something unpleasant somewhere.
"Well, different things for each of you. Besides the classes in
bed-making, sweeping and dusting, cooking and home-nursing, I think you
should study Algebra and spelling, Renee may study English and she will
help you with your French, and you will both have Latin. Then in the
evening you may read American history from books selected by your
tutor----"
"Did ever anyone hear of a school like that?" cried Pat, clapping her
hands. "I love it, Aunt Pen, and I'll work hard--honest! Oh----" her
face fell. "Who will be the tutor?"
"Where can you find anyone who can make bread and teach Latin
infinitives?" put in Mr. Everett mischievously.
"Well," Aunt Pen tried to look modest, "how would I do?"
"You!" cried Pat incredulously, certain now that the whole plan was only
a joke. "You--really, truly?"
"Really, truly, my dear! I will dearly love to teach you and help you
both!"
Pat threw both arms about her neck in a strangling hug. "Oh, Aunt Pen,
it will be such fun and I'll really, truly try to learn Latin and I
won't stuff things behind the wardrobe any more--that was my half of the
room, you know! And maybe, with Renee to help me, I can soon speak
French as well as Celia!"
"And I'll offer a prize for the best loaf of bread that one of my girls
makes!" added Mr. Everett.
"No, there shall be no prizes in this school! If one of the girls can
do something better than the other then she is going to help the other!
More than all the French and Latin, in the world I want my pupils to
learn unselfishness! And we will keep reports and the reward will come
when Pat and Renee show these reports to Pat's mother."
"What do you think about it, Mouse?" That was the name Mr. Everett had
given Renee. Her eyes were shining with delight.
"Oh, I will like it very much! And there is so much I want to learn if
I am to live in America and I will try so hard! I was afraid to go to
school!" she confessed.
"It is very natural that you should have dreaded it, my dear! After a
little that shyness will wear off and you will find many staunch friends
and playmates."
"I want to learn to iron as nicely as Sheila can," announced Pat with
her accustomed enthusiasm. "And cook, too--make tarts and things! Why,
Aunt Pen, all that is what we'll need to be second-class scouts!" The
thought suddenly brought concern to her face. "Will we have time, Aunt
Pen, to study for the tenderfoot test? Peggy Lee and Keineth Randolph
are going to teach us to tie knots and, you know," she added hastily,
"that is important! Everybody should be able to tie all sorts of
knots--it's very useful, lots of times!"
Aunt Pen nodded. "Of course! You shall have a chance to learn all
that!"
"Peggy says her brother will teach us how to semaphore, too! Oh, we'll
be _so_ busy, Renee! I think I'll write to Angeline all about it!"
She ran to the spinnet desk across the room and pulled out paper and
pen. Her head was whirling with Aunt Pen's delightful plans! She wrote
furiously for a few moments, with a loud scratching of her point. But
as she wrote into her mind slowly crept a vivid picture of the girls at
Miss Prindle's and of the life there! With the page half written she
stopped. Then she caught up the paper and tore it across, dropping the
pieces one by one into the waste-basket. From the divan before the fire
Aunt Pen was watching her, wondering at the fleeting shadow that had
crossed the brightness of her face.
"What is it, Pat?" she asked gently.
Pat hesitated. "Oh--nothing!" There was a note of defiance in her
voice. She did not add that into her heart had suddenly come the
illuminating conviction that the girls she had known at Miss Prindle's
would laugh at Aunt Pen's "school!"
"There was just so much to write about that I couldn't seem to begin!"
*CHAPTER VIII*
*BREADWINNERS*
A perplexing problem confronted Pat. Her scout uniform must be bought
out of money she had earned herself. And she had never earned a penny
in her life!
"I earned my money knitting mittens and selling them and True Scott
crocheted tam-o'-shanters. They were awfully pretty and all the girls
ordered them. Peggy Lee worked on Saturdays in a grocery store--taking
telephone orders," Sheila explained.
"I can't knit well enough or crochet or do anything," Pat wailed
afterwards, in gloomy consultation with Renee and Sheila.
Then at Sheila's suggestion the girls studied the "Help Wanted" column
of the newspaper. They spread it out upon the floor and knelt around
it; Renee reading off each advertisement and Sheila and Pat passing upon
its possibilities. After considerable discussion it was decided that on
the next afternoon Pat should go to a certain office address where, as
the advertisement read, any refined lady, young or old, would be told
how to make ten dollars a week, in pleasant occupation, in her spare
hours!
"That will be just right for me!" Pat declared enthusiastically. "It
won't interfere with 'school.'"
Aunt Pen's "school" was well started. At first Pat had been inclined to
treat rather lightly the schedule of "household arts," but she realized
very soon that Aunt Pen was in earnest and that she intended to demand
the same thoroughness and accuracy in the simple tasks about the house
that were necessary in the sums in Algebra! At the beginning Pat had
detested what Melodia called "the upstairs work," but under Aunt Pen's
pleasant instruction and with Renee's cheerful company--that little lady
was a true housewife and her hands flew eagerly about her work--Pat
began to feel more interest and to try very hard to do everything just
right! And at the end of the first week Aunt Pen had allowed the girls
to make apple pies which Mr. Everett had declared were better than any
apple pies he had ever tasted!
"And ten dollars a week!" Pat went on, "I will be rich very soon! Now
we must find something for Renee!"
"Perhaps I might earn a little arranging flowers in shop windows; often
I helped Colette Voisin, who had a stall at St. Cloud, and I loved it!"
"Just the thing!" cried Pat, delighted with anything out of the
ordinary. "Most of the flower shops look hideous and they'd probably
pay you well! While I go for my position to-morrow afternoon, you and
Sheila can stop at each one of the florists and offer to trim their
windows!"
The fortune-seekers spent an excited hour preparing for their adventure.
Aunt Pen had gone out for the afternoon, so they were undisturbed. Pat
insisted upon fastening her hair tightly back from her face so as to
give to herself an appearance of mature severity! At the last moment
she donned a long coat of Aunt Pen's which concealed her own kilted
skirt and then for a finishing touch added Celia's last year's sable
furs!
"There--I'm sure anyone would take me easily for twenty-one!" she
declared, surveying herself with satisfaction. And to Pat twenty-one
seemed old enough to suit the most exacting employer!
They had arranged to meet Sheila at her gate. Renee was frightened to
death, and as the three girls trudged on toward the business section of
the city she repeated over and over, after Pat, just what she must say
upon entering each florist's shop!
"Be sure to tell them that you used to fix that flower stall in France!"
warned Pat as they parted. She waved her hand, calling "good luck," and
walked on with a brave step. Sheila was to stay with Renee because
Renee was not acquainted with the city streets.
But two hours later it was a crestfallen trio who met--as they had
agreed to do--in Sheila's kitchen. Pat, in spite of her ridiculous
make-up, looked like an unhappy, thwarted child! She had waited over an
hour in a stuffy office, packed in with dozens of other "refined lady"
applicants who had--although Pat would not tell this even to Sheila or
Renee--openly laughed at her!
"And by the time it was my turn to go in I was so tired waiting that I
got all sort of scared and couldn't say a word," she explained in deep
disgust. "Anyway, it was to sell "Beauty Packages" at people's
houses--things that'd make straight hair curly and remove freckles and
everything else and you had to deposit twenty-five dollars before they'd
even let you begin!"
"And all the flower shops said they had experts to decorate their
windows--they would not even let me tell of Colette's stall! I think
they thought I was too little," sighed Renee; "often they laughed!"
"Well," Pat tossed her head, "we just mustn't get discouraged but try,
try again!"
Renee shuddered. "Oh, I can't--not like that!" she cried vehemently.
"Would you rather not be a scout?" demanded Pat. "You never get
anything without trying for it and I guess I'm not going to let one
failure discourage me!" In the pleasant shelter of the Quinn kitchen
she felt very brave! But a threat of tears in Renee's eyes softened
her. "Don't worry, Ren, we'll find something! Maybe," she hesitated,
"maybe we'd better consult Aunt Pen!"
"Oh, I wish you would!" Renee cried eagerly. Pat's adventurous spirit
frightened her a little.
"I'll think about it and maybe to-morrow----"
For Pat was not quite sure, in her own mind, just what Aunt Pen might
think of the borrowed coat and Celia's furs!
By countless little signs Aunt Pen knew that her girls had something on
their minds! Hurrying down to dinner she had caught a glimpse, as she
had passed Pat's door, of her own coat and Celia's furs thrown on Pat's
bed; the girls had been unusually silent during the evening meal and she
had twice intercepted an appealing glance from Renee to Pat which had
drawn a nod of assurance from Pat in answer! Pat's room work the next
morning had been sadly careless and her Latin recitation had found her
abstracted! Aunt Pen was too sensible to force a confidence--she was
sure that it was only a matter of a little time before Pat would bring
to her anything that troubled!
So she was not surprised when after the morning's work was over Pat came
to her door.
"Renee and I want to talk to you, Aunt Pen!" she said so seriously that
for a moment Penelope was startled.
The two stood before her, Pat with her hands clasped behind her as she
had often seen her father stand.
"You see it's like this, Aunt Pen--Renee and I have got to earn some
money to buy our uniforms! We can't just use allowances! It's about six
dollars and a half apiece! We can't knit well enough to sell things and
Peggy Lee worked in a grocery store, but it was where her mother traded
and they were nice about it! But we--can't--find--any work!"
"Then you've tried?"
Pat colored. "Yes--we tried yesterday!" Without going too much into
detail and carefully giving their experience as much dignity as
possible, she recounted the efforts of the afternoon before to find
employment. Aunt Pen was suddenly seized with a violent coughing fit
which left her tearful!
"I _hope_ you're not laughing," Pat ended with some wrath in her voice.
"I'm sure we're old enough to earn money--_boys_ do at our age! And I
am not in the _least_ discouraged!"
"That is right, Pat," cried Aunt Pen admiringly. "But perhaps you have
not gone about it the right way! Let's sit down now and go over the
whole thing!"
Afterwards Pat told Sheila that one thing she always liked about Aunt
Pen was that she treated a person as though that person _knew_
something!
And Pat never dreamed that it was not her own mental processes that,
after a few words, arrived at the conclusion that she and Renee must
content themselves with just trying to do what they were qualified to
do!
"Renee is too young to be employed even for any part of a day in a
store--we have a law that forbids it! And you, Pat, could scarcely sell
enough Beauty Packages in what spare time you have to replace the shoe
leather you'd wear out!"
"But what _will_ we do?" cried Pat, humble now.
Aunt Pen thought for a long time. Pat's earnestness was a very precious
thing--she must guard it!
Suddenly she clapped her hands with the girlishness that made her such
an understanding companion.
"I have a brilliant idea! You remember the box of apples that came last
week from my farm? We must have at least fifty bushels of them! My
farmer said he was going to take them to market next week. Instead, you
and Renee may go around and take orders! You can sell them for a dollar
and seventy-five cents a bushel--even then it'll be under the grocer's
price--and you will pay the farmer a dollar and a half, which is all
he'd get wholesale, anyway."
"Then we'll make a quarter a bushel?"
"Yes. If you sell the whole lot, you'll have twelve dollars and a half
to divide between you, besides lots of exercise and some experience!
And you can take orders for potatoes, too, up to twenty bushels."
"Oh, great!" cried Pat. She danced around Indian-fashion. "May we
begin this afternoon? And may I take some of the apples that came here
around in a basket to show people?"
"That is a good idea! I think you'll find it pleasanter than selling
Beauty Packages! Then other ways of earning money may turn up. You
know one thing you can learn, even when you are little girls, that will
help you all through life is to know and grasp opportunities when they
come."
"I don't know what we'd do without you, Aunt Pen! I'll keep accounts in
a little book, for I love putting down and adding figures. Let's call
ourselves 'LaDue and Everett, Agents.'"
Renee, whose face reflected her pleasure and approval of the new plan
and her relief that the afternoon need not bring further search for
employment, spoke now, shyly:
"I want so much to earn some money so as to send a little to Susette and
Gabriel. I have so much here and they may need many things! Do you
think I could sell Christmas cards?"
"What kind, child?"
Renee told, then, of the little cards she had painted and sold in St.
Cloud. She ran to her room to bring a few that she had. Penelope
exclaimed with real admiration over them:
"Why, my dear, they are beautiful! Of course you can sell them! And
you must make more! And dinner cards, too!"
"Then valentines!" cried Pat. "And I'll sell them, 'cause you see I am
bigger! We can buy your paints and cardboard out of our apple money
and--"
"What a business woman you have suddenly become!" Aunt Pen declared.
"We'll need a great big account book and an office----" Pat stopped
suddenly and clapped her hands to her head, a motion which always
indicated that she had an idea!
"Oh, spliffy! Renee--come on! I've the _best_ plan!" That it was to
be a secret was certain! She caught Renee's two hands and dragged her
from the room, leaving Aunt Pen convulsed with laughter.
There ensued, then, from the third floor, between the lunch hour and the
afternoon study period, a rumbling like thunder, mingled with pounding
and scraping and bursts of laughter. To add to the mystery Pat rushed
downstairs to return shortly with broom and dustpan and a mob cap over
her dark head.
Not until the next afternoon was the secret revealed! Then with much
ceremony Pat and Renee escorted Aunt Pen to the third floor. For years
the low-gabled room stretching across the east wing of the house had
served as a sewing room where the Archer sisters had worked stitching
frocks for Celia and Pat and mending the household linen. The Archer
sisters--Pat had always thought they looked like gnomes---were dead now
and Mrs. Everett had the girls' dresses made by a downtown dressmaker.
The room had not been used for a long time.
Now upon its door had been nailed an imposing and elaborately decorated
sign which read: "_Eagles' Eyrie_." And beneath that, emphasizing its
warning with a skull and crossbones, was another sign: "_No
Admittance_."
"Three knocks and then a quick one is the signal," explained Pat
mysteriously; "and you and Sheila and Peggy and Keineth and True Scott
are the only ones that will know it--except, of course, Ren and me!"
Pat was unlocking the door as she spoke. She threw it open proudly.
"This isn't going to be any silly club!" she explained. "Everyone that
comes here must work! That desk over there is mine and Renee has this
table because she can paint on it and the light's good. And that big
table is for the other girls, only we have to keep it against the wall
'cause one leg's off!"
A few hours' work had utterly transformed the room and had removed all
traces of the patient Archer sisters and their livelihood. The floor,
very dusty in spots, was covered with strips of an old hall carpeting
which, when hardwood floors had been laid, had been stored away. Pat
had also resurrected from the storeroom the antiquated desk and tables
and a dilapidated assortment of chairs. Over one of these, to add a
note of elegance to the room, she had thrown an old Bagdad lounge cover
and across the windows the girls had hung pieces of faded velour,
replaced a few years before in the living rooms below. The air was
heavy with the smell of camphor and dust; the three-legged table had a
pathetically helpless look, a corner of the wall was stained from a leak
in the roof, but to Pat and Renee it was an inspiring retreat!
"My account books are there in my desk, and I'll have you know, Aunt
Pen, that 'LaDue and Everett' have gotten orders for ten bushels of
apples which wasn't bad for one afternoon's work and for girls, too!"
declared Pat.
"Oh, that reminds me!" Aunt Pen's voice was as enthusiastic as that of
the junior member of the firm. "I have an order for LaDue and Everett!
Miss Higgins will take twelve of the Christmas cards! I showed her one
this morning. She is going to put them on sale in her tea room. She
may order more! You must decide as to your prices, Renee."
Renee was too delighted to answer. Pat fairly bubbled with excitement.
She caught Aunt Pen and Renee in a whirling step that almost completely
demolished an ancient chair that lay in her mad path.
"Hurrah for the Eagles' Eyrie! And won't we just have fun? You,
know"--she quieted suddenly--"the day mother and Celia went away I was
awfully miserable and I wrote the silliest things in my diary! But that
was before I found Renee! And now we've got Sheila and you and our jolly
school and our business and I'm glad's can be they left me home and I
didn't go back to Prindle's!"
Aunt Pen, for lack of breath and a chair had sunk down upon the floor.
She looked up laughing.
"I'd hate to have to analyze that sentence of yours, Patsy! But even if
your English is constructed badly your heart is gold and I say--good
luck to you and your Eagles' Eyrie!"
*CHAPTER IX*
*THE NEW LODGER*
"Whatever in the world are all those whistles blowing for?" asked Pat,
springing from her bed and running to her window. "Something's
happening--I know!"
The girls listened. The early morning air was filled with incessant
sound; the shriek of sirens, shriller blasts, the heavy tones of boats'
whistles from the harbor, intoning bells.
"It makes you shiver!"
"Let's dress quickly!" Pat reached out for a stocking. "Maybe it's
peace!" she declared suddenly.
"Oh-h!" was all Renee answered, but there was a world of meaning in the
single sound. "Listen! There are more bells! Aren't they beautiful?
Perhaps they are ringing all over the world."
Downstairs they found everyone wildly excited. Even Jasper, who had not
been over from England for so many years that he had forgotten his
relatives there, was talking volubly to Aunt Pen and passing her sugar
for her boiled egg!
"What is it, Aunt Pen?" cried Pat and Renee in one voice.
"My dears--the fighting has stopped--at last!" Mr. Everett answered. He
seemed too moved to say more.
"I don't know whether I feel more like praying or shouting," laughed
Aunt Pen with two tears rolling down her cheeks.
From the extra which Jasper had brought in Mr. Everett read to them all
the terms of the armistice to which Germany had agreed. Melodia and
Maggie listened from the door.
"I feel all queer inside!" announced Pat.
Renee's breakfast lay before her, untouched. Aunt Pen, seeing the real
distress on the child's face, divined the ache that lay in her heart.
So that when Renee, unable to control herself longer, rushed toward the
door she felt two quick arms fold about her and draw her close to a
friendly shoulder.
"Dearie, tell us! Don't grieve by yourself!"
Then poor Renee buried her face; it was several moments before she could
speak.
"I wish I was--there! Home, I mean--poor Susette is old--and has--only
Gabriel! We worked so hard--we made a flag, Susette and I, and we tried
to make it just like your Stars and Stripes; we put in the thirteen
bars, 'cause I had counted--but not--nearly--enough stars! We'd
promised Emile when peace came--he said that the Germans _would_ be
beaten--we'd hang it from the corner of the roof, 'long side of
Gabriel's old French flag! And"--the head went back against Penelope's
shoulder--"I'm 'fraid Susette--will forget--and it--will not--be there!"
"She will remember, Renee, because right at this moment I know her heart
and her mind are full of thoughts of you, just as you are homesick for
her and the little cottage!"
Mr. Everett, who had been deeply moved by Renee's story, interposed some
practical comfort.
"Renee, will you let me--by way of celebrating this day--send a money
order to Susette in your name? Remember, child, how little we have
suffered as compared to you and Susette and countless others--over
there! You shall write her a little letter to go with it!"
"Oh, I will _like that_! And then Susette will surely know that I am
with kind, generous friends!" The child's eyes were bright again. "And
I will remind her where we put the flag and she can hang it out, for I
think now there will be flags flying in France for a long time!"
"This must, of course, be a holiday," declared Aunt Pen.
"And let's just do things we've never done before," cried Pat.
At that moment Mr. Everett was called to the telephone. He returned
greatly excited.
"Burns telephones from the Works that the men are forming a monster
parade! They've got a band and helped themselves to every flag in the
place! The city's gone mad! I must hurry away. Take the girls
downtown! This November eleventh must be a day we will never forget--as
long as we live!"
And as he hurried off he said to Renee in parting:
"Have that letter ready, my dear, and I will send the money order home
at noon-time."
The girls rushed away to put on their wraps.
"May we stop for Sheila?" called Pat over the banister.
"Of course!" assented Penelope, glad that Pat wanted to share all her
joys with her friends.
By the time they reached the downtown section the walks were thronged
with people and the streets had been cleared of traffic for the marching
hosts. The girls found a place on the curb. It seemed to them as though
everyone had gone mad all at once and that they were as mad as anyone
else! At every corner processions were forming, headed by any sort of a
makeshift band and where not even a drum could be commandeered, tin pans
and pails had been pressed into service! And through it all the
incessant, deafening tumult of whistles!
Everyone was smiling! The sun had burst through the accumulated clouds
of long years of war!
A group of men and girls from a shipyard marched by. Some of them were
drawing a huckster's wagon they had seized and upon its load of potatoes
and apples and cabbages they had placed a big ship's bell! One of their
number rode on the wagon and with a huge sledge pounded the bell at
regular intervals. They were all carrying flags, big and small, and one
grimy man had a baby in his arms! The crowd on the curb cheered wildly
and the man held the baby high in the air!
The marchers had to halt and while the man with the bell rested, they
sang the Star Spangled Banner. Others took it up--it was carried down
block after block, a rising wave of sound, a chorus of triumph! Pat and
Sheila and Renee sang lustily and as they sang Pat felt her hand
suddenly caught in a warm, tight clasp! It was her neighbor, a little
bent woman with the dark eyes of the Italian race and a worn shawl over
her head and shoulders. Her eyes were brimming with tears, but through
them she was smiling like the others! Pat was too young to guess the
tragedy of sacrifice that might lie behind those tears, but she was not
too young to sense the common joy and thankfulness and privilege they
shared! So she squeezed the worn fingers and smiled back into the
little old woman's face!