by Oliver Optic
IV
A CLUB MEETING
The strange procession had not gone very far when Nora heard some onebehind calling her name. It was Miss Crawdon, who, as Nora turnedaround, signalled her to stop.
"Oh, Brenda, Miss Crawdon wishes to speak to us."
In a moment their teacher had overtaken them.
"I must reconsider my promise to you, or at least, Nora, you partlymisunderstood what I said. It will not do at all for you to go home withthis little boy. Your mother would blame me very much."
"Oh, Miss Crawdon," pouted Brenda. Nora, too, showed her disappointment.
"Now, Brenda, consider what it means. In the first place it is uncertainwhether or not you could find his home. In the second place you mighthave to go into some dirty street or alley. With your mother's consent Ishould have nothing to say, but as it is----"
"Well, can't we go as far as Scollay Square? We could get a car thereand go straight home."
Miss Crawdon hesitated a moment.
"As it happens," she replied, "I have to go in that direction myself. Wewill walk together, and I will see you safely on your car. Mrs. Brownand Manuel may lead the way."
"Isn't he cunning!" exclaimed Brenda, as the little boy looked over hisshoulder at the girls, with one little hand doubled up against his eye,and his other clutching Mrs. Brown's skirt.
"I wish he would talk to us," responded Nora. "Where do you live, littleboy?" Manuel smiled knowingly. "There," he said, waving his handindefinitely toward the Square, across which the electric cars werewhizzing.
"Oh, no," cried Nora, "nobody lives there; there are shops and a hotel,and----"
"Birdies, birdies, there," cried Manuel.
Even Miss Crawdon smiled as Manuel ran up to a shop window, and poundedthe glass, somewhat to the dismay of the parrots exhibited there intheir cages.
"Well, he seems to know this shop," said Mrs. Brown. "We might wait herefor a minute."
At the other side of the shop around the corner was a doorway in whichsat a woman with a basket of fruit for sale. Manuel himself was thefirst to catch sight of her, and rushing forward with a flying leap, healmost knocked her basket over. The little boy had found his tongue, andchattering like a magpie, he pointed toward the ladies. The woman,rising from the step on which she had been sitting, came toward thelittle group. In broken English she explained that Manuel was heryoungest boy, and that sometimes she let him go with her on her round offruit-selling. Lately she had had her stand near this bird store, and insome way on this particular day, Manuel had wandered away from her.
"You must have been worried," said Nora.
"Oh, no," she answered philosophically; "me thought him gone home."
Then Brenda, who had hitherto kept silent, broke in with a graphicaccount of the fate Manuel had escaped through Nora's bravery. Themother probably only half comprehending the young girl's rapid flow ofwords, smiled and showed her white teeth. "T'ank you, t'ank you," shesaid. "You come and see him some day," she added, in a generalinvitation to the group.
"Come, girls, we must hasten," said Miss Crawdon. "Mrs. Brown will takedown Manuel's address. Then, if your mothers are willing, you may go tosee him some day."
Rather reluctantly Nora and Brenda bade good-bye to black-eyed Manueland his mother. They gave Mrs. Brown many injunctions to make no mistakeabout his house and street. On Saturday they both hoped to be able to goto see him.
To them the whole thing presented the aspect of an adventure.
"I never spoke to a foreigner before in Boston, did you?" said Nora, "Imean except French teachers," she added.
"No, not a poor foreigner," responded Brenda. "Wasn't that womanpicturesque, with her shawl over her head?"
As they drew near home both girls began to feel a little doubtful as tothe wisdom of what they had done.
"Well, your mother never scolds," said Brenda, as she bade good-bye toNora at the door of the latter.
"Why, yours doesn't either," exclaimed Nora.
"Oh, you don't know," and Brenda shook her head. "There's Julia now----"
"Nonsense," laughed Nora, running up the steps. "Good-bye, now. I'mcoming to see Julia this afternoon. You know I expect to like her."
"Your lunch is waiting, Miss Brenda," said the maid as Brenda started upthe front stairs toward her room.
"Oh, I've had my luncheon," replied Brenda. "You don't think I'd waituntil this time."
"Brenda," called her mother from the library, "it's half-past three.Where have you been since school?"
"Oh, dear!" grumbled Brenda to herself. "I don't see why I have to givean account of every step I take. I'll be down in a minute," she calledout, as she continued her way upstairs. When she descended to thelibrary, she hastened forward with a polite "Good-afternoon" to Julia,who was seated before the fire with a book in her lap.
"Julia has been reading to me," said her mother.
"We have had a very pleasant hour," added Julia.
"But tell me where you have been," said Brenda's mother. "You know thatit is a rule that you should come directly home----"
Brenda tossed her head.
"Oh, I asked Belle to come and tell you."
"She may have left word that you were not coming, I think that Thomasgave me some message, but let us hear where you have been."
Mrs. Barlow spoke pleasantly, for she knew by the cloud on Brenda's facethat there might be a storm if for the present she said too much abouther absence from luncheon.
"Yes," added Julia, "do tell us where you have been. I have an idea thatyou have had an adventure."
"How could you guess?" exclaimed Brenda, and then, with the ice brokenby these words of Julia's, she gave her mother an animated account ofNora's bravery, Manuel's beauty and the fruit-woman's picturesqueness.
Mrs. Barlow and Julia were interested. Brenda had a graphic way oftelling a story, and the events of the morning lost nothing by hertelling. But Mrs. Barlow shook her head when Brenda spoke of visitingManuel in his home.
"It might not be at all a proper place," she said, "and besides,Manuel's mother may not care to have strangers visit her. Poor peoplesometimes are very sensitive about such things."
Before Brenda had time to argue this point with her mother, the portierewas pushed aside and Belle and Edith came into the room. Julia rose toshake hands with Belle, while Edith with a very sweet smile, steppingtoward her, said:
"I am glad to see you. I am one of 'the Four.' Brenda's told you aboutus. I am Edith."
Julia felt strongly drawn to the pleasant-faced girl. She liked herbetter than Belle, although on the two occasions of their meeting thelatter had been markedly polite to her.
"Yes, we're all here now except Nora. We ought to be ready to give her aserenade, or something like that when she comes. She's really a kind ofa heroine, isn't she?"
"Oh, nonsense, Edith," said Belle. "She did not actually do so verymuch. Those horses were not running away, and a little paddy like thatchild has as many lives as a cat."
"He _isn't_ a paddy," interrupted Brenda, "but a Portuguese,--a dearlittle Portuguese--and Nora was very brave. It's just like you, Belle,to think that a thing isn't of any account unless you have had somethingto do with it."
Belle was silent. In the presence of a stranger she never forgot hergood manners, and Julia was still sufficiently a stranger to act as acheck on the sharp reply which otherwise might have risen to her lips.Edith now came in as a peacemaker.
"Well, it was great fun to have anything out of the ordinary happen atschool. You can't imagine," turning to Julia, "how stupid it is to havethings go on in the same way day after day. Last week there was a firealarm about two blocks away, and just think, the engines passed scarcelyfive minutes after recess was over, and Miss Crawdon wouldn't let us runout to see where the fire was."
"Naturally not," said Mrs. Barlow, as she left the room, adding, as shepassed out,
"By the time you are ready, Julia, the carriage will be here."
"Yes, Aunt Ann
a," answered Julia, and she, too, after a few pleasantwords with Edith, excused herself with the explanation that her aunt hadpromised to accompany her to do some important errands down town.
"Come upstairs with me," said Brenda, with an air of relief, as Julialeft. "There's Nora, now, I know her ring of the bell."
Nora soon joined the other three in Brenda's pretty bedroom.
"Here we are, all four together again," exclaimed Brenda, as she threwherself down on the chintz-covered sofa. "It's so much pleasanter not tohave any strangers about."
"Do you call your cousin a stranger?" asked Nora.
"Why, yes, any one can see that she's terribly serious, and that shewon't take a bit of interest in the things we do."
"Aren't you going to ask her to join the Four Club?"
"Well, then it wouldn't be a Four Club. Besides five is a horrid number.You never can plan things together when there are five."
"But you can't leave her out."
"I don't see why not. She'll have other things to do in theafternoon--like to-day. We needn't tell her about the Club at all, needwe?"
Edith and Nora, to whom Brenda seemed to appeal, said nothing. Belle waslooking out of the window, and though she usually would have agreed withBrenda, they had lately had so many little disagreements, that she wouldnot gratify her friend by assenting to her words.
Brenda, however, perceiving that her views were not shared by the otherthree girls, decided to avoid discussing Julia any further.
"Let us come to order like a club," she exclaimed, "and decide what weshall work for this winter."
In the preceding spring the four friends had decided that it would bevery interesting to give their occasional meetings a club form. Insteadof passing their afternoons in mere idle talk, they would have someobject. They would all do fancy work, and perhaps have a sale in thespring for some charity. Each of the girls had already spent all herspare pocket-money on materials for needlework, although as yet they hadmade but little headway in their work. Nor had they decided for whatobject the sale should be held.
"It's a good deal like counting your chickens before they are hatched,"Mrs. Barlow had said when Brenda consulted her on the subject. "It wouldbe better to wait until you have enough work for a sale, before decidingwhat to do with your money."
In her heart Mrs. Barlow doubted that the girls would make enough moneyto be worth giving to any institution. She doubted even that they wouldpersevere in their work, and have a sale. Brenda, herself, was too aptto begin with enthusiasm some undertaking which after a while she wouldlet languish until it came to nothing. In this case Brenda was indignantat her mother's want of faith.
"Now you know that I'm older than I used to be, and I'm perfectly inearnest about wanting an object to work for."
"Very well, Brenda," said Mrs. Barlow smiling, "I certainly will notinterfere, only you must give me time to think of a beneficiary for yourmoney."
Now if the girls had started with a definite object to work for, theirclub meetings would have lost much of their interest. As it was, morethan half their time was spent in earnest discussions of the merit ofdifferent institutions. Edith thought that a hospital was the noblestobject of charity, although the others objected that the City or theState usually looked after hospitals. Nora hoped their money would begiven to some orphan asylum, or a home for old persons, Belle believedthat there was nothing so worthy as the Institution for the Blind, andBrenda changed her point of view from week to week.
"What are we to work for _this_ week, Brenda?" asked Belle, somewhatderisively, as she opened her sewing-bag.
"Oh, I don't know. We're not working for anything in particular." Then,as her eye met Nora's, a new idea came.
"Oh, I'll tell you what, girls,--let us work for--Manuel!"
"'OH, I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, GIRLS,--LET US WORK FOR--MANUEL!'"]