A DISCUSSION
August was over and our girls were not sorry. The camp had been like an
ant hill all during that month of holidays. Not that it had been a month
of holidays for the Carters, far from it. There had been times when they
did not see how they could accomplish the work they had undertaken. They
were two hands short almost all of the month which made the work fall
very heavily on the ones who were left. Gwen was taken up with Aunt
Mandy, the kind old mountain woman who had been so good to the little
English orphan. Now that Aunt Mandy was ill, Gwen felt it her duty to be
with her day and night. Susan was so busy waiting on Mrs. Carter that
she never had time for her regular duties in the kitchen.
Lewis and Bill were terribly missed. They had done so many things for
the campers, had been so strong and willing and untiring in their
service that the girls felt the place could hardly be run without them.
Skeeter and Frank did all they could but they were but slips of lads
after all and there were many things where a man's strength was
necessary.
Mr. Carter was glad to help when he was called on, but he did not seem
to see the things that were to be done without having them pointed out.
When there was much of a crowd he rather shrank from the noise and the
girls felt they must not let him be made nervous by the confusion. Of
course there was much confusion when twenty and more boarders would
arrive at once, have to be hauled up the mountain and assigned tent
room and then as Oscar would say, "have to be filled up." The girls
would do much giggling and screaming; the young men would laugh a
great deal louder than their jokes warranted, and the boys seemed to
think that camp was a place especially designed for practical jokes.
It was a common thing to hear shrieks from the tents when the crowd
was finally made to retire by the chaperone, and then the cry, "Ouch!
Chestnut burrs in my bed!" Once it was a lemon meringue pie, brought all
the way from Richmond by an inveterate joker who felt that a certain
youth was too full of himself and needed taking down a peg! Now there is
nothing much better than a lemon meringue pie taken internally, but of
all the squashy abominations to find in one's bed and to have applied
externally, a lemon meringue pie is the worst.
It was as a censor of practical jokes that Douglas and Helen missed the
young soldiers most. They had been wont to stand just so much and no
more from the wild Indians who came to Camp Carter for the week-end, and
now that there was no one to reach forth a restraining hand, there was
no limit to the pranks that were played.
Mrs. Carter felt that the job of chaperone for such a crowd was
certainly no sinecure. She complained quite bitterly of her duties.
After all, they consisted of having the new-comers introduced to her
and of presiding at supper and of staying in the pavilion until bed
time. Miss Elizabeth Somerville had made nothing of it, and one
memorable night when there was too much racket going on from the tents
the boys occupied, she had arisen from her bed in the cabin and, wrapped
in a dressing gown and armed with an umbrella, had marched to the seat
of war and very effectively quelled the riot by laying about her with
said umbrella.
The girls looked back on her reign, regretting that it was over. It was
lovely to have their mother with them again but she was quite different
from the mother they had known in Richmond in the luxurious days. That
mother had always been gentle while this one had a little sharp note to
her voice that was strange to them. It was most noticeable when she had
expressed some desire that was not immediately gratified.
"I am quite tired of chicken," she said to Douglas one day. "I wish you
would order some sweetbreads for me. I need building up. This rough
life is very hard on me and nothing but my being very unselfish and
devoted makes me put up with it."
"Yes, mother! I am sorry, but my order for this week is in the mail and
I could not change it now, but I will send a special order for some
Texas sweetbreads to Charlottesville. I have no doubt I can get them
there."
Either the order or the sweetbreads went astray. Mrs. Carter refused to
eat any dinner in consequence and sulked a whole day.
"If she only doesn't complain to father we can stand it," Douglas
confided to Nan. "What are we going to do, Nan? I am so afraid she will
make father feel he must go back to work, and then all the good of the
rest will be done away with. She treats me, somehow, as though it were
all my fault."
"Oh no, honey, you mustn't feel that way. Poor little mumsy is just
spoiled to death and does not know how to adapt herself to this change
of fortune."
"You see, Nan, now that Mr. Lane has had to go to Texas with the
militia the business is at a standstill. He was trying to fill the
orders they had on their books without father's help."
"Yes, Mr. Tucker said that father's business was a one man affair and
when that one man, father, was out of the running there was nothing to
do about it. Thank goodness, father is not worrying about things
himself."
"I know we should be thankful, but somehow his not worrying makes it
just so much more dreadful. I feel that he is even more different than
mother. It is an awful problem--what to do."
"What's a problem?" asked Helen, coming suddenly into the tent where her
sisters were engaged in the above conversation.
"Oh, just--just--nothing much!" faltered Douglas.
"Now that's a nice way to treat a partner. You and Nan are always
getting off and whispering together and not letting me in on it. What's
worrying you?"
"The situation!"
"Political or climatic?"
"Carteratic!" drawled Nan. "We were talking about mother and father."
"What about them? Is father worse?" Helen was ever on the alert when her
father's well-being was in question.
"No, he is better in some ways, but unless he is kept free from worry he
will never be well," said Douglas solemnly.
She had not broached the subject of money with Helen since the question
of White Sulphur had been discussed by them, feeling that Helen would
not or could not understand.
"Who's going to worry him? Not I!"
"Of course not you. Just the lack of money is going to worry him, and he
is going to feel the lack of it if mother wants things and can't have
them."
"Why don't you let her have them?"
"How can I? I haven't the wherewithal any more than you."
"I thought we were making money."
"So we are, but not any great amount. I think it is wonderful that we
have been able to support ourselves and put anything in the bank. I had
to draw out almost all of our earnings to pay for the things mother
bought in New York, not that I wasn't glad to do it, but that means we
have not so much to go on for the winter."
"Oh, for goodness' sake don't be worrying about the winter now! Mother
says our credit is so good we need not worry a bit."
Douglas and Nan looked at each other sadly. Douglas turned away with a
"what's the use" expression. Helen looked a little defiant as she saw
her sister's distress.
"See here, Helen!" and this time Nan did not drawl. Helen realized her
little sister was going to say something she must listen to. "You have
got a whole lot of sense but you have got a whole lot to learn. I know
you are going to laugh at me for saying you have got to learn a lot that
I, who am two years younger than you, already know. You have got to
learn that our poor little mumsy's judgment is not worth that," and Nan
snapped her finger.
"Nan! You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"Well, I am ashamed of myself, but I am telling the truth. I don't see
the use in pretending any more about it. I love her just as much, but
anyone with half an eye can see it. I think what we must do is to face
it and then tactfully manage her."
Douglas and Helen could not help laughing at Nan.
"You see," she continued, "it is up to us to support the family somehow
and make mumsy comfortable and keep her from telling father that she
hasn't got all she wants. Of course she can't have all she wants, but
she can be warm and fed at least."
"But, Nan, it isn't up to you to support the family," said Douglas. "You
must go back to school, you and Lucy."
"Well, it is up to me to spend just as little money as possible and to
earn some if I can. I am not going to be a burden on you and Helen. You
needn't think it."
"We'll have the one hundred from the rent of the house and then Helen
and I shall have to find jobs. What, I don't know."
"Well, I, for one, can't find a job until I get some new clothes,"
declared Helen. "I haven't a thing that is not hopelessly out of style."
"Can't your last winter's suit be done over? Mine can."
"Now, Douglas, what's the use in going around looking like a frump? I
think we should all of us get some new clothes and then waltz in and get
good jobs on the strength of them. If I were employing girls I should
certainly choose the ones who look the best."
Douglas shook her head sadly. Helen was Helen and there was no making
her over. She would have to learn her lesson herself and there was no
teaching her.
"Dr. Wright says we must keep father out of the city this winter but we
need not be in the dead country. We can get a little house on the edge
of town so Nan and Lucy can go in to school. I think we can get along on
the rent from the house if you and I can make something besides."
When the question of where they were to live for the winter was broached
to Mrs. Carter, she was taken quite ill and had to stay in bed a whole
day.
"No one considers me at all," she whimpered to Nan, who had brought her
a tray with some tea and toast for her luncheon. "Just because you and
Douglas like the country you think it is all right. I am sure I shall
die in some nasty little frame cottage in the suburbs. It is ridiculous
that we cannot turn those wretched people out of my house and let me go
back and live in it again."
"But, mumsy," soothed Nan, "we are going to make you very comfortable
and we will find a pretty house and maybe it will be brick."
"But to dump me down in the suburbs when I have had to be away from
society for all these months as it is! I am sure if I could talk it over
with your father he would agree with me--but you girls even coerce me in
what I shall and shall not say to my own husband. I do not intend to
submit to it any longer."
"Oh, mother, please--please don't tell father. Dr. Wright says----"
"Don't tell me what Dr. Wright says! I am bored to death with what he
says. I know he has been kind but I can't see that our affairs must be
indefinitely directed by him. I will sleep a little now if you will let
me be quiet."