Six Girls and the Tea Room

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER VIII

  HARD TRAVELING

  MISS BRADBURY came in the next day, which was Sunday, to dine with theScollards on her way home from church. At least she said it was on herway home, although she lived not far from the Washington Arch and hadbeen to church near Fiftieth Street, and the Patty-Pans was in thebelt of lower rents above the upper entrance to Central Park. But theScollards were used to her whimsical statements and were too glad toget hold of her on any terms to dispute her topography.

  Aunt Keren-happuch struck them all as looking pale and tired. They hadnot seen her in two weeks and Mrs. Scollard was troubled by the wearylook which, to her eyes, energetic Miss Keren wore. She indignantlydenied feeling less well than usual, and told Gretta that if her lookswere changed it must be by her descent from the mountains to the soileddamp air of the seaboard city.

  Miss Keren found the Scollards, or at least the mother and her twoeldest daughters, urging Gretta to let Mrs. Barker send her to school.Mrs. Scollard was disturbed by Gretta's firmness; it frightened herlest the girl should blight her entire life when she was too young torealize the full effect of her refusal. Most of all she was troubledbecause Happie believed that Gretta was refusing in order to help herfriends through that busy winter.

  "Oh, Miss Keren, help me convert Gretta!" cried Mrs. Scollard. "I havesaid everything that I can think of, but she won't listen to reason."

  "That means she won't see things as you do; 'reason' is always myopinion, and 'unreason' the other person's, just as 'orthodoxy is mydoxy, and heterodoxy is the other man's doxy,'" commented Miss Keren."What am I to convert Gretta to? Has she been turning heathen?"

  "You know the Dutch are always obstinate," said Gretta quietly.

  "Heathen? No," said Bob quickly. "They are worrying for fear Gretta isturning too Christian, and loving her neighbor better than herself;they want you to convert her to paganism."

  "I'm fresh from church," remarked Miss Keren. "Suppose you tell me thecase."

  They told it to her in a trio of Mrs. Scollard, Margery and Happie,while Gretta sat by listening and smiling in a most detached,impersonal way.

  The Scollards felt quite sure of an ally in Miss Keren, who wasalways anxious to help people on in the world and who would fullyrealize what six years in a good school would mean to Gretta. To theirunbounded surprise, when they were through with their story MissKeren said decidedly: "Gretta is perfectly right. She is gettingall the training--mental training--here that she needs, and a greatdeal else that no school could give her. Then I think you need herthis winter. Wait! I wouldn't advise letting that stand in the way oflarger interests. If Gretta were losing by staying I couldn't say thatit would be just, but she isn't. And she is very essential to you,dividing forces as you are between here and the tea room. And last,but not least, of reasons: I don't care for your Barker acquaintances,Charlotte, and I think an education received from Mrs. Barker wouldbe a burden, a sort of mortgage on Gretta. You'd see that Mrs. Barkerwould forget about the gratitude which prompted her gift, and rememberonly Gretta's debt to her. It has been my experience that it requiredthe nicest sort of people at whose hands to receive a favor that shouldnot be most burdensome. The Barkers are shoddy. On all accounts I thinkGretta is in the right to refuse. And I think the future may holdsomething quite as good for her, which need not be refused."

  Gretta fairly beamed. "You dear Miss Bradbury," she said. "I felt sodreadfully sure you would be on the other side! I couldn't express myown meaning as you have done it for me, but you think just as I do. I'mever so much obliged to you."

  "You're entirely welcome. But I don't think they would have had theirway with you, even if I had been on their side, would they?" laughedMiss Keren.

  Gretta laughed too, but shook her head decidedly. "You know MadisonCounty is all rocks, and I was born and brought up there. I guess Icaught the rockiness when I was growing. I'm as obstinate as the restof the Dutch!" she said.

  When Miss Keren departed, early after dinner, Margery, Happie, Grettaand Bob went with her down town for the sake of the walk home againat sunset. It was a walk of over six miles, but not too far comingup through the park in the wintry wind, sharp and dry, with thedown-dropping sun lighting the skeleton of the trees into a beauty notinferior to that of the summer verdure.

  "No, she certainly does not look well," Gretta agreed with Margery asthey turned their faces up town when the door had closed behind MissBradbury in the large apartment house where she lived alone with hertwo maids.

  "But Aunt Keren couldn't be ill," Happie declared optimistically. "Idon't believe she would know how to be, and sickness would have toleave her for lack of a proper reception."

  "We'll go down and see her in a few days," said Margery, lookingunconvinced.

  "We will if we can get there," amended Happie. "You and I in thetea room, Laura helping us half the day and helping Gretta at home theother half of it, there isn't much chance of our doing anything but ourwork before another Sunday."

  "You're not wearying of well-doing, Happie?" hinted Bob.

  "Now, Robert, who said anything that sounded like that?" demandedHappie reproachfully. "I was merely stating facts. Do you think that Icould weary of doing as well as we do there? Do you realize that withyour promotion and your five dollars more a week, and our tea room, weare making up the other half of dearest motherum's salary which shewasn't strong enough to earn this winter? We clear twenty dollars aweek at the worst, and Margery and I are laying by money to give--or tooffer to give--Aunt Keren for rent, besides. We don't feel comfortableknowing we aren't paying our own rent, especially as she can't affordto do it."

  "Rather a ticklish matter to pay back a Christmas present," remarkedBob.

  "Not to Aunt Keren," said Happie. "She will know just how we mean it,and she'll see a business ought to pay its own expenses, if it can."

  "That's one of the nicest things about Auntie Keren," said Margery."She never misunderstands one, always takes everything precisely as onesays it, and construes it by her experience of what one is likely tomean. She may be brusque, and I suppose people who don't know her thinkshe is too much so, but I think there's more real amiability under hereven-tempered bluntness than there is in sweetness that doesn't holdout."

  "A good deal," agreed Happie emphatically. "I think people who gethurt and offended easily have the worst of hard dispositions, for theyalways pride themselves on their sensitiveness, and blame everybodyelse."

  "And I think," said Gretta quietly, "that this day is one of thosepleasant things you are talking about, that can't be depended upon tohold out."

  "Going to be a change?" drawled Bob, imitating the accent of JakeShale, who had worked for the Scollards the previous summer on the farm.

  "I guess," retorted Gretta in like accent. "There's such an east windblowing. What fur a ring is that round the sun? Storm, say not?"

  The three Scollards laughed aloud with such enjoyment that two or threepassers-by smiled in sympathy. The dialect of Madison County soundedodd and pleasant, bringing the picture of the Ark in its green fieldsinto handsome Fifth Avenue.

  They got home to the Patty-Pans cold and hungry, wholesomely tired fora good night's sleep. When they awakened weather-wise Gretta was proveda competent prophet, and the beautiful Sunday but what old people call"a weather breeder." A cold rain was falling, mingled with hail. Itfroze as it fell, and the stone paved sidewalks were as great a menaceto human beings as was the asphalt upon which the poor horses wereslipping and straining in a manner painful to see.

  "Margery, you let me go down with Happie to-day," said Gretta. "I amsurer-footed and stronger than you are. And we can get on withouteither Laura or Polly. Nobody will be out to-day who can stay in. It'sfearful walking. Happiness and I will go down to the tea room; the restof you stay here. Oh, there goes a horse!"

  Gretta covered her eyes, shuddering. Her love for horses was apassion with her, and it was almost more than she could bear to
seetheir suffering as they strove for a foothold on the wet or sleetedasphalt, falling to their death from the bullet that would end thepain of a broken leg, or, worse, when they strained into an injury notimmediately fatal, but incurable.

  "I don't see how you can live in New York!" she gasped, turning awayfrom the window with a white face, as the latest victim was helped tohis feet by feed bags placed under them.

  "Are you ever homesick, Gretta?" asked Happie with a sudden suspicion.

  "No, because you are all here, but, oh, wouldn't you rather be up inthe mountains where the air is dry and clear than here, crowded up, inthis wet wind, with horses ruined before your eyes?" cried Gretta.

  "Poor Gretta! I believe you do miss your mountains!" said Margerygently.

  "Home is home," said Gretta. "But not without you all," she addedhastily.

  Margery found the day long. From its beginning to its close walkingwas not less dangerous, and she had visions of her mother, Happie,even sure-footed Gretta, coming home in an ambulance, with brokenbones. Laura played dismal music all the gray day till Margery almostscreamed, but if it made Laura happy to be miserable gentle Margery didnot like to thwart her, so bore the minor strains uncomplainingly.

  It was a great relief when her mother came back safe and sound, alittle earlier than usual, for Margery had been more anxious about herthan about the girls. They, too, arrived with every bone intact, havingtriumphed over the pitfalls set that day by nature, but they came aloneand late.

  "Where's Bob?" asked Mrs. Scollard. The boy of the family never failedin escort duty to his sisters, unless he sent a substitute.

  "That's what we are wondering," said Happie. "We waited fifteen minutesfor him, then we locked the door and waited more than five minutesoutside, then we came on without him. Isn't it strange?"

  "He would have telephoned if he couldn't come, unless----" Grettastopped herself.

  "Unless he couldn't telephone," Mrs. Scollard finished the sentencefor her. "Polly, run down-stairs, dear, and see if any message has beenneglected by the boy."

  Polly started to obey, but a rap on the door as she neared it checkedher, and Happie opened it to Snigs, Snigs with a queer, excited faceand a suppressed manner.

  "Oh, hallo, Happie!" he said with forced jauntiness. "I came to tellyou that Bob sort of slipped--tumbled down, like a chump, and he thinkshe hurt his ankle, and he was afraid you mightn't like it--I mean hewas afraid you'd be afraid it was worse than it is, so he sent me aheadto tell you it was nothing bad."

  "Where is Bob?" cried Mrs. Scollard hastening forward.

  "He telephoned Ralph to meet him. He's downs-tairs at the door. Iguess he's got to wait for the janitor to help him up--he came home ina cab," said Snigs.

  "Oh, dear!" groaned Laura always ready to meet a sensationsensationally, and Margery looked aghast, remembering how her motherhad come home in a carriage, completely broken down, less than a yearbefore.

  "Let's go see, motherums!" said Happie cheerfully, though she was badlyfrightened.

  They had not got down one flight of the three between them and thelower hall, when they heard slow steps and many of them, and saw Bobtrying to smile at them above the shoulders of Ralph, the stout Germanjanitor, the colored fireman and the hall boy as they carried himup-stairs.

  "Lo! we bring with us the hero-- Lo! we bring the conquering Graeme, Crowned as best beseems a victor From the altar of his fame,"

  Bob declaimed, setting Ralph's skating cap, which heimperatively borrowed, rakishly on one eye to give point to hisquotation.

  "Bob, my dear Bob, what has happened?" cried his mother.

  "I'm like Tennyson's Brook, mother; 'I slip, I slide'--I don't 'gleam,'though. It wasn't a long plan of mine. I just sat down on the icysidewalk to mature it, and when I got up--well, I didn't get up,--tomake a bull--I was pulled up." Bob cheerfully called this informationup the stairs to his anxious mother, smiling into her down-bent face,and entirely indifferent to what the other tenants might think of hisnonsense.

  "It's a sprain or a strain, Mrs. Scollard; it isn't anything serious,"Ralph corroborated. "But Bob can't join one of Mrs. Stewart's classesthis week."

  The doctor came and bandaged Bob, pronouncing his hurt one that wouldrecover in a reasonable time if he did not try to force it.

  Bob took his supper on the sofa that night, and the girls waited on himso devotedly that it was rather pleasant to be incapacitated.

  But beneath his enjoyment of the hour, and of Ralph and Snigs'nonsense, which they brought over with them from the next flat and kepton tap all the evening, was an anxiety for the morrow and for thesucceeding morrows. Bob was more than desirous to do his duty at theoffice, yet here he was, laid up!

  Happie saw the worry and so did Margery, but where the loving eldergirl could only grieve over it, the younger set about curing it.

  After a confab with Margery, Gretta and Laura that night when theGordon boys had gone, Happie came into Bob's room and seated herself onthe edge of his narrow white bed.

  "I have something to announce to you, Robert, my wounded hero," shesaid, smoothing the sheet comfortably under his chin. "I've beentalking it over with the girls, and we can manage it. Gretta is to keephouse here, Margery is to take charge of the tea room, Laura is to gothere with her, and so is Polly, and Penny is to stay at home everyday, except dancing school days. And I am going down to Mr. Felton'soffice every morning, and I'm going to do your work if I can, and if Ican't I shall find some way to be useful."

  "Well, I guess you won't!" cried Bob, his voice bristling withexclamation points.

  "Well, I guess I will!" Happie mocked him. "Bob, I'd love to do it! I'mnot afraid. And I know as much arithmetic as you do."

  "You know enough, Happie, but you would have to learn the office work,and by the time you had learned it I should be back. And you, a girl,can't do errands. But it would be fine if you could keep my placefor me," added Bob, seeing how crestfallen Happie looked. He had suchunbounded faith in his sister's ability that he half wondered if shecould not do what she wanted to do, after all.

  "Then I may try!" cried Happie, brightening under Bob's hint ofrelenting.

  "No use, Hapsie, but I wish there were," said Bob vaguely.

  Happie talked her mother over, and in the morning had her way. Theentire household, save Gretta, Bob and Penny, sallied forth in thedampness of the thawing ice of the day before, but with the sunclimbing up to dry it off into a perfect day.

  Happie presented herself with unexpected timidity in the office whereBob had served his apprenticeship to the world of business, and wherethe hope of the future smiled at him. Three young clerks looked at herspeculatively, wondering at the youth of this very early client, andwhether she had come to buy, sell, lease, or hire.

  "Is Mr. Felton here?" asked Happie, and with her question her couragerose.

  "He's inside," said the youngest of the clerks. "Want to see him? I'lltake your message."

  "Just tell him, please, that Robert Scollard's sister would like to seehim. He has sprained his ankle and can't come down to-day," Happie said.

  "MR. FELTON CAME OUT OF HIS SANCTUM"]

  "Oh, that's a pity!" exclaimed one of the other clerks. "Yes, it's ashame!" chimed in the second. "Awful sorry," murmured the one who hadrisen to go to Mr. Felton.

  Happie felt better; these lads evidently liked Bob.

  Mr. Felton came out of his sanctum and smiled kindly at Bob's emissary.

  "Sorry to hear that Scollard is laid up. Nothing serious, I hope?" hesaid.

  "No, sir," said Happie. "But he can't use his foot, and won't beable to use it for at least a week. I came down because I want totake his place here until he is able to be about. I am quite good ataccounts--we studied together--and I think I can be useful. Please letme try."

  Mr. Felton laughed. "So you are made of the same cloth as your brother.It is exactly like him not to forget his duties here when he is hurt,but he needn't have sent you as a substitute; I can get along."
/>
  "He didn't send me, I came--but of course he was glad when I said Ithought I could come. What shall I do first?" asked Happie, lookingaround in a businesslike way.

  "Open those letters on your brother's desk, sort them into theirclasses; bills, paid and unpaid, applications for houses, offices,apartments, etc., and general correspondence. Then add up that rentroll there," said Mr. Felton indicating papers on Bob's desk. He wentback into his inner office and Happie hung up her coat and hat onthe hook pointed out to her by one of "the other boys," as she toldherself, climbed on Bob's stool and went to work.

  The three young men in the office were ready with suggestions andinformation and Happie accomplished her tasks fairly well through a daythat was not as long as it would have been in an office further down intown. It was long enough, however, to her unaccustomed muscles, perchedfor so many hours on a stool that strained her knees, with her backbent over a desk.

  "Shall I come back, Mr. Felton? To-morrow, I mean, and until Bobcan come himself?" she asked when Mr. Felton bade his little forcegood-night.

  "Why, if you like," he replied, smiling into Happie's eager face.

  "I like it, if it helps," she said.

  "Yes, it helps," said Mr. Felton. "You have done your brother's workto-day. Of course I don't know how much help you had." He glanced atthe three young men, but they stood by Happie to a man.

  "Oh, she only needed a hint or two," said the oldest. "Just a littleshowing with some things she had never run up against," added the onewhom Happie liked best.

  "She hasn't been any bother," said the youngest one, with a patronizingair that made Happie long to box his ears.

  "Very well, I shall appreciate your not allowing my work to sufferthrough your brother's absence," said Mr. Felton with a polite bow.And so it was settled that until Bob was out again Happie was to be inthe real estate business.

  It was a tired but triumphant Happie, therefore, that came into the tearoom to go home with her sisters under substitute Ralph's escort. Thetea room was not far distant from Mr. Felton's office.

  Bob listened to her account of the day with explosions of laughter thatwere inspired by admiration fully as much as by mirth.

  "Hapsie, you're all kinds of a good fellow!" he said at the end of therecital. "I won't forget this in a hurry! But Gretta has been a trumptoo! She has looked after my bandages, and fed Penny and me well, andentertained me into the bargain. I think I've six pretty nice sisters!"

  Bob beamed on the group of big and little girls, with a pat on Happie'sarm and a special smile for Gretta, who blushed with pleasure andlooked amply repaid for that day's work.

  "Now wouldn't it be nice if I had gone to that school, as Mrs. Barkerwanted me to, and there had been no one but Penny to stay at home?" sheasked.

  "Well, really, Gretta, you have the best of the argument to-day," saidMrs. Scollard smoothing the girl's hair as she brought a cushion forBob's foot, and set the biggest orange before Happie.