perilous angle, straining their ears in the direction of the
drawing-room. Nothing but a murmur of voices floated up, punctuated by
an occasional deep bass laugh. When they heard the front door close,
with one accord they invaded Harriet Gladden's room, which commanded the
walk, and pressed their noses against the pane. A short, thick-set man
of German build was waddling toward the gate and the trolley car. They
gazed with wide, horrified eyes, and turned without a word to meet Patty
as she trudged upstairs lugging her errant suit-case. A glance told her
that they had seen, and dropping on the top step, she leaned her head
against the railing and laughed.
"His name," she choked, "is John Hochstetter, Jr. He's a wholesale
grocer, and was on his way to a grocers' convention, where he was to
make a speech comparing American cheese with imported cheese. He didn't
mind at all not having his dress-suit--never feels comfortable in it
anyway, he says. He explained to the convention why he didn't have it
on, and it made the funniest speech of the evening. There's the study
bell."
Patty rose and turned toward Paradise Alley, but paused to throw back a
further detail:
"He has a dear little daughter of his own just my age!"
V
The Flannigan Honeymoon
The Murphy family, with a judicious eye to the buttered side of the
bread, had adopted Saint Ursula as their patron saint. The
family--consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Murphy, eleven little Murphys
and "Gramma" Flannigan--occupied a five-room cottage close to the gates
of St. Ursula's school. They subsisted on the vicarious charity of
sixty-four girls, and the intermittent labor of Murphy _père_, who, in
his sober intervals, was a sufficiently efficient stone-cutter and
mason.
He had built the big entrance gates, and the long stone wall that
enclosed the ten acres of "bounds." He had laid the foundation of the
new west wing--known as Paradise Alley--and had constructed all the
chimneys and driveways and tennis courts on the place. The school was a
monument to his long and leisurely career.
Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, with an unusual display of foresight, had
christened their first baby after the school. Ursula Murphy may not be a
euphuistic combination, but the child was amply repaid for carrying such
a name, by receiving the cast-off clothes of generations of St. Ursula
girls. There was danger, for a time, that the poor little thing would be
buried beneath a mountain of wearing apparel; but her parents
providentially discovered a second-hand clothes man, who relieved her of
a part of the burden.
After Ursula, had come other little Murphys in regular succession; and
it had grown to be one of the legendary privileges of the school to
furnish the babies with names and baptismal presents. Mrs. Murphy was
not entirely mercenary in her yearly request. She appreciated the
artistic quality of the names that the girls provided. They had a
distinction, that she herself, with her lack of literary training, would
never have been able to give. The choosing of the names had come to be a
matter involving politics almost as complicated as the election of the
senior president. Different factions proposed different names;
half-a-dozen tickets would be in the field, and the balloting was
conducted with rousing speeches.
There was one hampering restriction. Every baby must have a patron
saint. Upon this point, the Murphys stood firm. However, by a careful
study of early Christian martyrs, the girls had managed to unearth a
list of recondite saints with fairly unusual and picturesque names.
So far, the roll of the Murphy offspring read:
Ursula Marie, Geraldine Sabina, Muriel Veronica and Lionel Ambrose
(twins), Aileen Clotilda, John Drew Dominick, Delphine Olivia, Patrick
(he had been born in the summer vacation, and the long-suffering priest
had insisted that the boy be named for his father), Sidney Orlando
Boniface, Richard Harding Gabriel, Yolanda Genevieve. This completed
the list, until one morning early in December, Patrick Senior presented
himself at the kitchen door, with the news that another name--a
boy's--would be seasonable.
The school immediately went into a committee of the whole. Several names
had been put up, and the discussion was growing heated, when Patty Wyatt
jumped to her feet with the proposal of "Cuthbert St. John." The
suggestion was met with cheers; and Mae Van Arsdale indignantly left the
room. The name was carried by unanimous vote.
Cuthbert St. John Murphy was christened the following Sunday, and
received a gold-lined porridge spoon in a green plush box.
So delighted was the school at Patty's felicitous suggestion, that, by
way of reward, they elected her chairman of the Christmas Carnival
Committee. The Christmas Carnival was a charitable institution
contemporaneous with the founding of the school. St. Ursula's scheme of
education was broad; it involved growth in a wide variety of womanly
virtues, and the greatest of these was charity. Not the modern,
scientific, machine-made charity, but the comfortable, old-fashioned
kind that leaves a pleasant glow of generosity in the heart of the
giver. Every year at Christmastide a tree was decked, a supper laid, and
the poor children of the neighborhood bidden to partake. The poor
children were collected by the school girls, who drove about from house
to house, in bob-sleighs or hay-wagons, according to the snow. The girls
regarded it as the most diverting festival of the school year; and even
the poor children, when they had overcome their first embarrassment,
found it fairly diverting.
The original scheme had been for each girl to have an individual
protégé, that she might call upon the family and come into personal
relations with a humbler class. She was to learn the special needs of
her child, and give something really useful, such as stockings or
trousers or flannel petticoats.
It was an admirable scheme on paper, but in actual practice it fell
down. St. Ursula's was situated in an affluent district given over to
the estates of the idle rich, and the proletarian who clung to the
skirts of these estates was amply provided with an opportunity to work.
In the early days, when the school was small, there had been sufficient
poor children to go round; but as St. Ursula's had grown, the poor
seemed to have diminished, until now the school was confronted by an
actual scarcity. But the Murphys, at least, they had always with them.
They yearly offered thanks for this.
Patty accepted her chairmanship and appointed sub-committees to do the
actual work. For herself and Conny and Priscilla she reserved the
privilege of choosing the recipients of St. Ursula's bounty. This
entailed several exhilarating afternoons out of bounds. A walk abroad is
as inspiring to the inmates of a prison as a trip through Europe to
those at large. They spent the better part of a week canvassing the
neighborhood, only to reveal the embarrassing fact that there were nine
possible children, aside from the Murphy brood, and that none of these
nine were from homes that one could conscientiously term poor. The
children's sober industrious parents could well supply their temperate
Christmas demands.
"And there are only six Murphys the right age," Conny grumbled, as they
turned homewards in the cold twilight of a wintry day, after an
unprofitable two hours' tramp.
"That makes about one child to every five girls," Priscilla nodded
dismally.
"Oh, this charity business makes me tired!" Patty burst out. "It's fun
for the girls, and nothing else. The way we dole out stuff to perfectly
nice people, is just plain insulting. If anybody poked a pink tarlatan
stocking full of candy at me, and said it was because I'd been a good
little girl, I'd throw it in their face."
In moments of intensity, Patty's English was not above reproach.
"Come on, Patty," Priscilla slipped a soothing hand through her arm,
"we'll stop in at the Murphys' and count 'em over again. Maybe there's
one we overlooked."
"The twins are only fifteen," said Conny hopefully. "I think they'll
do."
"And Richard Harding's nearly four. He's old enough to enjoy a tree. The
more Murphys we can get the better. They always love the things we
give."
"I know they do!" Patty growled. "We're teaching the whole lot of them
to be blooming beggars--I shall be sorry I ever used any slang, if we
can't put the money to better use than this."
The funds for the carnival were yearly furnished by a tax on slang. St.
Ursula demanded a fine of one cent for every instance of slang or bad
grammar let fall in public. Of course, in the privacy of one's own room,
in the bosom of one's chosen family, the rigor was relaxed. Your dearest
friends did not report you--except in periods of estrangement. But your
acquaintances and enemies and teachers did, and even, in moments of
intense honorableness, you reported yourself. In any case, the slang
fund grew. When the committee had opened the box this year, they found
thirty-seven dollars and eighty-four cents.
Patty allowed herself, after some slight protest, to be drawn to the
door of the Murphy domicile. She was not in an affable mood, and a call
upon the Murphys required a great deal of conversation. They found the
family hilariously assembled in an over-crowded kitchen. The entire
dozen children babbled at once, shriller and shriller, in a vain
endeavor to drown each other out. A cabbage stew, in progress on the
stove, filled the room with an odorous steam. Shoved into a corner of
the hearth, was poor old Gramma Flannigan, surrounded by noisy, pushing
youngsters, who showed her gray hairs but scant consideration. The girls
admired the new baby, while Yolanda and Richard Harding crawled over
their laps with sticky hands. Mrs. Murphy, meanwhile, discanted in a
rich brogue upon the merits of "Coothbert St. Jawn" as a name. She liked
it, she declared, as well as any in the list. It sure ought to bring
luck to a child to carry the name of two saints. She thanked the young
ladies kindly.
Patty left Conny and Priscilla to carry off the social end of the call,
while she squeezed herself onto the woodbox by Gramma Flannigan's chair.
Mrs. Murphy's mother was a pathetic old body, with the winning speech
and manners of Ireland a generation ago. Patty found her the most
remunerative member of the household, so far as interest went. She
always liked to get her started with stories of her girlhood, when she
had been a lady's maid in Lord Stirling's castle in County Clare, and
young Tammas Flannigan came and carried her off to America to help make
his fortune. Tammas was now a bent old man with rheumatism, but in his
keen blue eyes and Irish smile, Gramma still saw the lad who had courted
her.
"How's your husband this winter?" Patty asked, knowing that she was
taking the shortest road to the old woman's heart.
She shook her head with a tremulous smile.
"I'm not hearin' for four days. Tammas ain't livin' with us no more."
"It's a pity for you to be separated!" said Patty, with quick sympathy,
not realizing on how sore a subject she was touching.
The flood gates of the old woman's garrulity broke down.
"With Ursuly an' Ger-r-aldine growin' oop an' havin' young min to wait
on thim, 'twas needin' a parlor they was, an' they couldn't spare the
room no longer for me'n Tammas. So they put me in the garret with the
four gurrls, an' Tammas, he was sint oop the road to me son Tammas.
Tammas's wife said as Tammas could sleep in the kitchen to pay for
carryin' the wood an' watter, but she couldn't take us both because she
takes boarders."
Patty cocked her head for a moment of silence, as she endeavored to
pluck sense from this tangle of Tammases.
"It's too bad!" she comforted, laying a sympathetic hand on the old
woman's knee.
Gramma Flannigan's eyes filled with the ready tears of old age.
"I'm not complainin', for it's the way o' the world. The owld must step
off, an' make room for the young. But it's lonely I am without him!
We've lived together for forty-seven years, an' we know each other's
ways."
"But your son doesn't live very far away." Patty offered what solace she
might. "You must see Thomas very often."
"That an' I don't! You might as well have a husband dead, as a mile an'
a half away an' laid oop with rheumatism."
The clock pointed to a quarter of six, and the visitors rose. They had
still to walk half a mile and dress before dinner.
The old woman clung to Patty's hand at parting. She seemed to find more
comfort in the little stray sympathy that Patty had offered, than in all
her exuberant brood of grandchildren.
"Isn't it dreadful to be old, and just sit around waiting to die?" Patty
shuddered, as they faced the cold darkness outside.
"Dreadful!" Conny cordially agreed. "Hurry up! Or we'll be late for
dinner, and this is chicken night."
They turned homeward at a jog trot that left little breath for speech;
but Patty's mind was working as fast as her legs.
"I've got a perfectly splendid idea," she panted as she turned in at the
gate and trotted up the driveway toward the big lighted house that
spread wide wings to receive them.
"What?" they asked.
The quick insistent clang of the gong floated out to meet them, and on
the instant, hurrying figures flitted past the windows--the summons to
meals brought a readier response than the summons to study.
"I'll tell you after dinner. No time now," Patty returned as she peeled
off her coat.
They were unlacing their blouses as they clattered up the back stairs,
and pulling them over their heads in the upper hall.
"Go slow--please!" they implored of the down-going procession whose
track they crossed. Dinner was the only meal which might be approached
by the front stairs, which were carpeted instead of tinned.
Their evening frocks were fortunately in one piece, and they dove into
them with little ceremony. The three presented themselves flushed of
cheek and somewhat rumpled as to hair, but properly gowned and
apologetic, just as grace was ended. To be late for grace only meant one
demerit; the first course came higher, and the second higher still.
Punishment increased by geometrical progression.
During the half hour's intermission before evening study, the three
separated themselves from the dancers in the hall, and withdrew to a
corner of the deserted schoolroom.
Patty perched herself on a desk, and loudly stated her feelings.
"I'm tired of having the Dowager get up at prayers, and make a speech
about the beautiful Christmas spirit, and how sweet it is to make so
many little children happy, when she knows perfectly well that it's
just a lark for us. I'm chairman this year and I can do as I please.
I've had enough of this fake charity; and I'm not going to have any
Christmas tree!"
"No Christmas tree?" Conny echoed blankly.
"But what are you going to do with the thirty-seven dollars and
eight-four cents?" asked Priscilla, the practical.
"Listen!" Patty settled to her argument. "There aren't any children
around here who need a blessed thing, but Gramma and Granpa Flannigan
do. That poor old woman, who is just as nice as she can be, is crowded
in with all those horrid, yelling, sticky little Murphys; and Granpa
Flannigan is poked into Tammas Junior's kitchen, running errands for
Tammas Junior's wife, who is a per-fect-ly _terrible_ woman. She throws
kettles when she gets mad. Gramma worries all the time for fear he has
rheumatism, and nobody to rub on liniment, or make him wear the right
underclothes. They're exactly as fond of each other as any other
husband and wife, and just because Ursula wants to have callers, I say
it's a mean shame for them to be separated!"
"It is too bad," Conny agreed impartially. "But I don't see that we can
help it."
"Why, yes! Instead of having a Christmas tree, we'll rent that empty
little cottage down by the laurel walk, and mend the chimney--Patrick
can do that for nothing--and put in new windows, and furnish it, and set
them up in housekeeping."
"Do you think we can do it for thirty-seven dollars and eighty-four
cents?" Priscilla asked.
"That's where the charity comes in! Every girl in school will go without
her allowance for two weeks. Then we'll have more than a hundred
dollars, and you can furnish a house perfectly beautifully for that. And
it would be real charity to give up our allowances, because they are
particularly useful at Christmas time."
"But will the girls want to give their allowances?"
"We'll fix it so they'll have to," said Patty. "We'll call a mass
meeting and make a speech. Then everybody will file past and sign a
paper. No one will dare refuse with the school looking on."
Patty's fire kindled an answering flame in the other two.
"It is a good idea!" Conny declared.
"And it would be a lark, fixing the house," said Priscilla. "Almost as
much fun as getting married ourselves."
"Exactly," Patty nodded. "Those poor old things haven't had a chance to
see each other alone for years. We'll give 'em a honeymoon all over
again."
Patty was outwardly occupied with geometry the next hour, but her mind
was busy hemming sheets and towels and tablecloths. It being Thursday
evening, the hour between eight and nine was occupied with "manners."
The girls took turns in coming gracefully downstairs, entering the
drawing-room, announced by Claire du Bois in the rôle of footman, and
shaking hands with their hostesses--Conny Wilder, as dowager mama, and
towering above her, as débutante daughter, Irene McCullough, the
biggest girl in the school. The gymnasium teacher who assigned the
rôles, had a sense of humor. An appropriate remark was expected from
each guest, the weather being barred.
"Mrs. Wilder!" Priscilla gushed, advancing with outstretched hand, "and
dear little Irene! It doesn't seem possible that the child is actually
grown. It was only yesterday that she was a mite of a thing toddling
about--"
Priscilla was shoved on by Patty.
"Me dear Mrs. Wilder," she inquired in a brogue that would have put the
Murphys to shame, "have ye heard the news that's goin' round? Mr. and
Mrs. Tammas Flannigan have taken the Laurel Cottage for the season. They
are thinkin' of startin' a salon. They will be at home ivery afternoon
during recreation hour--and will serve limonade and gingerbread in
summer, and soup and sandwiches in winter. Ye must take Irene to call on
thim."
The moment "manners" was over, the three withdrew to the seclusion of
Patty's and Conny's room in Paradise Alley, and closed the door against
callers. Between nine and nine-thirty was the fashionable calling hour
at St. Ursula's. The time was supposed to be occupied in getting ready
for bed, but if one were clever about undressing in the dark, one might
devote the thirty minutes to social purposes.
"Gone to sleep! Don't disturb us!" the placard read that they impaled
upon the door, but the clatter of tongues inside belied the words.
"Isn't my idea fine about the lemonade and soup?" Patty demanded.
"The great thing about charity is not to make it charity. You must keep
people self-supporting," Priscilla quoted from their last lesson in
sociology.
"We'll fix little tables under the apple tree in summer and in the
parlor in winter," Patty planned, "and all the school girls and
automobiles will stop for lemonade. We'll charge the girls five cents a
glass and the automobiles ten."
"And I say, let's make Patrick and Tammas each contribute a dollar a
week toward their support," Conny proposed. "They must eat up a dollar's
worth of potatoes as they are living now."
They continued planning in whispers until long after "lights-out" had
rung; and Priscilla, in a laudable desire to be inconspicuous, was
obliged to crawl on hands and knees past Mademoiselle's open door,
before she gained her own room at the end of the corridor.
The moment recreation sounded the next afternoon, they obtained
permission to be out of bounds, and set off at a brisk trot. It was
their business-like intention to have all the statistics complete,
before submitting the matter to the assembled school.
"We'll first call on Patrick and Tammas and make 'em promise the
dollar," said Patty.
Patrick readily promised his dollar--Patrick was always strong in
promises--and the girls proceeded gaily to Tammas Junior's. They found
Granpa on the back doorstep anxiously wiping his feet; he was a
tremulous reed that bowed before every blast of the daughter-in-law's
tongue. Tammas Junior, after being taken aside and told the project,
thought he could manage two dollars a week. An expression of relief
momentarily took the hunted look from his eyes. He was clearly glad to
rescue his father from the despotic rule of his wife.
The girls turned away with their minds made up. It only remained to
secure the cottage, coerce the school, and hem the sheets.
"You go and price furniture and wall paper," Patty issued her orders,
"while I see about the rent. We'll meet at the soda-water fountain."
She found the real-estate man who owned the cottage established in an
office over the bank; and by what she considered rare business ability,
beat him down from nine dollars a month to seven. This stroke
accomplished, she intimated her readiness for the lease.
"A lease will not be necessary," he said. "A month to month verbal
agreement will do for me."
"I can't consider it without a lease," said Patty, firmly. "You might
sell or something, and then we'd have to move out."
The gentleman amusedly filled in the form, and signed as party of the
first part. He passed the pen to Patty and indicated the space reserved
for the signature of the party of the second part.
"I must first consult my partners," she explained.
"Oh, I see! Have them sign here, and then bring the lease back."
"All of them?" she asked, dubiously scanning the somewhat cramped
quarters. "I'm afraid there won't be room."
"How many partners have you?"
"Sixty-three."
He stared momentarily, then as his eye fell on the embroidered "St. U."
on Patty's coat sleeve, he threw back his head and laughed.
"I beg your pardon!" he apologized, "but I was a bit staggered for a
moment. I am not used to doing business on such a large scale. In order
to be legal," he gravely explained, "the paper will have to be signed by
all the parties to the contract. If there is not enough room, you might
paste on an er--"
"Annex?" suggested Patty.
"Exactly," he agreed and with grave politeness bowed her out.
As the bell rang that indicated the end of study that evening, Patty and
Conny and Priscilla jumped to their feet, and called a mass meeting of
the school. The door was closed after the retreating Miss Jellings, and
for half an hour the three made speeches separately and in unison. They
were persuasive talkers and they carried the day. The allowance was
voted with scarcely a dissenting voice, and the school filed past and
signed the lease.
For two weeks St. Ursula's was a busy place--and also Laurel Cottage.
Bounds were practically enlarged to include it. The girls worked in
gangs during every recreation hour. The cellar was whitewashed by a
committee of four, who went in blue, and came out speckled like a
plover's egg. Tammas Junior had volunteered for this job, but it was one
the girls could not relinquish. They did allow him to kalsomine the
ceilings and hang the wall paper; but they painted the floors and lower
reaches of woodwork themselves. The evening's hour of recreation no
longer found them dancing, but sitting in a solid phalanx on the stairs
hemming sheets and tablecloths. The house was to be furnished with a
completeness that poor Mrs. Flannigan, in all her married life, had
never known before.