CHAPTER XXXIII
IN THE HOUSE OF HER KINSFOLK
Jacqueline fairly ran up the steps to the porch of The Chimnies. She waslaughing in queer little gasps which were very much like sobs. Oh, butthis was too good to believe! Right in the nick of time, when she had tohave help, and didn't know where on earth to find it!
Rat-tat-tat, the knocker clanged gayly under her hand. There were somebad minutes of explanation ahead, perhaps, but like a session at thedentist's, they would be over some time and she would run back with themoney to that hateful shop, where after to-day she would never set footagain. She would thrust the money into Miss Crevey's claws and get backthe beads. She would say something polite, but oh! so cutting to MissCrevey, and----
The door opened before her into the dim hall with its white paint, andgilt-framed mirrors, and its staircase curving upward into cooldistance. On the threshold stood Sallie (only Jacqueline didn't know itwas Sallie!) in a blue gingham dress, with her sleeves tucked up.
"Well, what is it?" asked Sallie brusquely. She didn't waste her companyvoice and manners on a little girl in Peggy Janes and trodden sneakers,with an armful of packages done up in brown paper.
"I want to see Car--I mean Jacqueline," the real Jacqueline correctedherself just in time. "The little girl that lives here."
"She ain't here now," Sallie answered, with a carelessness that seemedto poor Jacqueline downright brutal. "She's off to the beach."
"But _you're_ here!" Jacqueline cried despairingly.
"Nobody said I wasn't," retorted Sallie. "Me and Hannah Means got hereto-day, to open up the house, but the folks won't be here till last ofthis week or maybe first of next."
She started to shut the door, but she wasn't able to. For Jacqueline, atthis last cruel blow, simply slumped down on the threshold and let gothe tears that she had held back so long.
"Oh, dumb it!" she wailed. You remember Jacqueline usually cried morefor anger than for sorrow. "What'll I do? Oh, sniveling opossums,what'll I do now?"
"Well, you can't sit there crying," said Sallie.
"I can! I am!" howled Jacqueline.
"What's the matter?" boomed a deep voice from the hall behind them, andHannah Means, the tried and trusty cook at The Chimnies, bore down uponthem, with her head done up in a dust cloth. "What young one's that,Sallie? And whatever ails her?"
Jacqueline wept regardless. Sallie started to shake her, but changed hermind and patted her shoulder instead.
"Have you lost something?" asked Sallie.
"Have you got a stomach ache?" questioned Hannah, in the same breath.
"No, no!" sobbed Jacqueline.
"Did you get a licking?" pursued Sallie.
"Are you hungry?" Hannah demanded.
"No," said Jacqueline, cross and ashamed of herself. "I'm all right."
Sallie looked at her sharply.
"You're one of the Conway children, ain't you?" she asked.
Jacqueline nodded.
"Guess she got tuckered out walkin' up from the Meadows," Hannahsuggested.
The two women exchanged glances.
"You better sit and rest a spell here on the porch," Sallie badeJacqueline, as she rose from beside her.
"Come into the kitchen," Hannah bettered the invitation. "Thegrocery-boy's just been here with the things, and I can let you have atumbler of milk."
Shyness descended upon Jacqueline. She scrambled to her feet, with a"No, thank you!" on the tip of her tongue. But she never uttered it. Foronce on her feet, she realized that she felt "all gone." Her knees werewobbly and there was a fluttering in her wrists. Rest and a drink ofmilk sounded good.
As the guest of Hannah and Sallie, she passed through the doorway of hergreat-aunt's house, and presently was seated in a rocker by the openwindow of the big kitchen, with its enameled sink and many cupboards.She slowly sipped the milk that Hannah had poured for her into a thickglass. She didn't want to hurry. How should she ever drag herself thehot miles home through the Meadows, burdened with the weight of caresthat Miss Crevey's threat had laid upon her?
Other people had their troubles, too, she realized, as she listened toHannah's grumbling.
"In one ear and out the other," Hannah muttered, as she unpacked thebasket of groceries that stood on the kitchen table. "Ain't no usetellin' folks nothin' nowadays! I said saleratus, and they've went andsent me salt, and there ain't no bacon, and they've forgot themolasses."
"Where's my cleaning powder?" sang out Sallie, from the butler's pantry.
"Ain't I tellin' you?" cried Hannah. "They've went and left out half thethings."
Sallie bustled out from the pantry and did a little inspecting on herown account.
"No scouring soap--no cleaning powder--and no scrubbing brush, like Iordered and you heard me," she said crossly. "Well, I can't do nothingwithout 'em. I'll phone and give 'em a piece of my mind, and tell 'emthey can just hustle those things over--save 'em trouble if they'd doneit in the first place."
"Lot o' good 'twill do you to phone the store," scoffed Hannah. "Theywon't send nothin' over till to-morrow. They're independent as hogs onice.
"Then here's a whole afternoon wasted," snapped Sallie. "Goodness knows,_I_ won't walk up to the store and fetch them things in this heat."
Jacqueline grabbed at opportunity with both hands.
"I don't mind the heat," she cried. "I'll run up to the store and getyour soap and things."
"Well, I'll say that's real nice of you," conceded Sallie.
"That is," stammered Jacqueline, "if you want to pay me ten cents forgoing."
She turned as red as fire as she said the words. She had never felt soawful in her life, and after drinking the milk that these women had beenkind enough to give her. But she thought of Grandma, without her cup!and Caroline, without her beads! What was her own pride or even decencyby comparison? She just _had_ to get some money.
"Well, of all the nerve!" Hannah broke the silence that seemed toJacqueline to have lasted an hour. "I'll pay you ten cents to go--andyou can pay _me_ ten cents for the milk you've drunk."
Jacqueline quailed. Grown-up people somehow always had one at adisadvantage.
"I'm going home now," she quavered. "Good-by."
"Hold on!" bade Sallie. "I'd rather pay a dime than walk to the storeand back, and I can't let this afternoon go wasted, when to-morrow likeas not will be a scorcher. You scoot up to the store and fetch mythings, and if you're back in twenty minutes you shall have your tencents."
"I'll run!" promised Jacqueline. She was all smiles again, and at hersmile Hannah melted.
"Don't let her run her legs off," she boomed. "And she can get me thesaleratus while she's about it."
In the well-worn Peggy Janes, Jacqueline went sprinting back up thestreet. Hope was in her heart. Ten cents wasn't much, perhaps, but everylittle bit added to every little bit you've got--and she had untilto-morrow night to make up the five dollars!
Promptly on the tick of ten minutes to three, she pattered once moreinto the kitchen of The Chimnies. In the basket that she tugged werescouring soap and cleaning powder, a new yellow scrubbing brush, apackage of saleratus, a paper of bacon, and even a can of molasses.
"Well," Sallie admitted, as she rocked in comfort, "I'll say it's worthten cents."
Jacqueline blushed and pocketed the dime.
"Crazy to earn money, ain't ye?" said Hannah, as she unpacked thebasket. "What's it for? Circus coming to town?"
"I--I guess so." Jacqueline answered vaguely.
Sallie gathered up her soap and cleaning powder but not with greatenthusiasm.
"I'm killed with a crick in my back that takes me whenever I stoop," shecomplained, and turned to Jacqueline. "Look here, sister, d'ye know howto scrub out a bathtub?"
Jacqueline laughed.
"I'll say I do!" she answered.
"There's two bathrooms upstairs," Sallie told her. "I'll give youanother dime if you'll go over 'em real good for me.
"
Jacqueline stated her position, calmly and unashamed.
"That's not enough. The Japs get fifty cents an hour for cleaning, and Iguess I'm as good as any Jap."
"What's Japs got to do with it?" asked Hannah. She, you'll note, was nota Californian.
"Fifty cents an _hour_," gasped Sallie. "_Fifty cents!_ Good-_night_!"
Jacqueline decided that this was a time for compromise.
"Well," she admitted, "I'm not as big as a Jap, so maybe I ought to comedown on my price to _you_. I'll work for twenty-five cents an hour, nota cent less, and I'm an awful good worker."
"You won't work for _me_," said Sallie, with decision. "What do you takeme for? John D. Rockerfeller?"
Jacqueline hesitated. She was torn between pride and dire need.
"I'd get both bathrooms done in an hour," she suggested. "I'm prettyspry."
"Ah, now, let her!" Hannah struck in unexpectedly. "If you break yourback over them tubs, you'll be groaning all night and spoiling my rest."
"Well, if you're sure you can do 'em in an hour," Sallie hesitated.
"Surest thing I do!" cried Jacqueline, all smiles. "Let me get at 'emright away."
Eagerly she capered at Sallie's heels up the back stairs. Above was along hall with doors at either side, just the sort of hall thatJacqueline had expected to find in Aunt Eunice's house. Sallie pushedopen one of the doors, and led the way into a room that was all coolgray and leaf-green with here and there, in hangings and in wall-paper,a flash of canary yellow.
"This is the little girl's room you was askin' for," said Sallie. "Don'tyou touch nothin' now. Here's the bathroom, and t'other one is cross thehall."
"All right," Jacqueline answered stiffly. She didn't at all like theinsinuation that she would touch things. "Give me the cleaning rags, andI'll go to it."
For a moment Sallie lingered, until she was sure that Jacqueline wasattacking the nickel and enamel in a professional manner. Then with aparting hint that Jacqueline would have to work fast, if she expected tofinish in an hour, she went away downstairs, and Jacqueline was left inpossession of the second story.
She had no time to feel lonely in those empty rooms. She was too busy tothink. She scrubbed and she polished, while the perspiration ran downher face, and her fingers grew stiff and gritty from the soap and thecoarse powder that she used. When she rose at last, and looked down atthe shining tub and the clean tiling of the floor, she felt somesympathy with poor Sallie. She too, had a "crick in her back."
Through the open door into the bedroom she glimpsed the green and goldof the chintz curtains, the dressing-table, with its lady pin-cushionand its dainty china boxes, the comfortable, low rocker beside thewell-filled bookshelves. So that was Caroline's room--the room thatrightfully was hers!
Smiling somewhat ruefully, Jacqueline tiptoed across the threshold and,planted on the oyster white rug, stood gazing about her. This might allhave been hers--this soon would be hers. She would sleep in that cozy,soft bed, with no fretful children to disturb her. She would rise in themorning and dress. Her clothes would hang, no doubt, behind that door,which was all one mirror.
She bowed to the reflection in the mirror--the sunburnt, rough-haired,little brown girl in Peggy Janes and venerable sneakers. Then she openedthe door and peeped into the closet. Why, here were some of her dresses,of net, and organdie, and gingham, her riding clothes, her boots. Shechuckled to herself. What faces Hannah and Sallie would wear, if sheshould put on her clothes--her own clothes!--and go down the stairs, andappear before them. Well, very soon she would!
But before that day came--oh, what might not happen! All her troublesthronged back upon her, and to think that she must suffer so much, forwhat always before in her life she had thought a little sum of money! Ifonly she had now one of the five-dollar bills that she had often wasted!If she could open her little vanity bag, and find in it some money--herown money!
Fascinated with the thought, she stepped into the closet, and looked tosee if one of her little bags were perhaps hanging from the hooks. Ofcourse not! She might have known that fussy little Caroline would putthem carefully into a drawer, as she herself had always been told to do.She came out of the closet, and softly closed the door, and hurried tothe bureau. Without scruple--for weren't these things all her own, andthe room meant for her?--she opened the drawers and hastily peeped in.She found only one of her bags, the gray one with beads, and it wasquite empty.
Disappointed, she closed the drawer, and with a sigh turned away. Oncemore she saw her reflection in the mirror of the dressing-table, andhesitatingly she drew near. She hadn't been able half to see herself inthe wavering looking glass at the farm. My, but she had put on a greatcoat of tan this summer!
From the reflection in the mirror, her eyes dropped to the pretties onthe dressing-table. Little boxes and toys of Dresden china--delicate,dainty things. She touched them lightly--as Sallie had told her not todo. Sallie, indeed! She guessed she had the right. She lifted the coverof the little trinket box that she was fingering, and there, coiled inits white depths, a chain of gold beads--her own gold beads--twinkled upat her.
The Turned-About Girls Page 34