School she had a silly streak and wrote it with a 'y' for the 'i' and an
'e' on the end, so her brother called her E-dy-the, the way it looks,
you know, just to tease her, and it turned into Dy-the and stayed that,
though she signs herself Edith. She is one of the very dearest girls I
ever knew, and how we shall get along without her next year at Dexter is
more than I can guess. All the little preps adore her. But that was the
very thing that made me crossest about her carelessness. She would go
out in the snow with little thin dancing slippers on and lace stockings,
and then take a horrible cold and be ill for days, and shut herself up
in her room and have everybody bringing her flowers and meals and
writing her notes. And then all her little satellites did similar things
and it made a lot of bother for everybody. Little Hilda went to see a
measles child because she thought it was fine to be reckless the way
Dy-the is, and then she gave it to her roommate and two other girls. I
got quite angry once and let Dy-the know just how it looked to me. I
told her she ought to be ashamed to disobey Nature and be sent to bed
for it, and she only laughed and quoted things from Stevenson about
people who live on tepid milk and wear tin shoes. I told her Stevenson
certainly tried to look out for his own health, for all that, but I
couldn't make her think it a serious matter at all. She just laughed.
She's such a dear, she doesn't know how to be angry, Dy-the doesn't,"
and Catherine smiled, in spite of her own earnestness, at the visions
the name brought to her mind.
"Here comes somebody else of the dear variety," said Dr. Helen. "Go and
let Polly in."
"She doesn't need to be let in," said that young person, appearing with
the words. "She let her own self in. I'm on an errand, Catriona darling.
I want your mother's advice and yours. What do you think of a regular
library opening, with refreshments and all that? And have people bring
books for admission fees?"
"Do sit down, Polly, and rest for a minute. You look as though you
expected to be called to the telephone."
Polly dropped, sighing, into a comfortable chair.
"It does feel good to let down for a minute," she admitted. "I get so
into the habit of tearing through space at college that I can't stop
rushing for a month after I get home, and this library business has kept
me jumping. I suppose the public could get on a day or two longer
without it, seeing they have so many years. I worked all day yesterday
with Algernon, and then in the evening it was too hot to stay in the
house, and the mosquitoes were so thick outside that it was harder work
trying to keep comfortable than anything I had done all day."
"They are worse than ever this year," sighed Dr. Helen, "and, really, I
think they are harder to bear when we all know that a little
public-spirited co-operation would rid us of them. Can't you get the
people who draw books at the new library to agree to sprinkle the
breeding-places with oil?"
Polly suddenly chuckled. "I beg your pardon, Dr. Helen, for being rude,
but I just remembered a woman who addressed an open air meeting on the
campus this spring. She was a missionary returned from somewhere and she
appeared at one of the houses and wanted to talk, so we got a few girls
together on the lawn to hear her. The mosquitoes were simply unbearable.
We all sat there slapping ourselves and making grabs at the air, and
trying to look interested, and then she opened her Bible and read about
being encompassed about with a cloud of witnesses: That was bad enough,
when you could see them settling all about us like a great dotted veil,
but nobody cracked a smile until she gave out the hymn. And that, if you
please, was 'My soul be on thy guard, ten thousand foes arise!' You know
how it goes." And Polly sang:
"'Ne'er think the vict'ry won,
Nor once at ease sit down,
Thy arduous work will not be done
Till thou obtain thy crown.'"
"She might have asked for 'Christian, up and smite them,'" said Dr.
Helen. "Now, children, I should like nothing better than to sit and hear
college yarns all the morning, but I have an office hour to keep.
Catherine, did you tell Inga to order peas for dinner?"
"That reminds me," said Polly, springing up. "Mamma wanted me to do some
marketing before I came home, and I was forgetting it entirely. And I
haven't found out yet what you think of the opening!"
"I should think it would be a good way to advertise it and get people
interested. We ought to get a lot of books, too, though they wouldn't
all be worth much. Are you going to work to-day? I decided I'd have to
take a day off."
"I don't believe any one will go down. Win won't, because Max has gone
up to Madison to take a re in Trig and she won't bother about anything
when he's not around. Dorcas said she'd see to the card-pockets at
home--her Sunday-school class will do it, poor infants! And Bertha and
Agnes have to help their mother because she's going to have the Ladies'
Aid this afternoon. They are the best pair of workers I ever saw."
"Aren't they? Bess was fine about the curtains, too. She is so
changeable, though, that I don't know what to think of her."
"Only a question of whether there's a man body about, my dear," said
Polly oracularly. "Many a girl is all right and sensible when there are
just girls around, but let a lad heave in sight, and the whole situation
is altered. I've known Bess since she came to Winsted in a ruffled white
apron, and no one can teach me anything about her. Now, having dissected
all my friends, I think I really must do my marketing."
"We haven't said anything about Dot, the dear," said Catherine,
following Polly to the door.
"Dot, the dear," echoed Polly. "That's all there is to say about her.
Good-by, honey. To-morrow we'll go at it for a grand finale. That was
the name of the last piece in my first music book, and I always like to
say it. It sounds so complete, someway. You don't know, Catherine," and
Polly stopped on the last step to look up at her tall friend, "how
pleasant it makes things to have you in them. I'm just loving this
library work, and so are the rest of us. Playing with you is like having
one's Sunday doll all the week, or as if the princess in the fairy
stories had turned into a real mortal. Good-by this time for truly
true!"
Humming a Wellesley song, Polly was off down the walk at a brisk pace,
and Catherine, who had answered her last words with a look more
expressive than speech, stood watching her a minute, and then went
happily back to her mending.
The grocer's boy, who arrived with the peas a little later, also brought
the mail. He was devoted to Inga and enjoyed doing gratuitous favors for
the doctor's family for her sake. Inga brought in two letters to
Catherine, who joyfully dropped her darning and tore them open.
"_Belovedest Goldilocks;_" the first began, in Hannah Eldred's
writing, not much improved in the two years she and Catherine had been
corresponding.
"We are here at the shore for the summer, or that part of it which must
pass before I come flying out to you with Frieda. Mamma and I are here
all the time and Dad and Herr Karl come out for Sundays.
"People are so puzzled about Karl. I say over and over: 'No, not my
tutor. No, not a cousin. Not even a ward of my father's. Just a German
boy we learned to know in Berlin, and now a student at Harvard. Yes, we
met him quite simply. He lived in the apartment under us, and he had
hurt his leg and couldn't walk, and we used to entertain him. Frieda
Lange and I did. It was at her house we were staying. His father is Herr
Director Von Arndtheim, and they are very respectable!' People at a
summer resort, even a little one, are the curiousest in the world,
_I_ think!
"Who do you think is coming to spend a few days with us next week? Nice
old Inez! I'm awfully glad she is coming, but honestly I do hope she has
learned to put her clothes on straight and to keep her room tidy. She's
so good, and so faithful that I love her anyhow, but Mother does like
neat guests dreadfully well! She would love you for a guest, Catherine.
But there! You always are just ex-actly right, without the tiniest
drawback,--unless Dexter has changed you. Has it?
"I feel as though I were having my second childhood. It was so nice to
be at college that term with the grown-up girls, and now I have to go
with infants like little Hilda and Gertrude, only not so nice. I had
first year Math in High School, you know, last year, and my German Prof
regarded me as a babe and wouldn't let me read things because I wasn't
old enough--things that weren't suitable for children. Frieda's mother
has never let her read a love story, you know, and this man has the same
idea! He talked to me, the stiffest conversation lessons you ever heard.
It was like the dialogues in Ruskin. I wonder what he would think if he
should hear Karl and me sometimes. We jabber it all the time, he and
Mamma and I. Dad won't let us when he's around, so we talk English then,
and that instructs Karl. He's good except for his pronunciation. You
should hear him do the Harvard yell! He rolls the 'r's' so far he almost
loses them. They are even worse than you-ers, my western de-ar.
"We are going to have a hop to-night, a really hop, and I am going. They
can't put me off with the children because I haven't any nurse or
governess, and there aren't any other girls between infants and real
young ladies. The hop won't be very big, because there are only a few
families (it's not a fashionable place, you know), but we'll have a
perfectly good time all the same. I am so pleased to be going as a
_Herrschaft_, and I have a darling new frock for this and
everything. It's a soft rosy silk with tiny tight rosebuds all over it.
And I have a little wreath of buds to wear in my hair. There are two or
three awfully nice people coming over. One of Karl's classmates at
Harvard, and two boys from the Tech and a nice curly-haired freshman
from Dartmouth. And there is a Smith girl, perfectly charming, and a
rather frumpy one from Wellesley who knows your Polly Osgood, or rather
knows who she is. This girl's name is Violet, and I saw a letter
addressed to her and her middle initial was E, and I asked if her name
was Ethelyn, but she said it was Emma!
"I _wish_ you could see my little hop-gown. And the dear wreath. It
makes me think of Ivy-Planting Day at Dexter and the way the seniors
sang 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.' Wasn't Lilian the sweetest
thing? She is studying in Boston this year, you know, and I saw her
once. And weren't the little pig-tailed preps dear with their pink
doves, I mean pink-ribboned doves? That was your pretty idea, my
beautiful Catherine. I never could have thought of anything so lovely.
"I'm almost at the bottom of the inkstand, and I haven't told you yet
what I started to write about. But Mamma has written your mother, so
it's all right. Frieda is to land the last of July, and I'm going to
take her out to you as soon after that as your mother and mine think
best. I think she will need a long time to get acquainted, don't you? I
know you will love each other, but she must know you thoroughly before
college opens. It is tantalizing to think of you and her and Alice all
being together. I do think I ought to be there, too, since I was the one
who introduced you to each other. I'd like to keep Frieda with me next
year, but every one seems to think the best place for her is right in
the dormitory with the other girls,--and of course, it will be easier
for her out there than in any of the big colleges nearer us. She is so
obstinate she wouldn't learn English if she were near any one who could
talk anything she would recognize for German. What most of the girls at
college talk for that, she wouldn't know from Choctaw.
"Lots of love to the dear doctors, and for yourself bushels and quarts
and pecks. I had a card from Miss Lyndesay from the Isle of Wight
yesterday.
"Now I must shut, as Frieda said in her last letter!
"Your loving Hannah."
Catherine gathered up the scattered pages of this voluminous letter and
then opened the slender one which had accompanied it. This bore a far
western postmark, and its neat little pages resembled copperplate.
"_My Dear Roommate:_
"I'm waiting for a youth to whom I am to give a toot lesson. He is very
stupid. I have him in Greek and English literature. In Greek he
translates the word for Lord, 'Cyrus.' We have been reading the New
Testament, and you can think how very oddly that would come in, in some
passages! And in an English test he assured me that Milton wrote
_Pilgrim's Progress_, and the author of Bacon's _Essays_ was
Charles Lamb. He makes me wonder whether I shall have courage enough to
tackle teaching as a profession, if tutoring is so difficult. But I like
his money very well, and Mother is going away for a real vacation and
will take Cora, and that couldn't happen if I hadn't found work this
summer.
"I have a Sunday-school class, too, and that is entertaining, at least.
It is at a mission, and such queer dirty little chaps as are in it!
"I started in to teach them an alphabet of Christian graces, or
desirable qualities. The first week we had A for Attention, and the
second, B for Bravery, and the third week I thought they all had the
idea, and asked them to guess what C would be. They thought very hard,
and then one piped out: 'Cabbages!' The same little boy told me that the
priests burned _insects_ in the temple!
"My whole letter seems to be nothing but my pupils' absurdities. But
really I have very little else to write about that would interest any
one. I'm busy all day, and too tired at night to read or write. I take
more pleasure getting acquainted with my darling little brother Jack
again, than in anything else I do. He has been Ariel now for a week, and
it's very convenient, for there are many errands to be done. He sleeps
at night in a cow-slip bell, very romantically, but I have no hope the
spell will last. He will be a robber chief or a street-car conductor
next week. The poetry in his system is in streaks, not continuous. O!
that reminds me--and it's the last 'bright saying' I shall quote in this
letter, I promise you! He asked me rather shyly the other day what
poetry was, and after I had attempted to explain, he said: 'It's queer,
Allie. I thought it was chickens!'
"Here comes my pupil, looking very sad. I wish he didn't regard me as an
old, old woman. I suppose I seem so to him, but I do hate to feel for
two hours a day that I have lost all my youth.
"When does Hannah come? And Frieda? I am all eagerness to see her. Did
you carry my embroidered waist home with you by any chance? I can't find
it, and I really need it.
"My love to your mother, always.
"Faithfully yours,
"Alice Barbara."
CHAPTER SIX
THE OPENING
The opening of the library had been vigorously advertised. Bert and Dot
had wheeled the country roads over within a radius of three miles from
town, posting bills of announcement. The ministers urged it upon their
congregations as a civic duty to attend. At social gatherings the week
before nothing else was talked of. And everybody was going to bring
books.
"Such a lot of trash as we'll get!" groaned Dorcas.
"I know it," assented Polly, "but they will all take an interest, and
that is what we are after now. Once properly established, we can buy
good books, and these old ones will just stand idle or wear out or get
lost or something."
"I don't think it's very appropriate to serve refreshments," objected
Dorcas once more. "And Algernon doesn't think it is a dignified way to
do."
"O, well," put in Catherine, appeasingly. "Mrs. Graham says, you know,
that we'll 'have to get people pretty well educated readin' our
encyclopedias and dictionaries before they'll think anything's worth
goin' to that there ain't somethin' to eat at!' And Mrs. Graham is going
to take charge of all that part, anyhow, so I don't feel like finding
fault. There won't be any expense, with everything contributed."
"They might have given the money instead of ice-cream and cakes."
"O, Dorcas, Dorcas, you would expect people to be all made over. Did you
ever read Stevenson's fable of the reformer who thought the first step
in reforming the world was to abolish mankind? Let's not worry about it.
I know it's going to be a success. Isn't this room the cleanest spot you
ever saw?" And Catherine threw back her arms with a gesture to rest her
tired shoulders, and looked about her with affection and pride. Bare
white walls, with one good engraving, loaned by Judge Arthur, for
ornament; plain shelves with rows of neat books, their orderly labels
smiling like sets of teeth; the reading-table in the exact center of the
room, with three chairs in military array on each side of it, and a few
contributed magazines in mathematical piles between two student lamps;
and last, Algernon's small charging desk, with its mysterious cards and
rubber stamps under one of the bracket lamps, shining from the polishing
Agnes had just given it.
"Isn't it spick and span?" repeated Catherine, sitting down with
precision in the arm-chair, discovered in somebody's attic.
"Ye-es," answered Dot slowly, dropping upon one of the arms. "But for
all its cleanness it's about as bare and as inviting as the contagious
ward of a hospital, or the dining-room of a state's prison."
"Don't say discouraging things like that, Dot dear," pleaded Agnes,
taking the other arm and snuggling her head against Catherine's cheek.
"A library isn't supposed to be a parlor, and that engraving is really
valuable."
"I'd rather have a chromo that comes with soap, myself," said Bert. "Its
cold steely look only adds to that hygienic and sanitary aspect Dot
detected. It makes me homesick for sunflowers and red flannel."
"I have an idea," and Dorcas rose and departed with her usual
abruptness.
As she went out of the door, Bess came in.
"O dear!" she said. "Are you all here? I hoped nobody would be."
"Shall we withdraw?" asked Bert. "We were just commenting on the
barrenness of this place, but your presence causes it to blossom as the
rainbow. We bask in the refulgence."
Bess laughed. "That's really what I came for, to prettify it a little.
It seemed such a pity not to have anything bright and attractive on the
walls, so I made this at odd minutes. Do you all like it? I was going to
put it up and surprise you."
She unrolled a big parcel she carried and the others, crowding around to
see, looked upon a beautifully illuminated motto:
"God be thanked for books."
"Bess, you are an inspired angel," cried Polly, while Catherine gave her
a squeeze which was meant to express pleasure and also compunction for
more than one reflection that Bess was not doing her share for the
library.
"And here comes another," exclaimed Agnes, running to open the door for
Dorcas, staggering under the weight of a great armful of golden glow.
"Dorcas, you must have taken every stalk you had!"
"Well, and whose business is it, I'd like to know?" asked Dorcas briskly
and justly. Polly shrugged her shoulders, but helped Bertha to find
receptacles for the bright flowers, continuing to exclaim over their
beauty, in spite of Dorcas' apparent indifference. It had not been
Algernon alone who had been misunderstood at the beginning of the
library campaign in Winsted. The flowers arranged effectively, and the
motto given a place where it could be read from all parts of the room,
the workers trudged off to their respective homes to make elaborate
toilets before the "party" should begin.
Seven o'clock found the lamps lighted inside the little building, and
Japanese lanterns making the freshly-mown weed patch a festive place,
with little tables set for the ice-cream and cake which were to be
served from the shed, leaving the library proper, clean and crumbless.
Bess and Winifred, with their attendant squires, were to act as Mrs.
Graham's lieutenants outside, and the other members of the club were
variously on duty within. Dr. Helen assisted Algernon and the school
superintendent in receiving--an unsectarian combination warranted to
disturb no prejudice. Bertha, with a book and pen, was ready at the
reading-table to receive and register gifts. Catherine sat at Algernon's
desk to issue cards, and take in the annual fee of fifty cents. The
other girls and boys were "floating," ready to entertain the guests, to
explain the whole scheme, and see to it that every one was invited to
the lawn for "light refreshments and ice-cream" as the _Courier_
had announced.
The fathers and mothers of the Boat Club were early arrivals, looking
with proud amused eyes upon their spotless sons and daughters in their
disinterested public zeal. First of all came Mrs. Swinburne in a long
black net gown elaborately spangled, her hair coquettishly arranged in a
Janice Meredith curl, several years out of date, a slender ivory-sticked
fan, somewhat broken, swaying from her belt by a long ribbon. She
plainly felt that her entrance should excite attention and was by no
means disappointed. Dot and Polly took her in charge and stood by with
grave courteous faces while she gave Bertha her contribution, wrapped up
in tissue paper and white ribbon.
"It's a copy of _The Ring and The Book_ I got for Elsmere's
Christmas last year. I wanted so to read it. I am devoted to Byron. But
Algernon gave me the _Complete Works_, so that I felt I could give
this away to advantage. It is a little damaged. The dear child uses his
books to build stables with, but I knew that the public would not mind."
She arched her eyebrows in surprise when Catherine asked fifty cents for
the card she made out for her. "As Algernon's mother, really, Miss
Catherine, I did not expect--" and Catherine, catching Algernon's
imploring glance from his position between the doctor and the
superintendent, murmured an apology and gave the card.
Then Mrs. Swinburne sank delicately into the arm-chair, and rested her
eyes upon the scene before her.
It was soon sufficiently animated. A whole family arrived at once,
climbing out of a big farm wagon. Dot beckoned to Bert.
[Illustration: "'How much for your tickets?'"--_Page 77._]
"It's that man we talked to out on the Ridge Road."
"Is this your liberry?" asked a mighty voice from the doorway. "Where's
the young fellow that invited us to come in this evening? O, it's you,
is it? I didn't recognize you with those clothes on. Men folks didn't
wear white pants in my day. Well, Mother, come along in. I guess they
won't nobody bite you."
With this encouragement, a little washed-out looking woman slipped
uncomfortably in, six children of various degrees of awkwardness
stumbling after her, studiously avoiding the outstretched hands of the
receiving committee. Dr. Helen stepped forward and took the woman's
hand. The wan face under the dusty black straw hat lighted with the
smile that Catherine loved to see her mother call forth.
"Clary," said the little woman proudly, "here's the doctor. Let her see
how fat and well you be. Not much like she was that winter!"
Clary's father, meanwhile, was walking about the room with a tread that
rattled the lamp-shades. He looked the books over with an air of wisdom,
listened to Bert's talk in silence, and presently drew up at the desk
where Catherine sat waiting for customers.
"How much for your tickets?"
"Fifty cents."
"Family rates?"
Catherine met the unforeseen question promptly.
"Where there are more than three in a family, the tickets are only
thirty-five cents apiece."
"So. Well, give me one," and he drew a handful of small change from his
pocket. "Holcomb's the name. Chester G. Holcomb."
Catherine inscribed the name in her pretty even hand upon a blue card,
numbered it 2, and handed it to her patron. He laid down thirty-five
cents and turned away.
"O," said Catherine, flushing softly. "You didn't understand. It is only
when you get three cards that they are cheap like that."
Chester Holcomb, known as the biggest miser in the county, grunted.
"You said if they was more than three in the family, and they's six
children besides ma and me. I knowed there was some skin game about this
thing, somewheres. Here's your ticket and you give me back my money."
Catherine, almost as near tears as she had ever been in her singularly
well-controlled existence, obeyed him.
"Good evening, Chester." Dr. Harlow had been standing near, and now
decided to take a hand. "Let me introduce my daughter. Catherine, this
is Mr. Holcomb, of whom you've heard us speak."
"The father of the dear twin babies?" asked Catherine, with a grateful
throb for her father's help.
"That's them yonder," answered Chester Holcomb, swelling proudly. "Mate,
bring the twins here, so't the doctor's gal can see 'em. Weighed five
pounds when they was born, and look at 'em now! Best fatted live stock
on the farm, I say, Doctor." And Mr. Holcomb's great laugh at his own
witticism filled the room. Catherine, meanwhile, with the sincerity of a
girl who really loves all babies, admired the plump twins to such a
degree that their father felt himself melting with benevolence.