red-brick building with many red chimneys, situated quite far
back from the highway.
Just where the road turned toward the comfortable-looking red house
stood a tall, wooden sign with the words:
CONVALESCENT HOME
OF THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
VISITORS ALWAYS WELCOME
“Doesn’t that sound pleasant?” said Betty, reading it aloud. “It makes
you feel as though they really want you to come.”
Miss Ruth had been here many times before, so she sent a message to the
head-nurse by the maid who opened the front door: “Tell Miss Hartwell
that we would like to see her when she is at liberty, and that I have
taken my young friends out to the playroom. How many children have you
here this week?”
“About seventy-five, Miss Warren,” replied the maid, conducting the
little party through the large, airy hall with its light yellow-green
walls and dark wood finish, and along a wide passageway to the playroom.
The three girls went on in silence, except that Elsa said to Miss Ruth:
“What a lovely, clean place it is!”
Soon they found themselves in a large room--which seemed almost like
outdoors, it was so light and pleasant--and in the midst of a great
many children, most of whom were upon one crutch or two crutches, or
had bandages upon their feet, arms, or even their whole bodies.
“There are over forty children here in the playroom,” said the
white-capped nurse who had stepped forward to answer Miss Ruth’s
greeting. “The stronger children have been out-of-doors in the fresh
air;--but see, they are coming in now,” she added. “Miss Hartwell has
them come in half an hour before their supper time.”
Sliding glass doors led from the playroom upon a wide, unroofed piazza.
And now, through the open doorway, a tall, slender woman led the long
line of children, who limped or pushed themselves along on go-carts;
only a few, even, of these stronger children could walk in the
straight, free fashion in which ordinary boys and girls walk, when they
have full use of their limbs.
“How happy they all look,” said Elsa; and indeed, the children’s faces,
though in many cases thin and pathetic-looking, were sweet, patient and
sunshiny.
“They always look just the same, every time I come here,” Alice said;
then she ran off to speak with a little girl whom she remembered. Ben
was already in a corner, surrounded by a group of boys.
While Miss Ruth went on talking with the head-nurse, Betty and Elsa
forgot their shyness,--which was easy, because the children came
crowding around them, with lively interest. To Betty, who was used to
her own baby brother, the most natural thing to do seemed to be to
sit down on the floor and play with the smallest ones. Elsa, heeding
the “Go walk! Go walk!” of two little girls, wandered away with one
holding fast to each hand. When the little girls grew tired, as they
did quickly, Elsa came back to Miss Ruth’s side, with shining, eloquent
gray eyes: “They are so friendly, the dear little things,” she said to
Miss Ruth, then walked slowly away, with two other girls, to a group of
children who were strapped down to go-carts, and flat upon their backs.
A mite of five years, with round blue eyes and a pale, patient face,
held out both hands toward Elsa’s sunshiny yellow hair, saying “Pitty,
O, pitty!” Just beyond, a little boy was turning his head toward the
window. “What are you looking at?” Elsa asked, as she drew near.
“At the sky; it’s nice up there,” the boy answered contentedly.
By his side, on the next go-cart, a small girl was singing to herself a
nursery-verse Elsa knew; so she stopped and joined in the singing:
“Come, little leaves,” said the wind one day,
“Come over the meadow with me and play;
Put on your dresses of red and gold,
For winter is come and the days grow cold.”
Elsa’s baby companions, tired of walking, dropped down in little
patient heaps upon the floor, saying in soft voices: “Sing more! More
song!”
“Oh!”
Miss Ruth turned at Elsa’s exclamation and saw her kneeling by the side
of a child of about seven years, who was hugging an old, battered china
doll. The child was strapped to a frame which held her body straight,
because her back was not like other children’s. “Let me hold your dolly
a moment,” Elsa was saying, although Ruth Warren could not hear the
words.
“No! No! Dirl take dolly ’way!” cried the little girl, who had a ruddy
face and dark, sparkling eyes.
Miss Ruth, still talking with the head-nurse, watched Elsa, unheeded by
her.
“Where did you get the dolly?” Elsa asked, longing to take her old
doll into her arms, for she had instantly known her own Bettina.
“Lady dave her to me,” said the child.
“What is the dolly’s name?” asked Elsa.
“Dolly.” The child looked up solemnly.
“Don’t you want to have a name for her?” Elsa asked, after a half
moment of waiting.
“Vhat?” asked the child, clasping her tiny hands the tighter around the
doll.
“Name her Bettina,” said Elsa, softly.
“’Tina,” repeated the little girl. “Dat’s dood name. Dat’s nursey’s
name.”
“Where is nursey?” Elsa sprang up from her knees and looked around the
room at the nurses. All the faces were strange to her. “Where is she?”
Elsa asked again, almost in tears.
“Don ’way,” said the wee little girl. And, leaving her staring with two
very bright eyes at the doll, Elsa went back to Miss Ruth’s side and
took hold of her hand tightly.
“You ought to be here some day when new children come,” said the
head-nurse kindly, noticing Elsa’s sober face, “and see how those who
have been here longest crowd around and tell the new children about the
nice things they do here. It makes the new children feel happy and at
home, immediately, so that they are hardly ever homesick. Sometimes
after the children are well, they don’t want to go home. One little
girl used to run and hide every time we spoke of her going home.”
“I don’t wonder,” Elsa said quickly. “It’s so pleasant here for them.”
“Would you like to see where almost all the children sleep?” asked the
head-nurse, now that Elsa’s face had brightened.
“Yes, indeed,” Elsa said. Then Miss Ruth called the other members of
the Club, and they followed Miss Hartwell into one after another of
the three rooms, or “shacks,” which reached out, like arms, from the
playroom; and Miss Hartwell showed them how the windows and even the
doors could be moved so as to let plenty of fresh air into the shacks;
she said that the children never complained of feeling cold, for they
were bundled up in flannel clothing and hoods at night. Some of the
children limped along, following the visitors from one shack into the
next, and listening, nodded their heads with great interest while Miss
Hartwell made the explanation.
“You would enjoy coming here sometime on a kindergarten afternoon,”
continued the head-nurse. “We have kindergarten teaching three times
a week--Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday afternoon--and no baby is
too small and no child too helpless, to take some part, real or
make-believe, in the pretty plays.”
Immediately, one little boy, who had heard the word “kindergarten” held
up a piece of cardboard which had outlined upon it a yellow carrot with
a bright green top. And they all praised it.
“Now I will show you the dining-room,” said Miss Hartwell, leading the
way back through the long passage and the pleasant hall. And, then,
if Elsa had dared, she would have questioned about the nurse named
Bettina; but Elsa was a shy little girl, and before she found courage
for the question, they were in the large, many-windowed dining-room
with its tall, handsome plants and wide fireplace, and Miss Hartwell
was showing them the pretty dishes with red, green, and blue figures,
for the children’s use. The room was filled with low tables surrounded
by low chairs, and on the tables were plates piled with buttered bread
and crackers, while in front of each place was a large cupful of milk
and a dish of apple-sauce.
“The children have supper very early on winter afternoons,” Miss
Hartwell said. She had hardly spoken these words when the long
procession of children began coming into the dining-room,--the
stronger ones first, sometimes leading or helping the weaker ones, then
those who could not walk, pushing themselves along on their go-carts.
Last of all came the nurses with the youngest and weakest children.
The visitors drew somewhat to one side and watched the children as they
took their places or were drawn up to the tables.
At a signal from the head-nurse after each little white bib was tied
into place, the children began singing in thin, sweet voices:
“Thank Him, thank Him,
All ye little children;
Thank Him, thank Him,
God is love.”
Elsa’s and Betty’s eyes filled with tears; the children’s grace touched
Alice’s and Ben’s hearts into tenderness, too, although the twins had
heard it before; then they all dried their eyes, smiling through joyful
tears, as the children began to eat their supper.
“Sometimes we have gingerbread for supper,” said a sweet-faced child
who was lying on a go-cart near the visitors, and whom one of the
nurses was feeding.
“Tum aden,” cried the bright-eyed little girl who, as the visitors
turned to go, was hugging an old china doll, and patiently waiting her
turn to be fed.
“You cunning baby!” said Elsa, stooping to kiss the battered doll, once
her own.
So half-laughing, half-crying, the children passed out, their hearts
overflowing with a kind of painful pleasure.
They kept unusually quiet for the first few moments as they walked
away. Elsa was the first one to speak. “I want to come again,” she said
in a wistful voice. It had been hard for her to leave her precious old
doll behind; and besides, the children interested her greatly.
“So do I,” Betty joined in quickly. “It makes me feel queer, but I like
it.”
“I love to come,” said Alice. “Sometimes we take things out to the
children; and you’d be s’prised the way they give up to each other.
Mamma says they are the most unselfishest children she ever saw.”
Ben was trotting along ahead, jumping every now and then into the air.
Suddenly he stopped and said in a serious voice: “I am glad my two
legs are whole! My,--but it’s hard for those boys, though.”
“It’s just as hard for the girls,” exclaimed Betty.
“No,--because boys need to race around more than girls; it keeps them
from exploding,” declared Ben, taking an extra high jump.
“I know a short way through the woods,” he added, stopping where a
foot-path led from the left-hand side of the road. “It comes out just
beyond our house; it’s pretty, too, and I can take you to a fine place
to eat the lunch.” Ben was growing hungry.
Miss Ruth had kept the lunch-bag, insisting that it was her turn to
carry it now. They all agreed to follow Ben’s suggestion; and indeed it
was delightful to be walking along under broad-spreading trees through
whose branches the late afternoon sunlight struck golden lances. There
was an almost perfect stillness in the woods, except for the occasional
calling of crows overhead among the tree-tops or the Jay! Jay! of that
handsome robber, the blue-jay.
“How does the Convalescent Home have money enough to take care of all
those children?” asked Elsa, sliding along, on the smooth carpet of
pine-needles, toward Miss Ruth.
“The managers, the ladies who have charge of the Home, give money and
their friends give money, to provide the clothing--shoes and stockings
and nightgowns and little flannel dresses and everything,--besides
paying the nurses’ wages and for the medicines. It takes a great deal
of money; and ever so many more children could be brought here and
cured if there were more money to provide care and clothing for them.”
“Perhaps my grandmother will give something,” Elsa said hesitatingly.
“O, I know,” she added, her face brightening, “Uncle Ned will help. I
will ask him.”
“I am glad we are going to give the children some dolls; they didn’t
have many,” said Betty, rustling on ahead through the piled-up dry
leaves.
“We might earn some money--our Club, I mean,” suggested Alice.
“We will give them all the dolls and playthings we can for Christmas,”
said Elsa, putting her arm around Alice; “then, when we start a new
club, we can maybe have it an Easter Club, and see how much money we
can earn for those poor little children.”
“Alice and I had our names printed in the Convalescing Home report last
year,” Ben called back over his shoulder; he was leading the way. “It
said this: ‘From Ben and Alice, a music-box;’ we gave them one we had,”
he explained.
“Will the dolls we give and the name of our Club be printed in the
report, Miss Ruth?” asked Betty excitedly.
“Yes, that is the custom,” answered Miss Ruth.
“But then everybody would know the name,” objected Betty, walking
slowly on.
“Never mind,” Alice said, putting her arm into Betty’s. “We can name
the Club over again after Christmas.”
“And we wouldn’t want to call an Easter Club by the same name as a
Christmas Club,” said Elsa.
“What’s the name of the Club, anyway?” Ben turned to ask. He was
marching on ahead, but not losing anything that was said. “Alice told
me I couldn’t know it till I belonged, but I belong now.”
“Yes, you belong now, after having this afternoon’s meeting with us,”
said Miss Ruth. “Tell him the name, Alice.”
So Alice ran ahead, put her arm around Ben’s neck, and whispered the
name into his ear,--although there was no need of secrecy, since they
all were members.
“Christmas Makers’ Club!” Ben said critically. “That sounds pretty
important, as though you thought you were going to make Christmas.”
“But we are,” cried Elsa; “we are going to help make it for the
convalescent children.”
“And for ourselves, too,” put in Betty, who had many plans in her busy
brain.
“Aren’t you going to help make it for anybody, Ben?” asked Miss Ruth.
“O,--yes,” replied Ben, with the air of one who did not tell all of his
secrets.
“He can make the beautifulest things,” said Alice, ever ready to
praise her brother.
“I’ll make a few tops and some kites for those little chaps,” Ben said
modestly, slowing his steps in order to walk with the others, for here
the wood-path widened. “I used to think I would be a carpenter when I
grow up, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“What do you want to do, Ben?” asked Miss Ruth, looking at the
lively-faced boy whose head came almost to her shoulder.
Ben was a steady-minded, faithful lad, but he had a great imagination.
“I am going to do the way they do in fairy stories,” he said; “I am
going to get an old witch to help, and go to an island where there is
a hidden treasure and come back and spend it. And I shall have a pony
and a guinea pig and a garden of my own, and then I shall make the King
a great many presents, and marry the Princess and have plenty of people
to amuse me and read to me, and I shall go to bed when I choose and eat
all the candy I want and have turkey every day, and I shall conquer all
the world,--all except the Americans,--and my mother will be Queen--”
Here Ben stopped for want of breath rather than for want of imagination.
“That is enough to take away one’s breath, Ben,” remarked Miss Ruth.
“What do you want to be, Alice? You must all tell.”
“I want to be a nurse and take care of the convalescent children,”
Alice said shyly.
“You will be a princess if you are my sister,” exclaimed Ben.
“What about you, Betty?” Miss Ruth asked next.
“Me! I want to be good and beautiful and sensible,” said Betty, very
slowly, for her; “and, of course, I want a houseful of horses and a
houseful of dogs.”
“And you, Elsa?”
Elsa was all ready for Miss Ruth’s question: “I am going to be the
mother of five children and make them very, very happy,” she said with
a most radiant expression on her flower-like face.
“Let’s stop here and build a bower to eat the lunch in,” exclaimed
Betty, for all at once they came to a turn in the path and an open
space, carpeted with soft, reddish-brown pine-needles, and surrounded
by tall, straight tree trunks.
“Walk on a minute more,” urged Ben; “I know a lots better place.”
Soon another turn in the path brought them within sight of a hut, which
the dense trees had hidden,--a low, wooden cabin, built of logs with
the bark left on. In front of the hut was a wooden platform with a long
seat, and above the seat, one wide window of many small panes of glass.
It was a place to attract and charm any child.
With shouts of excitement, Betty, Elsa, and Alice, followed by Ben,
leaped to the platform and the girls pressed their faces against the
window, full of curiosity to see the inside of the hut.
“Nobody lives here,” explained Ben, turning to Miss Ruth, who was only
a moment behind the others. “Some boys’ father had the hut built for
them two-three years ago, but they have grown up and got tired of it.
They let me have the key,” he added, proudly taking it from his pocket
and fitting it into the door.
“I have been here before with Ben, but not very often,” said Alice,
standing aside with her brother to let the others go into the hut first.
Inside, the delighted children saw a room about as large as a
good-sized pantry, and in this room a round table, three stools, a
chair, and a tiny, rather rusty stove; opening from this room was a
smaller one, with two cot-beds. The whole place was clean and in order,
for Ben had taken great delight not only in having the key but in
caring for the hut.
There was a sweet, dry odour of pine-wood about the place, and the
afternoon sun had made the large room quite warm. “We must surely have
our lunch here,” said Miss Ruth, “though we must be quick about it, for
the sunlight will soon be gone.”
“Just seats enough to go around,” said Ben; “three stools for the
girls, a chair for Miss Ruth--excuse me, Miss Ruth, I ought to have
said you first,--and I’ll get the wooden box that I keep in the bushes
for rubbish.”
Miss Ruth quickly spread a white napkin over the little table and took
out the lunch,--first a great many ginger cookies, and these were
carefully laid at one side; buttered thin biscuit next, three apiece,
with slices of cold turkey laid in between, and lastly, some nuts and
raisins.
Four pairs of hands reached out without delay, and in a surprisingly
short time, sandwiches and cookies, nuts and raisins, every one of
them, had vanished. And how good everything tasted, there in the snug,
warm little hut, with the fragrant odour of the pines coming in through
the open door.
“I wish, if we have the Easter Club, we could buy this hut and have our
meetings here,” said Elsa. The longer she stayed in the hut, the better
she liked it.
“It’s near my house,” Alice said; “you can see our chimneys from the
door.”
“And we could furnish the hut with a lot of things,--dishes and
pictures,” cried Betty. “And we could use the little room for a
storeroom!”
Elsa had been thinking of other pleasures, so she said: “We could stay
here and enjoy the birds and the trees and the wild flowers, in the
spring.”
“Do you think we could buy or hire the hut, Ben?” asked Miss Ruth; for
it certainly was a delightful place.
“Yes, I think maybe I could manage it for you,” replied Ben, carefully
brushing all the crumbs of food into the wooden box on which he had
sat during the lunch.
“O, I just saw the cunningest gray squirrel!” exclaimed Elsa, running
to the doorway, hoping for another glimpse of the little creature.
“You can see plenty of gray squirrels and chipmunks round here, ’most
any time,” said Ben, following her. “And a man told me that last year a
pair of screech-owls built their nest and raised their family in that
old hollow tree there.”
Elsa listened with closest attention.
“This is a fine place to get acquainted with birds and animals,” Ben
said, encouragingly. “But you never can get acquainted with them till
you learn to be quiet, like them, and to walk through the woods without
making twigs snap every step you take.”
Ben put the box of crumbs among the alder bushes at the side of the
hut. “Mr. Gray Squirrel and his family will have those crumbs almost
before we are out of sight,” he said.
“We must start for home,” called Miss Ruth, coming out from the hut
with Alice and Betty.
While Ben locked the door, the others stood for a moment watching the
brilliant red sunset light in the western sky. The deep baying of a
hound sounded through the quiet woods. Alice drew a little nearer to
Ben.
“You are all safe, Peggy,” he said, patting her hand, his thoughts busy
with other things. “If I were a bird way up in the top boughs of those
tall trees, you would look like grasshoppers down here,” he said, with
his face turned to the sky.
“And you would look like the teentiest, tontiest little bird,” replied
Betty quickly.
“I should hear what the wind was saying, ’way up there,” Ben went on;
“we can’t hear such things down on the ground, ’cause people make so
much noise talking. You have to keep still to learn things,” added Ben
with a wise air and a serious face. Then he led the way along the path
again, singing to himself softly, in a musical voice:
“There was an old man of Dumbree,
Who taught little owls to drink tea;
For he said, ‘To eat mice is not proper or nice,’
That amiable man of Dumbree.”
Soon the very tall trees grew fewer in number and the woods more
open; and the path now ran between old stumps, tufts of blueberry
bushes, clumps of alders, and wisps of coarse yellow-brown grass,
left unweakened by the frost. A few moments later, they came out upon
Berkeley Avenue, at a point where Ben and Alice would have to turn
back toward their home.
“Thank you, very much, Ben, for bringing us through such an
interesting, pleasant way,” said Miss Ruth; “and we shall all remember
the hut.”
“And the convalescent children,” cried Elsa.
“And the Easter Club we are going to have,” put in Betty. “Don’t you
tell the name of our Club, Ben!”
“No, no, no!” Ben called back,--as if a boy ever did tell secrets.
“Mamma wants the Club to meet at our house sometime soon,” Alice said
in farewell, as she and Ben trotted off together.
Ben waved his scrap of a blue cap as he cried: “Good-bye, good-bye,
Black Lace Lady! Good-bye, Glad Girl! Good-bye, Elsa!”
“Have you thought of a name for Elsa yet?” called out Betty, waving the
now empty lunch-bag over her head frantically.
“That’s telling!” Ben answered teasingly. He had thought, but he was
going to keep it to himself for awhile.
Miss Ruth, Betty, and Elsa, had not gone far on their homeward way
when Mrs. Danforth overtook them, in a closed coupé with a driver
in livery, who stopped the gray horse beside the group in the
road. Mrs. Danforth had very often, lately, driven out on Berkeley
Avenue, and several times in passing the Holts’ house she had seen a
stooping-shouldered man, whom she supposed to be Mr. Holt, going to or
coming from the long shed, the place where, probably, she thought, the
market garden supplies were kept. The garden window frames showed just
behind the house.
“Where are the others of your Club?” she asked, as she let down the
coupé window. She had expected to meet all of the Club together.
“O, we came back through the woods, grandmother,” explained Elsa; “you
must have met Ben and Alice just now.”
Then Mrs. Danforth remembered that she had met a boy and a girl only a
short distance back, but she had not noticed them especially.
“I can take one of you home with me,” she said, looking from Miss Ruth
to Elsa and then to Betty, and pulling her handsome sable furs closer
up around her neck as the cool air came into the coupé.
“Thank you, Mrs. Danforth, but I enjoy walking,” replied Ruth Warren,
who was entirely willing to give up the drive to one of the children.
Elsa’s face looked as if she also would rather walk; but Betty’s brown
eyes were dancing with anticipation. She loved horses heartily, and
next to going over the Danforth house she had wanted to ride behind
that splendid gray steed. So she said, when Mrs. Danforth’s eyes rested
upon her: “I should just love to ride with you,” and accordingly,
Elsa’s grandmother drove off with Betty behind the spirited horse.
* * * * *
“Did you know I found a little girl out at the Convalescent Home
who--who had Bettina?” Elsa said to Miss Ruth, as they walked along
together over the hard, frozen road.
“Was it the little girl with the bright dark eyes, whom I saw you with?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Did you hear what she said?” Elsa asked.
“I didn’t hear what either you or the little girl said, because I was
talking with Miss Hartwell; but I saw that you were greatly interested
about something: and it was your own doll Bettina. Were you glad?”
“It--it was exciting to--to see Bettina,” Elsa said, swallowing a lump
in her throat, “and then when--when I asked the little girl to--let
me name the doll--I wanted her to be called Bettina--the little
girl said that her nurse’s name was Bettina, but she had gone away.
Do you suppose it could be my old Bettina,--Bettina March?” Elsa
asked, looking anxiously into Miss Ruth’s face, half in hope, half in
uncertainty.
“You did not think to inquire of Miss Hartwell?” questioned Miss Ruth.
“I--I thought, but I didn’t quite dare to,” Elsa replied desolately.
“Don’t think too much about the matter, Elsa, because it might be
Bettina Smith or Bettina anybody; but I will find out for you,” said
Miss Ruth, thinking how plucky Elsa had been about the doll.
“O, thank you, Miss Ruth,” Elsa said very gratefully and in a much
relieved tone.
“Doesn’t your old nurse write to you?”
“No,” Elsa answered slowly. “Grandmother said it was better for me to
learn to get along without Bettina--so--so I suppose that’s the reason
she doesn’t write to me.”
Ruth Warren did not ask any further questions. But she felt that she
knew better than ever why Elsa was such a pale-faced child and why
there was so often a shadow of something sad in her eyes.
“Do you think I ought to tell grandmother about--about my going over
to your house the other night?” Elsa asked suddenly, as the question
came into her mind for almost the hundredth time.
“Might not your grandmother’s feelings be hurt because you went to
somebody else instead of going to her, with your--your trouble?”
“Perhaps,” Elsa answered, in a doubtful tone, though.
“If she were to ask you about it, you would of course tell her. But
when telling a thing unnecessarily means the possibility of hurting
somebody’s feelings, then even little girls can help make the world
happier by keeping things to themselves. Are you willing, Elsa, to have
me tell your grandmother, or anybody else, if ever the time comes when
it seems best?”
“Yes, Miss Ruth,” cried Elsa, feeling as if a great weight had rolled
from her heart. “Of course grandmother didn’t know how much I loved
that doll. She didn’t even know I had her.”
After this talk, Elsa felt that she and Miss Ruth were to be good
friends for always.
* * * * *
Betty White spent the first few moments of the drive in watching
the strong, easy pulling of the gray horse. Then she turned to Mrs.
Danforth with a question which greatly interested her and which she
thought there could never be a better time to ask.
Now Betty was the frankest of little girls; so she spoke out very
bluntly: “Why do you make Elsa mind so--so hard?”
Mrs. Danforth, being greatly amazed, was surprised into saying “What?”
“Why don’t you let Elsa decide things sometimes for herself?” Betty’s
brown eyes met the surprised look in Mrs. Danforth’s blue eyes very
fearlessly. “Mother lets me decide things--she says it is good for me
to have re-responsibleness.” Betty stumbled a little over the long
word, but she kept on: “So if mother tells me I better come home from
anywhere about five o’clock, and if I want to stay a little longer, and
they want me to, I just stay, and then I tell her afterward, and if she
doesn’t like it, we talk it over.”
Betty leaned back against the soft cushions in comfort. This matter was
off her mind!
Mrs. Danforth did not give any reply.
“I--I think the other way makes children afraid of you,” Betty added
bravely.
Still Mrs. Danforth kept her eyes straight ahead, upon the coachman’s
broad shoulders. Presently she asked: “Was that the Holt children’s
father in front of their house, Elizabeth?”
“We didn’t come back past the Holts’ house,” Betty replied, “but
that couldn’t have been Alice’s and Ben’s father. It must have been
the hired man. Mr. Holt is a teacher, and he is way out in the West
somewhere, because he isn’t very well. They miss him dreadfully.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Danforth. And Betty felt like a naughty
child, though she could not have told why.
Betty’s mother was just turning toward her home, when Mrs. Danforth’s
coupé stopped, and Betty flew out like a small whirlwind.
Mrs. Danforth lowered the coupé window and leaning forward, said:
“Mrs. White, I wish my little Elsa were as rosy and strong as your
Elizabeth.” She always spoke Betty’s full name,--Elizabeth.
Mrs. White noticed the unusually gentle expression upon the proud face.
She had wanted a good opportunity to speak to Mrs. Danforth about Elsa;
so, with the same frankness which Betty had shown, she said: “There is
no use in trying to bring children up without love, Mrs. Danforth. You
cannot make strong, happy, useful men and women without it.”
Mrs. Danforth did not seem offended; though her eyes gleamed proudly
from under her heavy brows, and a slight colour rose on her cheeks.
Her voice was rather hoarse as she said to Mrs. White, with a cold
smile: “Your daughter Elizabeth is very much like you.” Then she bowed
good-bye, and ordered the coachman to drive on.
“You forgot to thank Mrs. Danforth for the drive, Betty,” said Mrs.
White, as they walked up the steps together.
“So I did, mother. That is too bad,” Betty answered, penitently,
slipping her hand into her mother’s arm. “But Mrs. Danforth kind of
stiffens me up and makes me forget things. Aren’t grandmothers ever as
nice as mothers? I don’t know, because I haven’t any grandmothers.”
“Yes, Betty, they are often better, or at least children think so. But
there are a great many different kinds of mothers and grandmothers.”
“I know I’ve got the best kind of mother!” exclaimed Betty joyfully.
That evening, after Elsa had shaken hands, said good night, and gone up
to her white room, Mrs. Danforth, alone in her luxurious library, sat
quiet for a long time, thinking deeply about many things, especially
about the real purpose which had brought her to live in Berkeley.