GAY STREET SETTLES DOWN
Tramp, tramp, upon the little porch. Peter flung the door wide, and in
marched the four male members of the house of Bell. The door opened
hospitably at once into the living-room, so that the four were able at a
glance to see what had been accomplished, and they immediately gave
voice to their surprise. "Hi!" This was fifteen-year-old Rufus's
exclamation. "Hi! hi! Hip, hip, hurray-ay!"
"Well, well, they must have worked!" said Peter. "I was up here an hour
this morning, and they had n't got further than washing the windows."
"When it comes to hustling work, Mother Bell and corps can't be beaten,"
declared Ross McAndrew, the cousin of the Bells, a pleasant-faced lad of
eighteen.
There was a rush from the rear of the house, and Nancy was upon
them--Nancy, the twelve-year-old, with the thick brown braids and the
round, bright face. Ross caught her and swung her up to his shoulder,
where she struggled frantically.
"I 'm too old, Ross!" she pleaded, rumpling his curly fair hair in
revenge until it stood on end. "Put me down! Put me down at once!
O-oh, you 're bumping my head against the ceiling!"
He looked up and laughing swung her gently down. "It is n't a very
lofty apartment, is it, Nan? Did it hurt?"
"Only my feelings. Does n't it look nice here? Mother worked at the
kitchen, and Jane and I did all this. We wanted it to look like home
when you came."
"It does, indeed. But I must admit I 'm glad mother kept at the
kitchen," laughed her father, with a tweak of one fat braid. "It seems
too much to expect that we should have a meal to-night in all the
disorder, but Peter brought back word this morning that we were to
come."
"Indeed you are," said a voice from an inner doorway, and everybody
turned. A fresh white apron tied about her trim waist--where did she
find it in the confusion?--her beautiful hair in careful order, Mrs.
Bell beamed at her big family. "We've nothing but an Irish stew for
you, but we had it on this morning as soon as the fire was built, and
it's tender and fine."
"Good for you! We like nothing better. Where's Janey?"
"In the kitchen, trying to make places for you all at the kitchen table.
We could n't do anything with the dining-room. The paperer has only
just gone."
"Come on, you people!" called a blithe voice from the next room, and
Jane's face looked over her mother's shoulder. "Turn to the right as
you come through the door, and follow the wall round. I 've made a
passage that way, but you 're likely to get into perilous places if you
try to steer for yourselves."
In single file they followed directions, all but young Rufus, who
preferred leaping from box to barrel, and from table to trunk, and so
reached the haven of the kitchen first.
"_Whoo-p!_" he ejaculated. "Say, but this is jolly! _Mm-m_! Smell
that stew? Hope you 've lots of it?"
"All you can eat," responded Jane, confidently. "Now if you 'll let me
seat you all, I 'll make a place for every one. Mother to go first, at
the other end, in the chair--our only one available as yet. Next, Ross,
on the cracker-box, and Nan on the wood-box. Daddy's to have this
soap-box all to himself, with a cushion on it. Peter can sit on that
coal-hod, turned upside down."
There was a roar at this, and a protest from Peter. "'Can't I have a
newspaper to pad the top of it, sis?"
"If you will find one," Jane responded, unmoved. "Rufe will have to
take the top of that flour-barrel, and we 'll hand up his things."
Mrs. Bell was a famous cook, and understood well the quantity of food
necessary to appease the keen appetites of her big family, so the bowls
were replenished again and again, until all were satisfied, and still
the kettle was not quite empty.
"You're not much like a girl I saw to-day, Janey," remarked Peter,
balancing himself in the attempt to sit comfortably back upon his
coal-hod, while his sister removed the plates and set forth a dish of
baked apples and cream. Peter laughed at the recollection. "She was
too stately and languid to lift her eyes to look at me, after the first
frosty glance. We rode up town on the same street car yesterday, when I
was coming here to make sure the house was ready for us. It was the
rush hour, of course, and I gave her my seat. I think--yes, I really
think"--Peter paused to reflect--"she said, 'Thank you,' though since of
course I was n't looking at her as I took off my hat I did n't see her
lips move. She and I got off the car together, and came up Gay Street
together----"
[Illustration: "'YOU 'RE NOT MUCH LIKE A GIRL I SAW TODAY, JANEY'"]
"Together!" from Jane.
"On opposite sides of the street. She was a little ahead, for the car
stopped on her side. I looked across at her with interest as I came
along--wanted to find out what our neighbors were like, you know. She
was carrying a big muff, and had some things in it--been shopping, of
course. Oh, I don't mean parcels--she would n't be caught carrying a
parcel--but letters and a purse and a card-case and a
pocket-handkerchief, and so forth. Well, as we came along I noticed she
had dropped something--handkerchief, by the way it fluttered down. Of
course I bolted across the street, through six inches of spring mud,
grasped the article, and rushed after her. I said, 'Pardon me, but you
dropped your handkerchief,' and held it out. She took it, murmured
'Thank you!'--I saw her lips move this time--"and sailed on like a
queen. I took off my hat, waded back through the mud, and was
continuing on my thankless way----"
"Thankless!--I thought you just admitted she thanked you," objected
Ross, with a twinkle.
"It was one of those thankless thank-yous, just the same," explained
Peter, with gravity. "Well, as I say, I went on--like this
story--meditating upon her cordial manner, when I saw something else
fall from the capacious muff."
"You didn't!" Jane looked incredulous.
"Pardon me, I did. This time I did not bolt across the street; indeed,
I stopped to consider whether I should not shout, 'Hi, hi, there, you
've dropped your purse, lady!' like a street gamin. But reflecting on
the embarrassment this might cause me at some future date, when she and
I should really meet, I picked my way across again, seized the
pocketbook, and was about to pursue her, when she looked round and
caught me in the act of scrutinizing it, as one naturally does upon
picking up a gold-mounted, aristocratic affair like that, the like of
which he expects never----"
"Oh, go on!" Rufus could no longer endure his brother's tantalising
eloquence.
"I hastened to her side," continued Peter, who was gifted in the art of
putting things elaborately when he chose, "and remarked, 'I believe this
is yours?' She--now what, friends, would you naturally expect a girl to
do on receiving the third favour from a stranger within fifteen
minutes?"
"What did you expect? Did you suppose she would fly into your----"
"Did you want her to open the pocketbook and hand you a quarter, saying,
'Here, my honest lad----'"
"Think she 'd say, 'You must call and see father. He will give you a
position in his----'"
"Your suggestions are far-fetched and improbable. I expected none of
these things to happen. But consider the situation. Here was I,
crossing the street for the third time in the mud----"
"Go on!"
"Would n't you have thought, considering the absurdity of the
affair--her strewing things along the street like that--the least she
could have done would have been to----"
"Smile!" supplied Jane. "_Did n't_ she, Peter?"
"She did not," avowed Peter. "She just looked at me as if she thought I
had been about to steal her purse, took it, and went on, this time
without saying thank you!"
"Good gracious!" This from Ross. "She must be a nice girl to know.
And you look pretty well, too, Pete, in that blue suit."
"Where does she live?" Nancy inquired, her round face sympathetic with
Peter's mock humiliation.
"In the big house across the street. If you get out of milk or eggs,
Janey, don't hesitate to run across and borrow some," counselled Peter.
"Now if you 'll just make use of us all this evening," proposed Mr.
Bell, rising, "we can accomplish a good deal--eh, boys? Shall I open
the boxes and barrels, Martha?"
At this suggestion three more pairs of strong arms were put at Mrs.
Bell's service. She set every one at work at once.
"Yes, Joe, dear," she agreed, "if you will open the boxes, I 'll take
out the things and put them in place as far as I can. That's right,
Nancy, you help Jane with the dishes, and when they are done you can go
up stairs and make up the beds. Ross and Peter----"
"Yes, we 'll set up the beds," said Peter, with alacrity, anticipating
the division of work, "and uncrate the chests of drawers and the bedroom
furniture generally. Come on, Ross. You 're as much one of the family
as any of us now, since you helped us move, and a little family labour
like this will complete the job. Whoever lives with us has to learn to
be handy man about the house."
"I 'm ready." Ross looked it. There was an air of alertness about him,
for he was slimmer and lighter than Peter, and his fair curly hair made
him appear much younger, although only two years separated the ages of
the cousins.
"You will find the furniture mostly in the rooms where it belongs," Mrs.
Bell called after them. "Jane will be up soon and straighten you out,
if you get mixed. Rufus, suppose you go round after the others and
bring away all the litter they leave after the uncrating, and make a
neat pile of it in the wood-shed."
The steep and narrow little staircase ascended abruptly between walls
from the dining-room and led to low-ceiled regions above, which, to the
eyes of Murray and Shirley Townsend, from the big house across the
street, facing Worthington Square, would have seemed too cramped and
small of dimensions to be habitable, to say nothing of the possibility
of their ever being made comfortable. But the Bells were of the sort
who make the best of everything, and so far none of them had suggested
that the little house was not an abode fit for the finest.
"Jane and Nan in one room, Rufe and I in another, and Mr. Ross McAndrew
alone in state in this little one in the corner. I judge by the signs
that's the stowing of the crowd intended," speculated Peter, surveying
each room in turn.
"That corner room's as big as any. I don't think I ought to have it all
to myself," objected Ross.
"What, not that spacious eight-by-nine apartment, with one whole side
under the eaves?" laughed Peter. "Well, since we can't split ourselves
into halves, and like the family of the famous poem 'we are seven,' I
don't see but you 'll have to make the best of your loneliness. The beds
are only three-quarters size, and Rufe takes up less room than you do,
so he and I naturally chum it."
"All right. Let's make a start. Catch hold of that bureau, and heave
it around into place."
They fell to work with a will. Ross, the more lightly built, showed the
greater energy of the two, though Peter worked away quite as steadily.
But after an hour of hard labour Peter called a halt.
"Oh, let's put it through," and Ross bent over a box with undiminished
ardour.
His attitude appealed to Peter, spoiling for fun after a long day at the
factory, and in a twinkling he had tipped his cousin head first into the
nearly empty box. Shouts, laughter and a lively scuffle ensued--so
lively a scuffle, indeed, that Mr. Bell, Jane and Nancy, in the
dining-room below, energetically sweeping up the litter made by the
paperer, smiled at one another in mock dismay as the floor above
resounded with the pounding and scraping of boot-heels, and the very
walls of the small house trembled with the fray.
"Goodness, I should think it was elephants up there!" cried Nancy, and
ran half-way up the stairs to see what was going on.
Mr. Bell opened his mouth to say, "Tell them it's an old house, Nan, and
the ceiling 's cracked"--when the thing happened.
The ceiling was old, the house was not too solidly built, and the battle
above had reached its height when, quite without warning, down upon the
freshly cleaned floor fell a great mass of plaster. The powdery lime
rose in a suffocating cloud and covered Jane and her father with dust
and debris.
It was a minute more before the combatants, wrestling furiously over the
bare floors above, could be made to understand by a horrified young
person, who shrieked the news at them from the top of the staircase, the
havoc they had wrought.
But when they comprehended what had happened they hurried downstairs.
"Well, of all the----" Ross was too shocked to finish.
"I say, but we've done it now, have n't we?" exclaimed Peter, in
disgust. "Janey--dad--it did n't hurt you, did it?"
"Only my pride--and my hair," answered Jane, as she vainly tried to
brush her curly locks free from plaster.
"It's a shame! Why didn't you stop us? Clumsy louts! Pulling the place
down about our ears the very first night!"
"And how we hurried that paper man, to get him through to-night!"
lamented Nancy, brushing off her father with anxious fingers. "We were
going to have the dining-room all settled to-morrow----"
"And to-morrow 's a holiday," murmured Jane, from under her hair.
She was bending forward, with her head at her knees, while Mrs. Bell
shook out the clinging lumps from the tangle of hair in which they were
caught.
"It's a quarter of ten," announced Rufus, cheerfully. "Do we have to
clear this up to-night?"
"I should say so!" Ross caught up a broom.
"It's the least we can do. Get a box, will you, Rufe, and let's have
the worst over. Pete and I will do the job, and the rest of you can go
upstairs and dance a hornpipe over our heads. If you will throw things
at us from time to time down the stairs it may relieve your feelings."
"Don't feel too badly. I had a notion all the time that that ceiling
ought to have been pulled down before we papered the room; it looked old
and shaky to me. Now we 'll have a new one that will stand
pillow-fights as long as we live here," said Mrs. Bell, smiling at the
rueful countenance of her nephew.
"Right you are, and I'll have a man here to put that plaster on in the
morning, holiday or no holiday," promised Peter.
In ten minutes the plaster had been swept up, Jane's hair had received a
thorough brushing, Mr. Bell had been relieved of several lumps which had
worked their way down his back, and the family went to bed in as good
spirits as if nothing had happened.
The next morning Peter started early in quest of a plasterer to restore
the ceiling, and finding it by no means easy to discover one who cared
to work when he might play, came home after two hours' search baffled
but still determined. A passing acquaintance gave him a clue, and he was
presently hurrying across the street in search of the Townsends'
coachman, whose brother, the acquaintance had said, might be persuaded
to do the job.
In the stables, much to his astonishment, he came fairly upon the girl
whose propensity for losing things he had described with so much gusto
the evening before.
"I beg your pardon," he said, quickly--he seemed to be always begging
her pardon--"but I was looking for your coachman. I--he--I hoped he
could tell me the name--that is, of course he knows the name--I mean, I
wanted his brother's address."
Peter was no stammerer, and it irritated him very much to be saying all
this so awkwardly, but there was something about the cool dark eyes of
this girl, as she stood looking at him, which rather disconcerted him.
She had evidently just dismounted from her horse, and now Peter observed
two things--first that she was rather oddly pale, and second, that her
side-saddle had slipped, and rested at an altogether improper angle upon
the horse's back. As he saw this he came forward.
"What is the matter?" he asked quickly. "You haven't had a fall? You
didn't ride this way, of course?"
"Yes, I did," she answered, lifting her head rather high, and then
suddenly drooping it again.
"How far? When did it slip? Were you alone?" Peter examined the
side-saddle.
"It began to slip--back--at--the boulevard," said the girl, rather
slowly. "I--I don't know just how I kept on, but I did. Lewis is n't
here. He ought to be. I can't put up Blackthorn myself."
"Let me do it for you." Peter took the bridle from her. He soon had
the horse in the stall and had put away the saddle and bridle.
"That was a plucky thing to do," declared Peter, coming back to the
stable door, where the girl had dropped into the coachman's chair, "to
ride home with a slipping saddle. But you ought not to have done it,
you know. It might have slipped a lot more with a jerk, and thrown you.
See here, you 're not feeling just right, are you? Shall I call
somebody?"
"No, no!" She started up. "If mother knew the least thing went wrong
she would n't let me ride at all. If you--if you just would n't mind
staying here a little, till I feel like myself again----"
"Why, of course I will"--and Peter stayed.
It was only for a few minutes, and meanwhile Lewis, the coachman, had
returned, and the matter of the loose saddle-girth had been fully
discussed by all three. Then Peter took his way home.
Jane met him at the door. "Did you find where the plasterer lives?" she
asked, eagerly.
Peter stared at her, turned about, and gazed across the street, as if he
expected to see a plasterer following in his path, trowel and float in
hand. Then he burst into a laugh. He mumbled something which sounded
like a very peculiar name, if it was a name, and rapidly retraced his
footsteps across the street, to make his inquiry of Lewis, the coachman.