miss bradbury came in the next day, which was sunday, to dine with the scollards on her way home from church. at least she said it was on her way home, although she lived not far from the washington arch and had been to church near fiftieth street, and the patty-pans was in the belt of lower rents above the upper entrance to central park. but the scollards were used to her whimsical statements and were too glad to get hold of her on any terms to dispute her topography.
aunt keren-happuch struck them all as looking pale and tired. they had not seen her in two weeks and mrs. scollard was troubled by the weary look which, to her eyes, energetic miss keren wore. she indignantly denied feeling less well than usual, and told gretta that if her looks were changed it must be by her descent from the mountains to the soiled damp air of the seaboard city.
miss keren found the scollards, or at least the mother and her two eldest daughters, urging gretta to let mrs. barker send her to school. mrs. scollard was disturbed by gretta's firmness; it frightened her lest the girl should blight her entire life when she was too young to realize the full effect of her refusal. most of all she was troubled because happie believed that gretta was[116] refusing in order to help her friends through that busy winter.
"oh, miss keren, help me convert gretta!" cried mrs. scollard. "i have said everything that i can think of, but she won't listen to reason."
"that means she won't see things as you do; 'reason' is always my opinion, and 'unreason' the other person's, just as 'orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is the other man's doxy,'" commented miss keren. "what am i to convert gretta to? has she been turning heathen?"
"you know the dutch are always obstinate," said gretta quietly.
"heathen? no," said bob quickly. "they are worrying for fear gretta is turning too christian, and loving her neighbor better than herself; they want you to convert her to paganism."
"i'm fresh from church," remarked miss keren. "suppose you tell me the case."
they told it to her in a trio of mrs. scollard, margery and happie, while gretta sat by listening and smiling in a most detached, impersonal way.
the scollards felt quite sure of an ally in miss keren, who was always anxious to help people on in the world and who would fully realize what six years in a good school would mean to gretta. to their unbounded surprise, when they were through with their story miss keren said decidedly: "gretta is perfectly right. she is getting all the training—mental trai[117]ning—here that she needs, and a great deal else that no school could give her. then i think you need her this winter. wait! i wouldn't advise letting that stand in the way of larger interests. if gretta were losing by staying i couldn't say that it would be just, but she isn't. and she is very essential to you, dividing forces as you are between here and the tea room. and last, but not least, of reasons: i don't care for your barker acquaintances, charlotte, and i think an education received from mrs. barker would be a burden, a sort of mortgage on gretta. you'd see that mrs. barker would forget about the gratitude which prompted her gift, and remember only gretta's debt to her. it has been my experience that it required the nicest sort of people at whose hands to receive a favor that should not be most burdensome. the barkers are shoddy. on all accounts i think gretta is in the right to refuse. and i think the future may hold something quite as good for her, which need not be refused."
gretta fairly beamed. "you dear miss bradbury," she said. "i felt so dreadfully sure you would be on the other side! i couldn't express my own meaning as you have done it for me, but you think just as i do. i'm ever so much obliged to you."
"you're entirely welcome. but i don't think they would have had their way with you, even if i had been on their side, would they?" laughed miss keren.
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gretta laughed too, but shook her head decidedly. "you know madison county is all rocks, and i was born and brought up there. i guess i caught the rockiness when i was growing. i'm as obstinate as the rest of the dutch!" she said.
when miss keren departed, early after dinner, margery, happie, gretta and bob went with her down town for the sake of the walk home again at sunset. it was a walk of over six miles, but not too far coming up through the park in the wintry wind, sharp and dry, with the down-dropping sun lighting the skeleton of the trees into a beauty not inferior to that of the summer verdure.
"no, she certainly does not look well," gretta agreed with margery as they turned their faces up town when the door had closed behind miss bradbury in the large apartment house where she lived alone with her two maids.
"but aunt keren couldn't be ill," happie declared optimistically. "i don't believe she would know how to be, and sickness would have to leave her for lack of a proper reception."
"we'll go down and see her in a few days," said margery, looking unconvinced.
"we will if we can get there," amended happie. "you and i in the tea room, laura helping us half the day and helping gretta at home the other half of it, there isn't much chance of our doing anything but our work before another sunday."
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"you're not wearying of well-doing, happie?" hinted bob.
"now, robert, who said anything that sounded like that?" demanded happie reproachfully. "i was merely stating facts. do you think that i could weary of doing as well as we do there? do you realize that with your promotion and your five dollars more a week, and our tea room, we are making up the other half of dearest motherum's salary which she wasn't strong enough to earn this winter? we clear twenty dollars a week at the worst, and margery and i are laying by money to give—or to offer to give—aunt keren for rent, besides. we don't feel comfortable knowing we aren't paying our own rent, especially as she can't afford to do it."
"rather a ticklish matter to pay back a christmas present," remarked bob.
"not to aunt keren," said happie. "she will know just how we mean it, and she'll see a business ought to pay its own expenses, if it can."
"that's one of the nicest things about auntie keren," said margery. "she never misunderstands one, always takes everything precisely as one says it, and construes it by her experience of what one is likely to mean. she may be brusque, and i suppose people who don't know her think she is too much so, but i think there's more real amiability under her even-tempered bluntness than there is in sweetness that doesn't hold out."
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"a good deal," agreed happie emphatically. "i think people who get hurt and offended easily have the worst of hard dispositions, for they always pride themselves on their sensitiveness, and blame everybody else."
"and i think," said gretta quietly, "that this day is one of those pleasant things you are talking about, that can't be depended upon to hold out."
"going to be a change?" drawled bob, imitating the accent of jake shale, who had worked for the scollards the previous summer on the farm.
"i guess," retorted gretta in like accent. "there's such an east wind blowing. what fur a ring is that round the sun? storm, say not?"
the three scollards laughed aloud with such enjoyment that two or three passers-by smiled in sympathy. the dialect of madison county sounded odd and pleasant, bringing the picture of the ark in its green fields into handsome fifth avenue.
they got home to the patty-pans cold and hungry, wholesomely tired for a good night's sleep. when they awakened weather-wise gretta was proved a competent prophet, and the beautiful sunday but what old people call "a weather breeder." a cold rain was falling, mingled with hail. it froze as it fell, and the stone paved sidewalks were as great a menace to human beings as was the asphalt upon which the poor horses were slipping and straining in a manner painful to see.
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"margery, you let me go down with happie to-day," said gretta. "i am surer-footed and stronger than you are. and we can get on without either laura or polly. nobody will be out to-day who can stay in. it's fearful walking. happiness and i will go down to the tea room; the rest of you stay here. oh, there goes a horse!"
gretta covered her eyes, shuddering. her love for horses was a passion with her, and it was almost more than she could bear to see their suffering as they strove for a foothold on the wet or sleeted asphalt, falling to their death from the bullet that would end the pain of a broken leg, or, worse, when they strained into an injury not immediately fatal, but incurable.
"i don't see how you can live in new york!" she gasped, turning away from the window with a white face, as the latest victim was helped to his feet by feed bags placed under them.
"are you ever homesick, gretta?" asked happie with a sudden suspicion.
"no, because you are all here, but, oh, wouldn't you rather be up in the mountains where the air is dry and clear than here, crowded up, in this wet wind, with horses ruined before your eyes?" cried gretta.
"poor gretta! i believe you do miss your mountains!" said margery gently.
"home is home," said gretta. "but not without you all," she added hastily.
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margery found the day long. from its beginning to its close walking was not less dangerous, and she had visions of her mother, happie, even sure-footed gretta, coming home in an ambulance, with broken bones. laura played dismal music all the gray day till margery almost screamed, but if it made laura happy to be miserable gentle margery did not like to thwart her, so bore the minor strains uncomplainingly.
it was a great relief when her mother came back safe and sound, a little earlier than usual, for margery had been more anxious about her than about the girls. they, too, arrived with every bone intact, having triumphed over the pitfalls set that day by nature, but they came alone and late.
"where's bob?" asked mrs. scollard. the boy of the family never failed in escort duty to his sisters, unless he sent a substitute.
"that's what we are wondering," said happie. "we waited fifteen minutes for him, then we locked the door and waited more than five minutes outside, then we came on without him. isn't it strange?"
"he would have telephoned if he couldn't come, unless——" gretta stopped herself.
"unless he couldn't telephone," mrs. scollard finished the sentence for her. "polly, run down-stairs, dear, and see if any message has been neglected by the boy."
polly started to obey, but a rap on the door as she neared it checked her, and happie opened it to snigs, snigs with a qu[123]eer, excited face and a suppressed manner.
"oh, hallo, happie!" he said with forced jauntiness. "i came to tell you that bob sort of slipped—tumbled down, like a chump, and he thinks he hurt his ankle, and he was afraid you mightn't like it—i mean he was afraid you'd be afraid it was worse than it is, so he sent me ahead to tell you it was nothing bad."
"where is bob?" cried mrs. scollard hastening forward.
"he telephoned ralph to meet him. he's down-stairs at the door. i guess he's got to wait for the janitor to help him up—he came home in a cab," said snigs.
"oh, dear!" groaned laura always ready to meet a sensation sensationally, and margery looked aghast, remembering how her mother had come home in a carriage, completely broken down, less than a year before.
"let's go see, motherums!" said happie cheerfully, though she was badly frightened.
they had not got down one flight of the three between them and the lower hall, when they heard slow steps and many of them, and saw bob trying to smile at them above the shoulders of ralph, the stout german janitor, the colored fireman and the hall boy as they carried him up-stairs.
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"lo! we bring with us the hero—
lo! we bring the conquering graeme,
crowned as best beseems a victor
from the altar of his fame,"
bob declaimed, setting ralph's skating cap, which he imperatively borrowed, rakishly on one eye to give point to his quotation.
"bob, my dear bob, what has happened?" cried his mother.
"i'm like tennyson's brook, mother; 'i slip, i slide'—i don't 'gleam,' though. it wasn't a long plan of mine. i just sat down on the icy sidewalk to mature it, and when i got up—well, i didn't get up,—to make a bull—i was pulled up." bob cheerfully called this information up the stairs to his anxious mother, smiling into her down-bent face, and entirely indifferent to what the other tenants might think of his nonsense.
"it's a sprain or a strain, mrs. scollard; it isn't anything serious," ralph corroborated. "but bob can't join one of mrs. stewart's classes this week."
the doctor came and bandaged bob, pronouncing his hurt one that would recover in a reasonable time if he did not try to force it.
bob took his supper on the sofa that night, and the girls waited on him so devotedly that it was rather pleasant to be incapacitated.
but beneath his enjoyment of the hour, and of ralph and snigs' nonsense, which they brought over with them from the next flat and kept on tap all the evening, was an anxiety for the morrow and for the succeeding morrows.[125] bob was more than desirous to do his duty at the office, yet here he was, laid up!
happie saw the worry and so did margery, but where the loving elder girl could only grieve over it, the younger set about curing it.
after a confab with margery, gretta and laura that night when the gordon boys had gone, happie came into bob's room and seated herself on the edge of his narrow white bed.
"i have something to announce to you, robert, my wounded hero," she said, smoothing the sheet comfortably under his chin. "i've been talking it over with the girls, and we can manage it. gretta is to keep house here, margery is to take charge of the tea room, laura is to go there with her, and so is polly, and penny is to stay at home every day, except dancing school days. and i am going down to mr. felton's office every morning, and i'm going to do your work if i can, and if i can't i shall find some way to be useful."
"well, i guess you won't!" cried bob, his voice bristling with exclamation points.
"well, i guess i will!" happie mocked him. "bob, i'd love to do it! i'm not afraid. and i know as much arithmetic as you do."
"you know enough, happie, but you would have to learn the office work, and by the time you had learned it i should be back. and you, a girl, can't do errands. but it would be fine if you could keep my place for me," added bo[126]b, seeing how crestfallen happie looked. he had such unbounded faith in his sister's ability that he half wondered if she could not do what she wanted to do, after all.
"then i may try!" cried happie, brightening under bob's hint of relenting.
"no use, hapsie, but i wish there were," said bob vaguely.
happie talked her mother over, and in the morning had her way. the entire household, save gretta, bob and penny, sallied forth in the dampness of the thawing ice of the day before, but with the sun climbing up to dry it off into a perfect day.
happie presented herself with unexpected timidity in the office where bob had served his apprenticeship to the world of business, and where the hope of the future smiled at him. three young clerks looked at her speculatively, wondering at the youth of this very early client, and whether she had come to buy, sell, lease, or hire.
"is mr. felton here?" asked happie, and with her question her courage rose.
"he's inside," said the youngest of the clerks. "want to see him? i'll take your message."
"just tell him, please, that robert scollard's sister would like to see him. he has sprained his ankle and can't come down to-day," happie said.
"oh, that's a pity!" exclaimed one of the other clerks. "yes, it's a shame!" chimed in the second. "awful sorry," mur[127]mured the one who had risen to go to mr. felton.
happie felt better; these lads evidently liked bob.
mr. felton came out of his sanctum and smiled kindly at bob's emissary.
"sorry to hear that scollard is laid up. nothing serious, i hope?" he said.
"no, sir," said happie. "but he can't use his foot, and won't be able to use it for at least a week. i came down because i want to take his place here until he is able to be about. i am quite good at accounts—we studied together—and i think i can be useful. please let me try."
mr. felton laughed. "so you are made of the same cloth as your brother. it is exactly like him not to forget his duties here when he is hurt, but he needn't have sent you as a substitute; i can get along."
"he didn't send me, i came—but of course he was glad when i said i thought i could come. what shall i do first?" asked happie, looking around in a businesslike way.
"open those letters on your brother's desk, sort them into their classes; bills, paid and unpaid, applications for houses, offices, apartments, etc., and general correspondence. then add up that rent roll there," said mr. felton indicating papers on bob's desk. he went back into his inner office and happie hung up her coat and hat on the hook pointed out to her by one of "the other boys," as she told herself, climbed on bob's stool and w[128]ent to work.
the three young men in the office were ready with suggestions and information and happie accomplished her tasks fairly well through a day that was not as long as it would have been in an office further down in town. it was long enough, however, to her unaccustomed muscles, perched for so many hours on a stool that strained her knees, with her back bent over a desk.
"shall i come back, mr. felton? to-morrow, i mean, and until bob can come himself?" she asked when mr. felton bade his little force good-night.
"why, if you like," he replied, smiling into happie's eager face.
"i like it, if it helps," she said.
"yes, it helps," said mr. felton. "you have done your brother's work to-day. of course i don't know how much help you had." he glanced at the three young men, but they stood by happie to a man.
"oh, she only needed a hint or two," said the oldest. "just a little showing with some things she had never run up against," added the one whom happie liked best.
"she hasn't been any bother," said the youngest one, with a patronizing air that made happie long to box his ears.
"very well, i shall appreciate your not allowing my work to suffer through your brother's absence," said mr. felton with a polite bow. and so it was settled that until[129] bob was out again happie was to be in the real estate business.
it was a tired but triumphant happie, therefore, that came into the tea room to go home with her sisters under substitute ralph's escort. the tea room was not far distant from mr. felton's office.
bob listened to her account of the day with explosions of laughter that were inspired by admiration fully as much as by mirth.
"hapsie, you're all kinds of a good fellow!" he said at the end of the recital. "i won't forget this in a hurry! but gretta has been a trump too! she has looked after my bandages, and fed penny and me well, and entertained me into the bargain. i think i've six pretty nice sisters!"
bob beamed on the group of big and little girls, with a pat on happie's arm and a special smile for gretta, who blushed with pleasure and looked amply repaid for that day's work.
"now wouldn't it be nice if i had gone to that school, as mrs. barker wanted me to, and there had been no one but penny to stay at home?" she asked.
"well, really, gretta, you have the best of the argument to-day," said mrs. scollard smoothing the girl's hair as she brought a cushion for bob's foot, and set the biggest orange before happie.
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