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ОглавлениеDandelion Cottage, by Carroll Watson Rankin
Title: Dandelion Cottage Author: Carroll Watson Rankin Illustrator: Mary Stevens
Release Date: October 28, 2011 [EBook #37871] Language: English
*** DANDELION COTTAGE ***
Produced by Charlene Taylor, Betsie Bush, Matthew Wheaton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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Dandelion Cottage
CARROLL WATSON RANKIN
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Illustrated by Mary Stevens
JOHN M. LONGYEAR RESEARCH LIBRARY Marquette, Michigan
1977
First published in 1904
The Marquette County Historical Society
213 North Front Street
Marquette, Michigan 49855
1
FOURTH EDITION
First Printing, February 1977
Printed in the USA by The Book Concern, Inc. Hancock, Michigan
To
RHODA, FRANCES, AND ELEANOR
whose lively interest made the writing of this little book a joyful task.
THE PERSONS OF THE STORY Bettie Tucker
Jeanie Mapes Mabel Bennett Marjory Vale
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} The Dandelion Cottagers
}
}
The Tucker Family: Mostly boys
The Mapes Family: Two parents, two boys Dr. and Mrs. Bennett: Merely Parents Aunty Jane: A Parental Substitute
Mrs. Crane: The Pleasantest Neighbor
Mr. Black: The Senior Warden
Mr. Downing: The Junior Warden
Miss Blossom: The Lodger
Mr. Blossom: The Organ Tuner Grandma Pike: Another Neighbor Mr. and Mrs. Milligan
Laura Milligan
The Milligan Boy and the Milligan Baby
The Milligan Dog
}
}
} The Unpleasantest Neighbors
}
}
Contents
1. Mr. Black's Terms 1
2. Paying the Rent 12
3. The Tenants Take Possession 21
4. Furnishing the Cottage 33
5. Poverty in the Cottage 43
6. A Lodger to the Rescue 51
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7. The Girls Disclose a Plan 64
8. An Unexpected Crop of Dandelions 74
9. Changes and Plans 83
10. The Milligans 97
11. An Embarrassing Visitor 111
12. A Lively Afternoon 126
13. The Junior Warden 142
14. An Unexpected Letter 150
15. An Obdurate Landlord 158
16. Mabel Plans a Surprise 170
17. Several Surprises Take Effect 176
18. A Hurried Retreat 184
19. The Response to Mabel's Telegram 192
20. The Odd Behavior of the Grown-ups 205
21. The Dinner 214 [1]
Dandelion Cottage
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CHAPTER 1
Mr. Black's Terms
The little square cottage was unoccupied. It had stood for many years on the parish property, having indeed been built long before the parish bought the land for church purposes. It was easy to see how Dandelion Cottage came by its name at first, for growing all about it were great, fluffy, golden dandelions; but afterwards there was another good reason why the[2] name was appropriate, as you will discover shortly.
The cottage stood almost directly behind the big stone church in Lakeville, a thriving Northern Michigan town, and did not show very plainly from the street because it was so small by contrast with everything else near it. This was fortunate, because, after the Tuckers had moved into the big new rectory, the smaller house looked decidedly forlorn and deserted.
"We'll leave it just where it stands," the church wardens had said, many years previously. "It's precisely the right size for Doctor and Mrs. Gunn, for they would rather have a small house than a large one. When they leave us and we are selecting another clergyman, we'll try to get one with a small family."
This plan worked beautifully for a number of years. It succeeded so well, in fact, that the vestry finally forgot to be cautious, and when at last it secured the services of Dr. Tucker, the church had grown so used to clergymen with small families that the vestrymen engaged the new minister without remembering to ask if his family would fit Dandelion Cottage.
But when Dr. Tucker and Mrs. Tucker and eight little Tuckers, some on foot and some in baby carriages, arrived, the vestrymen regretted this oversight. They could see at a glance that the tiny cottage could never hold them all.
"We'll just have to build a rectory on the other lot,"[3] said Mr. Black, the senior warden. "That's all there is about it. The cottage is all out of repair, anyway. It wasn't well built in the first place, and the last three clergymen have complained bitterly of the inconvenience of having to hold up umbrellas in the different rooms every time it rained. Their wives objected to the wall paper and to being obliged to keep the potatoes in the bedroom closet. It's really time we had a new rectory."
"It certainly is," returned the junior warden, "and we'll all have to take turns entertaining all the little Tuckers that there isn't room for in the cottage while the new house is getting built."
Seven of the eight little Tuckers were boys. If it hadn't been for Bettie they would all have been boys, but Bettie saved the day. She was a slender twelve-year-old little Bettie, with big brown eyes, a mop of short brown curls, and such odd clothes. Busy Mrs. Tucker was so in the habit of making boys' garments that she could not help giving a boyish cut even to Bettie's dresses. There were always sailor collars to the waists, and the skirts were invariably kilted. Besides this, the little girl wore boys' shoes.
"You see," explained Bettie, who was a cheerful little body, "Tommy has to take them next, and of course it wouldn't pay to buy
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shoes for just one girl."
The little Tuckers were not the only children in the[4] neighborhood. Bettie found a bosom friend in Dr. Bennett's Mabel, who lived next door to the rectory, another in Jeanie Mapes, who lived across the street, and still another in Marjory Vale, whose home was next door to Dandelion Cottage.
Jean, as her little friends best liked to call her, was a sweet-faced, gentle-voiced girl of fourteen. Mothers of other small girls were always glad to see their own more scatterbrained daughters tucked under Jean's loving wing, for thoroughly-nice Jean, without be-ing in the least priggish, was considered a safe and desirable companion. It doesn't always follow that children like the persons it is
considered best for them to like, but in Jean's case both parents and daughters agreed that Jean was not only safe but delightful--the charming daughter of a charming mother.
Marjory, a year younger and nearly a head shorter than Jean, often seemed older. Outwardly, she was a sedate small person, slight, blue-eyed, graceful, and very fair. Her manners at times were very pleasing, her self-possession almost remarkable; this was the result of careful training by a conscientious, but at that time sadly unappreciated, maiden aunt who was Marjory's sole guardian. There were moments, however, when Marjory, who was less sedate than she appeared, forgot to be polite. At such times, her ways were apt to be less pleasing than those of either Bettie[5] or Jean, because her wit was nimbler, her tongue sharper, and her heart a trifle less tender. Her mother had died when Marjory was only a few weeks old, her father had lived only two years longer, and the rather solitary little girl had missed much of the warm family affection that had fallen to the lot of her three more fortunate friends. Those who knew
her well found much in her to like, but among her schoolmates there were girls who said that Marjory was "stuck-up," affected, and
"too smart."
Mabel, the fourth in this little quartet of friends, was eleven, large for her age and young for her years, always an unfortunate combination of circumstances. She was intensely human and therefore liable to err, and, it may be said, she very seldom missed an opportunity. In school she read with a tremendous amount of expression but mispronounced half the words; when questions were asked, she waved her hand triumphantly aloft and gave anything but the right answer; she had a surprising stock of energy, but most of it was misdirected. Warm-hearted, generous, heedless, hot-tempered, and always blundering, she was something of a trial at home and abroad; yet no one could help loving her, for everybody realized that she would grow up some day into a really fine woman, and that all that was needed in the meantime was considerable patience. Rearing Mabel was not unlike the task of[6] bringing up a St. Ber-nard puppy. Mrs. Bennett was decidedly glad to note the growing friendship among the four girls, for she hoped that Mabel would in time grow dignified and sweet like Jean, thoughtful and tender like Bettie, graceful and prettily mannered like Marjory. But this happy result had yet to be achieved.
The little one-story cottage, too much out of repair to be rented, stood empty and neglected. To most persons it was an unattractive spot if not actually an eyesore. The steps sagged in a dispirited way, some of the windows were broken, and the fence, in sympathy perhaps with the house, had shed its pickets and leaned inward with a discouraged, hopeless air.
But Bettie looked at the little cottage longingly--she could gaze right down upon it from the back bedroom window--a great many times a day. It didn't seem a bit too big for a playhouse. Indeed, it seemed a great pity that such a delightful little building should go unoccupied when Bettie and her homeless dolls were simply suffering for just such a shelter.
"Wouldn't it be nice," said Bettie, one day in the early spring, "if we four girls could have Dandelion Cottage for our very own?" "Wouldn't it be sweet," mimicked Marjory, "if we could have the moon and about twenty stars to play jacks with?"
"The cottage isn't quite so far away," said Jean. "It[7] would be just lovely to have it, for we never have a place to play in comfortably."
"We're generally disturbing grown-ups, I notice," said Marjory, comically imitating her Aunty Jane's severest manner. "A little less noise, if you please. Is it really necessary to laugh so much and so often?"
"Even Mother gets tired of us sometimes," confided Jean. "There are days when no one seems to want all of us at once."
"I know it," said Bettie, pathetically, "but it's worse for me than it is for the rest of you. You have your rooms and nobody to meddle with your things. I no sooner get my dolls nicely settled in one corner than I have to move them into another, because the babies poke their eyes out. It's dreadful, too, to have to live with so many boys. I fixed up the cunningest playhouse under the clothes-reel last week, but the very minute it was finished Rob came home with a horrid porcupine and I had to move out in a hurry."
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"Perhaps," suggested Marjory, "we could rent the cottage."
"Who'd pay the rent?" demanded Mabel. "My allowance is five cents a week and I have to pay a fine of one cent every time I'm late
to meals."
"How much do you have left?" asked Jeanie, laughing.[8]
"Not a cent. I was seven cents in debt at the end of last week."
"I get two cents a hundred for digging dandelions," said Marjory, "but it takes just forever to dig them, and ugh! I just hate it." "I never have any money at all," sighed Bettie. "You see there are so many of us."
"Let's go peek in at the windows," suggested Mabel, springing up from the grass. "That much won't cost us anything at any rate." Away scampered the four girls, taking a short cut through Bettie's back yard.
The cottage had been vacant for more than a year and had not improved in appearance. Rampant vines clambered over the windows and nowhere else in town were there such luxurious weeds as grew in the cottage yard. Nowhere else were there such mammoth dandelions or such prickly burrs. The girls waded fearlessly through them, parted the vines, and, pressing their noses against the glass, peered into the cottage parlor.
"What a nice, square little room!" said Marjory.
"I don't think the paper is very pretty," said Mabel.
"We could cover most of the spots with pictures," suggested practical Marjory.
"It looks to me sort of spidery," said Mabel, who[9] was always somewhat pessimistic. "Probably there's rats, too."
"I know how to stop up rat holes," said Bettie, who had not lived with seven brothers without acquiring a number of useful accomplishments. "I'm not afraid of spiders--that is, not so very much."
"What are you doing here?" demanded a gruff voice so suddenly that everybody jumped.
The startled girls wheeled about. There stood Bettie's most devoted friend, the senior warden. "Oh!" cried Bettie, "it's only Mr. Black."
"Were you looking for something?" asked Mr. Black.
"Yes," said Bettie. "We're looking for a house. We'd like to rent this one, only we haven't a scrap of money." "And what in the name of common sense would you do with it?"
"We want it for our dolls," said Bettie, turning a pair of big pleading brown eyes upon Mr. Black. "You see, we haven't any place to play. Marjory's Aunty Jane won't let her cut papers in the house, so she can't have any paper dolls, and I can't play any place because I have so many brothers. They tomahawk all my dolls when they play Indian, shoot them with beans when they play soldiers, and drown them all when they play shipwreck. Don't you think we[10] might be allowed to use the cottage if we'd promise to be very careful and not do any damage?"
"We'd clean it up," offered Marjory, as an inducement.
"We'd mend the rat holes," offered Jean, looking hopefully at Bettie. "Would you dig the weeds?" demanded Mr. Black.
There was a deep silence. The girls looked at the sea of dandelions and then at one another.
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"Yes," said Marjory, finally breaking the silence. "We'd even dig the weeds."
"Yes," echoed the others. "We'd even dig the weeds--and there's just millions of 'em."
"Good!" said Mr. Black. "Now, we'll all sit down on the steps and I'll tell you what we'll do. It happens that the Village Improvement Society has just notified the vestry that the weeds on this lot must be removed before they go to seed--the neighbors have complained about them. It would cost the parish several dollars to hire a man to do the work, and we're short of funds just now. Now, if you four girls will pull up every weed in this place before the end of next week you shall have the use of the cottage for all the rest
of the summer in return for your services. How does that strike you?"
"Oh!" cried Bettie, throwing her arms about Mr.[11] Black's neck. "Do let me hug you. Oh, I'm glad--glad!"
"There, there!" cried stout Mr. Black, shaking Bettie off and dropping her where the dandelions grew thickest. "I didn't say I was to be strangled as part of the bargain. You'd better save your muscle for the dandelions. Remember, you've got to pay your rent in advance. I shan't hand over the key until the last weed is dug."
"We'll begin this minute!" cried enthusiastic Mabel. "I'm going straight home for a knife." [12]
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CHAPTER 2
Paying the Rent
"This is a whopping big yard," said Mabel, looking disconsolately at two dandelions and one burdock in the bottom of a bushel basket. "There doesn't seem to be any place to begin."
"I'm going to weed out a place big enough to sit in," announced Bettie. "Then I'll make it bigger and bigger all around me in every direction until it joins the clearing next to mine."[13]
"I'm a soldier," said Marjory, brandishing a trowel, "vanquishing my enemies. You know in books the hero always battles single-handed with about a million foes and always kills them all and everybody lives happy ever after--zip! There goes one!"
"I'm a pioneer," said Jean, slashing away at a huge, tough burdock. "I'm chopping down the forest primeval to make a potato patch. The dandelions are skulking Indians, and I'm capturing them to put in my bushel-basket prison."
"I'm just digging weeds," said prosaic Mabel, "and I don't like it."
"Neither does anybody else," said Marjory, "but I guess having the cottage will be worth it. Just pretend it's something else and then you won't mind it so much. Play you're digging for diamonds."
"I can't," returned Mabel, hopelessly. "I haven't any imagination. This is just plain dirt and I can't make myself believe it's anything else."
By supper time the cottage yard presented a decidedly disreputable appearance. Before the weeds had been disturbed they stood upright, presenting an even surface of green with a light crest of dandelion gold. But now it was different. Although the number of weeds was not greatly decreased, the yard looked as if, indeed, a battle had been fought there. Mr. Black,[14] passing by on his way to town, began to wonder if he had been quite wise in turning it over to the girls.
At four o'clock the following morning, sleepy Bettie tumbled out of bed and into her clothes. Then she slipped quietly downstairs, out of doors, through the convenient hole in the back fence, and into the cottage yard. She had been digging for more than an hour when Jean, rubbing a pair of sleepy eyes, put in her appearance.
"Oh!" cried Jean, disappointedly. "I meant to have a huge bare field to show you when you came, and here you are ahead of me.
What a lot you've done!"
"Yes," assented Bettie, happily. "There's room for me and my basket, too, in my patch. I'll have to go home after a while to help
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dress the children."
Young though she was--she was only twelve--Bettie was a most helpful young person. It is hard to imagine what Mrs. Tucker would have done without her cheerful little daughter. Bettie always spoke of the boys as "the children," and she helped her mother darn their stockings, sew on their buttons, and sort out their collars. The care of the family baby, too, fell to her lot.
The boys were good boys, but they were boys. They were willing to do errands or pile wood or carry out ashes, but none of them ever thought of doing one of these things without first being told--sometimes they[15] had to be told a great many times. It was different with Bettie. If Tom ate crackers on the front porch, it was Bettie who ran for the broom to brush up the crumbs. If the second-baby-but-one needed his face washed--and it seemed to Bettie that there never was a time when he didn't need it washed--it was Bettie who attended to it. If the cat looked hungry, it was Bettie who gave her a saucer of milk. Dick's rabbits and Rob's porcupine would have starved if Bettie had not fed them, and Donald's dog knew that if no one else remembered his bone kind Bettie would bear it in mind.
The boys' legs were round and sturdy, but Bettie's were very much like pipe stems.
"I don't have time to get fat," Bettie would say. "But you don't need to worry about me. I think I'm the healthiest person in the house. At least I'm the only one that hasn't had to have breakfast in bed this week."
Neither Marjory nor Mabel appeared during the morning to dig their share of the weeds, but when school was out that afternoon they were all on hand with their baskets.
"I had to stay," said Mabel, who was the last to arrive. "I missed two words in spelling." "What were they?" asked Marjory.
"'Parachute' and 'dandelion.' I hate dandelions,[16] anyway. I don't know what parachutes are, but if they're any sort of weeds I hate them, too."
The girls laughed. Mabel always looked on the gloomiest side of things and always grumbled. She seemed to thrive on it, however, for she was built very much like a barrel and her cheeks were like a pair of round red apples. She was always honest, if a little too frank in expressing her opinions, and the girls liked her in spite of her blunt ways. She was the youngest of the quartet, being only eleven.
"There doesn't seem to be much grass left after the weeds are out," said Bettie, surveying the bare, sandy patch she had made.
"This has always been a weedy old place," replied Jean. "I think the whole neighborhood will feel obliged to us if we ever get the lot
cleared. Perhaps our landlord will plant grass seed. It would be fine to have a lawn."
"Perhaps," said Marjory, "he'll let us have some flower beds. Wouldn't it be lovely to have nasturtiums running right up the sides of
the house?"
"They'd be lovely among the vines," agreed Bettie. "I've some poppy seeds that we might plant in a long narrow bed by the fence." "There are hundreds of little pansy plants coming up all over our yard," said Jean. "We might make a little round bed of them right
here where I'm sitting.[17] What are you going to plant in your bed, Mabel?" "Butter-beans," said that practical young person, promptly.
"Well," said Bettie, with a long sigh, "we'll have to work faster than this or summer will be over before we have a chance to plant anything. This is the biggest little yard I ever did see."
For a time there was silence. Marjory, the soldier, fell upon her foes with renewed vigor, and soon had an entire regiment in durance vile. Jean, the pioneer, fell upon the forest with so much energy that its speedy extermination was threatened. Mabel seized upon the biggest and toughest burdock she could find and pulled with both hands and all her might, until, with a sharp crack, the root suddenly parted and Mabel, very much to her own surprise, turned a back somersault and landed in Bettie's basket.
"Hi there!" cried a voice from the road. "How are you youngsters getting along?"
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The girls jumped to their feet--all but Mabel, who was still wedged tightly in Bettie's basket. There was Mr. Black, with his elbows
on the fence, and with him was the president of the Village Improvement Society; both were smiling broadly.
"Sick of your bargain?" asked Mr. Black.
The four girls shook their heads emphatically. "Hard work?"[18]
Four heads bobbed up and down.
"Well," said Mr. Black, encouragingly, "you've made considerable headway today."
"Where are you putting the weeds?" asked the president of the Village Improvement Society.
"On the back porch in a piano box," said Bettie. "We had a big pile of them last night, but they shrank like everything before morning. If they do that every time, it won't be necessary for Mabel to jump on them to press them down."
"Let me know when you have a wagon load," said Mr. Black. "I'll have them hauled away for you."
For the rest of the week the girls worked early and late. They began almost at daylight, and the mosquitoes found them still digging at dusk.
By Thursday night, only scattered patches of weeds remained. The little diggers could hardly tear themselves away when they could no longer find the weeds because of the gathering darkness. Now that the task was so nearly completed it seemed such a waste of time to eat and sleep.
Bettie was up earlier than ever the next morning, and with one of the boys' spades had loosened the soil around some of the very worst patches before any of the other girls appeared.
By five o'clock that night the last weed was dug. Conscientious Bettie went around the yard a dozen[19] times, but however hard she
might search, not a single remaining weed could she discover. "Good work," said Jean, balancing her empty basket on her head.
"It seems too good to be true," said Bettie, "but think of it, girls--the rent is paid! It's 'most time for Mr. Black to go by. Let's watch for him from the doorstep--our own precious doorstep."
"It needs scrubbing," said Mabel. "Besides, it isn't ours, yet. Perhaps Mr. Black has changed his mind. Some grown-up folks have awfully changeable minds."
"Oh!" gasped Marjory. "Wouldn't it be perfectly dreadful if he had!"
It seemed to the little girls, torn between doubt and expectation, that Mr. Black was strangely indifferent to the calls of hunger that night. Was he never going home to dinner? Was he never coming?
"Perhaps," suggested Jean, "he has gone out of town." "Or forgotten us," said Marjory.
"Or died," said Mabel, dolefully.
"No--no," cried Bettie. "There he is; he's coming around the corner now--I can see him. Let's run to meet him."
The girls scampered down the street. Bettie seized one hand, Mabel the other, Marjory and Jean danced along ahead of him, and everybody talked at once.[20] Thus escorted, Mr. Black approached the cottage lot.
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"Well, I declare," said Mr. Black. "You haven't left so much as a blade of grass. Do you think you could sow some grass seed if I
have the ground made ready for it?"
The girls thought they could. Bettie timidly suggested nasturtiums.
"Flower beds too? Why, of course," said Mr. Black. "Vegetables as well if you like. You can have a regular farm and grow fairy beanstalks and Cinderella pumpkins if you want to. And now, since the rent seems to be paid, I suppose there is nothing left for me to do but to hand over the key. Here it is, Mistress Bettie, and I'm sure I couldn't have a nicer lot of tenants."
[21]
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CHAPTER 3
The Tenants Take Possession
"Our own house--think of it!" cried Bettie, turning the key. "Push, somebody; the door sticks. There! It's open."
"Ugh!" said Mabel, drawing back hastily. "It's awfully dark and stuffy in there. I guess I won't go in just yet--it smells so dead-ratty." "It's been shut up so long," explained Jean. "Wait.[22] I'll pull some of the vines back from this window. There! Can you see better?" "Lots," said Bettie. "This is the parlor, girls--but, oh, what raggedy paper. We'll need lots of pictures to cover all the holes and
spots."
"We'd better clean it all first," advised sensible Jean. "The windows are covered with dust and the floor is just black."
"This," said Marjory, opening a door, "must be the dining-room. Oh! What a cunning little corner cupboard--just the place for our dishes."
"You mean it would be if we had any," said Mabel. "Mine are all smashed."
"Pooh!" said Jean. "We don't mean doll things--we want real, grown-up ones. Why, what a cunning little bedroom!" "There's one off the parlor, too," said Marjory, "and it's even cunninger than this."
"My! what a horrid place!" exclaimed Mabel, poking an inquisitive nose into another unexplored room, and as hastily withdrawing that offended feature. "Mercy, I'm all over spider webs."
"That's the kitchen," explained Bettie. "Most of the plaster has fallen down and it's rained in a good deal. But here's a good stovepipe hole, and such a cunning cupboard built into the wall. What have you found, Jean?"[23]
"Just a pantry," said Jean, holding up a pair of black hands, "and lots of dust. There isn't a clean spot in the house."
"So much the better," said Bettie, whose clouds always had a silver lining. "We'll have just that much more fun cleaning up. I'll tell you what let's do--and we've all day tomorrow to do it in. We'll just regularly clean house--I've always wanted to clean house."
"Me too," cried Mabel, enthusiastically. "We'll bring just oceans of water--"
"There's water here," interrupted Jean, turning a faucet. "Water and a pretty good sink. The water runs out all right." "That's good," said Bettie. "We must each bring a broom, and soap--"
"And rags," suggested Jean.
"And papers for the shelves," added Marjory. "And wear our oldest clothes," said Bettie.
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"Oo-ow, wow!" squealed Mabel.
"What's the matter?" asked the girls, rushing into the pantry.
"Spiders and mice," said Mabel. "I just poked my head into the cupboard and a mouse jumped out. I'm all spider-webby again, too." "Well, there won't be any spiders by tomorrow night," said Bettie, consolingly, "or any mice either,[24] if somebody will bring a cat.
Now let's go home to supper--I'm hungry as a bear."
"Everybody remember to wear her oldest clothes," admonished Jean, "and to bring a broom."
"I'll tie the key to a string and wear it around my neck night and day," said Bettie, locking the door carefully when the girls were outside. "Aren't we going to have a perfectly glorious summer?"
When Mr. Black, on the way to his office the next morning, met his four little friends, he did not recognize them. Jean, who was fourteen, and tall for her age, wore one of her mother's calico wrappers tied in at the waist by the strings of the cook's biggest apron. Marjory, in the much shrunken gown of a previous summer, had her golden curls tucked away under the housemaid's sweeping cap. Bettie appeared in her very oldest skirt surmounted by an exceedingly ragged jacket and cap discarded by one of her brothers; while Mabel, with her usual enthusiasm, looked like a veritable rag-bag. When Bettie had unlocked the door--she had slept all night with the key in her hand to make certain that it would not escape--the girls filed in.
"I know how to handle a broom as well as anybody," said Mabel, giving a mighty sweep and raising such a cloud of dust that the four
housecleaners were obliged to flee out of doors to keep from strangling.[25]
"Phew!" said Jean, when she had stopped coughing. "I guess we'll have to take it out with a shovel. The dust must be an inch thick."
"Wait," cried Marjory, darting off, "I'll get Aunty's sprinkling can; then the stuff won't fly so."
After that the sweeping certainly went better. Then came the dusting.
"It really looks very well," said Bettie, surveying the result with her head on one side and an air of housewifely wisdom that would have been more impressive if her nose hadn't been perfectly black with soot. "It certainly does look better, but I'm afraid you girls have most of the dust on your faces. I don't see how you managed to do it. Just look at Mabel."
"Just look at yourself !" retorted Mabel, indignantly. "You've got the dirtiest face I ever saw."
"Never mind," said Jean, gently. "I guess we're all about alike. I've wiped all the dust off the walls of this parlor. Now I'm going to
wash the windows and the woodwork, and after that I'm going to scrub the floor."
"Do you know how to scrub?" asked Marjory.
"No, but I guess I can learn. There! Doesn't that pane look as if a really-truly housemaid had washed it?" "Oh, Mabel! Do look out!" cried Marjory.
But the warning came too late. Mabel stepped on[26] the slippery bar of soap and sat down hard in a pan of water, splashing it in every direction. For a moment Mabel looked decidedly cross, but when she got up and looked at the tin basin, she began to laugh.
"That's a funny way to empty a basin, isn't it?" she said. "There isn't a drop of water left in it."
"Well, don't try it again," said Jean. "That's Mrs. Tucker's basin and you've smashed it flat. You should learn to sit down less suddenly."
"And," said Marjory, "to be more careful in your choice of seats--we'll have to take up a collection and buy Mrs. Tucker a new basin, or she'll be afraid to lend us anything more."
The girls ran home at noon for a hasty luncheon. Rested and refreshed, they all returned promptly to their housecleaning.
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Nobody wanted to brush out the kitchen cupboard. It was not only dusty, but full of spider webs, and worst of all, the spiders themselves seemed very much at home. The girls left the back door open, hoping that the spiders would run out of their own accord. Apparently, however, the spiders felt no need of fresh air. Bettie, without a word to anyone, ran home, returning a moment later with her brother Bob's old tame crow blinking solemnly from her shoulder. She placed the great, black bird on the cupboard shelf and[27] in a very few moments every spider had vanished down his greedy throat.
"He just loves them," said Bettie.
"How funny!" said Mabel. "Who ever heard of getting a crow to help clean house? I wish he could scrub floors as well as he clears
out cupboards."
The scrubbing, indeed, looked anything but an inviting task. Jean succeeded fairly well with the parlor floor, though she declared when that was finished that her wrists were so tired that she couldn't hold the scrubbing-brush another moment. Marjory and Bettie together scrubbed the floor of the tiny dining-room. Mabel made a brilliant success of one of the little bedrooms, but only, the other girls said, by accidentally tipping over a pail of clean water upon it, thereby rinsing off a thick layer of soap. Then Jean, having rested for a little while, finished the remaining bedroom and Marjory scoured the pantry shelves.
The kitchen floor was rough and very dirty. Nobody wanted the task of scrubbing it. The tired girls leaned against the wall and looked at the floor and then at one another.
"Let's leave it until Monday," said Mabel, who looked very much as if the others had scrubbed the floor with her. "I've had all the
housecleaning I want for one day."
"Oh, no," pleaded Bettie. "Everything else is done.[28] Just think how lovely it would be to go home tonight with all the disagreeable
part finished! We could begin to move in Monday if we only had the house all clean." "Couldn't we cover the dirtiest places with pieces of old carpet?" demanded Mabel. "Oh, what dreadful housekeeping that would be!" said Marjory.
"Yes," said Jean, "we must have every bit of it nice. Perhaps if we sit on the doorstep and rest for a few moments we'll feel more like scrubbing."
The tired girls sat in a row on the edge of the low porch. They were all rather glad that the next day would be Sunday, for between the dandelions and the dust they had had a very busy week.
"Why!" said Bettie, suddenly brightening. "We're going to have a visitor, I do believe." "Hi there!" said Mr. Black, turning in at the gate. "I smell soap. Housecleaning all done?"
"All," said Bettie, wearily, "except the kitchen floor, and, oh! we're so tired. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it until Monday, but we just
hate to."
"Too tired to eat peanuts?" asked Mr. Black, handing Bettie a huge paper bag. "Stay right here on the doorstep, all of you, and eat every one of these nuts. [29]I'll look around and see what you've been doing--I'm sure there can't be much dirt left inside when there's so much on your faces."
It seemed a pity that Mr. Black, who liked little girls so well, should have no children of his own. A great many years before Bet-tie's people had moved to Lakeville, he had had one sister; and at another almost equally remote period he had possessed one little daughter, a slender, narrow-chested little maid, with great, pathetic brown eyes, so like Bettie's that Mr. Black was startled when Dr. Tucker's little daughter had first smiled at him from the Tucker doorway, for the senior warden's little girl had lived to be only six years old. This, of course, was the secret of Mr. Black's affection for Bettie.
Mr. Black, who was a moderately stout, gray-haired man of fifty-five, with kind, dark eyes and a strong, rugged, smooth-shaven countenance, had a great deal of money, a beautiful home perched on the brow of a green hill overlooking the lake, and a silk hat. This last made a great impression on the children, for silk hats were seldom worn in Lakeville. Mr. Black looked very nice indeed in his, when he wore it to church Sunday morning, but Bettie felt more at home with him when he sat bareheaded on the rectory porch, with his short, crisp, thick gray hair tossed by the south wind.
11
Besides these possessions, Mr. Black owned a garden[30] on the sheltered hillside where wonderful roses grew as they would grow nowhere else in Lakeville. This was fortunate because Mr. Black loved roses, and spent much time poking about among them with trowel and pruning shears. Then, there were shelves upon shelves of books in the big, dingy library, which was the one room that the owner of the large house really lived in. A public-spirited man, Mr. Black had a wide circle of acquaintances and a few warm friends; but with all his possessions, and in spite of a jovial, cheerful manner in company, his dark, rather stern face, as Bettie had very
quickly discovered, was sad when he sat alone in his pew in church. He had really nothing in the world to love but his books and his roses. It was evident, to anyone who had time to think about it, that kind Mr. Black, whose wife had died so many years before that only the oldest townspeople could remember that he had had a wife, was, in spite of his comfortable circumstances, a very lonely man, and that, as he grew older, he felt his loneliness more keenly. There were others besides Bettie who realized this, but it was not an easy matter to offer sympathy to Mr. Black--there was a dignity about him that repelled anything that looked like pity. Bettie was the one person who succeeded, without giving offense, in doing this difficult thing, but Bettie did it unconsciously, without in the least knowing that she had[31] accomplished it, and this, of course, was another reason for the strong friendship between Mr. Black and her.
The girls found the peanuts decidedly refreshing; their unusual exercise had given them astonishing appetites.
"I wonder," said Bettie, some ten minutes later, when the paper bag was almost empty, "what Mr. Black is doing in there." "I think, from the swishing, swushing sounds I hear," said Jean, "that Mr. Black must be scrubbing the kitchen."
"What!" gasped the girls.
"Come and see," said Jean, stealing in on tiptoe.
There, sure enough, was stout Mr. Black dipping a broom every now and then into a pail of soapy water and vigorously sweeping the
floor with it.
"I think," whispered Mabel, ruefully, "that that's Mother's best broom."
"Never mind," consoled Jean. "You can take mine home if you think she'll care. It's really mine because I bought it when we had that broom drill in the sixth grade. It's been hanging on my wall ever since."
"Hi there!" exclaimed Mr. Black, who, looking up suddenly, had discovered the smiling girls in the doorway. "You didn't know I
could scrub, did you?"
Mr. Black, quite regardless of his spotless cuffs and[32] his polished shoes, drew a bucket of fresh water and dashed it over the floor, sweeping the flood out of doors and down the back steps.
"There," said Mr. Black, standing the broom in the corner, "if there's a cleaner house in town than this, I don't know where you'll
find it. In return for scrubbing this kitchen, of course, I shall expect you to invite me to dinner when you get to housekeeping."
"We will! We do!" shouted the girls. "And we'll cook every single thing ourselves."
"I don't know that I'll insist on that," returned Mr. Black, teasingly, "but I shan't let you forget about the dinner." [33]
>
CHAPTER 4
Furnishing the Cottage
After tea that Saturday night four tired but spotlessly clean little girls sat on Jean's doorstep, making plans for the coming week. "What are you going to do for a stove?" asked Mrs. Mapes.
"I have a toy one," replied Mabel, "but it has only one leg and it always smokes. Besides, I can't find it."
12
"I have a little box stove that the boys used to have[34] in their camp," said Mrs. Mapes. "It has three good legs and it doesn't smoke
at all. If you want it, and if you'll promise to be very careful about your fire, I'll have one of the boys set it up for you."
"That would be lovely," said Bettie, gratefully. "Mamma has given me four saucers and a syrup jug, and I have a few pieces left of quite a large-sized doll's tea set."
"We have an old rug," said Marjory, "that I'm almost sure I can have for the parlor floor, and I have two small rocking chairs of my
own."
"There's a lot of old things in our garret," said Mabel; "three-legged tables, and chairs with the seats worn out. I know Mother'll let
us take them."
"Well," said Bettie, "take everything you have to the cottage Monday afternoon after school. Bring all the pictures you can to cover the walls, and--"
"Hark!" said Mrs. Mapes. "I think somebody is calling Bettie."
"Oh, my!" said Bettie, springing to her feet. "This is bath night and I promised to bathe the twins. I must go this minute."
"I think Bettie is sweet," said Jean. "Mr. Black would never have given us the cottage if he hadn't been so fond of Bettie; but she
doesn't put on any airs at all. She makes us feel as if it belonged to all of us."
"Bettie is a sweet little girl," said Mrs. Mapes, "but[35] she's far too energetic for such a little body. You mustn't let her do all the work."
"Oh, we don't!" exclaimed Mabel, grandly. "Why, what are you laughing at, Marjory?"
"Oh, nothing," said Marjory. "I just happened to remember how you scrubbed that bedroom floor."
From four to six on Monday afternoon, the little housekeepers, heavily burdened each time with their goods and chattels, made
many small journeys between their homes and Dandelion Cottage. The parlor was soon piled high with furniture that was all more or less battered.
"Dear me," said Jean, pausing at the door with an armful of carpet. "How am I ever to get in? Hadn't we better straighten out what we have before we bring anything more?"
"Yes," said Bettie. "I wouldn't be surprised if we had almost enough for two houses. I'm sure I've seen six clocks." "That's only one for each room," said Mabel. "Besides, none of the four that I brought will go."
"Neither will my two," said Marjory, giggling.
"We might call this 'The House of the Tickless Clocks,'" suggested Jean. "Or of the grindless coffee-mill," giggled Marjory.
"Or of the talkless telephone," added Mabel. "I[36] brought over an old telephone box so we could pretend we had a telephone."
There were still several things lacking when the children had found places for all their crippled belongings. They had no couch for the sofa pillows Mabel had brought, but Bettie converted two wooden boxes and a long board into an admirable cozy corner. She even upholstered this sadly misnamed piece of furniture with the burlaps and excelsior that had been packed about her father's new desk, but it still needed a cover. The windows lacked curtains, the girls had only one fork, and their cupboard was so distressingly empty that it rivaled Mother Hubbard's.
They had planned to eat and even sleep at the cottage during vacation, which was still some weeks distant; but, as they had no beds and no provisions, and as their parents said quite emphatically that they could not stay away from home at night, part of this plan had to be given up.
13
Most of the grown-ups, however, were greatly pleased with the cottage plan. Marjory's Aunty Jane, who was nervous and disliked having children running in and out of her spotlessly neat house, was glad to have Marjory happy with her little friends, provided they were all perfectly safe--and out of earshot. Overworked Mrs. Tucker found it a great relief to have careful Bettie take two or
three of the smallest[37] children entirely off her hands for several hours each day. When these infants, divided as equally as possible among the four girls, were not needed indoors to serve as playthings, they rolled about contentedly inside the cottage fence. Mabel's mother did not hesitate to say that she, for one, was thankful enough that Mr. Black had given the girls a place to play in. With Mabel engaged elsewhere, it was possible, Mrs. Bennett said, to keep her own house quite respectably neat. Mrs. Mapes, indeed, missed quiet, orderly Jean; but she would not mention it for fear of spoiling her tender-hearted little daughter's pleasure, and it did not occur to modest Jean that she was of sufficient consequence to be missed by her mother or anyone else.
The neighbors, finding that the long-deserted cottage was again occupied, began to be curious about the occupants. One day Mrs. Bartholomew Crane, who lived almost directly opposite the cottage, found herself so devoured by kindly curiosity that she could stand it no longer. Intending to be neighborly, for Mrs. Crane was always neighborly in the best sense of the word, she put on her one good dress and started across the street to call on the newcomers.
It was really a great undertaking for Mrs. Crane to pay visits, for she was a stout, slow-moving person, and, owing to the antiquity and consequent tenderness[38] of her best garments, it was an even greater undertaking for the good woman to make a visiting costume. Her best black silk, for instance, had to be neatly mended with court-plaster when all other remedies had failed, and her old, thread-lace collars had been darned until their original floral patterns had given place to a mosaic of spider webs. Mrs. Crane's
motives, however, were far better than her clothes. Years before, when she was newly married, she had lived for months a stranger in a strange town, where it was no unusual occurrence to live for years in ignorance of one's next-door neighbor's very name. Dur-
ing those unhappy months poor Mrs. Crane, sociable by nature yet sadly afflicted with shyness, had suffered keenly from loneliness and homesickness. She had vowed then that no other stranger should suffer as she had suffered, if it were in her power to prevent it; so, in spite of increasing difficulties, kind Mrs. Crane conscientiously called on each newcomer. In many cases, hers was the first
welcome to be extended to persons settling in Lakeville, and although these visits were prompted by single-minded generosity, it was natural that she should, at the same time, make many friends. These, however, were seldom lasting ones, for many persons, whose business kept them in Lakeville for perhaps only a few months, afterwards[39] moved away and drifted quietly out of Mrs. Crane's life.
That afternoon the four girls realized for the first time that Dandelion Cottage was provided with a doorbell. In response to its lively
jingling, Mabel dropped the potato she was peeling with neatness but hardly with dispatch, and hurried to the door. "Is your moth--Is the lady of the house at home?" asked Mrs. Crane.
"Yes'm, all of us are--there's four," stammered Mabel, who wasn't quite sure of her ability to entertain a grown-up caller. "Please
walk in. Oh! don't sit down in that one, please! There's only two legs on that chair, and it always goes down flat."
"Dear me," said Mrs. Crane, moving toward the cozy corner, "I shouldn't have suspected it."
"Oh, you can't sit there, either," exclaimed Mabel. "You see, that's the Tucker baby taking his nap." "My land!" said stout Mrs. Crane. "I thought it was one of those new-fashioned roll pillows."
"This chair," said Mabel, dragging one in from the dining room, "is the safest one we have in the house, but you must be careful to sit right down square in the middle of it because it slides out from under you if you sit too hard on the front edge. If you'll excuse me just a minute I'll go call the others--they're making a vegetable garden in the back yard."[40]
"Well, I declare!" said Mrs. Crane, when she had recognized the four young housekeepers and had heard all about the housekeeping. "It seems as if I ought to be able to find something in the way of furniture for you. I have a single iron bedstead I'm willing to lend you, and maybe I can find you some other things."
"Thank you very much," said Bettie, politely.
"I hope," said Mrs. Crane, pleasantly, "that you'll be very neighborly and come over to see me whenever you feel like it, for I'm always alone."
"Thank you," said Jean, speaking for the household. "We'd just love to."
14
"Haven't you any children?" asked Bettie, sympathetically.
"Not one," replied Mrs. Crane. "I've never had any but I've always loved children."
"But I'm sure you have a lot of grandchildren," said Mabel, consolingly. "You look so nice and grandmothery."
"No," said Mrs. Crane, not appearing so sorrowful as Mabel had supposed an utterly grandchildless person would look, "I've never possessed any grandchildren either."
"But," queried Mabel, who was sometimes almost too inquisitive, "haven't you any relatives, husbands, or anybody, in all the world?"[41]
Many months afterward the girls were suddenly reminded of Mrs. Crane's odd, contradictory reply: "No--Yes--that is, no. None to speak of, I mean. Do you girls sleep here, too?"
"No" said Jean. "We want to, awfully, but our mothers won't let us. You see, we sleep so soundly that they're all afraid we might get
the house afire, burn up, and never know a thing about it."
"They're quite right," said Mrs. Crane. "I suppose they like to have you at home once in a while."
"Oh, they do have us," replied Bettie. "We eat and sleep at home and they have us all day Sundays. When they want any of us other times, all they have to do is to open a back window and call--Dear me, Mrs. Crane, I'll have to ask you to excuse me this very minute--There's somebody calling me now."
Other visitors, including the girls' parents, called at the cottage and seemed to enjoy it very much indeed. The visitors were always greatly interested and everybody wanted to help. One brought a little table that really stood up very well if kept against the wall, another found curtains for all the windows--a little ragged, to be sure, but still curtains. Grandma Pike, who had a wonderful garden, was so delighted with everything that she gave the girls a crimson petunia growing in a red tomato can, and a great many neat little homemade packets of flower seeds. Rob said they[42] might have even his porcupine if they could get it out from under the rectory porch.
By the end of the week the cottage presented quite a lived-in appearance. Bright pictures covered the dingy paper, and, thanks to numerous donations, the rooms looked very well furnished. No one would have suspected that the chairs were untrustworthy, the tables crippled, and the clocks devoid of works. The cottage seemed cozy and pleasant, and the girls kept it in apple-pie order.
Out of doors, the grass was beginning to show and little green specks dotted the flower beds. Other green specks in crooked rows
staggered across the vegetable garden.
The four mothers, satisfied that their little daughters were safe in Dandelion Cottage, left them in undisturbed possession.
"I declare," said Mrs. Mapes one day, "the only time I see Jean, nowadays, is when she's asleep. All the rest of the time she's in school or at the cottage."
"Yes," said Mrs. Bennett, "when I miss my scissors or any of my dishes or anything else, I always have to go to the cottage and get out a search warrant. Mabel has carried off a wagonload of things, but I don't know when our own house has been so peaceful."
[43]
>
CHAPTER 5
Poverty in the Cottage
"There's no use talking," said Jean, one day, as the girls sat at their dining-room table eating very smoky toast and drinking the weak-est of cocoa, "we'll have to get some provisions of our own before long if we're going to invite Mr. Black to dinner as we promised. The cupboard's perfectly empty and Bridget says I can't take another scrap of bread or one more potato out of the house this week."[44]
15
"Aunty Jane says there'll be trouble," said Marjory, "if I don't keep out of her ice box, so I guess I can't bring any more milk. When she says there'll be trouble, there usually is, if I'm not pretty careful. But dear me, it is such fun to cook our own meals on that dear little box-stove, even if most of the things do taste pretty awful."
"I wish," said Mabel, mournfully, "that somebody would give us a hen, so we could make omelets." "Who ever made omelets out of a hen?" asked Jean, laughing.
"I meant out of the eggs, of course," said Mabel, with dignity. "Hens lay eggs, don't they? If we count on five or six eggs a day--"
"The goose that laid the golden egg laid only one a day," said Marjory. "It seems to me that six is a good many." "I wasn't talking about geese," said Mabel, "but about just plain everyday hens."
"Six-every-day hens, you mean, don't you?" asked Marjory, teasingly. "You'd better wish for a cow, too, while you're about it."
"Yes," said Bettie, "we certainly need one, for I'm not to ask for butter more than twice a week. Mother says she'll be in the poor-house before summer's over if she has to provide butter for two families."
"I just tell you what it is, girls," said Jean, nibbling[45] her cindery crust, "we'll just have to earn some money if we're to give Mr. Black any kind of a dinner."
Mabel, who always accepted new ideas with enthusiasm, slipped quietly into the kitchen, took a solitary lemon from the cupboard, cut it in half, and squeezed the juice into a broken-nosed pitcher. This done, she added a little sugar and a great deal of water to the lemon juice, slipped quietly out of the back door, ran around the house and in at the front door, taking a small table from the front room. This she carried out of doors to the corner of the lot facing the street, where she established her lemonade stand.
She was almost immediately successful, for the day was warm, and Mrs. Bartholomew Crane, who was entertaining two visitors on her front porch, was glad of an opportunity to offer her guests something in the way of refreshment. The cottage boasted only one glass that did not leak, but Mabel cheerfully made three trips across the street with it--it did not occur to any of them until too late it would have been easier to carry the pitcher across in the first place. The lemonade was decidedly weak, but the visitors were too po-lite to say so. On her return, a thirsty small boy offered Mabel a nickel for all that was left in the pitcher, and Mabel, after a moment's hesitation, accepted the offer.
"You're getting a bargain," said Mabel. "There's as[46] much as a glass and three quarters there, besides all the lemon." "Did you get a whole pitcherful out of one lemon?" asked the boy. "You'd be able to make circus lemonade all right."
Before the other girls had had time to discover what had become of her, the proprietor of the lemonade stand marched into the cottage and proudly displayed four shining nickels and the empty pitcher.
"Why, where in the world did you get all that?" cried Marjory. "Surely you never earned it by being on time for meals--you've been late three times a day ever since we got the cottage."
"Sold lemonade," said Mabel. "Our troubles are over, girls. I'm going to buy two lemons tomorrow and sell twice as much."
"Good!" cried Bettie, "I'll help. The boys have promised to bring me a lot of arbutus tonight--they went to the woods this morning. I'll tie it in bunches and perhaps we can sell that, too."
"Wouldn't it be splendid if we could have Mr. Black here to dinner next Saturday?" said Jean. "I'll never be satisfied until we've kept
that promise, but I don't suppose we could possibly get enough things together by that time."
"I have a sample can of baking powder," offered[47] Marjory, hopefully. "I'll bring it over next time I come."
"What's the good?" asked matter-of-fact Mabel. "We can't feed Mr. Black on just plain baking powder, and we haven't any biscuits to raise with it."
"Dear me," said Jean, "I wish we hadn't been so extravagant at first. If we hadn't had so many tea parties last week, we might get
16
enough flour and things at home. Mother says it's too expensive having all her groceries carried off."
"Never mind," consoled Mabel, confidently. "We'll be buying our own groceries by this time tomorrow with the money we make
selling lemonade. A boy said my lemonade was quite as good as you can buy at the circus."
Unfortunately, however, it rained the next day and the next, so lemonade was out of the question. By the time it cleared, Bettie's neat little bunches of arbutus were no longer fresh, and careless Mabel had forgotten where she had put the money. She mentioned no fewer than twenty-two places where the four precious nickels might be, but none of them happened to be the right one.
"Mercy me," said Bettie, "it's dreadful to be so poor! I'm afraid we'll have to invite Mr. Black to one of our bread-and-sugar tea-parties, after all."
"No," said Jean, firmly. "We've just got to give him[48] a regular seven-course dinner--he has 'em every day at home. We'll have to
put it off until we can do it in style."
"By and by," said Mabel, "we'll have beans and radishes and things in our own garden, and we can go to the woods for berries."
"Perhaps," said Bettie, hopefully, "one of the boys might catch a fish--Rob almost did, once."
"I suppose I could ask Aunty Jane for a potato once in a while," said Marjory, "but I'll have to give her time to forget about last month's grocery bill--she says we never before used so many eggs in one month and I guess Maggie did give me a good many. Potatoes will keep, you know. We can save 'em until we have enough for a meal."
"While we're about it," said Bettie, "I think we'd better have Mrs. Crane to dinner, too. She's such a nice old lady and she's been awfully good to us."
"She's not very well off," agreed Mabel, "and probably a real, first-class dinner would taste good to her."
"But," pleaded Bettie, "don't let's ask her until we're sure of the date. As it is, I can't sleep nights for thinking of how Mr. Black must feel. He'll think we don't want him."
"You'd better explain to him," suggested Jean, "that it isn't convenient to have him just yet, but that we're going to just as soon as ever we can. We[49] mustn't tell him why, because it would be just like him to send the provisions here himself, and then it wouldn't really be our party."
In spite of all the girls' plans, however, by the end of the week the cottage larder was still distressingly empty. Marjory had, indeed, industriously collected potatoes, only to have them carried off by an equally industrious rat; and Mabel's four nickels still remained missing. Things in the vegetable garden seemed singularly backward, possibly because the four eager gardeners kept digging them up to see if they were growing. Their parents and Marjory's Aunty Jane were firmer than ever in their refusal to part with any more staple groceries.
Perhaps if the girls had explained why they wanted the things, their relatives would have been more generous; but girllike, the four poverty-stricken young housekeepers made a deep mystery of their dinner plan. It was their most cherished secret, and when they met each morning they always said, mysteriously, "Good morning--remember M. B. D.," which meant, of course, "Mr. Black's Din-ner."
Mr. Black, indeed, never went by without referring to the girls' promise.
"When," he would ask, "is that dinner party coming off ? It's a long time since I've been invited to a first-class dinner, cooked by four accomplished young[50] ladies, and I'm getting hungrier every minute. When I get up in the morning I always say: 'Now I won't eat much breakfast because I've got to save room for that dinner'--and then, after all, I don't get invited."
The situation was growing really embarrassing. The girls began to feel that keeping house, not to mention giving dinner parties, with no income whatever, was anything but a joke.
[51]
>
CHAPTER 6
17
A Lodger to the Rescue
Grass was beginning to grow on the tiny lawn, all sorts of thrifty young seedlings were popping up in the flower beds, and Jean's pansies were actually beginning to blossom. The girls had trained the rampant Virginia creeper away from the windows and had coaxed it to climb the porch pillars. From the outside, no one would have suspected that Dandelion[52] Cottage was not occupied by a regular grown-up family. Book agents and peddlers offered their wares at the front door, and appeared very much crestfallen when Bettie, or one of the others, explained that the neatly kept little cottage was just a playhouse. Handbills and sample packages
of yeast cakes were left on the doorstep, and once a brand-new postman actually dropped a letter into the letter-box; Mabel carried it
afterward to Mrs. Bartholomew Crane, to whom it rightfully belonged.
One afternoon, when Jean was rearranging the dining-room pictures--they had to be rearranged very frequently--and when Mabel and Marjory were busy putting fresh papers on the pantry shelves, there was a ring at the doorbell.
Bettie, who had been dusting the parlor, pushed the chairs into place, threw her duster into the dining-room and ran to the door. A
lady--Bettie described her afterwards as a "middle-aged young lady with the sweetest dimple"--stood on the doorstep. "Is your mother at home?" asked the lady, smiling pleasantly at Bettie, who liked the stranger at once.
"She--she doesn't live here," said Bettie, taken by surprise.
"Perhaps you can tell me what I want to know. I'm a stranger in town and I want to rent a room in this neighborhood. I am to have my meals at Mrs. Baker's,[53] but she hasn't any place for me to sleep. I don't want anything very expensive, but of course I'd be willing to pay a fair price. Do you know of anybody with rooms to rent? I'm to be in town for three weeks."
Bettie shook her head, reflectively. "No, I don't believe I do, unless--"
Bettie paused to look inquiringly at Jean, who, framed by the dining-room doorway, was nodding her head vigorously.
"Perhaps Jean does," finished Bettie.
"Are you very particular," asked Jean, coming forward, "about what kind of room it is?" "Why, not so very," returned the guest. "I'm afraid I couldn't afford a very grand one."
"Are you very timid?" asked Bettie, who had suddenly guessed what Jean had in mind. "I mean are you afraid of burglars and mice and things like that?"
"Why, most persons are, I imagine," said the young woman, whose eyes were twinkling pleasantly. "Are there a great many mice and burglars in this neighborhood?"
"Mice," said Jean, "but not burglars. It's a very honest neighborhood. I think I have an idea, but you see there are four of us and I'll have to consult the others about it, too. Sit here, please, in the cozy corner--it's the safest piece of furniture we have. Now if[54] you'll excuse us just a minute we'll go to the kitchen and talk it over."
"Certainly," murmured the lady, who looked a trifle embarrassed at encountering the gaze of the forty-two staring dolls that sat all
around the parlor with their backs against the baseboard. "I hope I haven't interrupted a party." "Not at all," assured Bettie, with her best company manner.
"Girls," said Jean, when she and Bettie were in the kitchen with the door carefully closed behind them, "would you be willing to rent the front bedroom to a clean, nice-looking lady if she'd be willing to take it? She wants to pay for a room, she says, and she looks very polite and pleasant, doesn't she, Bettie?"
"Yes," corroborated Bettie, "I like her. She has kind of twinkling brown eyes and such nice dimples." "You see," explained Jean, "the money would pay for Mr. Black's dinner."
18
"Why, so it would," cried Marjory. "Let's do it."
"Yes," echoed Mabel, "for goodness' sake, let's do it. It's only three weeks, anyway, and what's three weeks!"
"How would it be," asked Marjory, cautiously, "to take her on approval? Aunty Jane always has hats and things sent on approval, so
she can send them back if they don't fit."[55]
"Splendid!" cried Mabel. "If she doesn't fit Dandelion Cottage, she can't stay."
"Oh," gurgled Marjory, "what a dinner we'll give Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane! We'll have ice cream and--"
"Huh!" said Mabel, "most likely she won't take the room at all. Anyhow, probably she's got tired of waiting and has gone." "We'll go and see," said Jean. "Come on, everybody."
The lady, however, still sat on the hard, lumpy cozy corner, with her toes just touching the ground.
"Well," said she, smiling at the flock of girls, "how about the idea?"
The other three looked expectantly at Jean; Mabel nudged her elbow and Bettie nodded at her. "You talk," said Marjory; "you're the oldest."
