THE CLUB GOES VISITING
By sports like these are all their cares beguiled.
--_Oliver Goldsmith._
“I DON’T know but I shall have to ask you not to let the children come
to their Club this afternoon. I don’t like the noise, and you know
almost anything brings on heart trouble,” Miss Virginia Warren said,
when she came down to the library the next Friday morning, followed by
her niece, carrying two shawls. She spent an hour down-stairs daily,
after the rooms had been made excessively warm.
“But, Aunt Virginia, you always stay in your room after three o’clock,
and it is so far from the library that you could hardly hear any
noise. I will keep the doors shut, though. I should be sorry indeed to
disappoint the children,” Ruth Warren replied, quite troubled by her
aunt’s words.
“Well, of course the children are of more importance than my feelings,”
said Miss Virginia with a sigh. “But even though I don’t hear their
noise, knowing they are there, and that I may hear them any minute,
gives me cold turns every now and then.” She shivered, as if at the
mere thought. “Put that thick shawl over me quickly, Ruth.”
The doctor had many times told Ruth Warren that there was nothing
really the matter with her aunt except a strong imagination and a
constant fear of illness; he had advised her, too, not to give in
too much to her aunt’s notions. So now Ruth said: “I am sorry, Aunt
Virginia, that the children’s coming disturbs you. I will ask Sarah
to stay in the room with you this afternoon so that you will not feel
nervous.”
“Nervous! I am never nervous,” replied Miss Virginia, waving her large
white hands excitedly. “But I shall have to have a regular nurse, so
that there will be somebody with me all the time.” Then she wept a
little, and felt faint, and had to be revived with spirits of ammonia.
Fortunately, however, she was spared further excitement on account of
the children’s coming that day. For just before three o’clock, Ben
Holt drove up to the house with a large, loose-jointed brown horse and
a double-seated sleigh, jumped out, rang the door-bell, and asked for
Miss Ruth. He was sitting on a tall carved chair in the hall when Ruth
Warren came down, at Sarah’s summons.
“I stayed at home from school this afternoon,” said Ben, springing to
his feet and looking as if his sturdy body would burst out from the
tight little blue jacket. “Alice has hurt her ankle, and she wants the
Club to meet at our house, and so does my mother, and will you come?
I’ve brought Jerry and the double-seated sleigh. See?” And Ben drew
aside the lace curtain of the hall window to display his steed and
chariot.
“Yes, I will go with pleasure,” Ruth Warren answered, after one swift,
amused glance at the big-boned horse and the sleigh.
“Then I’ll just wait here till the other children come, if you please,”
Ben said, unbuttoning his jacket and drawing a long breath.
“Will your horse stand?” asked Ruth Warren, wondering if Ben meant to
include her as one of the children.
“O, yes, he’s glad enough to have a chance to stand,” the boy said with
a twinkle of humour.
Ruth Warren went up-stairs to tell her aunt of the change of plan.
“You are not going off with a crowd of children in that old sleigh,
Ruth, are you? Some of your friends will be sure to see you,” objected
Miss Virginia, in great and sudden distress.
“Only three children, Aunt Virginia; and what if my friends do see me?”
“But it looks so queer--the sleigh, I mean,--like a country grocery
sled, with an extra seat put in.” Miss Virginia grew quite excited.
“I believe it is called a pung,” said Ruth; “never mind, Aunt Virginia,
nobody whom I care for will like me any the less for going in it.
Good-bye,--there come Betty and Elsa now, and you can watch us start,”
she added, for her aunt’s chair was always drawn close to the front
window. “You will have a quiet house all to yourself this afternoon.”
“It will be too quiet, I am afraid,” sighed Miss Virginia. “I do like
to hear a little something going on, here all alone as I am, though not
children’s voices.”
Miss Virginia Warren did not mean to be selfish, but she had never
learned that there is something sweeter in life than taking anxious
care of one’s health and thinking about one’s self.
* * * * *
Ben had seen Betty and Elsa on their way home from school and told
them; so they were there all ready to start when Miss Ruth came
down-stairs in her long, black, fur-lined coat.
Mrs. Danforth had surprised Elsa that noon by saying: “Elsa, when
you are with your little Club, and all of you want to do anything
together, like going to the Convalescent Home, you may do it without
coming to ask me; and you may stay a little later than five o’clock
if coming away earlier would spoil your good time.” Elsa felt very
grown-up, with this new freedom, and yet the first use she made of it
was to run home to tell her grandmother that the Club was to meet at
Alice’s! It happened, however, that Mrs. Danforth was out driving; and
then Elsa felt more than ever grateful to her grandmother, because,
as she explained to Miss Ruth, “If grandmother hadn’t said I could do
anything the Club wanted to, I couldn’t have gone to Alice’s, because
grandmother wasn’t at home to ask.”
Betty listened intently, but wisely kept still. She was dancing around
in great impatience for the start; she had on a long gray fur boa of
her mother’s, and as there had been no one to remind Elsa to wear
something extra warm, Miss Ruth bundled her into the dark red golf cape.
Soon the little party set forth,--to Miss Virginia’s horror, though
she waved her hand feebly in return to the merry farewells from Miss
Ruth and Elsa on the back seat of the pung, and from Betty perched up
beside the blue-coated driver of the loose-jointed horse.
Ben began clucking his steed into a faster gait.
“What a good, steady horse you have, Ben,” said Miss Ruth; and indeed
the horse was pulling well on the road toward home.
“It’s a good thing to have a horse that will stand and that people
aren’t afraid of,” Ben said loyally. “I can do anything with this
horse. G’long, Jerry!”
The old horse, as if to justify the praise, went briskly. The sleighing
was smooth, for there had been two or three snow-storms the past week.
It was a rather sharp and wintry afternoon, cloudy, with every once in
awhile a flurry of snow in large, star-shaped flakes.
“See how well Nature has tucked her children in, since we walked out
here a week ago,” said Miss Ruth, as the sleigh, with merrily jingling
bells, slid along the quieter part of Berkeley Avenue, where now masses
of soft snow lined the roadside. “And there will soon be a thicker
blanket put on, to keep them warm and safe until spring.”
“Think of the hut, all covered with snow,” Elsa said. “How pretty it
must look.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun if we could sleigh-ride over to the Convalescent
Home and see the children again,” exclaimed Betty, remembering the last
Friday afternoon and their visit.
“But what about Alice waiting at home for us?” Miss Ruth asked quickly.
“O, I forgot,” Betty cried.
“I expect she’s wondering where we are,” exclaimed Ben. “G’long, Jerry!”
But Jerry did not need urging now, for a moment later Ben turned
into the driveway which led to the rambling house with a piazza in
front, out upon which looked many long, narrow windows, filled with
bright-flowering plants, chiefly scarlet geraniums,--a cozy, cheerful
home indeed.
Mrs. Holt was already at the front door,--a young woman in a plain
dark blue dress with dainty lace collar and cuffs, and so slender and
graceful that she looked more like an older sister of Ben’s than his
mother. Quite a warm colour bloomed on her pretty face as she shook
hands with Miss Ruth, whom Ben introduced by saying “This is the Black
Lace Lady.”
“I am very happy to meet you, Miss Warren. Betty White I already know.
And this is Elsa Danforth? Come in, please. Alice has been growing
very impatient for your arrival,” Mrs. Holt said, with a gentle and
well-bred hospitality.
The front door opened directly into a quite large hall, evidently the
living-room. There was a glowing fire in the old-fashioned fireplace
opposite the door, a low bookcase on one side of the fireplace and
a piano on the other; the stairs were at one end of the room, and
folding-doors opened into the dining-room at the opposite end. On a
chintz-covered lounge close to the front windows sat Alice in a blue
wrapper the colour of her eyes, and with one foot stretched out,
covered with an afghan. Her face flushed with pleasure: “O, I am so
glad you all came,” she said, as they drew around her. “I fell on some
ice, coming home from school yesterday, and twisted my ankle a little,
the doctor said, so I couldn’t come to the Club, and so we invited you
here. What shall we do?” she asked, leaning back against the gay chintz
pillows and looking like a large, sweet-faced doll with softly dimpled
cheeks.
“I brought some of the dolls’ dresses--there are yet eight more to
make,” Miss Ruth said, taking a package from the deep pocket of her
fur-lined coat. “We can sew on those for one thing to do.”
“I have made my last week’s two dresses,” cried Alice, pulling them in
very rumpled condition from under a sofa pillow, while Elsa and Betty
dived into their coat pockets, each bringing out two dresses, all
finished.
“Good!” said Miss Ruth, taking off her coat and hat, at Mrs. Holt’s
bidding. “Perhaps we can each do two to-day--though these are for the
largest dolls.”
“I will gladly help you sew,” Mrs. Holt said. “Alice has told me that
the dolls are to be given away at Christmas: that is all I know about
it,” she added, smiling in a motherly, understanding way. She had a
pretty, rather sad face and a very tender look in her blue eyes. It
was a great grief to her to be parted from her husband, and there was
another grief which lay further back in her heart.
Even in the few moments of their talking together, Ruth Warren had
decided that Mrs. Holt was a very charming woman, and just the kind of
a mother Ben and Alice might be expected to have.
Elsa and Betty had drawn their chairs very near to Alice and were
telling her all that had happened in school that morning, when Ben
came in from having put the horse into the barn, and walked up to his
mother’s side with “What shall we do?”
“O, I know what to do,” he exclaimed, answering his own question. “We
will have a show.”
“Goody!” cried Betty, hearing his last words.
Mrs. Holt entered at once into the plan. “Miss Warren and Alice and I
will be audience. You can manage your show with Betty and Elsa to help,
I think.”
“But what about the dolls’ dresses?” Elsa asked, eager as she was for
the “show.”
“Bless the dear child!” said Mrs. Holt, putting her arm around the
slight, black-gowned figure. “Miss Warren and I will sew fast enough to
do your share and Betty’s.” She gazed intently into Elsa’s face as if
she would like to question the child about something.
“O, thank you,” Elsa said, gratefully. “Why, that picture is just like
one my grandmother has in her room,” she exclaimed, catching sight of
an oil-painting of a large, gable-windowed house.
As Ruth Warren saw Mrs. Holt’s face grow crimson and then suddenly very
pale, some faint, puzzling resemblance flashed through her mind and was
gone as quickly.
Before Mrs. Holt had any time to answer, Ben ran toward her and laid
his hand coaxingly upon her shoulder: “Now, mother of mine, I have
brought the ‘show’ things down from the garret, and the pink gauze
curtain; and please can we use the red light?”
“Yes, my boy. What shows are you going to have?” Mrs. Holt’s voice was
not quite steady, but she had regained her composure.
“You will see in just a little while, mother of mine,” said Ben, with
the air of one who speaks to an over-eager child.
Then, while Mrs. Holt explained to Miss Ruth and Elsa that the pink
cheese-cloth curtain was used to make the show-figures look more
beautiful, and that the red light, which made them even more beautiful,
was brought out only on great occasions like birthdays or holidays,
Elsa forgot all about the oil-painting; and very soon after, Ben called
her to join Betty and him in the parlour, which opened off the hall,
at the foot of the stairs. “Turn your backs, please,” cried Ben; “you
mustn’t see what is going to happen.”
“Ben is such a manly little fellow,” said Miss Ruth, rising to change
her position.
Quick tears sprang into Mrs. Holt’s blue eyes. “He tries to take care
of me,” she replied, with a little tremble in her voice; “my dear
little boy,” she added, half under her breath. “He is a great help in
the gardening we do, winter and summer, although I have a good man to
take the principal care. But I am sorry to have the children away from
their father. We hope it will not be very long before he can come back
to us, or we go to him.”
“Mr. Holt is a teacher, I believe,” said Ruth Warren, who found herself
growing much interested in the Holt family.
“Yes, out in Colorado; he had to go there for his health, and that is
why we are here,” was the reply, given with quiet dignity.
Ruth Warren liked Mrs. Holt all the better because she did not attempt
to make any apology for keeping a market-garden, or to explain their
poverty, which was evident from the shabby furniture and plain clothing.
“I wish they would begin,” sighed Alice, who was feeling rather left
out of things and who had all this time kept her eyes turned away from
the stairs, where mysterious preparations were going on.
“You may turn ’round now,” called out Ben, starting the red light. So
the audience faced expectantly toward the stage which was formed by the
wide landing four steps up the stairway.
Ben, jerking back the pink curtain, announced in a deep, dramatic tone:
“Priscilla, the Puritan Maiden.”
Beside a real spinning-wheel sat Elsa with a white cap over her golden
hair and a white kerchief across her shoulders,--a demure little
Puritan maiden, her face very rosy under the red light.
The applause from the audience was hearty and prolonged. Alice clapped
louder than any one else. But after the curtain was drawn forward, she
slipped her hand into her mother’s and said wistfully, “I do wish my
foot was well so I could be in the shows.”
“Think of the little Convalescent children, my darling,” said Mrs. Holt
in a low tone, replacing the afghan which Alice had restlessly pushed
away. “Think how some of them keep still all the time.”
A moment later Alice’s face dimpled with smiles as Ben drew aside the
curtain and said in his stage voice: “Little Red Riding-hood.”
It was Betty in a short red cape and a tightly drawn red hood. With the
red light falling upon her round cheeks and her laughing eyes, she
looked indeed like a little maid from the fields.
“Doesn’t the Glad Girl make a splendid Red Riding-hood?” cried Ben,
turning a somersault on the hearth-rug. “And wouldn’t the wolf have a
fine time eating her up!” he added, capering back to draw the curtain.
Red Riding-hood herself announced the next show, “George Washington,”
who was no other than Ben, standing on a large book covered with white
cloth to represent a block of ice, and wearing a cock-hat and an old
military coat which came down to his heels--a brave-faced Father of his
Country.
“You forgot to say ‘Crossing the Delaware,’ Betty,” exclaimed the
show-figure, leaning forward on his very thick sword made out of the
fire-tongs covered with brown paper.
“Of course they would know that,” Betty replied; and the audience
agreed that they would have known it without being told.
“Just one more,” cried Ben, stepping from off the block of ice to help
Betty draw the curtain. “This one’s going to take a very long time to
get ready, and you must guess the name of it. May I whisper to the
Black Lace Lady, mother?”
Mrs. Holt nodded permission, and Ben whispered something into Miss
Ruth’s ear, to which she must have agreed, for he carried her heavy
coat into the parlour, where Betty and Elsa were, and shut the door.
It took so long for them to arrange this last show that Mrs. Holt
and Miss Ruth finished making the first of the dolls’ dresses, and
Mrs. Holt was sewing upon the second one for Alice, when Betty called
“Ready!” and pulled back the curtain to disclose a marvellous sight.
There stood Elsa, behind a wall of sofa pillows, her hair floating
down over the light blue silk scarf which covered her shoulders and
her slender figure draped in a dark blue velvet table-cover, while on
her shoulder perched a stuffed gray squirrel. On the step below the
pillow-wall knelt Ben, wearing Miss Ruth’s long coat with the gray fur
lining side out, his head and arms covered with Betty’s gray boa. This
strange-looking figure was pulling with his teeth at a sofa pillow in
the supposed wall, and repeating, in a muffled voice: “Keep a good
heart! Keep a good heart!”
“Princess Katrina and the Gray Owl!” Alice cried out, the moment her
eyes fell upon this group. “How lovely, how lovely!” she said over and
over again, clapping her hands. Mrs. Holt and Ruth Warren joined in
the applause, laughing until the tears came into their eyes, for Ben
was such a ridiculously funny figure, although so well made up.
Elsa kept still as long as she could; then the stuffed gray squirrel
fell from her shoulder, and Ben, springing to catch it, knocked down
the wall of pillows, and the show was over.
“How did you _ever_ happen to think of it?” Alice asked, when the
flushed and happy actors stood around the lounge, taking off their
costumes.
“Elsa thought of it,” cried Betty, who was holding the stuffed squirrel
tenderly.
“Betty made me take the princess part, though I wanted her to,” said
Elsa.
“Because she has yellow hair, like the princess,” put in Ben. “Betty
dressed us, and didn’t she do well? Your coat was just the thing,” he
added, turning as Miss Ruth rose to help him out of it. “My! it’s hot.”
“Did you know what it was, Mrs. Holt?” Elsa inquired, coming to Mrs.
Holt’s side.
“Yes, dear, for Alice has told the story to Ben and me, twice.”
“Do your children tell you stories?” Elsa asked, with wide-open,
surprised eyes.
“Sometimes, Elsa,” Mrs. Holt replied. “I sit by the fire the last part
of the afternoon, usually, and the children lie on pillows in front of
the fire; and if I am too tired to tell them a story, they tell me one.”
“And do they have shows often?” Elsa questioned eagerly. This was
almost like a storybook, this account of the happy home-life.
“Yes; they keep a boxful of costumes and that pink curtain on purpose
for shows. They get up all sorts of plays, too,” Mrs. Holt went on to
say, seeing the keen interest in Elsa’s face. “Last summer they played
snake until it got on my imagination so that I hardly dared step on the
floor for fear of putting my foot on that snake.”
“It wasn’t really a snake, though,” said Betty, who had turned to
listen.
“No, only a make-believe one,” Mrs. Holt replied laughingly; “but they
made it seem real.”
“But, mother of mine,” said Ben very earnestly, “you know I only got
Peggy to play that so as to teach her not to be afraid of snakes.”
“Girls!” exclaimed Ruth Warren, “it is quarter of five o’clock, and
snowing fast. We must begin to get ready to go home.” She realized
that it would take considerable time.
“Mamma, dear, I wish Elsa and Betty could stay here all night,” cried
Alice. Betty had stayed before, once.
“They could perfectly well, Alice,” replied Mrs. Holt cordially, “if
Elsa’s grandmother and Betty’s mother were willing.”
“Let’s telephone and ask,” suggested Ben.
“I think my mother will let me stay,” Betty said quickly, standing
on tip-toe in her excitement, “because it’s Friday and no school
to-morrow. May I telephone now?”
In a few moments Betty came back from the side-hall: “Yes, mother says
I can stay, if Mrs. Holt is sure I won’t be a bother. Aren’t you going
to telephone about staying?” she asked, turning to Elsa, who had been
silent all this time, although her eyes showed how much she wanted to
stay.
“I--I don’t believe grandmother would let me,” Elsa replied, making a
brave effort to keep a steady face.
“Why don’t you ask her for Elsa, mamma?” inquired Alice. “Do, mother of
mine,” urged Ben.
Mrs. Holt’s face flushed, then grew pale, and a look of pride came
over it. “I cannot do that, children, much as I would like to have Elsa
remain.”
“I will ask Mrs. Danforth,” Ruth Warren said quickly, going to the
telephone. Presently she returned to the impatient group and said in a
cheerful tone:
“Elsa’s grandmother wants her to come home. She asks me to say to you,
Elsa, that you will not be sorry you came.”
But even this last part of the message could not keep Elsa from turning
quickly away, toward the window, to hide her feelings.
“I will go and harness Jerry,” said Ben, hurrying out of the room. The
others talked very fast for a few moments.
“I wish you could stay all night, Miss Ruth,” Alice said more
hospitably than thoughtfully, when Miss Ruth was putting on her coat.
“There is no use in my thinking of it,” Miss Ruth answered quickly: “my
Aunt Virginia would never give her consent.”
It was so funny to think of grown-up Miss Ruth having to mind that
Elsa, feeling comforted, came away from the window and began to get
ready for the drive home.
“I hope Alice’s ankle will be well before the next meeting,” said Miss
Ruth, when they were at last ready to start.
“It will be quite well in a week, unless she is careless, or takes
cold,” Mrs. Holt replied. “I am sure she is most grateful to the Club,
as I am, for your coming here.”
Ben, who had driven Jerry up to the front door and come in to warm his
hands, carelessly picked up a sofa pillow in passing, and shied it at
Alice. “That’s just to show Peggy that she must keep quiet, no matter
what happens,” he said in answer to his mother’s reproving: “Why, Ben!”
Betty had sprung to Alice’s defence, and for a moment she and Ben had a
lively pulling contest over the pillow. Elsa looked on in surprise; not
having any brothers or sisters, she was not used to that kind of fun
and hardly knew what to make of it.
Suddenly Betty dropped her corner of the pillow. “Excuse me,” she said
to Mrs. Holt; “I forgot. Ben threw that pillow at Alice just the way
Max throws one at me sometimes, and I have to defend myself.”
“You will have a lively time to-night, Mrs. Holt,” Ruth Warren said,
with a sober face and smiling eyes.
“Children must be children,” Mrs. Holt replied with an answering smile.
“It is better for Alice to have things a little lively than to lie here
and feel lonely. But I think that she and Betty will be studying over
to-day’s lessons after supper.”
“O, mamma! with my lame ankle!” protested Alice. And Betty’s face fell
a little.
“Yes, dear, you must study awhile; it will not hurt your ankle. You say
that Betty is always ahead of you in your classes, so she can be the
teacher.” Mrs. Holt said this partly to cheer Betty and partly so that
Elsa would not go away thinking that the visit she was missing would be
all pleasure.
“We haven’t any more dolls’ dresses to make, Miss Ruth,” Alice said,
handing to her a pile of neatly folded little light-coloured garments.
“What shall we do next?”
“I will have something ready at the next meeting, Alice,--something
that perhaps Ben can help upon,” replied Ruth Warren, kissing Alice
good-bye, and thinking that it would be hard to find two more lovable
and companionable children than Alice and Ben, or a happier, more
satisfying home-life than theirs.
“Just think, only two weeks more of school,” cried Betty. “Maybe the
Club can meet twice a week in vacation?” Betty looked at Miss Ruth
questioningly.
“O, I wish it could!” Alice clasped her chubby hands together
beseechingly.
Ruth Warren shook her head, but with that kind look in her eyes which
always made any refusal seem less hard. “Once a week is enough for us
really to enjoy it,” she said, “don’t you think so, Betty dear?”
“I suppose so,” Betty admitted with her usual candour; “only I don’t
ever have half so good a time anywhere else.”
“Come, Elsa, we must start,” Miss Ruth said, adding, as she shook hands
with Mrs. Holt: “I should like to call upon you some day soon.”
“I should be delighted to have you call,” replied Mrs. Holt, warmly. “I
have made only a few acquaintances in Berkeley during the year I have
lived here. Betty’s mother has been very kind about coming to see me.
Children often bring together people who might not otherwise meet,”
she added, smoothing back Betty’s rumpled hair in a gentle, motherly
fashion.
“We will show you the market-garden when you come again,” Ben said with
an air of pride. “It’s a very interesting place.”
“Yes, you might enjoy that, Miss Warren,” said Mrs. Holt with a gentle
dignity. “We have a large winter-garden, back of the house, and this
year, in addition to vegetables, we are raising hyacinths and such
things, and later, we are going to try raising mushrooms.”
“That sounds most delightful,” said Miss Ruth heartily; “I am sure I
shall enjoy seeing it all.”
“Perhaps you would like to come, also,” Mrs. Holt said, rather timidly
it seemed, turning to Elsa.
“O, yes, I should,” cried Elsa eagerly. “I think you are very kind
to little girls, and,” she added shyly, trying to be very polite,
“you--you have beautiful flowers.”
“Children and flowers--I’ve never had enough of them yet,” exclaimed
Mrs. Holt, stooping suddenly to kiss Elsa’s upturned face.
It was snowing hard. Ben tucked Miss Ruth and Elsa into the back seat
and then mounted to the front seat. Mrs. Holt, Alice, and Betty waved
good-bye from the front windows, Miss Ruth and Elsa waved back as long
as they could see the house; and the gay, pleasant meeting was over.
Elsa was always so happy in being with Miss Ruth that once the pang
of leaving had vanished, she settled down with a contented sigh. It
was a beautiful time to be out-of-doors. Now that the snow was falling
in thick soft flakes, the chill had gone out of the air. The tall
evergreen trees drooped under their heavy white cloaks. In the west
there was a faint rosy tinge from the light of the setting sun. Now and
then a loud-cawing crow flew overhead, and once, by the roadside, they
saw a hungry blue-jay flirt the snow off from a tall brown weed and
begin to pick out and eat the seeds.
The three talked awhile of the sights and sounds around them. Then Ben
turned his entire attention to Jerry, who needed constant urging for
this journey away from home, at the end of the day.
“I asked Miss Hartwell a day or two ago about the nurse Bettina; and
her name is Bettina March,” Miss Ruth said, unexpectedly.
“O my Bettina!” cried Elsa, with a little gasp. “And is she coming
back?”
“Possibly,” Miss Ruth replied. “She was at the Convalescent Home only
about six weeks, and went away because she was not very well; but if
she is better, she is coming back about Christmas-time.”
“Then I shall see her,--grandmother will surely let me see her; but it
won’t be for three whole weeks!” The little thrill of disappointment in
Elsa’s voice told Ruth Warren better than words could have told, how
dearly Elsa loved her old nurse.
“Of course she may not come back at all, Elsa,” Ruth Warren felt
obliged to say.
To this Elsa made no reply; but she asked, in a rather choked voice:
“Did you find out where Bettina is now?”
“No, Elsa,” Miss Ruth answered gently. She felt very sorry for Elsa’s
disappointment, but she did not wish in any way to interfere with Mrs.
Danforth’s plan for the child.
Ben, perched upon the front seat, was beginning to look as if he had
on a white fur coat. They were just driving along Washington Avenue,
approaching the Warren house, when Elsa exclaimed rapturously: “Uncle
Ned! O, there is my Uncle Ned!”
A tall, broad-shouldered man, who was strolling by in leisurely
fashion, looked up and then stepped quickly toward the sleigh as Ben
stopped his horse in front of the Warrens’ house. Elsa was out in a
flash, and the tall man was bending over, soothing the child who clung
to him so passionately.
[Illustration: “SOOTHING THE CHILD WHO CLUNG TO HIM SO PASSIONATELY.”]
“Uncle Ned! When did you come?” Elsa asked between laughter and tears.
“Less than an hour ago. I reached the house only a few moments before
your grandmother was telephoning about you.”
“I am so glad, now, that I came home,” cried the child, still clinging
to him as if she could hardly believe her happiness in really having
him here.
Ben had meanwhile jumped out and was gallantly helping Miss Ruth from
the sleigh. Elsa was far too excited to think of introductions.
“This is your friend, Miss Ruth, Elsa?” asked the tall uncle, taking
off his hat.
“Yes--excuse me--this is Miss Ruth, our Club--our Christmas Makers’
Club--” cried Elsa, telling the name before she thought.
“Miss Ruth looks more like a tall young lady than a Club,--even a
Christmas Makers’ Club,” said Elsa’s uncle gravely.
“Uncle Ned! I mean that she runs the Club,” cried Elsa in half
distressed, half-laughing tone.
“Yes, I run the Club,” said Ruth Warren quickly. The arc-light
overhead shone brightly. The snow was on her long eyelashes and her
face was flushed with the fresh air.
“I am grateful to you if my little niece has caught her red cheeks from
the running,” was the instant reply.
“Here is another member of the Club,” Ruth Warren said, turning to Ben,
“Ben Holt, the only boy in the Club.”
“Another red-cheeked member! I quite approve of this Club,” said the
tall uncle, who had dark gray eyes, somewhat like Elsa’s. “Does the
Club drive you, or do you drive the Club, sir?” he asked, in his quick
way of speaking.
“Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sir,” Ben replied merrily. “I am
the only one that takes them driving, though, because I have such a
safe, steady horse.”
“He looks like a good safe horse, Ben,” said Elsa’s uncle, gravely and
politely.
Ben climbed back into the sleigh and began turning Jerry. “Good-bye!
Perhaps you’ll come to the Club sometimes, as long as you are Elsa’s
uncle,” he called out in friendly fashion; “it meets Friday afternoons.
Good-bye, Black Lace Lady! Good-bye, Elsa!”
“Thank you,” the tall uncle called out, for Jerry, headed toward home,
started off in a hurry; “I am afraid I shall not be here until another
meeting.”
The boy and the angular horse vanished amid the thick-falling snow.
“How long are you going to stay, Uncle Ned?” asked Elsa, in a most
anxious voice.
“Only over night, Sweetheart,” he answered quickly, “but we mustn’t let
that spoil our visit. What is the name of this wonderful Club?”
“Didn’t you hear me say it?” Elsa asked.
But Uncle Ned had forgotten.
“It’s a secret,” said Elsa; “you can’t know it unless you belong.”
“It is a very exclusive Club, you see, Mr. Danforth,” said Miss Ruth,
turning toward the walk which led from the pavement to her home.
“That makes me want to join all the more,” came the laughing answer.
“I can tell you just this much, Uncle Ned,” cried Elsa, unfastening
Miss Ruth’s golf cape, “we are making things for Christmas.”
“And does Miss Ruth live here in the house next to your grandmother’s?”
asked the tall uncle, taking the cape from Elsa.
“Yes; she lives all alone with her aunt, just the way I live all alone
with grandmother,” Elsa said, a little sadly.
“You ought to be very good friends,” said the uncle, soberly, for he
had noticed the change in Elsa’s tone.
“We are,” replied Ruth Warren convincingly.
“Yes, we are,” echoed Elsa in a happy voice now.
“Let me go ahead on your path and make some tracks for you, the snow
is so deep,” suggested Mr. Danforth, quickly stepping forward. So Ruth
Warren followed in his footsteps, and Elsa brought up in the rear.
At the door, Elsa’s uncle put out his hand and said in a grateful
voice: “My little niece has written me about you, Miss Warren, and I
want to thank you for all that you are doing to make her happy.”
“Elsa and her friends give me a great deal of pleasure,” said Miss Ruth
in turn, with an unmistakable ring of sincerity in her voice.
“Will the Club meet here next Friday?” asked Elsa eagerly.
“Yes, next Friday; and we shall have something new to work upon,” Miss
Ruth replied.
“Will you give Miss Ruth her cape, Uncle Ned?” asked Elsa. “She let me
take it for our sleigh-ride. I wonder what the new thing is going to
be,” she added, with lively interest.
But Miss Ruth only smiled and said: “Wait and see!”
As Elsa’s Uncle Ned took off his hat in farewell, Ruth Warren saw that
his hair was quite gray and that his face had the careworn look of a
very busy man. Elsa herself seemed like another girl since her uncle
had come.
Miss Virginia Warren had left the shade up, at her front window, and
had seen Ruth’s meeting with the tall man whom Elsa Danforth had
greeted so affectionately.
“There, Ruth!” said Miss Virginia when her niece came into her room; “I
was sure something would happen! What could that young gentleman have
thought of your being in that dreadful old sleigh?”
“It was Elsa’s uncle, and he is not so very young, Aunt Virginia; I am
sure he is forty, and his hair is gray,” replied Ruth Warren. “I don’t
believe he was thinking of me at all; he seemed so rejoiced that Elsa’s
cheeks were red instead of white that I don’t believe he thought about
anything or anybody else.”
But Miss Virginia was not to be pacified: “You do such strange things,
Ruth, for a young woman of your social position, and thirty years old,
too,” she sighed; “going off in that pung, was it, you called it? with
a lot of children, and to a market-gardener’s home.”
Ruth Warren, leaving the first part of her aunt’s remark without
answer, made haste to say: “Mrs. Holt is in every sense a lady, and I
shall call upon her at the very first opportunity.”
Miss Virginia dropped the subject, and said in a more kindly tone: “I
really hope the Club will come here next week; I begin to think, as
Sarah does, that it is rather pleasant to hear their young voices in
this quiet old house. We missed them this afternoon.”
In this change of mind on the part of Miss Virginia, Ruth Warren
recognized Sarah Judd’s influence; for behind an iron exterior, this
trusty old serving-woman had a heart of gold.