This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
atjhttp : //books . qooqle . com/
» I
\
\A
.Y-
(Ft"
When She Came Home From College
th: n:-:w ■ w PUBLIC LIBRARY
:M
HEL-LO, LITTLE GIRL
(page 1G)
j Came Horn*; a College
, ... VI H i XO
8£V
.A " *"*i-l.»-
F.O-T'- <*X,;>
koi our- *i'fF";V>B'-'
When She Came Home From College
BY
hlc\\J- i W
MARIAN KENT HURD
AND
JEAN BINGHAM WILSON
With Illustrations by George Gibbs
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
@bt ttitoetffce pteft Cambri&0e
1909
..' YORK
V
103944U
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BT MARIAN KENT HURD AND JEAN BINGHAM WILSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published October, iqoq
cr>
Contents
I. Alma Mater I
II. Home 15
III. The Theory of Philosophy 40
IV. The Practice 56 V. The"Idgit" 81
VI. The Duchess 106
VII. "The Falling out of Faithful Friends " 128
VIII. Applied Philanthropy 142
IX. "Without" 170
X. The Vegetable Man's Daughter 193
XL Real Trouble 222
XII. The End of the Interregnum 249
Illustrations
Hel-kj little girl (page *6) Frontispiece
Cantyloops ! What *s them f 68
Why are you eating in here f 72
In the middle of the floor sat the Idgit 104 . I'm Mrs. ' Arris i an* I 've come to 'elp you hout 108
Such a sadly changed Gassy 182
Barbara sank down wearily 190
When She Came Home From College
CHAPTER I
ALMA MATER
WELL, this is cheerful ! " cried the In- fant, as she stepped briskly into the room where the rest of the "Set" were dejectedly assembled. " What if this is the last night of college I What if our diplo- mas are all concealed in the tops of our top trays! Can't this crowd be original enough to smile a little on our last evening, instead of looking like a country prayer-meeting?"
The Infant cast herself upon the cushion- less frame of a Morris armchair, and grinned at the forms on the packing-boxes around her. Her eyes roved round the disorderly room, stripped of the pretty portieres, cushions, man- dolins, and posters, which are as inevitably a part of a college suite as the curriculum is
2 HOME FROM COLLEGE
a part of the college itself. Even the Infant suppressed a sigh as she caught sight of the trunks outside in the corridor.
" Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean ; Tears from the depths of some divine despair, Rise from the heart and gather to the eyes, On looking at the — excelsior — on the floor, And thinking of the days that are no more,"
she chanted.
"It *s all very well to talk in that unfeeling way, Infant," said Knowledge, separating her- self with difficulty from the embrace of the Sphinx and sitting up on the packing-box to address her chums to better advantage. " It 's very well to talk, but the fact remains that to-morrow we are all to be scattered to the four corners of the United States. And who knows whether we shall ever all be together again in our whole lives? " Knowledge forgot the dignity of her new A. B. and gulped au- dibly; while the Sphinx patted her on the back, and said nothing, as usual.
"Weill" retorted the Infant, rising, "if I am the youngest, I have more sense than the
ALMA MATER 3
rest of you. I 've kept my chafing-dish out of my trunk, and I've saved some sugar and alcohol and chocolate, and* borrowed ' some milk and butter from the table downstairs; because I knew something would be needed to revive this set, and I had n't the money to buy enough smelling-salts."
The Infant ran down the corridor, and came back with her battered dish ; and the girls gath- ered together on the dusty floor around the box, which now served as a table. Their faces, worn from the strain of the week of gradua- tion, relaxed noticeably as the familiar odor began to float upon the air.
"This is comfortable," sighed Barbara, gratefully. "Let me take the spoon, Infant. Your four years of college life have not yet A. B.'d you in fudge."
" Oh, you are not quite crushed by the pangs of the coming separation, after all, then," grinned the youngest member. "Girls, did you hear an awful chuckle when our Barbara finished her Commencement speech yester- day ? It was I, and I was dreadfully ashamed."
4 HOME FROM COLLEGE
"Mercy, no!" cried Atalanta, turning shocked eyes at the offender. " What on earth did you chuckle for, when it was so sad ? "
"That's just it!" said the Irreverent In- fant. "When Babbie began to talk of Life arid Love and the Discipline of Experience and the Opportunities for Uplifting One's Environment, — wasn't that it, Babbie? — I began to wonder how she knew it all. Bab- bie has never loved a man in her life" (the Infant glanced sharply at Barbara's clear pro- file); "Babbie has never had any experi- ences to be disciplined about ; Babbie's envi- ronment, which is we, girls, has n't been especially uplifted by any titanic efforts on her part ; and as for Life, why, Babbie 's had only twenty-one years of it, and some of them were unconscious. So when her oration ended with that grand triumphant climax, and every one was holding her breath and looking awed and tearful, I was chuckling to think how beautifully Barbara was selling all those peo- ple."
A horrified clamor arose from the girls.
ALMA MATER 5
" Why, Evelyn Clinton ! It was lovely I "
" Infant, you shameless creature I "
With a whirl of her white skirts, amid the confusion that followed, the House Plant rose to her feet and the rescue of her chum. "Just because you can't appreciate what a splendid mind Babbie has, Evelyn Clinton, and how much the English professors think of her, and what a prodigy she is, anyway — "
" Hear, hear ! " cried Barbara, laughing.
" — And how proud we are of her," went on the impetuous House Plant "Just be- cause you have no soul is no reason why you should deny its possession by others ! "
" Well, I 've stirred you all up, anyway," said the Infant, comfortably. " And that is all I wanted."
Barbara took the spoon out of the fudge dreamily. "You may be right," she said to the Infant " You know I did n't get the Eastman Scholarship."
" Don't you ever mention that odious thing again I " cried Atalanta. " You know that the whole class thinks you should have had it"
6 HOME FROM COLLEGE
Barbara turned her face aside to hide a momentary shadow.
"Well, in any case," she said, "there is work ahead for me. Every one who antici- pates a literary career must work hard for recognition."
" You won't have to," declared the House Plant, hugging her chum, and followed by a murmur of assent from the floor. "Why, Babbie, did n't you get five dollars from that Sunday-School Journal, and don't they want more stories at the same rate ? I think that is splendid I "
" 1 shall not write insipid litde stories when I go home," Barbara answered, smiling kindly down at the enthusiastic litde devotee who had subsided at her feet. " I shall write something really worth while, — perhaps a story which will unveil characters in all their complexity and show how they are swayed by all the different elements which enter into environ- ment—"
"Ouch!" exclaimed the Infant. "You are letting the fudge burn, and unveiling your
ALMA MATER 7
characteristic of absent-mindedness to the set, who know it already. This stuff is done, any- way, and I'll pour it out Or, no, — let's eat it hot, with these spoons."
The Infant dealt out spoons with the rapid- ity of a dexterous bridge-player, and the girls burned their tongues in one second, and blamed their youngest in the next
"By the way, Babbie/ ' suggested the In- fant, with a view to hiding speedily her second enormity, " you never told us the advice that New York editor gave you last week."
Barbara's scorn rose. "He was horrid," she said. " He told me that an entering wedge into literary life was stenography in a maga- zine office. Imagine ! He said that sometimes stenographers earned as much as twenty dol- lars a week. I told him that perhaps he had not realized that I was of New England an- cestry and Vassar College, and that I was not wearing my hair in a huge pompadour, nor was I chewing gum."
The others looked impressed.
"What did he reply?" asked the Infant
8 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" He said, ' Dear me, I had forgotten the need of a rarefied atmosphere for the college graduate. I am sorry that I am no longer at leisure.' And I walked out."
" You did just right," declared the House Plant, warmly, confirmed in her opinion by a murmur of assent from the girls.
" Right! " echoed the Infant. "Babbie, you are the dearest old goose in the world. You will never succeed nor make any money if you take an attitude like that."
" I shall not write for money," declared Barbara, beginning to pace the floor. " What is money, compared to accomplishment? I shall go home, shut myself up, and write, write, write — until recognition comes to me. I am sure it will come if I work and wait!"
She flung her head back with her usual independent gesture, and the crimson color rose in her cheeks. And the girls eyed, a little awesomely, this splendid prodigy, in whose powers they believed with that absolute, un- questioning faith which is found only in youth
ALMA MATER 9
and college. The short silence was broken almost immediately by the Infant
" Are you going to have a chance to write at home, undisturbed ? " she asked. "Our house is a perfect Bedlam all the time. Two young sisters and a raft of brothers keep me occupied every minute."
"There are four children younger than I, too," answered Barbara. " But do you suppose that I am going to allow them to come be- tween me and my life-work? It would not be right ; and my mother would never permit it."
"Mine would," said the Infant, gloomily. " She thinks it is the mission of an elder sis- ter to help manage those who have the luck to be younger and less responsible. I wish your mother could have come to graduation, Babbie. She might have converted my mother to her standpoint"
"I wish she had come," said Barbara, wist- fully. " It seems as if she might have man- aged some way."
Her mind flew back to the quiet little West- ern town, — a thousand miles away; to the
io HOME FROM COLLEGE
household full of children, presided over by that serene, sweet-faced mother. Why could not that mother have left the children with some one, and have come to see her eldest daughter graduate " with honor " ?
"What a splendid thing it is to have a real gift to develop, like Babbie's," sighed the House Plant
Barbara looked uncomfortable. "You all have them," she said. " I think I talk about mine more than the rest of you."
"You may give us all presentation copies of your magnum opus," announced the In- fant, mercenarily. " You will come forth from your lair — I mean workroom — a dozen years hence, and find us all living happy, common- place lives. The House Plant here will be ful- filling her name by raising six Peter Thomp- son children and embroidering lingerie waists. Atalanta, — by the way, girls, mother asked me why we called that very slow-moving girl Atalanta, and I told her I was ashamed to think that she should ask such a question, — well, Atalanta will marry that Yale individual
ALMA MATER n
who never took his eyes off her at Class-Day march. And I think you are mean not to tell us, Atalanta, when we know you 're engaged."
The Infant threw a spoon at her blushing friend, who unexpectedly justified her nick- name by dodging it
" As for the Sphinx," went on the Infant, happy in the unusual feat of holding the at- tention of the girls, " the poor Sphinx can't get married because she never says enough for a man to know whether it *s yes or no. She will just keep on loving her pyramids and cones, and teaching algebraic riddles, until she dies. Knowledge will always look so dig- nified that she will frighten men away. Father exclaimed to me, when he met her, 'What a lovely, calm, classical face I ' I said, 'Yes, that is our Knowledge all over.' And you can imagine how I felt when she opened those dignified lips of hers and remarked conversa- tionally, « Say! Is n't it hot as hot? * "
The girls laughed at poor Knowledge, and the cruel Infant continued to read the future.
" Well, all of us will get presentation copies
12 HOME FROM COLLEGE
of Bab's great work, even I, who will be making home happy 'if no onecomes to marry me1 " —
" 'And I don't see why they should,' " fin- ished Barbara, cuttingly. She rapped the In- spired Soothsayer on her fluffy head with a curtain-rod.
" Your mind runs on matrimony to a dis- gusting extent, Infant," she warned. " I shall never marry unless I can carry on my writ- ing."
"And be a second Mrs. Jellyby?" inquired her friend. "All right; I'll come to live with you and keep the little Jellybys out of the gravy while you unveil the characters of some Horace and Viola to the admiring world. Oh, girls I The fudge is gone, and it's twelve o'clock, and even my eyelids will not stay apart much longer."
The girls rose slowly from their improvised chairs, and stood together, half-unconsciously taking note of the dear, familiar room in its dismantled, unfamiliar condition. Out in the corridorafew unseen classmates began to sing, M Gaudeanuw igitur, juvenes dam sumus — "
ALMA MATER 13
" What on earth are they gaudeamusing about to-night?" growled the Infant; but no one answered her.
They stood looking at each other in silence.
"Some of you I won't see again," said Barbara, in a wavering voice. " My train goes so early. Dear, dear Sphinxy, — and Ata- lanta — "
An odd, snuffling sound caused her to look around. "The Infant's crying!" she ex- claimed.
The Infant threw her arms about Barbara's neck. " I guess I have feelings," she sobbed, " if I did try to make things cheerful. Don't forget me, Babbie dear, for I do love you astonishingly, and expect great things from you."
Barbara hurried blindly down the corridor, with the faithful House Plant beside her. At the end she turned, and faintly saw the four white figures still watching her. They were looking their last at their beloved companion, the girl whose strength of character and in- stinctive leadership had first attracted, then
14 HOME FROM COLLEGE
held them together, through four eventful years at college.
Barbara waved her handkerchief at the silent figures, and her head dropped on her room-mate's shoulder as they neared their familiar door.
"Oh, Helen dear 1" she sobbed. "How can we ever leave this college ? "
CHAPTER II
HOME
THE Overland Passenger was clank- ing its way across the prairies of the middle West Barbara, sitting on one of the stuffy red-plush seats, pressed her face against the window-pane, and looked out into the night There was little to see, — the long, monotonous stretches of land, cloaked in shadows, with dim lights showing from a few farmhouses, and a wide expanse of sky, freckled with stars, above. But Barbara was nearing home, and the dull pain which had been with her since the last good-bys at college was forgotten, as her eyes drank in every familiar detail of the shadowy landscape. Above the purr and hiss of the engine sounded the jerky refrain of the rails, and the girPs heart echoed the words.
" Near-home, near-home," it throbbed.
The noise of the train deepened as the piers
16 HOME FROM COLLEGE
of a bridge flashed by. A porter with a lighted lantern passed through the car, and a travel- ing agent in the seat ahead began to gather up his hand-baggage. But Barbara still gazed out of the window, over the great piles of pine that marked the boundary of the Auburn lumber-yard, towards a dim light that shone down from the hill.
"Auburn, Auburn! This way out," called the brakeman.
A thin, gray man stood at the steps of the car almost before the wheels ceased to move. His voice and his hands went up simultane- ously.
" Hel-lo, litde girt," he said to Barbara.
" Dear old Dad I " said Barbara to him.
" We '11 have to trust to the livery," said Dr. Grafton. " Maud S. has had a hard day, and I did n't have the heart to have her har- nessed again to-night"
" There 's a rummage-sale hat," laughed Barbara, as a driver in a shabby suit of livery and an ill-fitting top hat approached for her baggage checks.
HOME 17
Auburn knew naught of cabs. A " hack line," including perhaps three dozen car- riages which had passed beyond the wed- ding and funeral stage, attended passengers to and from the railway station. In a spirit of metropolitanism which seized the town at rare intervals, the proprietors of the "line" had decided to livery their drivers. So they had attended a rummage sale, given by the women members of an indigent church, and had purchased therefrom every top hat in sight, regardless of size, shape, or vintage. These they had distributed among their driv- ers in an equally reckless and care-free way. Auburn, as a whole, had not yet ceased to thrill with pride at her liveried service ; but those of her inhabitants who happened to be blessed with a sense of humor experienced a sensation other than that of pride, upon be- holding the pompous splendor of Banker Willowby's last season's hat held in place by the eyebrows of Peanuts Barker, or Piety Sanborn's decorous beaver perched upon the manly brow of Spike Hannegan.
18 HOME FROM COLLEGE
The mutual enjoyment of this other sen- sation renewed the old feeling of fellowship between Barbara and her father.
" It 's good to have you back, Girl," he said.
Barbara crept a bit closer. "It 's good to be here," she answered.
The Grafton house stood at the top of the longest hill in Auburn, and it was ten minutes more before the carriage stopped at the maple tree in front of the doctor's home. The elec- tric lights of Auburn, for economical reasons, were put out upon the arrival of the moon, and it was still and dark when the two started up the walk together. The stars hung low near the horizon, a sleepy bird was talking to himself in the willow tree, and the air was full of the bitter-sweet of cherry blossoms. A little gray, shaggy dog came bounding over the terrace to meet them, and the doorway was full of children's heads.
Barbara's mother stood on the front porch. Her eyes were soft and full, and her face was the glad-sorry kind. She did not say a word, only opened her arms, and the girl went in.
HOME 19
The children's greetings were characteris- tic Eighteen-year-old Jack added a hearty smack to his " Hello, Barb " ; David laid a pale little cheek against his sister's glowing one ; and the Kid thrust his school report into Barbara's hand, and inquired in eager tones what gifts were forthcoming. Only one mem- ber of the family circle was absent
" Gassy 's gone to bed," exclaimed Jack. " She 's got a grouch."
" I have not," retorted an aggressive voice. " Hello, Barbara." A thin little girl of eleven, in a nightgown, her head covered with bumps of red hair wrapped about kid-curlers, seized Barbara from behind. There was a vigorous hug, which sent a thrill of surprise to the big sister's heart, and Gassy became her own undemonstrative self again.
"Gee, you ought to see how you look I" said Jack.
" You ought not, 'cause 't would make you unhappy," retorted Gassy.
" I should think you ! 'd feel unhappy, sleep- ing on that tiara of bumps. Uneasy lies the
20 HOME FROM COLLEGE
head that wears a crown. You look just like a tomato-worm."
"Careful, Jack," cautioned his father.
But the warning came too late. The small girl rushed at her tormentor, leapt upon him, and thrust a cold little hand inside of his gray sweater.
" There, there, children, don't squabble be- fore Barbara ; she 's forgotten that you are not always friends," said Mrs. Grafton. "Run back to bed, Cecilia; you '11 take cold. The rest of us are going, too. It 's long past bedtime."
Barbara had expected to find the first nights away from her college room lonely ones; but the big four-poster, ugly as it had always seemed to her, was an improvement upon the cot that was a divan by day and a bed by night Blessed, too, was the silence that was almost noisy, out-of-doors, and the good- night pat of the mother, as she tucked her firstling in. It was good, after all, to be at home, and good, too, that she could be of use there. Her last thought was of the new green carpet in the sitting-room below.
HOME 21
" It 's an outrage on aesthetics, that shade," she said to herself. "I wish mother hadn't bought it until I got home. They do need me here."
"It's the same old place," said Barbara, at four o'clock the next afternoon, " the same dear, old, sleepy place. Aside from the fact that I find some more tucks let down in gowns and some more inches added to trousers each year, I don't think Auburn changes anything — even her mind — from going-away time to coming-home time. Procrastination is the spice of life, here."
"The things that keep a town awake are usually sent away to college," said her mother, slyly. " But Auburn is solid, as well as con- servative."
"It's pitifully, painfully solid," said Barbara. " If it only realized its own deficiencies, there would be hope for it But it is always so com- placent and contented with itself. The road that leads up the hill to Dyer's Corner is characteristic of the whole town. Some man
22 HOME FROM COLLEGE
with plenty of time on his hands — or for his feet — ambled along up the hill in the begin- ning of things, and for fifty years the people have followed his long, devious path, rather than branch out and originate another easier. I believe that any sign of progress, civic or intellectual, would cut Auburn to the quick, — if there is any quick to cut, in the town."
" Have n't you noted the fine schedule on our electric-car line ? " laughed her mother.
" That 's just what I was thinking of. I commented on the improved time that the cars make to Miss Bates, this morning. To my surprise she stiffened at once. ' You ain't the first to make complaint/ she said. 'There ain't no need of running a street-car like a fire-engine; and they say that since this new schedule has been fixed, the conductors won't deliver dinner-pails to the factory men, or hold the car for you while you go on a short errand. Auburn ain't going to tolerate that' Does n't that sound just like Miss Bates, and like Auburn ? "
" That 's right ; run down Auburn," said
HOME 23
Jack, tossing his strap of school-books on a chair, and hanging his capon the rubber-plant " You '11 make yourself good and popular if you go about expressing opinions like that in public Auburn was good enough for Airy Fairy Lilian in high-school days, but having received four years of 'culchaw,' and a starter on the alphabet to add to her name, the ple- beian ways of the old home-place jar her nerves. I like your loyalty, Mistress Barbara ! "
" That is totally uncalled for, Jack," said Barbara. " I like Auburn as much as you do. But it 's not an intellectual affection. I can't help seeing, in spite of my love for it, that the town is raw and Western, — and painfully crude."
" An intellectual affection ! That 's as bad as a hygienic plum-pudding," groaned Jack. " If I did n't have to go out to coach the foot- ball team in five minutes, I would sit down and express my sympathy at the stultifying life which you must lead for the next sixty years. Unless, of course, we marry you off. There is always that alternative."
24 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" I hope you are going to be contented, dear," said Mrs. Grafton, as her tall son re- 1 lieved the rubber-plant of its burden, and
j clattered noisily out of the room. " I realize
j that after four years of the jolly intercourse
j you have had with the girls, and the grow-
ing college life, we must seem slow and pro- saic to you here; nothing much happens when you are away. Of course, I don't miss things as much as you will. / ym used to the old slow way, and besides, I 'm too busy to have time to think of what is lacking. But I don't want you to be hungry for what is not The happiest thing I've had to think about, all these four years, has been your home- coming, but I 've been a little worried about your coming, sometimes. Do you think you are going to be contented with us ? "
Barbara's answer was judicial. "Why, yes, I think so," she said. " Of course I shall miss the college life, and the intellectual stimulus I had there, but I'm going to work hard, too. All the theories I learned at Vassar are just ready to be put into practice, and I have so
HOME 25
much to give the world that I can hardly wait to take my pen in hand. Oh, I am so glad, mother, that my life-work is laid out for me. I tell you frankly that I never could stand living in Auburn if I were not busy. The sor- didness of the workers, and the pettiness of the idlers, would make me desperate. But I shall go to work at once, and write — write — all the things I have been longing to give utterance to for four years."
"But you can't write all the time," said Mrs. Grafton.
"No, I don't intend to. There are other things to do. There has never been any or- ganized philanthropy in Auburn, and there is plenty of work for somebody in that line. I hope, too, that I may fall in with some con- genial people who will care to do some regular, systematic study with me, — though I suppose they will be hard to find in a town of this size. Then, too, I thought that I might help Susan."
Mrs. Grafton's busy needle flew as she talked. "How, dear?"
"Oh, in her studies. Susan and I kept
26 HOME FROM COLLEGE
together in high-school days, and I think that it has always been a tragedy in her life that she couldn't have a college education. She has a fine mind, — not original, you know, but clear-thinking, — and she loves study. Poor girl, I can help her so much. And of course it will be a mental stimulus to me, too."
" I 'm afraid Susan won't have time."
"Why, what is she doing?"
"Housework," replied her mother. "She is cooking, and caring for her father and brothers, and she does it well, too."
"What a shame!"
"What, to do it well?"
"You know what I mean, you wicked mother. A shame to let all that mental ability go to waste, while the pots and pans are being scoured. It does n't take brains to do housework."
«.' Does n't it ! " sighed Mrs. Grafton; " I find, all the time, that it takes much more than I possess. When it comes to the problems of how to let down Cecilia's tucks without show- ing, how to vary the steak-chops diet that
HOME 27
we grow so tired of, and how to decrease the gas-bills, I feel my mental inferiority. I'm glad that you have come home with new ideas ; we need them, dear."
A voice rose from the foot of the stairs below, — a shrill soprano voice, that skipped the scale from C to C, and back again to A.
"That's Ellen," said Mrs. Grafton, laying down her sewing with a sigh. " I can't teach her to come to me when she wants me. She says that she doesn't mind messages if she can 'holler 'em,' but she 'won't climb stairs fer Mrs. Roosevelt hetrself.' I suppose I '11 have to go down."
"What does she want?"
"That's what makes it interesting: you never know. Perhaps an ironing-sheet, or the key to the fruit-closet Maybe the plumber has come, or the milkman is to be paid, or the telephone is ringing. Or possibly a book- agent has made his appearance. She always keeps it a mystery until I get down."
" I don't see how on earth you live in that way. I never could get anything done."
2& HOME FROM COLLEGE
Ml don't accomplish much," sighed her mother. "The days ought to be three times as long, to hold all the things they bring to be done. My life is like the mother's bag in the ' Swiss Family Robinson.9 "
" I can't work that way," said Barbara. " It's ruinous to any continuity of thought I sup- pose that means that I '11 have to shut myself up in my room to write."
Mis. Grafton had gone downstairs.
" I don't see how mother can stand it," said the girl to herself. " Two telephone calls, an interview with the butcher, a stop to tie up David's finger, a hunt for father's lost letter, some money to be sent down to the vegetable man, and two calls to the front door, — that makes eight interruptions in the last hour. If she would only systematize things, so she would n't be disturbed, she would n't look so tired as she does. There ought not to be so much work in this house."
She glanced around the big, homey-look- ing living-room, through the door into the narrow, old-fashioned hall, and beyond, into
HOME 29
the sunny dining-room. The house was an old one ; the furnishing, though comfortable, showed the signs of hard usage and disorder. An umbrella reposed on the couch, Jack's football mask lay on the table, and her moth- er's ravelings littered the floor. A hetero- geneous collection of battered animals occu- pied the window-sill, and a pile of the doctor's memoranda was thrust under the clock.
"I don't wonder that things stray away here," she added, " with no one to pick them up but mother. She ought to insist upon or- derliness from each member of the family, and save herself. I'm afraid that her over-work is partly her own fault"
" Another mishap," said her mother, as she picked up her sewing on entering the room. " The gas-stove this time. Ellen can't make it burn, and I 've had to telephone the gas-man. Her baking is just under way, too, and I '11 have to send out for some bread for supper. I hate to ask you to do it, dear, this first day, but I 'm afraid that Jack won't be back in time to go."
30 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" Where shall I go ? To Miss Pettibone's ? "
" Yes ; my purse is on the table. Get a loaf
of bread and some cookies, and anything
else that would be good for supper. The
meal is likely to be a slim one."
Miss Pettibone's tiny front room took the place of a delicatessen shop in Auburn. She was a little, brown, fat acorn of a woman, who had been wooed in her unsuspicious middle age by a graceless young vagabond, who had brightened her home for six weeks and then departed, carrying with him the little old maid's heart, and the few thousand dollars which represented her capital. She was of the type of woman who would feel more grief than rage at such faithlessness, and she re- fused to allow her recreant lover to be traced. After the first shock was over, she turned to her one accomplishment as a means of live- lihood, and produced for sale such delicious bread, such delectable tarts, such marvelous cakes and cookies, that all Auburn profited by the absence of the rogue. She did catering in a small way, and sometimes, as an especial
HOME 31
favor, serving ; and the sight of Miss Pettibone in a stiff white apron, with a shiny brass tray under her arm, going into a side entrance, was as sure a sign of a party within, as Jap- anese lanterns on the front porch, or an order for grapefruit at the grocer's. The tragedy of her life had not embittered her, and all the grief that she had stirred into her cakes was as little noticeable in the light loaves as the evi- dences of sorrow in her intercourse with the world. Optimism was the yeast of her hard little life, and had raised her to the sound- ness and sweetness of her own bread.
There was no one in the shop as Barbara swung the door open and set a-jingle the bell at the top. But there was encouragement in the sight of a spicy gingerbread, some small yellow patty-cakes, some sugary crullers, and a pot of brown baked beans, in the glass-cov- ered counter. Miss Pettibone came bustling into the room at the sound of the bell.
" Why, Barbara Grafton," she said delight- edly ; "you, of all people ! When did you get back?"
32 HOME FROM COLLEGE
"Last night," answered Barbara.
" Well, I declare ! If I 'm not glad to see you! You haven't changed a mite, — even to get taller. I guess you 've got your growth now. You spindled a good deal while you was stretching, but you seem to be fleshing up now."
" I 'm always a vulgarly healthy person," said Barbara. " But how about you ? How is the rheumatism ? "
u It 's in its place when the roll is called. I Ve had a lame shoulder all spring."
" 1 'm sorry about that"
"Well, you don't need to be. That 's one of the things that make dying easy. Providence was pretty kind when she began to invent aches and pains. Just think how hard it would be to step off, if you had to go when you was perfect physically. But that ain't the usual way, thank goodness I All of the rheumatic shoulders, and bad backs, and poor sights, and failing memories, are just stones that pave the road to dying. I guess that's what St Paul meant when he said, ' We die daily.'
HOME 33
But you don't look as though you had begun, yet"
" College food seems to agree with me, Miss Pettibone, but it's not like your baking. I 've come for a loaf of bread, and to carry off that pot of beans."
" You can have the bread, child, but not the beans; they was sold hours ago."
" Too bad," sighed Barbara. " Give me the gingerbread."
" I 'm sorry, but that 's sold, too."
" Why do you keep them, then ? "
" I always ask my customers to leave them, if they ain't in any hurry for them. It keeps my shop full, and besides, it makes folks that come in late see what they 've missed. I no- tice that the minute a sold sign goes on a thing, it raises its value with most people. Barbara, it does my heart good to see you back again."
" I 'm glad to be back, too. How much are the little cakes?"
" Are you, my dear ? Well, I *m glad to hear you say so. Twenty cents a dozen. Do
34 HOME FROM COLLEGE
you want them right away ? You see, going away from home spoils lots of young folks, these days. Sending 'em away is like teach- ing them to tell time when they 're children. Of course it 's a matter of education, but after that they're always on the outlook to see if the clock is fast or slow. And most of the young people who go away to college find it pretty slow in Auburn. I'm glad that you ain't going to be discontented."
Barbara looked guilty. She did not want to accept undeserved praise, and yet it was hard to be frank without being impolite.
"Of course I expect to miss college life, Miss Pettibone," she began.
"Dear me, yes. I know what that will mean to you. Why, after I came back from Maine, twenty years ago, I was as lonesome for sea-air as though it had been a person. To this day I long for the tang of that salt wind. That's why I use whale-oil soap — because the smell of the suds reminds me of the sea. Of course you 're going to miss col- lege, Barbara."
HOME 35
"I shall try to keep so busy that I won't have time to be lonely," said Barbara.
" That 's the right spirit It won't be hard to do, either, in your house. Your family is a large one, and your mother is put to it to do everything. Gassy ain't old enough yet to be of much help, and it 's easier to keep a secret than a girl, in Auburn. I guess she '11 be glad to have you here to pitch in. It's a good thing that you like housework."
" I 'm afraid I don't know much about it Housekeeping is not my forte. Of course I shall help mother, but I don't intend to do that kind of work to the exclusion of all other. I intend to save the best of myself for my writing."
Miss Pettibone looked properly awed.
" Well, it 's a wonderful thing to be able to write. I always said that you 'd be an author- ess, when I used to see those school composi- tions of yours that the ' Conservative ' used to print Why, Barbara, you come in here once when you was in Kindergarten school, and you set down on my front window-sill,
36 HOME FROM COLLEGE
and you says, * Miss Pettibone,' you says, 4 1 ' ve written a pome.' And I says, ' Good fer you, Barbara, let's hear it.' So you smoothed down your white apron, and re- cited it to me. ' It *s about my mother/ you says ; ' and this is it : —
* Oh, Mrs. Grafton,' said Miss Gray, 1 Oh, do your children run away ? •
* Oh, no,' said she, 'they never do ; Because I always use my shoe.'
Then when you was through you explained to me that your ma did n't really whip you. You just had to put in that part about the shoe to make it rhyme, you said. You was an awful old-fashioned child, Barbara ! "
" My poetry was of about the same quality then that it is now," laughed Barbara. " I '11 take the bread and the cakes with me, Miss Pettibone. This is like old Auburn days. I have n't carried a loaf of bread on the street since I left home."
" Well, paper bundles with the steam rising from them ain't very swell, but sometimes the insides makes it worth while," said the little
HOME 37
.baker. " Come in and see me often, Barbara, when it ain't an errand. And give my love to your mother. She has n't been looking well lately, seems to me."
Barbara smiled her good-by, and the litde bell jingled merrily as the door swung shut
" It's always good to see Miss Pettibone," she said to herself as she started up the quiet street "She belongs in a story-book, — a litde fat one with cheery red covers. It is queer about her, too. She is as provincial as any one in Auburn, and yet she is never common- place."
At the corner she encountered another of the characters of Auburn. This was Mrs. Kot- ferschmidt, the old German woman, whose husband had been for years the proprietor of the one boat-livery of the town. He had died during the past winter, and Barbara, meeting the widow, stopped to offer her condolences. The old boatman had taught her to swim and to row, and her expressions of sympathy were genuine.
11 Mother wrote me about your loss," she
38 HOME FROM COLLEGE
said. " I was so sorry to hear about Mr. Kbt- ferschmidt."
The old lady rustled in her crape, buj the stolid face in the black bonnet showed no sign of emotion.
"Oh, you don't need to mind that," she said politely. " He was getting old, anyways. In the spring I hired me a stronger man to help me mit the boats."
Mrs. Kotferschmidt was the only passer Barbara met on her way home. Chestnut Street was practically deserted. The school- children's procession had passed, and the business-men's brigade had not yet started to move. The shaded avenue, with its green arch of trees overhead, stretched its quiet, leisurely way from Miss Pettibone's shop to the Grafton house. A shaft of red sun cut its way through the thick leaves, and covered with a glorified light the square, substantial houses that bordered the road. A few chil- dren played upon the street, a dog was tak- ing an undisturbed siesta on the sidewalk, and three snowy pigeons were cooing softly
HOME 39
as they strutted along the gutter. It was all pretty and peaceful, but quiet, desperately quiet. Barbara's thoughts went back to the college campus, crowded with chattering stu- dents, leisurely professors, hurrying messen- ger-boys, and busy employees, and full of activity at this hour. What if the Sphinx could see her now, or the Infant, or the dear House Plant, with that plebeian loaf of bread under her arm, on that deserted Western road? She knew what they would say; she could almost feel their glances of pity. Oh, it was a misfortune to be born in a place like Auburn, — a stultifying, crude, middle- west- ern town. She choked down a lump in her throat that threatened her.
" I must get to work," she thought. "Soon, — soon! I shall never be able to exist in Auburn, if I give myself time to think about it."
CHAPTER III
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY
IT was eight o'clock on a warm morning in June, a few days after Barbara's return. She rose from the table, where she had been breakfasting in solitude, and sought her mother.
It was not easy to find her. The girl looked into the kitchen, passed through her father's office, and ran upstairs to Mrs. Grafton's chamber — all without result
"Jack!" she called, stopping at the door of her brother's room, and severely regard- ing the recumbent figure in bed. " Jack ! I 'd be ashamed of lying in bed so late I Where's mother?"
A muffled groan, a tossing of the long swathed figure — and silence.
" Jack I Tell me at least, if you know where she is."
The swathed figure rose up in majesty, and
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY 41
a pair of half-open, sleepy eyes became visible in a yawning face.
" Well, I '11 be hanged ! " said Jack. " If you didn't actually wake me up to ask where mother is. What do you think I am ! A su- pernatural dreamer, with visions of everything mother does floating around my bed ? Think I can see all over the house with my eyes shut?"
Jack flounced back, and recomposed his long limbs for slumber.
" You ought to be up, anyway, by this time," declared Barbara, eyeing him with cold disap- proval. " There are plenty of things that you could do to help."
She walked down the stairs, puzzling over the strange lack of system that she saw every- where about her. There was Jack, lying at his ease in his room, with a superb disregard of responsibilities. She caught a glimpse of Gassy sitting in the dusty, disorderly library, reading the story from which she had been forcibly separated the evening before at bed- time. And finally, as she reentered the din-
42 HOME FROM COLLEGE
ing-room, she stumbled over the Kid, who was arranging plates, taken from the uncleared dining-table, in a neat line on the carpet.
" Don't upset my ships ! " he roared, as Barbara unconsciously crunched a butter-plate under her erring tread.
She stared in horror at the debris; then, sweeping the plates up, to the accompaniment of shrieks from the youngest Grafton, she sat down on a chair and took her struggling little brother on her lap.
" Charles Grafton, listen to me I " she said firmly but not angrily, remembering the ped- agogic articles on "Anger and the Child/' and the extracts which had filled a large college note-book. "Charles I What do you mean by doing such a dreadful thing as this? Answer, immediately."
It was while she was trying to understand his stormy articulations that Mrs. Grafton ap- peared, and sank down wearily in a chair near the door. The Kid immediately wriggled from his sister and ran to his mother, weeping.
" Just see what this boy has donel " cried Bar-
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY 43
bara. " I picked up half these plates from the floor. I never saw such a child! This table ought to have been cleared long ago, anyway."
" Ellen can't clear the table until breakfast is over/' said Mrs. Grafton, soothing the little boy in her arms. "Your father, Cecilia, Charles, and I had our breakfast as usual at quarter after seven. I imagine that Ellen was waiting for you to finish. Moreover, the gas- man came to look at the meter in the cellar, and she and I both went down with him. I just came up from there."
Mrs. Grafton's face settled into weary lines, and she sighed heavily. But Barbara did not notice. She was looking at the new egg-stain on the Wilton rug.
" Mother," she said, in her fresh, energetic voice, "I really do think things might be managed more systematically here than they actually are. You know that, if there is one thing that we learn at college, it is the need of system. Now see here I " Barbara rose, and began to pace back and forth over the egg-stain. "We rise at six-thirty, an absurdly
44 HOME FROM COLLEGE
early hour, though perhaps necessitated by the work of a large family — "
"Yes," interposed her mother, smiling through her pallor. "We all rise at half-past
six."
Barbara flushed. " Now, mother ! " she said. "I know I haven't done it these few days since I came home, but that was accidental. It shall not happen again. And Jack is dread- ful about getting up ! "
" Well," said Mrs. Grafton, this 'system ' ? "
" Oh, yes. We should ris§ and finish break- fast by quarter-past eight. Then let Ellen do the dishes, of course, and all the work in the kitchen. Then make Jack get up and do the outside work, the lawns, sweeping the porches, and so forth, to get it out of the way early. Cecilia, — how I hate that nickname Gassy! — Cecilia ought to do her share. She should be taught to keep her room in order, and the library too, I think."
" I won't 1 " shouted an excitable little voice from the next room.
" Don't talk that way, Cecilia," called Bar-
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY 45
bara. " You '11 never improve, if you don't do something in this world."
"Why don't you do something, then?" retorted the voice, "instead of telling mother how to run the house? "
A smile flickered upon Mrs. Grafton's pale face, and died in another sigh. Barbara rose and shut the dining-room door.
" Now I " — she resumed — " I will guar- antee to keep the lower floor looking fresh and clean, — not doing the sweeping, of course ; and I will take care of my own room and Jack's also. That will probably occupy me until half- past nine, after which I must spend my time until twelve in writing every minute, undis- turbed. In this way, you see, we shall each have our own individual work, — David and the Kid being allowed to play, — and your burden will be considerably lessened. And all through a little application of system."
" System ! " echoed her mother, mechani- cally allowing Charles to slip from her lap.
"Yes," said Barbara. "That leaves your room and David's and the ordering for you."
46 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" My room, and David's, and the ordering," repeated Mrs. Grafton.
"Why, yes," Barbara responded, looking curiously at her mother. " What is the matter, dear ? You look so queer and white. Are n't you well ? "
" Oh, yes," replied Mrs. Grafton. " Here is Susan coming to see you. Keep her out on the porch, Barbara, there is so much to do in the house."
Left alone, Mrs. Grafton's eyes filled, and her lips began to twitch nervously. " So much to do ! " she repeated. She put her handker- chief up to her shaking lips. "What am I cry- ing for?" she asked herself sternly. " I never used to be so foolish." But her eyes kept fill- ing and her lips twitching. She had a feeling that she was allowing herself to be weak. Then a sense of hopelessness in a domestic universe seemed to rise up and overwhelm her, and she wept again.
Suddenly she rose and hurried from the room, as she caught the sound of Jack's boots on the stairs.
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY 47
" I 'm so glad to see you ! " cried Barbara, pushing forward the best porch-chair to re- ceive her guest. " And I 'm especially glad that you came so early, for I shall be inac- cessible after ten o'clock. My literary hours begin then."
Susan fanned herself. "I just stopped a minute on my way to get some sewing-silk," she said, " but I could n't help trying to get a glimpse of you again. How fresh and at lei- sure you look, Babbie. All your work done so soon ? "
" No-o," answered Barbara, a slight blush making her confession charming. "The fact is, Sue, I got up later than usual this morn- ing, for some reason, and mother and I have been taking our time in discussing a new system of housekeeping, by which I am to lighten mother's labors considerably."
Susan looked wistful as she rocked back and forth. " I suppose your college training makes you accommodate yourself to all cir- cumstances," she said. " It must be hard to have to come to every-day living like this,
48 HOME FROM COLLEGE
after all the advantages you have had I be- lieve you know enough theory to fit into any situation."
" Oh, no," interposed Barbara, " not every one."
"And all these four years," went on Susan, her sweet face sobering, "I have just been doing housework, and trying to take dear mother's place. My life has been bounded by dishpans and darning-cotton, and my associ- ates have been housemaids and dressmakers. I have n't improved at all."
" Now you are fishing 1 " rejoined Barbara. " I must say, Susan, that as for not being a college girl, you show it less than any other girl I ever saw."
" You flatter me," declared Susan. " And oh, Barbara, I want to say that it 's awfully sweet of you to be willing to read with me an hour every day. It will help me ever so much, to get your trained point of view about things. I am so immature in my mental judgments, I know."
11 1 am only too glad to help you," said
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY 49
Barbara, heartily. " And really, Sue, you are a godsend to me, for you are the only girl in town that is congenial to me at all."
Susan looked pleased. "That's kind of you," she answered. " Well, I must not keep you from helping your mother. By the way, how is she to-day? Everybody is saying how tired and worn out she looks, and is glad that you have come to share her burdens."
" Why, mother 's all right," replied Bar- bara. " How people will talk and gossip about nothing I Good-by, Sue dear. Take some roses on the way out And let 's begin read- ing to-morrow."
She paused a moment on the porch, look- ing with appreciative eyes at the pretty lawn, with its wealth of gay-colored nasturtiums and roses. As she passed through the hall, her eyes fell upon Gassy, still curled up in the chair, and absorbed in her book.
"Cecilia!" called Barbara, with all the au- thority of an elder sister. "You have done nothing all morning. Take the duster and dust the living-room immediately."
50 HOME FROM COLLEGE
The little girl's legs kicked convulsively in protest. "Oh-h, how I hate you, Barbara I" she cried abstractedly. " I 've only eight pages more."
"Nearly ten o'clock!" sighed the girl, as she mounted the stairs to her room. " I shan't get much done to-day."
She made her bed with resigned patience, pinned an " Engaged " sign on her door, and fell to work. But even through the closed door came the busy sounds of an active house- hold. A thump, thump, thump of the furniture downstairs in the living-room proclaimed that a vigorous sweeping was going on ; the mad- dening click-click-clash outside drew her to the window to behold Jack sulkily guiding the lawn-mower. Just below her came the measured hum of the sewing-machine, and Barbara remembered, with a guilty start, that she had promised to finish those sheets her- self, the day before. Finally, the sound of a toy drum and the martial tramp of little feet in the hall outside her door nerved her to action.
"What are you doing, children?" she
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY 51
cried, putting her head out through the door in despair.
David and the Kid stopped marching simul- taneously, and eyed their big sister. "I'm Teddy Roosevelt," said David, mildly, " and the Kid is all my Rough Riders."
"Well, you must not ride here," declared Barbara. "You are disturbing me and I can't write. Go downstairs and play, — right away. You must not annoy me again."
She shut her door, cutting a yell from the Kid into two sections. The martial sounds died away, and she was free to resume her thoughts. Their continuity seemed broken, however. It was some time before she took up her work again.
About an hour afterwards, as Barbara, with pleased expression and a flying pen, was half way through an enthusiastically philosophic peroration, she was disturbed by a sudden jar, as if some heavy weight had fallen, shak- ing her chair considerably. In a minute, foot- steps sounded outside again, and some one timidly opened her door. It was David.
52 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" Mother — " he began.
" I cannot be disturbed ! " cried Barbara, frantically, waving her pen. "Run away, David ; I simply must not be talked to ! "
The little fellow, with a scared look, obeyed, and Barbara was once more left alone. It was not the conglomeration of sounds which now annoyed her, — it was the utter absence of the noises to which she had grown accustomed. The hum of the sewing-machine had abrupdy ceased, and a sudden cry of "Jack, come here, quick!" had stopped the teasing whir of the grass-cutter. To Barbara there was something ominous in the sudden cessation.
"Well, it's nearly twelve, anyway," she exclaimed, shutting up her desk. " I '11 give up for this morning."
She opened her door and went downstairs. No one in the halls; no one in the living- room. She turned toward the kitchen, but was arrested by the sound of her father's voice coming from the sewing-room, — his voice, but strange, low, unnatural.
" There, Jack ! That 's enough water.
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY 53
Slowly, Ellen. Stop crying, Charles. Mo- ther's all right."
Barbara reached the door in one bound. " What — " she began, and stopped, while her shocked eyes took in the scene before her.
In a frightened, huddled group near her stood Gassy, David, and the Kid, staring at their mother, who lay on the floor perfecdy quiet Jack and Ellen stood by, with water and cloths, and the doctor was gendy spong- ing away the blood from a cut on Mrs. Graf- ton's temple. No one spoke to Barbara or noticed her.
As she crossed over, brushing the children from her path, her father looked up and saw the alarmed look on her face. "Your mo- ther fainted, that 's all," he said reassuringly. "She fell from the sewing-machine and cut herself. But she will be all right soon ! "
Mrs. Grafton opened her eyes and faindy smiled.
"O mother dear!" cried Barbara. "O mother! It is my fault! I said I would do those sheets yesterday."
54 HOME FROM COLLEGE
Mrs. Grafton began to cry. " I don't want to hear about sheets," she sobbed weakly.
" No, dear, no, dear, you need n't," soothed the doctor, motioning Barbara away.
It was a new sensation to Barbara to stand back, while the doctor carried Mrs. Grafton upstairs to her room, and, aided only slighdy, put her to bed. Mechanically she did as or- dered, and followed her father out of the room, when her mother had fallen asleep, with a feeling that the end of the world had come, and that "system " had deserted the universe.
"Yes, it is a nervous break-down," said the 'doctor, throwing himself into an easy-chair in the living-room. "I might have known that it would come, with the crushing weight of this household on her delicate shoulders. But your mother is so brave and bright that I did n't realize what she has been doing."
"And of course I've been away," sighed Barbara.
" Well, she must go away now," said Dr. Grafton, with determination. "A complete rest and change she must have, as soon as
THE THEORY OF PHILOSOPHY 55
possible. And Barbara, my girl, you '11 have to take the helm."
"Oh, I will," she cried confidently. "I can and will gladly. I won't let it crush me. I '11 reduce it all to a science."
"H'm," said her father. "This science is not taught at Vassar. However, I don't see what else we can do. And your mother must go at once."
Barbara lost her sense of the logical con- tinuity of events during the next few days. Packing, planning, consoling small brothers, encouraging her mother, who was inclined to rebellion, — the minutes and hours flew. Be- fore she realized, she stood one morning on the front porch with her arms around the sobbing Kid, resolutely forcing a smile, while she waved a cheerful farewell to the departing phaeton, containing a very pale mother and a very determined-looking father.
" Good-by, mother dear ! " called little David, winking away his tears. " Come back soon."
" Come back well / " added Barbara, cheer- fully.
CHAPTER IV
THE PRACTICE
MAUD S. lengthened her measured tread an infinitesimally small dis- tance, in response to the doctor's impatient command. But she did it sorrow- fully, and with the air of yielding to a child's whim. Maud S. had been born and brought up in Auburn, and she had been educated to a stern sense of the proprieties. It was right and proper to forego appearances, and even to abandon one's dignity, if necessary, upon a call of mercy ; but a trip to the station, with a trunk aboard, and a feeble passenger inside, certainly ought to be made decently and .in order. Moreover, it was the first outing that Mrs. Grafton had taken for eight years, and the occasion was one that required proper observance. To be told to " Chirk up, Maud," right in front of Banker Willowby's house, was certainly irritating, and her excessive
THE PRACTICE 57
good-breeding showed in the forbearance with which she received the admonition. Maud S. made up in refinement and courtesy what she lacked in speed, and she showed her deli- cacy, even in her resentment, by the ladylike way in which she flapped her ears forward, in order that she might not hear the domestic conversation that was going on in the carriage behind her.
" I feel like a deserter from the regiment," sighed Mrs. Grafton. " I ought not to be going away from home.,,
" Well, I 'm sorry to say it," responded the doctor, "but you certainly ought to be getting away from home just as fast as the train will carry you, — and Maud S. will condescend to take you to it I can't get you out of Auburn too soon."
"It is wicked of me to leave the house and the children."
"It would be wicked of me not to make you leave the house and the children ! You have had an undisturbed diet of house and children four years too long. No wonder your
58 HOME FROM COLLEGE
heart rebels. A fine kind of doctor I am, not to have detected this long ago ! If it had been any patient but my wife, I should have been quick to discover it But it's partly your own fault, Elizabeth ; you had no business to be so uncomplaining about yourself. Even that excuse, though, does n't keep me from realizing how brutally thoughtless I have been."
The mother-mind went back to the forlorn little group on the porch. " Poor children," she sighed ; " I don't know how they are going to get along; if they only had some one to rely upon for their three meals a day! But Ellen is woefully inefficient, and she has to be handled with sugar-tongs, besides. The spring sewing isn't finished yet; the porch ought to be screened; David — poor litde pale face — ought to be sent away before his hay fever begins; and the fruit-canning season is just at hand."
" Oh, we }ll get along," assured the doctor, in the old, illogical way that means nothing, and yet is so comforting to a woman ; "Bar-
THE PRACTICE 59
bara 's young and strong, and full of energy. She '11 put her hand to the helm, if need be."
" But this is her vacation, and I want her to enjoy it She *s worked hard at her books for four years. Besides, she is so full of her writing now — "
Dr. Grafton laughed, — a merry, contagious laugh, that rivaled his medical skill in winning his patients. " I thought as much," he said. " Getting admission to her room nowadays is attended with all the formalities of the Masonic ritual, and she goes about with ink on her fingers and ink on her nose. I suppose she is fired by the ambition of the Banbury Cross lady in making 'music wherever she goes.' Poor little Barbara ; she 's taking herself so very seriously, these days ! She feels that she must gush forth a stream of living water for thirsty mankind, forgetting, dear litde lass, that she is not a spring yet, but only a rain- barrel. Four years of college have filled her, but she does n't realize that now is the time to keep all the bung-holes shut. I suppose we must all pass through that think- we-are-artists
60 HOME FROM COLLEGE
disease, but Barbara seems to have an aggra- vated case."
"She has been encouraged in it a good deal."
" Yes, I know she has, — more 's the pity. A prodigy now and then must be encouraging to a college faculty, but it 's a bit hard on the prodigy herself, and harder still on the prod- igy's family. Intellectual lights ought to be hidden under a ton, instead of a bushel, so it would n't be so easy to dig them out I believe, myself, that Barbara has a fine mind, and unusual ability, but, dear heart, she's only a child I She has to live before she can write."
"I haven't dared tell her that yet," said her mother ; " I don't want even to seem to dis- courage her. And you know how confident Barbara is."
" I wish she were a bit less ^/^confident ; she 's bound to be disappointed, and I 'm afraid that she sets her hopes so high that the fall, when it comes, will be a hard one. I wish, too, that she was n't quite so serious about it all. Her saving grace of humor seems to have
THE PRACTICE 61
utterly deserted her at this trying period of her existence."
" That 's a way that humor sometimes has," said Mrs. Grafton. " The very jolliest, drollest woman I ever knew confided to me once that her sense of humor had entirely deserted her, at one time. She had been out sailing with the man who afterward became her husband, and during the course of the evening he had done a litde love-making. ' He called me Sweetie/ she said to me. 'Think of it! Sweetie 1 Why, it's as bad as Pettie, or Lambie ! ' And the worst of it was that it did n't even seem funny to me until after I thought it over at home. ' When love comes in the door, humor flies out of the window/ she said ; and I sup- pose it may be the same way with genius."
"If Barbara's genius was armed with a broom instead of a pen, it would be better for her," said her father. " And that is why I am glad, for her sake as well as yours, that you are going away. The girl isn't all dreamer; she has a practical compartment in that brain of hers, and your absence will give her a chance
62 HOME FROM COLLEGE
to open the doors and windows of it, and sweep the cobwebs out. Oh, I 'm not worried about Barbara^ — she '11 rise to "occasions And we 7/ get along beautifully. If you 7/ only come back to us well and strong — "
Maud S. made an unnecessary clatter over the macadam road, in order not to hear the rest of the sentence. The anxious note in her master's voice swallowed up the last trace of her resentment.
In the meantime the little group on the Grafton porch had turned back into the house. Jack had taken his fishing-tackle, and gone off down the dusty road without a word. David, with a plaintive expression on his thin little face, had turned to his beloved "Greek Heroes" for comfort. The Kid's tears had been dried by Barbara's handkerchief and two raisin cookies, and he had gone to the sand-pile to play. Gassy, alone, was un- accounted for. She had slipped away from the porch when her mother was assisted into the carriage, and was not in sight when the others turned back into the house.
THE PRACTICE 63
" Picking up, first," sighed Barbara, as she came back into the big living-room, which seemed unusually untidy and cheerless. "Then the bed-making and the chamber-work, plan- ning the meals, and ordering the supplies. I think I shall write out all the menus for Ellen, — that will be the easiest way." She was putting the room in order, and her hands flew with her thoughts. " I mean to do every- thing systematically. I want to prove to father that, college fits a girl for anything, — even practical life, and if I keep the house in order, discipline the children, and have some excellent meals, I think he'll be convinced. It will take some time to get things started, but I believe that after I have them systematized, they will go smoothly, and I shall have plenty of time left for my writing. Mother always spent so much time on the unnecessary litde things; no wonder she went to pieces — poor mother ! "
Something dimmed Barbara's tender eyes, but she steadied her lips and went on with her plans : —
64 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" One thing I intend to change, and that is having dinner at noon. It 's horribly unhy- gienic, and old-fashioned, too. I '11 speak to Ellen about it."
She pulled open the door of the hall-closet to find a dust-doth. A huddled pile of pink gingham, with two long, black legs protrud- ing, lay prone upon the floor. The head was hidden.
Barbara put an arm about the place which seemed to mark a waist in the gingham. " What's the matter, dear?" she asked ten- derly.
There was a long-drawn breath, and an unmistakable snuffle. Then Gassy's voice answered coldly, —
"NuthinV
" Well, don't lie in here in the dark. Come out with me, litde sister."
Gassy came, slowly and reluctandy. She rose from the floor, back foremost, keeping her face assiduously turned away from her sister.
" I don't like to see you cry — "
THE PRACTICE 65
" Was n't crying," stiffened Gassy, with a sob.
"I mean I don't like to have you tucked away in here, when I need you outside. I want your help, litde girl."
"What for?" demanded Gassy, suspi- ciously.
" Oh, just to have you about, to talk to," said Barbara. "Come on out with me, and help me plan the lunch."
" Lunch? Are we goin' to have a picnic? " asked Gassy, seating herself with her proud litde face turned toward the window.
" No ; but we 're going to have dinner at night while mother 's away. And Cecilia, how would you like to turn vegetarian?"
"Just eat vegetables? "
"Yes ; it 's much more hygienic."
"No meat at all?"
" No ; we eat altogether too much flesh."
" It would be cheaper to board at a livery stable," said Gassy.
" And healthier, too, I think. I 've gone without meat voluntarily for three whole
66 HOME FROM COLLEGE
years, and I have been in perfect physical condition. It 's a help mentally, too. And diet is n't restricted if you substitute eggs and nuts and fruit for meat"
Nuts and fruit sounded good to Gassy. "All right," she said ; " I 'd like to try it. But we can't do it yet awhile ; we 're working out a bill at the butcher's. His wife broke her collar- bone last year, and he 's paying the doctor's bill in meat Besides, what will Ellen say?"
Barbara wondered, herself. But she was too proud to admit her foreboding.
" Ellen draws her salary " (college setde- ment lessons forbade her using the term " wages ") " for following our wishes — "
" Then she does n't earn it," interrupted Gassy.
" And I 'm sure she could find no objection to any decision of ours as to the best kind of food. Will you ask her to come here, Ce- cilia, as soon as she gets her dishes washed ? I '11 have the menu ready for her by that time."
Miss Parloa's cook-book, which Barbara
THE PRACTICE 67
took down from the shelf to assist her in her task, was not a vegetarian ; but memories of her self-imposed college ideals still lingered. By the time Ellen's lumbering step was heard in the back hall the menu was ready, neatly written upon the first page of a new little blank-book.
" I wuz down in the cellar," stated Ellen, " and I can't leave my work to come every time I 'm wanted. Just holler the things down to me. Me and your ma has an understand- ing about that"
" If you come in here after the dish-wash- ing every morning, Ellen, you won't have to make an extra trip upstairs," said Bar- bara, in the approved college-settlement tone. "I have no desire to demand unnecessary service from you. I shall always have the menu for the day ready for you at this hour. This is for to-day : while mother is gone we shall have dinner at night, and luncheon at noon."
Ellen's expression was not wholly encour- aging, as she took the little book. It read: —
68 HOME FROM COLLEGE
Cantaloupes with ice.
Egjs in tomato cases. Rice patds.
Thin bread and butter. Farmesian balls on lettuce, with French dressing.
Olives. Wafers.
Mint sherbet
Nuts.
"Canty loops! What's them?'' demanded Ellen
"Qk mush^netans! Why didnt too say so? MixsIhemIoos wWt be ripe fer a month. What's that next thing?"
"That *s a new way erf serving eggsT said &&ttaia;;*the recipe *s in the book* Itfsson- ptev and wr prattr^
*Yo*a cant ssree ^oi that way hi this towtfc** gTnjottbfed BfenL "-Tomatoes don't w«fr&x cases*. — they come fit baskets*. Ami a$ ltasg: as there s a cfirft fix tfce fcotase where I*1* woufciog^. I won't afiv«r set a toniafe>bas^ feet oik tttetafctei Wftat'sriicepayt^!:^
CAVIYLOOI'V WHAT> THEM?
THE PRACTICE 69
"The recipes are all in the book: I've marked the pages," said Barbara, with dig- nity. "Of course, Ellen, if cantaloupes are not in the market, we'll have to substitute something else. Or perhaps we could get along without that course."
"We might have the ice, without the melons," suggested Gassy.
Barbara glanced up suspiciously, but the sharp litde face was innocent
" That is all, then, Ellen. The recipes are given in full, and you will have no trouble in following them. I have ordered all the ne- cessary materials. The rice and the cheese will be here in half an hour. Miss Cecilia will show you where the mint-bed is in the garden."
Ellen's large freckled face took on an ex- pression of astonishment " Who will ? " she asked.
" Miss Cecilia," responded Barbara.
Ellen's eyes followed Barbara's glance. "Oh, Gassy/" she said. "Didn't know who you meant, before. Say, Barbara Grafton, I
70 HOME FROM COLLEGE
can't never get up a meal like this, with no meat, and on ironing-day, too. Your ma never has sherbet but Sundays, and then Jack turns the crank fer me. And nuts I Nuts won't be ripe till October."
" The nuts are already ordered," said Bar- bara, turning away. " That will do, Ellen. I 'm going upstairs now to do the chamber-work, and after that I shall go to my writing. I don't want to be disturbed. If any one comes to see me, say that I 'm not at home."
" I '11 holler if I want you," said Ellen, grimly.
" No, don't do that, because it breaks into what I am doing. I shall be downstairs again before luncheon-time, and you can tell me then anything you need. Cecilia, I trust you to see that I am not disturbed for two hours. Don't call me before twelve o'clock, no matter what happens."
It was long past noon when the last sheet of " The Spirit of the Eternal Ego " slipped from Barbara's hand, and the pen was dropped. She glanced up at the litde clock near the vine- wreathed window. " Ten min-
THE PRACTICE 71
utes of one I " she exclaimed ; " I must have missed the din — luncheon bell. "But my essay is done — hurray 1 "
She hurried down the stairs. The living- room was empty and the porch deserted. The dining-room table had not been set In the kitchen the sink was piled high with dirty dishes, dish-towels hung over every chair, and a trail of grease-spots ran from pantry to back door. The kitchen table was pulled up before a window, and about it were seated David, with some canned peaches, Gassy, with a saucer full of ground cinnamon and sugar, and Jack, with a massive sandwich of cold beefsteak and thick bread. On the table were a bowl of cold baked beans, a saucer of rad- ishes, a dish of pickles, and a botde of pink
POP- Barbara shuddered. " Where 's Ellen ? " she
asked.
Jack looked up. " Ah, the authoress ! " he exclaimed. " I judge from your appearance upon the scene of action that the fire of genius has ceased to rage in unabated fury."
72 HOME FROM COLLEGE
"Why are you eating in here? Where's Ellen ? " Barbara repeated.
" In reply to your first question, to save carrying ; in reply to your second, I canna say. I know not where she went; I only know where she deserves to go."
" Has she gone away to stay?"
"In the language of the housewife, she has ' left/ " said Jack. " I hurried home from the river, bringing two thirty-pound trout to grace the festal board, an hour ago. I found that if there was to be any festal board, I must supply both the festives and the board- ing. The gas-stove had ceased to burn ; the kitchen was still. Ellen had flown the coop. I was for calling you, but Gassy, here, was ob- durate. She said that you had left orders with your private secretary that, come what might, you were not to be disturbed. Luckily, father telegraphed that he was not coming home until to-morrow. So, with the aid of my little family circle, I prepared the repast which you see before you. It was dead easy : each one took out of the ice-box his favorite article of
w
w 8
(-t
w o w
PS
THE PRACTICE 73
food, and for a wonder, no two happened to want the same article. Fall to, yourself, fair lady ; there is still some cold boiled cabbage in the refrigerator, and you have earned it after your valiant fight as bread-winner for the family this morning I"
" Stop your nonsense, Jack. Did n't Ellen make any explanation of her going ? "
"Like the girl in the ballad, 'She left a note behind.' It was written on the other side of a wonderful menu, which probably was the cause of her leaving. I don't wonder it scared her off. The note lies there on the table."
Barbara picked it up. The page had been torn from the blank-book, and on it was scrawled : —
"i am leving youse. my folks have been at me to come home, and i have desided not to stay where i cant holler, also i cant get no dinner like this, youse can pay my wages to the boy that comes for my close."
Barbara sank hopelessly into a chair. There seemed nothing further to be said upon the subject of Ellen.
74 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" Where 's Charles ? " she inquired.
44 Don't you know ? " said Jack. " I have n't seen him since I came home. We thought you must have sent him on an errand, when he didn't appear at noon. The Kid always turns up regularly at meal-time."
"I haven't seen him since mother left," replied Barbara. "Then I sent him to the sand-pile. I have n't an idea where he is."
" You told him he could n't go to a picnic," said David, dreamily.
"Why, no, I didn't"
"But you did, Barbara. He came and knocked on your door while you were writing, and told you he wanted to go. And you said no. Then he hollered that he thought you were " — David hesitated delicately over the epithet — "a mean old thing; that he hadn't asked you to let him have a picnic before since mother had left And you told him to run away, — that you were busy."
" Did I ? " asked Barbara, trying to remem- ber. She had a faint recollection of such an interruption, but she was never sure of what
THE PRACTICE 75
happened during the hours which she spent in the throes of authorship. " How long ago was it?"
" 'Bout eleven o'clock."
Barbara looked worried. "I can't think where he could have gone," she said. " Have you looked everywhere in the house ? "
" Everywhere we could think of," responded Jack. " Don't worry, Barb ; he '11 show up as soon as he gets hungry. Disappearance is his long suit."
" Does he often run away like this ? "
" Every time the spirit moves him. Not even a letter-press could keep him down when the wanderlust seizes him. Sometimes he is gone for hours. Punishment does n't seem to do him much good, either, though I must say he never gets enough of it to make any im- pression. If he were mine, I should test the magic power of a willow switch."
" How do you find him ?"
" Oh, he comes wandering in, like the prod- igal son, after he has fed upon husks for a while. Maybe he has been unable to face the
76 HOME FROM COLLEGE
ordeal of a separation from Ellen, and has gone with her."
" I wish he had n't gone while father and mother are away. I feel, somehow, as though it were my fault"
"Now stop worrying, Barbara; he'll turn up. My only fear is that you '11 receive him with open arms when he arrives. Just you plan to be a little severe on him, and we '11 cure him of his habit before mother gets home."
But in spite of Jack's reassurance, Barbara was troubled, and as she cleared away the remains of the children's feast, she caught herself looking out of the window, and listen- ing for the click of the gate. At two o'clock, when the last dish was put away, the Kid had not returned ; at three he was not in sight ; at four none of the neighbors had seen him ; at five she left the anxious seat at the front window for the kitchen, with reluctance ; and at six it was a worried-looking Barbara who greeted Jack's return from baseball practice.
" Has n't the little rascal turned up yet ? "
THE PRACTICE 77
asked the boy. " I think I '11 go out and take a look at some of his favorite haunts. Now, Barbara, if he comes while I 'm away, don't you play prodigal with him ! "
The dinner was eaten, and cleared away. At seven there was no Kid. At eight the other children went to bed without him. At nine o'clock Jack returned with no news. Even he showed anxiety as Barbara met him at the door with expectant face.
" Nobody has seen a glimpse of him," he reported. " I 've been the round of his inti- mates, and to all of his pet resorts, and I 've scoured the town. I don't know what else to do."
There was a noise on the front porch. A slow, halting step came up the stairs. Bar- bara rushed toward the door.
" Careful, now," cautioned Jack. " That 's the Kid, all right. Don't you greet him with outstretched arms."
But the caution was not necessary. All of the pent-up anxiety turned into wrath as Bar- bara became sure of the step. Her heart hard-
78 HOME FROM COLLEGE
ened toward the small offender as she hastily made her plans for his reception. In response to the second knock at the door, she answered the summons.
"Who's there?" she asked, without open- ing the screen.
" It 's me," said a still, small voice.
44 What do you want?"
44 Want to come in."
" Well, you can't come in. I don't let strange men into my house at this time of night"
There was a pause on the front step as the little lad wearily shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Thai he knocked again.
"Want to get in."
Jack looked at Barbara, warningly. " I can't let you in," she said;44 I'm alone in the house; my father and mother are away from home, and I never let strangers in when I 'm alone."
44 1 'm not strangers ; I 'm Charles."
44 Charles would n't be out at this time of night," remarked Barbara, impersonally. x " I'm hungry," said the Kid
THE PRACTICE 79
There was a wistfulness in the voice that touched all the mother in the girl. "Well, I never turn any tramp away hungry," she said; "I'll give you some bread and milk, but then you '11 have to go."
She unlocked the door, and surveyed her small brother chillingly. The Kid had evi- dently made a day of it His cap was gone, his shoestrings were untied, his face and hands were streaked with dirt, and one shirt-waist sleeve was torn away.
" Goodness, how dirty ! " she said. " There is a place set at the table for our own little boy, but he 's a clean child, and I can't let you have it as you are now. You '11 have to wash, first. Go up those stairs, and you '11 find a bathroom, the first room to the left Wash your hands and face, and then come down. I '11 give you something to eat before you go."
The Kid looked at Barbara steadily. Won- derment, doubt, and understanding were ex- pressed in turn on his round face. He turned without a word, his small fat legs climbed
80 HOME FROM COLLEGE
the stairway, and his dirty little figure disap- peared inside the bathroom door.
His sister for the first time ventured a look/ at Jack.
" Bravo, Bernhardt ! " he said.
" 1 hated to do it," said Barbara. " But I know that he deserved it, and I feel sure that it was the right thing. A psychological pun- ishment is so much better than a scolding or a whipping. And Charles realized what it meant ; did you see his dear puzzled little face take on contrition as he began to understand my meaning? Mother says that he is a hard child to manage, but I don't see why. He re- sponds so readily to an appeal to his reason."
There was a sound in the upper hall. From the bathroom door floated down the voice of the Kid: —
" Missus," he called ; " hey, Missus 1 There ain't no soap in here."
CHAPTER V
THE "IDGIT"
THERE were two newspapers in Au- burn. The "Transcript" was one of the oldest newspapers in the middle West, and it well upheld the dignity of its years. It was Republican as to politics, conservative as to opinion, and inclined to Methodism as to religion. It prided itself upon the fact that in the fifty years of its existence it had never changed its politics or its make- up, and had never advanced its subscription price or a new theory. It represented Auburn in being slow, substantial, and self-satisfied.
The "Ledger" was a new arrival in Au- burn, and had not yet proved its right to live. It had a flippant tone that barred its entrance to the best families, and Auburn had never given it the official sanction that would insure its permanent success. The difference in the spirit of the two papers might be seen by a glance down the personal columns of each.
82 HOME FROM COLLEGE
The " Transcript " was wont to state in digni- fied terms that "Joseph Slater departed yes- terday for Jamestown," The " Ledger" would announce flippantly, "Joe Slater went to Jim- town yesterday. What 's up, Joe ? " This was spicy, all Auburn agreed, but it savored of vulgarity, and the old residents clung to their old paper, in spite of the fact that the new sheet was enterprising, clean, and up-to-date. The " Ledger" catered to advertisements ; the "Transcript" paid special attention to the obituary column. And the citizens of Auburn subscribed to the "Transcript," and borrowed the "Ledger."
On the morning of the sixteenth of July the " Transcript " contained two items more than the "Ledger." The first of these was headed:
AUBURN AUTHORESS!
Miss Btadfae Hues of thk city coatribotes some foes «fto& &eck*& d littk M*rih* Johnson
Dwest parents, from ib* Hwrens Corks tki$Tft*jss^t»totb*6, — r>o not w*ep ivt Ettfe Mattfcs Thou Art not so gt*d 4s *W
THE "IDGIT" 83
There were six Johnson children Living on the fruits of heaven. But the winged angels asked for Still another, which made seven, —
And they held out beckoning fingers, Saying, " Little Mattie, come ! " In a dainty old-rose casket Little Mattie was took home.
There is no hearth, however tended, But one dead lamb is there ; And Martha will be greatly missed For one who was so small and spare.
But in the crystal, opal heavens, Clustering near the golden gate, Her and all the other Johnsons For her family sit and wait.
Cheer up, mother, sister, brothers, And the pastor of her church, For though Martha 's joined the angels, She leaves none in the lurch.
The other item was not poetic. It was in the advertisement column, and read : —
Wanted : immediately. A good cook. Must be neat, willing, honest, and experienced. No laundry work. Re- ferences required. Only competent workers need apply. Address X. Y. Z., this office.
84 HOME FROM COLLEGE
11 1 saw your advertisement in the paper this morning," said Miss Bates, stopping at the doctor's gate in the early evening.
Barbara sat on the porch step, her bright head drooped upon the vine-covered railing. It had been sweeping-day, and the unused muscles of her back were protesting against their unaccustomed exercise. Perhaps it was weariness that sent the querulous note into her voice.
" How did you know it was mine?" M Why, I happened to meet David on the way to the • Transcript ' office this morning. 1 knew that Ellen left you several days ago, no I put two and two together. Besides, my dear, I would have known for other reasons. The advertisement showed that it was written by an Inexperienced housekeeper." 11 How?" asked Barbara. 11 Nobody ever advertises for help in Au- burn* Newsjmpers aren't much good for tlwt. U you want a girl, all you have to do U to spread the news among your acquaint-
MIC**,"
THE "IDGIT" 85
" That is n't hard, with you to help," mut- tered Gassy, from the step above.
"What's that, Cecilia? Oh, I thought you spoke to me. — And they will be on the out- look for you. It is much cheaper than adver- tising. How are you getting along without Ellen?"
Barbara thought of the half-done potatoes, the broken water-pitcher, and the soda-less biscuits that had been incidents of the day. But she was in no humor for a confession to Miss Bates.
" Pretty well," she said.
"That's good. You know so litde about housework, Barbara, that I would n't have been surprised if you were missing her. Not that you 're to blame for that Lots of people set a college education above home training, nowadays. Just about noon to-day I smelled something burning, and I said to myself, * There goes Barbara Grafton's dinner.' But of course it might have come from some other kitchen. The wind came straight this way, though."
86 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" Yes ? " said Barbara, wearily.
" Is it true that you 've turned vegetarian ? I was at the butcher's this morning, and Jack came in and got a steak. I knew that your pa is away, but I thought that one steak would n't do for your family. I happened to mention it to the butcher, and he said that your meat orders were falling off lately. So I just wondered if you had given up eating meat."
A long, thin arm, extended from the step above, thrust Barbara vigorously in the side. In the dusk the action was hidden from the visitor, but Barbara knew well its purport She was being enjoined to tell nothing to Miss Bates.
" Our appetites for meat seem to be falling off this hot weather," she returned guard- edly.
" Of course it *s a lot cheaper to live that way," said the visitor. " Saves cooking, too. And you won't have time to do much cook- ing if all these reports I hear of your starting a benevolent society are true."
THE "IDGIT" 87
There was no response from Barbara.
"If you're thinking of going into club- work, you 'd better join our lodge, — the An- cient Neighbors. Maybe you 'd be elected to office. Mrs. Beebe, the old Royal Ranger, resigned three months ago, and Miss Homer, the new one, ain't giving satisfaction. She don't seem to be capable of learning the rit- ual. She got the meeting open last night, and forgot what came next, and had to send for Mrs. Beebe to get it shut If you have any memory for rituals, Barbara, maybe I could get you in for office."
Barbara murmured her thanks. " I have n't much time for club-work, though, now," she said.
" I have," said a small voice. Gass/s fist, inclosing an imaginary missile, shook in the direction of the unconscious visitor.
" I expect that your literary work takes up most of your time."
Barbara caught her breath sharply. How much had that dreadful woman heard ?
" Of course you may not be writing, but
88 HOME FROM COLLEGE
I have had my suspicions about it, since I met you with that fat envelope with the Cen- tury Company's stamp, a week ago. I knew that you had done a bit of writing at school, and I put two and two together, and said to myself, ' Barbara Grafton 's gone to writing.' I could n't help wondering if the ' Century ' had taken it, or sent it back. Of course, being an author myself, I 'm always interested in budding genius. What is it, Barbara, poetry or fiction ? "
Out of the shadow of the porch vines came Gassy's sharp litde voice. "Jack cut your poetry out of the paper this morning, Miss Bates," she said.
"Did he?" said Miss Bates, delightedly. " I did n't know Jack was so appreciative as that I 'm afraid the poetry was n't as good as some I have written. But I felt it — every word of it — when I wrote it. And I suppose Jack liked its tone of sincerity. That is my highest ambition : not to win fame or money, but to be cut out and carried in the vest- pocket."
THE "IDGIT" 89
" He said," giggled Gassy, from behind the vines, " that he could n't have the sanctity of the home invadedf,, — the imitation of Jack's inflection was perfect, — "an' that he would n't suffer our minds, — David's and mine, he meant, — to be c'rrupted, so he cut it out; but I think he sent it to mother. We al- ways save all the funny things for her, to cheer her up, now she 's sick."
The darkness hid the terrible expression upon Miss Bates's face, but it did not conceal the frigidity of her tones as she took her elbows from the doctor's gate. " Your sister 's got a job in giving you some of her college culture, Gassy Grafton," she said to the small fold of light gingham which showed along- side the vine-clad porch post She looked back over her shoulder to fire her last volley of ammunition.
" I hope it will amuse your mother," she said. " If you 'd all been a litde less selfish about using her like a hack-horse when she was at home, you would n't have to be send- ing jokes to her at a sanitarium, now."
90 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" What on earth did you tell her that for ? " asked Barbara, as Miss Bates swept around the corner.
" She deserved it. She need n't pick on you ! "
" But you can't give people all they deserve, in this world, litde sister."
" No, not always," said Gassy. " But I always do when I can."
Miss Bates's opinion about the value of newspaper advertising seemed to be well . founded. A week passed without an appli- cant for the vacant position in the Grafton kitchen. Barbara grew tired and cross and discouraged. The weather turned hot, and the sunny kitchen on the east side of the house seemed to harbor all the humidity of the day. The nurse at the sanitarium wrote that Mrs. Grafton was not improving as rapidly as she could wish. David's hay fever began, and he went wheezing around the house in a state of discomfort that wrung Barbara's sympathetic heart. The writing and
I
THE "IDGIT" 91
the precious study-hour had to be abandoned. So it was with a feeling of relief that the over- worked girl saw a strange woman come through the office gate one morning. The newcomer was not at all prepossessing. Hair, eyes, and skin were of the uncertain whity- yellow of a peeled banana. Her shirt-waist bloused in the back as well as the front, and she had yet to learn the aesthetic value of sufficient petticoats. She stared . uncertainly at Barbara as the latter opened the side door.
"Did you wish to see any one?" asked Barbara, after a painful silence. -
" Yes, mam," said the girl.
" Whom do you want?"
There was another long pause, during which the girl shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Then she said, " The lady, mam."
41 Did you come to inquire about a posi- tion?"
The young woman evidently concentrated her energy upon the question. Her mind moved so slowly and jerkily that Barbara, watching the process, was reminded of the
92 HOME FROM COLLEGE
working of an ouija board. She would not have been surprised to hear the girl squeak. Bat the query was beyond the newcomer. It was plain that vernacular must be tried.
44 Do you want a place ? "
The girl brightened a shade. 44 Yes, mam."
44 Can you cook ? "
44 No, mam."
44 Wait upon the table ? "
44 No, mam."
44 Sweep and dust? "
44 No, mam."
44 Can't you bake at all ? "
44 No, mam."
44 Have you never cooked ? "
44 No, mam."
44 Well, what can you do? "
The whity-yellow girl brightened again. It was evident that this time she was to vary her reply.
44 1 kin milk, mam."
Two hours later, Jack surveyed the new ac- quisition through the porch window. '4 1 see
THE "IDGIT" 93
we have an Angel of the House," he said to Barbara, who had stretched her weary length in the hammock. " How came she here ? "
" She just blew in."
" In answer to your advertisement ? "
" No, she had never seen it"
Jack took another critical look through the window. "She doesn't give the impression of being overweighted with intelligence. And she 's certainly not beautiful. Has her color run in the wash, or was she always of that gende hue ? But appearances must be deceit- ful ; she 's a paragon of cleverness, if she fills the bill for you. I suppose she is a wonderful cook?"
Barbara shook her head.
"Neat?"
"She doesn't look so."
"Well, willing?"
" I have n't discovered yet"
" Honest, anyway? "
" I don't know anything about her morals."
Jack assumed a momentary air of distress. Then he drew a long sigh of relief as he re-
94 HOME FROM COLLEGE
marked, "Well, I know she's experienced You said no others need apply ! "
The hammock's motion stopped, and Bar- bara lay ominously silent for a minute. Then the pent-up feeling of the past week burst forth in her reply : —
" John Grafton, I don't know one earthly thing about that girl ! She 's done farm-work all her life. She does n't know how to cook. She never heard of rice or celery. She never has seen a refrigerator ! She 's afraid of the gas- stove. She would n't know what I meant if I asked her about references. She can't do anything but milk. She is n't one single thing that I advertised for, or hoped for, or wanted I But maybe she can learn. And I 'm so tired, and hot, and discouraged, and I 've spoiled so many things ! "
And for once in his life Jack understood, and forbore.
" I ' ve seen a good many kinds of imbecil- ity in my life," said Jack, a week later. "But never one to equal hers.
THE "IDGIT" 95
She is willing, she is active, She is sober, she is kind, But she never looks attractive, And she hasn't any mind.
She was born stupid, achieved stupidness, and had stupidity thrust upon her, — all three. I found her pouring water on the gas-stove to put out the burner, the other day. She '11 have us all gas-fixiated, if we don't watch out."
"That was several days ago," laughed Barbara. " She 's developed a stage beyond that, now. In fact, she 's devoted to the gas- stove. I can hardly prevail upon her to turn it off at all. She announced to me yesterday that it was the handiest thing she ever saw, — that you 'only had to light it once a day, and fire all the time.' Think what our gas-bill is likely to be under her tender ministrations ! "
"Her awe of it is evidently great," said Jack. " She asked Gassy this morning if she was named after the stove. ' I don't wonder they named you that/ she said; 'I ain't never seen nothing like it W'y, if I wuz to
96 HOME FROM COLLEGE
go home and tell 'em I turned on a spit, and there wuz the fire, they 'd say I wuz a liar!'"
"She's an idgit!" ejaculated Gassy; "a born idgit ! "
Gassy' s epithet clung. It was used by the family with bated breath and apprehensive glance, but still it was used. No other tide seemed appropriate after that was once heard, and her Christian name sank into obliv- ion from disuse. It was never employed ex- cept in her presence. And the Idgit certainly earned her title. She put onions in the rice- pudding; she melted the base off of the silver teapot by setting it on the stove ; she cut up potatoes peeling and all, for creamed pota- toes, explaining that " some liked 'em skinned, an' some did n't" ; she left the receiver of the telephone hanging by its cord for hours, until the doctor's patients were desperate, and so many complaints poured in at the central office that a man was sent to repair damages ; she turned the hose on the walls and floor of the kitchen to facilitate scrubbing, until the
THE "IDGIT" 97
whole room was deluged, and overflowed like the Johnstown flood ; she answered the door- bell by calling through the dining-room and the front hall that "no one's to home" ; she put the bread sponge in the oven of the range, and then built a fire above it to "raise it quick" (the oven was full of burned paste before Barbara discovered the time-saving device); she ladled the gold-fish out of the aquarium to feed them, and left the four red, dead litde corpses on the library mantel. "They're too pretty to sling out," she said.
Barbara wavered between exasperation and amusement during the twenty-four hours of the day. " I don't know what I 'm going to do with her," she confided to her father one even- ing. " I thought that intelligence was a part of the make-up of every human being ; but Addie either has no place for it in her iden- tity, or else the place that is there is empty. I gave her a recipe yesterday, — how she ever learned to read is beyond my comprehension, — that called for ' six eggs beaten separately/ Addie emptied one from its shell, beat it,
98 HOME FROM COLLEGE
emptied another, beat that, and followed the same proceeding with the whole six."
"I can tell something funnier than that," said Dr. Grafton. "I telephoned over here from the livery stable this afternoon, and asked Addie to 'hold the phone' until I could read a message to her. Central rang off before I could read it, and then I could n't get connections again. So I came over home to give it to her, twenty minutes later, and found her obediently still holding the re- ceiver."
"The last teller of tales has the best chance," chuckled Jack. " What message did you give the Idgit to give Miss Bates when she called here yesterday ? "
Barbara considered. "That I was in, but that I was engaged, I think," she said finally.
"She gave it, all right I She told Miss Bates that you were at home, but that you were going to be married. Thanks to Miss Bates's activity and interest, the report is widely circulated throughout Auburn."
Barbara groaned.
THE "IDGIT" 99
"Don't worry over it," said her father. " The fact that Miss Bates is standing sponsor for the story will destroy its danger."
"Oh, I'm not worrying about that," re- sponded Barbara. " What is the report of my betrothal to an unknown, and therefore harm- less, man, as compared with the problem of the Idgit? I don't want her, I can't keep her, and yet how am I to got rid of her? "
" Maybe she '11 leave ; she told me her family wanted her back," said Gassy, hopefully.
"I can't see what for," said Barbara, "un- less it is to kill chickens. That is the one thing she has done without blunder or assistance, since she stepped over our threshold. And unless Addie's family are given over wholly to a diet of fowl, I fail to see how she could be of any use to them."
But relief from the Idgit came sooner than was expected. In the middle of an afternoon of canning raspberries, Mrs. Willowby came to inquire about Mrs. Grafton's health. Bar- bara slipped off her berry-stained apron, sighed over the fruit-stained nails that no
103944K
ioo HOME FROM COLLEGE
amount of manicuring would whiten, and dabbed some powder on her shiny face. Then she went into the living-room to greet her guest.
Mrs. Willowby was one of the few residents who reconciled Barbara to Auburn. Refine- ment was her birthright, and in her gentle voice, simple manner, and fine breeding were combined all the aristocracy of old Auburn, and none of its pettiness ; all the progress of new Auburn, and none of its crudeness. The miseries of kitchen-work were forgotten, as the two dropped into the dear familiar talk of the college world, that partook of neither ser- vants nor weather, recipes nor house-cleaning.
" It *s a hundred years since I have talked Matthew Arnold with any one," sighed Bar- bara. " No, perhaps two months would be nearer the truth. But it seems like a hundred years."
"Why dotit you?" asked Mrs. Willowby.
" Just now, I haven't time," said Barbara ; " but if I had all the time in the world, there would n't be any one to talk to."
THE "IDGIT" 101
" Why not your father and mother ?"
" Father and mother! Why, father does n't know poetry, — except Riley and Bret Harte ; and mother does n't care for it."
Mrs. Willowby's sweet brown eyes twin- kled. " You 're joking with me, Barbara."
" No, I 'm in earnest."
"You dear little girl! Are you such a stranger to your own home people ? I don't be- lieve that Matthew Arnold ever wrote anything that your mother does n't know. Where she gets time, with all her multitudinous duties, to love Shelley, and live Browning, and keep abreast of Stephen Phillips and Yeats, I don't see ; but she does it, somehow. She is one of the few true poetry-lovers I know. As for your father, I have heard him quote Riley and Harte to you children, because, I always sup- posed, he thought you could understand them. But he himself does n't stop there. He is n't so widely read as your mother, but the old poets he has made his own. He knows his yellow Shakespeare from cover to cover. How have you ever lived in the same house with
102 HOME FROM COLLEGE
them and yet been such a stranger? Your father and mother, dear, are the cultivated people of Auburn."
Surprise was written strongly on every fea- ture of Barbara's face,
" That 's the trouble with college life. You young people never get the opportunity to know your own families, nowadays. At the time when you are just beginning to be old enough to appreciate your parents, you are sent away. Then you go to work, or marry, and leave home without knowing the real wealth that often lies at your own doors. Did you ever read Emerson's ' Days 9 ? "
Barbara shook her head. Mrs. Willowby turned to the open book-shelves, and took down a shabby green volume. " It has your mother's own marks," she said, as she turned to the page, where a lead pencil had traced a delicate line about the words, —
" Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
THE "IDGIT" 103
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn."
There was a moment's pause after the stately lines were finished.
"I understand," said Barbara, finding her voice. "But I never knew, — before. It is true, Mrs. Willowby, about losing some things by college life. I 'm beginning to think that there are lots of things to be learned at home."
The gende brown eyes smiled at the new tone of humility. " My dear litde girl," began Mrs. Willowby, " if you have discovered that, you have learned the very thing for which you were sent to college. The most important lessons in the word are not learned from text- books, and all — Goodness, Barbara, what on earth was that ? "
Somewhere from the back regions of the house had come the sound of a mighty explo-
104 HOME FROM COLLEGE
sion. It was followed by the sound of break- ing glass, and a shrill shriek.
"The Idgit!" breathed Barbara. The Em- erson slid to the floor, and the hostess and guest rushed to the kitchen.
In the middle of the floor sat the Idgit, a whity-yellow island in a sea of raspberry juice and broken glass. From the oven of the gas-stove came a volume of flame and smoke. The stove-lids lay on the floor, and the kitchen was full of flying flecks of soot Bar- bara rushed to the stove, and turned off the burners, one by one. Then she lifted the hud- dled heap from the floor.
"What is the matter, Addie?" she asked.
The ouija board in the Idgit's brain was unusually stubborn and unmanageable. It was fully three minutes before anything in- telligible came from her lips. Then the inar- ticulate sounds resolved themselves into the words, "Oh, gol, mam ! "
"What happened?"
" I dunno, mam."
"What did you do to the stove ? "
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR SAT THE IDGIT
THE "IDGIT" 105
" I dunno, mam."
" Did you light it ? How did the burners come to be turned on? "
" I was cleaning the stove, mam. I must 'a' turned 'em on when I washed the knobs."
"Then did you light it?"
" No, mam. I left it to cany the fruit down cellar ; an' I lit a match to see by."
"Oh!" said Barbara.
For the first and last time in her career the Idgit uttered a voluntary sentence. " I 'm going to quit to-night Gol I that gas-stove I "
CHAPTER VI
THE DUCHESS
IT was eleven o'clock in the morning, and Barbara threw herself into the hammock on the porch, every nerve in her body tingling with fatigue. In a chair near by sat the Kid, driving imaginary horses along Main Street, and politely removing his hat to every one he met on the way. He inquired whether Barbara desired to ride on the front seat with him, but she was so tired that she scarcely answered the little boy, and wearily closed her eyes to avoid seeing David's book and Jack's racket lying on the piazza floor. She felt that to rise from the hammock and pick up that racket was a task requiring the strength and energy of a Titan.
She was gradually succumbing to the influ- ence of the swaying hammock, and the tension of her nerves was relaxing, so that the sudden stampede of the horses on the porch was
THE DUCHESS 107
dimly associated in her mind with thunder, when she felt a sudden touch on her shoulder, and opened her eyes to see the Kid standing near.
"There's a lady at the gate, Barb'ra," he said.
Barbara peered over the edge of the ham- mock. Coming up the path, with a stately stride and a majestic swing that allowed her skirts to sweep first one edge of the path and then the other, advanced a Being whose pre- sence immediately inspired Barbara with a sense of approaching royalty. It was not that the visitor was fashionably attired, for her faded black garments and dejected-looking bonnet, even in their palmiest days, could not have been called stylish. Yet, resting in seren- ity upon the thin, tall form of their wearer, they seemed calmly self-satisfied and distin- guished. As the visitor approached, she shed kindly critical and affable glances about her, and rewarded Barbara's inquiring gaze with a cheerful smile.
"You're Barbara Grafton, I s'pose," she
108 HOME FROM COLLEGE
said in a brisk voice. "I'm Mrs. 'Arris, an1 I 've come to 'elp you hout."
Barbara sat up quickly. " Oh ! " she said. "Do you wish a position as cook here ?"
Mrs. Harris's eyes rested upon her with amiable condescension. " I come to 'elp you hout," she repeated. " I 'm Mrs. Brown's wid- der sister, and when she told me as 'ow you was left alone and the 'ouse agoin' to rack and ruin — "
Barbara suddenly stiffened in the hammock.
"Why, she says to me, she says, ' 'Ilda, I'm awful fond of Dr. Grafton, an' I can't let 'im starve without proper care while 'is wife's gone. Now you jest put on your things an' go up there an' 'elp hout.' So I come," concluded Mrs. Harris, composedly ; and she sat down.
The Kid drew nearer, and stared at her from under his mass of tawny hair. "You goin' to stay here ? " he inquired.
"Yes, of course," answered Mrs. Harris, with a sweeping glance at the little fellow, that took in the holes in the knees of his stock- ings.
H
O
X
O
W
o
H
«
O
K
<
* * <
THE DUCHESS 109
"Then please get out o' that chair/9 said the Kid, prompdy. " It 's my black Arabian horse."
" Charles ! " cried Barbara.
"You take another chair, or play some- wheres else,,, said Mrs. Harris, calmly. " Run- nin' wild sence 'is mother left, I s'pose," she remarked, turning to Barbara.
Barbara choked back her astonished resent- ment at this speech, and returned to the sub- ject at hand.
" It may be that you will not suit," she said coldly, rising. " Can you cook well, and do you understand gas-ranges ? "
Mrs. Harris laughed complacendy, eyeing the slender girl before her with amused con- descension. "I 'ave cooked for the finest families o' Hengland," she announced. " I '11 setde with your father about wages. Now you jest show me the kitchen, an' then I '11 let you go, as I see this porch ain't tidy, an' that there child needs to be attended to, an' prob- ably the rest o' the 'ouse wants cleanin'."
The Kid slunk off the porch as the words
no HOME FROM COLLEGE
" needs to be attended to " pierced his small cranium. He thought it meant chastisement for his last speech, poor child, and saw, with joy, Barbara following this new and surprising person into the house. In Barbara's mind a sense of resentment and defeat was conflicting with a feeling of relief at the prospect of help. She rejoiced to herself as they passed through the hall, for she had just swept it with her own hands.
"Dreadful dusty mopboards," said Mrs, Harris, nonchalantly. Barbara's spirits sank.
As they entered the kitchen, she suddenly remembered that she had left some dishes piled in the sink, to be washed with the dinner things. In her absence, moreover, some hungry boy had been rummaging in the cake-box, and had left crumbs and morsels of food scattered over the table. Mrs. Harris paused on the threshold, and untied her bon- net, while her roving black eyes quickly took in the scene before her. Clean enough it had seemed to Barbara an hour before, but now many things, hitherto unnoticed, suddenly
THE DUCHESS in
sprang into prominence. She saw that the white sash-curtain at the window was disrep- utably dirty ; that the stove was actually rusty on top; that cobwebs lurked in the corners; and she remembered, with a pang, that the ice- box had not been cleaned since her mother left.
"My I" ejaculated Mrs. Harris. "Well, I'll get dinner first, then I '11 tackle this lookin' room. You set the table, Barbara, — ain't that your name? — an* I'll do the cookin\ What meat 'ave you ordered? "
"None," answered Barbara; "I don't ap- prove of eating meat, and have not allowed the children to have any for some time. Fa- ther has been taking his dinners down-town lately."
" Land alive ! " ejaculated Mrs. Harris, turn- ing shocked eyes upon Barbara. " The poor children! An* your paw, — druv from 'is 'ome! Well! You jest go to the telephone, an' horder a good piece of steak before it 's too late."
" I prefer not to have meat," said Barbara,
stiffly.
ii2 HOME FROM COLLEGE
Mrs. Harris's face settled into stubborn lines. " I 've never 'eard of anything so fool- ish," she declared. "Growin' children need meat, an* you run right along an* horder that steak."
It was at this point that Barbara's sense of diplomacy came to her aid. This woman had indeed forced herself into the kitchen, but she was very welcome, nevertheless. She must not prejudice her at the outset, but must gradually accustom Mrs. Harris to her views. Barbara turned away to the telephone. Immediately Mrs. Harris's manner changed, and she be- came affable again as she bustled capably about the kitchen, and assigned small jobs to her young mistress.
"Hello I" cried Jack, joyfully, as he took his seat in his father's place, and viewed the well-cooked steak. "Is the embargo off? Is this a carving-knife that I see before me? Why, Barbara! Didst do this thyself, lass?"
" Jack," said Barbara, nervously, " I have engaged a new maid and -?- "
THE DUCHESS 113
A decided voice from the kitchen inter- rupted her.
" Barbara, you come an* git the bread. I 'm busy."
The children seated around the table stared at one another.
" Whew I " whispered Jack to Gassy ; " now, by my halidame, there goes Barbara. Is Pe- truchio in the kitchen?"
Barbara reentered with scarlet cheeks. There was something in her manner which warned even the Kid not to comment The meal began in absolute silence, another cause of which may have been the perfectly cooked dinner, which descended like manna into the loyal but empty stomachs of the Grafton off- spring. The Kid ate his steak voraciously, and eagerly extended his plate for more.
" See 'ow 'e 's ben pinin,>" remarked a voice from the open doorway.
The children started, and looking up, for the first time saw the dignified figure of Mrs. Harris surveying them with a condescendingly satisfied gaze. " These are all the children, I
ii4 HOME FROM COLLEGE
s'pose, Barbara. Well, now, there's a nice rice puddin' for dessert, an' then you an* that little girl can 'elp me clear away to-day, 'cause there 's so much to do to clean up this 'ouse."
" I don't want any pudding," declared Jack, in haste, longing to get away to some nook where he could laugh unseen.
" Set right where you are," said Mrs. Har- ris, calmly. "You don't get no more to eat till supper, so you 'd better fill up now."
Jack gasped and obeyed.
Even when dinner was over, and the dishes washed with the surprised help of a subdued Gassy, there was no diminution of Mrs. Har- ris's energy. She cleaned the kitchen thor- oughly; she scrubbed the bath-room; she charged upon the children's rooms, and the dust and dirt retreated in confusion before her vigorous onslaught She accompanied the performances with a running fire of ejacu- latory comment Barbara, with set lips, kept just behind her, and followed directions with an injured determination to die in her tracks before giving up.
THE DUCHESS 115
" I am glad to have such capable help," she said, observing Jack in the next room.
"'Eh?" returned Mrs. Harris, looking up from her dustpan. "Wish I could say the samel But never mind, you'll learn in time, I dare say. O* course you've ben in school an' can't be expected to know much yet"
Barbara heard a chuckle and subdued ap- plause from the next room.
"Who's that?" inquired Mrs. Harris, ab- rupdy. " Oh, it 's your brother. I was lookin' for'im. What's 'is name? Jack? Well, Jack, you jest take these rugs out to the back yard an' beat 'em a litde. They need it"
Jack advanced, hesitating. " I don't know how to beat rugs," he muttered.
" Well, I '11 show you," said Mrs. Harris, serenely. " Lend a hand with this big one."
Barbara surveyed with joy the sullen droop of Jack's back, as he followed his instructor down the hall.
" Let well enough alone," she called imper- sonally.
n6 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" Don't you do it ! " exclaimed Mrs. Harris. " You beat 'em thorough."
" I think we won't do any more," declared Barbara to Mrs. Harris, as the clock struck four. "We have been at this all the afternoon, and I '11 let you leave Jack's room until to- morrow. We have done enough for to-day."
Mrs. Harris put her hands on her hips and surveyed Barbara quizzically. "Well, you ain't used to work, be you ? " she said. " Tired, I s'pose."
Barbara's face flushed. She was so weary that she lost the dignity to which she had been clinging desperately all day.
" Yes, I am tired I " she burst out " I worked all the morning before you came. Besides, it *s absurd to fly around like this, trying to do everything at once. My time is too valu- able to waste so much of it upon such things as these."
A queer expression setded upon the fea- tures of Mrs. Harris. She looked amused, in- dulgent, and vastly superior.
" Your time too valuable? " she said slowly
THE DUCHESS 117
and calmly ; "your time too valuable ? Well, young lady, I don't know jest what things you 've got to do besides taking care of your brothers and your sister, but I reckon there ain't nothing better."
Barbara drew a long breath of anger and walked away.
"It would n't be so bad," she said ruefully to her father, a few days later, " if only she did n't assume all the powers and prerogatives of a sovereign. But she has actually reduced the children to the most subdued state you can imagine. Jack never ravages the pantry now, since Mrs. Harris caught him that first afternoon, and asked him kindly if he would mind leaving enough for the rest of us. Even Gassy never answers her saucily, and David goes about the house like a crushed piece of nothing. And yet she isn't a bit cross or unkind. It's something in her manner that admits of no disputation. Jack has named her the Duchess, and it just suits her."
The Doctor laughed. "You mustn't allow
n8 HOME FROM COLLEGE
yourself to be so easily impressed, my dear," he said. " I notice, however, that she takes a great deal of responsibility off your hands, and that ought to reconcile you to any draw- backs. I have just sent word to Mrs. Harris to have dinner at one instead of twelve, as I shall be busy at the office, and can't get away so soon."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when they saw David returning down the hall in haste, followed by a tall figure ad- vancing with majestic tread. The doctor coughed uneasily.
" Dr. Grafton I " proclaimed the Duchess ; " David says as 'ow you wants the dinner put off till one!"
There was an accent of such injury in her voice that the Doctor found himself saying hastily : —
" Why, yes, Mrs. Harris, I did send that message, but — "
" I thought it best to tell you as 'ow it can't be done," replied the Duchess, with finality, turning to depart
THE DUCHESS 119
Dr. Grafton caught the smile on Barbara's face.
" What 's that ? " he said peremptorily ; " can't be done ? Why not ? "
The Duchess turned back with surprise written in her large, serene countenance, " Why not? Why not ? " she repeated. " Why, because it ain't convenient to change, sir."
Dr. Grafton found himself following her down the hall. "I'm going to be very busy and can't get away," he said apologetically. " Perhaps half-past twelve — "
The Duchess turned again, and contem- plated him calmly. " Any reason why the rest must wait for you?" she inquired with up- lifted eyebrows.
" Why, no," said the Doctor.
"Well, then," answered the Duchess, " come any time you want You '11 find your dinner kep' nice an' warm on a plate in the oven."
Dr. Grafton meekly returned to the living- room, to find his daughter considerately averting her face from him. His hearty laugh
120 HOME FROM COLLEGE
brought her back to his side. He threw him- self on the couch by the window.
" Well, I give up I " he announced. " Was there ever such a martinet I "
Barbara laughed with him, but her face quickly sobered. " I really don't think I shall stand it much longer," she said. "She has absolutely no regard for my ideas, and pays no attention to any orders or requests. She even tells me what she * desires ' for meals."
"They are very good meals," put in the Doctor, hastily. His mind reviewed the gas- tronomic comforts of the last few days, and the uncertainty and scantiness of those meals before the arrival of the Duchess.
"Don't give Mrs. Harris up, my dear," he said, as he rose to depart "You are forgetting the state of things before she came, just as it is hard to remember the tooth- ache when it has finally succumbed to treat- ment"
A drawling voice from the library broke the ensuing silence.
" ' It feels so] nice when it stops aching/ "
THE DUCHESS 121
quoted Jack. " Remember those green-apple pies, Miss Babbie ? "
" Remember those rugs that you beat so happily ? " retorted Barbara.
" Well, I am going to try to accustom the Duchess gradually to those regulations which are necessary ; and if she won't fall into line, she can — "
"Fall out!" said Jack, prompdy. "Only in that case, my dear, you will not find the poet truthful in those charming lines, —
The falling out of faithful friends Renewing is of love.
You will find it a renewal of — Idgits, I'm thinking."
But it was another week before the clash came. A few preliminary skirmishes marked the passage of time, but Barbara might have . overthrown theories and plans, however "ne- cessary," if matters had not been precipitated by a morning visitor.
"I just thought I'd drop in," said Miss Bates, coming up to the porch where Barbara was sitting shelling peas and Gassy was read-
122 HOME FROM COLLEGE
ing. " I wanted to see how you were getting on. Where you goin', Gassy?"
"To read where people aren't talking," answered the little girl as she left the porch.
Miss Bates shook her head sorrowfully. "It's awful to see how those children act without their mama," she said. " I don't like to com- plain, Barbara, but Cecilia's conduct to me is almost beyond parallel I An' Charles called me a real naughty name yesterday, when I took his toy reins off of my gate-posts."
"I'm sorry," said Barbara, mechanically, putting some peas in with the pods. " I '11 speak to Charles — "
She was interrupted by the voice of one who called with authority, " Barbara, ain't them peas done? It's time to put them on."
Barbara excused herself, and carried in the dish. When she returned, with flaming cheeks, Miss Bates was watching for her with open curiosity.
" I heard you quarreling about the pota- toes," she said. " They say you're completely changed now, an' that you have n't the say
THE DUCHESS 123
about anything any more, since that English- woman came ; but I did n't believe it until I heard you give up about havm' the potatoes mashed."
They had forgotten the presence of David, who had been reading in a corner of the porch all morning.
" You always have your say about every- thing, don't you ? " he inquired dreamily. " I wonder how you know so many things people say. Barbara never does."
"I must go," said Miss Bates, rising ab- ruptly. "Barbara, since things are all took off your hands, why don't you spend some time teaching them children manners ? "
Barbara ate her appetizing dinner in almost complete silence. The comfort of sitting down to a well-set table and of staying there throughout the meal, without rising half a hundred times for forgotten articles, had no power to soothe her injured feelings. So all Auburn was talking about her, and calling her incompetent, and imposed upon by a woman who was only a kitchen " help " I It was in-
124 HOME FROM COLLEGE
tolerable, and she would endure it no longer. She would take the initiative, and once for all convince Mrs. Harris of the necessity of subordination.
After dinner, Barbara wiped the dishes, a task which Mrs. Harris exacted on ironing- day. Her resentful silence was lost entirely on the Duchess, whose good-humor was almost startlingly displayed in conversation.
"I've ben hironin' like a fiend to-day," she said in a self-satisfied tone, " an* there '11 be plenty o* time this afternoon to finish, an' to put up them tomatoes as 'as ben wait- ing to be put up. You '11 'ave to 'elp, Barbara, if we 're to get them done in time."
" That will be impossible, I *m afraid," said Barbara, endeavoring to keep her voice calm. " Susan Hunt is coming over this afternoon for a lesson."
" Oh, well, put 'er off," replied the Duchess.
Barbara moved uneasily. " No," she an- swered steadily. " I don't wish to put her off. The tomatoes can be put up to-morrow."
" Them tomatoes is just right now, an' it *s
THE DUCHESS 125
so warm, lots o' them will spoil afore mornin'," the Duchess answered, the smile dying out of her face. " Go to the telephone, Barbara, an* tell that 'Unt girl she can't come. She 's ben runnin' 'ere enough lately, an' I can't get through them tomatoes alone."
For a moment Barbara wavered. Insuffer- able as she felt this dictation to be, she thought of the comfort and order of the house, and her heart sank at the thought of losing them. Then Miss Bates's words suddenly came back to her: "You haven't the say about anything any more; they say you're com- pletely changed."
She turned on the unsuspecting Duchess. " Mrs. Harris," she said determinedly, " you ordered those tomatoes yesterday, when I had decided that it was best not to have them until later, because of the ironing. Now you want to put them up when it is inconvenient to me to do so, because you have them on your hands, and they may spoil. I cannot help you this afternoon. If you cannot attend to them alone, let them go until to-morrow, when I
126 HOME FROM COLLEGE
shall be at leisure. We shall simply have to throw away those tomatoes which are not good."
Auburn should have seen the expression of the Duchess. Good-humor gave way to sur- prise, which was succeeded by disapproval, in turn to be routed by annoyance. It was not until the last sentence that a Jove-like rage sat upon her reddening countenance.
"You wotit do them tomatoes?" she in- quired in a queer voice.
" No," said Barbara.
"You'll let 'em spoil?" incredulously.
" Yes, if necessary." ,
Mrs. Harris stopped ironing. She reached out a strong brown hand, and turned out the gas under the irons. She unrolled the sleeves of her brown calico dress. Then she turned slowly toward her resolute mistress.
" Barbara Grafton," she said with an awful calmness of manner, " you 're an ungrateful, 'ard-'eaded girl, an' I 'm sorry for your family. I come 'ere to 'elp you hout in your trouble, — I ain't no common 'elp, — an' you flies in my
THE DUCHESS 127
face whenever you can, an' goes agin me every chanct you get What does I do about that? Nothin'. You try to make me spend my time in frills, an' fussin' over things as the finest families in Hengland never 'as. What does I do ? Nothin\ I goes on my way an' swallers insults from a chit of a girl. I seen lots o' things sence I come which 'urt my sensitive disposition, but I passes 'em by. Now it comes to tomatoes, an' I guess we '11 part. You 're an ungrateful girl, an' I washes my hands of you."
Mrs. Harris crossed over to the sink, and solemnly washed and wiped her hands. Then she put on her faded black bonnet, which always hung by its rusty strings from a hook behind the door. She stood a minute, on the threshold, and looked at Barbara in Olym- pic sorrow.
" Onct more," she said almost entreatingly, "will you 'elp with them tomatoes?"
" No," said Barbara.
The screen-door banged loudly. Barbara was alone again.
CHAPTER VII
"THE FALLING OUT OF FAITHFUL FRIENDS "
THE Kid stamped loudly up the pi- azza steps, and trotted through the house to find Barbara. His infant intellect, assisted by the pangs of his stom- achy assured him that it was past the din- ner-hour. And yet no loud-tongued bell, energetically operated upon by the Duchess, had summoned him from his play in the dusty street On such a dire occasion the Kid al- ways reported to headquarters ; and passing through the empty dining-room, he came upon Barbara alone in the kitchen, desper- ately struggling with a can of salmon. The Kid stopped on the threshold and stared.
Barbara, with the can in one hand and the opener in the other, was hotly endeavoring to effect a combination of the two, with a ndtable lack of success. At first she held the can in the air, and attempted to punch a hole in it
FALLING OUT OF FRIENDS 129
with the can-opener ; but as this seemed an entirely futile course, she gave it up, and adopted a new method of attack. When Charles arrived upon the scene of action, she placed the can firmly on the table, and gave it a vicious stab with her knife. The tin yielded; Barbara smiled, and all was proceed- ing merrily, when a sudden, inexplicable twist jerked can and can-opener out of her hand and landed them both on the floor. Barbara forgot herself, and stamped her foot forci- bly.
"Where 's Mrs. Harris?" inquired the Kid, with a look of fearful anticipation gathering in his eyes.
No reply. His sister picked up the can, and succeeded in boring a small hole in its top.
"Say, where's Mrs. Harris ?" repeated the little boy, anxiously.
"Charles," said Barbara, looking at the child for the first time, — "mercy, how dirty you are ! — Charles, dinner will be ready soon. Mrs. Harris has left us — "
130 HOME FROM COLLEGE
She stopped short in astonishment The Kid had thrown himself prone upon the floor, and had broken into loud wails.
"What is it? What is it?" she cried, run- ning to him and trying to pull him up from the floor.
The Kid held his tough little body down, and wept copiously.
Barbara tried sternness. " Charles, get up this minute," she commanded, " and tell me what is the matter."
The Kid lifted a woe-begone face to his sister.
" She 's gone," he said, " and we can't ever have any more beefsteak, or lamb with gravy."
"Was that what you were crying for?" asked Barbara, coldly. "Charles, I am dis- gusted with you. Now you get up and wash your hands, and dinner will soon be ready."
She sighed as she carried in the salmon, extracted from the hole in the can in minute sections, so that it resembled a pile of saw- dust rather than the body of a fish. She found herself wishing that it had been possible to
FALLING OUT OF FRIENDS 131
reconcile her desires and Mrs. Harris's com- mands.
It was a melancholy family that partook of the pulverized fish, fried potatoes, bread, butter, and bananas, which constituted Bar- bara's effort.
"Oh dear!" sighed Jack, as he took his seat " Variety is the spice of life ; we certainly have that, so I suppose you think we don't care for the other spices, having left the pep- per-cellar in the pantry. I always did like pepper on fried potatoes."
David lifted his large blue eyes and let them rest on his elder sister.
" You must be like Cinderella's sisters," he said reflectively. " Had such an awful temper, — could n't anybody live with 'em."
Barbara looked angrily at the litde boy, but his face was so innocent that her heart softened. She did not answer him, but began to explain matters to her father, who looked grave and rather preoccupied. Her story did not seem to impress him, for some reason, and Barbara found herself faltering over her
132 HOME FROM COLLEGE
account, and justifying herself in every other sentence,
"Yes — yes," said the Doctor, abstractedly, as she finished. "Of course you ought not to have to put up tomatoes if you don't want to. Mrs. Harris was a very capable woman, though, and you are in for another siege, I 'm afraid. It 's too bad. You will have to try to get some one else." And, looking at his watch, he left the table.
Gassy had been quiet during the whole meal, her elfish locks, bright eyes, and silence making her more conspicuous than if she had shouted. After dinner, she soberly enveloped herself in her large apron, and took her place at Barbara's side, ready to help her sister.
"I hate dishes," she remarked conversa- tionally, as she took the first plate in hand. " They are never over, and they never change. I must have wiped this Robinson Crusoe plate of the Kid's at least a million times since mama went — There I Oh my, Barbara, I 've broken it!"
"Cecilia! Why don't you hold on to the
FALLING OUT OF FRIENDS 133
things you take in your hands?" cried Bar- bara. " I never saw such a child ! You break everything you touch ! "
The child's face flushed. She stood quietly a moment, and wiped two plates with deftness and precision. The next moment, Barbara at the sink suddenly felt as if a whirlwind had struck the room. A dishcloth went whizzing upwards until it clung to the clock on the shelf, a wriggling figure freed itself from a blue-checked apron, which was flung tumul- tuously on the floor, and an agitated, retreat- ing voice exclaimed, "I'll never — never — NEVER wipe for you again ! There ! "
Barbara finished the work alone, and went to the porch, with a struggle going on in her mind. She felt that she was failing, in spite of her best efforts, — failing with the children, failing to do the " simple " household tasks, and to manage the household machinery that had never been so startlingly in evidence before. What was the cause of it all?
"Of course I am not very experienced,,, Barbara said to herself, "but still, with a
134 HOME FROM COLLEGE
moderately good servant, I am sure I could manage very well The trouble has been with the frightful maids we have had. And the children are demoralized by the frequent changes, and are hard to control. Oh, for one good cook, so that I could show myself to be the capable girl that a college girl ought to be!"
She felt so cheered by her soliloquy, which she did not realize to be unconscious self- justification, that she sat down almost happily to write the daily report that went to brighten her mother's exile. In spite of all domestic accidents and crises, this letter was always written ; and the more lugubrious Barbara's state of mind, the harder she strove for a merry report. She had nearly finished the last sheet, with flying fingers, when a chuckle caused her to look up, and discover that Jack had been reading page after page, as she had discarded it
" Bab," he said, " you certainly do write the funniest letters I ever read. If you should try to write a story instead of ' The Absolute In-
FALLING OUT OF FRIENDS 135
ness of the Internal Entity/ you would make your fortune immediately. I don't see how you can write one way and feel another, as you do."
Barbara's reply was checked by the ap- pearance of Susan, and Jack disappeared, carrying the letter with him.
" I 'm so glad to see you ! " said Barbara, cordially. "Did you bring your Browning with you ? "
" Yes," answered Susan, sitting down in the big cane rocker. "Yes, I brought him, and a basket of mending besides. I am awfully behind in it, and I can talk and darn at the same time."
The glad light faded out of Barbara's eyes. " Why, Sue dear ! " she said, " that 's impos- sible. No one could possibly study Browning and do anything else at the same time. He absorbs all the energy and attention that one has."
" Oh dear ! " sighed Susan. " I did want to begin our lessons to-day, but we '11 have to put it off till to-morrow, then. Bob leaves for New
136 HOME FROM COLLEGE
York to-night, you know, and he must have all the socks that I can muster."
" Are you really going to mend those things now, instead of reading the 'Ring' with me?"
Susan looked up quickly. "Why, what else can I do?" she said. "Bob must have decent clothes, and we can begin the * Ring ' to-morrow."
" Very well," responded Barbara, icily. " Of course Browning doesn't mean so much to you as he does to me. But I considered our engagement to read this afternoon so bind- ing that I have just lost Mrs. Harris in con- sequence."
" Lost Mrs. Harris in consequence ? " re- peated Susan. " Why, Barbara, how ? "
"She insisted upon putting up tomatoes this afternoon when I could n't help her, because of our engagement, and — well, she would n't stay when I was firm," replied Bar- bara, wishing that the subject of disagreement had been a litde more dignified. " Really, Susan, that woman was insufferable."
FALLING OUT OF FRIENDS 137
" And you let her go for that ? " eried Susan, in a surprised voice.
" Yes," answered Barbara.
Susan jabbed her big needle into a large sock, with energy. Her friend watched her with uninterested gaze. Suddenly Susan stopped, and looked at Barbara with an ex- pression of determination.
" Babbie," she said with an air of hav- ing summoned up her courage, — " Babbie, I hope you won't think me officious, but I feel that I must tell you some things. Even if I am not a college girl, I have learned a good deal about common things in these four quiet years at home. You are having a hard time, my dear, as everybody knows. Of course every one talks about it. But I don't know what people will say when they find out why Mrs. Harris left, — for of course they will find out."
Susan stopped her incoherent outburst, and eyed Barbara doubtfully. Then she went on.
" It was dreadful of you to let Mrs. Harris go, when she had been so kind. What if she
138 HOME FROM COLLEGE
did go contrary to your ideas 1 Some of them are queer, you know, and why did you care, anyway, so long as your poor family were taken care of comfortably? You can't get along without a maid, Barbara, — it 's all too much for you. But I 'm afraid you '11 find it hard to get any one to come, now."
Susan stopped uncertainly.
" Do finish," said a cold voice from the hammock.
Susan looked at the motionless figure lying in an attitude of superior attentiveness, and her color rose.
" Barbara, I can't let it go on," she broke out. " If no one suffered but yourself, it would be different But the children are affected, too. David never looked so really ill as he does now; and if you are not careful, you will find him sick on your hands. Your father is worn and worried all the time, and you yourself are as thin as a rail. It 's because you don't accommodate yourself to circumstances. You insist upon carrying out some absurd theoretical ideas in the face of practical
FALLING OUT OF FRIENDS 139
difficulties. And I hate to have people talk about you as they do."
As these last words fell upon her ears, Bar- bara sprang up from the hammock. Her eyes were flashing, and her dignity had utterly disappeared.
" Don't ever say that to me again ! " she cried excitedly. " I don't care a continental what people say about me 1 Just because I have been away all these years and have had superior advantages, all the people of Auburn discuss me and criticise me, and are — well, jealous 1 "
" Do you mean that I am jealous ? " asked Susan, an unusual light in her soft blue eyes.
" That makes no difference," retorted Bar- bara. " The truth of the matter is, that you have stayed here, and have had some experi- ence in housekeeping, and you have grown to think that it is so important that nothing else is of value to you — none of the higher things. If that is what you and Auburn mean, — that I care more for, — yes, Browning, and litera- ture, and the real issues of life, than for house-
140 HOME FROM COLLEGE
keeping, — then you are quite right I do. And I always shall And I must say that I resent any interference whatever."
There was a long silence. Then Susan rose, biting her lips, to hide their trembling. " I must go," she said.
" Can't you stay longer?" asked Barbara, politely.
" No, I 'm afraid not," replied Susan.
To both girls, the very air was full of con- straint Barbara accompanied her visitor to the gate, where they parted with scarcely a word. Then she turned back swifdy to the porch, and sat down in the chair just vacated by Susan. She pressed her hand to her temples.
" I must think this out," she said aloud. " Could I have been wrong ? "
Some time later, the Kid cantered up to the porch. He went straight to a bowed figure in the big chair, and pulled down the hands from the hidden face.
" I 'm hungry, Barb'ra," he said. " Is n't sup- per ready?"
FALLING OUT OF FRIENDS 141
Barbara put her arms around him, and hugged him tightly.
"You like me, little brother, don't you?" she said.
" Of course," answered the Kid, noncha- lantly ; " and I 'm hungry."
Barbara took him by the hand, and led him gently into the house.
" I think I can find something for hungry little boys," she said.
CHAPTER VIII
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY
DADDY, please fasten me up," said Barbara. The doctor thrust two large hands inside of her gown, in the man's way, using them as fulcrums over which to pull the fragile fabric with all the force of two strong thumbs. " Pretty snug, is n't it ? " he said. " Where are you going in your Sunday best ? — mill or meeting ? "
Barbara shook out the folds of her violet gown. "Meeting," she responded. "The Wo- man's Club has asked me to give them a paper to-day."
" The Woman's Club I What has become of the A. L. L. A.?"
" The Auburn Ladies' Literary Association is still in existence, unfortunately. But it is n't going to be long."
" Why not ? " asked her father.
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 143
" It 's going to have its name changed, if I have any influence with its members," said Barbara. "Isn't it absurd for it to go on calling itself 'Ladies9 Literary Association/ just because it has been used to the tide for thirty years, when every other women's organi- zation in the country is 'Woman's Club '? And ' Literary 7 Did you ever hear of anything so pretentious I Nobody is literary nowadays, but Tolstoi and Maeterlinck, Besides, the name debars the members from philanthropic and civic work, which are the moving factors in all club life. I shall certainly make an effort to have the other members change the name, this very day."
" You 'd better keep your hands off," laughed the doctor. "The A. L. L. A. is Auburn's Holy of Holies. What are you going to ' stand and deliver 9 before it ? "
" One of my college papers. I have n't had time to write anything new since the Duchess left It 's on the ' Psychology of the Child in Relation to Club Work.' I had to piece on half the tide to make it appropriate."
144 HOME FROM COLLEGE
The suspicion of a twinkle lurked about the doctor's eyes. " Well, good luck to you," he said ; " the Literary Association may not approve of your paper, but it can't find fault with your dress."
"You don't know what you 're talking about," said Jack. "That garb is like all the rest of Barbara, — it's too irritatingly new to pass unscathed in Auburn. Is that churn effect the Umpire Style, Barb ? "
" It can't rouse any more criticism than it has already had," said his sister. "I shan't care what they say about the gown, if they only hear my message."
With subdued swish of black silk skirts, and a decorous silencing of whispers, the Auburn Ladies' Literary Association came to order. Barbara, with veiled amusement, looked about the familiar "parlors" of the Presbyterian church. The standard and banner, with the. legend " Honor Class," had been moved into a corner, the melodeon, stripped of its green cover, stood in walnut nakedness on the plat-
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 145
form, and a sprawling bunch of carnations and a gavel ornamented the superintendent's desk. The map of Palestine, done in colored chalk, had been partially erased from the blackboard at the head of the room, and beneath it was written the following
Program
Roll Call. Answered by quotations from Shakespeare. Instrumental Solo. " Murmuring Zephyrs."
Miss Martha Crary. Recitation. " Queen of the Flowers."
Miss Hypatia Harrison.
Paper. " Geo. Eliot's Life, Character, and Position as a Novelist."
Mrs. Abbie Penfold. Vocal Solo. " Night Sinks on the Wave." Miss Libbie Darwin. Address. "The Literary Atmosphere of Our Club." Mrs. Angie Bankson.
\a. Macbeth.
\b. Daisy's Daisies.
Miss Coleman.
Paper. "Psychology of the Child in Relation to Club Work."
Miss Barbara Prentice Grafton.
Readings. «] .
i46 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" It 's to be hoped that Abbie's and Angie's are not so long as mine," thought Barbara, irreverently, " or there '11 be no one to put the Grafton mackerel to soak to-night ; to say nothing of all the winds and waves that must be passed through before they come to me."
It was the " wind and wave " part of the program that appealed to the audience. The papers were accorded polite attention, as be- fitted Auburn manners, but the musical num- bers and readings were followed by the sub- dued hum that is an expression of club delight. For Barbara, the entire entertainment of the day was not furnished by the program. Be- tween the swaying fans she caught glimpses of Mrs. Enderby's placid face, relaxed in sleep ; from the church kitchen came the rattle of paper napkins and the clink of Miss Petti- bone's tray, and from the rear of the room sounded, at intervals, the cough of Mrs. Crampton, a genteel warning to speakers that their voices did not " carry."
"Was there ever a human being more frightfully out of her element than I am
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 147
herel " thought Barbara. " If the House-Plant could only see Mrs. Enderby ! But she *s no more asleep than all the rest of them. What am I going to do to wake them up ! "
This thought was uppermost in her mind as the afternoon was tinkled and applauded away. It was more than ever prominent as the precise, ladylike voice of Mrs. Bankson was raised a half-tone higher in her closing paragraph : —
" But, however, after all is said and done, it is the literary atmosphere that makes our club what it is. The dearly-loved paths that we have followed for many years have led us to lofty summits and ever-widening vistas, but never away from our original goal. The Ever-Womanly has always been our aim, and, while less substantial ambitions have fluttered by on airy wing, and the thunder of the new woman has rolled even upon our peaceful hori- zon, we have never faltered in our footsteps.
" On, on we go in our devotion to literature. And, as one of the most notable of our lady poets has so aptly expressed it, —
148 HOME FROM COLLEGE
Still forever yawns before our eyes An Utmost, that is veiled."
A ladylike patter of applause, and a more active flutter of fans, greeted the end of the speech. The back door creaked violendy, and Miss Pettibone's round face appeared in the opening to see if time for refreshment had come. It disappeared suddenly as Miss Cole- man mounted the platform to impersonate, first a bloody Macbeth, and then a swaying field daisy. And, finally, Barbara Prentice Grafton and the Empire gown faced the Lit- erary Association.
Later, when she recalled the afternoon, Bar- bara was surprised to remember how little of her original paper she had used. The trivial- ity of the program had supplied her with text enough, and the "Psychology of the Child" was partially diverted into a sermon upon the aimlessness of a purely literary club. In her earnestness she was carried beyond caution.
" I call you to new things," rang out her resolute voice, in conclusion. " Literary effort in club life is outworn. You can read your
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 149
Homer alone, but it takes concentrated, com- bined interest to accomplish the vital things of living. You have read too long. It is phi- lanthropy we need in Auburn, — civic im- provement, educational effort that shall be for the masses rather than our selfish selves. I call you to this. I ask you to work with me for the good of our town and our people."
The effect of Barbara's personal magnetism was never more strongly evidenced than by the genuine applause that greeted her effort The Literary Association might disapprove her theories and her violet gown, but her sin- cerity was inspiring. The Auburn mothers caught the contagion in her voice, and were interested, if not convinced.
There was a momentary pause as the ap- plause subsided. Then Barbara said earnestly: " I 'm afraid I may have been too abstract in my statements. But I have very definite ideas of what might be done in Auburn that would be most beneficial to our children and our- selves. The crSche that I spoke of is one of them. If any of you care to ask any questions,
150 HOME FROM COLLEGE
I shall be glad to answer them. If I can/' she added more modestly.
Mrs. Enderby, who had been aroused from her nap just in time to hear Barbara's ringing close, rose to the occasion. To her a question was a question. " Miss Barbara," she inquired, an interested expression on her rested face, " do you believe in children going barefoot this hot weather ? "
Barbara looked surprised. "W-why, n-no," she said.
"Oh," said Mrs. Enderby, conversation- ally, "I was wondering."
' There was another pause. Then Mrs. Bel- lows rose in her place. " Did I understand you to say Kreysh ? "
"Yes," said Barbara "A day-nursery would be the first form of philanthropy I should advise for Auburn."
" What need, if I may ask," inquired Mrs. Bellows, impressively, " has Auburn for a day- nursery ? "
Barbara explained the relief to the mother and the good to the child.
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 151
"It seems to me," remarked Mrs. Bellows, " that a Kretch is about as necessary here as two tails to a cat If there *s a death or sick- ness in the family, I send the children over to Lib's. Otherwise, I 'd rather have them at home. They gad enough as it is."
"Do you mean that the mothers are to take turns in taking care of all the children in town ? " asked Mrs. Penfold.
" My goodness!" murmured Mrs. Enderby.
" It saves the children from the moving- picture shows and the cheap theatres that are among the most pernicious of evil influences/' said Barbara. " It keeps them off the street and out of bad company " —
" Not if she lets that Charles attend," whis- pered Mrs. Bellows to the woman in the next chair. "I've forbidden Sydney to play with him."
"And gives the mothers a vacation. In- stead of the care of their litde ones every day, they have charge of them possibly two afternoons a summer."
"I'd hate to trust my boys to Bertha Enderby," whispered Mrs. Bellows again.
152 HOME FROM COLLEGE
In the discussion that followed, Barbara offered her most convincing inducement "I 'm not a mother," she said, "but I am willing to do my part toward furthering the work. If I can have cooperation in the establishment of the nursery, I '11 give my time, in turn, to it. And I think — I'm not certain about it, but I think I may be able to furnish the room for the purpose."
The novelty of the idea carried the day with the younger members of the club, and when Barbara took her place again, the seed of the enterprise had been planted. But her second mission to the Association met with less favorable result The suggestion for the change of name met with decided opposition.
" It does n't seem ladylike to call it Wo- man's Club," objected Mrs. Angie Bankson.
" The name has been good enough for us for thirty years," said Mrs. Bellows, with acerbity,
"A. L. L. A. makes such a good mono- gram," sighed Miss Lillie Beckett, who de- signed the programs for the club on state occasions.
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 153
Mrs. Enderby's sleep had filled her with good-will toward the world, and she amiably proposed a compromise. " Why not keep our old initials," she said, "and take another name, each word beginning with the same letter as the old one ? "
" What, for instance ? " demanded Mrs. Bel- lows. " Do you happen to think of any ? "
The sarcasm of the speech was lost on Mrs. Enderby.
" Well, Auburn for the first word," she sug- gested mildly.
But when put to vote, the motion was lost. The Auburn Ladies' Literary Association tri- umphed, and the " Woman's Club " died be- fore it was born.
"That snip of a Barbara Grafton I" said Mrs. Bellows to her neighbor, as the pink sherbet and the paper napkins went around. " The idea of her being invited to address us, and then giving that fool advice to women that knew her when she should have been spanked ! I 'd never send a child of mine to college, if I had all the money in the world.
154 HOME FROM COLLEGE
Normal school can do enough harm. I did n't know she could be such a fool ! Kretch / "
Susan leaned over from the next chair. " Barbara is n't a fool, Mrs. Bellows," she said warmly; "she's the cleverest girl I ever knew."
" In books, maybe," sniffed Mrs. Bellows.
" No, in everything," said Susan. " It is in books that she 's had the most training, but she is just as clever in other things. She's had an awful time this summer with sickness, and poor help, and housework, and no ex- perience in any of them. Any one else would have been discouraged long ago. But she has stuck it out, and been big and brave and cheerful about it, to give her mother a chance to get well. I can't let any one say anything against Barbara."
The two women looked their surprise at the warm defense from quiet Susan.
" It 's her theories I object to, not her," said Mrs. Bellows.
"She won't keep them all," said Susan. "She'll always be loyal to her own convic-
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 155
tions, just as she is now ; but she '11 find out later that some of them are not so worth while as she is herself. Then she '11 sift them out"
" I wish she 'd hurry up with her sifting, then," said Mrs. Bellows.
Barbara, in the meantime, had not waited for her sherbet, but had hurried home to pre- pare the meal, In the evening she laid the matter of the nursery before her father, and was surprised to be met with some of the same objections that had been advanced at the woman's club.
" But mayn't I try?" she pleaded finally.
"I see your heart is set on it," said the doctor. "I'm not going to refuse you the carriage-house for the use of your children, though I do think you won't need it more than once. Auburn has no real poor, you know. Only, Barbara, dotit take any more upon yourself this hot weather ! The Kid is a whole day-nursery, himself."
It took all Barbara's leisure time from Mon- day until Thursday, which was the appointed day for the opening, to get the deserted, dusty
156 HOME FROM COLLEGE
carriage-house in order ; to coax sulky Sam, the stable-boy, to move the accumulation of broken-down sleighs and phaetons into a cor- ner ; to hire two women to sweep, scrub, and dust floors, windows, and walls, in order to make the carriage-house fit for an afternoon's habitation by the many clean, starched chil- dren whom she hoped to see. But it was worth it, — oh, yes, it was worth it 1 — and Bar- bara's heart glowed with enthusiasm at the idea of driving the entering wedge of civic improvement into the flinty heart of staid Auburn.
Meanwhile the house suffered. Dr. Grafton was called away at meal-times with conspicu- ous frequency. Gassy, David, and the Kid did not object greatly, for their imaginations were fired by the elaborate preparations for the " party," which the Kid firmly believed to be held in honor of his birthday, three months past. But Jack protested bitterly.
" Another ' walk-around ' ! " he ejaculated, coming in at six o'clock Wednesday evening, and gazing blankly at the bare dining-room.
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 157
"Say, Barb, a fellow that's been canoeing all afternoon has an appetite that reaches from Dan to Beersheba. I don't want to make you mad, but I feel mighty like Mother Hub- bard's dog."
Barbara looked up nervously. " Now, Jack, what difference does it make to you whether you sit at table with the others and use up hundreds of dishes, or eat in the kitchen and save my time ? The bread is in the pantry with butter and raspberries, and there is some cold meat in the ice-box. Cut all you want Besides, I have sent Charles over to Miss Pettibone's for a blueberry pie."
Jack looked unwontedly cross. " Sometimes I think you are the camel that edged himself into the tent and crowded out his master," he said. " These walk-arounds on Sunday nights were pleasant enough at first, with everything piled on the kitchen table, so that we walked around with a sandwich in each hand ; but it comes so often now that it seems as if ' every day '11 be Sunday by and by.' "
Barbara's reply was checked by the sudden
i58 HOME FROM COLLEGE
appearance of the Kid, bearing a disk in both hands. The paper covering was torn and spotted with blue patches, and a broad stain extended the full length of his blouse. He put his burden carefully on the table, and turned apologetically to Barbara.
"I may have dropped that pie; I don't remember," he said.
" N. P., no pie for me ! " declared Jack. " Au revoir, Miss Grafton. Peter asked me over to supper, and there 's still time to overtake him."
Away went Jack, lustily chanting "The Roast Beef of Old England." Barbara fed the Kid to the brim, feeling somewhat guilty when she met his clear young eyes full of affectionate trust in his big sister. It was too bad to offer up the family on the altar of phi* lanthropy. The Infant's cruel prediction as to a Jellyby future came back to her, but the ends justified the means in this case.
The next morning was so clear, warm, and bright, that Barbara's spirits rose to fever heat This was the day of her opportunity to
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 159
loosen the bondage of Auburn mothers, and to take the first step toward raising them to higher standards of ease and culture. Her face beamed as she sped downstairs to do the daily tasks which awaited her. Breakfast was ready long before any one appeared to partake of it ; dishes were washed in haste, beds made in a trice, — just this once ! — and dusting passed over entirely.
All Barbara's morning was spent in plan- ning games, in decorating the carriage-house with flags, in going to Miss Pettibone's for the dozens of cookies which she had ordered, and in finding cool space in the refrigerator for twelve bottles of milk. The children were to come at two ; and at half-past one Barbara sat on the porch, dressed in a simple white gown, waiting for the first arrival and for her assist- ant, Mrs. Enderby.
At five minutes after two, there were no children. At ten minutes past, still no children. At fifteen minutes after two, Mrs. Enderby's fat, placid self waddled up to the doctor's gate.
i ?6o HOME FROM COLLEGE
" My children are coming along," she said. " It 's awful warm. I 've brought a palm-leaf fan. I can fan the children, if you want me to. Any come yet ? "
" No, not yet," replied Barbara. She had been awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Enderby with that desire for moral support which a new undertaking always brings upon its authors. Mrs. Enderby, as the mother of six children, might well be expected to furnish any amount of support derived from experience ; but somehow, as Barbara looked at her, she felt that she had made a great mistake. A cushion cannot serve as a propelling-board ; and poor Mrs. Enderby looked very cushiony.
She sat rocking slowly and evenly on the porch. " If no one comes by three o'clock," she said, " I think I '11 leave and go over to Main Street to see the new moving pictures. I forgot about them when I promised to help."
" Oh, I am sure some children will come," Barbara replied hastily. " It is such a fine chance for the mothers to rest."
At quarter of three, it seemed to the con-
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 161
fused girl that all Auburn was invading her lawn in a body. Streams of small children, dragged along by elder brothers, sisters, nurses, and mothers, descended upon the house like a flood. The air resounded with the shrieks of suddenly deserted youngsters, with the threats and warnings of their depart- ing guardians, with the consolations of Bar- bara, Mrs. Enderby, and Gassy herself. Just as suddenly as they had come, all the natural protectors left, with singular unanimity, Bar- bara thought. It was not at all as she had planned. There had been no grateful approach of a mother at a time to meet the white-robed, calm hostess ; no pleasant chat, no graceful re- assurance of a child's safety. But an enormous wave had broken upon the Grafton house and as quickly retreated, leaving thirty-nine peb- bles of assorted sizes on the shore. Thirty- nine ! Barbara gasped.
Her first step was to sweep the children to the carriage-house in a body. Mrs. Enderby led the procession, waddling along like a very fat hen, with innumerable little chickens run-
162 HOME FROM COLLEGE
ning after. Barbara brought up the rear, anx- iously counting thirty-nine over and over to herself. Loyal little Gassy kept her eyes upon the children as if she had been transformed into a faijhful watch-dog. And the Kid him- self seemed to exercise a remarkable amount of oversight ; he was waiting for the presents which were, of course, the object of a birth- day party.
Barbara's whole subsequent recollection of the afternoon lay in a picture, — the one which greeted her as she stepped into the carriage- house, gently pushing the last of the flock before her. The large room seemed to her bewildered eyes fairly decorated with children. Every broken-down buggy and sleigh was filled with more than its quota, and prancing steeds were tugging at the ancient shafts in vain. In a corner of the room, ten boys were fighting for possession of a dilapidated har- ness. Shrieks of delight were rising from the hay-mow above her head, and thin little legs were running up and down the upright lad- der with spider-like agility.
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 163
Barbara gasped. "Mrs. Enderby!" she exclaimed. " How shall we ever get them to- gether again I "
Mrs. Enderby did not answer. She stood in the middle of the room with her fan idle in her hand and her head turned backward as far as it would go. Involuntarily following her gaze, Barbara looked up and saw a sight which haunted her in dreams forever after.
Fifteen feet above the floor, a long, narrow beam extended horizontally from one edge of the hay-mow to the opposite wall. Sitting on the beam, with legs dangling down, sat seventeen children, one behind another, so tightly wedged that there would not have been space for even half a child more. Wrig- gling, twisting, turning upon one another, — and at any instant the slender beam might break 1
It was litde Gassy who saw the look of frozen horror on Barbara's face, and took action first Without a word she sprang up the ladder and out to the edge of the hay- mow. There she called out : —
i64 HOME FROM COLLEGE
" Each kid that comes back now, slowly and carefully, gets a cookie ! "
No one moved. Mrs. Enderby down below dropped her fan and began walking up and down beneath the beam, with her ample skirts outspread to catch any child overcome by dizziness.
" A raisin cookie ! " cried Gassy.
No one stirred.
" With nuts in it ! "
The child nearest the hay-loft began to wriggle backwards. " I get first choice I " she said.
" Second 1"
"Third!"
The line took up the slow wriggle, and Barbara below watched, with her skirts also extended. She could think of nothing else to do.
"Slowly!" shouted Gassy militandy. " Keep below there, Mrs. Enderby. Each kid has to go down the ladder to Barbara for the cookie, an* stay down. Then we '11 play down there."
Children respond quickly to an appeal to the
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 165
stomach. In less than five minutes, seventeen children were munching seventeen cookies, and a rousing game of "Drop the Hand- kerchief" had been started by a now thor- oughly alert Barbara. Most of the children joined in with gusto. Mrs. Enderby picked up her palm-leaf, and tapped Gassy with it ap- provingly.
"Now you can just keep on helping by counting thirty-nine over and over again," she said.
Game succeeded game. London Bridge fell down in weary repetition for Barbara. The players assured themselves unto seventy times seven times that " King Willyum was King George's Son. " A trousers button had to be pressed into each child's hand as a hid- ing-place. Six children at different times were hurt, and cried. Mrs. Enderby, now that the danger was over, took her chair into a corner and went to sleep behind her fan. But faith- ful Gassy remained at the front, singing with rare abandon and helping to lead each game.
Barbara herself was so engrossed in wiping
166 HOME FROM COLLEGE
away youthful tears, and in singing, that she did not notice the gradual diminution of her forces until Gassy suddenly took her aside.
" Barbara," she said anxiously, "there are only twenty-seven kids in this room ; where are the others?"
Barbara counted hastily ; looked up in the hay-mow ; gave a wild glance into the aban- doned vehicles. It was true ; the Kid himself was missing. Then she crossed over to Mrs. Enderby and touched her shoulder.
" Mrs. Enderby," she said, " I am afraid you will have to take 'King William' with Gassy, while I look for twelve children who seem to be missing."
She flung open the door, and looked around. No children. Some odd instinct led her to- wards her own house. As she approached, the dining-room door facing the carriage-house suddenly opened, and a swarm of little boys issued forth. Little boys they were, but little goblins they looked to be, so impish were their faces, so bedraggled their appearance. Each boy held in one hand a milk-bottle, which he
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 167
was applying to his lips in infant fashion ; each blouse was bulging with rapidly disappearing cookies. Barbara's refreshments were almost a thing of the past.
As she rushed over to the group, it disin- tegrated, and in the centre, deserted by all his fellows in crime, stood the guilty Kid.
There were no words suitable for the occa- sion, and therefore Barbara said nothing. Under her stern gaze, the Kid visibly shrunk. His milk-bottle dropped from his hand and splashed them both. He began to weep most violently.
"Oh, I don't like birthday parties," he sobbed. " They did n't bring any presents this time ; I asked 'em. An' we got tired o' games, so we went wading in the creek an' got all wet. An' nen we were hungry an' I thought you did forget the supper — "
Wading ! Barbara glanced around at the little boys, and at the rest of the troop which had filtered from the carriage-house. Were these the children that had come to her house several hours before — these unrecognizable
168 HOME FROM COLLEGE
gamins f The boys were the most torn ; but even the girls seemed lost in dirt and disorder.
Mrs. Enderby made her leisurely way up to Barbara, and began to fan her placidly. "They're all here," she said; "I've just counted the thirty-nine of 'em. And here comes the mothers again, so our labors are over."
Again the strange influx of parents and guardians, which had so puzzled Barbara before. Again the receding wave, carrying the pebbles back this time.
Barbara was vaguely conscious of choruses of remarks singularly alike in character. "James Greenleaf, where is your hat?" — " Robbie, you dirty boy, come here " — "Mar- tha, how did you tear your apron so ? " She realized that she was not being thanked as much as was her proper due. But all she wished to do on earth was to get to her own room to rest — not to think.
It was not until next morning, however, that the final blow fell. A very relaxed Bar- bara sat at the head of the breakfast-table,
APPLIED PHILANTHROPY 169
and around its corner Jack was looking at her quizzically.
" What beats me," he said, " is why you should have been willing to do all that work in order that the mothers of the enlightened A. L. L. A. should be enabled to go almost in a body to see the opening of the new moving- picture theatre. Do you believe so heartily in the ' culchah ' of those things? "
"Jack!" cried Barbara, starting from her seat "Jack, they did tit do that, did they?"
"They sure did," responded her cruel brother. " Nineteen maternal parents of the thirty-nine were visible to me from my seat in the back row. They had the time of their lives."
Barbara's eyes filled with tears at this dis- appointment of her hopes. As she struggled hard to keep them back, she caught the glance of her father, — so apprehensive, so tender, and yet so amused, that, although the tears came from her eyes, laughter also sounded from her lips.
" ' Here endeth the first lesson/ " she said.
CHAPTER IX
" WITHOUT "
THE alarm-clock under Barbara's pil- low sent forth a muffled ratde, like a querulous old woman with tooth- ache, complaining from beneath her band- ages. The girl turned over in bed and sighed. A moment later the town-clock struck six, with insistent note, and after a sympathetic delay of a minute more, the living-room clock below sounded its admonition. Sleepily and reluc- tantly Barbara drew forth the alarm-clock to make sure of the worst.
" It }s always six o'clock," she said crossly. Then she slammed the offender down upon the bed, and set her bare feet upon the floor with a thud that betokened no happy morning spirit Oh, for those luxurious days at college when a closed transom and an " engaged " sign upon the door insured sufficient slumber after a night of school-girl dissipation ! Not
"WITHOUT" 171
since the nightmare of housekeeping had attacked her rest, two months before, had " Babbie the Nap-kin," as she was jocularly known at college, had enough sleep. This starting the day with heavy eyes, and body that sighed for rest, was a new thing. How had her mother done it, all these years? Probably as she, Barbara, was doing it now ; — there was no one else to share it with her.
The same old routine, — Barbara wearily went over it: Unlock the doors, open the windows ; light the fire, put the kettle on, take the food out of the ice-box, skim the milk, grind the coffee, make the toast, set the table, rouse the sleepers. Every one of the mornings in the year her mother had done it, or super- intended the doing of it. Three hundred and sixty-five mornings, for twenty-three years. 8395 times ! Barbara shuddered.
It was hot and stuffy downstairs. The chairs were set about at untidy angles, and the sun blazed in fiercely at the window. The kitchen door-knob was sticky to the touch, and a
172 HOME FROM COLLEGE
bold cockroach ran across the back porch as she opened the door. Was this summer hot- ter and more disagreeable than usual, or was it possible that Mrs. Grafton had been respon- sible for the cool, shaded rooms and the fresh morning air that had always greeted Bar- bara when she arrived upon the scene of action ? For the third time in her experience the girl considered herself with misgiving. Was it possible that housekeeping was a science, instead of merely an occupation, — to be learned by study, and experiment, and experience, just like philosophy? Was it even possible that she, Barbara Grafton, called " The Shark " at college, was, for the first time in her life, to fail miserably in a " course " ?
Dr. Grafton and David were the only mem- bers of the family who responded to the breakfast-bell. The doctor drank his under- done coffee and ate his over-done toast with- out comment ; the small boy bent contentedly over a bowl of bread and milk. Barbara herself ate nothing.
"WITHOUT" 173
" What 's the matter, girl ? " asked her father. " Are n't you well ? "
" I 'm all right, only not hungry."
" I 'm afraid you 're working too hard. I can't have you losing your appetite and looking like a ghost. Don't you hear of a cook?"
Barbara shook her head.
" I 'm afraid we '11 have to make other sort of arrangement, then. Perhaps Mrs. Clemens will take us all to board until we hear of some help. I '11 try to see her to-day. I don't mind the meals, — my stomach is proof against anything! — but I can't have you sick."
Her father laid a tender hand on her shoul- der, and gave her a playful little pat as he left the room. But Barbara felt anything but playful. Her eyes flashed, and her lips set in a hard, bitter line. "My stomach is proof against anything ! " Such a stupid joke, — such a cruel bit of pleasantry I There were unshed tears in her voice, as well as her eyes, as she went to the stairway and called up, crossly : " Jack, Cecil — ia ! "
174 HOME FROM COLLEGE
There was no answer. Repeated calls brought forth an angry response from Gassy, and a lazy one from Jack.
" Breakfast is all over. If you 're not down in five minutes, there '11 be nothing for you ; I 'm not going to let my dishes stand all morning ! "
Gassy deigned no answer. Dangerously near the time-limit, Jack appeared.
" The wind seems to be from the east this morning," he remarked casually.
Barbara did not answer.
" Was there anything special requiring my attendance at this witching hour of the morn ? "
" The lawn-mower," said his sister, sharply.
" Ah, I thought it must be a-telegram or a fire, — judging from your agonized voice."
" If it had been a fire, you would have had to be roused ! When you have n't an earthly thing to do about the house, Jack, I do think that you might get up in time for breakfast."
"You have some new theories since you began housekeeping. I have some faint re-
"WITHOUT" 175
collections about your being the last man in the house to rise, a few weeks ago. I 'm sorry, though, I overslept, Barb. I got up the minute you called.
I roused me from my slumbers, I hied me from my bed. If I had known what breakfast was, I would have slept, instead.
Excuse me for turning up my trousers. The coffee seems to be somewhat muddy.' '
The storm that had been threatening all the morning came at last College dignity was forgotten, and Barbara became a cross, over-worked, over-heated child, with a strong sense of grievance.
" Jack Grafton, you are a lazy, selfish, in- considerate beast! If you had to do any- thing but eat the meals, you would n't criticise them so sharply. You know I 'm doing the best I can, — you know it ! — and it 's so hot, and there 's so much work — "
David's serious brown eyes looked reproach at his older brother.
"I'm sorry, Barb," said Jack, penitently.
176 HOME FROM COLLEGE
"I exaggerated about the coffee, — it's not muddy, only riley. You must n't get so fussed up about things that are said in fun. You always used to be able to take a joke. As for the grass, I '11 hie me hence at once. It needs a cutting as badly as Gassy's hair."
In spite of herself, Barbara smiled at the comparison. " Poor Cecilia," she sighed. " I don't know what on earth to do with that hair of hers. It is so stiff and rebellious that it won't lie smooth, and yet so thin and straight that it won't fluff out, like other children's. I want her to have it cut, but she objects, and pins her faith to that row of curl- papers that makes her look like a Circassian Lady. It is such an ugly shade of red, too. If the child only knew how she looked — "
" She 'd never have another happy moment," interrupted Jack, pushing back his coffee-cup. " Well, to work, to work 1 My, it looks hot out there in the sunshine ! "
An hour later, Barbara raised a flushed face from the ironing-board to greet the Vegetable Man. The Vegetable Man was fat and red,
"WITHOUT" 177
and wheezed as he walked. He was an old patient of the doctor's, and his bi-weekly trips to the Grafton house were partially of a social nature. His face wore the blank expression of a sheet of sticky fly-paper, and he was equally hard to get rid of. He sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and fanned himself with his hat
" This is a scorcher ! " he remarked.
No one appreciated the truth of this state- ment more strongly than Barbara. But she feared the result of an enthusiastic response to the Vegetable Man. " Yes," she assented. "It is."
"Ninety-three, accordin' to the official thermometer on the weather bureau's porch. My thermometer 's three degrees higher, an' when I'm out in the sun, I believe mine's right Even the guv'ment 's likely to make mistakes on a day like this."
Barbara nodded.
" Want any vegetables this morning ? "
" No, I have already ordered my meals to-day."
178 HOME FROM COLLEGE
"Got some nice corn out there in my wagon. An' some prime cauliflower."
" I don't want either, to-day."
" All right ; only you know you save money by buyin' from me instead of the grocery- store. Your ma would tell you that, if she wuz here. How is your ma ? "
" Getting better, slowly."
" That 's good ; give her my respects when you write. Leander Hopkins's respects, an1 hopes you will soon be in your accustomed health again. How are you gettin' on while she's gone? Are you just helpin' in the kitchen, or are you without ? "
"Without?"
" Yes, without."
" I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Hopkins."
" Why, without a gurrl — a kitchen gurrl."
"We have no cook at present. Do you know where I can get one ? "
" No, I can't say as I do. Gurrls are pretty scarce in kitchens, nowadays, though there seems to be plenty of them in parlors. Maybe
"WITHOUT" 179
my Libbie would come in and help you out, though she ain't never worked out, regular."
" Oh, would she ? " exclaimed Barbara.
" Can't say fer sure. I'll ast her when I go home. She 's got steady company, now, — he 's a brakeman on the Southern Limited, — an* he always gits back fer Sunday night. I dunno as she'd like to engage herself fer Sunday nights. But I '11 ast her. You ain't got that waist sprinkled enough ; it 's too dry to iron well."
Barbara only thumped her iron a little harder.
" Don't like to be told, do ye ? Guess you must be a little like my wife, — set in your ways. I know a good deal about ironin' ; seen the women-folks do it fer thirty years."
"You must have had a good deal of time to sit and watch."
" Wal, no, not so much as you might think ; they 's a good deal of work on my place. I 've been sickly, though, a good bit of my life, an' had to sit by an' let others do it. I know, Miss Barb'ry, that I We got the reputation of
180 HOME FROM COLLEGE
bein' lazy, but it ain't true : I ain't lazy ; I don't mind workin', but I don't like to have to work. That 's what I like about vegetablin' : I can rest a little as I go along."
" You are fortunate 1"
There was a pause as the stubborn iron squeaked its way over the half-dry linen.
"Wal, I guess I must be goin'. You would n't like no egg-plant, would ye ? "
" No, I think not."
" Shell I bring in a little pie-plant before I go? Ye might change your mind if you was to see it."
" No, I won't trouble you."
" No trouble at all, even if it is a hot day. You 're sure you don't want it? "
"Yes, I 'msure."
"Wal, good-day, then. Don't fergit my respects to your ma."
Out of the kitchen door waddled Mr. Hopkins. In at the same door he waddled a few seconds later. " Hate to int'rupt ye, Miss Barb'ry," he said mysteriously, "but jest look a' here."
"WITHOUT" 181
"What is it?" inquired Barbara, suspi- ciously, fearing she was being enticed to the vegetable wagon.
"That's what I don't know," said Mr. Hopkins.
The Vegetable Man led the way around the walk at the side of the house. He stopped at the turn, where the syringa and the lilac min- gled their branches in a leafy roof. The sun and the leaves made a checkerboard of light and shade below, and here in the dancing flecks of sunshine lay a grotesque little figure, asleep. It was Gassy, but such a sadly changed Gassy! Reckless hands and a pair of scissors had worked havoc with the hair that had been "too stiff to lie smooth, and too thin to fluff/1 Except for the crown of the head, where a few locks stood erect, like faithful sentinels on a battle-swept field, the scalp was almost as bare as a billiard ball. Not content with devastating her enemy, Gassy had concealed the last sign of the hated color by covering the remains with a coating of black. Perspiration and tears had aided its extension, and two streaks of
182 HOME FROM COLLEGE
the dark fluid had found their way down her cheeks. There were traces of recent crying- about the closed eyes, and a damp handker- chief was tightly clutched in one of the thin little hands.
Barbara dismissed the Vegetable Man with a few whispered words of explanation, walking with him to the gate to insure his departure. Then she returned to the syringa-bush, and took the shorn little head in her lap. Gassy started, and sat erect For a moment she looked bewildered; then she remembered, and her proud litde voice said defiantly: —
"I guess I won't look like a Circassian Lady, now!"
■ Barbara hesitated ; words seemed so futile, and any explanation was impossible. Then she did the very best thing, under the circum- stances,— caught the small sister in her arms, and held her close. Gassy struggled for a sec- ond, then her thin little body relaxed, and the hot tears drenched Barbara's shoulder.
" You need n't think I did n't know about my hair, before!" she said fiercely, between
SUCH A SADLY CHANGED GASSY
"WITHOUT" 183
sobs. " I 've always hated it, long before I heard what you and Jack said. But I 've got it fixed now. It ain't stiff, or thin, or red, any more!"
Barbara waited until the first shower was over. "How did you do it, dear?" she asked, at last.
"Manicure scissors and liquid blacking," said Gassy, with a fresh storm of sobs. " I don't care if I do look awful ! I looked just as bad before. Jack said I 'd never have another happy moment if I knew how I looked. And I do. I'm the ugliest girl in Auburn, — the very homeliest 1 "
Barbara's quick thoughts flew to the sani- tarium at Chariton. Was it possible that tra- gedies like this were of common occurrence in her mother's life ? It was only a child's tra- gedy, but it was a very real one; and the tenderest wisdom and the wisest tenderness were needed to dispel it. Her mind went back to the sweet lips and the loving arms that had soothed so many of her own baby griefs. Housekeeping had been such a small part of
184 HOME FROM COLLEGE
her mother's life; was she, Barbara, capable of being a substitute in a case like this?
" I 'm sorry you heard what we said," she replied, tenderly stroking the sticky head. " Of course you know that we always exaggerate when we joke, — Jack and I, — and we said what we did in fun. Your hair isn't as pretty now as it will be when you get a little older ; then it will turn dark, — red hair always does, — and you may have real auburn, which is the prettiest shade in the world."
" It is n't just my hair, — it 's all of me," sobbed Gassy. " I 'm so dang homely 1 "
Barbara laughed, a merry, hearty laugh, that carried more comfort than a million words to the aching litde heart "You blessed chicken 1 You 're not so homely."
"But I want to be pretty like you; not skinny, and awkward, and tight little pig-tails of hair ! I 'd just love to shake curls out of my neck, the way the other girls do."
" Well, not everybody can have curly hair ; I 'm not that lucky, either. But I was thinner than you when I was your age, and far more
"WITHOUT" 185
awkward. You'll grow fatter in a year or two. And in the meantime, dear, be glad of the pretty things about yourself, — your clear, wide-open eyes, your dainty little ears, your high-arched instep. You have a very sweet mouth, too, when you are happy."
Gassy snuggled a shade closer to her sister. " I like you, Barbara," she said, her proud little voice strangely softened.
" I know you do, dear. And I love you> so much that I want you to like yourself. Don't think about how you look; you're always pretty when you're merry. Let's go in and shampoo that head of yours. You won't mind it short during this hot weather, and it will probably grow in thicker and darker because of this cutting."
The half-ironed waist had dried when they returned to the house, and Barbara, as she re- sprinkled the garment and laid it back in the ironing basket, was reminded of her frequent admonitions to her mother about " systema- tizing the housework." " A mother is a com- posite of cook, laundress, seamstress, waitress,
186 HOME FROM COLLEGE
nurse, and kindergartner," she said to herselt 44 And yet that is n't what keeps her busiest ; it 's the unforeseen happenings, and the inter- ruptions, that eat up the time. I don't wonder she never finished her work. What next, I'd like to know?"
Her wish was soon gratified by the appear- ance of Jack at the door. " Gee whiz ! but this day is a scorcher/' said the boy, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, as he threw himself upon the lounge in the next room. " It is ninety in the shade in the yard, — that is, it would be if there was any shade to get under. If I ever said anything derogatory unto the snow-shovel, I take it all back. Here 's a letter, Barb ; mail-man left it"
Barbara, reaching for the envelope, stum- bled over the prostrate form of David, who lay on his stomach on the floor, reading his well-worn copy of the " Greek Heroes."
" Goodness, David, do get out of the way ! There is n't room to step