CHAPTER XXXIV
A BUSINESS TRANSACTION
At five minutes after four Jacqueline appeared in the kitchen. In herhand she carried the tin housemaid's assistant, with its soap andpowder, rags and nickel polish.
"I've finished," she announced briefly.
Hannah looked down from the step-ladder, where she was standing to cleanthe cupboard shelves. Sallie poked her head out from the butler'spantry, where she seemed totally surrounded with hot soap-suds and chinadishes.
"I bet you give 'em a lick and a promise," she said morosely. "I'm goingup and see for myself."
Up the stairs she went, while Jacqueline stood pawing with impatience.
"Better sit down," boomed Hannah, from the step-ladder. "You must beplumb tuckered out."
"I can't," said Jacqueline. "I'm in an awful hurry."
She gathered up her brown paper parcels, with nervous, eager fingers.Why didn't Sallie hurry back? Could it be that she--suspected something?Oh, blithering kangaroos! She didn't want explanations now, and withSallie, of all people.
But explanations were not needed. Down came Sallie in due season, withnothing worse to grumble over than the misery in her back.
"You ain't done such a bad job," she conceded, as she doled two dimesand a nickel into Jacqueline's hard little palm. "Say, don't you want tocome round again to-morrow?"
"Oh, no, thanks," Jacqueline answered carelessly. "I've got all I can doat home."
"I told you so," chuckled Hannah. "Money enough for the circus, and thenshe quits."
Jacqueline barely heard her. Over her shoulder she called good-by, andin two jumps she was out at the back door, and down the steps. Almostrunning, she hurried across the garden toward the short-cut that wouldbring her most quickly into Longmeadow Street. She was heading for MissCrevey's shop, and in the pocket of her Peggy Janes was a string of goldbeads.
Of course she had a perfect right to them, for they were her very own.She would give them in exchange for Caroline's beads, and so thegreen-dragon cup would be safe, and Caroline's beads would be safe, andMiss Crevey would have _more_ than the five dollars that had beenpromised her. For Jacqueline's beads were worth ten dollars. She knew,for she had bought them herself, Christmas before last, with the checkthat her mother's cousin had sent her from Honolulu.
But would that disagreeable Miss Crevey consent to the exchange?Jacqueline asked herself the question with a sinking heart, about thetime she reached the gap in the hedge. For Miss Crevey wanted readymoney, and Mrs. Enos Trowbridge's cousin, who had offered cash forCaroline's ancient beads, would not give it perhaps for beads that weremodern.
"Oh, slithy alligators!" groaned Jacqueline, and paused disheartened inthe short-cut, while she asked herself: what next!
Then from the swing that hung from a branch of the big elm in theTrowbridge garden, a shrill voice hailed her.
"Hello!" cried Eleanor Trowbridge.
Jacqueline turned and across the rose tangle surveyed the stout childwith disfavor.
"'Lo yourself!" she cried.
Eleanor sprang from the swing and came up to the rose tangle, all readyto be entertained.
"Did you want to see Jacqueline?" she asked cheerily, "Well, she isn'thome yet."
"Don't I know it, smarty?" Jacqueline answered crossly.
"Smarty yourself!" retorted Eleanor, and turned, but she didn't walkaway.
All the afternoon she had been alone in the garden, forbidden to haveplaymates, because her grandmother was giving a bridge-party in thehouse, and mustn't be disturbed with the shouts of children, and now shewas really dying for some one to talk to.
"My grandmother's having a party," she told Jacqueline, by way ofresuming cordial relations.
"I won't stop her," Jacqueline answered rudely.
"_I_ had a party yesterday." Eleanor turned to her eagerly. "I was tenyears old. I don't suppose _you_ ever had a party."
"Don't get fresh," cautioned Jacqueline. "I've had more parties thanever you've had. I've had dozens of them."
Perhaps the party hadn't improved Eleanor's temper. The day after, as weall know, is apt to be trying. At any rate she looked at Jacqueline'sshabby clothes, and was so snobbish and ill-mannered as to sneer.
"Dozens of parties? I don't believe you."
"You don't have to," snapped Jacqueline. "And I don't have to believeyou had a party yesterday, and I don't, so there!"
"I did, too," said Eleanor. "And I had lots of presents. I guess you'dbelieve me, if you saw them."
"If I saw 'em, maybe," Jacqueline tantalized. She didn't know why sheshould pause at that moment to tease Eleanor, but there was somethingabout Eleanor's pink and white complacency that rubbed her the wrongway.
"You crawl through the gap here, and I'll show you." Eleanor acceptedher challenge. "Come on--unless you're scared to."
That was a dare, so Jacqueline promptly scrambled through the rosetangle and found herself in the Trowbridge garden. In the moment of herarrival the paper bag that held her Crevey purchases broke, and the bonebuttons, a size too small cascaded to the ground.
"You pick 'em up," bade Eleanor, "and I'll go get some of my things."
If it hadn't been for those fateful buttons, Jacqueline would verylikely have posted off to Miss Crevey's, and left Eleanor withoutregrets. But she had to recover the buttons, every one of them, andbefore she had picked up the last of them, Eleanor came panting back.
By this time Eleanor had forgotten that she and Jacqueline were onsnappish terms. She was just a roly-poly child, eager to show her newtreasures to another child.
"See here," she said, as she plumped down on the turf beside Jacqueline,and displayed the articles which she lugged in the slack of her skirt,"this is scent, real grown-up scent, and the bottle that it's in is cutglass. This cunning brush and comb and mirror set is for my doll--mybiggest French doll. Have you got a doll?"
"I'm sick of dolls," yawned Jacqueline.
"You wouldn't be," Eleanor told her patronizingly, "if you had a dollwith real hair, like my Gladys. I had a chair for her, too, and a bed,but they were too big to bring out here, and a parlor set for mydoll-house. I had this ring--it's a scarab. And this seal for myenvelopes, and some sealing-wax, all colors, and some teeny-weenycandles. And here's a handbag, with a purse and a mirror. Have you everhad a handbag?"
"Sure," Jacqueline told her languidly.
Eleanor opened the little red leather bag. Clearly enough, she was proudof the pretty gift. She took out the little mirror, and the wee brownhandkerchief, sown with red rosebuds, and showed them to Jacqueline.Last of all, she took out the little red leather purse, and opened it,and disclosed a folded bill.
"That's my five dollars from Grandpa," she explained.
Jacqueline forgot to be languid. Distinctly she sat up and took notice.
"Five dollars!" she repeated enviously. "What you going to do with it?"
"I d' know," admitted Eleanor. "Buy me some silver bangles, I guess."
"You don't want bangles," Jacqueline declared with finality. "They slipdown over your hand and get in your way all the time. I shouldthink----" She hesitated, as one about to make a desperate plunge. "Ishould think you'd much rather buy a chain."
"Well, maybe I will," Eleanor said vaguely.
"A chain of gold beads would be nice, don't you think?" Jacqueline spokein honeyed accents. "Have you got any gold beads?"
"No," confessed Eleanor.
"Everybody ought to have gold beads," Jacqueline laid down a law thatshe had invented on the spur of the moment. "Most all the girls I knewat school had gold beads--all the big ones, that is, of course, thelittle third and fourth graders didn't."
"I'm going into the fifth grade," Eleanor said quickly.
"If you have some gold beads when you go back to school," suggestedJacqueline, "the others will all be just green with envy."
Eleanor wavered.
"I guess perhaps I will get me beads," she s
aid, and snapped the purseupon the precious five dollars.
"You haven't got much time before school opens," Jacqueline insinuated."And you can't buy good beads in Longmeadow, or in Baring Junction,either."
"Maybe we'll go to Boston next week," Eleanor said hopefully.
Jacqueline dared all.
"I have some gold beads," she said, and took the golden strand from thepocket of the Peggy Janes, and dangled them before Eleanor's astonishedeyes. "Say, aren't they crackerjacks?"
"Go on!" sniffed Eleanor. "They're brass from the ten-cent store."
"Much you know about beads!" scoffed Jacqueline. "Just you look at thatclasp, with a real pearl in it. Fourteen carat gold those beads are, andthey cost ten dollars. I got 'em Christmas before last."
Eleanor fingered the beads with a reverence that was tinged with envy.
"You can't buy beads like that for any measly five dollars," Jacquelinetold her patronizingly.
"Well, who says I want to?" Eleanor told her, but with ahalf-heartedness that was not lost on Jacqueline.
"Look here!" said Jacqueline, like one conferring a favor. "Since youcan't get to Boston to buy your beads before school opens, maybe I'llsell you mine."
"Don't want 'em!" muttered Eleanor, but she still kept the beads in herhand.
"They cost ten dollars," Jacqueline said honestly, "but you can have 'emfor five, because I want the money, and look here, if you don't like 'emafter all, I'll buy 'em back from you next week."
Eleanor began to sparkle with interest.
"Would you, really and honest?" she asked.
"Why, sure," said Jacqueline heartily. "You give me the five dollars,and you can keep the beads, and wear 'em all you like--they'll be yours,you know--and then if you get tired of 'em, and want your silly oldbangles after all, why, you can have your money back. That's fair, isn'tit?"
"Why, yes," admitted Eleanor, swept off her feet, as Caroline had beenswept on an earlier occasion, as you'll remember, by Jacqueline's sheerforce of will.
"All right," Jacqueline caught her up. "You've got the beads, now giveme the money. I've got to beat it home."
She fairly took the bag from Eleanor's bewildered hands, and scooped thegreen bill from its resting place.
"Remember!" she said. "Next week, if you don't like the beads."
Then she scrambled to her feet, with the bill clutched in her hand, andbefore the dazed Eleanor had time to change her mind was off through theshort-cut, and speeding toward Miss Crevey's shop, and Caroline's goldbeads, and relief from all the cares and worries that beset her.
The Turned-About Girls Page 35