PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
After the picnickers had finished luncheon they still sat about the
remains of the feast, talking busily of what they hoped to accomplish
during the coming year.
Elfreda was full of plans as to what she intended to do when she had
finished her course in the law school and passed the bar. "When I'm a
full-fledged lawyer----" she began.
"You mean a lawyeress," corrected Emma. "Don't contradict me. Let me
explain. True the word's not in the dictionary. I just coined it. I'm
going to teach it and its uses in my classes this fall. I shall begin by
referring to my friend, Miss J. Elfreda Briggs, the distinguished
lawyeress. That will excite the curiosity of my classes. Then instead of
satisfying that curiosity as to Lawyeress Briggs' personal and private
history I shall gently lead them to a serious contemplation of the word
itself. Once in use, I'll have it put in a revised edition of the
dictionary. It's high time there were a few new words introduced into
the English language. I can make up beautiful ones and not half try.
It's so easy."
"And the faculty trusted her to teach English," murmured Miriam.
There was a chorus of giggles at this observation, in which even Emma
joined.
"Make up some new words now," challenged Julia Emerson.
"Not when I'm on a picnic," refused Emma firmly. "'Work while you work
and play while you play.' I came out to play."
"Our play days end to-night," smiled Grace. "At least mine do."
"Mine, too," echoed Arline. "Really, girls, you haven't any idea of how
busy settlement work keeps one. I spend several hours each day at the
rooms which Father let me have fitted up for a Girls' Club, and I visit
the very poor people, and almost every evening I have a class or a
meeting. One evening I go to a little chapel on the East Side to tell
stories to children, and I teach classes two other nights. There's
always something extra coming up, too. Father isn't exactly pleased over
it. He thinks I work too hard. Now that Ruth is going to spend the
winter with me I'll make her help. She is the laziest person. She hasn't
accomplished a single thing since she found her father."
"He wouldn't let me," defended Ruth. "It has been hard labor to persuade
him to allow me to stay in New York this winter. Besides I believe that
my business of life, for the present, at least, is to try to make up for
some of the years we spent apart."
"Good for you, Ruth," applauded Miriam. "You and I are of the same mind.
Only I'm enlisted in the cause of a mother instead of a father. But all
this leads up to what I intended to tell you girls before we separated.
We are going to New York City for the winter. David is going into
business there."
"To New York!" came simultaneously from Arline and Grace. There were
murmurs of surprise from the other girls. J. Elfreda Briggs alone smiled
knowingly.
"What are we to do in Oakdale without you, at Christmas time, Miriam?"
asked Grace mournfully. "The Eight Originals Plus Two can't celebrate
unless you are with them. Somehow every year we've all managed to gather
home at Christmas. Now if you go to New York to live next winter perhaps
David won't be able to leave his business, and your mother will need you
and----"
"And do I live to hear Grace Harlowe borrowing trouble?" broke in Emma
Dean. "Our intrepid, dauntless, invincible Grace!"
"I'm afraid you do," admitted Grace. "I couldn't help mourning a little.
It was all so sudden. Anne, aren't you astonished?"
"Anne looks as though she'd known it a long while," observed Elfreda
shrewdly.
"I knew David was going into business in New York," confessed Anne, her
face flushing, "but I didn't know the rest."
"Neither did I, until this morning," smiled Miriam.
"It seems as though we are the only persons in this august body that
haven't any plans," declared Julia Emerson wistfully. "Here are Grace,
Anne and Emma, regular salaried individuals. Arline is a busy little
worker. Miriam and Ruth are at least useful members of society, and
Elfreda is an aspiring professional. Sara and I are just the Emerson
twins, with no lofty aims in view, or deeds of glory to perform."
"You and Sara are not quite useless," comforted Emma. "Just think what a
continual source of inspiration you are to me. Some of my finest
observations on life have been prompted by my acquaintance with you."
"I'm glad we are of some account in the world," grinned Sara. "I'd
really quite forgotten about you, Emma. Thank you so much for reminding
me."
"Oh, not at all," Emma beamed patronizingly upon her. "No matter how
much others may malign you, I am still your friend."
"Emma Dean, you ridiculous creature, why won't you take us seriously?"
laughed Julia, but her voice still held an undercurrent of wistfulness.
"Does the fact that we are twins have this hilarious effect upon you?"
"I wonder if that's the reason," murmured Emma. Then dropping her usual
bantering tone, she fixed earnest eyes on the black-eyed twins.
"Seriously, Julia and Sara, I know just the way you feel about having no
particular life work picked out. When I went home after I was graduated
from Overton I hadn't the least idea of where I'd fit in in life. Then I
found that Father needed my help, and I've been head over ears in work
ever since. One never knows what may happen, or how quickly one's work
may find one. It may not be what one would like it to be, but it will
undoubtedly be the best thing in life for one, and one is likely to see
it coming around the corner at almost any minute."
"That's very, very true." It was Grace who spoke. "Don't you remember
how I worried about finding my work, and it walked directly up to me and
introduced itself on Commencement day?"
"I never dreamed that the stage would put me through college and be my
work afterward," broke in Anne. "When first I went to Oakdale I supposed
I had left it behind forever. But it must have been my destiny after
all."
"I guess it's just about as well in the long run not to worry about what
your work is going to be until it knocks at your door," observed
Elfreda. "Children are always planning and talking about what they're
going to do and be when they grow up; then they always do something
different. What do you suppose I used to say I was going to be when I
grew up?"
"Some perfectly absurd thing," anticipated Miriam. Eight pairs of amused
eyes fixed themselves expectantly on Elfreda.
"Well," Elfreda chuckled reminiscently, "my aim and ambition was to be a
cook. Not because I was so deeply in love with cooking, but because I
liked to eat. No wonder I was fat. I used to haunt the kitchen on baking
days and shriek with an outraged stomach afterward. The shrieking
occurred most frequently in the middle of the night. Then Ma would come
to my rescue, and I'd be forbidden to sample the baking again. So to
console myself in my banishment I'd resolve that when I grew up I'd be a
cook and live in a kitchen all the time. I reasoned that if I _was_ a
cook I'd know how to make everything in the world to eat and could have
what I pleased. Besides no one would dare tell me I couldn't have this
or that. This was all very consoling during the times I had to keep out
of the kitchen. Generally in about a week's time Ma would relent, and,
as our cook was fond of me, I'd be reinstated in my beloved realm of
eats. But it was during these periods of exile that my ambition always
rose to fever heat. Then our old cook got married, and I didn't like our
new one. She didn't appreciate my companionship on baking days. Our old
cook had always encouraged me in my ambition. She used to tell me long
tales about the places where she had worked and the cooking feats she
had performed. The new cook said I was a nuisance, and complained to Ma.
So my ambition died for lack of encouragement, but my appetite didn't. I
became an outlaw instead and made raids on the baking. So that
particular cook and I were always at war. About that time Ma began
giving me a regular allowance, so I haunted the baker and candy shops
instead of the kitchen, and the cook idea declined. In fact all I know
about cooking now, I learned at Wayne Hall, in the interest of my
friends," she finished.
Elfreda's reminiscence awoke a train of sleeping memories in the minds
of the others, and for the next hour the quiet woodland echoed with
their mirth over the curious, quaint and ridiculous aims and fancies of
their childhood. The talk gradually drifted back to serious things and
went on so earnestly that it was well after four o'clock before the
party began to make reluctant preparations to return to the cottage.
"It has been a perfect day and a perfect picnic," declared Grace as she
smiled lovingly at her friends. "We'll never forget Elfreda's house
party."
"I'm going to have you with me at this time every year if it is
possible," planned Elfreda. "So when September comes next year just mark
off the last two weeks on the calendar as set aside for the Briggs'
reunion and arrange your affairs accordingly. Is it a go?"
"Hurrah for the Briggs' reunion," cheered Arline.
The cheers were given and the picnickers started up the hill to where
their automobiles were stationed. Grace and Elfreda brought up the rear
with the luncheon hamper.
"That's dear in you to ask us here every year, Elfreda," said Grace.
"It's a splendid way for us always to keep in touch with one another.
You are forever doing nice things for others."
"Others," retorted Elfreda, gruffly. "I'm the most selfish person that
ever lived. I'm not planning half so much to make you girls happy as I
am to be happy myself. Every time I think that I might have gone to some
other college and never have known you and Miriam and Anne, it nearly
gives me nervous prostration. By the way, Grace, I have an idea Miriam
is going to find her work pretty suddenly. I could see at commencement
that Mr. Southard was in love with her. She didn't know it then. She
knows it now though, and she likes him."
"You certainly _can_ see what is hidden from the eyes of the rest of us.
How do you know she knows it?"
"Oh, she was talking to me the other day about Anne, and she mentioned
Mr. Southard's name in a kind of self-conscious way, not in the least
like her usual self. I could almost swear she blushed, but I couldn't
quite see that," grinned Elfreda.
"I'm surprised," laughed Grace; then she added slowly, "I've known for a
long time that Mr. Southard was in love with Miriam. Anne discovered it
at commencement, too. I hope Miriam _does_ love him. Somehow they seem
so perfectly suited to each other. I never could quite fancy she and
Arnold Evans as being in love."
"It looks as though you'd soon be the only unengaged member of the
Originals," remarked Elfreda innocently.
Grace's face clouded. Elfreda had touched upon a sore subject. Just
before leaving Oakdale on her visit to Elfreda she had seen Tom. He had
not renewed his old plea, but Grace knew that he was still waiting and
hoping for the words that would make him happy.
"Elfreda," her voice trembled a little, "you know, I think, that Tom
wishes me to marry him. I'm sorry, but I can't. I just can't. I suppose
I'll be the odd member of the feminine half of the Originals, but I
can't help it. My work still means more to me than life with Tom, and
I'm never going to give it up. So there."
Elfreda nodded. Her nod expressed more than words, but secretly she had
a curious presentiment that Grace would one day wake up to the fact that
she had make a mistake. Still there was no use in telling her so. It
might make her still more stubborn in her resolve. Elfreda greatly
admired Tom, and, with her usually quick perception, had estimated him
at his true worth. "He's worthy of her, and she's worthy of him," was
her mental summing up, "and it strikes me that '_never_' is a pretty
long time. Whether she can shut love out of her life forever, just for
the sake of her work, is a problem that nobody but Grace Harlowe can
solve."