been morphia or arsenic for all he knew. The principle in his case was
the same. His mother said 'no symptoms had set in as yet,' but she
wanted me to administer an antidote at once. I couldn't refuse her!"
"Mother! What did you do?"
"First I caused the patient to be removed to his own room and the doors
to be closed. Then I gave him a sound scolding and a good smart
spanking."
"O dear Doctor Helen!" sighed Polly softly, while Dot clapped her hands
with glee, and even Catherine showed signs of satisfaction.
"Did his mother hear you?"
"If she had, I was prepared to tell her it was necessary to restore the
circulation. I was afraid the child might howl, but it was a new
experience to him and he took it so very pleasantly that I am now
worried for fear he liked it!" Dr Helen set down her teacup and turned
to Frieda. "You will think me a barbarous physician, Frieda, but really
this boy has needed discipline for a long time, and there is no one to
give it to him. His pranks are often dangerous."
"Like the building of a fire under the barn to keep his cat warm."
"Yes, and making a ladder of kindling wood and climbing up to the second
story on it."
"He is a pretty naughty boy," finished Dr. Helen, "and a very sweet
attractive one withal. I hope I made it clear to-day, that he is not to
go about eating medicine. Now I must hear how Mrs. Eldred is, and what
sort of a journey you had. Did Catherine make you properly comfortable?"
Hannah drew close to Dr. Helen and cuddled her hand as she answered.
Then she suddenly said: "O, you know, Frieda and I saw Miss Lyndesay
just before we came away. Do tell about it, Frieda."
Frieda's face lighted at the name. "She is very wonderful," she said
shyly. "She said: 'Let me greet myself to them.' She finds herself well,
and her house is beautiful."
"I am so glad. Thank you very much for bringing us direct word from her.
See! this is the portrait she painted of Catherine some time ago." And
Dr. Helen took Frieda a little apart to get a good light on the painting
of Catherine and Hotspur, almost the only picture the big room with its
walls of books contained. It developed that Frieda was very fond of dogs
and her rapture over the picture made it necessary to call in the
original, who instantly recognized in her a discriminating soul. Frieda
dropped down on the leather window-seat and fondled his tawny sides with
the deepest feeling of rest she had had in two days. "He understands
me," she thought, with almost passionate gratitude.
Polly and Dot bade her good-by in a few minutes. "I'm going to ask you
to go out on the river with me and talk German to me all alone. I've
studied it in college," said Polly, "and I do want to see whether I can
understand a real German. We won't let Catherine or Hannah go. I should
be afraid to try before them, but I don't believe I should be at all
afraid of you."
Frieda caught Polly's hand in hers, and suddenly carried it to her lips
and kissed it. Polly reddened a little, while Dot turned abruptly away
and made her adieux to Catherine and Hannah.
"Isn't she a dear?" sighed Polly, as she and Dot went down the walk. "I
do think she's as charming as a picture in a sweet old-fashioned book,
and I want to learn to read the printing that describes the picture."
"Well, you may for all of me," replied Dot. "But I don't believe I'd
ever feel safe with her. I felt all hands and feet, and if she should
ever kiss my hand!"
"She won't!" laughed Polly. "You needn't fear! I wonder how the boys
will like her. She is unusually good-looking, and her clothes are
delightful. And I like her eyes. There is fun in her somewhere. You mark
my words, Dot Winthrop. Once she learns English, there'll be something
doing. There's nothing colorless or monotonous about Frieda Lange."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CAUGHT IN A SHOWER
The three girls, "just the right number, one for each gable," as Dr.
Harlow said, had been very busy that morning. Their beds made, Catherine
had gone down to market, while Frieda dusted the living-room, and Hannah
swept the porches.
"I like doing things like this," said Frieda suddenly, as she came to
the doorway, and shook her duster energetically. "Do you remember the
time we got our own supper in Berlin, Hannah?"
"Indeed I do," said Hannah heartily, leaning on her broom. "You look
awfully pretty this morning, Frieda, in that plaid gingham. Are you
going off with Polly, as usual? I don't see you at all, it seems to me."
"You have Catherine," answered Frieda. "Polly is learning German."
"And you are learning English. I can see that you have improved a lot
this week. But you are getting pretty slangy. It would be better for you
to learn from Catherine than from Polly."
Frieda shook her head firmly. "I am in awe of Catherine," she announced,
"and with you I feel weary talking English, for I know you can talk
German. But Polly cannot do any other, and I must talk with her. She is
delightsome."
"So is Catherine," said Hannah, looking at Frieda wistfully. It was a
worry to her that these two who were to be together all the next year
should be so slow in getting acquainted. "One is obstinate and the other
is shy, and I don't know when they will get over it," she sighed to
herself, as Frieda, seeing Catherine come up the walk, disappeared into
the house.
Catherine was breathless with her quick climb and her many parcels. She
dropped into a chair on the porch, and took off her hat to fan herself.
"There is the funniest woman on the street," she said. "I know she is an
agent, and I suppose she'll be here soon; but I've got to shell these
peas and I want to do it out here, so I shan't run from her. Won't you
bring out some pans for the peas when you take your broom in, Hannah?
I'm too weary to move."
Hannah, on her way after pans, persuaded Frieda to come out and help
shell peas, and all three were soon busily at work.
Suddenly Catherine snapped a pea at Hannah to attract her attention.
"My agent!" she whispered, as a woman in a loose flowing gown marched
toward them.
She mounted the steps and, stooping over Catherine, snapped something
around her neck.
"There!" she said, straightening herself. "That will never come off."
All three girls gasped. Catherine clutched at the offending article and
the peas rolled in all directions.
"It's a collar," said the woman triumphantly. "You can wear it forever.
Just put a fresh ribbon over it now and then, and you're always dressed.
Only fifteen cents. I'll try one on you, Miss--" and before Hannah could
utter a protest she was caught in the celluloid trap as Catherine had
been. Speechless they faced each other. With a little gasp Frieda
slipped over the porch railing and disappeared around the corner of the
house. Hotspur came bounding after her and she patted him, and hugged
him and laughed and laughed.
"A collar just like yours, Hotspur dear," she told him in German. "And
it will never come off! Catherine, the Saint, the Perfect, the
Inviolate, sitting there looking like a--in English, like an idiom! O,
Hotspur, dear, it has done me good. I have wished I could want to laugh
at her. Now I shan't be so afraid of her ever again. Come! we must go.
It's time for our row." And Frieda danced off across a little wood path
which was a short-cut to the boat-house.
Polly was waiting, and in a very few minutes the "Minnehaha" was
launched. It was a beautiful day, the river rippling with waves and
twinkling with reflections of trees, but the ardent oarswomen saw
neither the beauty surrounding them nor the black clouds threatening.
They were practising for a race. Neither spoke. They pulled with long
steady strokes in perfect time. Suddenly Frieda's oar flopped and
"caught a crab." The bow at the same moment struck the bank, and a great
scrambling tearing sound followed. In a fright the girls huddled
together in the bottom of the boat, not daring to look up.
"O, pshaw! It's only a cow, more afraid than we were. She made all that
noise just tearing up the bank."
"I thought it was an earthshake," sighed Frieda, leaning back and
resting. "That was one hundred strokes without missing. I didn't know
the bank was so near."
"Neither did I. That's the trouble with us, Frieda. We get so interested
in rowing that we forget to steer."
"We steered into a steer that time."
"O, Frieda! You ought not to be allowed to make jokes in English, you
make such bad ones."
Frieda smiled cheerfully. "Ten days ago I thought I should never make a
joke in any language, or laugh at one again. I was very sorrowful when I
came here, Polly."
"I didn't dream it," answered Polly. "You looked very sweet when I first
saw you, and I thought you kept still because you didn't care to talk!
But we have had a lot of fun these days, haven't we? I feel as though I
had known you a long time. Wish you were going to Wellesley."
"So do I. It would be delightful, with you there and Karl and Hannah so
near. But my parents decided for me. Karl will go to see you, though."
"That's nice. Really, Frieda, you will find it's lots easier at a small
college than a large one at first. And you can come on East afterward.
Dexter is fine, and you'll have such a start, going in as Catherine's
friend."
Frieda grimaced.
"If every one there is as beautiful and--_apart_ as Catherine is, I
shan't get on very well. Catherine is like a saint. She could never
understand wickedness as you and Hannah do."
"Thanks very much!" Polly answered dryly. "But you take my word for it,
Catherine isn't just a saint. There is fun in her, too, though not on
the surface. You may always feel as though she were a beautiful picture
or poem but you won't like her the less for that. She's not
stand-offish. She's just different. My dear, I felt a drop."
"So did I. And there's another." Straightway the heavens opened and a
deluge descended, most of it, it seemed, aiming for the small rowboat at
the pasture's edge.
The thin roof of boughs which had hidden from their view the swiftly
gathering clouds was wholly inadequate to the task of sheltering them
from the contents of the clouds. Great cracks of lightning showed in the
dark sky, and thunder rattled and roared and rumbled and burst.
Polly looked grave.
"We'll drown if we stay here, and we could never row home. Look at the
waves! And if we stay here, we're also liable to be struck by lightning.
Let's leave the boat and make for that farmhouse across the pasture."
"I'm afraider of the cow," said Frieda. "But I'll go. We can hide the
oars and oar-locks in the bushes."
Progress across the pasture was difficult, but when the road beyond was
reached, both looked aghast at the muddy stream of it.
Frieda rolled under the fence and stepped boldly in. Polly, gasping with
laughter, started to climb over.
"You might as well roll," advised Frieda. "You can't wetten yourself
more than you are already, and it is pleasant to roll."
"That's a matter of taste!" panted Polly, balancing herself on the top
of the fence.
Suddenly Frieda gave a little shriek. Polly instantly fell forward into
the mud, her skirt catching on all the barbs in the fence and rending
itself horribly. Frieda, full of wild exclamations of pity and remorse,
helped her up and wiped the thickest of the mud from her once piquant
face.
"It was the cow," she confessed. "I saw him coming from afar and I
squealed. I did not know it would make you tumble, but I had to squeal.
I fear cows. I have great alarm before them."
"I forgive you," Polly was weak with mirth. "But we've got to get into
that house and telephone for some one to come out from town and take us
home. We could never walk in these roads, and I should tie myself all up
in knots if I walked in this shredded skirt. One more little spurt,
Frieda, and we're at the kitchen door!"
It looked for a minute as though they would never get beyond the door.
The respectable lady who met them there was scarcely to blame if she
judged a little by outward appearance. Polly's efforts to be suave were
discounted by the muddy look of her eye, and the fact that water was
dripping from her hair into her face.
"Won't you please let us come in and telephone for a carriage, and then
wait for it?" she pleaded. "I will gladly pay for the use of the
'phone." Then it came over her sickeningly that she had no money with
her.
"I'm Polly Osgood," she said. "My father is the Osgood of Osgood and
Brown, Lawyers."
"You don't say! Come right in. I'm Amanda B. Mills, and Lawyer Osgood
has been my counsel for twenty-one years and more. I'd never a-kept you
waitin' out there a minute, if I'd known 'twas you. Is this your sister?
Don't wipe your shoes. Come right in. There's other folks been caught in
this rain, too."
She stepped back, still speaking, and invited them into the kitchen.
Polly and Frieda, stumbling a little, blinded as they were by the water
dripping from their hair, followed her. As they entered the room, there
was a moment's silence, then a burst of laughter and exclamations.
"For the love of Mike!"
"Where did you rain down from?"
"O dear, O dear! You ridiculous boys!"
"What a guy you do look, Polly!"
And slowly out of the babel of voices came a deep solemn:
"_Donnerwetter!_" It was not a lady-like expression for a nice
little German girl to use, but she knew that to American ears it sounded
more harmless than her usual expletives, and, besides, she felt that if
ever an occasion had warranted emphasis this was it. She and Polly,
dripping, draggled, ragged, confronted with Algernon, Max, Bert and
Archie, almost as wet, grouped about Amanda B. Mills' kitchen stove!
Mrs. Mills' astonishment at the boisterous greeting given her latest
guests by the earlier ones was so manifest that Polly hastened to make
all clear with introductions.
"How do you happen to be here?" she asked, as she finished, and Archie
had made a Chesterfieldian bow, though the blue from his Andover cap had
run into his fair hair.
"Fishing," answered Bert. "We drove out from town with our old nag,
hitched her to a tree and fished. Thunder and lightning always rile the
beast, and she just broke her tie-strap and oozed off home, and left us
in her wake. We got this far, walking, but the road was such a juicy
mess we decided to stop and telephone for some one to come out after
us."
"That's what I am going to do. Where is the telephone, Mrs. Mills?"
"O, do allow us to have the pleasure," begged Max. "They said they'd
send out the 'light bearers' wagon,' and it's warranted to hold six.
Besides it will be here in twenty minutes, and a private equipage would
take longer."
"Well--it's awfully kind of you, I'm sure! Aren't you afraid we'll make
you wetter, though, if we ride in the same carriage? I am flooding the
floor at this moment. It's terrible, Mrs. Mills. Isn't there a shed we
could go into, and not make such a lot of work for you?"
"Deary me, Miss Osgood, it's a pleasure to me to have you here. But I
wisht you'd come into the parlor, all of you, you and your friends. I'll
lay papers down on the carpet, and you can just walk in."
They all protested, but as it soon became clear that it was as much a
desire to display the beauties of her room as hospitality that prompted
the invitation, they yielded and filed damply along the newspaper path
into the gaudy parlor. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had come
up, and the sun was shining through the flowers in the lace curtains at
the windows, and striking the bright pink morning-glory of the
graphophone, which was the most conspicuous object in the room. Mrs.
Mills, preceding her wet guests, turned the track a little past the
telephone, resplendent in oak and nickel, so that the whole procession
could be inside the room at once. Then she called their respectful
attention to her framed marriage certificate, and a similar document
declaring the late Jacob Quincy Mills a Grand Something or Other in some
lodge. Beneath these, on a shelf, were two tall lava jars filled with
pampas grass, a pink china vase and a wreath of Easter lilies made of
spangled paper.
"I'd like to show you the pictures in the family album," said Mrs. Mills
hospitably, resting her hand upon the fat plush volume on the center
table, "but I don't see how more'n two or three of you can look at it at
a time." She frowned a moment, puzzled. Then her face lighted. "I'll
just set the graphophone goin' for the rest of you to entertain
yourselves with," she said eagerly, and in a moment the room was filled
with the wheezing and strident strains of "You Look Good to Father,"
against which Mrs. Mills raised her own voice in explanatory remarks to
Archie and Frieda, who happened to be within the album's range:
"This is Mr. Mills' sister's first husband. That was their baby that
died. This here is Miss Evelyn Mills of Chicago. She's a singer there at
the Orpheum. She was my husband's own cousin, once removed. This was my
father's aunt,--" and so on.
"Look at Algernon," whispered Max to Polly. "He's as contented as a
lamb. He's learning all there is to know about poultry, and doesn't even
know that infernal machine is going or that Mr. Mills had any
relatives." And sure enough Algernon, standing beside the bookcase, on a
portion of the newspaper track, was reading, even devouring, the pages
of a scientific farming journal, with an expression of perfect
satisfaction on his face.
The long half hour came at last to an end. Mrs. Mills conducted the
procession back to the kitchen, helped tuck the girls into the robes,
and disclaiming all right to their earnest thanks, watched the wagon out
of sight.
"Which is worse, a soaking or a fourth-class phonograph?" queried Archie
from his corner.
Bert, humming "Waltz me Around Again, Willie," paused to remark:
"Why, I rather liked that. Didn't the rest of you?"
Polly shivered, not with cold alone.
"There is one song we all like, Bert," she suggested. "Let's sing it now
to keep our lungs from freezing. There's water enough all about to make
it appropriate!"
And in a minute four big male voices were shouting out the Boat Club
song, Polly's soprano sweet and clear over the rest, while Frieda smiled
encouragement over the edge of the robe in which she was wrapped to her
chin.
"We are the Winsted Boat Club,
Dip the oar, dip the oar!
We are the Winsted Boat Club,
Push out from shore!
"We are the Winsted Boat Club,
Paddle light, paddle light!
A-drifting, a-drifting beneath
The sunset bright!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AN INTERLUDE
Algernon suffered more serious consequences from his wetting than the
others did from theirs. His cold the next day prevented him from even
attempting to go to the library. He wrote a note to Bertha, asking her
to take his place, and then, groaning over his inability to get to the
telephone, coaxed Elsmere to his side and sewed the note and the key to
his blouse.
"You cross your heart and hope to die you'll go straight to Bertha's and
give her the key?"
"Cross my heart. Hope die. And you'll give me six candies and a
rocking-horse, and a 'lectric light and a house for my pigeons, and--"
"I'll give you something nice when you've done the errand, not before.
Now hurry. The library can't open till you get there. Think of it! All
those people who want books waiting for you!" Coughing, Algernon fell
back upon his hated pillows, and watched his messenger set out, more in
hope than in confidence.
It was Fate that prevented Elsmere's fulfilling the trust, or rather,
realizing the hope, for though he did go straight to Bertha's house, he
did not find her there. The maid who opened the door proved
uncommunicative on the subject of Bertha's whereabouts, and Elsmere
sauntered away, undecided what to do next. Ten feet from the gate, he
stumbled upon a cat. At once a beautiful thought came to him. His own
cat-pussy had gone away, tired of abuse and starvation irregularly
combined with affection in the form of embraces and sugar, and Elsmere's
heart had grieved for her. Here was another, and he could find out by
actual experiment whether the velvet birds in the library would deceive
her. Clutching the spitting, clawing creature to his bosom, he trotted
off to the library.
The door, of course, was locked. At first this fact discouraged Elsmere.
Then he suddenly remembered that he alone possessed means of entrance.
Putting the cat down on the pavement and stepping firmly on her tail to
retain her, he fitted the key and triumphantly turned it in the lock.
Once inside, he carried kitty to the closet where the birds at present
hung, but his experiment was unsatisfactory, for she dug into his cheek
with a fury which rendered it necessary to abandon the attempt. When the
outraged animal had fled down the street, Elsmere looked about for fresh
interests. He was in a mood to recognize opportunities, and the
unprotected condition of Algernon's desk was suggestive. Never was a
librarian more hostile to little prying fingers than A. Swinburne of the
Winsted City Library. Elsmere felt a certain constraint, even alone with
opportunity.
The door opened and a very small person came in and walked over to the
desk.
"What you want?" asked Elsmere gravely.
"Want a book."
"All right." Elsmere walked to the shelves, took down a large volume of
Sheridan's Memoirs, and handed it to the child. Plainly much impressed
by the size of her booty, she wrapped her arms about it and walked out,
with admiring glances at Elsmere over her shoulder. Elsmere was pleased.
That was easy. He climbed into Algernon's chair. There were plenty of
things to amuse one. Rubber stamps hold infinite possibilities of
entertainment. So do colored cards arranged in trays. Elsmere shifted
them all about, and stamped the date on everything in sight.
Then came more Public, Mrs. Kittredge's maid this time, returning a book
and not wishing more. In fact, she laid down the book and departed with
such would-be inconspicuous swiftness that if Elsmere had been more
experienced, he would have known at once that the book was overdue.
Then there was a lull. Even forbidden pleasure palls in time, if no one
comes to remonstrate, and Elsmere was beginning to consider going home,
when three boys, strolling that way, pressed their noses against the
window-pane. Then they wandered in.
"What's the kid doin' in the liberrian's chair?" asked one. Elsmere
maintained a dignified silence, stamping the date rapidly and inkily on
a pile of fresh catalog cards.
"Say, kid, where's the liberrian?"
"I'm liberrian."
"O, come off. Where's the real one? The feller that knows it all, and
walks like a seesaw."
"That's Algy," said Elsmere, with fraternal recognition. "Algy's sick.
I'm liberrian."
His questioner looked at him keenly.
"I say, kids, let's us be liberrians. You put the little feller out."
The obedient henchmen put the howling Elsmere down from his seat, and
exalted their chief.
"I'm it," said that worthy. "You pick out books you want, and I'll fix
'em up."
The others, nothing loath, picked out certain extra-illustrated volumes
which Algernon did not allow to circulate, and presented them at the
desk, where they helped the presiding official to "fix 'em up" according
to methods suggested by intuition combined with a little observation.
"Say, now it's my turn," said one of the subordinates. "You git down and
let me. Does that chair screw 'round?"
It did, and in the ensuing scuffle, it not only screwed around but the
top fell off, carrying three boys and an assortment of inks with it.
At the same moment, Max and Archie entered to while away an idle
half-hour with the daily paper.
The big boys were prompt, but the little boys were prompter. The back
door swung on its hinges and Max and Archie, puffing, ejaculating and
wrathful, gave over attempts at capture for efforts at repair, Max going
off to hunt up Algernon, while Archie gathered up scattered cards and
mopped up the ink with dust-cloths.
Seeking Algernon, Max ran across Mrs. Osgood making calls. Hearing his
tale, she went back with him to the scene of disaster, and her capable
fingers soon brought about some appearance of order, though the
intricacies of card systems were beyond her.
"I'd like to know who the rascals are that did it," she said with
emphasis; "and I can't see how they got in. Where do you suppose
Algernon is?"