HOW GIRLS CHOOSE CHUMS
When the girls had quite exhausted all their powers of teasing Babs
for again going off with the boys—just as she knew they would—she
decided to ride to the ice-cream place in the big car, and she also
decided to sit in the back with all the girls.
“Take your boys,” Babs told them, in imitation of their own manner.
“For my part I’m just dying for a chat with you girls. Don’t you
realize I’ve hardly become acquainted yet?” This last was said in a
comical mimicking way, just as if she were some one of real importance
who had been so busy with a whole lot of social affairs that she
really couldn’t reach all the friends who were—perhaps?—pining for her
attention.
“Oh, we know all about that,” replied Louise. “It must be an awful
bore to be so popular.” Louise was not being sarcastic, just flippant
this time.
“And the peasants—those bothersome Italians——” Esther Dean remarked.
“Babs dear, you really should not mingle so freely with the gentry.”
“The gentry? You mean the bourgeois——” broke in Ruth.
“Hey, hey!” called back Glenn Gaynor from the front seat. “What is
this, anyway, a test or something? Where are we going? That’s what _I_
want to know.” He was driving.
“We’re going to Hill’s, of course,” answered Cara. “And if we don’t go
straight there we’ll never find a place to sit down, to say nothing of
getting a dish of ice-cream.”
It was a wonderful summer evening, and behind the rose-covered lattice
that so beautifully screened Hill’s ice-cream tables, the girls and
boys of Cara Burke’s party thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Babs almost
forgot little Nicky’s troubles, as she laughed and chatted and “showed
off” to her very best advantage, her one regret being that her father
didn’t happen along to the drug-store that evening to see how well she
was doing.
After all it was lovely to be in a girl’s world. She was surprised to
find how jolly it was, so much better than being alone and thinking
about “bugs,” the term she usually applied to the bacteriological
germs her father kept himself so busily occupied with.
“Different in one day,” she thought, for Babs was sure to think. She
had a habit of analyzing things within and without, and she was not
deceiving herself now. All that “difference” which people would insist
upon ascribing to her was no difference at all. It was merely a matter
of environment. When alone with her father, with Glenn for a
student-companion she was one sort of Babs, but when surrounded by
happy young friends, such as were with her now, she was decidedly
another sort.
“Enjoying yourself, Babs?” Cara made chance to ask. She sat at the
next table with Dick and Louise and had been watching Babs.
“Wonderfully,” replied Babs, smiling that Cara could have so easily
divined her thoughts. But, as a matter of fact, Barbara’s expression
just then was easy enough to interpret. She was smiling happily all
over her face.
Persons passing in and out also smiled and whispered. It was “Cara
Burke’s party”, they might have been heard to remark, and Babs was not
the only one of the party proud to be in her particular place. It was
well worth while to be there.
“And I didn’t want to come,” Barbara secretly charged herself. “I
would never have known what I missed.”
When they reached home the boys delayed for a while out on the big
white porch. It was then that Dudley spoke privately to Babs, after
managing to get her apart from the others.
“Listen,” he implored. “I’ve got to tell you. I know you’re sore——”
“What _did_ you take the girls there for?” she broke in sharply. She
was referring, of course, to their slumming and the Italian children.
“But the girls were saying such crazy things about the kids,” Dudley
protested. “You never heard such rot.”
“What—rot?”
“About some black handers being hidden in that shack.”
Barbara’s mark of contempt was not quite a word—a mere suggestion of
one.
“As if that nonsense should have made you forget your promise,” she
presently continued bitterly.
“I didn’t forget it.”
“No?” Again that seething scorn. Babs knew how to use her voice when
she wanted to be sarcastic.
“Oh, say!” The boy was despairing of making her understand him. “Just
wait until I tell you. You see, Louise or Esther, I don’t know which
began to—well, to suggest that little Nicky was one of a gang. Oh, it
was so silly, Babs, I just got mad and drove them over there to prove
they were crazy.” Dudley Burke could be just as independent as Barbara
Hale.
“Did you prove it?” sarcasm again.
“I tell you, honestly, I thought I was doing a good thing. I thought
we would just run over there and I’d whistle for Nicky, and when he
came out I’d ask him if he had any more candlesticks for sale,” Dudley
explained, simply.
His distress and his sincerity broke down Babs’ fighting spirit. How
could _she_ blame him? He had actually tried to do something to help
the little Italians. He could not have guessed at her unreasonable
fears.
“Oh, I know, Dud,” she said more pleasantly, “and I believe you. You
would not—make fun of them.”
“Make fun of them? I should say not. Those youngsters are smart, and
they’re—well, they’ve got a lot of our kind of kids beat,” he ended,
his selection of words having nothing to do with his loyalty to the
Italians.
“And I know it’s queer of me to act so cut up about it,” Babs
admitted. “You would think that _I_ were trying to hide something
too.”
“I wouldn’t, but maybe some others would,” Dud rejoined, rather
hurriedly for the girls were calling them insistently.
“But say, Dud,” Babs began again, “did the children really act
suspicious?”
“I should say they did. The way they snapped those old shades down.
It’s a wonder they didn’t pull them off their springs.”
“I didn’t suppose they were more than just timid,” Babs continued.
“You know how foreigners are. They have an idea the whole world is
their enemy, I guess.”
“Not youngsters who go to American schools; they know better. No,
Babs, I don’t believe it was just scare, it was alarm. They were
afraid we would go to the door, although they slammed it good and
hard, you just bet,” Dudley declared emphatically.
“But others must go there——”
“They stick by their own kind though, clannish, I mean,” the boy
explained. “If there really was something to hide in that house I’ll
bet the whole neighborhood would help them to hide it.”
“But what could it be?”
“Haven’t an idea. But, of course, Nicky will come around again. He’ll
count me a good customer for his junk.” Dud laughed outright at the
idea.
“And here we have been getting the girls after us again,” laughed Babs
in her turn. “Isn’t it dreadful the way I’ve been running off with you
today? I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Good thing to give them something to gab about,” Dud flung over his
shoulder as the girls and boys flocked around them, pretending all
sorts of punishment for their delay in joining in the general fun.
Dudley was so nice, Babs had to admit later, when quiet was descending
upon the Burke household.
“Just as nice as Glenn,” she reasoned, “but perhaps all boys were
almost as nice when they had had such chances of refinement and
environment.”
And the girls? Still a little stubborn on that point, Babs was not
willing to pay her own sex such a sweeping compliment. The girls were
“nice” of course, much nicer than she had ever given them credit for
being, but they were “show-offs” just the same. If they hadn’t been
they would never have gone down into the Italian district.
And if Esther and Louise were not always picking flaws in folks’
affairs they wouldn’t have told and retold the silly stories about
poor Nicky’s father, who was locked up in jail. The idea of even
suspecting that he might have escaped and might be in hiding there,
was absurd. As if his house would not have been searched, had he
escaped. And who ever said he had escaped, anyhow?
Cara was returning from her bathroom now and she was wearing the
loveliest yellow silk gown. It had little flutings of blue ribbons and
there were blue-birds embroidered on it, just as if they had flown
there.
Babs had not yet undressed, but the sight of Cara recalled her own
robe—the hideous black cloth college gown! However could she take that
out? How explain her idea of the dormitory masquerade? How could she
make a joke of it, anyway?
“I left some robes in the rooms,” Cara said indifferently. “I thought
the girls would hardly bring any, just around the corner.” This was
Cara’s way of doing kindness without display.
And this was Barbara’s chance to mention the college gown. She
hesitated. Pride was stronger than reason with her, and she didn’t
know that all her boasted frankness about her humble place in life,
about her home-made clothes, her own-made hats, her preference for
study instead of for play—all this was merely humoring her pride. And
yet it had been brave of her to accept and make the most of her
position. Thousands of girls might consider her “well off,” and very
fortunate because, compared to themselves, she was fortunate. Compared
to Cara Burke she was _poor_. Of course it was all merely a matter of
what one compared with.
Barbara watched Cara brush her hair. It was bobbed, of course, but
lovely and glossy, crow black, and it encased Cara’s head like a
sculptured cap.
“Your hair is lovely,” Babs said as she watched her. “Aren’t you
dreadfully tired of curls?”
“Well, since I’ve never had any I suppose I’m not really tired of
them, but I do think the boys have the best of us in the matter of
hair styles.” She paused in her brushing to make a better part. “If we
just got used to ourselves fixed up more simply I suppose we would
like ourselves quite as well.”
“Surely we would,” chimed in Babs. “It’s only training. Our eyes
expect certain effects and we feel we must humor our eyes.”
Cara laid her brush down on the dressing table and swung around to
face Barbara.
“You know an awful lot, don’t you Babs?” she said. Her tone was filled
with admiration.
“Why, no I don’t, Cara. About lots of things I am terribly—ignorant.”
“I mean in your way of thinking things out. Dud says you’re as smart
as a boy, and that from Dud is—something!”
Babs laughed. “To be as smart as a boy, as smart as some boys wouldn’t
mean a lot; would it, Cara?” she countered.
“No. But _he_ meant, of course, as smart as a smart boy——”
“Smarter than a smart boy?”
“Just let’s call it smart,” suggested Cara, but there was a
seriousness about her manner that did not chime in with her words.
Cara Burke was evidently trying to understand Barbara Hale.
Barbara was merely beginning to undress. She had never been so poky.
She felt very unreal. All, or at least most of the things, she had
planned to do she wasn’t doing, and she hated to change her mind.
Pride again ruled her, for in the “making up of her mind” to anything,
Barbara was what would be commonly called stubborn. She didn’t call it
that; she considered it weak and foolish to be changeable. All of
which must be explained to explain Barbara.
“But, just the same,” Cara continued speaking after a short pause,
“_you_ are smart.”
Barbara sighed. “Cara,” she sort of whispered for she was feeling
queer, “I’m not really. Because I do things I am called upon to do I
may seem different. But it isn’t that. It’s just because I am
differently situated.”
Cara jumped up and coming over to where Barbara was sitting, on one of
the ivory twin beds, threw her arms around her.
“We’re going to be chums, aren’t we, Babs?” she said warmly. “You may
not admit you’re smart, but I think you are, and I’ve always longed to
be chums with a girl like you.”
“Like me?” Barbara could feel her face burn. She was not at all what
this lovely, simple-minded, frankly honest girl was thinking her to
be. She wasn’t smart, she wasn’t different, she wasn’t “high-brow,”
she was only a poser, one who was pretending. “Cara, I’m afraid you
are going to be dreadfully disappointed in me,” she managed to say
finally. “I’m not really anything but plain stubborn.”
“Babs!” exclaimed Cara, bestowing upon her more and more girlish
admiration. “Do you know I planned this little party just to get
acquainted with you?”
“You didn’t, really!”
“Yes I did,” pursued the girl in that golden robe. “I even bet with
Dud that I could get you to come.”
“And now that you’ve got me here, what have I brought you?” Babs’
deep-blue eyes were as soft as velvet violets, as she, in turn, gazed
lovingly at Cara Burke.
“Oh, a lot. You couldn’t understand, of course, Babs, but you must
have noticed how jealous all the other girls were. I’m sure they have
been talking about it all night or they would have been at our door.
Here they come now.”
And at the unmistakable sounds of suppressed merry-making (it was
almost midnight) Babs jumped up, and without giving herself a second
for any silly consideration, she got into the black cap and gown.
The girls were knocking at the door.