GOLDILOCKS' CHAIRS
"Miss Hell-e-en! Miss Hell-e-en! Yo' popovers is done popped over!"
came in a wailing shriek from the kitchen.
Helen went so fast her pink bungalow apron looked like a rosy streak.
Dr. Wright, fearing some dire calamity had befallen someone and his
"first aid to the injured" might be in demand, ran after her. The
popovers had popped just right, however, but must be devoured
immediately; so luncheon was served as quickly as possible.
"Bring those two chairs from the kitchen, Chloe," commanded Douglas as
she deftly rearranged the table for ten persons instead of eight.
"Now, Miss Douglas, don't you know 'bout dem cheers in de kitchen? Th'
ain't got no mo' seat to 'em dan a rabbit."
"Bring them anyhow," laughed Douglas. "I can sit in one and Miss Helen
in the other."
In the confusion of placing family and guests, Douglas forgot all about
the bottomless chairs. After everyone was seated she suddenly remembered
them with horror.
"Suppose the count got one of them!" It made very little difference
about anyone else. But the count! All of that charm and elegance in a
chair with no seat!
As soon as grace was said, Bobby, with a shriek of delight, suddenly
collapsed and disappeared.
"One chair accounted for!" thought Douglas.
Bobby's heels were sticking up and he peered saucily through his feet at
the astonished company.
"I done got a Goldilocks' cheer," he announced. "'An' Goldilocks sat,
an' sat, an' sat, an' sat 'til she sat the bottom out of the little
bar's cheer.'"
"Bobby, take your seat!" commanded Mr. Carter, trying to look stern.
"I done took it!"
"Get up!"
Easier said than done! Bobby was fast stuck, "I reckon my 'ployer'll
have to op'rate on me," he said plaintively, "'fo' I kin eat."
There was a roar of laughter at this and Dr. Wright, who was sitting
between Helen and Bobby, extricated the youngster and then changed
chairs with him, whereupon they proceeded to the business of eating
popovers and creamed mushrooms and the other good things that Helen had
planned for the repast.
Douglas then laughingly told of their predicament in having only eight
whole straight chairs in the house and of her intention of sitting on
one of the decrepit ones herself and of having Helen sit on the other.
"It is rather like playing 'Thimble, thimble! Who's got the thimble?'"
she laughed. "I hope whoever has it is comfortable."
"Don't all speak at once!" said Lucy. "Of course some of the company's
got it, because home folks would put you out of misery at once."
Still silence and Douglas was mortally certain the count had it and was
too polite to say so.
"He certainly has beautiful manners," she said to herself, and turning
from Lewis, who was endeavoring to monopolize her, she smiled her
sweetest on the courteous foreigner. She felt she must make up to him
anyhow for telling him his moustache turned up like the Kaiser's.
"Isn't it strange, Cousin Robert," said Lewis to Mr. Carter, "I wrote
Douglas I was coming and she never got my letter?"
The count's manner was a little distrait. Evidently he was trying to
hear what Douglas was saying and to listen to the conversation between
Lewis and Mr. Carter at the same time.
"Is that so? I am afraid our postman is careless. He seems to get the
mail mixed sometimes. Every now and then our letters get left at
Grantly."
"But the ladies up there would send them down, I am sure," said Mrs.
Carter.
"You got my telephone message all right, didn't you?" Dr. Wright asked
Douglas.
"What message?"
"Why, I telephoned Grantly I would be out today!"
"No, they did not deliver it."
"Perhaps they will send the letter with the message," suggested the
count in an amused tone.
Just then Chloe fell down the steps into the dining-room with a plate of
hot popovers, which she adroitly caught before they reached the floor.
"Miss Ellanlouise done sent Sis Tempy down with the news that you alls
is gonter hab some comply. They done dis'greed whether they is a-comin'
yesterday or tomorrow."
"Who is it coming?" laughed Helen.
"They done 'sputed whether it is a doctor or a lywer, an' they ain't
able t' agree what his name is, but Miss Ella thinks it is Stites an'
Miss Louise she holds that it is Bright. Both on 'em was a-tryin' ter
listen at the 'phome ter onct so they done got kinder twis'ed like."
"When was the message sent?" asked Douglas.
"Sis Tempy said Miss Ella said it come of a Chuseday an' Miss Louise
called her back an' tol' her not ter pay no 'tention ter Miss Ella, that
she knows it come of a Thursday."
"Why, that must be my message I sent on Wednesday!" exclaimed Dr.
Wright. "I am either Lawyer Stites or Dr. Bright."
"Of course!" and everyone laughed heartily over the mistake of the
peculiar old sisters.
"Well, it doesn't make any real difference since you are here, does it?"
asked Helen.
"Not a bit! Being here is what is important to me. Does it make any
difference to you?"
Dr. Wright was able to say this in a whisper to Helen. It seemed very
difficult for him to have many words in private with this girl, who
seemed to him to become more charming every day. Certainly adversity had
improved her in his eyes. The character and determination she had shown
when once the gravity of her father's condition had been explained to
her were really remarkable in one so young, and one who had up to that
time never done a single thing she had not wanted to do. Tête-à-têtes
with Helen were made difficult for him by reason of his popularity with
the whole Carter family. Mr. Carter had various questions to discuss
with him; Mrs. Carter must always tell him her symptoms; Douglas wanted
his advice about many things; Nan found him very sympathetic and always
had something to confide in him; Lucy, realizing that Helen no longer
looked upon him as an enemy to the family, had come over to his camp and
now considered him her company just as much as anybody's and demanded
his attention accordingly. Of course Bobby knew he belonged exclusively
to him. Was he not his 'ployer?
"Does it make any difference to you?" he repeated.
Helen was on the point of answering him very kindly when Count de Lestis
leaned over and engaged her attention.
"Miss Helen, do not forget the promise you made me to come to Weston
some morning with your father. There are many things I want to show
you. I want your advice, too, about some pantry arrangements I am
contemplating. What does mere man know of pantry shelves?"
"Oh, I'd love to come!" exclaimed Helen, and the kind answer she was
preparing to give Dr. Wright never was spoken.
That young physician looked at the Hungarian count as though he would
cheerfully throttle him. Helen's advice about pantry shelves, indeed!
What business had this foreigner to draw Helen into his household
arrangements?
During that luncheon de Lestis managed to antagonize both Lewis
Somerville and George Wright. Douglas had smiled entirely too many times
on this stranger to suit Lewis, and Helen had been much too eager to
pass on the housekeeping arrangements to accord with George's ideas of
United States' relations with Hungary.
"Why is he not fighting with his country?" each young man asked himself.
Chloe was waiting on the table remarkably well, much to Helen's
gratification. Only once had she fallen down the steps, and, thanks to
her teacher's vigilance, she usually remembered to pass things to the
left.
"You must try to show the Count de Lestis how much you have learned,"
Helen had told her while she was preparing the lunch; "remember how
interested he is in educating colored people."
Helen, seated at the head of the table, was pouring the tea, Mrs. Carter
having resigned her place to her daughter when she resigned herself to
be a semi-invalid.
"Hand this to Count de Lestis," Helen said, having put in sugar to his
taste.
"Here's yo' C-U-P, CUP of T-E, TEA," shouted Chloe, as she balanced the
cup precariously on the tray.
"Beg pardon!" exclaimed the honored guest in amazement.
"C-U-P, CUP! H-O-T, HOT! T-E, TEA!"
The count took the tea with a puzzled look on his handsome countenance
and Chloe fled from the room, not in embarrassment but to impart to Sis
Tempy how she had done made Miss Helen proud by showing the count how
much she done learned her to spell.
Everybody roared, even Mrs. Carter, who had come to the realization that
the most dignified way to treat Chloe was to recognize her as a joke.
"It is this way," said Helen when she could speak. "You see, I have been
trying to teach the poor thing to read and spell. She told me of the
wonderful work you are doing," to the count.
"I am doing?"
"Yes, in your night school at Weston! It made me ashamed to think you,
a foreigner, should be doing so much for the colored race, and I doing
nothing, so I determined to do what I could with my own servant at
least. I can't tell you how splendid I think it is of you and your
secretary to give so much time to the poor country darkies."
The count flushed a dark red. He seemed actually confused by this girl's
praise.
"All of us think it is fine," said Nan.
"Speak for yourself!" whispered Lucy. "Mag and I think it is smart Alec
of him and we bet he does it 'cause he wants to, not to help the colored
people."
"I beg your pardon! Did you speak to me?" asked the count, recovering
himself from the evident confusion into which Helen's and Nan's
approbration seemed to have plunged him.
"I--I--said--er--I said you and your kind secretary must enjoy the
work," stammered Lucy.
"Do you find they learn easily?" asked Dr. Wright, trying to hide his
feelings and wishing he had put in his spare time in altruistic work
among the colored brethren.
"The truth of the matter is I do no teaching myself. This night school
is a fad of Herz, my secretary."
"Ah, but I know you do some, because Chloe tells me of how kindly you
speak to the darkies," insisted Helen. "She says you make beautiful
talks to them sometimes and they are crazy about you."
"They exaggerate!" shrugged the count. "They seem a simple, kindly folk,
grateful for any crumb of learning."
"Aren't there any district schools here for the colored people?" asked
George Wright.
"Yes, but no place for the older ones to learn. It is quite pathetic how
they yearn for knowledge,--so Herz tells me."
"Well, my opinion is that too much learning is bad for them," blurted
out Lewis.
"Oh, Lewis!" exclaimed Douglas. "How can you say such a thing? Too much
learning can't be bad for anybody."
"What I mean is too much and not enough. They get just enough to make
them big-headed and not enough to give them any balance."
"'A little learning is a dangerous thing--
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring,'"
murmured Nan.
"Exactly!" said Lewis gratefully. "I don't want to hold the darky down,
but I do think he should be taught very carefully or he will get wrong
notions in his head, social equality with the whites and such stuff."
"I find Americans very strange when one gets them on the subject of
social equality," and de Lestis suddenly seemed very superior and quite
conscious of his own station in life. "There is much talk of being
democratic but not so much practice. Your Declaration of Independence
plainly states that all men shall be free and equal, and still, while
you grant the black race freedom, you deny it equality."
"I reckon you don't understand the South very well," answered Lewis, his
blue eyes flashing.
"Ah!" was all the count said, but he said it with a toploftical manner
that irritated Lewis.
"The colored soldiers are excellent, so I have heard," put in Douglas,
hoping to get the subject changed, if not too abruptly.
"Yes, they are good," said Lewis, "but that is because they are trained
well. That is drinking deep of Nan's Pierian Spring. I think a military
training in colored schools is almost more important than in the white
ones. It gives them the kind of balance they don't get in any other
way."
"Why don't you give the pupils in your night school some drilling?"
asked Helen.
"Thank you for the suggestion!" and the count bowed low over Helen's
hand as they arose from the table at a signal from Mrs. Carter, who
began to think the conversation was getting entirely too serious and not
at all social. "I shall profit by it immediately and introduce a kind of
setting-up exercise at least."
"Now we'll find out who had the other busted cheer!" cried Bobby.
It was the count, and his tact and good manners in patiently sitting
through the meal on what must have been a rather uncomfortable perch
made the females of the party, excepting Lucy, admire him just that much
more, but it did not make George Wright and Lewis Somerville think any
more highly of the good-looking foreigner.
"He had much better be fighting for his country," grumbled Lewis to his
companion in misery, "even if it would be on the wrong side." Which was
not the proper remark for a soldier in the army of a neutral nation.