You wouldn't have recognized Gloomy House if you had seen it before the
Andrews girls' ministrations and then walked into it in company with
those gay young people on Thanksgiving noon. All spick and span and as
gloomless as a house should be on that wonderful day, it was made cheery
by leaping flames in the big fireplaces, and by gorgeous, flaunting
chrysanthemums in tall vases. Mr. Huntington was all dressed up for the
occasion and came forward to greet the guests, now in their best
clothes, just as if he had not said good-by to most of them an hour
earlier when they ran out the back door toward their school, clad in
checked aprons and equipped with scrubbing brushes and brooms and mops.
Mrs. Forest, of course, had not been one of the broom brigade, nor of
the more aristocratically occupationed cooking contingent, either. She
swept magnificently into the room and gave Mr. Huntington a high
handshake that was meant to impress him very much, but didn't.
"I think the dinner is nearly ready," called a gay little voice from the
kitchen, and Peggy's head was thrust through the doorway, all bright
with its crooked dimples much in evidence. Her fair hair was curling
moistly around her forehead and her face was all pink and hot from being
so near the stove for so long a time.
"It's been a terrible ordeal if you want to know it," complained
Florence Thomas, her assistant, laughing as they brought the dinner to
the table. "I feel all sizzled up and roasted, and both my hands are cut
and burned beyond recognition. But if _anyone ever_ saw such a wonderful
dinner before, I envy them the experience, that's all."
The long-unused table at Huntington House was one of the most gorgeous
sights that the hungry eyes of school-girls ever beheld. Mr. Huntington
himself looked as if he could hardly believe he was awake when he saw
its lavish magnificence.
The girls in their enthusiasm had given the dinner many touches that
more experienced housewives would never have happened to think of. The
color scheme was golden orange and brown. The center-piece was a
triumphant pumpkin hollowed out and scalloped and laden with oranges,
grapes, and very red apples. The turkey smoked in the middle of the
table with the vegetable dishes clustered around it. And in most
beautiful script, worked out in nuts and stem raisins arranged on the
tablecloth, was the word "Thanksgiving."
At each place was the "grind" with the person's name on it, and such
shrieks of laughter as filled the room while the girls, the principal
and the old man trouped around the table reading the funny legends,
examining the ridiculous souvenirs appended, all in a hurried and eager
endeavor to find their own places! Not nearly all of the girls could sit
at the table--there were sixty in the school,--but the grinds were
arranged near together and then each girl took her plate with a
plentiful helping of everything and sat down in one of the chairs by the
fireplace or against the wall of the great dining-room.
Mr. Huntington was not "ground" so very badly, after all. He found at
his place a quaint little box painted to represent a house, with tiny
doors and windows marked on it. It bore the legend "Gloomy House," and
falling from the door were weird little pasteboard roly-poly objects
labeled "Glooms." These were flat but stood erect by virtue of wee
standards at the back pasted to the paper yard of the house. They were
in all attitudes of scurrying away with ridiculous faces expressing
grief. A slip of paper invited: "Lift the roof of Gloomy House and see
why the Glooms flee."
Mr. Huntington laughed with the rest, but his hand slightly trembled as
he slowly lifted the roof of the little pasteboard house. Inside were
sixty fudge hearts and a further assurance, "Sixty hearts of sixty
girls."
Could it be possible that there were tears in his eyes to make them
glisten suddenly like that? Peggy looked down at her grind to hide the
sudden swift seriousness that passed over her own face, when her eyes
met something so incredible that she burst into shrieks of laughter. She
had prepared most of the grinds with the others, but of course hers had
been kept a secret and she had not seen it until this minute. Hers and
Katherine's were in one, being nothing more nor less than two smashed
dolls somewhat jumbled up in appearance, one wearing a blue Peter
Thompson and the other a red coat. There were black and blue bumps
painted on their dented foreheads. Around the waist of the red-coated
doll went a ribbon on which was lettered frantically,
"S.O.S., S.O.S."
And around the blue-dressed one a ribbon declared,
"I'll save you! I'll save you."
The verse that accompanied it went as follows:
"Humpty and Dumpty met on a hill.
Humpty and Dumpty had a great spill.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty or Dumpty together again."
When full duty had been done to the main dinner the beautiful pumpkin
and mince pies that were Katherine Foster's own effort were brought in
with wild cheers to greet them, that not even the pokes and taps and
frowns of Mrs. Forest could do anything to check.
"Miss Parsons--" began Mr. Huntington, rising in his place.
"Peggy," she corrected from the other end of the room.
"Peggy," he began again, "asked me to let her go through with this
experiment in order that some day I might conscientiously recommend her
for a cook. And I want to say--" he raised his voice, "that after the
spread I've had to-day I'm willing and anxious to recommend any one of
you sixty girls, domestic science class or otherwise, to anything in the
United States that you may want."
The girls interrupted with joyous laughter.
"And if there _is_ anything any of you can think of now that she'd
especially like to have, I'll do my best to get it for her," he
continued.
The girls, of course, took it all as merely a polite speech and liked it
very much, but Mrs. Forest felt that here was an Opportunity, spelled
with a capital. She carefully brushed the crumbs from her lap and rose,
while to their horror the girls heard her say, "If your kind offer
includes all of us, Mr. Huntington, there is one thing we all want very
much and perhaps you would be willing to help us a little toward--"
Peggy coughed at this minute so violently that she completely distracted
the attention of everyone from Mrs. Forest, and it was some three
minutes before the spasm was entirely over and other sounds could be
heard again. Peggy was exhausted from the wracking efforts of that cough
and she sat limply back hoping for the best. But Mrs. Forest was suavely
beginning again.
"To go back to what I started to ask, Mr. Huntington, there is one thing
that Andrews has wanted for a long time and a little contribution--"
Here, oddly enough, Katherine was seized with a fit of coughing that
rivaled Peggy's in violence and duration.
"Somebody else will have to think up something better next time," she
whispered out of the corner of her mouth a few minutes later as her
gaspings ceased. "It isn't _natural_ to have any more of us affected
that way."
"Poor girls," murmured Mrs. Forest, "they must have gotten overheated
getting the dinner and this room is cooler. Well, as I was about to
say--"
At this point Florence Thomas quietly fainted dead away and toppled into
a little chiffon heap on the hearth rug.
A slight titter of delight rippled through the room, incongruously
enough, and Mrs. Forest glared at the offenders.
"Why, how heartless of you," she said, bending with difficulty and
lifting her pupil's limp head and patting her perfectly normally rosy
face. "Have you some whisky, Mr. Huntington? In an emergency of this
kind I think it is perhaps permissible to give it--"
But before Mr. Huntington returned, Florence was beginning to sigh her
way back to consciousness and her eyes fluttered open and she shook her
head when the spoon with the whisky was offered.
"Why--why--where am I--did I--faint or something?" she murmured
innocently, and dangerous as they knew their mirth to be, this was too
much for the girls and they shouted out their appreciation in laughter
that was beyond their efforts to control.
Of course Mrs. Forest must have understood, but someway they didn't
care. She would have to be "sport enough to stand for it," in their own
way of putting it. And she seemed to be, for she did not pursue the
subject of the contribution further in their hearing, and how could they
know that she tagged Mr. Huntington into the library while they were all
clearing off the dishes and put the whole proposition to him there in
what Peggy would have called her graftiest way?
When the girls themselves came into the library for the great game of
bean auction which was always one of the merriest features of an Andrews
spread, Mrs. Forest was looking quite unconscious of any rude intentions
and Mr. Huntington's expression was one of whole-hearted joy and
happiness, so they could not even guess what had transpired.
On the library table was piled a fascinating collection of little
packages, wrapped in varicolored paper, some daintily tied with ribbon,
others knotted about by the coarsest twine. These were of all shapes and
some looked soft and others hard. "Nothing over ten beans," was the
inscription placarded above them.
Each girl had brought one package which was to be auctioned off for
beans distributed in equal numbers among the bidders.
"Only ten beans for each person," warned Peggy as she doled the smooth
little white objects into outstretched hands, "so don't bid recklessly."
By careful hoarding it was sometimes possible to buy in several articles
for one's ten beans--in which case, of course, some bidder who waited
too long went without anything.
Just as Katherine Foster took her place as auctioneer, Mr. Huntington
went out of the room and came back in a few minutes with a curious,
awkward looking bundle, very small and done up in brown wrapping paper,
which he laid among the other flaunting offerings. Few of the girls
noticed his action in the confusion of finding good floor space to sit
on, but Peggy saw his hand drop the queer little package and she
determined then and there to bid on it, so that he would think the girls
wanted his article as well as those they had brought for each other.
Rows and rows of eager figures seated on the floor in spite of crisp
taffeta and pretty satin gowns, raised flushed faces toward the
auctioneer as she lifted the first package with maddening deliberation
and read its advertisement,
"Whatever young girl looks at me
Something bright and fair will see."
The wrapping was the gayest of red tissue paper and the spangled ribbon
that went around it made it seem the most desirable affair the girls had
ever looked at.
"Two beans--" shouted Florence Thomas joyously.
"Ladies and--and gentleman in the singular--" cried the auctioneer, "I
am insulted by the offer of two
beans--_two--insignificant--white--beans_--for this gorgeous and
inspiring package, with goodness knows what all inside. Now come,
friends, hasn't some young lady the wish to--" she consulted the
advertisement attached to the bundle again, "to see something bright and
fair?"
"Five beans!" offered Daphne Damon from the back row of bidders.
"Going--going--" began the auctioneer, when Mrs. Forest, who had chosen
a big armchair, from which to view the proceedings, rather than the
floor, woke up to sudden interest in disposing of her beans, and
ignoring the specification of the first part of the package's
announcement, called out condescendingly, "Ten beans!"
Of course nobody could bid any higher than that and the prize was
knocked down to "that lady over there, with the black silk dress and the
diamond earrings."
Amid a breathless silence Mrs. Forest unwrapped her purchase and
disclosed an attractive little vanity mirror,--but, oh, for the faith
that you can put in advertisements,--when she held it before her face
and looked at it she didn't see anything bright and fair at all!
The auctioneer's voice was already announcing the next article. This was
an alluring thing in green tissue.
"Somebody's heart and soul was in this," Katherine read out impressively
from its advertisement.
Florence Thomas bid it in for seven beans and opened it to find the sole
of a worn out slipper and a heart-shaped candy box.
The pile steadily dwindled but Katherine did not pick up Mr.
Huntington's package until near the end. It certainly did not look
inviting. Peggy's heart gave a bound as it was lifted high in the air
and the auctioneer began to praise it. She felt so sorry for Mr.
Huntington that he did not know how to make his offering as attractive
as theirs. She was sure nobody would bid their last few beans on that
when there were still several delectable looking bundles on the table.
And, to make it worse, the inscription that was supposed to extol its
virtues merely said, "This isn't worth as much as people think." Why,
mercy, no one in his right senses could think it worth _anything_ done
up so roughly as that! In a swift generous impulse Peggy bid "Ten
beans!" in a loud voice, and with a glance of surprise and pity,
Auctioneer Katherine handed her the prize in silence.
Peggy rather hesitated to open the poor little thing there before them
all, but, glancing up, she saw Mr. Huntington's eyes upon her with a
curiously bright gaze. Something about the anticipation in his look
reassured her and she tore off the wrapping hastily at last. There was a
red cigarette box inside and she blushed furiously.
"I guess this was meant for the one man of our party," Florence said,
peering over her shoulder and tapping it humorously.
But Peggy was beginning to be certain that the box had only been used
because it was the right size and that there was something--possibly
even something interesting--inside. Gingerly she lifted the cover and
drew out two slips of paper folded, then unwrinkling them on her knee
she looked down and gasped, while a wave of brighter crimson swept over
her face.
The first was a check for five thousand dollars! It was made out to
Andrews, with a ticket attached saying, "For the new gymnasium." The
other was a check for one hundred dollars made out to bearer, with a
note to explain, "for use in giving other people kind little parties as
you all have to-day given me!"
What did it mean? Peggy stared across at her friend, and found him
smiling delightedly that she had been the one to bid it in. _Poor_ Mr.
Huntington! Never again could they call him that--why, why--Mr.
Huntington was _rich_, fabulously and wonderfully and _generously_ rich,
and they had never known. Through her mind flitted the memory of his
remark about the recurring rumors that caused people to come to him in
search of donations to various things. Again she thought of that odd
phrase of his, "When one is piling up one's fortune--"
"Oh," she gasped, the deliciousness of their "charity" party sweeping
over her. "Oh, how strange everything is all of a sudden! I think,
perhaps, I'm asleep or something, this is just the crazy, impossible way
things go in dreams. Florence, please pinch me."
But when Florence did, she yelled "Ouch" in a voice that was wide awake
enough, so she knew those uncanny checks in her hands were real.
"The gymnasium is to be named Parson's Hall," smiled Mr. Huntington,
"that's the condition, and it's really to be Peggy's gift to the school.
The school would never have had it--that is from me--on any other score.
The small check is Peggy's own--and I waited until I saw your eyes
watching me, child, before I laid the package on the table, for I hoped
you'd be the one to bid for it out of the kindness of your heart."
Mrs. Forest had turned pale at the mention "gymnasium" and now she
jumped from her chair and made her way to Peggy's side with an almost
youthful alacrity.
"How--wonderful, how delightful, how kind, how thoughtful, how perfectly
splendid," she cried, reading the check with dazzled eyes. "Mr.
Huntington, I thank--"
"Thank Peggy," he said, somewhat shortly and walked over to the
fireplace.
Peggy's heart was full of happiness. To be able to give something to
Andrews that would last always and would bear her name!
How beautiful that was! This school that had already meant so much to
her in friendships and worth while knowledge not all out of books,--how
very glad she would be to come back to it some day and see the neat
little gymnasium, with her name on the building, full of romping girls
that loved each other as she and Katherine did, and had the same
glorious, care-free outlook on life that she had now!
"I wish I could say--half of what I'm thinking," she murmured, looking
gratefully up at Mr. Huntington with moist eyes.
He merely smiled. "Or I wish that _I_ myself could, after a day like
to-day," he answered after a time.
A kind of quiet settled down on the girls and they talked in low pitched
voices, laughing only in a comfortable undertone while the sense of
homelikeness and good feeling grew and grew and struck deeply into each
heart, bringing those inner visions that belong to Thanksgiving day, but
need just the right atmosphere to make them perfect.
Sixty separate groups of dear home people were being vividly pictured in
that one great room, sixty different houses were suddenly mentally
erected within that house. Ever and ever so many beloved voices were
imagined right in among the murmuring _real_ voices of the friends about
them.
And, contradictory as it may seem, keeping pace with their happy
contentment in the moment went a big, aching, sweeping longing in each
girl's mind for just one minute in mother's arms, one instant of her
dear, real, understanding presence. And from under sixty pairs of lashes
bright tear drops were fought back, while each girl, wrapped up in her
own heart-ache, believed that she alone was experiencing anything like
this and that the others were all as free from such homeward thoughts as
they had been when screaming with laughter a few hours ago over the
grinds in the dining-room.
Thus all our experiences we go through much more in common with the rest
of mankind than we suppose. But this is especially so in school and
college, where a great number of young people of the same age and of
more or less the same station in life are placed in exactly similar
environment. The same tears, the same laughter, the same desires and the
same satisfactions all girls who have gone away to school have felt in
varying degree. And now here sat this roomful of girls, each suffering
in the same new and unexpected way at the same time and each believing
her mental situation to be strangely different from anything ever
experienced in the world before.
The spell had even affected Mrs. Forest, too, for when she rose to
gather up her flock she gave a great sigh and spoke with a curious
gentleness that the girls had never associated with her pompous tones.
"I think, young ladies, it is time we went back to our school, now. And
I'm sure we'll join in thanking Mr. Huntington for the best time we have
had this season. And we are very grateful for his most kind gift to
Andrews. If he would care to come to our school musicales and
entertainments nobody would be a more welcome guest than he. Get your
wraps, young ladies, and we will take our departure."
The girls scrambled up from the floor and went reluctantly to the hall,
where they slipped into great fur coats, and fastened rubbers on their
daintily shod feet.
"Good-by, good-by," they called from the door, and troops and troops of
them went down the whitened walk, laughing back expressions of
appreciation.
Peggy had whispered in Mrs. Forest's ear just as she was about to leave,
and Mrs. Forest had nodded her head graciously. So Peggy went to
Katherine and drew her back from the crowds of those preparing to go
home, and when the rest had gone the two girls went back to the fire and
sat down in great arm-chairs on either side of it, while Mr. Huntington
mused into the blue flames and began to see there a picture of something
that had happened long ago.
"So you want to hear why I have to be alone on Thanksgiving day unless
outsiders take pity on me, do you?" he asked, for Peggy had begged him
at the door to tell her about his daughter and the grandson that would
be older than she. It was daring, but she felt very strongly that
someway Mr. Huntington wanted to talk, wanted to tell someone, and she
believed she and Katherine and he were good enough friends now to make
it possible for him to tell his story to them.
"Well," hesitated the old man-- The girls settled themselves more
comfortably in the great chairs and leaned forward, their chins in their
hands, while the whimsical light of the fire played over them now in
rose-colored flickers of light, now in lavender brilliance.
"I suppose I'd better begin at the beginning," said Mr. Huntington, and
in a quiet, halting, reminiscent voice began his strange story.