FINANCIAL PLANS
"This parliamentary business fusses me," exclaimed Helen. "Let's just
talk, now that we've decided what we are going to do."
"Take a more comfortable chair," suggested Tom, pulling over a Morris
chair nearer the fire.
Roger stirred up the flames and tossed on some pine cones.
"These cones remind me that our old people down by the bridge might like
some. They have a funny open stove that they could use them in."
"What are they good for? Kindling?" asked Della.
"Ha! There speaks the city lady used only to steam! Certainly they are
good for kindling on account of the pitch that's in them, but they're
also great in an open fire to brighten it up when it is sinking somewhat
and one or two at a time tossed on to a clear fire make a pretty sight."
"And a pretty snapping sound," added Dorothy, remembering the cones from
the long leaf pines.
"Our old couple gets a bushel on Monday afternoon if it ever stops
raining," promised Roger. "Dicky loves to pick them up, so he'll help."
"The honorary member of the United Service Club does his share of
service work right nobly," declared James, who was a great friend of
Dicky's.
"The thing for us to do first is to decide how we are to begin," said
Helen.
"We might talk over the kinds of presents that the war orphans would
like and then see which of them any of us can make," suggested Margaret
wisely.
"Any sort of clothing would come in mighty handy, I should think,"
guessed James, "and I don't believe the orphans would have my early
prejudices against receiving it for Christmas gifts."
"Poor little creatures, I rather suspect Santa Claus will be doing his
heaviest work with clothing this year."
"As far as clothing is concerned," said Margaret, "we needn't put a
limit on the amount we send or the sizes or the kinds. The distributors
will be able to use everything they can lay their hands on when the
Christmas Ship comes in and for many months later."
"Then let's inquire of our mothers what there is stowed away that we can
have and let's look over our own things and weed out all we can that
would be at all suitable and that our mothers will let us give away, and
report here at the next meeting."
"While we're talking about the next meeting," broke in Dorothy while the
others were nodding their assent to Helen's proposition, "won't you
please come to my house next time?"
"We certainly will," agreed Della and Margaret.
"You bet," came from the boys.
"And Mother told me to offer the Club the use of our attic to store our
stuff in. It's a big place with almost nothing in it."
"I'm sure Aunt Marion will be glad not to have anything else go into her
attic," said Ethel Blue, and all the Mortons laughed as they thought of
the condition of the Morton attic, whose walls were almost bulging with
its contents.
"If that's settled we must remember to address all our bundles to 'Mrs.
Leonard Smith, Church Street, Rosemont,'" James reminded them.
"It seems to me," Ethel Brown said slowly, thinking as she spoke, "that
we might collect more clothing than we shall be able to find in our own
families."
"There are a good many of us," suggested Della.
"There are two Watkinses and two Hancocks and five Mortons and one
Smith--that's ten, but if the rest of you are like the Morton family--we
wear our clothes pretty nearly down to the bone."
All the Mortons pealed at this and the rest could not help joining in.
"One thing we must not do," declared Helen. "We must not send a single
old thing that isn't in perfect order. It's a poor present that you have
to sit down and mend."
"We certainly won't," agreed Margaret. "I wear my clothes almost down to
the skeleton, too, but I know I have some duds that I can make over into
dresses for small children. I'm gladder every day that we took that
sewing course last summer, Helen."
"Me, too. My dresses--or what's left of them--usually adorn Ethel
Brown's graceful frame, but perhaps Mother will let us have for the
orphans the clothes that would ordinarily go to Ethel Brown."
Ethel Brown looked worried.
"Ethel Brown doesn't know whether that will mean that she'll have to go
without or whether she'll have new clothes instead of the
hand-me-downs," laughed Roger.
"I don't care," cried Ethel Brown. "I'd just as lief go without new
clothes if Mother will let the Club have the money they'd cost."
"I've been thinking," said Tom, "that we're going to need money to work
this undertaking through successfully. How are we going to get it?"
"But shall we need any to speak of?" inquired Margaret. "Fixing up our
old clothes won't cost more than we can meet ourselves out of our
allowances. I'm going to ask my Aunt Susy to let me have some of the
girls' old things. The girls will be delighted; they're the ones who
have the plain clothes."
"We'll fix them up with ruffles and bows before we send them away,"
smiled Helen.
"Why can't we ask everybody we come across for old clothes?" Ethel Blue
wondered.
"Grandmother Emerson would be sure to have something in her attic and I
shouldn't wonder if she'd be willing to ask the ladies at the Guild if
they'd contribute," said Helen.
"Do we want to take things from outside of the Club?" objected Ethel
Brown.
"I don't see why not," answered Margaret. "The idea is to get together
for the orphans as many presents as possible, no matter where they come
from. We're serving the orphans if we work as collectors just as much as
if we made the clothes ourselves."
"Right-o," agreed Roger. "Let's tackle everybody we can on the old clo'
question. We can ask the societies in our churches--"
"Why not in all the churches in town?" dared Ethel Blue.
The idea brought a pause, for the place was small enough for the
churches to meet each other with an occasional rub.
"I believe that's a good idea," declared Tom, and as a clergyman's son
they listened to his views with respect. "All the churches ought to be
willing to come together on the neutral ground of this club and if we
are willing to take the responsibility of doing the gathering and the
packing and the expressing to the Christmas Ship I believe they'll be
glad to do just the rummaging in their attics and the mending up."
"We needn't limit their offerings to clothes, either," said Della.
"We'll take care of anything they'll send in."
"Let's put it up to them, I say," cried Roger. "There's at least one
member of the Morton family in every society in our church and we ought
to get the subject before every one of those groups of people by the end
of next week and start things booming."
"We'll do the same at Glen Point," agreed Margaret.
"I can't promise quite as much for New York, because I don't know what
Father's plans are for war relief work in his church, but I do feel
pretty sure he'll suggest some way of helping us," said Della.
"That's decided, then--we'll lay our paws on everything we can get from
every source," Tom summed up the discussion. "Now I come back to what I
said a few minutes ago--I think we're going to need more money to run
this association than we're going to be able to rake up out of our own
allowances, unless Margaret's is a good deal bigger than mine," and he
nodded toward Margaret, who had objected to the more-money idea when he
had offered it before.
"Just tell me how we'll need more," insisted Margaret.
"I figure it out that the part we boys will have to do in this
transaction will be to district this town and Glen Point and make a
house to house appeal for clothes and any sort of thing that would do
for a Christmas present, all to be sent to Mrs. Smith's."
"That won't cost anything but a few carfares, and you can stand those,"
insisted Margaret.
"Carfares are all right and even a few express charges for some people
who for some reason aren't able to deliver their parcels at Mrs. Smith's
house. But if you girls are going to make over some of these clothes and
perhaps make new garments you'll need some cash to buy materials with."
"Perhaps some of the dry goods people will contribute the materials."
"Maybe they will. But you mark my words--the cost of a little here and a
little there mounts up amazingly in work of this sort and I know we're
going to need cash."
"Tom's right," confirmed Della. "He's helped Father enough to know."
The idea of needing money, which they did not have, was depressing to
the club members who sat around the fire staring into it gloomily.
"The question is, how to get it," went on Tom.
"People might give us money just as well as cloth, I suppose," suggested
Margaret.
"I think it would be a thousand times more fun to make the money
ourselves," said Ethel Blue.
"The infant's right," cried Tom. "It will be more fun and what's more
important still, nobody can boss us because he's given us a five dollar
bill."
"I suppose somebody might try," murmured Helen.
"They would," cried Tom and Della in concert.
"We aren't a clergyman's children for nothing," Tom went on humorously.
"The importance a five dollar bill can have in the eyes of the giver and
the way it swells in size as it leaves his hands is something that few
people realize who haven't seen it happen."
"Let's be independent," cried Dorothy decidedly, and her wish was
evidently to the mind of all the rest, for murmurs of approval went
around the room.
"But if we're so high and mighty as not to take money contributions and
if we nevertheless need money, what in the mischief are we going to do
about it?" inquired Roger.
"We must earn it," said Helen. "I'll contribute the money Mother is
going to pay me for making a dozen middy blouses for the Ethels. She
ordered them from me last summer when I began to take the sewing course
and I haven't quite finished them yet, but I'll have the last one done
this week if I can get home from school promptly for a day or two."
"I can make some baskets for the Woman's Exchange," said Dorothy.
"I learned how to make Lady Baltimore cake the other day," said
Margaret, "and I'll go to some ladies in Glen Point who are going to
have teas soon and ask them for orders."
"I can make cookies," murmured Ethel Brown, "but I don't know who'd buy
them."
"You tell the kids at school that you've gone into the cooky business
and you'll have all the work you can do for a while," prophesied Roger.
"I know your cookies; they're bully."
"I don't notice that we boys are mentioning any means of making money,"
remarked James dryly. "I confess I'm stumped."
"I know what you can do," suggested Margaret. "Father said this morning
that he was going to get a chauffeur next week if he could find one that
wouldn't rob him of all the money he made. You can run the car--why
don't you offer to work half time--afternoons after school, for half
pay? That would help Father and he'd rather have you than a strange
man."
"He'd rather have half time, too. He likes to run the car himself, only
he gets tired running it all day on heavy days. Great head, Sis," and
James made a gesture of stroking his sister's locks, to which she
responded by making a face.
"I know what I can do," said Roger. "You know those bachelor girls about
seventy-five apiece, over on Church Street near Aunt Louise's--the Miss
Clarks? Well, they had an awful time last year getting their furnace
attended to regularly. They had one man who proved to be a--er," Roger
hesitated.
"Not a total abstainer?" inquired James elegantly.
"Thank you, Brother Hancock, for the use of your vocabulary. The next
one stole the washing off the line, and the next one--Oh, I don't know
what he did, but the Miss Clarks were in a state of mind over the
furnace and the furnace man all winter. Now, suppose I offer to take
care of their furnace for them this winter? I believe they'd have me."
"I think they'd be mighty glad to get you," confirmed Helen. "Could you
do that and take care of ours, too?"
"Sure thing, if I put my mind on it and don't chase off with the fellows
every time I feel in the mood."
"Mother would like to have you take care of ours if you could manage
three," said Dorothy.
"I'll do it," and Roger thumped his knee with decision.
"I wouldn't undertake too much," warned Helen. "It will mean a visit
three times a day at each house, you know, and the last one pretty late
in the evening."
"I'm game," insisted Roger. "You know I can be as steady as an old horse
when I put my alleged mind on it. Mother never had any kick coming over
my work in the furnace department last winter."
"She said you did it splendidly, but this means three times as much."
"I'll do it," and Roger nodded his head solemnly.
"It seems to be up to Della and me to tell what we can do," said Tom
meditatively. "Father's secretary is away on a three months' holiday and
I'm doing his typewriting for him and some other office stunts--as much
as I can manage out of school hours. I'll turn over my pay to the Club
treasury."
This was greeted with applause.
"I don't seem to have any accomplishments," sighed Della, her round head
on one side. "The only thing I can think of is that I heard the ladies
who have charge of the re-furnishing of the Rest Room in the Parish
House say that they were going to find some one to stencil the window
curtains. I might see if they'd let me do it and pay me. I didn't take
that class at the Girls' Club last summer, but Dorothy and Ethel Brown
could teach me."
"Of course."
"Or you could get the order from them, I'd fill it, and you could make
the baskets for the Woman's Exchange," offered Dorothy.
Della brightened. That was a better arrangement.
"Try it," nodded Tom. "If you turn out one order well you'll get more;
see if you don't."
"Our honorary member, Mr. Dicky Morton, might sell newspapers since he
got broken in to that business last summer," laughed Ethel Brown.
"Mother wouldn't let him do it here, I know, but he can weave awfully
pretty things that he learned at the kindergarten and if there are any
bazars this fall he could sell some of them on commission."
"Dicky really understands about the Club. I think he'd like to do
something for the orphans," Helen agreed.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Ethel Blue, rising in her excitement;
"I have a perfectly grand, galoptious idea. Why do we wait for somebody
else to get up a bazar to sell Dicky's weaving? Let's have a bazar of
our own. Why can't we have a fair with some tables, and ice cream and
cake for sale and an entertainment of some kind in the evening? We all
know all sorts of stunts; we can do the whole thing ourselves. If we
announce that we are doing it for the Christmas Ship I believe everybody
in town would come--"
"--And in Glen Point and New York," Roger mocked her enthusiasm.
"You know we could fill the School Hall as easy as fiddle, Roger. You
see everybody would know what we were at work on because we are going to
begin collecting the clothes right off, so everybody will be
interested."
Tom nodded approval.
"Perhaps we can do the advertising act when we do the collecting."
"If I drive Father, I see myself ringing up all the neighboring houses
while he's in on his case," said James, "and it's just as easy to talk
bazar part of the time as it is to chat old clo' the whole time."
"Can you get the School Hall free?" asked Tom.
"We'd have to pay for the lighting and the janitor, but that wouldn't be
much," said Roger. "It would be better than the Parish House of any of
the churches because if we had it in a church there'd surely be some
people who wouldn't go because it was in a building belonging to a
denomination they didn't approve of, but no one can make any kick about
the schoolhouse."
"It's the natural neighborhood centre."
"We'll have the whole town there."
"If we let in some of the school kids we'll get all their families on
the string," recommended Roger.
"I'm working up a feat that I've never seen any one do," said Tom.
"I'll turn it loose for the first time at our show."
"Remember, you're all coming to me next Saturday afternoon," Dorothy
reminded them as the Hancocks and Watkinses put on their overgarments
and sought out their umbrellas preparatory to going home.
"And we'll bring a list of what we can contribute ourselves and what
we've collected so far and what we think we can collect and we'll turn
in anything we've made."
"If there's anything we can work on while the Club is going on we'd
better bring it," suggested Helen.
"Mother says we may have the sewing machine in the attic," said Dorothy.
"I believe I'll take my jig-saw over," suggested Roger. "Aunt Louise
wouldn't mind, would she?"
"She'd be delighted. Bring everything," and Dorothy glowed with the
hospitality that had been bottled up in her for years and until now had
had but small opportunity to escape.