in her request with words or looks, Alice repeated the beautiful lines
lovingly:
"Faint blue the distant hills before,
Yellow the harvest lands behind;
Wayfarers we upon the path
The thistledown goes out to find.
"On naked branch and empty nest,
The woodland's blended gold and red,
Dim glory lies which autumn shares
With faces of the newly dead.
"Tender this moment of the year
To eyes that seek and feet that roam;
It is the lifting of the latch,
A footstep on the flags of home.
"Now may the peace of withered grass
And goldenrod abide with you;
Abide with me--for what is death?
Pall of a leaf against the blue."
Feeling that a benediction had been pronounced, they all adjourned to
the porch, Dr. Harlow sitting down by Archie and chatting with him in a
friendly way about his own Andover experiences years before, while the
girls talked quietly with Bert, who had dropped his nonsense for the
time. Dr. Helen was sitting a little apart, but by and by Hannah slipped
over to her chair.
"I'm not so very clever about things," she said, "and I always like to
have them explained. So won't you tell me just what you meant by this
afternoon? You know we all promised to use the prescription again, if we
needed it."
"Yes," said Dr. Helen encouragingly, and waited.
"Well. You might have meant several things. You might just have meant
that we needed a change. We had been sitting about and wishing it was
cooler and talking nonsense and gossip--almost!--and we hadn't been
doing anything useful. Perhaps you wanted us to find out that we'd be
happier if we did something for some one else, even if it looked
disagreeable at first. I've always had that preached to me!"
"I didn't preach!" objected Dr. Helen.
"No, you prescribed. That's your way of preaching, though. You set us to
preaching to ourselves, and it's much more objectionable. I can shut my
ears when other people preach to me, but I can't get away from myself!
But I was wondering if, perhaps, besides all that, you didn't want us to
see how cheerful and happy some people manage to be without much to make
them so. Even that little girl with the spine plays she is an enchanted
princess, Catherine says, and has lovely times, winding balls of yarn
and cutting paper chains. She has to get a certain number of them done
before the enchantment will be broken. I know who suggested that idea to
her," said Hannah, looking searchingly into the doctor's face. "I've
found out a lot of things this afternoon about you, professionally.
Perhaps _that_ was what you were after! Just advertising!"
Dr. Helen's laugh at this brought Dr. Harlow over to her; and Archie
joined the other group.
"Go on, Hannah," said Dr. Helen, seeing Hannah hesitate a little. "Dr.
Harlow will be interested in your analysis of my prescription."
"I wasn't going to analyse it any more, but I was just thinking that
whichever you meant, they were really all of them the same thing Miss
Lyndesay meant when she talked to us about being _laetus_, I mean,
_laetae sorte mea_, I mean _nostra_!"
Dr. Harlow chuckled softly, but Dr. Helen put a kiss on the sweet mouth
with the earnest curve.
"When you finish school, Hannah," suggested Dr. Harlow, "you can come
out here and help us in the office, making up prescriptions for
spiritually afflicted folk--we've all got to take up that line nowadays,
you know--and handling the Latin end of the business. Helen never was
strong on Latin. She translated '_E pluribus unum_' as 'One too
many' when she was young!"
The boys got up to leave, and the doctor's raillery was checked, but
Hannah pondered over it as she went up to bed. About midnight she heard
him closing the doors for the night, and, slipping her bright kimono
over her night-dress, she stole out into the hall and half-way down
stairs.
"Dr. Harlow," she called softly, and the doctor looked up to see her
leaning over the banister, her curly brown braids falling forward.
"I know now why you laughed," she said. "It should be _sortibus_.
_Laetae sortibus nostra!_ O, dear no, _nostris_. I guess I'd
rather do the surgery, and let you attend to the Latin!"
"Perhaps it would be wise!" said Dr. Harlow.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JOURNALISM
"I'm glad you're all here. I'm in the deuce of a mess, and I want to be
helped out."
So speaking, Max seated himself upon a porch settee and waited for
expressions of sympathy and curiosity from the girls before him. When he
had received them, he deigned to give a few details.
"You know, I'm to be editor of the college paper next year, and Morse
has promised me all summer that when he went away for two weeks'
vacation, he'd let me take his place. Well, he went last week and I got
out the Courier. It was a good number, too. I don't suppose any of you
noticed the difference?"
"I remember hearing father say the editorial was especially good," said
Catherine.
"And I heard Mrs. Tracy bewailing the fact when I went in to see her
yesterday, that the paper had lost all its spice, and there wasn't a
single ridiculous item in it, not even a funny typographical mistake, so
I'm sure you ought to feel complimented," said Hannah.
"It's true enough, but that's just where my pickle comes in," said Max
gloomily. "I didn't tell any one about it, because I wanted to carry it
through without any one's knowing. But the reporter has struck, because
I blue-pencilled his notes. He says no college boy is going to tamper
with his work, and he's just calmly left; and what's worse, his brother
has withdrawn an 'ad' which means quite a loss for Morse. I see now why
Morse let so many things go by!"
"That is a pity!" said Catherine sympathetically, while the others
declared themselves in stronger terms. Max looked gratified. "Now what I
want of you girls is to help me gather up news and make the next paper
better than any issue has been since that young puppy came on it. And
I'll get 'ads' enough to offset the brother's withdrawal, and a new
subscription if I have to pay for it myself. I want to leave things in
at least as good shape as I found them. Jenkins will come back again as
soon as Morse does. He loves to write his wild stuff, and is only
willing to stop for a week, because he feels important, acting insulted.
Probably thought I'd eat humble pie and raise his salary, too. Why, he
had the Ortmeyer-Rawlins wedding fixed out with a scare-head THE WAY OF
ALL FLESH! And started it out with a quotation from Shakespeare or
somebody about Love looking with the mind, not with the eyes! The bride
and all her male relatives would have been down at the office with
sticks. She's a pretty girl, you know!"
"It would have been worse, if she hadn't been," said Alice. "What else
did you cut out? It sounds like my pupils' work. I'll help you
blue-pencil. It's just my line."
"The other things weren't funny, just poor constructions and general
flatness, personals that were too personal, you know, and that sort of
thing. But he had a rhapsody on Dawn all worked up that he wanted to run
in, this week. It began: 'When I arise at daybreak, a thousand
quotations surge into my mind!' The fellow is daft on quoting. He sits
with his feet on the desk and reads Bartlett by the hour. Well, I'm rid
of him, and I'm looking for substitutes."
"I'd like nothing better than reporting," said Hannah. "I'll interview
the prominent strangers who come to town and get their views on things.
Imagine me strutting around the hotel lobby, getting acquainted!" And
Hannah assumed the swaggering manner which she fancied characteristic of
reporters.
"The only prominent stranger in town is Frieda," laughed Max. "You'll
have to get her opinion of American education or the tariff."
"That's easy. I know all Frieda's opinions. If they are favorable, she
gives them out plainly, and if they aren't she keeps still, so it's no
work to guess at them. I wish I could do like she does!" she added, with
a sudden earnest tone in her voice.
"I'll blue-pencil all your reportings, if you use such grammar as 'like
she does!'" said Alice sternly.
"Then I'll get mad and resign as Jenkins did!" answered Hannah. "I guess
I know the privileges of a reporter!"
"Do you think you could get the news?" asked Max. "I suppose I could
manage alone, but I'd like to have the paper fuller and better than
ever, and I thought if you girls would go in, we could have a lark out
of it, and not tell the rest."
"Indeed we can get news!" cried Catherine. "If you let us tell Mother
and Father, they can give us news which will be perfectly legitimate,
and Hannah and I have some calls to make. Frieda doesn't want to go, and
Alice wasn't here when these girls called. They are some of the gossippy
kind, and we'll let them talk and report as much as seems fair. And the
Three B's meet here this week, and we can make a good society column
thing of that."
"Why not have Algernon give you library notes?" suggested Alice.
"He does, always, but he would be glad to do something extra, I'm sure,"
said Max. "I don't know but it would be a good plan to take him in on
this. He's in a position to gather news easily."
"I don't see how I can help," said Frieda, sadly.
"If you'll tell me something interesting about German schools," said
Alice, "I'll write it up, and that will go in as our contribution. You
could make room for it, couldn't you, Mr. Editor?"
"Indeed, I could. I'd be mighty glad to get it. It would be better than
filling up with poetry, the way they often do. By the way, I did cut out
a poem of the reporter's. I forgot all about that. Wonder where it is,"
and he began searching in his pockets.
"That's what made him angry," cried Catherine. "Anybody would be angry
at that. Was it a very bad poem?"
"I can't remember much of it. Only it had a refrain every two inches of
'My woe! My woe!'
'I cannot tell the world my woe,'
was the way it began, and then he went straight ahead to try to do that
very thing. Here! I've got a scrap of it.
'Things are seldom what they seem,
Nor is Life what its livers dream,
My woe, my woe!'"
The audience shouted with laughter, but Catherine looked sympathetic.
"Poor boy!" she said. "He probably loved his quotations and his poetry,
and had looked forward to Mr. Morse's being away to have a beautiful
time with the paper. I don't blame him for resigning and eating his
heart out. Not a poem of mine will I send you, Mr. Penfield, or any of
your hard-hearted staff. I'll confine myself to finding out what's
happening in Winsted, and leave the head-lines to your own inventive
genius."
Two days later, the editorial staff of the Courier had an impromptu
meeting in the library. Max had come in to ask Algernon for notes, and
Catherine and Hannah were waiting for Frieda and Alice to join them to
go to a tea at Dot's.
"We've called on the biggest gossips we could find," called Hannah
cheerfully, as Max came in, "and I've got at least ten items." She
showed a note-book which slipped inside her card-case.
"She was dreadful!" said Catherine. "She would stop and make notes
before we had got a block away from the house, for fear she would
forget, and asked questions that made me hold my breath."
"Well," Hannah defended herself. "I wanted details. I don't want just
little bare sentences. And Catherine was just as bad. She took such an
interest in the new people who had moved in next door to the
Galleghers', that I know the Gallegher girls were almost scandalized."
Max ran his eye over Hannah's list of news items approvingly. "That's a
fine start. Can't you do some more calls?"
Catherine shook her head. "No, we don't know any more of the very
gossippy kind, but we are going to a tea at Dot's, and we'll make a
society note of that. How are the editorials coming?"
Max made a wry face. "I declare, I'm pretty nearly stumped. At college
there always seemed to be a lot of vital matters to discuss. But here
there isn't anything after a little spiel on the crops and a paragraph
on politics. I don't dare go in heavy there, for I'm not sure just what
Morse's position is, and don't want to commit him. I can't think of any
public enterprise to work up, or any nuisance to be suppressed."
"I wish you'd suppress mosquitoes and flies," said Hannah, brushing away
one of the latter insects, and petting a swollen place on her wrist.
"Why not write an editorial on it?" suggested Catherine. "You can give
him material to read, can't you, Algernon?"
Algernon came over to the corner where the three were talking in tones
fitting a library.
"What's that? O, indeed, yes," and the boy's face lightened with
pleasure as he found some one really desiring information of a worthy
nature. "I'll get you something right away. There was an article in a
last month's magazine."
"I could do elegant head-lines," said Max:
"KEROSENE THE KONQUEROR!
MOSQUITOES MASSACRED!
THE FLIGHT OF THE FLY!"
As Algernon brought the magazine and a book, Alice and Frieda arrived in
their party raiment, and, bidding the boys good-by, the four girls
drifted out and down the street looking like pretty butterflies.
Max lingered for a few minutes' chat with Algernon about the paper,
telling him some of his difficulties and desires. Algernon's store of
information proved of value here, too, and Max accepted gratefully a
hint or two about the mechanical part of the work.
"I say, Swinburne," he said suddenly, as he got up to go, taking fly and
mosquito literature with him, "couldn't you get off and run up to
Madison for a few days this fall? I'd like to show you around and have
you meet some of the fellows. If I were you, I'd try to pass off a few
subjects. You could, without half trying, and perhaps you'd be able to
get up and take your degree some time."
"Thanks," said Algernon, "I'll think about it," and Max went whistling
away; but Algernon, as he selected a fairy tale for the little Hamilton
girl, felt his heart light and his courage high. "I'll get to college
yet, as true as I'm alive," he said aloud, and the little Hamilton girl
looked up at him. "What did you say?" she asked. "I don't want true
stories, but fairy ones."
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE THREE R'S
The meeting of the Three R's the next evening was one of particular
importance. Not only to the eager reporters, who found that even Dot's
party would not spread out sufficiently to use up the space they had
allotted to social events, but to the club members themselves. It was
Judge Arthur's fiftieth birthday, and as he was a childless man, quite
alone in the world, his friendly neighbors were determined to make the
day memorable for him. The meeting was to be at Three Gables, so the
journalists were behind the scenes from the start. The only difficulty
in the way of their writing it up was that they were so busy all day
that there was not time to take a pen in hand.
"I always see to the refreshments when they meet here," said Catherine
to her three helpers, as she appeared, wearing by Hannah's request, her
brown smock. "You can crack the nuts for the salad if you will, Frieda;
and Hannah, if you and Alice will get the dishes out of the way, that
would be the most help. Mother wants Inga to sweep the living-room, and
we can have a jolly time out here."
"You ought to see the kitchen at Frieda's house," said Hannah, as she
made a fine suds in the rinsing pan and poured it over the glasses.
"What did you think of our black stoves and things, Frieda?"
"I saw one in the American church first, you know."
Hannah smiled at the diplomatic evasion. "You are the nicest thing I
ever saw, Frieda. You don't say anything unfavorable of anything any
more. When I was at your house I kept criticising the whole country. But
you are so polite,--as polite as Karl!"
Frieda looked pleased, but she only said sedately: "We were children
when you were in Berlin, Hannah. Now it is proper for us to act like
grown-ups."
"You were awfully grown-up in that pillow fight last night!"
Instantly the mask of primness vanished from Frieda's face, and roguish
twinkles showed themselves.
"Don't let me ever catch you turning prig, Frieda Lange," advised
Hannah. "And now don't ask me what a prig is, for I don't know in
German, and there's no way here to find out. What else are you going to
have for eats, Catherine?"
Catherine shuddered. "I suppose you'd think I was a prig if I told you
how I hate that word 'eats,' so I won't tell you! The chief thing
to-night is the birthday cake, of course. And Inga is going to make
grape-fruit sherbet. It's so nice with a little tang of tartness to it,
you know. And we'll have olive sandwiches with the salad and coffee. You
can all help with those!"
"It's such fun to help," said Alice. "At home there are so many of us,
and no maid at all, you know, and we have awfully jolly times, really.
Mother is cook and she has a different scullery-maid for each meal. And
the rest of us divide up the rooms, and so on. The boys are great
workers, too. Even little Jack brings in kindlings and wipes the silver.
He plays the knives are men, and the forks their wives and the spoons
the little children."
"O, so did I, always," cried Catherine. "And it used to worry me
dreadfully not to know positively that the proper couples were together.
Once I tied them all neatly with different colored silks, but Mother
didn't approve. Through with the nuts so soon, Frieda? Then you can
begin on the sandwiches."
"Ach! The butter is too difficult!"
"Cream it, then. So!" and Alice illustrated. "I'll go to work on these,
too, while Hannah puts away the dishes, for I don't know where they
belong."
"All right," said Catherine. "But please don't talk, any of you, for a
few minutes. I don't want to lose a word that any of you say, and I'm
afraid the cake may suffer."
Dr. Helen stopped at the door and looked in at the group of silent
workers. They all threw her kisses, and she went smiling on her way.
"I wish I had four of my own," she thought to herself. "How the other
mothers must be missing them! Four more interesting and delightful girls
I never have known. Hannah has grown more mature since I saw her last,
and Frieda is distinctly unique. Alice is the kind you can tie to. But I
really think, without prejudice, my Catherine is a shade sweeter and
steadier and more responsible than all the rest!"
By five o'clock the house was all ready. The decorations were great
masses of goldenrod which Bert and Polly had gathered. Frieda had
suggested tying them with bows of red ribbon, whereat the others had
shrieked with horror and tried to Americanize her color sense a little.
She approved of the birthday cake, and was interested in the big tin
circle which held fifty candle-sockets, and would slip over the cake as
it rested on a tray. Winding this circle with smilax proved a task just
to Frieda's mind, and she worked at it with Hannah's help, while Alice
and Catherine planned the "recreation" for the evening.
"I'm so glad," said Catherine, stretching a little, "that we don't have
to get the Rest ready for them. Refreshments and Recreation are enough
to provide!"
"You need the Rest yourself," said Hannah. "I think it was a shame that
out-of-town call had to come for your mother this afternoon. She would
have enjoyed these things, and she looked so tired."
"I know. But I'm so glad she could go away and feel sure I'd carry
things through. You don't know what a comfort that is to me! Whenever I
feel discouraged about things, I always pluck up spirit by remembering
that I'm really useful to her. I couldn't practise medicine myself, you
know, but there have been lots of things Mother couldn't have done, if I
hadn't been here to help at home. I wish she could be here this
afternoon, though, for she is so clever at foolishnesses like this."
"You're clever enough at it, yourself," growled Hannah. "I don't see how
you can do it. You and Alice make me sick with envy. You can cook and
manage and tutor and make rhymes and everything, and I can't do much of
anything!"
"How about playing the violin?" suggested Alice.
"I can't do that," said Frieda suddenly. "I cannot do one thing. O,
there comes Dr. Helen, after all! We were wishing you were here," and
Frieda sprang up and ran to meet the doctor. The others followed her and
in an instant Dr. Helen found her arms full of welcoming girls.
"I met a messenger on the way, telling me that I need not come, and I'll
admit it was a relief. I knew you'd get on all right, but I did want a
finger in the pie. There! You may put my hat and coat away, Hannah, if
you will, and I'll get right to work. How prettily you are putting that
smilax on, Frieda!"
"That's right to cheer Frieda up, Mother," said Catherine. "She was just
saying that she couldn't do anything."
"Frieda was saying that? I thought you embroidered that wonderful apron
yourself?"
"O, of course, but that is only _Handarbeit_," said Frieda.
"Hand work is highly valued these days," remarked the doctor. "If you
could teach Catherine to sew so well, Frieda, I should be even prouder
of her than I am now. But it must not distress you when you find that
there is some one thing you can't do. No one does everything well. It's
one of my pet theories that for every talent one has, there is some
other he hasn't. It's part of the balancing of the world. Think how very
disagreeable it would be if there were one person who could do
everything, and some one else who could do nothing at all."
"Don't you think there are some people who can't do anything?" asked
Alice.
"Not really. Some people never seem to find their special line. I've
known people so perverse they wouldn't do what they could, simply
because they would have preferred something else. But I'm a firm
believer that every one has a gift."
"Is _Handarbeit_ a gift?" asked Frieda, looking with respect at the
graceful vine twining over the shoulder of her blue apron.
"Indeed it is," said Dr. Helen. "And it is a gift more widely
distributed than everybody knows. If you can, do help Catherine to
discover that it is one of hers!"
"She helped me find out that I liked to sew," said Hannah. "I hated the
sight of a needle before I went to Germany. But I didn't know you hated
sewing, Catherine."
"I don't," Catherine answered tranquilly. "But there are always so many
other things to do, and there is so much to read. It makes me shiver to
think that I have only three years more at Dexter, and I haven't begun
to read all I want to. I'd like to move over to the library and stay
there."
"That's a serious criticism of your college life, Catherine," said Dr.
Helen.
Hannah giggled. "I suppose there is a library at Dexter, but I was there
a whole term, and never went inside it once!"
Everybody laughed. "Well," said Dr. Helen, "that was the other extreme.
But I suppose if you young people were all-wise and learned, there'd be
no point in sending you to college at all. And the world would be much
more monotonous if it were filled with grown-ups! What a conflagration
those red candles will make, Frieda!"
Catherine had left her seat and gone across the room to the poetry
section of the bookcase, and was now turning the pages of a small green
book.
"Listen to this Singing Leaf, Mother!
"'The wisest finding that I have
Is very young, no doubt,
Yet many a man must needs grow old
Before he finds it out.
"'How happily it comes about--
And I was never told!--
That we must all be young awhile
Before we _can_ be old!'"
Dr. Helen laughed. "That is certainly very appropriate, and a good close
to our rather sermonizing talk. I suppose fifty-year-old birthday
parties should lead one to serious thinking! But now show me how far
your nonsense rhyming has progressed. It's nearly supper time."
* * * * *
The Three R's were early comers and late stayers. Before the summer
twilight was over, they had gathered in force. Alice, counting, suddenly
said:
"Why, there are just forty-nine. Wouldn't it be fun if just one more
should come?"
"Who isn't here?" asked some one. "Perhaps there will be one other,
though almost everybody has come."
"The Judge himself isn't here yet," said Dr. Harlow. "He'll make the
fiftieth. There he is! Let's line up, and give him a royal welcome!"
The suggestion "took," and the little judge came up the walk, bowing on
all sides, and smiling. As he reached the door and shook hands with Dr.
Harlow and Dr. Helen, he looked about him peeringly. "Where's my girl?"
he asked.