Six Girls and the Tea Room

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER XI

  THE ELASTIC PATTY-PANS

  "EVERYTHING looks like gray wadding, Margery, but I believe we'veover-slept," remarked Happie on Sunday morning to her bedfellow, whosereply was a moan of sleepy protest. But Happie, who when she did wakeup woke thoroughly and at once, tumbled out of bed and taking her smallclock to the spot where the universal grayness was lightest, fell toshaking it energetically.

  "It's stopped!" she announced. "It's wearing out. The only way it willgo now is to lay it over on its face or tip it up on one side, somewhatupsidedownish. I set it up straight last night, and it has stopped.There's hardly any light in the airshaft here, but I think we've sleptuntil near the day after to-morrow."

  "But it still feels just like to-day," protested Margery. "I can't wakeup, Hapsie, and we're not the only ones--the whole flat is still."

  "I'm going to get dressed and find out what day it is. Oh, Margery!There's the whistle! The janitor has come for the ashes. It must benine o'clock, at least. I'll pop on slippers and something above them,and go attend to him. I think it is storming," said Happie, ready toleave the room almost as soon as she had spoken.

  It was not storming in the sense most people use the word, that is,neither snow nor rain was falling, but the wind was blowing a gale, asHappie discovered when she got out into the kitchen where she couldsee the leaden sky which looked as though the whole world were under agreat tank.

  The rattling of the dumb waiter, Happie calling to Gretta in her tinyrear room and Margery conscientiously bestirring herself after hersister had arisen, woke the rest of the family and it was not longbefore the entire eight Scollards--counting Gretta a Scollard forthe convenience of the census--were up and out of the various littlePatty-Pan chambers tardily to begin the dark day.

  It was a formidable day to begin. Blinding dust clouds gathered andeddied down the wide avenue of this newer part of New York. Peoplefought for foothold around corners, shrinking from the penetrating coldof a wind sharper in its chilling powers than any recording instrumentcould register.

  "I'm glad that we are on the fourth floor to-day," remarked Margeryafter breakfast, as she alternated face and back to the steam radiator."Heat ascends, and this is the sort of day when one wants all the heatthere is."

  "Unless it comes in the shape of a conflagration," suggested Bob,smoothing the ear and the ruffled feelings of Jeunesse Doree tickledby the morning paper as he sat on the boy's lap. "Wouldn't this be agreat old day for a fire, though?"

  "Oh, Bob, don't suggest it!" begged his mother. "It's my abidinghorror. I think the new janitor is careful."

  "The newest janitor, mother," amended Happie. "He's only this January'sjanitor. That was the new one who departed after the Christmas harvest.Don't you remember?"

  Bob groaned. "Are we likely to forget it, Happie?" he demanded. "WhenI denied myself ties and books I wanted in order to pay him tribute ina good-sized Christmas gift? And I'm sure he scorned it, because hetold me what fine, rich, generous people all the other tenants were.And then he went off, and as an investment to secure us comfort my rarefive dollar bill yielded nothing."

  Mrs. Scollard laughed. "Janitors are sadly demoralizing to the spiritof generosity," she said. "Margery and Happie, you are letting Grettawash the breakfast dishes with only Polly to help. Laura, you agreed tomake beds if you might be excused from dishwashing."

  The girls scattered at this hint. Even Laura, the reluctant, neverneeded a second bidding from her mother.

  After a little while the bell rang, somewhat to the consternation ofthe belated Scollard family. But when Penny opened the door her gurgleof laughter brought her seniors, confident that no very formidablevisitors had arrived. Bob took by the coat collar one of the two whohad come, crying, "Come in here, you Peary, you! What do you mean byringing the bell and giving me nervous prostration?"

  The callers were Ralph and Snigs, each in a heavy overcoat with thecollar turned up, a hat pulled far over his face, a scarf wound timeand again around his head, gloves on, boots with trousers tucked intothem, and a thick veil protecting his complexion from the winds roaringoutside of the narrow hall which the boys had to cross to reach theopposite flat. Snigs bore Whoop-la, their tiger cat, and Ralph was thespokesman for this arctic-looking trio.

  "Please, kind ladies, our mother is gone to see a sick friend--we thinkshe may come home sicker than the friend was, owing to the weather! Wethought we would blow in on you for shelter--the wind's on our side,and we feel tremulous-spined. Will you please let us sit by your giltradiator, if you haven't a hearthstone?" he pleaded.

  "You shall share the warmth of our gilt radiators and have a gilt-edgedwelcome, you raving lunatics!" Bob replied for his family. "Get out ofthese trappings of woe, and tell us if you ever saw a windier, grayer,meaner day in all your lives."

  "I had thought so," returned Ralph, letting Bob hold his great-coatwhile he dropped out of it, "but now I am not sure." He bowed low toHappie, just coming in, the depth of the bow increased by the suddenremoval of the weighty coat. "Across the hall we are not Happie--wehave not--we need to be Happie----Say, what do you mean by having aname that leads a fellow into the dandiest kind of a compliment, andthen goes back on him?" he demanded. "I thought that was coming out aregular top-notcher of a poetical speech, and look at it!"

  Happie laughed. "I didn't choose my name, Ralph, and you can't blameme for its failing you. It was bright of you to come over here on thisdreary day, even if you can't make bright and flattering speeches. Whenthe wind blows like this I'm always frightened and lonesome feeling.Look at Doree and Whoop-la! For the first time they touched noses,"cried Happie.

  "Doree always wanted to touch one nose--Whoop-la's nose, but with hisclaw," observed Snigs. "Polly, please take out my veil pin; it's caughtin my curls."

  As Snigs stooped, Polly loosened his veil, quite convulsed over thisremark, for Snigs' hair was as short and straight as hair well couldbe. Polly considered Ralph and Snigs the funniest boys in the world,and approaching to Bob as the best boy.

  "Your mother has gone away, you said? For the day?" asked Mrs.Scollard. And as the Gordon boys assented, she cried: "Then we willhave a long, cozy shut-in day! You are both to dine with us--roastbeef, Gretta's prize mashed potatoes, and any other vegetables youchoose from our fertile garden of tins in the pantry. And salad--thatis Happie's specialty! I will make tomato soup since it is so coldand blustering, and perhaps, if you are all very, very good, a spicy,plummy steamed pudding, if we can coax Margery to give us one of herfoamy sauces! I think we can defy the weather, even the wind and theweather. I have a volume of stories that no one can resist for theafternoon. Why, we shall have the best kind of a cozy, uneventful homeday!"

  "We always have the best kind of home days with you, dear Mrs.Scollard," said Ralph, dropping his nonsense to beam gratefully at thisdear woman.

  "It's nice sometimes to know no one can come," remarked Laura withher back to the others as she looked out of the window at the drearystreet. And as she spoke the bell rang.

  "Who can it be! It's the lower bell. Polly, go touch the button, likethe duck you are!" cried Happie. "I don't see how it can be company,on such a morning and Sunday besides." She went towards the door tobe ready to open it when the bold adventurer should have come up thethree flights of stairs which intervened between the street and thePatty-Pans.

  It was so long before the person appeared that the Scollards began tothink their bell had been rung by mistake, and Happie went out to seeif there were any one on the way up. She put her head in at the dooragain.

  "Yes, some one is coming," she said. "A woman all wrapped up so that Ican't tell whether or not it is some one we know. And she comes as slowas she can move."

  It sounded mysterious, and the Scollards within the flat listenedeagerly for the first word from their representative at the door whichshould give them a clue to this arrival.

  "Why, Auntie Keren! It isn't you! I didn't know you the
least bit inthe world!" they heard Happie cry at last.

  Happie came back with her hand slipped through Miss Bradbury's arm.Mrs. Scollard came swiftly forward to greet her guest, whose adventfrom the lower dwelling-part of the city in such severe weather was atleast unexpected.

  Miss Bradbury, always eccentric or indifferent in matters of dress,looked remarkable, even for her. A heavy coat, an automobiling coatas the Scollards saw on a second glance, very much too large forher, enveloped her shapelessly. A small black hat--Miss Bradburyalways wore a bonnet of obsolete elderly style--did not reveal itsinappropriateness until the long veil enshrouding it was removed.Beneath these Miss Bradbury presented the sober propriety of the plainblack silk gown in which, in fair or foul weather, she invariably wentto church.

  She could not have been to church, for not only was it too early andshe was enveloped in the automobiling coat, but she carried in herarms leather boxes which looked like silver cases and seemed heavy, andin one hand was an open basket containing photographs, old fashioneddaguerreotypes, and a small black book.

  Miss Bradbury's face was very pale, she looked exhausted, and yieldedup her burdens to the boys as though they had been burdens indeed.

  "Dear Miss Keren, it did not need proof that you were not a fairweather friend, but it is very good of you to brave the exposure ofcoming up town in such a wind as this," said Mrs. Scollard, gentlydivesting Miss Keren of her extraordinary garments. She felt instantlysure that something was seriously wrong with her.

  "You don't look well, dear Auntie Keren," said Margery. "Have you beenill? Happie and I thought you looked less strong than usual when youwere here a week ago."

  "I have had a cold. It had grippish characteristics, among others thatof being uncommonly weakening," said Miss Keren. "Charlotte, I shallhave to ask you for a cup of hot tea at once."

  "Coffee would be better, and just as easily made," said Mrs. Scollard."That's right, Polly, you are going to ask Gretta to attend to it." ForPolly had started towards the kitchen at the first hint of her AuntKeren's desire, ready as usual to be helpful.

  Miss Keren sank into the chair which Happie pulled up to the radiator.She put her feet on the hot pipes with a grateful sigh. Happie stoopedto them.

  "Let me take off your rubbers, Auntie Keren," she said.

  "I haven't any," said Miss Keren briefly.

  "Oh, Auntie Keren! On such a day as this, and after being ill with acold!" said Happie reproachfully.

  "I never thought to ask for them, child, and they forgot to lend meany," said Miss Keren.

  Margery, Happie and their mother involuntarily glanced at one another.All three had the same thought: that Miss Keren was still ill andfeverish, and that her mind was affected.

  "I can go to a hotel," said Miss Keren, so irrelevantly that thereseemed to be no doubt of the correctness of this surmise.

  "A hotel, dear Miss Keren?" echoed Mrs. Scollard. Bob and the Gordonboys looked at her with an expression that plainly told her all threewere ready to go for a doctor on the spot.

  "To tell the truth I don't feel equal to it, neither in mind nor inbody," said Miss Keren. "But I don't want to impose upon you. I knowthis tiny nest of Patty-Pans is hardly big enough for your largefamily, Charlotte. I am sorry to say--sorry for your sake, because Iknow you will not have the heart to refuse me--that there isn't anotherplace on the face of the earth where I feel that I could bear to beto-day, and I want you all. Will you take me in, until I have time andstrength to face the situation?"

  Again the Scollards exchanged glances, but this time with a differentmeaning. This did not sound like delirium. Miss Keren was not usuallyincoherent, but there was something other than mental derangementbehind these remarks.

  "Miss Keren, I don't quite understand," began Mrs. Scollard. "I thinkyou mean that you want to stay here with us to-night? You know that weare always delighted to have you with us, at any time, anywhere, andthe elastic Patty-Pans can always take in another. Don't you rememberhow long you stayed here--so blessedly good to us when I was ill, nota year ago? And now there is only Gretta added to our family. She usesthat little room at the end of the flat which we used to keep for astoreroom--she preferred it to crowding Margery and Happie. Bob cantake that, Gretta can come into the older girls' room, and you can takeBob's room. You did mean that you didn't want to go home to-night,didn't you?"

  "No, I meant nothing of the kind," said Miss Keren in her old manner."I should be particularly glad to go home to-night. What I meant isthat I have no home to go to. I was burned out early this morning."

  The Scollards drew a gasping breath and exclaimed, "Oh!" in concert.Gretta, coming in with Miss Keren's coffee just in time to hear herannouncement, nearly dropped the tray, and Polly, following behind herwith the sugar-bowl, did drop that, and squares of cut sugar scatteredin all directions.

  "Aunt Keren, how dreadful!" cried Margery. "Have you saved anything?"

  "Don't tell us about it yet. Drink your coffee," said Mrs. Scollard.

  "I saved what I have on, and what I brought with me in my arms," saidMiss Keren. "The outer garments that I wore were loaned me by people Ido not know. I have their address to return the clothing," she addedwith her whimsical twist of the lips. "Ah! That is good coffee, Grettachild. Will you take me into the Ark again? My furniture is therestill. You and I might 'go back to our mountains,' as the gypsy Azucenabegs to do in Trovatore, and spend the winter in that refuge."

  "I will go with you, Miss Bradbury, certainly," said Gretta gravely.

  "Oh, well, perhaps it won't be necessary. We shall all go there inthe spring," said Miss Keren. "That hot coffee will enable me to facethe calamity, Charlotte. Thank you, and Gretta. Now, dear annexedfamily, listen to my tale of woe! This morning, just after breakfast,I made myself ready for church as I always do, and then sat down tomy paper for the interval between my preparations and time to start.I don't think I can tell you precisely what happened, but there arosea great hue and cry throughout the house that it was on fire. Mychildren, it is incredible how rapidly the fire spread and burned!I could save nothing, except the smaller pieces of silver that hadbeen in the family for several generations, a few likenesses, and mymother's little worn Bible. I helped my maids get out their belongingsfirst, of course, and then there was no time left. I came out intothe street precisely as you see me now, with the boxes and the basketI carried when I came--and how I carried them I do not see, for theyare heavy and what with the grippe and the shock my strength seemedmelted away. People in the neighborhood were kind and muffled me in theextraordinary garment you saw--an automobile coat! I am sure the peoplein the subway thought me an uncertain number in the Rogues' Gallery,for they stared all the way up town at this singular old person in asporting coat that did not fit her, burdened with unmistakable cases ofsilver. However, I was allowed to go unmolested! That is all my story,my dears. I am burned out. The dignified apartment house to whichI clung, is a skeleton only--needless to say it was supposed to befireproof!--and here am I, begging your hospitality."

  Happie flew at her with streaming eyes. "Dearest Auntie Keren, it isperfectly, horribly awful!" she cried. "But nothing matters as long asyou are safe."

  "Were you well insured, Aunt Keren?" inquired Bob, just as his motherasked, "How did the fire originate?"

  "Do hear the man of business!" cried Miss Keren. "I carried a goodinsurance, Bob, but money can never compensate me for what is gone. Thedear inanimate friends of my lifetime, that seemed so animated withgood will to me, and with which I had been so long glad and sorry!My chairs, my couches, and above all my pictures, my books. Most ofmy household goods were handed down to me by those who consecratedthem to me--ah, no, money does not do anything for one in such a caseexcept buy merely useful articles to replace the others; it gives onethings with bodies only, where the old ones had heart and soul! I amquite ashamed to mind so much, I who am old enough to understand thattransitory things cannot long affect me."

  No one spoke. Happie stroked Miss Keren's hand, b
undled up at her feet,a figure of tearful and loving sympathy. Bob, Ralph and Snigs avoidedone another's eyes; each knew what he should see if he looked at theother two.

  "You asked what caused the fire, Charlotte," said Miss Keren, breakingthe silence. "A tenant on a lower floor--the one below mine--waswashing gloves in gasoline in her bath-room. The gas was lighted, butthe door was open, so there was no danger. However, some one calledher, and when she went out of the bath-room she closed the door behindher. The fumes of the gasoline ignited from the gas in the heated,close little room--and the whole house went. Such a pity! I liked thehouse; it was more distinctive than newer apartments."

  "Words cannot say how sorry I am, dear Miss Keren," said Mrs. Scollard."But I am sure you know how we all feel. It has been; there is nocuring it, and we must do our best to help you in enduring it. I am soglad that you came straight here! It is a greater happiness to me thanyou can gauge, to know that my mother's beloved friend comes to me asif I were her daughter."

  "Yes, Charlotte, you are my nearest of kin, although I have bloodrelatives," said Miss Keren. "Happie, stop crying. Tears won't put outa fire that has done its work, my dear. And I shall have to go to thehotel after all if you prove an Unhappie. Don't you know that after anervous shock the patient must be cheered?"

  "Yes, and I think we'll have a jolly time, between the Patty-Pans andthe Next Flat!" cried Ralph, speaking for the first time since MissKeren arrived. "Now Snigs and I can try to show you how gratefullywe remember the good times we had, thanks to you, up in Crestvillelast summer! We'll entertain you till you won't know there ever wasa fire, and you'll lose your grippe! And, see here, Mrs. Scollard,please ma'am! Bob is coming over to sleep in our camp. You know howmuch room we have, our flat being the same size as this one, and ourfamily three, instead of eight. So let Bob sleep over there, and MissBradbury can take his room and we'll all be as merry as a marriagebell. I wonder why people say that? Every wedding I ever saw was thedreariest thing I ever struck."

  "Thank you, Ralph," smiled Mrs. Scollard. "I will accept that offer onthe spot. Come now, girls, let us begin to get dinner. We were going tohave a particularly nice dinner, Miss Keren, so you came on preciselythe right day. Come, Margery and Gretta! And Happie, you may attend tothe dining-room."

  "Let Laura look after the dining room, Charlotte. I want Happie. I amnot sure that I feel quite well," said Miss Keren unexpectedly.

  Happie flushed with pleasure, and forgot her grief over Auntie Keren'slosses in the joy of knowing that she was a comfort, knowledge that isa keen joy to almost any one, but was especially so to loving Happie.

  "Oh, I am so glad that you like to have me by you!" she said, layingher cheek on Miss Keren's hand.

  The fingers of the hand moved upward, trying to pat the cheek pressedtoo closely to allow them to do so, but Miss Keren did not speak.

  Ralph spoke for her. "Queer, but Happie is like some of those patentmedicines--good for what ails you, and for what ails everybody, eh,Bob?"

  "Right you are, neighbor mine!" said Bob emphatically.