but although the w.m.n.t.’s worked very hard, you must not suppose that they left no time to play. indeed, the weather was so fine that it was hard to stay in the house. the beautiful indian summer had come and each new day dawned more perfect than the last. the trees had become so gorgeous that it was as if the streets were lined with burning torches. whenever a breeze came, they seemed to flicker and flame and flare. maida and rosie used to shuffle along the gutters gathering pocketsful of glossy horse-chestnuts and handfuls of gorgeous leaves.
sometimes it seemed to maida that she did not need to play, that there was fun enough in just being out-of-doors. but she did play a great deal for she was well enough to join in all the fun now and it seemed to her that she never could get enough of any one game.
she would play house and paper-dolls and ring-games with the little children in the morning when the older ones were in school. she would play jackstones with the bigger girls in the afternoon. she would play running games with the crowd of girls and boys, of whom the w.m.n.t.’s were the leaders, towards night. then sometimes she would grumble to granny because the days were so short.
of all the games, hoist-the-sail was her favorite. she often served as captain on her side. but whether she called or awaited the cry, “liberty poles are bending—hoist the sail!” a thrill ran through her that made her blood dance.
“it’s no use in talking, granny,” maida said joyfully one day. “my leg is getting stronger. i jumped twenty jumps to-day without stopping.”
after that her progress was rapid. she learned to jump in the rope with rosie.
they were a pretty sight. people passing often gave them more than one glance—rosie so vivid and sparkling, in the scarlet cape and hat all velvety jet-blacks, satiny olives and brilliant crimsons—maida slim, delicate, fairy-like in her long squirrel-coat and cap, her airy ringlets streaming in the breeze and the eyes that had once been so wistful now shining with happiness.
“do you know what you look like, maida?” rosie said once. before maida could answer, she went on. “you look like that little mermaid princess in anderson’s fairy tales—the one who had to suffer so to get legs like mortals.”
“do i?” maida laughed. “now isn’t it strange i have always thought that you look like somebody in a fairy tale, too. you’re like rose-red in ‘rose-red and snow-white.’ i think,” she added, flushing, for she was a little afraid that it was not polite to say things like this, “that you are the beautifulest girl i ever saw.”
“why, that’s just what i think of you,” rosie said in surprise.
“i just love black hair,” maida said.
“and i just adore golden hair,” rosie said. “now, isn’t that strange?”
“i guess,” maida announced after a moment of thought, “people like what they haven’t got.”
after a while, rosie taught maida to jump in the big rope with a half a dozen children at once. maida never tired of this. when she heard the rope swishing through the air, a kind of excitement came over her. she was proud to think that she had caught the trick—that something inside would warn her when to jump—that she could be sure that this warning would not come an instant too soon or too late. the consciousness of a new strength and a new power made a different child of her. it made her eyes sparkle like gray diamonds. it made her cheeks glow like pink peonies.
by this time she could spin tops with the best of them—sometimes she had five tops going at once. this was a sport of which the w.m.n.t.’s never tired. they kept it up long into the twilight. sometimes granny would have to ring the dinner-bell a half a dozen times before maida appeared. maida did not mean to be disobedient. she simply did not hear the bell. granny’s scoldings for this carelessness were very gentle—maida’s face was too radiant with her triumph in this new skill.
there was something about primrose court—the rows of trees welded into a yellow arch high over their heads, the sky showing through in diamond-shaped glints of blue, the tiny trim houses and their tinier, trimmer yards, the doves pink-toeing everywhere, their throats bubbling color as wonderful as the old venetian glass in the beacon street house, the children running and shouting, the very smell of the dust which their pattering feet threw up—something in the look of all this made maida’s spirits leap.
“i’m happy, happy, happy,” maida said one day. the next—rosie came rushing into the shop with a frightened face.
“oh, maida,” she panted, “a terrible thing has happened. laura lathrop’s got diphtheria—they say she’s going to die.”
“oh, rosie, how dreadful! who told you so?”
“annie the cook told aunt theresa. dr. ames went there three times yesterday. annie says mrs. lathrop looks something awful.”
“the poor, poor woman,” granny murmured compassionately.
“oh, i’m so sorry i was cross to laura,” maida said, conscience-stricken. “oh, i do hope she won’t die.”
“it must be dreadful for laura,” rosie continued, “harold can’t go near her. nobody goes into the room but her mother and the nurse.”
the news cast a deep gloom over the court. the little children—betsy, molly and tim played as usual for they could not understand the situation. but the noisy fun of the older children ceased entirely. they gathered on the corner and talked in low voices, watching with dread any movement in the lathrop house. for a week or more primrose court was the quietest spot in the neighborhood.
“they say she’s sinking,” rosie said that first night.
the thought of it colored maida’s dreams.
“she’s got through the night all right,” rosie reported in the morning, her face shining with hope. “and they think she’s a little better.” but late the next afternoon, rosie appeared again, her face dark with dread, “laura’s worse again.”
two or three days passed. sometimes laura was better. oftener she was worse. dr. ames’s carriage seemed always to be driving into the court.
“annie says she’s dying,” rosie retailed despairingly. “they don’t think she’ll live through the night. oh, won’t it be dreadful to wake up to-morrow and find the crape on the door.”
the thought of what she might see in the morning kept maida awake a long time that night. when she arose her first glance was for the lathrop door. there was no crape.
“no better,” rosie dropped in to say on her way to school “but,” she added hopefully, “she’s no worse.”
maida watched the lathrop house all day, dreading to see the undertaker’s wagon drive up. but it did not come—not that day, nor the next, nor the next.
“they think she’s getting better,” rosie reported joyfully one day.
and gradually laura did get better. but it was many days before she was well enough to sit up.
“mrs. lathrop says,” rosie burst in one day with an excited face, “that if we all gather in front of the house to-morrow at one o’clock, she’ll lift laura up to the window so that we can see her. she says laura is crazy to see us all.”
“oh, rosie, i’m so glad!” maida exclaimed, delighted. seizing each other by the waist, the two little girls danced about the room.
“oh, i’m going to be so good to laura when she gets well,” maida said.
“so am i,” rosie declared with equal fervor. “the last thing i ever said to her was that she was ‘a hateful little smarty-cat.’”
five minutes before one, the next day, all the children in primrose court gathered on the lawn in front of laura’s window. maida led molly by one hand and tim by the other. rosie led betsy and delia. dorothy clark held fluff and mabel held tag. promptly at one o’clock, mrs. lathrop appeared at the window, carrying a little, thin, white wisp of a girl, all muffled up in a big shawl.
the children broke into shouts of joy. the boys waved their hats and the girls their handkerchiefs. tag barked madly and rosie declared afterwards that even fluff looked excited. but maida stood still with the tears streaming down her cheeks—laura’s face looked so tiny, her eyes so big and sad. from her own experience, maida could guess how weak laura felt.
laura stayed only an instant at the window. one feeble wave of her claw-like hand and she was gone.
“annie says mrs. lathrop is worn to a shadow trying to find things to entertain laura,” rosie said one night to maida and billy potter. “she’s read all her books to her and played all her games with her and laura keeps saying she wished she had something new.”
“oh, i do wish we could think of something to do for her,” maida said wistfully. “i know just how she feels. if i could only think of a new toy—but laura has everything. and then the trouble with toys is that after you’ve played with them once, there’s no more fun in them. i know what that is. if we all had telephones, we could talk to her once in a while. but even that would tire her, i guess.”
billy jumped. “i know what we can do for laura,” he said. “i’ll have to have mrs. lathrop’s permission though.” he seized his hat and made for the door. “i’d better see her about it to-night.” the door slammed.
it had all happened so suddenly that the children gazed after him with wide-open mouths and eyes.
“what do you suppose it’s going to be, maida?” rosie asked finally.
“i don’t know,” maida answered. “i haven’t the least idea. but if billy makes it, you may be sure it will be wonderful.”
when billy came back, they asked him a hundred questions. but they could not get a word out of him in regard to the new toy.
he appeared at the shop early the next morning with a suit-case full of bundles. then followed doings that, for a long time, were a mystery to everybody. a crowd of excited children followed him about, asking him dozens of questions and chattering frantically among themselves.
first, he opened one of the bundles—out dropped eight little pulleys. second, he went up into maida’s bedroom and fastened one of the little pulleys on the sill outside her window. third, he did the same thing in rosie’s house, in arthur’s and in dicky’s. fourth, he fastened four of the little pulleys at the playroom window in the lathrop house.
“oh, what is he doing?” “i can’t think of anything.” “oh, i wish he’d tell us,” came from the children who watched these manœuvres from the street.
fifth, billy opened another bundle—this time, out came four coils of a thin rope.
“i know now,” arthur called up to him, “but i won’t tell.”
billy grinned.
and, sure enough, “you watch him,” was all arthur would say to the entreaties of his friends.
sixth, billy ran a double line of rope between maida’s and laura’s window, a second between rosie’s and laura’s, a third between arthur’s and laura’s, a fourth between dicky’s and laura’s.
last, billy opened another bundle. out dropped four square tin boxes, each with a cover and a handle.
“i’ve guessed it! i’ve guessed it!” maida and rosie screamed together. “it’s a telephone.”
“that’s the answer,” billy confessed. he went from house to house fastening a box to the lower rope.
“now when you want to say anything to laura,” he said on his return, “just write a note, put it in the box, pull on the upper string and it will sail over to her window. suppose you all run home and write something now. i’ll go over to laura’s to see how it works.”
the children scattered. in a few moments, four excited little faces appeared at as many windows. the telephone worked perfectly. billy handed mrs. lathrop the notes to deliver to laura.
“oh, mr. potter,” mrs. lathrop said suddenly, “there’s a matter that i wished to speak to you about. that little flynn girl has lived in the family of mr. jerome westabrook, hasn’t she?”
billy’s eyes “skrinkled up.” “yes, mrs. lathrop,” he admitted, “she lived in the westabrook family for several years.”
“so i guessed,” mrs. lathrop said. “she’s a very sweet little girl,” she went on earnestly for she had been touched by the sight of maida’s grief the day that she held laura to the window. “i hope mr. westabrook’s own little girl is as sweet.”
“she is, mrs. lathrop, i assure you she is,” billy said gravely.
“what is the name of the westabrook child?”
“elizabeth fairfax westabrook.”
“what is she like?”
“she’s a good deal like maida,” billy said, his eyes beginning to “skrinkle up” again. “they could easily pass for sisters.”
“i suppose that’s why the westabrooks have been so good to the little flynn girl,” mrs. lathrop went on, “for they certainly are very good to her. it is quite evident that maida’s clothes belonged once to the little westabrook girl.”
“you are quite right, mrs. lathrop. they were made for the little westabrook girl.”
mrs. lathrop always declared afterwards that it was the telephone that really cured laura. certainly, it proved to be the most exciting of toys to the little invalid. there was always something waiting for her when she waked up in the morning and the tin boxes kept bobbing from window to window until long after dark. the girls kept her informed of what was going on in the neighborhood and the boys sent her jokes and conundrums and puzzle pictures cut from the newspapers. gifts came to her at all hours. sometimes it would be a bit of wood-carving—a grotesque face, perhaps—that arthur had done. sometimes it was a bit of dicky’s pretty paper-work. rosie sent her specimens of her cooking from candy to hot roasted potatoes, and maida sent her daily translations of an exciting fairy tale which she was reading in french for the first time.
pretty soon laura was well enough to answer the notes herself. she wrote each of her correspondents a long, grateful and affectionate letter. by and by, she was able to sit in a chair at the window and watch the games. the children remembered every few moments to look and wave to her and she always waved back. at last came the morning when a very thin, pale laura was wheeled out into the sunshine. after that she grew well by leaps and bounds. in a day or two, she could stand in the ring-games with the little children. by the end of a week, she seemed quite herself.
one morning every child in primrose court received a letter in the mail. it was written on gay-tinted paper with a pretty picture at the top. it read:
“you are cordially invited to a halloween party to be given by miss laura lathrop at 29 primrose court on saturday evening, october 31, at a half after seven.”
but as maida ceased gradually to worry about laura, she began to be troubled about rosie. for rosie was not the same child. much of the time she was silent, moody and listless.
one afternoon she came over to the shop, bringing the clark twins with her. for awhile she and maida played “house” with the little girls. suddenly, rosie tired of this game and sent the children home. then for a time, she frolicked with fluff while maida read aloud. as suddenly as she had stopped playing “house” she interrupted maida.
“don’t read any more,” she commanded, “i want to talk with you.”
maida had felt the whole afternoon that there was something on rosie’s mind for whenever the scowl came between rosie’s eyebrows, it meant trouble. maida closed her book and sat waiting.
“maida,” rosie asked, “do you remember your mother?”
“oh, yes,” maida answered, “perfectly. she was very beautiful. i could not forget her any more than a wonderful picture. she used to come and kiss me every night before she went to dinner with papa. she always smelled so sweet—whenever i see any flowers, i think of her. and she wore such beautiful dresses and jewels. she loved sparkly things, i guess—sometimes she looked like a fairy queen. once she had a new lace gown all made of roses of lace and she had a diamond fastened in every rose to make it look like dew. when her hair was down, it came to her knees. she let me brush it sometimes with her gold brush.”
“a gold brush,” rosie said in an awed tone.
“yes, it was gold with her initials in diamonds on it. papa gave her a whole set one birthday.”
“how old were you when she died?” rosie asked after a pause in which her scowl grew deeper.
“eight.”
“what did she die of?”
“i don’t know,” maida answered. “you see i was so little that i didn’t understand about dying. i had never heard of it. they told me one day that my mother had gone away. i used to ask every day when she was coming back and they’d say ‘next week’ and ‘next week’ and ‘next week’ until one day i got so impatient that i cried. then they told me that my mother was living far away in a beautiful country and she would never come back. they said that i must not cry for she still loved me and was always watching over me. it was a great comfort to know that and of course i never cried after that for fear of worrying her. but at first it was very lonely. why, rosie—” she stopped terrified. “what’s the matter?”
rosie had thrown herself on the couch, and was crying bitterly. “oh, maida,” she sobbed, “that’s exactly what they say to me when i ask them—‘next week’ and ‘next week’ and ‘next week’ until i’m sick of it. my mother is dead and i know it.”
“oh, rosie!” maida protested. “oh no, no, no—your mother is not dead. i can’t believe it. i won’t believe it.”
“she is,” rosie persisted. “i know she is. oh, what shall i do? think how naughty i was! what shall i do?” she sobbed so convulsively that maida was frightened.
“listen, rosie,” she said. “you don’t know your mother is dead. and i for one don’t believe that she is.”
“but they said the same thing to you,” rosie protested passionately.
“i think it was because i was sick,” maida said after a moment in which she thought the matter out. “they were afraid that i might die if they told me the truth. but whether your mother is alive or dead, the only way you can make up for being naughty is to be as good to your aunt theresa as you can. oh, rosie, please go to school every day.”
“do you suppose i could ever hook jack again?” rosie asked bitterly. she dried her eyes. “i guess i’ll go home now,” she said, “and see if i can help aunt theresa with the supper. and i’m going to get her to teach me how to cook everything so that i can help mother—if she ever comes home.”
the next day rosie came into the shop with the happiest look that she had worn for a long time.
“i peeled the potatoes for aunt theresa, last night,” she announced, “and set the table and wiped the dishes. she was real surprised. she asked me what had got into me?”
“i’m glad,” maida approved.
“i asked her when mother was coming back and she said the same thing, ‘next week, i think.’” rosie’s lip quivered.
“i think she’ll come back, rosie,” maida insisted. “and now let’s not talk any more about it. let’s come out to play.”
mindful of her own lecture on obedience to rosie, maida skipped home the first time granny rang the bell.
granny met her at the door. her eyes were shining with mischief. “you’ve got a visitor,” she said. maida could see that she was trying to keep her lips prim at the corners. she wondered who it was. could it be—
she ran into the living-room. her father jumped up from the easy-chair to meet her.
“well, well, well, miss rosy-cheeks. no need to ask how you are!” he said kissing her.
“oh papa, papa, i never was so happy in all my life. if you could only be here with me all the time, there wouldn’t be another thing in the world that i wanted. don’t you think you could give up wall street and come to live in this court? you might open a shop too. papa, i know you’d make a good shopkeeper although it isn’t so easy as a lot of people think. but i’d teach you all i know—and, then, it’s such fun. you could have a big shop for i know just how you like big things—just as i like little ones.”
“buffalo” westabrook laughed. “i may have to come to it yet but it doesn’t look like it this moment. my gracious, posie, how you have improved! i never would know you for the same child. where did you get those dimples? i never saw them in your face before. your mother had them, though.”
the shadow, that the mention of her mother’s name always brought, darkened his face. “how you are growing to look like her!” he said.
maida knew that she must not let him stay sad. “dimples!” she squealed. “really, papa?” she ran over to the mirror, climbed up on a chair and peeked in. her face fell. “i don’t see any,” she said mournfully.
“and you’re losing your limp,” mr. westabrook said. then catching sight of her woe-begone face, he laughed. “that’s because you’ve stopped smiling, you little goose,” he said. “grin and you’ll see them.”
obedient, maida grinned so hard that it hurt. but the grin softened to a smile of perfect happiness. for, sure enough, pricking through the round of her soft, pink cheeks, were a pair of tiny hollows.
