Dolliver used to chew it with such gusto that I thought it must be
rather good. And the slang sounded so easy and,--O! lighthearted, you
know, and friendly. When you and Hannah Eldred use it, it never seems
offensive, just pleasant and gay. But everyone looked so worried and
puzzled all day at me, that I decided to stop. And next day they seemed
so relieved. I told Dy-the Allen later about it (she's the dearest
thing!) and she was very philosophical. She told me it wasn't becoming
to my general character, just as pink wasn't becoming to my hair. I told
her I had always loved pink, and wanted to wear it, and she suggested
that I wear it at night. It wouldn't show in the dark and it was an
innocent desire; and perhaps if I did that, I'd not want to use slang or
chew gum. I didn't, after I had tried once, anyhow! Polly Osgood, here
we are sitting around and I'm telling you foolish stories about myself,
when we ought to be discussing library matters."
"The other was more interesting," sighed Polly. "I'm going to give up
slang myself soon. I never did chew gum! But I've been terribly bored
lately by some rather flip young creatures I've had to see more or less,
and I decided to cut it out and talk plain English. What are you smiling
at?"
Then, as her own earnest sentences came back to her, she reddened a
little, and joined Catherine in smiling. "Isn't that a fright? I mean,
isn't that startling? I didn't know I used it so much. Do you suppose I
can cure myself and still have time and attention to give to starting
the library? It's time we were down there now."
"All right. I'm ready, as soon as I get my hat. Do you ever wear them at
college?"
"Never. Now while we go along, tell me just what your idea is. What did
the Hampton ladies say?"
Catherine thrust her hatpins in, as she hurried down the steps.
"They advised having some club take it up, for a time at least, and they
thought it would be nice to have it be the Boat Club instead of a
literary one, because the literary ones often have a spirit of
competition, and if one of them started the library the others might not
feel inclined to use it."
"I see, and the Boat Club, besides being unsectarian and
interdenominational and non-partisan, has a lot of waste enthusiasm and
energy that might just as well be put to work. Father says he is sure
that when the thing is really running, the council will vote a tax and
take it off our hands. You are sure Algernon can run it? I thought it
took years of special training."
"It does," Catherine answered gravely, "but we could not afford a
trained librarian, and Algernon is intelligent and will study. Miss
Adams gave him hints as to books to get, and she will help him. He can
go over there when he gets into difficulties. She seemed to like him.
They talked about all sorts of technical things,--Algernon had a lot of
information stowed away in his head, of course,--and she didn't seem
bored at all."
"I've often thought I shouldn't be, if I knew anything about the
subjects he talks about," confessed Polly. "There are Bertha and Agnes."
She trilled to the two girls ahead, who turned and waited.
On the flat roof of the boat house half a dozen members of the club were
assembled. Polly hastened to take her seat and call the meeting to
order.
"Max Penfield will act as secretary, and we shall expect the minutes
done in the most approved University style. Archie Bradly, will you
please state the object of the meeting?"
"Fo' de lan's sake, no!" ejaculated Archie, sitting up and shutting his
knife. "That's the very thing I came to find out!"
"Very well," said Polly, twinkling. "Then, of course, you will pay close
attention. It will do you more good than carving Andover on the benches.
There's not much space left on them, now, and it's still early in the
season. Catherine, will you tell us the object of the meeting? Ouch!"
for Archie had reached lazily behind her and given one of her yellow
braids a gentle yank.
"You all know, already," began Catherine, "except perhaps Archie! We've
talked it over with the older people, and they think it's perfectly
practical, only some one or some organization has to take it in charge."
"What's 'it'?" asked Archie innocently.
"Why, the library. The Boat Club is going to see that Winsted has a
public library."
"Turn into Carnegies?" inquired Max, doing a sketch of Geraldine
Winthrop on the margin of the secretary's book.
"Not exactly. We haven't got our own dock built yet, and I don't think
we are in a position to endow libraries. But I mean we can work and
talk--"
"Talking's work," complained Archie. "That's redundancy."
"It is, when you keep interrupting," cried Bertha Davis. "Go on,
Catherine. Don't mind him. Just how can we work?"
"Well, the room will have to be cleaned thoroughly, and we girls can do
most of that if the boys will help a little. And there will have to be
some plain shelves put up for the books."
"Me for the carpenter job!" cried a long-legged youth who had lain thus
far in the shade of his own hat, in entire silence and apparent
unconsciousness. "It's just what I want to cure my brain fever."
"Overstudy? Or overwork reading postals last week?" asked Agnes, smiling
into Bert's half-shut eyes.
"It's more likely fatty degeneration of the brain, if it's Bert Wyman
that has it," said an emphatic voice, and a spruce energetic maiden
joined the group. "I just got in on the 10:10, and Mother said you were
all over here. What's before the house?"
"Nothing. We're all on the house," explained Archie dryly, but Polly
answered the question with careful courtesy. Dorcas listened.
"Very well," she said, when Polly finished. "If it is in order, I move
you, Madam President, that we proceed to clean the library at once."
"O, Dorcas, not to-day!" groaned two or three, while Max remarked in an
aside to no one that if it was in order it shouldn't need cleaning.
"Why not to-day?" asked Dorcas briskly. "How you-all can loaf around the
way you do is more than I can comprehend. Dot, your hair is coming
down."
Dot, who was called Dot, because she was a dot, though her parents had
intended her to go through life as Geraldine, lifted her eyebrows
slightly, and removing her four hairpins, shook down her hair and did it
up again. The process took four seconds.
"I'd rather have Dot's curls than Dorcas' brains," growled Bert to
Agnes, who reproached him with a look.
While Dorcas' motion was waiting for a second, there came down the road
two pretty girls, in fluffy gowns, their white sunshades tilted
charmingly. Max slammed the secretary's book shut.
"Hurry up and let's adjourn," he said, and Archie, suddenly energetic,
seconded the motion and carried it, so far as it concerned himself, by
going out to meet the newcomers and invite them to go canoeing at once.
Max followed suit, and the meeting broke up unceremoniously, but with a
sense of valuable achievement.
Dorcas, uttering harsh judgments upon the parliamentary methods of Polly
Osgood, and, by inference, of all Wellesley College, attached herself to
Bertha and Agnes for the homeward walk.
"See here, Dorcas Morehouse," said Bertha so suddenly that her sister
and Dorcas jumped. "If you think that just because you have been to
Chicago University for a quarter, you are going to run us all, this
summer, you are mightily mistaken. Agnes and Dot and I never went away
to school, and neither did Bess nor Winifred, but we aren't stupid, and
we won't have you patronizing us. Catherine Smith is intellectual enough
for any one, and she never snubs or patronizes; and as for Polly Osgood,
you wouldn't dare _hint_ a criticism of Wellesley if she were
within hearing, and you know it. So there! If this library scheme is
good enough for them, it is for the rest of us, and if you don't like
it, you can just stay out of it!"
Whereupon, Bertha, having delivered herself, even more to her own
astonishment than to any one else's, turned at the first corner and
walked rapidly away, leaving her embarrassed sister to placate the
wrathful Dorcas in any way her gentle heart suggested.
CHAPTER FOUR
WITH PAIL AND BROOM
"Please forscuse me. Here's the key," and Elsmere held out to Catherine
the aforesaid article, his honeyed voice and polite words matched by a
cherubic smile.
"The key?" asked Catherine. "O, the key to the library. How did you get
it?"
"Algy give it to me. I Algy's little help-boy," smiled the cherub.
Catherine tried to take the key, but it refused to come.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "It seems to be caught."
Elsmere squirmed a little. "Tieded," he murmured, and Catherine, bending
closer to investigate, discovered that the key was so secured to the
child's apparel that sharp steel was necessary to sever the connection.
"Algy hasn't too much confidence in his little help-boy, after all," she
thought. "Thank you, Elsmere. Now run along home like a good boy."
"No, Elsmere go, too, like a good boy. I help."
Catherine sighed. The library was to be cleaned that morning as soon as
the girls could be spared by their respective mothers. She had been
waiting for Algernon to bring the key, and had counted on his muscular
assistance in the labor before her. Now, instead, she had only the key,
and that almost as hopelessly affixed to Elsmere as it had been before
she cut it loose. She took up her bundle of rags, scrubbing-brush and
soap resignedly, and calling "Good-by" to Dr. Helen started off down the
hill. On the way she stopped for Agnes, who came out with a broom.
Polly, bearing a pail, met them at the corner. At the library they found
Bertha, mop-laden, pressing her nose against the pane to see inside.
"Hello!" she called to them. "How can we get hot water?"
"Let's go over to Henderson's and borrow a little oil stove for a few
hours, and we'll heat the water in this pail. One of you might go to the
pump in the park and get it full now. Whose broom?" touching one,
leaning by the window.
"Dot's. She came and went off again. Bert passed, driving a ten-cent
express and she hailed him and they've gone over to Mr. Kittredge's to
get the books he promised."
"The crazy children! Where will we ever put books to-day, with the room
in such a state?"
Catherine fitted the key to the lock, and the band of cleaners entered,
unrolled their big aprons and began, with much energy and good nature,
to sweep down the walls and ceiling and gather the milliner's rubbish
into two big baskets found in the shed. Elsmere picked over the pile,
making rapturous discoveries.
"Aren't these very small bushel baskets?" asked Agnes. "They fill up so
fast."
"They're just about the average size, I think," remarked Catherine.
"They don't vary much more than yardsticks do in length! But I do wish
some of those lazy boys were here to carry them out and empty them for
us."
"What's that?" asked Max's voice in the doorway. Immaculate in white
flannels, with Bess by his side, bewilderingly beruffled, he viewed the
scene before him dispassionately.
Catherine and Agnes, red and warm and somewhat dishevelled, returned the
gaze for a moment silently. In that moment an entirely natural
resentment was forced into outward pleasantness.
"We were just wishing some one was here to make a bonfire of this
_debris_ for us," said Catherine cheerfully, "but never mind. There
comes Polly with a man from Henderson's, and he'll take it out."
"All right. Wish you luck. We'd stop and help, only we've got to meet
Arch and Win, and we're late already. So long!" and Max lifted his cap,
Bess waved her sunshade, and the two went around the corner out of
sight.
The man from Henderson's did some lifting very willingly, rescued what
was left of the water Bertha was tugging from the park, lighted the
stove and even stayed to poke the bonfire he made for them in the
street, and keep it from spreading.
"It's a good thing," he said, as he went away amid a chorus of "Thank
you." "Everybody'd ought to help all they can."
"I'd like to make him a member of the club," growled Polly, "and turn
one or two people I could mention out."
"Dorcas doesn't seem so zealous as she did yesterday," remarked
Catherine. "I hope she isn't angry, because we didn't fall in with her
suggestions."
Bertha looked conscious, and stole a glance at Agnes, but said nothing.
Catherine, catching the look, laughed.
"Father says Dorcas does us all a lot of good, as a counter-irritant.
Whenever we begin to feel a little cross with each other, we all turn in
and feel very cross with Dorcas. I was simply raging when Max and Bess
sailed by in their purple and fine linen, but at least they hadn't
pretended to be interested, and Dorcas--"
"She may be busy," said Agnes. "There's a lot of work at their house,
and Dorcas usually does her share. I'll say that much for her, though
she does make me awfully angry sometimes. Where is Elsmere? He might go
over to the store and get something to polish this window-glass with."
"I don't know. Elsmere! Elsmere! Where are you? Come here, dear." No
response.
"O, never mind," sighed Catherine wearily. "I'm not responsible for him.
It is a relief to have him out of the way for a while. I wanted to send
him home before, but he had such a sweet lady-like way with him this
morning, I couldn't bring myself to. Girls! Hark!"
The four laborers had dropped upon a long box to rest a few minutes from
their toil. Their low voices had been the only sound. Now distinctly, in
a remote corner of the room, could be heard a little scratch, scratch.
Then across the floor, serene and fearless, "right where I had been
sweeping," Catherine said later with a shiver, ran a small gray mouse.
With one accord the four tucked their skirts about them and sat closer.
No one spoke, but each measured the distance to the door with an
accurate eye. And then, silently, but with haste, they beat a swift
retreat.
The fair wide street before them, the door shut behind them, they drew
deep breaths of relief, though each avoided the others' eyes.
"Some girls wouldn't mind going right up and killing it," said Polly,
"but I simply could not."
"Nor I," said Catherine firmly. "I could go to battle or the stake like
Joan of Arc, but I draw the line at mice."
"What's the matter? What are you all out here for? I thought you came to
clean."
It was Dorcas, of course. The girls hung their heads with shame, and
Bertha, who had defied her so boldly when last they met, answered with
meekness.
"We did. But there's a mouse."
Dorcas looked them all over with an expression of deep scorn.
"Give me the key," she said, and it was given to her.
Then the fearful ones flattened their faces against the unwashed
window-pane to see what would happen. The little gray creature placidly
nibbled a tidbit in a corner. Dorcas approached him. He lifted his head
and regarded her. She faltered a little and glanced behind her. She even
felt hastily of her skirts. The respect in the watching faces lightened
a little. Every woman is born knowing how mice delight to hide in
skirts.
After a moment Dorcas opened the door and came out, passed the group of
watchers without a word and crossed the street to Henderson's. Coming
back a minute later with a trap, she re-entered the room, set the trap
and waited. So did the others, breathless, clinging to each other. Bert
and Dot, driving up on their ten-cent express, saw that something
unusual was going on, and drove quietly around into the alley. Peeping
in at the back window, they took in the situation quickly: Dorcas on one
side of the room, the little gray mouse on the other, the trap between.
The silence lasted for several seconds. Then came a sharp crack! And
Dorcas, throwing her arm across her eyes, ran out of the room with a
shriek and fell upon Agnes, who was nearest.
"He's killed," she sobbed. "I--I saw him!"
"So he is," soothed Agnes. "None of the rest of us would have dared set
the trap, if we had been bright enough to think of it. There! It was
harrowing, but it's all over now."
"No, no," shuddered Dorcas. "He's in there yet, and he's _dead_!"
Catherine spied Bert's two mischievous eyes looking around the corner of
the building. In an instant she had despatched him to clear the room of
its horror, and was bringing Dot, a protesting prisoner, to join the
group.
"Where did you come from?" asked every one, while Dorcas collected
herself.
"O, our chariot's just outside," answered Dot. "We saw you all peeping
in, so we drove around behind to have a look ourselves. Got there in
time to see the final fatality. Dorcas was heroic until she won. Are you
girls honestly afraid of mice?"
"I am of live ones," confessed Catherine.
"I am of dead ones," said Dorcas.
"Dead or alive, they, 'turn my blood to ice within me, and make the
breath of my heart wax pale,' as the lecturer said last night," said
Polly. "But now that you dare-devil people have cleared the field for
action, we may as well go in and scrub. We'd only just finished
sweeping. Dot, you may take the death-bed boards. And, O, there comes
Bert, back from the funeral. As President of the Winsted Boat Club and
Library Association, I hereby appoint you and Geraldine Winthrop a
Standing Mouse Committee with full power to act."
"Dorcas to be official executioner, I trust," and Bert held the door
open for Dorcas, bowing low as she passed.
That afternoon the B. C. & L. A. gathered in force. Even Tom Davis,
brother of Bertha and Agnes, asked for a half-day's vacation and helped
Algernon whitewash. Bert had impressed Max into carpentering, and the
work of bookcase-building went on noisily inside the shed. The girls sat
on the weedy patch of ground outside, sewing sash curtains.
"It would be quicker to make them on the machine at home, but not nearly
so much fun," said Agnes. "How many books did you and Bert gather up
this morning, Dot?"
"Fifty-three volumes besides Miss Ainsworth's. Those were already over
here in the shed. Where is Archie?"
"He and Winifred are coming. They were going to bring a rug Win's mother
said we could have, and two lamps."
"They will enjoy carrying them over this hot afternoon!" said Bess,
deftly hemming a curtain. "But it can't be so bad as this morning.
Girls, we had a perfectly dreadful time. It was all on account of that
terrible little Swinburne boy. You see, we thought we'd take the big
Penfield boat, instead of the canoes, and just as we were pushing off,
that child stepped into the boat from the dock and announced serenely
that he was going boating-ride. He did look dear, and quite clean, and
we all knew that it was hard to make him change his mind, so we let him
come. He sat very still and was as good as gold till we had got a long
way from home, and then he began."
Catherine sighed appreciatively. "I can imagine, Bess dear. But do tell
us."
"You can't imagine. Nobody could. He talked a blue streak. And the
things he said! He asked what he was made of, and how God got the eyes
in. He told about somebody's having a tooth out and went into dreadful
details. And then he got off on a worse tack, and asked Archie where his
wife was, and when Archie said he wasn't married, he sighed and looked
so sorry, and said: 'Wasn't you _ever_ marwied, Archie? Not even
once?' He simply spoiled our morning. It wasn't so much what he did say,
as what we thought he might be going to. We had to turn around and come
home long before we wanted to, just on account of that child."
"If you had only thought to have Win sing to him," said Catherine. "He
will drop off to sleep with the least assistance, even when he seems
widest awake, and Win's lullabies are irresistible. There! that's the
last curtain. And there come Archie and Win with a donkey-cart,
and--why, what do you think they have? It can't be just a rug and two
lamps."
Every one broke off work to go to meet the donkey-cart, a low, long, box
affair, with Winifred and Archie on the seat, and a quantity of
furniture and boxes in the back.
Algernon, still holding a brush, took the donkey by the bridle and
backed him up.
"There, unload everything. It's all right. I sent these folks after
them. Didn't have time to go myself. Yes, yes, they belong here. The
Three R's sent the table."
With eager exclamations, the boys and girls unloaded six chairs, an oak
table, a rocker, a box spilling over with stationery and colored cards,
a miscellaneous lot of books, two neat rugs and half a dozen lamps of a
variety of styles and shapes.
"The Three R's gave the table and chairs," explained Algernon, "and Mrs.
Kittredge said to call at her house for the rocker and some of those
lamps. And these other things I bought. Miss Crockett over at Hampton
told me what to order and they came to-day, and I opened them up at the
house."
Catherine came up beside Algernon and watched him unpack the boxes of
cards, pens, paper clips, mending tissue, paste, shears and other new
and shining articles. She was distinctly surprised. A large share of
their little capital must have gone into these purchases. And Algernon
had told no one, not even herself, that he was buying them.
Dorcas caught up a sheet of the paper.
"It seems to me it's rather fresh of you to spend the association's
money for paper with your name on it, without knowing whether the
permanent organization will want you or not."
The glow faded from Algernon's eyes. The consideration with which he had
been treated these last few days had taught him to estimate properly the
tolerance which had been all he had received before. Catherine, even,
looked puzzled and not quite pleased.
"O, I say," he protested sadly. "You don't think I'd go and spend the
public money, do you? I thought it would be fun to have these things all
ready. I didn't know you'd rather have had me give the money and let the
rest of you send in the order. I just did it for my share,--I'm awfully
sorry."
Catherine lifted her head brightly.
"Indeed, you did exactly right. None of us would have known half so
wisely how to use it. What did I tell you people? How many towns have
librarians who work without pay, and furnish all their materials
besides?"
Bert suddenly mounted the seat of the donkey-cart.
"What's the matter with the Boat Club?" he inquired hoarsely.
"We're all right," modestly replied the Boat Club, boys and girls
together.
"What's the matter with the Three R's?"
"They're all right."
"What's the matter with the library?"
"It's all right."
"And now three cheers and a tiger for A. Swinburne, librarian. Hip, hip,
hooray!"
CHAPTER FIVE
A DAY OFF
"Not going over to the library to work to-day?"
"Not this morning. Mother Nature says I'd better not."
Dr. Helen put her hand on her daughter's forehead. "Too tired?" she
queried, with a note of anxiety in her voice. It had been only in the
last year or so that Catherine had been well enough to do the things
other girls did, and she was always on the lookout for indications of
over-exertion.
"No," answered Catherine, pulling her mother's firm strong hand down to
her lips and kissing it. "And I don't intend to become so. Things can
wait for a day, or the others can go on without me. I'm going to be a
private citizen and stay at home and mend. Can't you sit and sew too,
Mother?"
"Perhaps I can for half an hour," said Dr. Helen, "and you certainly
need to give your clothes some attention. When you go up stairs to get
your things, bring down that brown silk waist, and I'll make the collar
over for you."
In a few minutes the two were cozily settled in the little alcove off
the big book-lined living-room, a pleasant breeze bringing morning
freshness in by way of an open window.
"Mother," said Catherine suddenly, "you and Father have brought me up
very differently from most girls."
"How?"
"Why, about taking care of myself. Some of the really nice girls seem to
think it's perfectly all right to be sick, even when it could have been
avoided. And some of them think it's rather fine to be ailing."
"Do you mean they want to be petted? That's natural enough."
"Not just that. I don't mind that. But Dy-the Allen--"
"Stop a minute, Catherine. Once for all, what is her ridiculous name? I
have wanted to know for nearly a year and never think to ask."