CHAPTER I
THE FOURTH FLOOR, EAST
"HOW can you get twelve feet into eight feet, no matter how good youare in arithmetic?" asked Happie Scollard, a trifle impatiently.
"You'd have to be pretty poor in arithmetic to try it. Even home-taughtchildren ought to know something about putting greater into lesser,"observed Bob. "Would you mind telling us what you're driving at,Keren-happuch, my dear?"
Happie groaned. "This room is quite squeedged enough with us sixScollards in it, without crowding in my dreadful name, Robert, mydear," she retorted. "What I was driving at was a harmless little_humorous_ joke. This kitchen is eight feet wide, and we have twelvefeet, we six, haven't we? I was wishing we had more space to stand on;that's all."
"That's right; always make _humorous_ jokes," approved Bob. "I've heardlots of jokes that hadn't a touch of humor. Yours isn't so very--butnever mind! You know we needn't put all the twelve feet into the eight.This room is nine feet long. What's the matter with putting a few ofour feet down the length of it? Say seven of the twelve, for instance?"
Happie laughed. "I hadn't thought of dividing them that way," she said."But the worst of standing any of your feet lengthwise of the room isthat it brings some of you in between the range and the sink, and thenI can't stir the fudge. Though to be sure if you all stand widthwise Ican't get to the closet."
"How could you put seven one way and five the other? They'd have to goin twos, because we've each got two feet, don't you see?" asked Pollysuddenly. She had been turning Bob's suggestion over in her mind andhad announced her discovery with her usual serious manner. In all hernine years of life with her nonsense-loving elder brother and sisters,Polly had not learned that they were not always to be taken literally.
"Good for you, pretty Polly!" exclaimed Bob. "I believe you're right!And you know how many are left when you take seven from twelve, don'tyou? What's the matter with Happie? Isn't she all right?"
"This is a dear little kitchen, Happie. We all said so when we came tolook at the flat! And we were so glad it was sunny!" said Margery, thesweet seventeen years-old sister who mothered the little band duringtheir mother's daily absence.
"I'm still glad, sweet Peggy," said Happie. "But when we looked at theflat, we didn't realize how very tiny this kitchen was--we hadn'tput the saucepans and things into the cupboard, you see! But I'm notbreaking my vows. I'm still thankful that we have our funny, cozylittle drawn-out fourth floor home. But it is a little kitchen for six,and everybody always packs into it when I make fudge."
"You ought to be flattered," said Bob. "How is it coming on this time?"
"Not as fast as usual; there isn't much pressure on the gas," repliedHappie, lifting her pan to peer anxiously at the fragrant brown mass itheld.
She was a pretty creature, not with a regular and easily definedprettiness, but with a charm of feature, coloring and expression thatwas more potent than orthodox beauty. She had brown hair, that in theshade looked the color of a ripe chestnut. In the sun it turned asplendid copper color, as if the chestnut had blazed up in the brazier.It was hair all crinkles and wrinkles, trying to curl as nature meantit to, and as its owner distinctly meant it not to curl. It wavedaround rosy cheeks in which the dimples came and went so fast thatthey looked as if they too were curly, like the hair, and it shadedbrown eyes that could laugh and flash and cloud sorrowfully, but whichordinarily shone with a warm, steady light that put one in mind of aglowing hearth fire. Happie could not have had a more appropriate namethan her nickname, for she was a veritable ray of sunshine, brave andcheerful and unselfish, good with that natural tendency to noble aimsand thoughts that seems in rare natures to be at one with the tendencyof flowers to clothe themselves in fragrance and beauty. She could getangry, and sometimes did, but she never could do unkind or mean things;she was a loyal, pure-hearted, clever little woman of fourteen, withso many talents that she had no special one, and her mother felt thatwhen the time came for her to earn her bread, as all the Scollards mustdo, it might be hard to decide for what too-versatile Happie was bestfitted.
Just now this sunny little maiden was bending absorbed over the gasrange, her face decidedly red, her sweet lips deserving the epithetfor purely external reasons, as well as for their pleasant curves,while her right hand stirred the mixture in a pan which her left handslightly lifted above the circular blue flame.
Margery--Margaret--reclined against the drop shelf which was thespace-economizing substitute for a kitchen table. She was a gracefulyoung creature, with a serious look on her madonna-like face, broughtthere by her early acquaintance with responsibility and anxiety.
Bob, next to Margery in seniority, sat astride of the only chair thetiny kitchen admitted. A fine, square-shouldered specimen of a boynearing sixteen he was; open-browed, bright-eyed, overflowing with fun,yet with a certain steadiness of manner that spoke him trustworthy, asbecame a boy who had been left the head of a family by his father'sdeath four years before.
Laura, Happie's successor in the birth record of the family Bible,toyed elegantly with a fork, but cast rapid, furtive glances atthe fudge, betraying the shallowness of the indifference which anover-weening sense of the dignity of her twelve years impelled her toassume. She was a pale, thin girl, with a discontented and sensitivemouth, and an abundance of foolish affectations that made her seem likean alien among the cheerful, sensible young Scollards.
Mary--Polly, as she was always called, was the most stolidlysensible little creature of the family. A round-faced, broad-browed,sweet-tempered, plump little body was Polly, never in anybody's way,always to be relied upon for an errand, very fond of housewifely tasksof which she assumed her full share in the household, though sheboasted but nine years of age.
Penelope, baby Penny, ended the Scollard list, winding up the ranks atfour years, an imaginative, lively little person, not prone to scrapes,but fond of mischief, and with an ability to amuse and to take care ofherself remarkable, considering there were five older children readyand glad to spoil her with petting.
The sensitive, delicate mother of this flock had been left a widowwhen Penny was a wee baby. There had been nothing for her gifted,impractical husband to leave her but the memory of a perfect love anda beautiful life, spent rather in the pursuit of ideals than of money.Without a murmur this woman, strong of soul, though weak of body,had taken up the burden of her profound grief and the support of herchildren. She had many accomplishments, and her knowledge of languagesstood her in good stead. Every day she journeyed down the subway fromher fourth floor nest in an up-town apartment house, and earned her ownand her children's bread as the foreign correspondent of a large firm,coming back weary every night during the hardest hours of the crowdedsubway travel to her flat, where, after the dinner which her childrenhad prepared, she spent each evening giving them the lessons for whichshe could no longer afford teachers. It was not strange that theScollards worshiped their mother with the love she so richly deserved,the love of recognition of a noble woman, as well as the natural loveof children for their mother.
Happie's fudge boiled up suddenly, and suddenly Laura spoke, breaking asilence that had lasted for several minutes.
"I think I should like to be called Laure," she said.
"Law! What for?" cried Happie, promptly, blowing away vigorously on thespoonful of fudge which she had taken out to test.
"It's less common than Laura and more musical," said Laura pensively."Laure sounds elegant."
"It sounds silly," said Polly instantly.
"It sounds as if you could put your finger through it anywhere; Idon't like French names for American and English girls," added Happie.
"I like names that sound like beautiful music," said Laura, who reallywas talented musically, but who was pitiably conscious of the fact. "Iwas making up the loveliest little song--the sweetest air!--and I waswriting the words too. I said:
'She shone afar, Like a golden star, My angel Laure.'
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p; And then I had to stop, because it ought to have been Laura, and Laurewouldn't have rhymed. If only it was Laure now----"
"It wouldn't have rhymed, even if it had been," interrupted Happie, nottoo patiently. "Can't you hear that _afar_ and _star_ don't rhyme with_Laure_?"
"And what's the matter with writing songs and poems to some other girlbeside yourself?" suggested Bob. "You might have said: 'My angel Bar,'for instance, and pretended the angel's name was Barbara. For goodness'sake, don't be a goose, Laura! You're nearly in your 'teens, as you sooften remind us, and you ought to stop being so sentimental."
"You're not musical, Bob," said Laura, so pityingly, and with such anair of shedding light on the whole question that they all shouted.
"Fudge's done!" announced Happie triumphantly, giving a few last,furious beats to the mixture turning delightfully thick and sugaryin the pan. "Bring on the pans, Polly, and, Bob, will you put it outon the fire escape till it gets cool enough to go on the ice withoutmelting our entire stock? I've got to rest and cool my face."
Her lieutenants meekly obeyed, and Happie dropped on the chair whichBob vacated, fanning herself vigorously with a paper.
"I hope you haven't harmed your complexion, child," said Margery withher elder sisterly air, as she surveyed Happie's flaming cheeks.
"Fireproof!" Happie replied carelessly. "Sunproof and freckleprooftoo; you know I never burn or freckle as you do, Margery. That comesof having golden hair and peach blossom tints. I'm betwixt andbetween--coloring, age, height, cleverness, looks, everything, so Ijust slip through, and nothing touches me. I don't care! I like beingfourteen and not having to think of skin or anything! I'd rather changeplaces with Penny than with you, Peggy, but the worst of it is in threeyears I'll be as old as you are now."
"I like to feel that I am almost a young lady," said Margery placidly,surveying with entire satisfaction the hem of her dress resting on thefloor as she leaned against the shelf. "I believe it is interesting tobe grown-up. At least I ought to be of more use to motherkins then. AndI should like to have a pretty house and entertain people beautifully,so they'd be perfectly happy visiting me." And pretty Margery sighedinvoluntarily, remembering the small flat which was her home, and whichpromised no gratification of her hospitable instincts.
"I shouldn't care for that," said Laura, taking up the theme with thereadiness to discuss grown-up plans all little girls feel. "It doesn'tmean much, just to entertain! What I should want would be to givepeople something better than dinners and visits. I mean to sing topeople, my own songs, and play to them my own music and all the othercomposers'----"
"Why so modest, Laura? Why don't you say all the other _great_composers?" inquired Bob blandly, withdrawing his head from the window,having deposited the pans of fudge on the fire escape. "If it comesto swapping ambitions, mine is to go to college, and it looks as if Icould go, now doesn't it? So Robert the Impatient, must make the bestof it."
"And of himself," added Margaret with her gentle smile, and the halfmotherly look that made her grown-up air and elder sisterly manner veryattractive.
"I'm going to have a hospital for hurt cats and dogs," announced Polly.
"I believe you will," laughed Happie. "I have so many dreams I couldn'tpossibly say which was my pet one, but I suppose I'll just amount tonothing, but keep house for all of you when you want to come homebetween doing great deeds."
"Oh, you!" said Bob decidedly. "You don't have to do great things;you're all right just being Happie! I guess you're sure to do greatthings and never find it out."
"Yes," added Margery, lovingly. "You are not only Happie yourself, youknow, but you are our happiness--that's what mother says, and I wish itcould be said of me."
"Base flattery!" said Happie shaking her shining head. "It doesn't haveto be said of you, dear, because it's plain to be seen. I believe I'dlike a chicken farm when I grow up."
"Yes, and grow broilers for the market, and take to your bed everytime one had its head cut off--I think I see you!" cried Bob. "Nocountry, nor farming for me anyway. I want college, and then businessamong people. Wouldn't I hate to live where I drove down once a day toget the mail and to 'see the flyer go through,' as they used to up atPennyroyal last year? Do you remember how they used to talk about thatexpress train? And how they would talk horse while they waited for it?No, sir; no country for me. I'd rather go to sea."
"The country is beautiful, but I should hate to give up all the cityadvantages," said Margery thoughtfully.
"Why there wouldn't be any concerts, nor anything in the country!"exclaimed Laura. "And who could you play and sing to? They would ratherhear that awful tune the man sings to the trained bears, and plays onthat horrid little pipe the poor things dance to! Why, I'd die if Ilived in the country!"
"I never knew, the Scollards had Irish blood, 'my angel Laure,' butthat was a bull all right," said Bob.
"Well, I _should_ die after I'd lived there long enough for it to killme," maintained Laura stoutly. And she could not see why her brotherand sisters laughed.
"I think mother looks as if she would be better if we could live in thecountry," said Margery, her face clouding with anxiety. "She looks sotired lately it worries me dreadfully."
"She couldn't support us in the country, she says, and a suburb costsmore than a flat, adding fare and coal to the rent," said Bob. "I toothink the blessed woman is not up to the mark, Margery."
"Ah, don't!" cried Happie sharply. "Where is Penny? I just missed her."
"'Way in the front with Doree," said Polly. "She's watching somebodymoving in. There is a van at the door. I guess she couldn't havesmelled the fudge."
"I think so, too, Polly," laughed Happie. "My goodness, that clock'sstopped! It must be time we were getting dinner! Go see what time itis, Polly, please."
"Quarter to six!" Polly called back from the middle of the flat."They're taking in a basket that looks as if it had a cat in it; Iwonder if it's yellow, too?"
The "too" of Polly's remark referred to the Scollards' own belovedkitten, as yellow as a golden nugget, and named Jeunesse Doree,obviously from his color.
Margery and Happie did not stop to bestow a passing thought upon thenew inmates of the house, their fellow flat-dwellers, nor their cat,but sprang to get out the agate saucepans for their cooking, and tohurry away the implements of fudge-making, for it was fifteen minutespast their time for beginning to get dinner, and they prided themselveson not keeping their mother waiting when she came home at night fromher hard day's work.
Happie enveloped herself in an ample apron and fell to peeling potatoesas if her life depended on getting them out of their jackets in atwinkling. Margery quietly, but speedily, put the meat in its pan andfloured it delicately, then knelt before the oven, lighted its burnersand slid the pan into place, devoutly hoping that the tenants on thelower floors would not require so much gas for their dinners thatnight as to lower the pressure and retard further the Scollards' tardyroasting.
Just behind her was the door of the dumb waiter, with the mouth-pieceof its whistle beside it. From this whistle there suddenly issued ablood-curdling shriek, and Margery tumbled over backward, while Happiejumped to her feet, upsetting potatoes, peelings, pan of water and allon the spotless floor.
"Oh, that fearful whistle!" Happie cried, crimson with anger and thereaction from her fright. "If I lived here nine hundred and ninety-nineyears, I never should get used to it!"
"Nor I," murmured Margery feebly, scraping up Happie's scatteredpeelings with the knife she had dropped, not rising, but turning herdiscomfiture to profit as she sat. "It's so sharp and so sudden!"
"They ought to blow softly to announce that they are going to blowhard," suggested Bob, as he opened the door to answer the summons. Buthe had jumped himself.
"It may be a waiter, but it's certainly not a _dumb_ waiter," observedHappie, pursuing a truant potato to the corner by the ice box.
"It makes me perfectly blase," sighed Laura, holding her side as shetook the napkins from their drawer.
"Blase! Oh, Laura, when will you learn to use words right, or to useonly those you understand?" laughed Margery pulling herself up by theback of the chair.
Bob was leaning down the dumb waiter shaft, and a voice arose from itsdepths.
"Groc'ries fer you!" it called in the unspellable accent of New York'seast side.
"I guess not," Bob called back. "Wrong whistle."
"From Lichtenzeit's," insisted the voice.
"No," called Bob.
"Top floor. Gordon," the voice shouted angrily. And as Bob leaned downfurther to explain that he was a Scollard, the dumb waiter began toascend with rapid clatter, and further parley was impossible.
"It's not only not dumb, Happie, but it's not even a waiter," saidBob turning away with a disgusted expression. "You see it's coming upwithout waiting to find out where it's going. There isn't any one inthe house named Gordon."
The waiter stopped with a rattle of its ropes, and the voice belowcalled up: "Take 'em off; they're fer you."
"Look here, you chump," called Bob. "They're not mine. There isn'ta Gordon in this whole house." But as he spoke the door across fromthe Scollards opened, and a boy appeared, grinning cheerfully at hisneighbor.
"You're not quite right there, old man," he said. "There is a Gordon inthe house, and I'm he. I'm one of him, at least--there's another, andtheir mother. All right; I've got the stuff. Go ahead. Farewell, vale,ta ta. Blow the left hand whistle next time."
The new boy straightened himself from delivering these last remarksdown the waiter-shaft and smiled anew at Bob. "We've just moved in. Thelast of our household effects are even now bumping the paper off thefront hall--the van men find them bulky. Hope we'll meet again." Hecast his eye beyond Bob into the sunny kitchen where pretty Margery andHappie were working like stingless bees.
"All right. Hope so, too," said Bob. And the doors shut simultaneouslyon both sides of the dumb waiter.
"He looks the right sort," observed Bob.
"I'm sorry the flat across is let, though. It has been such a rest nothaving the men blow our whistle for the one over there," sighed Margery.
Happie had beaten up a cake to be eaten with her blanc mange ofthe morning's making. She was pouring the mixture into her sheetof cup-shaped tins, and was not interested in the subject of newneighbors. She paused with her bowl held sidewise in the air, and withher spoon resting on its side as she guided the yellow mixture into itsdestination. "I've got it!" she exclaimed jubilantly.
"Eureka, Keren-happuch, my dear," corrected Bob. "What have you got?"
"The name for our flat," said Happie. The Scollards had been tryingever since they had taken possession of it to find a name for theirhabitation, "because," Happie explained, "all residences of any accounthad names, and she wanted her estate to be no exception."
"What is it?" asked Margery, and Laura paused in the doorway with thebread plate in her hand to hear the answer.
"Patty-pans!" cried Happie triumphantly. "Don't you see that itis exactly what the flat is like?" She held up her baking tins toillustrate. "See," she went on, "how the rooms come along, one afterthe other, just precisely like these patty-pan cups? This is ThePatty-Pans, or Patty-Pans-on-the-Hudson--only a few blocks off, at anyrate, and that doesn't matter!"
"It's the very thing!" cried Bob appreciatively, and Margery laughedand agreed.
"It's not at all pretty," said Laura, whose sense of humor wasdefective. But she got no further with her objection. The littleelectric bell on the wall rang thrice, and all the Scollards in therear rushed through the narrow hall, and were met at the door by Pollyfrom the front, and Penny with Doree in her arms.
This triple ring meant that the children's real day, the only part ofthe day in which the sun fully shone for them, although it began aftersunset, had dawned, for it announced their mother's home-coming atnight.
Six Girls and Bob: A Story of Patty-Pans and Green Fields Page 2