and was determined that the decision should be immediately in her favor;
while Maggie, disturbed by being so conspicuous, hoped that the prize
might be given to Haleema.
"It isn't for you to decide," said Phoebe sagely; "they'll find some
way of settling it--the ladies, I mean."
This, of course, proved to be the case, and when an umpire had been
chosen whose decision all present agreed to respect, he decided that the
first prize should go to the Mabel Martin actors. This was not entirely
to the satisfaction of the followers of the Countess, and Concetta, who
was sometimes on Haleema's side and sometimes against her, now became a
very active partisan, and the two younger girls frowned ominously on
Angelina and Maggie. So far at least as prizes were concerned, Anstiss,
as President of the League, had brought it about that every actor
should have a prize, in each case an attractively bound book, with the
only advantage for the winners of the first prize that they were allowed
to have first choice. But there was a book for each of the others, and
each girl, too, had the pleasure of hearing from her own friends that
she really had made the very best representation of all. It was simply a
case of where all were so good it was almost impossible to choose the
very best.
Mrs. McSorley was especially proud of Maggie's performance, and her face
almost lost its wonted grimness as she walked about among the girls and
their guests. "I'm thinking that you'll amount to something, after all,"
she vouchsafed to her niece; and as this was almost the highest praise
she had ever given, Maggie was more than content. It may be said here
that in Turquoise Street Mrs. McSorley was much more eloquent than she
had been to Maggie's face, and the neighbors for many a day heard the
story of this very brilliant evening at the Mansion, and of the
remarkable manner in which Maggie McSorley had recited and acted the
part of the witch's daughter.
Another pleasant result of the evening was that Haleema became more
friendly toward Maggie, for she had been impressed by Maggie's
generosity in being willing to resign the first prize to her.
This, however, did not mean the winning of Concetta, who still seemed to
feel it her duty to refrain from any direct praise or showing any
friendliness for Maggie. But after this an observer would have seen that
she seldom showed any direct unfriendliness, and this was one of the
things that Maggie especially observed.
The fun of the valentine party was quite forgotten in the excitement
that the girls of the Mansion, like every one else in the country, felt
on that sixteenth of February; for that was the day when news was
brought of the destruction of the "Maine." Angelina was the first to
report it when she broke into the dining-room with a newspaper that she
had bought from a boy at the front door. It had headlines in enormous,
heavy black letters, and Miss South, in spite of her general disapproval
of the headlines, could not resist reading the sheet that Angelina
handed her.
"It means war, doesn't it?" cried Angelina in a tone that implied that
she hoped that it meant war. But neither Miss South nor the other
residents, nor the great world outside, knew whether peace or war was to
follow the awful disaster. It was useless to forbid the girls reading
the harrowing details. All, indeed, except Maggie and Inez seemed to
take a special delight in perusing them, and in speculating about the
families of the victims and the guilt of the Spaniards; for of course
the Spaniards had done this thing. There were no two opinions on the
subject, so far as the girls were concerned. Gretchen quickly became the
heroine of the day when it was learned that she had a cousin who was a
seaman on the "Maine," and when his name was read in the list of those
who had escaped, her special friends, Concetta and Luisa, seemed to
think that they, too, shared in the distinction, and they offered to do
her share of the housework that she might have time to think it all
over. Angelina was not altogether pleased that this honor had come to
Gretchen.
"Julia," said Nora, whose day it was at the home, "I believe that she'd
be willing to sacrifice John for the sake of being the sister of a
victim," and in fact Angelina scanned the list of names, in the hope
that she might find one that she might claim as a relative. But
unluckily she could not fix on a single name that she could properly
claim. When she read aloud the President's message to Sigsbee, her voice
trembled with emotion:
"The President directs me to express for himself and the people of
the United States his profound sympathy for the officers and crew
of the 'Maine,' and desires that no expense be spared in providing
for the survivors, and the care of the dead.
"JOHN D. LONG, _Secretary._
"SIGSBEE, U. S. S. 'Maine.'"
"But there isn't any 'Maine' now," said Maggie, as Angelina read the
last words, and then was the young girl moved to a word of genuine
eloquence. "There will always be a 'Maine;' it will always live in the
hearts of the American people!" and Julia, who happened to approach the
group just at this moment, said "Bravo! bravo! Angelina, you are a true
patriot."
XIV
CONCILIATION
One day not so very long after the valentine party, when it was still
rather uncertain whether Maggie and Concetta were to be friends or
enemies, the former had a chance to do Concetta a real favor. It was a
morning when she had been very busy herself, as it was her week for
taking care of the large reading-room, and she had been up very early in
order to finish certain things before breakfast. First of all she had
cleaned mirrors with powdered whiting until they shone; then she had
polished the brasses; and finally, after spreading covers over
everything that might harbor dust, she had swept the long room.
"Don't you hate sweeping?" asked Haleema, who was to help her dust and
arrange the rooms.
"Not half as much as dusting. I really do hate that, it is so fussy,
and, do you know," dropping her voice, "I heard Miss Julia the other day
saying that she didn't like dusting either."
In spite of any dislike that she may have had for the work, Maggie was a
willing worker, and soon she had the long room in perfect order.
Soon after breakfast, passing through the back hall, they came upon an
array of lamps ranged on a long table.
"Where's Concetta?"
"I don't know. She was here a little while ago."
"Well, I've looked all over the house, and I haven't seen her for an
hour."
"It's her day to do the lamps. She'll get a scolding if she doesn't fill
them."
"Who'll scold her? I never heard any one in this house scold."
"Well, Miss Dreen, for one, is very particular, and she said that she'd
punish the next girl who neglected the lamps."
"Oh, well," said Maggie, "perhaps she won't be back in time to do
them,--that is, if she has gone off anywhere."
"She hasn't any right to go off in the morning."
"I don't mind doing the lamps," said Maggie,--"that is, I'm not so very
fond of doing them, but I'd just as lieves, and it will save Concetta a
scolding. I don't mind a bit."
So Maggie set to work with a will. She filled the lamps, trimmed one or
two wicks, put in one or two new ones, washed and polished the chimneys,
and when they were finished set them on a large tray to be ready for
evening.
"Well, that's more than I would do," said Haleema.
"I wonder how these lamps get used," said Maggie; "except in the library
they mostly use gas--the young ladies, I mean--and, of course, we only
have gas in our room."
"Why, that's so," said Haleema, "though I never thought of it before."
But neither of the girls put her mind sufficiently on the subject to see
that the care of the lamps was one of the devices of the two head
workers at the Mansion for getting a certain kind of exact service from
the young girls. The lamps were not needed. Often two of them were set
in a little-used room where they burned just long enough to sear the
wicks and cloud the shades, so that the young housekeepers could show
their skill in cleaning them. Miss South made it her duty usually to
keep in mind the girl whose task for the week it was to attend to the
lamps, and when the results were thoroughly satisfactory she was loud in
her praise, just as she felt it her duty to blame when the reverse was
true. From the lamps the two little girls went to the bathroom.
"Oh, you oughtn't to dust without lifting down those bottles. Miss Dreen
says that we ought never to leave a corner untouched."
"But I've dusted in between; it doesn't matter what there is under the
bottles."
But Haleema was not to be rebuffed.
"I like bottles," she added. "They almost always have things in them
that smell good," and she reached up on tiptoe toward the shelf. The
first bottle that she reached just came within her grasp, and she pulled
it toward her. When she pulled the stopper, it proved to be a fragrant
toilet water, and even Maggie, admitting that it was delightful, yielded
to the pleasure of inhaling it directly from the bottle. Emboldened by
her success, Haleema drew another bottle down toward her and made a
feint of drinking from it.
"Oh, don't!" cried Maggie, in genuine alarm, "it may be poison."
"Oh, they wouldn't leave poisons around like this. I'd just as lief as
not taste anything here. I ain't afraid."
But although she spoke thus bravely, Haleema really did not venture to
put the liquid to her mouth. Then she touched a third bottle, filled
with a colorless liquid. She tried to pull out the rubber stopper, but
it would not stir. Holding the bottle under one arm, she gave a second,
more vigorous pull, when the stopper not only came out, but in some way
the liquid flew out, and then--a loud scream from Maggie, who was wiping
the edge of the bathtub. Haleema herself, half suffocated by the fumes
of the ammonia from the harmless-looking bottle, had enough presence of
mind to set it up on the marble washstand. But, alas! she set it down so
hard that the glass broke and the ammonia trickled down, destroying the
glossy surface of the hardwood floor.
All these things, of course, had happened in a very short time; not a
minute, indeed, had passed after Maggie's first shriek before Julia and
Miss South and two or three girls had rushed to the room.
The ammonia fumes at once told the story to Miss South, and without
waiting for an explanation she had raised Maggie from the floor.
"Oh, dear, my eyes!" sobbed Maggie, and for a moment Miss South was
frightened. Ammonia can work great havoc when it touches the eyes.
Fortunately, however, as it happened it was not Maggie's eyes but her
face that the ammonia had really hurt. Her eyes were inflamed, and she
had to be kept in a dark room for a day or two, and her face had to be
salved and swathed in cloths. But in the end no great injury had been
done, and she won Haleema's everlasting gratitude by resisting the
temptation to tell enquirers that Haleema's carelessness had caused the
disaster; for great injury had been done the polished floor, and Haleema
knew that she deserved reproof and punishment. Yet such was Maggie's
reputation for destructiveness that she was supposed to have broken the
bottle, and in the injury to her face she was thought to have paid a
sufficient penalty.
When Concetta returned to the house an hour later, great was her
surprise to find that her lamps had been cleaned, and when Haleema told
her of Maggie's kindness she could not understand it.
"Perhaps she's trying for a prize."
"What prize?"
"Why, don't you know? At the end of the year the very best girl at the
Mansion is to have a prize. I shouldn't wonder if it would be a gold
watch."
"Oh, I don't believe it."
"Then you can ask Miss Bourne."
A few days later Concetta had a chance to put the question to Julia.
"Yes, indeed, there are to be two prizes: one for the girl who has
tried the hardest, and the other for the one who has succeeded the
best."
"Which will get them, Miss Bourne?"
"Ah, how can I tell?"
"I don't see how any one can tell; no one is watching us all the time."
"Some one does take account, Inez, of almost everything that you say and
do."
"Oh, dear, I hate to be spied on," grumbled Concetta.
"No one is spying, I can assure you; but there are certain things that
we notice carefully, and you have all been here so long that we know
pretty well just what you are likely to do."
"I expect some one marks everything down in a book, like they used to at
school?" Maggie put this as a question, but Julia did not reply
directly.
"All the advice I can give you is to do as well as you can, and whether
things are written in a book or not you will fare very well--at least,
you will all fare alike."
"What will the prizes be, Miss Bourne?"
"Ah, I cannot tell exactly."
Thereupon the girls all fell to speculating not only about the prizes,
but about the kind of conduct that would win one. While they were
discussing this, Julia called to them from the floor above, "Have you
forgotten that this is your shopping day?"
Then there was a scampering, and the girls who were to go with her began
to get ready. Each girl went shopping with one of the staff every three
months, and to-day the group was to consist of Concetta, Inez, Maggie,
and Nellie. It was Julia's turn to take them, and this was not wholly to
the satisfaction of Concetta.
"I thought Miss Barlow said that she would go with us this time," she
murmured, as they left the house. She knew very well that if Brenda were
their shopping guide they would be able to purchase according to their
own sweet wills. She would be likely to approve everything that they
bought, provided that they had money to pay for it, and it was even
possible that she might supplement their allowance from her ever
generous purse. Thus, indeed, had she done on the one occasion when she
had taken them out, and her liberality had been even magnified by the
lively tongues of those who had described it.
Shopping was not, of course, intended to occupy a large share of the
attention of these girls; yet to buy clothing properly was thought as
important by the elders who had them in charge, as marketing for the
table, and each girl was given a chance to market under the supervision
of Miss Dreen. They already knew the most nutritious and least expensive
cuts of meat. They could tell what vegetables could be most prudently
bought at each season, and some of them had already begun to show a
decided independence of judgment even in small matters relating to the
table.
Hardly any of them, however, had the same degree of judgment in matters
of dress. On this account it had been thought wise to give each one a
small allowance, and let her spend it as she wished, with a certain
amount of guidance that she need not feel to be restraint.
"What they spend for one thing they certainly will not have for another,
and there is probably no other way in which they can better learn what
to do."
To let them use their own judgment on this particular shopping trip,
Julia made few restrictions. Each had the same amount of money to spend,
and out of it they were to buy spring hats, shoes and stockings, and the
material for two dresses, one of gingham and one of a heavier material.
All that they had left after making these purchases they were to spend
as they wished, and the sum had been so calculated as to leave a fair
margin. There was only one restriction: to save time and energy that
might be consumed in wandering around from one shop to another, Julia
planned that they should do all their purchasing in one of the larger
department stores, and while they were busy she did a few errands of her
own. At intervals she met them at certain counters by agreement, but in
almost every instance she found that they had made their purchase, so
that her advice was usually superfluous.
"I thought that you were going to get a small sailor hat with a few
flowers at the side," she could not forbear saying to Inez, who showed
her a rather flimsy imitation tuscan, with some gaudy flowers and lace
for trimming.
"Oh, but you should have seen the perfectly elegant hats they have
upstairs, all tulle and flowers, and as big--" at a loss for an object
of comparison. Concetta concluded, "as big as a bushel basket," after
which Julia could not say that the hat that Inez had chosen was really
of unreasonable size.
Concetta looked somewhat shamefaced as she announced that she had no
hat.
"But you had the money for it."
"Yes, but I bought this, it's for the baby; I'd rather she'd have it,"
and Concetta opened a large box in which lay a pretty, pink silk coat.
Closer examination showed that the silk was half cotton and the lace
very tawdry, but Julia hadn't the heart to reprove her. Concetta's love
for her baby cousin was genuine, and the coat undoubtedly represented a
certain sacrifice on her part.
When they came to the dress materials, Maggie insisted on buying two
cotton dresses instead of the woollen dress, the material for which had
been provided by her money.
"Maggie's a miser," said Concetta, and Maggie reddened without making
any explanation.
Some of the materials bought were open to more or less criticism, and
later Julia meant to make certain of these mistakes the subject of a
little talk. They had done very well, she thought, for the present, in
buying practically all the things that she had intended to have them buy
with their money. Each of them, too, had a small surplus, and Inez was
the only one who proposed to use hers up by spending it at once for
candy. A little persuasion turned her aside from this purpose, and Julia
was careful that evening to offer her and the girls some especially fine
confections when they gathered in her room after tea. They all seemed
so receptive then that she thought it a good time to show them just how
their fifteen dollars might have been spent to the best advantage,--a
third for the dress materials, a third for shoes and hat, a third for
stockings and the other smaller things; and comparing what they had done
with her ideal purchases, she was interested to find that Nellie, the
young Irish girl, had really come the nearest to her standard, and
accordingly Nellie's face was wreathed in smiles as she learned that she
was thought to have been the ideal purchaser; for although Maggie had
also done very well, Julia was not wholly satisfied with her having
substituted the cotton for the woollen dress.
That evening, as it was Saturday, they all played games in the large
gymnasium, where there was space enough for the exciting French
blindman's buff, in which, instead of having one of the players blinded,
she had her hands tied behind her back, and do her best, often she could
not catch the others.
When they were tired of active sports, hjalma and draughts and other
games were ready for them, and occasionally they had charades or
impromptu tableaux, in which all the powers of their elders were taxed;
for the girls themselves lacked originality, and Miss South or one of
the other older members of the household had to supervise all that they
did.
In these sports sometimes little unexpected jealousies arose, and Julia,
or Pamela, or Ruth, or Anstiss, as the case might be, had her hands full
trying to keep peace. The least desirable characteristics of the girls
came to the surface at times, and at times, too, their best qualities
were displayed in an equally unexpected way. Phoebe alone of them all
did not care for games. While the others were playing she was apt to
bury herself in a book, and often Julia and Pamela would insist that she
should put this aside to mingle with the others.
XV
WAR AT HAND
As the weeks went on, Angelina and her little group of special friends
followed closely the newspaper reports of the troubles in Cuba; that is,
Angelina read the despatches and surmises, and told the others how
things were progressing. Except in the case of such definite events as
the destruction of the "Maine," the others were not extremely interested
in what Concetta called "stupid" accounts of distant happenings.
Angelina, however, was all excitement, and her theories were an
interesting supplement to all that the Board of Enquiry didn't find out.
When she read of Mr. Cannon's bill appropriating fifty millions for
defence she was sure that war was near at hand. When Maggie said that
there would be no money left in the country if so much was spent in war,
Angelina made a rapid calculation that this meant less than a dollar for
every person in the whole land, "and it would be a strange thing," she
said, "if we couldn't afford that."
Even at the meetings of the League the conversation turned to war, and
they hastened through their readings of the Quaker poet to talk about
things that were rather far away from his teachings, except that he was
always on the side of the oppressed, and in the war of his time was
heard with no uncertain voice.
The stripping of the fleet for war and the movement of the troops that
began early in April were described vividly by Angelina, after she had
read about them. The girls all took more interest when war seemed really
at hand, and Angelina was called upon to explain many things in which
her knowledge hardly equalled her willingness to impart it.
"The mosquito fleet; oh, what can that be? Is it to bite the Spaniards?"
Inez had asked, and Angelina had replied most scornfully:
"Of course not; it's a lot of long, thin iron boats that skim over the
water as fast as a mosquito flies--all made of iron, of course, with
long, thin legs that go out from the side like a mosquito's."
"Legs," exclaimed Haleema dubiously; "on a boat!" and Angelina responded
hastily:
"Well, not real legs, only kind of paddles, that make them go faster;"
and as no older person heard this original explanation, the girls
continued to have their very special interest in the curious mosquito
fleet.
When the first shot was fired and the little "Buena Ventura" was
captured on April 22, young and old knew that peace was at an end, and
there was no surprise when the declaration of war came a few days later.
"I've been looking for it," said Angelina, "ever since the 'Maine' was
destroyed, and I should have been dreadfully disappointed if war hadn't
come. But I was quite certain that there'd be fighting soon when I heard
that an officer had been sent abroad to buy warships; for what in the
world should _we_," with a strong emphasis on the "we," "want of
warships if we hadn't made up our minds to have a war?"
During all these weeks Brenda had been no less interested than the
younger girls in the question of what should be done for Cuba.
Washington had become the centre of the world for her in the strongest
sense of the word, and evidently for the time it was the centre of
interest for the whole country.
Arthur's letters to her continued rather brief. He spoke of being
overworked, and Belle in writing rarely failed to say that she had seen
him at this or that social function, and almost as often she mentioned
how popular he was. Brenda at last wrote one or two brief notes to
Arthur, asking him to return for a dinner that she was giving before
Lent; but he took no notice of these missives, at least he did not write
to her until Lent itself was half over, and then he made a simple little
reference to her request with a mere "I was sorry that I could not do
what you wished, but you must have known that I could not before you
wrote."
Then Brenda came to the point of deciding that she would never write to
him again, and she threw herself into the work at the Mansion with much
more zeal than Julia had ever expected from her. She was far less
cheerful than the Brenda of old. It was not merely because she could not
have her own way, but rather that she felt the shadow of the impending
war cloud hanging over the country.
Every Thursday she assisted Agnes at the informal studio tea, and this
was really her only amusement, and in the early spring the conversation
around the tea-table hovered between the two subjects,--the prospect of
war and the correct costume for the Festival.