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The Wide Awake Girls Series
THE WIDE AWAKE GIRLS IN WINSTED
by
KATHARINE RUTH ELLIS
Author of "The Wide Awake Girls"
Illustrated from drawings by Sears Gallagher
[Illustration: "'Here is a little souvenir for you, Judge Arthur.'"
Frontispiece. See page 266.]
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
Copyright, 1909,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Printers
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A.
To
GLADYS GODDARD
who has been the friend of many boys and girls
this book is affectionately inscribed.
PREFACE
The author wishes to acknowledge gratefully the kindness of Messrs.
Houghton, Mifflin and Company in allowing her to use the poem
_Vantage_, by Josephine Preston Peabody in this book. She also
thanks Miss Margaret Sherwood for consenting to a similar use of her
poem, _Indian Summer_.
Books for girls are frankly suggestive, their value lying in their
kindling power. Among the girls of all sorts who may read this story,
there will be, here and there, one who loves right words. It is for the
sake of such an occasional reader that the poems mentioned have been
included. The schools sometimes lead their pupils to believe that
English literature, like Latin, belongs to the past. But there are, here
and now, "musicians of the word" who, partly because they are living,
can touch our hearts as none of the dead-and-gone ones can. If through
these pages some girl finds her way to the little green volume of
_Singing Leaves_, or the sweet stories of _Daphne_ and _King
Sylvaine and Queen Aimee_, Catherine Smith and her friends will have
done the world of girls a service worth the doing.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CATHERINE'S INSPIRATION 3
II. GETTING STARTED 15
III. ORGANIZATION 28
IV. WITH PAIL AND BROOM 46
V. A DAY OFF 58
VI. THE OPENING 71
VII. A PARTY AT POLLY'S 86
VIII. A FORTUNATE MEETING 101
IX. LANDING 109
X. THE MAKING OF A COMPACT 120
XI. BROOKMEADOW 133
XII. ARRIVAL AT WINSTED 151
XIII. CAUGHT IN A SHOWER 164
XIV. AN INTERLUDE 176
XV. SUNDAY SCHOOL 186
XVI. ALICE ON THE WAY 203
XVII. FINDING A VOCATION 212
XVIII. DOCTOR'S ORDERS 221
XIX. JOURNALISM 246
XX. THE THREE R's 254
XXI. THE LAST PARTY 271
XXII. AUF WIEDERSEHEN 284
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Here is a little souvenir for you, Judge Arthur" Frontispiece
Page
"We must find a good place for it" 17
"How much for your tickets?" 77
"Sure I am not too heavy, Karl?" 112
Frieda was telling a story and the others were
listening attentively 184
PART ONE
STARTING A LIBRARY
THE WIDE AWAKE GIRLS IN WINSTED
CHAPTER ONE
CATHERINE'S INSPIRATION
"Alma Mater, Dexter darling, do re mi--O dear! It's much harder to write
than I supposed. I wonder why! When your heart is full of love, why
should it be hard to express it?"
Catherine Smith, sitting on the top step of the porch of her home, Three
Gables, bent her red-gold head over the pad of paper on her knee and
wrote painfully, her forehead puckered earnestly. She had been a year at
college and was just beginning her summer vacation. All through the busy
year, full of delightful new experiences, she had looked forward to the
leisure of summer, in which she might adequately declare her devotion to
the college which had been her mother's and was now her own. From the
day, the June before, when she had gone there to visit her friend,
Hannah Eldred, she had felt a keen sense of "belonging," especially
pleasant because her frail health had compelled her to lead a somewhat
secluded life at home, and she had not felt really acquainted with the
young people in the little town of Winsted, where she had always lived.
Now all that was changing. At college she had been forced to conquer her
shyness, and, to her delight, she soon found that the boys and girls at
home were more than glad to receive her into their circle upon equal
terms. Her physician parents were everybody's friends, and Catherine,
who adored her father and mother, was eager to show herself worthy to be
their daughter. In order to do so, she reasoned, she must be of real
service to the town and to her college. The only way she had thought of
so far was to write an Alma Mater song, expressive not only of the
rapturous loyalty of undergraduates, but of the graver love of alumnae
like her mother.
"It is very hard," she sighed. "It must be stately and yet not heavy. O
me! And here comes Algernon."
With a resigned air she folded her scribbled papers and thrust her
pencil into the coil of red braids encircling her head. Algernon
Swinburne, ever since his foolish mother had christened him for the
poet, had, by turns, amused and wearied his fellow-citizens. While
Catherine had lived apart, she had been spared his lengthy visits, but
with the pleasures of social life had come its penalties and she was now
on Algernon's list and obliged to spend frequent hours in his really
trying society. He came up the long walk now with a curious springing
gait, and Catherine tried to summon a hospitable smile to her lips.
Algernon refused a chair. He always appeared to be just going, "and
yet," as Polly Osgood said with a groan, "he almost never goes!" He
perched uncomfortably upon the railing and opened fire at once.
"Have you seen the last _North American Review_?"
Catherine confessed that she had not.
"There was a corking article in it on municipal corruption, comparing
San Francisco, New York and Pittsburg as to graft, police efficiency and
so on. They say Pittsburg spends two million dollars a year--"
"My upper legs is going barefoot."
Catherine lifted her eyes with a flash of pleasure. Elsmere Swinburne
was the occasional relief from his big brother's monotony. Catherine
loved little folk, and though Elsmere was known to be a rascal who would
have tried the patience of Job, she somehow always found forgiveness for
his enormities, and a delighted appreciation for his funny sayings. Just
now he stood proudly before her, his hands in his pockets, his eyes
fixed upon his fashionably clad little legs, with bruised brown knees
showing above new half-hose.
"My mamma buyed 'em for me. Her buys me everything."
Catherine smiled, but shook her head a little. Mrs. Swinburne was a
source of grief to all her neighbors, because of her persistent refusal
to allow Algernon the chance at college that he desired, and even more
because of her unwise indulgence of her younger son's lightest wishes.
Algernon cleared his throat and took up the thread of his narrative.
"Pittsburg, this fellow Chapman in the _Review_ says, spends two
million dollars a year on--"
"Talking, talking, all the time Algy talking," Elsmere broke in.
"_I_ want to talk. Tell Caffrin 'bout my cat-pussy. Her awful sick.
Her--"
Catherine sprang up. Elsmere's conversation often needed to be
suppressed.
"Let's play tennis. Algernon, will you get the balls and rackets? You
know where they are,--just inside the hall there. And Elsmere may run
after balls for us. He can, so nicely!"
Algernon obeyed the unexpected request patiently, and when he was gone,
Catherine averted her face for the space of a minute. What she had hoped
for came to pass, and when Algernon returned, his small brother had
quietly vanished. "The older one may be monotonous, but the younger one
is positively dangerous," Catherine thought to herself, as she took the
balls from Algernon, saying:
"Let's not play, after all. It's so very warm and Elsmere thought he
didn't want to run after balls. You don't mind, do you?"
"Why, no, I wasn't keen about playing," and Algernon, unconscious of the
maneuver he had helped to execute, dropped back upon the railing and
continued his _resume_ of the _North American_ article.
Catherine, meanwhile, having slipped the balls one by one into the
pocket of her steamer chair, rested her long white hands upon the chair
arms and sat quietly, hearing nothing of Mr. Chapman's statistics, her
brown eyes dreamily fixed upon the sloping lawn, but seeing instead the
Dexter campus, across which girls were moving, as she loved best to see
them, in pretty light gowns on the way to evening chapel. Among them all
her thought rested most lovingly upon a little girl with a plain face
and big round glasses. "You dear old Alice!" she murmured, almost aloud,
and roused herself guiltily to hear Algernon saying:
"There are a lot of wide-awake men in Pittsburg."
"Wide-awake girls in Winsted!"
This time Catherine really did speak aloud, and Algernon looked up in
surprised inquiry.
"I beg your pardon," she said contritely. "It was very rude of me, but
you set me off, yourself. The Wide Awake Girls are really going to be in
Winsted this summer. Don't you know about them?" as Algernon still
looked puzzled.
"Why, no. All the Winsted girls seem wide-awake enough, I should say."
"But I'm the only one who has a right to be called so in capital
letters. I'll tell you all about it, but it has been such an important
part of my life for the last year and more, that I forget every one who
knows me doesn't know about it all.
"You see, about two years ago, when I was fifteen and Hannah Eldred, who
lives in Massachusetts, was not quite fourteen, she wrote a letter to
_Wide-Awake_, the magazine, you know, asking for correspondents.
And I answered it. Several other girls did, too. One was Alice Prescott,
who lives out in Washington, and another was Frieda Lange, of Berlin,
whose mother had known Mrs. Eldred in Germany years ago. Hannah kept on
writing to the three of us, and before the end of the year she had met
us all and really lived with each of us in turn. It doesn't sound
probable, but it came about naturally enough. The Eldreds went to Berlin
for a few months and boarded at the Langes'. Then Mrs. Eldred's mother
was taken ill, and they had to come back to this country. The
grandmother lived over here at Delmar, and Father was called in
consultation and brought Hannah back to stay with me a little while; and
then, as her mother couldn't leave, they sent Hannah to Dexter, to the
preparatory department, and there she found Alice, whom she had lost
sight of for a long time. Then when I went to Dexter, I learned to know
Alice, and this year Frieda Lange is coming to America to school and she
is going to Dexter, too. Hannah is coming out for a few weeks' visit
here before college opens, and I'm going to try to get Alice at the same
time, for we've never all four been together. I am so eager about it
that I can't keep my mind on anything else very long, so that's why I
said 'Wide Awake Girls in Winsted' aloud. Isn't it an interesting
story?"
"Coincidences are always interesting," said Algernon. "And I think a
great many things that go by the name of telepathy are nothing more. I'm
keeping a record of peculiar coincidences that come under my notice.
I'll put these down, about the two happening to go to the same college,
and about the German and American girls finding their mothers were
acquainted." He produced a note-book to make an entry.
"You can't include the last one," Catherine protested. "It was because
Mrs. Lange recognized Hannah from the letter that Frieda wrote. But the
meeting between Alice and Hannah was mere chance."
Algernon closed his note-book and went placidly on as if Catherine's
story had not interrupted him:
"As I was saying, those men in Pittsburg--"
The telephone bell rang and Catherine went into the house to answer it.
"I'll have to be excused, Algernon," she said, coming back a minute
later. "Father wants something of me. You can tell me the rest another
time."
Then, as Algernon slowly got off the porch, she added impulsively:
"I marvel just to see you walk, Algernon. You know so very much! You
seem to me to be a veritable walking library."
Algernon twisted his body uncomfortably and flushed.
"I'd be more use to Winsted if I were a real one," he said, with a
wistful sound in his voice that made Catherine look at him sharply. She
waved him a smiling good-by as he went down the walk, and then turned to
her father's desk to look up some papers he wanted. Her mind, however,
still dwelt on that unexpected shade in Algernon's tone.
"I've thought of him as a mere talking machine instead of a human
being," she said to herself reproachfully. "I must make a salmon scallop
for Father's supper. Inga doesn't know how to do anything but scramble
eggs and boil potatoes, and Father's tired, I know by his voice. It
sounded tired, but Algernon's was lonely. I wonder--"
Dr. Harlow Smith and his wife, Dr. Helen, drove up to their pretty
gabled house on the hill slope a few minutes later, their faces lighting
with pleasure as the tall girl in a blue apron came out to meet them.
The stable-boy came to take the horse, and Catherine escorted her
parents to the house. While they made themselves ready for supper, she
put the last orderly touches to the table in the panelled dining-room,
and was ready for them with kisses when they arrived.
The silent grace over, Catherine spoke:
"Eat and be filled, dearly beloved, because I have a new project and I
need you to be enthusiastic."
"What is it this time?" asked Dr. Harlow, serving the golden scallop
generously. "You have shown diplomacy in your choice of a dish, if I am
the one you wish to wheedle."
Dr. Helen, pouring yellow cream from a fat silver jug into thin
hexagonal cups, sent an interested glance across the table at her
daughter.
"Tell us," she said.
"It's quite new," said Catherine, hesitating a little. "In fact it's not
a half-hour old, but I do believe it is a good plan. You know Algernon
Swinburne?"
"We have met him," agreed Dr. Harlow cautiously.
"So had I!" said Catherine with sudden spirit, "and this afternoon it
came to me that I didn't know him at all. All any of us ever do to
Algernon is to avoid him,--those of us who don't laugh at him. And he's
lonely, Father! Lonely!"
"Did he tell you so?"
"No. But I suddenly knew. I've seen homesick girls at college,
and--and--well, there was a little while, just a little while, when I
was getting strong enough to do things, and before Hannah came to visit,
that I felt that way myself, so I know."
Dr. Helen's look was like a pressure of the hand, and she answered
gently:
"I think you are very likely right, Catherine. And this plan of yours is
to make Algernon less lonely?"
"Do you think he knows he's lonely?" asked Dr. Harlow. "I've thought the
boy had good stuff in him, and if he should ever wake up to the fact
that he's a bore, he might amount to something worth while. You don't
think he has, do you?"
"Not exactly," Catherine confessed, remembering the note-book's
appearance at the end of her little story. "But I think he has an
inkling that he might be of more use. I told him he was a walking
library. He does know such an amazing amount, you know! And he said
Winsted would be better off if it had a real library instead of his
kind; and then it flashed into my mind how he would love living among
books, and how fine it would be for the town if all that knowledge of
his could be used--"
"Like wasted water power?" suggested her father.
"Yes. That's just it. He has read more than any one in this town, except
you, Father dear, and you are very old-fashioned in your reading. You
never heard of some of the modern books that Algernon knows all about.
Why couldn't we start a library and have Algernon run it? It would make
people appreciate him."
"It would keep him occupied at certain hours, and assure you of freedom
from his calls," said Dr. Harlow, but Catherine was in earnest and
refused to be teased.
"Wouldn't it be practical, really, Mother? Algernon can't go away to
school. His mother isn't willing, you know, and he needs to be here to
look after Elsmere. But he could study there, and lots of towns as small
as this do have libraries."
The doorbell rang and Dr. Harlow went to answer it.
"Some one to see you, Catherine," he said, returning.
Catherine found Algernon himself standing in the doorway, his big pale
eyes full of distress.
"Excuse my coming just at supper time," he said, "but I've lost Elsmere.
No one seems to have seen him since we did this afternoon, and I thought
perhaps you would remember which direction he went in. It was while I
was in the house he disappeared, you know. He almost always comes home
for meals!"
Catherine meditated. "I didn't see him go. I was looking at some papers,
and when I glanced up he wasn't there. Let's go out on the porch again,
and think. You had been sitting on the railing and I was in the steamer
chair--O Elsmere Swinburne, where have you been?"
Out from under the porch, rubbing eyes and yawning, came a rumpled
little figure, bits of straw and dead leaves clinging to him, and a big
red Irish setter following.
Algernon bent down and gathered the baby figure up with a tenderness
that made Catherine's heart beat more quickly, as she picked the straws
from the stylish shoes and socks, and the barefoot upper legs.
"Where were you?" she repeated.
"Hotspur's house, all cozy," sighed Elsmere. "Warm house. Did go to
sleep. Bosquitoes bite me. Bite my legs. I want my supper," and drooping
over his tall brother's shoulders he fell asleep again.
"Come around to-morrow afternoon early, Algernon," said Catherine, as he
moved away with his burden. "I have a plan I want you to help me carry
out. I know you'll like it. It's something nice for you and Winsted."
CHAPTER TWO
GETTING STARTED
By fifteen minutes past three the next day, Algernon and Catherine had
definitely decided that Winsted was to have a library, and that they
were to devote their own energies to the cause and persuade as many as
possible of their acquaintances to join them.
"The Boat Club will go in for it as a committee of the whole," said
Algernon.
"The Three R's will be interested," said Catherine, "though it is not
Rest, Recreation or Refreshment!"
"And all the churches."
"And the school teachers."
"And there are Miss Ainsworth's novels."
"Algernon, how perfectly splendid! Do you suppose she would let us have
them?"
"I don't see why not. They simply stand there, never opened. She can't
any more than refuse. I'll ask her."
"And I'll go with you. Let's do it right this minute."
As she spoke, Catherine sprang up, and Algernon, his usual inertia
overcome, plunged down the walk beside her.
"We must find a good place for it, before we get many books collected.
We could use Father's twenty-five dollars for rent, of course, but it
would be so much nicer if some one would give us a room."
"Let me see. There's that little frame shop where the red-haired
milliner used to be. We might get that. It's no good for business, away
off up the street that way."
"Be careful what you say about red hair," warned Catherine. "Who owns
the building?"
"Judge Arthur. He's a public-spirited man. He'll let us have it cheap
anyway."
"Good! O, I am so happy and excited about it I feel like one of Hannah
Eldred's squeals; I'm afraid if she were here I'd join her in one. Here
we are at Miss Ainsworth's. Are you sure we dare ask her?"
Before the prim white house set back from the street, Catherine's
buoyancy suffered a collapse. She had been inside that house, calling,
with her mother, but to go there--or anywhere--on a begging errand! Here
Algernon's long familiarity with rebuffs proved of value.
[Illustration: "'We must find a good place for it.'"--_Page 17._]
"Of course, we dare. Come on, or I'll go alone if you don't want to."
"No, no, I'll come," Catherine answered hastily. She had counted,
without conceit, on her own popularity to offset Algernon's handicap.
The daughter of the Doctors Smith could not be turned coldly away. And
after all, Miss Ainsworth's novels might better be read than standing
idle. Two years ago, a young bicyclist had sprained an ankle at Miss
Ainsworth's door, and she had promptly taken him in and cared for him,
scornfully refusing pay. Therefore the youth, upon returning to his
home, had sent out to her a great box full of modern fiction, an article
which he had deeply and vainly desired while under her roof. Miss
Ainsworth had never been given to the reading of novels. Her life had
been quite too busy for such frivolities, and now her eyes were making
it impossible for her to read without using glasses, which, as a
confession of frailty, she despised. So the books stood, new and
unopened, in a fascinating row upon the "secretary" shelf. No one so far
had ventured to ask for them. It had been reserved for these young
adventurers to demand them in the name of public spirit.
"We will have your name put inside them, Miss Ainsworth, on a neat
little card,--'Gift of Miss Anna Ainsworth,' you know. Just as they do
in large libraries," Catherine explained persuasively, when Algernon had
stated the object of their call, and Miss Ainsworth was regarding them
in a silence which they took to be ominous.
"And your name will go down in the records with Dr. Smith's as one of
the first contributors to the library. We intend to keep very full
records and have them buried under the corner stone of the new building
when we get it. We hope to get a Carnegie building, you know," Algernon
went on calmly while Catherine caught her breath. "He always insists
that the townspeople do their share."
"The young people will use the library if we have good novels,"
Catherine put in helpfully, when Algernon's imagination showed signs of
exhaustion. "And then we can get them to reading more serious books by
and by."
Then Catherine too, subsided, and the clock behind its painted glass
door ticked obtrusively. Presently Miss Ainsworth opened her thin lips.
"I'm perfectly willin' 't you should have the books," she said grimly.
"They ain't no manner o' use to me, and never was. I don't care to have
my name wrote inside 'em, though. And I ain't perticular about havin' it
buried under any corner stones. But I'll be much obliged if you'll take
'em away soon, for I've just subscribed to a set of me-mores of
missionaries an agent was sellin' yesterday, and I'd like that top shelf
to put 'em on."
The enthusiasts, feeling a trifle quenched, but yet pleased at having
accomplished their purpose, rose and withdrew with what grace they could
summon, mingling thanks with promises to remove the undesired literature
as soon as possible.
"Now for Judge Arthur and the building," sighed Catherine, as they
reached the street again. "He can't be any more gloomy about it than she
was, and maybe he'll do what we want."
The judge was not in his office, so they sat down to wait in the stuffy
room where dusty books and papers sprawled and spilled over desk, table
and the top of a big black safe. Algernon attached himself to a grimy
magazine, having first jotted down Miss Ainsworth's gift in his
ever-present note-book. Catherine, looking about her, soon found herself
unable to restrain her housewifely fingers. She was busily sweeping the
dust off the big table with a dilapidated feather duster, and putting
the papers into trim piles when the door opened and Judge Arthur, little
and weazened and gray, slipped softly in.
"There!" said Catherine half aloud. "That is infinitely better. I wish I
dared throw half of these papers away. I know they're perfectly
worthless." She took a step toward the big wire basket, as though to
bring it conveniently near.
"Not to-day, Miss Catherine," and the judge took her hand and bowed over
it. "Is this what they teach you at college?"
Catherine laughed. She had never been afraid of Judge Arthur.
"They teach us all the womanly graces, Your Honor," she answered, "and
not least among them is tidiness. I should have had you looking
beautifully neat in another five minutes."
Judge Arthur shivered. "And you would doubtless have made a bonfire of
this," picking up one dog's-eared document, "old Mr. Witherton's will;
and this, a deed to an estate; and this, a bit of important evidence in
a criminal case."
"Well," Catherine argued, "they shouldn't be left about so carelessly,
under paper-weights and ash-trays. I do want to do some housecleaning
for you, Judge Arthur. That's why I'm here this afternoon. Not just an
office, either, but a whole building."
The judge placed a chair for her, dusting it elaborately with Mr.
Witherton's will as he did so.
"Tell me all about it," he invited.
Catherine took the chair, her fresh white gown contrasting as sharply
with its shabby leather as her warm youth did with the judge's withered
look. He watched her with keen, appreciating eyes. Algernon in his
corner read on, and Catherine thought best not to disturb him. Men found
it harder to meet Algernon on fair ground than women did.
The judge asked a pertinent question or two as Catherine unfolded the
great scheme; then he drew a check-book from under a broken-backed
dictionary.
"There is another twenty-five for your project," he said, as he signed
his name with a flourish surprisingly big for so cramped a little man;
"and the room is at your disposal for six months, rent free. I would
have it cleaned, but you seem to delight in doing such work yourself. I
can assure you that the Three R's will back you up. The next meeting is
called for a week from to-day."
Catherine's face wore its blithest smile. "You are a dear to do so
much," she declared. "I was sure you'd be interested. If you ever want
any cleaning done, _anywhere_, please let me do it!"
Algernon had to be aroused almost forcibly, and Catherine carried him
away, still so lost in the article on the jury system he had been
reading that he could not quite take in the wonderful success of the
call. He followed Catherine's eager steps to the little square frame
building a few blocks up Main Street, and turned the key she gave him.
It was a dingy little room, all dirt and cobwebs. A few old straw hats
and wire frames piled among some big green boxes indicated the last
occupant's business, and a scurrying of tiny feet, only too clearly, the
present occupants' nature. Catherine lifted her nose in dainty scorn,
and her skirts in private apprehension.
"We shall have to get a lot of girls and come down here to-morrow and
clean up; but let's get out for now," she said, and Algernon consented.
They strolled along the street till they came to the little park, and
there, sitting on its one green bench, talked over their list of assets.
"I keep having ideas all the time," cried Catherine. "Listen! We must go
over to Hampton and visit the library there, and find out how they do
things. When can you?"
"Any time. I was just thinking I must ask Mr. Morse to give us a good
write-up."
"Of course. He'll be interested. Let's go over now. Or perhaps you'd
better go alone. I don't know him, and I never was in a newspaper
office."
"Afraid of the devil?" jested Algernon, getting up and leaving her.
Catherine watched him disappear into the office across the street.
"He walks better already," she thought with pride. "And he never made
such a frivolous remark as that before. I do think this library will be
the making of Algernon."
Back he came in a minute or two, with a promise of plenty of space in
the _Courier_, and a free atlas.
"One they had in the office, of course; but we ought to have one, and
every little helps. He was awfully interested and said it would be a
fine thing for the town, and he'd boost every way he could."
"Aren't people lovely?" sighed Catherine rapturously. "I believe even
Miss Ainsworth was more enthusiastic than she appeared to be. And we
haven't even mentioned it to the Boat Club yet."
"Or the Three R's. They are chiefly Boat Club fathers and mothers."
"We must see the school superintendent."
"The ministers will announce it in the churches."
"Yes, we must see them to-morrow. O dear, I am so tired! What time is it
anyway?"
Algernon drew a big watch from his pocket.
"Six-fifteen."
Catherine started up in horror.
"O! And I forgot all about helping with supper. What will mother think?"
Algernon watched her hasten away up the hill, and turned toward his own
home with some anxiety. He had to coax his mother to take an interest in
the new undertaking, and wished the operation over, but he squared his
shoulders and determined to do his best and do it that very evening.
Catherine, for her part, spent the evening discussing the plan with her
already sympathetic mother.
"It almost takes my breath away, Mother dear," she confided as they sat
on the porch in the dusk, watching the fireflies, "the way people fall
in with suggestions. It didn't occur to me before that _I_ could
start things going. But at college I had only to see that something
should be done, and then to say so; and it almost always was done. And I
was more surprised than anybody!"
Dr. Helen smiled, and put out her hand to stroke Catherine's head, which
rested on her knee.
"They were pretty good ideas, I judge."
"They were perfectly simple ones. Just little things like having the
mail-boxes assigned alphabetically, instead of by the numbers of the
rooms. It saved the mail girls a lot of work, and Miss Watkins was glad
of the suggestion. I helped Alice sort mail, you know,--she does it to
help pay her way. And then the little notices on the bulletin board were
always getting lost under the big ones, and I was on a Students'
committee and often had notices to post, and I got them to make a rule
that all notices should be written on a certain size sheet, and the
board looks much neater now. And then there weren't any door-blocks.
Aunt Clara told me that they had them at Vassar, little pads hanging
outside your door, with a pencil attached, and if you are out, your
callers leave their messages, you know. It seemed as though we needed
something like that, for some of us don't like walking into people's
rooms, and hunting around for paper. So I started that, and they all
took it up in no time. They were only little things, but it was
remembering a lot of little things like that that made me dare try to
get the library. It's what we need, and I do believe it's going to come
easily."
"Mr. Kittredge asked me to-day if I thought you would take the infant
class in the Sunday-school for the summer. Mrs. Henley is to be away. I
told him I'd ask you." Dr. Helen waited.
Catherine was silent a moment.
"Do you know, Mother, it seems as though you just get started doing one
thing and you see another one ahead of you. If I am going around asking
every one to help the library, I don't see how I can refuse to help when
I'm asked! But I never did teach anybody. Who is in the class?"
"I asked him that. He says some of the children are rather old for it,
but the school is too small, or rather the teachers are too few, to make
another class. So the ages run from the Osgood twins--"
"O, Peter and Perdita! I do love them. They are such a droll little
pair. I beg your pardon, dear. I didn't mean to interrupt. From Peter
and Perdita to--to Elsmere, possibly?"
Dr. Helen laughed. "Exactly! Could you undertake Elsmere?"
Catherine sat up straight. "Yes, I could. Elsmere is unlucky, just as
Algernon is. Everybody expects to be bored by Algernon and bothered or
shocked by Elsmere. I know he is a little 'limb o' Satan,' but if I'm
going to take one brother on my shoulders, I might as well take them
both. When does Mr. Kittredge want me to begin?"
"Not this week. You can go and see Mrs. Henley and talk it over with
her. You're showing a fine public spirit, Daughter mine, but let me
suggest that you really can't do much work for the town this summer,
especially if you expect to entertain guests! I don't approve of
vacations that are busier than the school year!"
"O, the library won't take long to start, if it starts at all. And
Algernon will run it and his being busy will give me several extra hours
weekly! And the children will only be Sundays. I promised Alice I'd do
some Bible study this summer, anyway, and it might as well be done for
that. She thought I was something of a heathen because I knew
Shakespeare better than the Bible."
"That only means you know Shakespeare very well, however. By the way,
would you like that little old set in the guest-room for your library? I
put it there, because there wasn't a shelf free anywhere else, and we
are rather overstocked with the gentleman's writings in the rest of the
house. Clara Lyndesay laughed at finding them there. She says she is
going to write an essay some day on guest-room literature, and its
implications."
Catherine laughed, too. "It would be delicious if she did. I wish she
would write things, Mother, and not just paint pictures. Do you suppose
there's any hope of her coming back to this country this summer?"
"I shouldn't be greatly surprised. She plans to spend some weeks on the
Isle of Wight, and that is so near this side that perhaps we can lure
her over. An aunt left her a place in New England, you know, which she
means to fit up for a studio sometime. Father should be coming home now.
Let's go down to the corner and see if we can see him. O, my daughter!"
as Catherine sprang up and took her mother's arm, "how you have grown
beyond me!"
"It's just my head that's above you," said Catherine, tucking her
mother's arm into her own. "It's the fashion nowadays for girls to be
taller than their mothers, but they don't begin to come up to them in
mind and manners. Miss Eliot told us so in History!"
"How about their hearts?" asked Dr. Helen.
"I don't know about the other girls', but my heart is just as high as my
mother's!" And Catherine bent her head the least little bit, and kissed
her mother's cheek, as Dr. Harlow, turning the corner, met them.
CHAPTER THREE
ORGANIZATION
The "stub" train on the Central was due to leave Winsted at 7:30.
Catherine, having reluctantly left the washing of the breakfast dishes
to the reckless Inga, to whom their quaint blue pattern was as naught,
hurried down the hill and reached the dingy little station as the train
shambled in. Algernon, full of good cheer, because his mother had taken
it into her head to approve his undertaking, gallantly helped her
aboard, and began at once to show a list of questions he had ready to
ask the Hampton librarian.
The train stood still a little longer while a few milk cans were put on,
then whistled, puffed and pulled slowly out. Hampton was only a short
distance from Winsted, and Catherine and Algernon soon got off the
train, and made their way to the library where they were welcomed by the
kindly librarian and her young assistant, who proved to be a Dexter
graduate.
The "stub" train meanwhile jogged and jolted on its way, carrying with
it, fast asleep, the little "limb o' Satan" known as Elsmere Swinburne.
Elsmere could sleep anywhere on the slightest provocation. Deeming it
unwise to make his presence known to his brother until the train was
started beyond recall, he had curled up on a seat behind a large family,
and while waiting his opportunity had fallen asleep. The conductor,
taking him to be one of the overflow from the family in front, paid no
attention to him until after they had left. Then he tried to rouse the
child.
"Wake up, kid! Here, you've gone past your station. Wake up, I say! Gee!
We're running a sleeper on this train to-day, all right," as Elsmere,
lifted by the collar, only sank heavily back on the seat when released.
The conductor, goaded by the jests of the passengers, yelled in the
boy's ear, to no avail. Just as he was abandoning the task in wrath, the
child suddenly popped up, wide awake and interested.
"I want zwieback," he announced.
Mrs. Swinburne, having read in a child-study book that dry food was
bone-building, had brought her youngest up on long crumbly strips of
zwieback, and he was seldom seen without one.
"What you givin' us?" asked the conductor.
"I want zwieback," answered Elsmere cheerfully, in the persistent tone
he had learned to value for its efficacy.
"Where was your ma goin'?" asked the conductor.
"I want zwieback," replied Elsmere.
"Let me try," suggested a soft-voiced little lady. "I talked with his
mother quite a bit while she was on. Want to find your mamma, little
boy, and go to Grandma's and play with all the pigs and chickies?"
"I want zwieback."
"You talked with the woman, did you?" said the conductor. "Did you find
out what her name was?"
"Let me see. Yes. It's Peters. She was talking about going to his
folks', two miles out of Edgewater. She'll be worried to death about
this one."
"I should think she might be," remarked the conductor grimly, "for fear
he'd come back. Here, you young Sweebock, you get off here."
Elsmere obligingly followed to the platform and suffered himself to be
given into the custody of the station agent, to whom he presented his
petition for food.
"A little weak in the upper story," explained the conductor. "His ma had
about as many as she could manage and gettin' off at Edgewater she
forgot this one. Name's Peters, stayin' with old Mis' Peters, two miles
from Edgewater. You wire 'em to meet the express, and then you pass him
back. Tell McWhire not to let him get to sleepin'. He ain't an easy
proposition, when he's gone to Bylow, now I tell you," and the conductor
of No. 5 swung himself aboard.
Elsmere had the time of his life in the two hours before the arrival of
the noon express. The station agent was a sociable soul. He had a
guinea-pig in a box, so delightful to observe that Elsmere forgot his
desire for zwieback and became conversational. He told the agent
the history of the polly-wogs he had raised "till they was all
froggies, only one was deaded." He showed the place where he had
cut his finger in the mower-lawn. He explained how fond he was of
back-horse-saddle-riding, and declared his intention of some day having
"frickers," caressing the agent's own sandy growth with great
admiration. He tried to perform on the telegraph instrument and cried
"Boo" with all his strength at a lady, peering in at the ticket window.
Altogether, Elsmere found traveling very much to his taste. The noon
express stopped for a minute, he was thrust aboard the last car, and a
few minutes later, according to instructions, the newsboy put him off at
Edgewater, with a cheery:
"Here y'are, Bub, and there's Ma and Gramma."
Elsmere had taken a fancy to the newsboy and did not at all wish to stop
at Edgewater. He ran down the track after the retreating train, howling
miserably.
As for "Ma and Gramma," they had been overtaken by the dispatch just as
they were starting to drive out to the farm, and had come in great
perplexity to the station. The wailing baby running down the track
suggested nothing to them, and the agent could give them no
satisfaction. He was locking up his office. There was not another train
to stop till No. 5 should return toward evening. So, still bewildered,
Mrs. Peters and her mother-in-law gave up their fruitless errand and
drove away, taking with them a problem for a lifetime's pondering.
Elsmere, as the train vanished around a curve, sat down on the track for
a while and listened to his own howls. Tiring of that amusement
presently, he strolled back to the station. Outwardly it looked much
like that hospitable one where he had enjoyed life earlier in the day.
This one, however, offered no entertainment beyond wandering about the
platform and the unoccupied waiting-room. Across the street was a little
restaurant. There were pies in the window.
Elsmere obeyed the summons.
"Pie," he said, presenting his nose to the edge of the lunch counter.
"Don't you monkey with anything," snapped a girl from behind the
counter.
"I'm aren't a monkey. I'm are a boy. Want pie," Elsmere answered
sweetly.
"You can't get pie without money," said the girl.
Elsmere felt in his pocket and produced a quarter. Whatever his
failings, Elsmere had a redeeming trait of forehandedness, and had
always on hand a hoard of articles which might be useful in an hour of
need. The quarter bought respect at once and plenty of pie, also a
sandwich, a tall glass of milk and a big "rubber doughnut."
When he had satisfied his hunger, the traveller returned to the depot,
and, lying comfortably in the shade of a baggage truck, indulged in a
siesta, a sleep so light this time, however, that the rolling back of
the baggage-room door shattered it.
Sitting up, Elsmere watched the baggage-man get a tin trunk and a canvas
telescope ready for shipping. Presently the stub train arrived, stopped,
and while the conductor and the agent were exchanging gossip, Elsmere
got inconspicuously aboard, and stowed himself away in a corner, so
successfully that it was not till the brakeman called "Hampton" that the
conductor discovered him.
Swearing softly and scratching his head in mystification, the conductor
stood in the aisle staring at the ubiquitous babe, when a double cry
arose:
"Elsmere, where in thunder?"
"Hullo, Algy!"
The young assistant, who had accompanied Catherine to the station
for the sake of talking over mutual friends at Dexter, looked up in
surprise as the dignified youth who had impressed her greatly by his
intelligence and earnestness suddenly stooped and lifted a dirty,
tear-and-pie-stained little boy in his arms. Catherine laughed. Elsmere
could not greatly surprise her.
"Miss Adams," she said, "you have shown your interest in the new Winsted
library. Let me introduce you to its mascot."
* * * * *
The morning after the Hampton expedition, Catherine struggled awake from
dreams of book-lined trains, with Miss Adams and Elsmere as engineer and
fireman, to open her eyes gratefully upon the substantial reality of her
own great room in its fresh bareness. At the foot of her big carved bed,
the broad window open to its utmost seemed to bring all out-of-doors
within the room. A squirrel whisked his tail across the sill as he
scurried in and out of the branches of the window-oak where a grosbeak
and a wren chatted sociably. The sunshine through the leafy boughs
lighted the bare floor and rested on the great writing table in the
center of the room and on the high dark dresser. Catherine's gaze,
following the light, rested at last upon the low bookcases filling the
chimney corners.
"I can spare one _Child's Garden of Verses_," she mused, "and that
second _Little Women_. I wish they could have the Walter Crane and
Kate Greenaway picture-books, but I couldn't possibly let them go. I
loved those little urchins in the children's room,--especially that
curly-headed little boy reading a bound _Wide-Awake_--O!" She sat
up in bed and tossed her thick braids back. "I wonder if I ought? Or
even if I could?" Out of bed she slipped, and crossed the room to the
bookcases. Opening one, she ran her finger-tips tenderly along the stout
backs of a row of dark red volumes. "My very own _Wide-Awakes_!
What a storehouse they would be for the little folk! They needn't be
allowed to circulate, so they'd not wear out badly. They could just come
in and read them there. I was going to give them my little
rocking-chair, anyhow. O, dear! I'm afraid I'm really going to let them
have you, you dear, dear books. It would be selfish to keep you up here
all the time, when I almost never open you. Nobody shall have this one,
though, with Hannah's letter in it."
She turned the pages of one of the latest volumes and paused at a neat
little paragraph:
"_Dear Wide-Awake:_
"I have been taking you ever since I was a child. I will be
fourteen my next birthday. I like you very much. I would like to
correspond with any one who is about my age. I have no brothers
and sisters, and get very lonely. I have read all Miss Alcott,
but I wish she had let Jo marry Laurie. I like the
_Wide-Awake_ stories. Please have a good long one about
boarding-school in the next number. I like Dickens, but I can't
bear Scott. I know John Gilpin and Baby Bell by heart, and I am
in the eighth grade. I like skating and rowing. There is a fine
pond near us.
"Your loving reader,
"Violet Ethelyn Eldred.
"P. S. Nobody knows that I am writing this letter, so please
print it soon to surprise them."
Catherine kissed the page and closed the book. "Isn't it too
unbelievable that that queer little letter with that ridiculous fancy
name at the end should have done so much? Violet Ethelyn Eldred! It
hasn't nearly so pleasant a sound to me now as Hannah. And the child
thought no one would write to her if she signed her own name,--it was so
'homely'! Ah me! I suppose I should be getting dressed instead of
sitting about in the sunshine, mooning. I wonder if Inga will remember
the muffins for breakfast."
* * * * *
"Polly Osgood wants to see you, Catherine."
Catherine, busily sorting linen in the up-stairs linen room a little
later in the morning, leaned over the railing in answer to her mother's
announcement from the hall below.
"O, Polly, do come on up. I've a little more to do and we might just as
well talk while I'm at it. Have you called the Boat Club meeting?"
Polly Osgood came running up the stairs. She was a slender little girl
with big blue eyes and yellow hair.
"Yes," she answered brightly. "I've called it at ten. It's almost that
now. Tom can't come, of course; he's always so busy daytimes, but I
think all the others will be there."
"Hasn't Bert something to keep him?"
"Not just now," Polly laughed. "He substituted in the post-office last
week, and the week before that in a hardware store, but just now he says
nobody seems to need him, and he's reading law in private."
"He's such a goose," and Catherine put two mated pillow-cases together
with a little pat. "Inga never knows enough to put things in pairs, and
Mother wouldn't dare begin to look them over. If she should do anything
so domestic, half Winsted would break out with mumps or chickenpox.
Where did you say we'd have the meeting?"
"At the boat house. We might as well use it, now we have it. But I
didn't know you broke out with mumps."
"That's only figurative. Polly, why have you gone back to braids and
bows? You look very infantile for a real Wellesley sophomore."
"I got tired of the bird-cages and puffs, and decided I'd go back to
nature. Besides, playing around with Peter and Perdita you need
something stationary. They work dreadful havoc with a stylish coiffure."
"I wonder if I'd have to put my hair down just to teach them on Sundays?
Mrs. Henley is going away, you know, and I've been asked to take her
class."
"O, I do hope you will," cried Polly. "You would have a civilising
influence on Perdita, and she needs it. Peter keeps her in order so well
she never _does_ anything very bad, but she is potentially a little
terror."
"She always seems very mild when I see her," commented Catherine,
patting her piles into straight lines. "But you can't always tell about
people by looking at them. I, for instance, have all my life been
expected to be lady-like, just because when I was little I hadn't
strength enough to be naughty. And many and many a time I have felt like
doing something wild and shocking!"
"Why, Catherine Smith!" exclaimed Polly in amazement. "You always seemed
to me a sort of beautiful princess up here on the hill, and, good as any
of the rest of us might try to be, we never could hope to be as good as
you. Have you honestly ever wanted to be bad?"
Catherine laughed, a funny little gurgling laugh. "I honestly have--not
wicked you know, but--well, reckless! And I never had the courage to do
anything very startling till last year at college."
She stopped and laughed again.
"Tell me," Polly insisted. "I'll never tell. What did you do? Was it
fun? Tell me!"
Catherine's eyes twinkled. "I made up my mind that it was my one chance,
for no one there belonged to me, and my tiresome reputation for
propriety hadn't had time to get started. So one day I got up late, and
was late to breakfast, and cut a class, and--" She laughed so hard that
Polly wanted to shake her. "O, Polly it was such a ridiculous thing to
do! I talked slang and chewed gum!"
Polly gasped. "Did you like it? What made you stop?"