"STEP--PUT; STEP--PUT"
An hour later Helen was dressed in a two-piece suit, cut in what a chorus
of salesladies, including old Mrs. Finkelstein and Sadie herself, declared
were most "stylish" lines--and it did not cost her ten dollars, either!
Indeed, Sadie insisted upon going with her to a neighboring millinery
store and purchasing a smart little hat for $1.59, which set off the new
suit very nicely.
"Sure, this old hat and suit of yours is wort' a lot more money, Helen,"
declared the Russian girl. "But they ain't just the style, yuh see. And
style is everything to a girl. Why, nobody'd take you for a greenie
_now_!"
Helen was quite wise enough to know that she had never been dressed so
cheaply before; but she recognized, too, the truth of her friend's
statement.
"Now, you take the dress home, and the hat. Maybe you can find a cheap
tailor who will make over the dress. There's enough material in it. That's
an awful wide skirt, you know."
"But I couldn't walk in a skirt as narrow as the one you have on, Sadie."
"Chee! if it was stylish," confessed Sadie, "I'd find a way to walk in a
piece of stove-pipe!" and she giggled.
So Helen left for uptown with her bundles, wearing her new suit and hat.
She took a Fourth Avenue car and got out only a block from her uncle's
house. As she hurried through the side street and came to the Madison
Avenue corner, she came face-to-face with Flossie, coming home from school
with a pile of books under her arm.
Flossie looked quite startled when she saw her cousin. Her eyes grew wide
and she swept the natty looking, if cheaply-dressed Western girl, with an
appreciative glance.
"Goodness me! What fine feathers!" she cried. "You've been loading up with
new clothes--eh? Say, I like that dress."
"Better than the caliker one?" asked Helen, slily.
"You're not so foolish as to believe I liked _that_," returned Flossie,
coolly. "I told Belle and Hortense that you weren't as dense as they
seemed to think you."
"Thanks!" said Helen, drily.
"But that dress is just in the mode," repeated Flossie, with some
admiration.
"Your father's kindness enabled me to get it," said Helen, briefly.
"Humph!" said Flossie, frankly. "I guess it didn't cost you much, then."
Helen did not reply to this comment; but as she turned to go down to the
basement door, Flossie caught her by the arm.
"Don't you do that!" she exclaimed. "Belle can be pretty mean sometimes.
You come in at the front door with me."
"No," said Helen, smiling. "You come in at the area door with _me_. It's
easier, anyway. There's a maid just opening it."
So the two girls entered the house together. They were late to
lunch--indeed, Helen did not wish any; but she did not care to explain why
she was not hungry.
"What's the matter with you, Flossie?" demanded Hortense. "We've done
eating, Belle and I. And if you wish your meals here, Helen, please get
here on time for them."
"You mind your own business!" cried Flossie, suddenly taking up the
cudgels for her cousin as well as herself. "You aren't the boss, Hortense!
I got kept after school, anyway. And cook can make something hot for me
and Helen."
"You _need_ to be kept after school--from the kind of English you use,"
sniffed her sister.
"I don't care! I hate the old studies!" declared Flossie, slamming her
books down upon the table. "I don't see why I have to go to school at all.
I'm going to ask Pa to take me out. I need a rest."
Which was very likely true, for Miss Flossie was out almost every night to
some party, or to the theater, or at some place which kept her up very
late. She had no time for study, and therefore was behind in all her
classes. That day she had been censured for it at school--and when they
took a girl to task for falling behind in studies at _that_ school, she
was very far behind, indeed!
Flossie grumbled about her hard lot all through luncheon. Helen kept her
company; then, when it was over, she slipped up to her own room with her
bundles. Both Hortense and Belle had taken a good look at her, however,
and they plainly approved of her appearance.
"She's not such a dowdy as she seemed," whispered Hortense to the oldest
sister.
"No," admitted Belle. "But that's an awful cheap dress she bought."
"I guess she didn't have much to spend," laughed Hortense. "Pa wasn't
likely to be very liberal. It puzzles me why he should have kept her here
at all."
"He says it is his duty," scoffed Belle. "Now, you know Pa! He never was
so worried about duty before; was he?"
These girls, brought up as they were, steeped in selfishness and seeing
their father likewise so selfish, had no respect for their parent. Nor
could this be wondered at.
Going up to her room that afternoon Helen met Mrs. Olstrom coming down.
The housekeeper started when she saw the young girl, and drew back. But
Helen had already seen the great tray of dishes the housekeeper carried.
And she wondered.
Who took their meals up on this top floor? The maids who slept here were
all accounted for. She had seen them about the house. And Gregson, too. Of
course Mr. Lawdor and Mrs. Olstrom had their own rooms below.
Then who could it be who was being served on this upper floor? Helen was
more than a little curious. The sounds she had heard the night before
dove-tailed in her mind with these soiled dishes on the tray.
She was almost tempted to walk through the long corridor in which she
thought she had heard the scurrying footsteps pass the night before. Yet,
suppose she was caught by Mrs. Olstrom--or by anybody else--peering about
the house?
"_That_ wouldn't be very nice," mused the girl.
"Because these people think I am rude and untaught, is no reason why I
should display any _real_ rudeness."
She was very curious, however; the thought of the tray-load of dishes
remained in her mind all day.
At dinner that night even Mr. Starkweather gave Helen a glance of approval
when she appeared in her new frock.
"Ahem!" he said. "I see you have taken my advice, Helen. We none of us can
afford to forget what is due to custom. You are much more presentable."
"Thank you, Uncle Starkweather," replied Helen, demurely. "But out our way
we say: 'Fine feathers don't make fine birds.'"
"You needn't fret," giggled Flossie. "Your feather's aren't a bit too
fine."
But Flossie's eyes were red, and she plainly had been crying.
"I _hate_ the old books!" she said, suddenly. "Pa, why do I have to go to
school any more?"
"Because I am determined you shall, young lady," said Mr. Starkweather,
firmly. "We all have to learn."
"Hortense doesn't go."
"But you are not Hortense's age," returned her father, coolly. "Remember
that. And I must have better reports of your conduct in school than have
reached me lately," he added.
Flossie sulked over the rest of her dinner. Helen, going up slowly to her
room later, saw the door of her youngest cousin's room open, and glancing
in, beheld Flossie with her head on her book, crying hard.
Each of these girls had a beautiful room of her own. Flossie's was
decorated in pink, with chintz hangings, a lovely bed, bookshelves, a desk
of inlaid wood, and everything to delight the eye and taste of any girl.
Beside the common room Helen occupied, this of Flossie's was a fairy
palace.
But Helen was naturally tender-hearted. She could not bear to see the
younger girl crying. She ventured to step inside the door and whisper:
"Flossie?"
Up came the other's head, her face flushed and wet and her brow a-scowl.
"What do _you_ want?" she demanded, quickly.
"Nothing. Unless I can help you. And if so, _that_ is what I want," said
the ranch girl, softly.
"Goodness me! _You_ can't help me with algebra. What do I want to know
higher mathematics for? I'll never have use for such knowledge."
"I don't suppose we can ever learn _too_ much," said Helen, quietly.
"Huh! Lots you know about it. You never were driven to school against your
will."
"No. Whenever I got a chance to go I was glad."
"Maybe I'd be glad, too, if I lived on a ranch," returned Flossie,
scornfully.
Helen came nearer to the desk and sat down beside her.
"You don't look a bit pretty with your eyes all red and hot. Crying isn't
going to help," she said, smiling.
"I suppose not," grumbled Flossie, ungrateful of tone.
"Come, let me get some water and cologne and bathe your face." Helen
jumped up and went to the tiny bathroom. "Now, I'll play maid for you,
Flossie."
"Oh, all right," said the younger girl. "I suppose, as you say, crying
isn't going to help."
"Not at all. No amount of tears will solve a problem in algebra. And you
let me see the questions. You see," added Helen, slowly, beginning to
bathe her cousin's forehead and swollen eyes, "we once had a very fine
school-teacher at the ranch. He was a college professor. But he had weak
lungs and he came out there to Montana to rest."
"That's good!" murmured Flossie, meaning bathing process, for she was not
listening much to Helen's remarks.
"I knew it would make you feel better. But now, let me see these algebra
problems. I took it up a little when--when Professor Payton was at the
ranch."
"You didn't!" cried Flossie, in wonder.
"Let me see them," pursued her cousin, nodding.
She had told the truth--as far as she went. After Professor Payton had
left the ranch and Helen had gone to Denver to school, she had showed a
marked taste for mathematics and had been allowed to go far ahead of her
fellow-pupils in that study.
Now, at a glance, she saw what was the matter with Flossie's attempts to
solve the problems. She slipped into a seat beside the younger girl again
and, in a few minutes, showed Flossie just how to solve them.
"Why, Helen! I didn't suppose you knew so much," said Flossie, in
surprise.
"You see, _that_ is something I had a chance to learn between times--when
I wasn't roping cows or breaking ponies," said Helen, drily.
"Humph! I don't believe you did either of those vulgar things," declared
Flossie, suddenly.
"You are mistaken. I do them both, and do them well," returned Helen,
gravely. "But they are _not_ vulgar. No more vulgar than your sister
Belle's golf. It is outdoor exercise, and living outdoors as much as one
can is a sort of religion in the West."
"Well," said Flossie, who had recovered her breath now. "I don't care what
you do outdoors. You can do algebra in the house! And I'm real thankful to
you, Cousin Helen."
"You are welcome, Flossie," returned the other, gravely; but then she went
her way to her own room at the top of the house. Flossie did not ask her
to remain after she had done all she could for her.
But Helen had found plenty of reading matter in the house. Her cousins and
uncle might ignore her as they pleased. With a good book in her hand she
could forget all her troubles.
Now she slipped into her kimono, propped herself up in bed, turned the
gas-jet high, and lost herself in the adventures of her favorite heroine.
The little clock on the mantel ticked on unheeded. The house grew still.
The maids came up to bed chattering. But still Helen read on.
She had forgotten the sounds she had heard in the old house at night. Mrs.
Olstrom had mentioned that there were "queer stories" about the
Starkweather mansion. But Helen would not have thought of them at this
time, had something not rattled her doorknob and startled her.
"Somebody wants to come in," was the girl's first thought, and she hopped
out of bed and ran to unlock it.
Then she halted, with her hand upon the knob. A sound outside had arrested
her. But it was not the sound of somebody trying the latch.
Instead she plainly heard the mysterious "step--put; step--put" again. Was
it descending the stairs? It seemed to grow fainter as she listened.
At length the girl--somewhat shaken--reached for the key of her door
again, and turned it. Then she opened it and peered out.
The corridor was faintly illuminated. The stairway itself was quite dark,
for there was no light in the short passage below called "the
ghost-walk."
The girl, in her slippers, crept to the head of the flight. There she
could hear the steady, ghostly footstep from below. No other sound within
the great mansion reached her ears. It _was_ queer.
To and fro the odd step went. It apparently drew nearer, then
receded--again and again.
Helen could not see any of the corridor from the top of the flight. So she
began to creep down, determined to know for sure if there really was
something or somebody there.
Nor was she entirely unafraid now. The mysterious sounds had got upon her
nerves. Whether they were supernatural, or natural, she was determined to
solve the mystery here and now.
Half-way down the stair she halted. The sound of the ghostly step was at
the far end of the hall. But it would now return, and the girl could see
(her eyes having become used to the dim light) more than half of the
passage.
There was the usual rustling sound at the end of the passage. Then the
steady "step--put" approached.