"You _did_ write that letter!" declared Mrs. Harper angrily. "How dare
you deny it? Mr. Butler showed it to me. It was written on this very
stationery, on this typewriter with the green ribbon, and signed with my
name in the way you sign it. You wrote it to be funny, I suppose. Well, I
can tell you that I can't have anything like that. I won't have any
further need for your services."
She was so positive I had written it that I began to have an awful
feeling that I might have written it in my sleep. You know what strange
things I do in my sleep sometimes. But all the while I knew who had done
it. Ethel Harper had sworn to get even with me for making her tell her
mother about the locket. She had written that letter in place of the one
I had written. I remembered that one day while Mrs. Harper was away I had
been called downstairs and kept talking for over an hour to one of Mrs.
Harper's committee members who had undertaken to distribute some
literature and came for instructions. During that time Ethel would have
had plenty of chance to read through my mail upstairs.
I started to tell Mrs. Harper that I suspected someone else of writing
it, intending to lead gently up to the subject of Ethel, but Mrs. Harper
scoffed at the idea.
"There isn't anyone else in the house who can run the typewriter," she
said flatly.
This was untrue. Ethel could run it; she had done so several times when I
was there. But what was the use of accusing Ethel when her mother
wouldn't believe it anyway? I realized the hopelessness of trying to
convince Mrs. Harper of something she didn't want to believe.
"And further," continued Mrs. Harper, "I have found that you have not
been attending strictly to business. Ethel tells me that you often go
over to her room when she is there and stand and talk to her instead of
giving your time to my work."
"Little snake-in-the-grass!" I thought vengefully. I had never gone to
her room unless she had called me to do something.
I made up my mind I wouldn't stay there another minute. I didn't have to
work for such people. I drew myself up stiffly. "If you believe such
things, Mrs. Harper," I said icily, "there can be no business relations
between us. I shall not even take the trouble to prove the truth about
that letter. I shall go immediately." And go I did. I knew Mr. Barrett
would be very much put out over the affair, because he seemed to think
Mrs. Harper had done his school an honor by hiring one of his pupils, but
what was I to do? Stay there and be the scapegoat for all Ethel's sins.
Not while I had feet to walk away on.
As I went down the steps I met Ethel coming up. She looked at me with a
meaning expression and a triumphant smile. She had kept her word and
gotten even with me.
I felt badly over it, of course, for who can lose a good position and not
be cut up about it? I suppose I must have looked pretty doleful for a
couple of days, because I met Mrs. Anderson, that friend of Nyoda's, who
used to lend us so many "props" for our Winnebago performances, on the
street and she asked me right away what was the matter.
"You're lonesome for those friends of yours," she went on, without giving
me a chance to answer. "I'm lonesome, too," she went on. "My husband has
been in Washington all winter. Come out and spend a few days with me. You
used to be pretty good company, if I remember rightly."
She persuaded me and I went. You remember the Anderson place out on the
East Shore, don't you? We were all out there once last year. Perfect duck
of a house all made of soft gray shingles and seven acres of garden and
woods around it. I tramped all over the place through the March mud,
looking for signs of spring, and had a perfectly glorious time.
"There's one sign of spring, over there," said Mrs. Anderson, who was
with me on one of my tramps.
"Where?" I asked, looking around.
"Young man's fancy," said Mrs. Anderson with a laugh of tolerant
amusement, "lightly turning to thoughts of love. Look up on the barn
there."
I looked where she pointed, and saw a boy of about eighteen standing on
the roof of the barn gazing off into space through a field glass. He had
a white flag tied to his right wrist, which he was waving over his head,
like the soldiers do when they signal.
"Who is he and what is he doing?" I asked.
"That's Peter, the boy who helps around the stable," replied Mrs.
Anderson. "He's sending messages to his lady love. A certain combination
of flourishes means 'I love you,' and another means 'Meet me to-night,'
and so on. He told John, my chauffeur, about it, and John told me."
"How silly!" said I, with a laugh for poor lovesick Peter. "Who is the
object of his affection?"
"Some servant girl from the next estate," replied Mrs. Anderson. "They
carry on their affair through field glasses and with signals. They think
they are having a thrilling romance."
"Disgusting!" said I. "How could any girl make such a fool of herself
where everybody can see her!"
Mrs. Anderson laughed indulgently, but I could feel her scorn underneath
it. "Some girls will sell every scrap of dignity they have for what they
consider a good time, my dear," she said, laying her hand on my arm in a
motherly way.
We left Romeo on the barn flourishing out his messages in the late March
sunshine and wandered over to the next estate. There was a new litter of
prize bull pups over there and Mrs. Anderson had promised that I should
see them before I went home. A creek divided the two estates, which we
crossed on a little foot bridge. The path led along beside the creek for
a while until the little stream widened out into a beautiful pond, big
enough for boating. A pier had been built at one side of the pond,
running out into the water. Someone was standing out on the end of the
pier, and as we came up we saw that we had discovered the other half of
the romance. A girl, with a field glass held to her eyes and a white flag
tied around her right wrist, was signalling in the direction of the
Anderson barn, the roof of which was visible in the distance, beyond Mrs.
Anderson's apple orchard.
Something about the girl was familiar, even in the distance, and as we
came near I recognized the mink coat that I had seen many times lately.
There was no doubt about it. The girl on the end of the pier was Ethel
Harper. I stood still, too much disgusted to speak. Ethel Harper, the
daughter of one of the "first" families, with the best social position in
the city, her mother prominent in all great uplift movements, carrying on
a vulgar flirtation with Mrs. Anderson's stable boy! So this was the
great romance she had been hinting about at various times! Randall--that
was the name of the girl she was intimate with; this was the Randall
place. She had been coming here so often for the sake of the boy next
door. Did she know he was an ignorant servant? I doubted it. Anything in
men's clothes set her silly head awhirl. I wished her haughty mother
could have seen her then.
Mrs. Anderson suddenly laughed out loud and at that Ethel turned around
and saw us. She gave a great start as she recognized me, took a step
backward and fell off the end of the pier into the pond, disappearing
with a shriek into the deep water.
I slipped out of my coat, threw off my shoes and went in after her. The
water was so icy I could hardly swim at first. When I did get hold of her
it was a battle royal to get her back to the pier. She was so weighted
down by the fur coat and she struggled so fiercely that several times I
thought we were both going down. Mrs. Anderson threw us a plank and with
its help I finally got her to the pier.
"Now run for your life!" I ordered, my own teeth chattering in my head.
"Drop that wet coat and I'll race you to the house." She didn't move
nearly fast enough to avoid a chill and I took hold of her hand and
pulled her along.
Up in a cosy bedroom in the Randall's house we sat up, some hours later,
wrapped in blankets, and looked at each other gravely. Mrs. Anderson had
been in and talked with Ethel like a big sister about the cheapness of
carrying on flirtations with strange boys. Ethel had seen her little
affair in its true light, robbed of all romance, and shame had taken hold
of her. Mrs. Anderson explained how the gallant Romeo had seen his Juliet
fall into the pond and had fled basely in the other direction for fear he
would be blamed, making no effort to rescue her, and she might have been
drowned if I hadn't fished her out.
Ethel had been frightened out of her wits when she fell into the water;
she was still suffering from the shock. She flushed hotly as she caught
my glance, and cast down her eyes.
"Thank you, Miss Brewster, for saving my life," she said rather
shame-facedly. Then she went on in a low tone, "I want to tell you
something. I wrote that letter to Mr. Butler,--the one that made mamma so
angry."
"I know," I answered gravely.
"You knew, and you jumped into the water after me anyway?" she said in a
tone of unbelief. "Why, you might have let me drown as easy as not."
"O no, I mightn't," I answered. "That isn't the way a Camp Fire Girl gets
even."
Ethel was silent a long while. Then she said, "Will you come back to our
house after I have told mother the whole thing? She misses you a lot,
says she never had anyone do her work so well as you did it, and she has
been in a terrible temper ever since you left."
"I don't know," I answered slowly. I had been very deeply hurt and my
foolish pride was still on its hind legs.
"Will you please come?" pleaded Ethel, slipping out of her chair and
putting her arms around me. "We can have such good times after your work
hours. Please, for my sake, I want you. You're the most wonderful girl
I've ever met!"
Old Mr. Pride and I had a final round and we came out with me sitting on
his head. "I'll come back," I said, slipping my arm around Ethel.
So you see, Katherine, adventure isn't dead, not by any means, even if
you do have to take it along with your bread and butter.
Loads of love from your stenographic friend, Sadie Shorthander, once upon
a time your
Sahwah.