CHAPTER I_Laughing Last

[Illustration: "DO YOU KNOW, IT WAS LIKE A PIRATE'S SHIP"]

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LAUGHING LAST

JANE ABBOTT

AUTHOR OF

HIGHACRES, KEINETH, RED ROBIN, Etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

E. CORINNE PAULI

[Illustration]

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

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FRANCES STANTON SMITH

WHOSE LOYAL INTEREST IN MY WORK IS AN

UNFAILING HELP TO ME, I AFFECTIONATELY

DEDICATE THIS BOOK

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CONTENTS

I THE EGG

II REBELLION

III POLA LIFTS A CURTAIN

IV SIDNEY DIGS FOR COUSINS

V THE SUMMER WILL TELL WHO LAUGHS LAST

VI SUNSET LANE

VII WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE

VIII MR. DUGALD EXPLAINS

IX SIDNEY TELLS "DOROTHEA"

X MAIDS

XI INDEPENDENCE

XII SIDNEY BELONGS

XIII PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS

XIV WORDS THAT SING

XV CAP'N PHIN

XVI POLA

XVII PEACOCKS

XVIII "HOOK"

XIX THE GLEAM

XX "THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG"

XXI WHAT THE NIGHT HELD

XXII "YOU NEED A BIG BROTHER"

XXIII DIAMONDS

XXIV WHAT THE DAY HELD

XXV NO ONE LAUGHS LAST

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ILLUSTRATIONS

"Do You Know, It was Like a Pirate's Ship"

Her Eyes Fell Upon an Entry on Another Page

Captain Davies Drew a Letter from His Pocket and Tapped It with His Finger

She Spied Approaching Figures--Trude and Mr. Dugald, Walking Slowly

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LAUGHING LAST

CHAPTER I

THE EGG

"I beg your pardon, but it's _my_ turn to have the Egg!"

Three pairs of eyes swept to the sunny window seat from which

vantage-ground Sidney Romley had thrown her protest. Three mouths gaped.

"_Yours--_"

"Why, Sid--"

"Fifteen-year-olders don't have turns!" laughed Victoria Romley, who

was nineteen and very grown up.

Though inwardly Sidney writhed, outwardly she maintained a calm

firmness. The better to impress her point she uncurled herself from the

cushions and straightened to her fullest height.

"It's because I _am_ fifteen that I am claiming my rights," she

answered, carefully ignoring Vicky's laughing eyes. "Each one of you

has had the Egg twice and I've never had a cent of it--"

"Sid, you forget I bought a rug when it was my last turn and you enjoy

that as much as I do," broke in her oldest sister.

Sidney waved her hand impatiently. She had rehearsed this scene in the

privacy of her attic retreat and she could not be deflected by mention

of rugs and things. She must keep to the heart of the issue.

"It's the principle of the thing," she continued, loftily. "We're

always fair with one another and give and take and all that, and I

think it'd be a blot on our honor if you refused me my lawful turn at

the Egg. I'm willing to overlook each one of you having it twice."

"That's kind of you. What would you do with it, anyway, kid?"

interrupted Vicky, quite unimpressed by her sister's seriousness. She

let a chuckle in her voice denote how amused she was.

Sidney flashed a withering look in Vicky's direction.

"I wouldn't spend it all on one party that's over in a minute and

nothing to show for it!" she retorted. Then: "And what I'd do with it

is my own affair!" She swallowed to control a sob that rose in her

throat.

"Tut! Tut!" breathed the tormenting Vicky.

"Why, Sid, dear!" cried Trude, astonished. She put a tray of dishes

that she was carrying to the kitchen down upon the old sideboard and

turned to face Sid. At the tone of her voice Sidney flew to her and

flung her arms about her.

"I don't care--I don't _care_! You can laugh at me but I'm _sick_ of

being different. I--I want to do things like--other girls do. H-have

fun--"

Over her head Trude's eyes implored the others to be gentle. She

herself was greatly disturbed. Even Vicky grew sober. In a twinkling

this lanky, pigtailed little sister seemed to have become an individual

with whom they must reckon. They had never suspected but that she was

as contented with her happy-go-lucky way as any petted kitten.

Isolde, the oldest sister, frowned perplexedly.

"Sidney, stop crying and tell us what you want. As far as _fun_ is

concerned I don't think you have any complaint. Certainly you do not

have anything to _worry_ about!" Isolde's tone conveyed that she did.

"If it's just the Egg that's bothering you, why, take it!" cried Vicky,

magnanimously.

Only Trude sensed that the cause of Sidney's rebellion lay deeper than

any desire for fun. She was not unaware of certain dissatisfactions

that smoldered in her own breast. The knowledge of them helped her to

understand Sidney's mood. She patted the girl's head sympathetically.

"I guess we haven't realized you're growing up, Sid," she laughed

softly. "Now brace up and tell us what's wrong with everything."

Trude's quiet words poured balm on Sidney's soul. At last--at _last_

these three sisters realized she was fifteen. It _hadn't_ been the Egg

itself she had wanted--it had been to have them reckon her in on their

absurd family cogitations. She drew the sleeve of her blouse across her

eyes and faced them.

"I want to go somewhere, to live somewhere where I won't be Joseph

Romley's daughter! I want to wear clothes like the other girls and go

to a boarding school and never set eyes on a book of poetry. I want

adventure and to do exciting things. I want--"

Isolde stemmed the outpour with a shocked rebuke.

"Sid, I don't think you realize how disrespectful what you are saying

is to our father's memory! He has left us something that is far greater

than wealth. A great many girls would gladly change places with you and

enjoy being the daughter of a poet--"

"Oh, tush!" Quite unexpectedly Sidney found an ally in Vicky. "Issy,

you've acted your part so often, poor dear, that you really think we

_are_ blessed by the gods in having been born to a poet. And poor as

church mice! I wish someone _would_ change places with me long enough

for me to eat a few meals without hearing you and Trude talk about how

much flour costs and how we're going to pay the milk bill. Yes, a

_fine_ heritage! Poor Dad, he couldn't help being a poet, but I'll bet

he wishes now he'd been a plasterer or something like that--for _our_

sakes, of course. I'm not kicking, I'm as game as you are, and I'm

willing to carry on about Dad's memory and all that--it's the least

_we_ can do in return for what the League's done for us, but just among

ourselves we might enjoy the emotion of sighing for the things other

girls do and have, mightn't we?"

Sidney had certainly started something! The very atmosphere of the

familiar room in which they were assembled seemed charged with strange

currents. Never had any family council taken such a tone. Sidney

thrilled to the knowledge that she was now a vital part of it. Her

eyes, so recently wet, brightened and her cheeks flushed. So interested

was she in what Issy would answer to Vick that she ignored the opening

Vick had made for her.

But it was Trude who answered Vicky--Trude, the peaceful.

"Come! Come! First thing we know we'll actually be feeling sorry for

ourselves! I sometimes get awfully tired living up to Dad's greatness,

but I don't think that's being disrespectful to his memory. I don't

suppose there are any girls, even rich ones, who don't sigh for

something they haven't. But just to stiffen our spines let's sum up our

assets. We're not quite as poor as church mice; we have this old house

that isn't half bad, even if the roof does leak, and the government

bonds and the royalties and living the way we had to live with Dad

taught us to have fun among ourselves which is something! We're not

dependent upon outsiders for _that_. You, Issy, have your personality

which will get you anywhere you want to go. And Vick's better dressed

on nothing than any girl in Middletown. We older girls do have a little

more than Sid, so I vote she has the Egg this time all to herself to do

exactly as she pleases with it--go 'round the world in search of

adventure or any old thing. How's that, family?"

The tension that had held the little circle broke under Trude's

practical cheeriness. Isolde smiled. Vick liked being told she looked

well-dressed, she worked hard enough to merit that distinction. Sid had

the promise of the Egg, which, be it known, was the royalty accruing

each year from a collection of whimsical verse entitled "Goosefeathers"

and which these absurd daughters of a great but improvident man set

aside from the other royalties to be spent prodigally by each in turn.

"I'm quite willing," Isolde conceded. "I was going to suggest that we

agree to use it this time to fix the roof where it leaks but if Sid's

heart is set on it--"

"It would have been my turn--that is not counting Sid," Vick reminded

them, "and I'd have used it having that fur coat Godmother Jocelyn sent

me made over. But let the roof leak and the coat go--little Sid must

have her fling! I hope you're happy now, kid. What will you really do

with all that money?"

At no time had Sidney definitely considered such a question. Her point

won she found herself embarrassed by victory. She evaded a direct

answer.

"I won't tell, now!"

"Oh--ho, mysterious! Well, there won't be so much that you'll hurt

yourself in your youthful extravagance. Now that this momentous

_affaire de famille_ is settled, what are you girls going to do this

morning?"

"As soon as these dishes are out of the way I'm going to trim that vine

on the front wall. It's disgustingly scraggly."

"Oh, Trude--you _can't_! You forget--_it's Saturday_!"

Trude groaned. Vicky laughed naughtily. Saturday--that was the day of

the week which the Middletown Branch of the League of American Poets

kept for the privilege of taking visitors to the home of Joseph Romley,

the poet. In a little while they would begin to come, in twos and

threes and larger groups. First they'd stand outside and look at the

old house from every angle. They would say to the strangers who were

visiting the shrine for the first time: "No, the house wasn't in his

family but Joseph Romley made it peculiarly his; it's as though his

ancestors had lived there for generations--nothing has been

changed--that west room with the bay window was his study--yes, his

desk is there and his pencils and pens--just as he left them--even his

old house jacket--of course we can go in--our League paid off the

mortgage as a memorial and we have Saturday as a visiting day--there

are four girls, most interesting types, but Isolde, the oldest, is the

only one of them who is at all like the great poet--"

They would come in slowly, reverently. Isolde, in a straight smock of

some vivid color, with a fillet about the cloudy hair that framed her

thin face like a curtain, would meet them at the door of the study. She

would shake hands with them and answer their awkward questions in her

slow drawl which always ended in a minor note. They would look at

Isolde much more closely than at the desk and the pens and pencils and

the old swivel chair and the faded cushion. On their way out they'd

peep inquisitively into the front room with its long windows, bared to

the light and the floor looking dustier for the new rug, and the two

faded, deep chairs near the old piano. They would see the dust and the

bareness but they wouldn't know how gloriously, at sunset time, the

flame of the sky lighted every corner of the spacious room or what

jolly fires could crackle on the deep hearth or what fun it was to

cuddle in the old chairs--they could hold four--while Vicky's clever

fingers raced over the cracked ivory keys in her improvisations that

sometimes set them roaring with laughter and sometimes brought mist to

their eyes. The intruders would find some way to look into the dining

room which for the girls was living room and sewing room, too, and

they'd say: "How quaint everything is! These old houses have _so_ much

atmosphere;" when in their hearts they'd be thinking about the

shabbiness of everything and they'd be rejoicing that _their_ fathers

and husbands were not poets! Vicky claimed to have heard one

sacrilegious young creature, plainly on a honeymoon, exclaim: "I'm glad

I'm not a poet's daughter and have to live in that old sepulcher! Give

me obscurity in a steam-heated three bathroom apartment, any day!"

Of course there could be no trimming the vines and Trude's fingers

itched for the task--not so much that she minded the unkempt growth as

that she longed to be active out-of-doors. She had planned to plant

another row of beans, too. The girls wouldn't poke fun at her when they

ate fresh vegetables right out of a garden all of their own! But the

ladies of the League must not find her, earth-stained and disheveled,

in the garden on Saturday!

"I'll have to change my dress. I forgot it was Saturday when I put this

old thing on."

"Vick, dear, you haven't taken your sketching things from Dad's desk,"

admonished Isolde a little frightenedly and Vicky jumped with a low

whistle. "Good gracious! What if a High Lady Leaguer found _my_ truck

on that sacred shrine!" She rushed off to the study.

Trude having gone kitchenward with her dishes, Isolde and Sidney faced

one another. Sidney grew awkwardly aware of a constraint in her

sister's manner. She was regarding her with a curious hardness in her

grave eyes.

"You said you were sick of being different!" Isolde made Sidney's words

sound childish. "Well--I don't know just how you can escape it--any

more than the rest of us can. Look at me--look at Trude--" Then she

shut her lips abruptly over what she had started to say. "What had you

planned to do this morning, Sid?"

"I told Nancy Stevens I'd go swimming with her though I don't much care

whether I go or not."

"Well--as long as you _have_ claimed a share in our little scheme of

life, kitten--perhaps _you'd_ better receive the League visitors this

morning. I have some letters to write and I want to dye that old silk.

Don't forget to enter the date in the register!"

With which astounding command Isolde walked slowly out of the room

leaving Sidney with a baffled sense of--in spite of the promise of the

Egg--having been robbed of something.