PHILANTHROPISTS
“I BELIEVE this summer at Halcyon’s going to beat the one I spent in
France!” Helen Westover made this assertion, as, ringed about a flat
rock, the campers were beginning a beach-tea at Fairy Cove, where a
bight of silver sand held in its embrace an emerald bay. “Just think of
the short time we’ve been here, and all the fun we’ve squeezed into it!”
she continued, “boating, and bathing and tramps and picnics, a jolly
fishing excursion yesterday, and a _beach-tea_ this evening!”
“Don’t forget the straw-ride by moonlight,” said Marion Gaylord.
“Nor the Glorious Fourth, and the fireworks at Hurricane,” added Carol,
who was busy stirring cocoa in the billy.
“I’m so rushed having a good time, I hardly get a chance to look at my
letters,” said Nancy, pulling an unopened envelope from her belt. “I’ll
read this one after tea,—it isn’t polite to read at table.”
“Here comes the scrambled egg!—Hold out your plates,” said Grace
Gardner, advancing, chafing-dish in hand. She and Winifred Russell were
the _chefs_ on this occasion.
Tin plates were held up for their doles of scrambled egg, and tin cups
to receive the steaming cocoa. Cecily and Betty served the lettuce
sandwiches, and Jean and Frances the jumbles; and a delightful supper
party went on while the sun sank low.
“Now, Nancy, read your letter,” said Mrs. Brook, when the last jumble
had disappeared.
“I’ll dish-wash for both of us, Nan,” said Carol. She gathered up
Nancy’s plate, cup and spoon, together with her own, and carried them
down to a convenient spot by the water’s edge, where she was joined by
the rest of the dish-washing squad.
Nancy opened her letter. “Girls, listen to this,” said she to Helen and
Marion, who with Jean were employed near the rock-table, collecting
egg-shells and Japanese doilies. “Here’s my deaconess aunt at me again
to try to make me good! I know she’s worried about me, because she
thinks I’m going to be a giddy butterfly all my life! Now, Motherling,”
she added, turning to Mrs. Brook, “you’ll have to tell me how to answer
this.” And she read:
_My dearest Nancy_,
You were a good girl to write to your auntie and send her such a
vivid description of the happy life at Halcyon. Of course it set me
to thinking how I could make use of my niece. Now, Nan, please look
about and see if you cannot find a kind, motherly woman, who would
take a little girl of six to board for the summer. She is a little
Irish child. Her name is Nanno Donohoe, and I must tell you how she
comes to be a protégée of mine.
The first time I saw her she was fighting with a small Italian boy,
who had taken away her stick of candy. He was a year or two older
than she, but Nanno was having the best of it when I separated them.
I calmed the baby fury, and was rewarded by a most cherubic smile;
and the next time I came that way Nanno flew to meet me. Poor little
mite! She has a wretched home, and a worthless, intemperate father;
and her life is spent on the streets, where she roams at her own
sweet will. I am most anxious to take the child out of her miserable
surroundings for the summer. She needs to be with some kind-hearted
woman who could give her a mother’s care; and if such a person is to
be found at Halcyon, I will bring Nanno up there myself, for I start
next Monday for Lake Placid, where I am to spend part of my
vacation. I am hungry to see you again, Nan dear, and I am sure that
if you see my little Nanno she will win your heart. I am going to
ask you to help me, next winter, by interesting yourself in her.
I must say good-by, now, and go out on my round of visits. But you
will let me hear from you early, will you not?
Your loving aunt,
MARY NEWCOMB.
“No, Auntie, dearest, I will _not_ do charity work next winter! I’ll be
entirely too busy _coming out_!” Nancy protested. “But I’ll try to hunt
up a kind, motherly somebody. Do you know of such an article, Mrs.
Brook?”
“Poor little Nanno! I wish I did!” said the camp-mother. “But you see
there are so few farms around here, and I know there’s no good place for
her in the village. Mrs. Penfield is the only person I can think of whom
I would trust to take proper care of the child,—and she has her hands
full with her own big family and her invalid mother. But we won’t give
up hope. I shall make every inquiry.”
“I should hate to tell Auntie I’m no good, as usual,” said Nancy. “Oh,
dear, if there ever was a lazy, selfish, good-for-nothing little brute,
it’s Nancy Newcomb!”
Jean had stopped clearing the premises to listen to the letter. “Why
can’t we have her _here_ with us?” she asked impetuously.
“Oh, Jean, don’t crowd any more of us on poor Mrs. Brook!” said Nancy.
“Jean, dear,” said Mrs. Brook, “if I were alone here with Cecily, I
would take the child myself gladly. But, you see, I have twenty
daughters to look after. I shouldn’t have a minute left for the care of
Nanno!”
“But _I_ could take care of her!” said Jean.
“_You_, liebchen!” Fräulein exclaimed. “I tink all de care vould come on
_me_. I should haff to keep your baby and you, too, from falling into de
lake!” She laughed and patted Jean’s hand.
Jean colored and said no more. Presently she strolled off along the
beach, deep in thought. When she returned, the dish-washing was over,
and the girls had drawn up in a circle for games and songs.
“Dreamy Queenie, what is it,—a new poem?” asked Carol, as the lone
wanderer threw herself down on the sand, with her head in her Big
Sister’s lap. But Jean did not care to discuss her thoughts before so
large an audience.
A merry hour was passed, while the sun went down and twilight fell; and
when the evening star shone forth the boats were launched and the
campers glided back in the gloaming.
That night, as they were preparing for bed, Jean opened her heart to her
tent-mates about Nanno Donohoe. “Now, girls,” she said, “I have a
perfectly fine plan! I’ve been wild to tell you all the evening! Let’s
adopt Nanno as the Silver Sword baby, and have her come here, and take
care of her all summer! She can sleep right here in our tent,—there’s
plenty of room for an extra cot. And we’ll do everything for her
ourselves, so your mother won’t have any bother at all, Cece.”
“Let’s do it!” cried Frances. “It’ll be lots of fun!”
“Oh, no! She’d be always tagging,” Betty objected, wrinkling up her nose
in distaste. “And we couldn’t possibly make her mind. I tried to manage
my little cousin, once, and that was enough, thank you!”
“But all four of us together,” began Jean.
“My, dear, we couldn’t do it!” Betty declared. “What do _we_ know about
bringing up children? Why we’re not much more than children ourselves!”
Cecily looked doubtful. “It would be ever so nice if we _could_ do such
a thing,” said she. “I love little tots! But I know just how it would
end. Mother’d simply take all the care herself. She wouldn’t trust us to
manage right, and she’d worry for fear we were losing our vacation, and
she’d insist on doing it all, and it would tire her out!”
“But we wouldn’t let her, Cecily,” cried Jean. “_We_’d insist on doing
it all. We wouldn’t let her tire herself one bit!”
“We couldn’t help ourselves,—she’d do it just the same,” said Cecily
positively. “You don’t know Mammykins as I do.”
The argument lasted till they were in bed, but neither could sympathy be
awakened in Betty, nor could Cecily, already beginning to share her
mother’s household cares, be brought around to her queen’s point of
view.
“We could do it perfectly well, without your mother having any bother at
all, if you and Betty had any gumption!” was Jean’s last remark as, much
disappointed, she settled herself to sleep. “I’m going to talk about it
to Carol in the morning, anyway,” she thought, refusing to give up all
hope of carrying out her cherished project.
But next day, before Jean found a chance to consult her, Carol, with
several other girls, drove off to Crystal Lake Junction to get some
necessary materials for the forest festival. After the swimming hour,
Jean caught Frances making up her favorite “apple-pie beds” for her
tent-mates, and chased the Mouse out of doors and into the woods. There
the two climbed into a tree where Douglas had set up perches.
“I don’t care!” said Jean, as they rested among the green boughs. “I
think it’s too mean of Cece and Betty not to be willing to have that
poor little Nanno!”
“I think so too,” agreed Frances, drawing a cookie from the front of her
sailor blouse.
“She must be so dear,—just six!” Jean went on. “We could take care of
her perfectly well. I could do it all myself,—I know I could. I don’t
care what Fräulein says! I’m going to talk it up with Carol. I’ll tell
her I’ll take all the care if she’ll help get her up here, and I’m sure
she will—she’s so fond of children.”
“You don’t need Carol. _I_’ll help you,” said Frances.
“Oh, will you, Miss Apple-pie Beds!”
“Why, of course I will. You needn’t think _you_’re the only one that
wants to do good, Giraffe! _I_ belong to the Silver Sword just as much
as you do! And I’m going to give up my life to good works. I’ve always
done _bad_ works before, but I’m going to _change_!” said Frances
solemnly.
“Oh, yes! Much _you_’ll change!” laughed Jean. Frances nibbled the edge
of her cookie with her front teeth, trimming off the circumference
neatly, and her face had a new expression—one of serious intent.
Suddenly her black eyes danced.
“Oh, Jean!” she cried. “I have a dandy idea! Let’s club together, just
you and me, and write to Nancy’s aunt to send Nanno up! We’ll pay for it
all, and adopt her between us.”
Jean was suspicious as to the extent of her maid-of-honor’s earnestness,
but she needed a helper; and to persuade Frances to do any Silver Sword
work at all would be in itself an achievement.
“Frisk, we can! Let’s do it!” she said. “I know you just want to for a
lark, but _I_’m in dead earnest!”
“So am I,” said the Mouse gravely.
“Well, if you’ll club together with me, we can do it as easy as
anything,” said Jean. “We can manage her perfectly, if you’ll behave
yourself.”
“Look here,” said Frances. “We must keep it a dead secret till we have
her here, and then we’ll spring her on the crowd!”
“We mustn’t do anything of the kind. We’d get ourselves into an awful
scrape! We’ll have to ask permission, of course. I’m going to speak to
Mrs. Brook about it as soon as she gets back from the Hamiltons’. Now
let’s count up and see if we have money enough. I have four dollars, and
I get five more the first of August.”
“I’ve spent all my allowance,” said Frances. “But I have the money for
my fare home again. I’ll use that. They’ll have to send me some more
then,—they can’t leave me up here all winter!”
“Then I’ll have another five in September,” said Jean. “Why, Frisk,
we’ll have a bouncing fund! Now let’s get the letter written. I’ll get
some paper and a pen, and we can do it all up right here!” Jean lowered
herself to the ground, and when she re-climbed the tree Carol’s fountain
pen was in her hair, and a pad of note-paper between her teeth.
“I don’t believe she’ll mind pad paper, do you?” said she. “It was all I
could find. I’m sure deaconesses don’t care about silly little things
like that.”
“No, she’d _rather_ have it plain,” said Frances. “You’ll have to write
it,—you’re an author!”
“Oh, dear! How do I begin?” sighed Jean. “I don’t know whether you ought
to say, ‘Dear Deaconess,’ or ‘Dear Miss Newcomb,’ or ‘Dear Sister Mary.’
Aren’t deaconesses _Sisters_?”
“You ought to say, ‘Right Reverend,’” said Frances.
“You say ‘Right Reverend’ to _bishops_, goose!” laughed Jean.
“I never spoke to a bishop,” said the Mouse.
“Well, I’ll say, ‘Dear Deaconess.’ Here goes!” and Jean wrote it down.
“Um-m! What now? We ought to tell her who we are, oughtn’t we?”
“Say ‘We are a Mouse and a Giraffe,’” said Frances. Jean shrieked, then
groaned. “Oh, pshaw! The old pen’s leaked all over my fingers! Now,
Frisk, behave yourself! This is _serious_. If we don’t express it right,
she’ll think we’re babies, and she won’t trust us.”
Jean frowned over her page, but was soon ready with—
_My dear Deaconess_,
We are two of the girls of Mrs. Brook’s camp. We are very sorry for
poor little Nanno Donohoe. We wish to have her come here, and we
will keep her all summer. We will take all the care of her and pay
her expenses, and I, Jean, will be responsible for her.
“Say, ‘And I, Frances, will make her my heir,’” said the Mouse.
“I won’t!”
“I’ll put it in myself, then!”
“You sha’n’t! Let go of the pen! Oh, now, look! You made me blot it. Now
don’t cut up, but _think_! Let me see,—‘We send ten dollars for her fare
up.’”
“No, child! That isn’t business-y a bit! Say, ‘Enclosed please find.’”
“That isn’t bad,” Jean assented, and she wrote:
Enclosed please find ten dollars for her fare up. Please be sure to
let her come, for we promise to do our very best to take good care
of her.
“How shall I finish it up? ‘Yours sincerely?’ That doesn’t sound right
to a deaconess. I’ll say, ‘Respectfully yours.’”
“No, say, ‘Your obedient servants,’” Frances advised.
“No, ma’am! Stop making fun of everything, will you! There! Sign your
name, and don’t write ‘Frisky Mouse.’”
“I _will_.” But instead, the Mouse discreetly added, ‘Frances E. Browne’
to the ‘Jean Lennox.’
“Now for the address,” said Jean. “I saw the letter from the deaconess
on Nan’s bed when I went for the pen, and the address was stamped on
it.” They went down together to examine the envelope, and Jean directed
her own, refusing to put ‘Rev.’ before ‘Deaconess Newcomb,’ as Frances
insisted was correct. They set aside the ten dollars for Nanno’s
travelling expenses; then, leaving the letter on Jean’s pincushion, they
strolled out, talking over their plan.
“There’s Motherling now, and Rose Hamilton. I wonder what Rose has got
in that big basket,” said Jean.
“Here’s my contribution to the festival,” called Rose. Jean ran to meet
her, and together they went into the bungalow to unpack the basket.
Frances, meanwhile, returned to her tent. Half an hour later Jean came
out and found Frances swinging in the hammock.
“Frisk,” she said, “Let’s ask Motherling right away.”
“No use speaking _now_, because I’ve _sent_ it!” replied Frances.
“Sent the letter! Frances Browne! What do you mean?”
“Yes’m, I’ve sent it,” said the Mouse. “The grocer’s boy was here just
now, so I put in the ten dollars and gave it to him to mail. We can’t
get it back now—he was going right down to the village.”
“Frisky,—you sinner!”
“We’d have been stopped off if I’d waited for you to tell,” said Frances
calmly. “I corrected the address—I put in the ‘Rev.’”
“Oh, Frances! You’ve spoiled it all! She’ll think we’re idiots!”
For a moment Jean stared in dismay at her colleague in good works; then
she dropped down on the grass in a spasm of hysterical laughter. “I
don’t care! I’m glad it’s gone!” she declared. “They can’t have the
heart to stop her, now she’s invited!” Suddenly she grew serious. “We’ll
have a nice time, now, owning up, Miss Mouse!”
“If we have any sense we won’t own up till she gets here,” the
diplomatic Mouse responded.
“If we have any sense we’ll own up right straight off!” said Jean. “We
_must_ tell.”
“Oh, priggy! you make me sick and tired!” said Frances. “We’re in the
scrape, and for pity’s sake let’s get a little fun out of it! _I_’m not
going to tell, anyway; and if you go and say _I_ mailed the letter,
you’ll be mean!”
“I won’t say _you_ mailed it. I’ll leave you to speak for yourself, if
you’re not too much of a ’fraid-cat! I’ll say the letter got mailed, and
I’ll refuse to tell how.”
“Well, don’t you suppose, if you go and say that, they’ll guess who
mailed it? They’ll know a goody-goody like _you_ wouldn’t do it.”
“This isn’t goody-goody, child,—it’s common sense!” said Jean.
“Well, Nanno won’t get here, then—that’s all there is about it!”
declared Frances, anxious to delay the hour of retribution. “Wait till
she gets here, and then here she _is_, and they can’t pack her off home
again!”
“They’ll pack _us_ off, then!” said Jean. “I can’t help it if they do
stop her from coming,—it would be downright sneaky not to tell.”
“Oh, priggetty-prig!” grumbled Frances, but her sovereign was armed with
the golden shield of Veritas, and there was no altering the royal
decree.
As Jean was turning away toward the bungalow the carriage drove up,
bringing home the party of shoppers. Carol alighted, to find Jean with a
knitted brow.
“What’s happened to you, Queenie?” she asked. “You look as if the cares
of state were too much for you!”
“Carolie, I’m in an awful scrape,” whispered Jean. She drew Carol to a
safe nook under the trees, and her confession, ending with “and the
letter got mailed,” sent her friend off into a peal of laughter.
“Go ahead, Queen of the Silver Sword!” cried Carol. “You’re doing nobly!
There won’t be a corner of the world left to better, pretty soon, if you
keep on at this glorious rate! Bring on your orphan asylum, and put me
in as assistant matron! _There_’s the person that mailed the letter!”
she added, pointing to Frances, who was peeping around a tree.
“I couldn’t think of anything but saving that poor neglected child!”
said Frances solemnly.
“_You_ couldn’t think of anything but scala-waggery!” Carol retorted.
“Well, you’re in a pretty pickle, you two, but I’ll do my best to help
you out of it. Come along and throw yourselves on the Motherling’s
mercy!” She escorted the culprits up to the bungalow veranda, where
their summer sisters and the camp-mother were awaiting the call to
dinner.
“Motherling, we have a confession to make,” said Carol.
“The Queen of the Silver Sword wrote a letter,
All on a summer’s day.
The knave of the Silver Sword stole that letter,
And sent it far away!
“Out with it, your majesty!”
Then Jean and Frances made a joint confession.
“Oh, you monkeys!” exclaimed Nancy, laughing till the tears rolled down
her cheeks. But Mrs. Brook looked grave. “My dear children,” she said,
“didn’t you know you should have spoken to me before you even _wrote_
the letter? Frances, it was a great breach of good manners to send off
an invitation, asking a guest to my house, without my permission!”
Jean turned scarlet, and Frances gazed meekly at her shoes.
“Well, what’s to be done about it?” asked Carol.
“It would be too bad to disappoint Miss Newcomb now,” said Mrs. Brook.
“But if Nanno comes, Jean and Frances must take care of her as they
promised.”
“Of course! That’s what I meant to do,” said Jean gratefully. “You won’t
have one bit of trouble.”
“Oh, my reverend aunt, won’t she be ecstatic!” cried Nancy. “She’ll
dance a horn-pipe and say ‘that sweet Frances and Jean are cut out for
deaconesses!’”
The camp-mother looked at the group of laughing girls. “All the rest of
my daughters will be ready to welcome the little one, will they not?”
she asked.
“We’d be a pack of selfish old maids if we weren’t!” said Carol. “It’ll
be jolly to have a little tottie like that to cuddle! Let’s have her for
our mascot! And let’s organize ourselves into a regiment of nursery
maids and help along. I trust Francie-Prancie not to wear herself out
over her maternal cares, but I’m afraid Queenie’ll work off the one
pound she’s gained. Come now,—all in favor of the Camp Baby—!” Before
she could finish the formula seventeen merry voices came out with a
unanimous “Ay!”