A SEA OF TROUBLES
MR. THAYER’S month having been much shortened by his tremendous energy,
the factory classes were successfully started, and Babbie, with her
tantalizing fashion of appearing haughtily distant one minute and
amazingly friendly the next, was off for the gay Southern resorts that
she professed to hate. At some one of them, Mr. Thayer was morally
certain, his fascinating cousin Austin would make it a point to find
her. White flannels, he reflected glumly, were notably becoming to
Austin’s style.
Eugenia’s three weeks were nearly gone too, and the lost theme had
not come to light. Betty had questioned every one who could possibly
have seen it or taken it from her desk, and she had hunted through the
tea-shop from the remotest corner of the loft to the shed where the
kerosene can was kept. Poor Eugenia had turned her room topsyturvy on
three separate occasions, on the principle of “three times and out,”
and she had begged all her friends to do likewise with theirs, if they
loved her one little bit. She had passed her midyears, and was doing
her best with all her courses, though she sadly declared it was no use
at all, since Miss Raymond had never believed she wrote her theme and
would certainly not give her another chance.
“I don’t know that I blame her,” sighed Eugenia, “only I think she
might know that if I was going to make up a lie I’d have made up
a better one than that. If I have to take that course over in the
‘flunked-out’ class that she’s organizing to begin next week, I shall
d-die. Just think of writing a lot of extra themes on top of everything
else--in spring term too, that you all say is so lovely, when nobody
expects so terribly much of you. She’ll expect more of you, Miss
Wales!” ended Eugenia vindictively.
Betty did not dare to hold out any encouragement, but she secretly
suspected that Miss Raymond was keeping Eugenia on tenterhooks, as
good discipline, until the last minute, and then meant to let her off
easily. Betty couldn’t bear to consider the other alternative; she
should always have to feel partly responsible for Eugenia’s misery.
The fact that Eugenia assured her sweetly that she wasn’t at all
responsible and kept on doing nice things for Dorothy only made it all
the harder.
And then came Emily Davis, a little pale and worn with work done under
difficulties and with worry over the future, but as gay as ever at
heart. She slipped in upon Betty unannounced one snowy afternoon.
“Indade an’ you’re a sight for sore eyes,” she cried, rushing at her
with a kiss and a hug. “And it’s destroyed I am for a talk wid ye an’ a
sup o’ your lovely tay.”
Emily’s Irish had been a prime favorite with 19--, and Betty laughed
with delight at hearing it again. “Poor lady, did you have a horrid
trip up?” she asked, as she rang her little bell for Nora.
“Distressin’, me darlint, distressin’,” Emily went on solemnly. “What
wid cryin’ childern an’ worritin’ wimin, wakin’ the place wid their
noise, I could nayther----”
“Sh!” warned Betty. “Here comes Nora.”
But she was just too late. Nora had overheard the mimicry of her
race’s speech. Her Irish feelings were hurt, and her Irish temper
kindled. When Betty introduced Emily and explained that she had come to
share the responsibilities of the tea-room, Nora tossed her head and
said, “Yes’m, and is that all you wanted?” with an air of an offended
duchess.
She served the tea with great care, but in a haughty silence that
worried Betty and amused Emily.
“Shall I tell her that I’m sorry?” she asked Betty. “Or would that only
make matters worse?”
Betty was afraid it would, and promised to explain herself, if Nora
gave her an opening, which Nora did with a vengeance the minute Emily
had gone off to hunt for a boarding-place and see her old friends.
“I’ll be going, when my week is up,” she announced briskly.
Betty stared. “Oh, Nora, you wouldn’t leave me--just when I need you
most, too, to make the dinners go off splendidly, as I know you can.
What’s the trouble?”
“I don’t think I’ll like taking orders from the new lady--I forget her
name.”
“Why do you think that, Nora?” Betty threw out as a feeler.
“She’s not my idea of a lady, Miss Betty, if you’ll excuse me saying
it out. I’m sorry to go an’ leave you in the lurch, Miss, but I should
always be feeling bothered whenever she was by, and when you’re
bothered you can’t do your work right. So this is a week’s notice,
ma’am.”
In vain Betty explained that Emily had meant no harm by her imitation.
In vain she argued, pleaded, coaxed, and scolded; Nora was firm. She
had given her week’s notice, and in a week she would go.
Emily was “destroyed” in earnest when she heard the news; the feeling
that she had repaid Betty’s kindness with careless trouble-making--or
perhaps it was more the reaction from the strain of wondering what
was ahead of her--combined with a bad cold to send her to bed for
a few days. With all her helpers gone, Betty found it very hard
to find time to hunt for a new waitress. In spite of alluring
advertisements and diligent search by herself and her ever-faithful
allies, Mary and Georgia, no substitute for Nora was forthcoming.
But Belden-House-Annie, who had no sympathy whatever with her sister
Nora’s “flighty ways,” had sent word by Lucile, who told Georgia, who
told Betty, that she had heard of somebody who might do, and that the
somebody aforesaid would come to see Betty that same afternoon.
So Betty sat waiting for her, watching the hands of the clock that went
round much too fast, considering that the waitress did not come, until
the door opened, and her hopes took a sudden bound and then dropped
dead. It wasn’t a waitress. It was a gentleman. He looked like the kind
who would think the tea was cold and the cakes stale, and he would very
likely be right too. Nora had grown very careless since she had decided
to leave. Betty fervently wished that he had not come, but she went
forward, with her cordial little smile, to meet him, where he stood
staring uncertainly around the room.
“Did you want some tea?” she asked timidly. “Because if you’ll sit
down----”
The gentleman looked her over closely. “Tea? Why, yes, I suppose I want
tea. It’s the thing to want at this hour, isn’t it? You do a pretty
big business here, don’t you?” He glanced toward the stalls, where
groups of girls were gathered.
“Yes, a good many people come,” Betty told him pleasantly. “Would you
like a little table in the window or one near the fire?”
He chose one near the fire, overlooking the whole room. He ordered
nothing but a cup of tea, which he sipped and sipped, while he stared
at the girls who came in and at those who went out, at the china, the
decorations, the names over the stalls. These last appeared to interest
him particularly, and he craned his neck until Betty feared it would
break, to decipher the one at the furthest end of the line.
Finally he got up and strolled over to her desk.
“Nice little place you’ve got here,” he said, staring hard at her, with
his sharp ferret-eyes. “Very pretty decorations and all that.”
“Thank you,” said Betty politely. “I’m glad you like it. We’ve tried to
make it look attractive.”
“You--er--the owner or manager or something of that kind?”
Betty explained her position briefly, wondering why she hated so to
talk to him.
“And do people drink enough afternoon tea to pay your partners good
profits on their investment?” he demanded.
Betty hesitated. Certainly a stranger had no right to pry into the
Tally-ho’s private affairs in this cool fashion, and yet, since they
were doing well, what harm could there be in saying so? “We serve
lunches as well as tea, you know,” she explained tentatively, “and next
week we shall begin to serve dinners.”
Just then Lucile Eastman and a crowd of her friends, who had been
occupying the stall named after Black Beauty, bore down upon Betty’s
desk, laughing and chattering over their bill, which was to have been
divided because the party was a “Dutch treat,” but which Nora had put
all together by mistake, and summarily refused to change.
“Now jam is twenty cents,” Lucile was explaining, “and toast with
cheese is fifteen, and not a single one of us had the right change.
Please help us to get it right, Betty dear. Now you go first, Polly.
You had sandwiches, and they’re twenty cents.”
Betty got them all straightened out at last, and by that time the
party in Flying Hoof’s stall had finished too. But the gentleman, who
had been fairly swept aside by the crowd of hurrying girls, waited
patiently enough until they had gone, and then returned to Betty and
the interrupted conversation.
“Well,” he began briskly, “I suppose you wouldn’t be branching out if
you weren’t pretty prosperous.”
In spite of her annoyance, Betty smiled at his persistence. “I suppose
not,” she admitted. “We have a gift department too.” She pointed to
the table. “It’s pretty nearly stagnated ever since Christmas, but a
new specialty for it, that we hope everybody will buy, will be here
very soon. We’re taking orders now, from this sample.” She held out the
ploshkin for him to see.
The gentleman shook his head scornfully. “None of that tomfoolery for
me, thank you. But there’s money in it--I know that. Here’s ten cents
for my tea. And here’s my card.”
Betty stared blankly from the bit of paste-board he had handed her to
the gentleman whose name it bore. He was smiling a queer, disagreeable
smile, as if, for some reason that she could not guess, he found her
very amusing. When he had made sure that his name meant nothing to her,
his smile widened.
“Don’t know who I am, eh? Got to feel pretty much at home in this barn,
haven’t you? Feel a good deal as if you owned it, don’t you?”
Betty failed to see the connection between his first question and the
other; but then, all his questions had been queer. “No,” she replied
steadily, “I don’t know who you are, sir. I’m sorry, since you think I
ought to. I’m very stupid about names. We don’t own this barn; we rent
it. And--and I think I must ask you not to question me any more about
our business. I am employed by the others. I can’t see how anything
I have told you could do us any harm, but I don’t think it’s at all
businesslike for me to discuss my employers’ affairs with you.”
“Maybe you’ll think differently when I tell you that I’m the owner of
this property,” snapped the man defiantly. Betty gasped. “Thought I was
in Italy, didn’t you?” He grinned at her cheerfully.
Betty nodded. “In Europe somewhere.”
“Thought my agent was an easy mark, didn’t you?”
“He has always treated us very fairly and politely”--Betty rushed
indignantly to the agent’s defense--“and I don’t see how----”
“‘Fairly and politely.’” The man, whose card read Mr. James Harrison,
repeated the words jeeringly. “Well, my agent’s got to do more than
treat young ladies ‘fairly and politely,’ I can tell you, to suit me.
Do you know what the repairs on this place cost me?”
Betty had no idea.
Mr. Harrison named a sum. “I suppose you do know what rent you pay?”
“Of course,” said Betty with great dignity. “We’ve never been late with
it so far.”
“You pay by the month. You’ve no contract--no lease. Isn’t that so?”
“Why--y-yes,” Betty admitted doubtfully. “I supposed that as long as we
paid our rent and didn’t injure your property, we could stay.”
“Certainly you can stay,” he told her affably, “only I’m going to raise
the rent. The rent you pay is ridiculous. From the beginning of next
month just multiply it by three, please.”
“But--but we can’t afford to pay as much as that,” Betty told him.
“That’s why we didn’t start in New York--because rents were so high.
The first thing we asked your agent, before we even came to look at
this place, was the amount of the rent.”
Mr. Harrison looked at her coldly. “Well, he was an idiot, that’s all.
I’m not in the real estate business for my health. This barn never paid
decent returns. Now that we’ve found a use for it, there’s no reason
why it shouldn’t. Think it over. Make up your mind to cut down expenses
and profits; and if you should decide to quit, why, I’ll buy out your
fixtures. I’ll warrant I can rent at my own price within a month.”
Betty had been thinking desperately. “I don’t know very much about
business, Mr. Harrison,” she said at last, “but it seems to me that if
we pay rent by the month we ought to have a full month’s notice that
you have decided to raise the price. A maid who is paid by the week
always gives at least a week’s notice, and if we wanted to leave we
should certainly have told your agent at least a month beforehand.”
“Very well,” he said briskly. “This is the twenty-third. Next month
goes at the old rate; after that multiply it by three or quit.
Good-afternoon.”
“Good-afternoon,” Betty told him, with a sigh of relief that he had
gone, even though he left such a dreadful ultimatum behind him. But he
hadn’t gone. He stuck his head in the door to say that he would “call
around again” in a few days for her decision.
Left alone at last Betty looked at her watch. Six
o’clock--Belden-House-Annie’s waitress wouldn’t come now. Perhaps it
was just as well. Perhaps Nora would stay for the month--the last month
of the Tally-ho. They couldn’t pay three times their present rent. No
matter how successful the dinners were, that was out of the question.
The profits, outside of the gift department, had been comparatively
small, and the busiest part of the year was now over. If Mr. Harrison
persisted in his determination to raise the rent, they would have to
stop, or move--and there was no place to move to.
Betty looked around the pretty room, with all its attractive
“features,” and suddenly realized what the closing of the tea-shop
would mean. Madeline and Babbie would be disappointed; Mrs. Hildreth
and Mrs. Enderby would lose a part, at least, of their investment. But
she--and little Dorothy--and Emily Davis--Betty reached out for a sheet
of note-paper to write to Madeline the resourceful, and then dropped
her head down on the big desk and cried as if her heart would break.
Why hadn’t she thought of all this before Mr. Harrison left? She had,
in a confused fashion; but instead of helping her to argue with him her
despair had made her dumb. If only he would let them stay until June!
Then Emily would be provided for through the summer, and father and
mother would be back from Mexico. Dorothy could go home and Betty too,
with a nice little sum left over to show for her winter’s work. But if
the Tally-ho stopped now, where could she sell the ploshkins? And with
the emergency fund gone, and no salary after next month----
Betty could hear father saying with his twinkling, amused smile, “You
oughtn’t to have counted your chickens before they were hatched, little
girl. It’s a bad habit.”
But who would have thought that everything could go to pieces now,
after such a splendid beginning?
Betty wiped her eyes and composed a telegram to Madeline: “If possible
countermand order for ploshkins. Rent raised. Will write.”
Then she reflected that a letter would reach Madeline by the first mail
in the morning, and as she couldn’t countermand an order for ploshkins
before that time, a letter would do as well as a telegram. But before
she wrote it she must go and have dinner with Dorothy.
She found Eugenia and Dorothy on the floor playing paper-dolls, quite
oblivious of the fact that it was past dinner-time.
“I feel like a murderer the night before he’s electrocuted,” Eugenia
explained cheerfully. “To-night I am enjoying myself, for to-morrow
I’ve got to go and tell Miss Raymond that my lost theme is still lost.
And she’ll point with her awful finger to the ‘flunked-out’ class, and
I shall accept my doom.”
Dorothy tumbled over into Eugenia’s lap and hugged her sympathetically.
“Maybe you’ll find it to-night,” she said.
“You’re sure as sure you haven’t hidden it?” Eugenia demanded solemnly.
“Of course.”
“Then I think it’s in the bay of the ploshkin,” Eugenia declared
impressively, “and that’s too far off to go to to-night, so I may as
well be off to dinner. By the way, Betty, I want a dozen ploshkins out
of the very first that come.”
Instead of the pleased smile that Eugenia had expected, Betty’s face
wore a positively tragic expression. “I’m not sure that we shall have
any to sell, Eugenia. There’s some trouble. I can’t explain to-night.
I----”
Eugenia’s little face hardened as she listened to Betty’s astonishing
announcement. She had not lost her ambition to take a place in
Harding’s charmed circle, and she had counted on the ploshkin and her
connection with it to help her in becoming that envied and enviable
creature, a “prominent girl.”
“Madeline Ayres and Fluffy Dutton made it, but it was Eugenia Ford’s
idea”--that was what she had looked forward to people’s saying. And
Polly Eastman was writing a song called “The Bay where the Ploshkin
Bides” for Tibbie Ware, soprano soloist of the Glee Club, to sing
for her encore number at the spring concert. There wouldn’t be point
enough to the song if there was only one ploshkin. Being naturally
silly and suspicious, Eugenia now scented a deep-laid plot against her
happiness. Without stopping to reason out the absurdity of her idea,
she disentangled herself from Dorothy’s caressing arms.
“You don’t need to explain that,” she said. “The only thing I really
want explained is where the theme I left on your desk went to.
Good-night.”
So that was what Eugenia really thought! Betty sat very still wondering
what would come next.
“I’m homesick for my dear mother, Betty.” Little Dorothy, awed by
Eugenia’s coldness and her beloved sister’s forbidding silence, was
very near to tears.
Betty held out her arms. “So am I,” she said, and in a minute more the
two sisters, clasped tight in each other’s arms, were crying out all
their troubles. Betty came to her senses first.
“We mustn’t be such sillies,” she told Dorothy, with a watery attempt
at a smile. “Mother wouldn’t ever get homesick for two such big
cry-babies as we are. Now come and let me bathe your face, and then
we’ll go right down to dinner. No, it’s too late. We’ll go over to the
tea-shop and cook a nice little supper for ourselves. That will be lots
of fun, won’t it?”
“Ye-es,” agreed Dorothy faintly. “Can we have strawberry jam?”
“All you want,” Betty promised, wishing that she too was at the age
when strawberry jam could make her forget her woes.