There were still some weeks before the summer holidays, and Mabel, in
consequence, was at school during the morning, and the day after Harold
was happily established at her home she started merrily off to school,
looking forward to a happy afternoon.
At recess, Marie Lewis and Ethel Morris called her. “Oh, Mabel, we’ve
the loveliest idea, and you will just love it. Come over here and let’s
talk about it.” So, with lunch-baskets in hand, they settled themselves
in a quiet corner.
“We want to give a lawn party for the benefit of the Cuban orphans,”
began Marie, “and we’ll have some little things to sell, and oh, Mabel,
you told me the other day, that you had two dollars; you’ll give that
towards it, won’t you?”
Mabel flushed up to the roots of her hair. “I don’t know,” she faltered.
“Oh, isn’t that mean?” cried Ethel. “You said you knew she’d give it,
Marie.”
“Maybe she has to ask her mother,” said Marie, trying to help Mabel out
of her difficulty.
“No, I----but I’m saving up for something else,” said Mabel,
hesitatingly.
“Oh, but nothing could be better than this. Of course it’s nice to give
to missions and--all sorts of things, but you know we don’t often have
a war, or anything like this, and it’s immejet,” announced Marie with
some importance.
Mabel looked distressed. “I think, maybe, mamma can tell me about what
I’d better do,” she said at last.
“Well, just tell me this:” Ethel said; “Is it for any charity thing
that you want to save the money?”
Mabel shook her head.
“Then I think you’re real mean,” declared Ethel, with a toss of her
head as she flounced away. “Let’s go and get someone else to join us,
Marie. We thought you’d be glad that we picked you out the first one,
Miss Mabel, but we don’t want anyone who grudges those poor orphans.”
Mabel watched them depart whispering, and looking back at her
contemptuously, and felt very much inclined to cry, but just then the
bell rang for school, and she went to her seat, feeling bitterly all
the afternoon, because of the little scornful flouts and tosses of the
head which Ethel gave every time she looked her way.
Harold, with Don at his side, was waiting on the steps for her as
she came slowly up the street. He seemed so very friendly that Mabel
thought that she would pour out her grievances to him.
“Well, but what are you saving up for?” he said, after hearing her
story.
“Why,” she hesitated, “tell me, Harold, if you break or spoil anything
belonging to another person don’t you know you ought to try and get
another?”
“Why, yes; I suppose it isn’t just straight not to. I know my father
always says that it isn’t honorable not to pay debts, and that is a
sort of a debt. He made me save up and pay for a window I broke once,
’cause it was my fault. I was shying stones when I was told not to.”
Mabel nodded emphatically. “That’s what I thought. You see, you know
about the book.” She spoke shyly; it was a sore subject.
“What book?”
“Why, don’t you know, last night at supper when papa said that to me?”
“Why, I believe he did speak up sort of sharply, but I didn’t pay much
attention; I was so hungry, and those hot biscuits looked so good.”
Mabel gave a sigh of relief. Her shame was lessened, but she went on
with her confession: “Well, you see, I spoiled one of papa’s most
choicest books; I--I--knew better, too; I daubed it all up with papa’s
paints, and he feels, oh, awfully, and I’m going to try to get another
book like it. It is very, very old.” She opened her little purse, and
unfolded a paper on which she had copied every word of the title page
of the book. “Were there any books sold at your house the other day?”
she asked.
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Oh, then this might have been among them. I wish I had thought.”
“I don’t believe it was. I know pretty well about the books that were
sold. Still, it might have been.”
“Papa got his at a nauction,” Mabel went on; “he paid five dollars for
a lot of books, and that is what I must try to do.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t have to do that. You might find it at that
second-hand book store on Ninth street.”
“I never thought of that. I wonder if mamma will let us go down there
this afternoon? I’ll ask her.”
Consent having been obtained, the two started forth, but only
disappointment met them. “You’ll find it hard to get hold of that
book,” the man in the store told them, smiling and looking at them
curiously, as if he wondered what in the world they could want of such
a thing. “Won’t some other book do?” he asked.
Mabel shook her head, but went away convinced that she must keep on
trying, and that she had no right to put her money to any other use
until she was satisfied that it was impossible to get the book.
She and Harold considered this their secret, and talked a good deal
about it, so that Mabel had this comfort, while at school her two
friends openly scorned her.
“Of course, we’ll invite her,” Marie was heard to say one day, “but I
don’t suppose she’ll come; she’s too mean to spend ten cents to get in.”
A burning blush suffused Mabel’s cheeks, and she bent her head over
her desk, feeling very much mortified, but she did not make an effort
to change the girls’ opinion of her.
“I think girls are a mean lot,” Harold said, indignantly, when he was
told of this. “I’d trust a fellow more than that. I’d know what he was
going to do with his money, or whether he was going to spend it in some
selfish way, before I talked that way.”
“Maybe a boy would,” returned Mabel. “Anyhow, Harold, it’s a great
comfort to have you here, or else I might give up, and take the money
to the girls, after all. Mamma said I must do just what seemed to me
right.”
“Don’t you give it to them,” said Harold, fiercely. “You just hold out,
no matter what they say. I’ll take you to the lawn party.”
“Oh, Harold!” Mabel was deeply grateful for this offer. “I think it’s
lovely for you to say that, but I don’t believe I shall want to do
that. I’ll just wait till I’ve got the book, and then I’ll save up and
send my money to the orphans. Mamma will do it for me. She can send
it straight to the ladies who take care of the money and see that the
orphans get some of it.”
Harold looked at her admiringly. “That’s fine,” he said; “I don’t
believe I’d be as modest as that. I’d like to show off before those
girls, and just flourish around at the lawn party, if I had money to
spend.”
“I should, too,” returned Mabel, “but, somehow, I don’t think I ought
to, after what I did to the book.”
“I tell you what,” said Harold, “the thing we ought really to do, is
to hunt up red flags, and auctions, and go for them whenever we can;
there’s no telling what we might find.”
To this Mabel agreed, but the chances were few and far between, and
they began to think theirs an impossible quest.
One day, to be sure it was after Mabel had saved up a full five dollars
by dint of all sorts of sacrifices and helpings, the two entered a
house where a sale was going on, chief among the articles to be sold
being a choice library. There was a catalogue of the books, and over
this the children pored, till Harold exultantly exclaimed, “There it
is Mabel!” And sure enough, the title was printed in full. They waited
nervously till the bidding began. Certain books were sold singly; the
rest in lots; among the first was the one on which Mabel had set her
heart. When it was put up for sale, the first offer was two dollars,
and Harold, with his heart in his mouth, cried: “Three!” “Four!” came
from another corner of the room. “Five!” said Harold, with a quick
glance at Mabel, who with very red cheeks, and parted lips, stood by
his side. “Six!” the word came that shattered their hopes, and then the
book was run up to fifteen dollars, the buyer passing quite near to the
children, exclaiming to a friend: “It’s a bargain, Nevins; I wouldn’t
take fifty dollars for it.”
Fifty dollars! So it was a hopeless matter after all. No wonder her
father had been so displeased at the destruction of his property,
thought Mabel. The two small figures left the place almost immediately.
“It’s no use trying,” began Mabel; “I’m just going to give up. I never
in the world could save up all that money; fifteen dollars.”
“I have five,” replied Harold; “I can lend you that much.”
“No, no!” Mabel refused utterly; “I haven’t any way of paying it back,
and papa says to borrow money when you’ve no way of paying it is almost
the same as stealing.”
“But you could save up and pay it some day; of course, you could.”
“No, I might never be able to; besides, it might be years and years and
it wouldn’t be right to keep you out of the money all of that time when
you might want it. Oh, dear, I wish I never had been so careless.”
Harold tried to cheer her by reminding her that her father had bought
his book for five dollars, and why shouldn’t she come across another
such bargain, and he said they must not give up the hunt for the book.
“I’ll look in the papers every day,” he said with quite the air of a
man, “and whenever we can we will go to a auction.”
“I thought it was a ‘nauction,’” said Mabel.
“No, it’s ‘auction.’”
Mabel looked a little doubtful and Harold hunted up a newspaper, and,
after some searching, triumphantly pointed out the word to her.
“Oh, all right,” admitted Mabel; “I’ll say, auction, then. Somehow,
though, this one, that we went to to-day, scared me; there were so many
people there, and they made such a noise.”
“You needn’t mind people; I don’t. I’ll always go with you, and take
care of you, you know.”
“There aren’t many things you are afraid of, are there?”
“Why, not many. You see, my father is a soldier, and I have to be
brave.”
“Oh!” this explained the situation fully to Mabel, and they returned to
the subject of the auction.
“Next time,” said Harold, “I’ll do all the bidding, and you need not
come into the room, if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, but I do want to; it’s sort of exciting, although I do get tired
of hearing the auctioneer; but as long as it is the only way of getting
the book, why, of course, we must go to every auction we hear of.”
Therefore, a few days later they made their plans again, hopefully,
to go to a house in Germantown, where Harold had discovered that an
auction was to be held that day.
“Where are you two children off to, now?” Mrs. Ford asked. “Is it the
Zoo this time, or Rittenhouse Square?”
“No, mamma,” Mabel replied, “do you mind if we go to Germantown?”
“To Germantown? Why, that is a long trip for two small bodies. Are you
sure you won’t get lost?”
“I’m sure, mamma; Harold knows just how to go.”
These secret expeditions and their object were known to Mrs. Ford, and
she usually permitted them when she felt sure they were safe; so, in
this case, after some questioning, she gave her consent, and the two
set forth.