Kitabı oku: «The Carter Girls», sayfa 3

CHAPTER V
LEWIS SOMERVILLE

“Lewis! What on earth can be the matter with him?” chorused the girls.

“Matter enough! He has been shipped!”

“Shipped? Oh, Cousin Lizzie, you can’t mean it!” exclaimed Douglas, drying her eyes as she began to realize that she was not the only miserable person in the world whose ambitions had gone awry.

“I am sure if he has been fired, it is from no fault of his own,” declared Nan, who was a loyal soul and always insisted that her friends and relatives were in the right until absolute proof to the contrary was established.

“Well, whether it was his fault or not, I am not prepared to say. ‘Where there is so much smoke there must be some fire.’”

The girls had to smile at this, as there was never a time when Cousin Lizzie did not have a proverb ready to suit the occasion.

“Yes, but the fire might not have been of his kindling,” insisted Nan.

“Please tell us what the trouble is, Cousin Lizzie, if you don’t mind talking about it,” begged Douglas. “Has Lewis really left West Point for good? I can’t believe it.”

“The trouble is: ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners.’ If Lewis had not been with the companions that he has chosen, he would not have gotten into this trouble. Surely Solomon was wise indeed when he said: ‘Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son, but he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father.’ I am glad my poor brother is dead and not here to witness his son’s disgrace.”

“Cousin Lizzie, I do not believe that Lewis has done anything disgraceful,” insisted Nan, speaking almost quickly for once.

“Well, it is a disgrace in my mind for the son and grandson of Confederate soldiers to be dismissed from a Yankee institution, whether he was in fault or not. ‘As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.’ A Somerville’s place is in the South and it was always against my wishes that Lewis went to West Point.”

“Please tell us what the trouble is, what Lewis did or didn’t do at West Point,” said Helen in the determined voice that usually made Cousin Lizzie stop her proverbs long enough to give the information required.

“‘Hazing a plebe,’ is what he said. What a plebe is or what hazing is I do not know, but whatever it is, Lewis says he was not mixed up in it, but he, with eight other second classmen, were let out. The words are his, not mine. All I know is that he was discharged and is at my house now in a state of dejection bordering on insanity.”

“Poor boy! We are so sorry for him. What is he going to do now?” asked Douglas.

Here was another disappointment for Douglas. Her cousin, Lewis Somerville, was one of the dearest friends she had in the world. He was two years her senior and had made it his business since they were tiny tots to protect her and look after her on all occasions. They had had a plan for the following year that now, of course, had fallen through. She was to have come to West Point from Bryn Mawr to the finals. He would then have been a third classman and able to make her have a rip-roaring time, as he had expressed it.

Lewis in a state of dejection bordering on insanity! That was unbelievable. If there ever was a gayer, happier person than Lewis, she had never seen him.

“Do? Goodness knows!”

“Well, all I can say,” put in Nan, “is that Uncle Sam is a fool not to know that Lewis is a born soldier, and if he wants to prepare himself to defend his country, he should be allowed to do so. Oh, I don’t care what he has done – I just know he hasn’t done it!”

“I’m going to ’phone him this minute and tell him to come around here!” and Helen jumped up from her seat, thereby waking Lucy, who had dropped asleep on her shoulder, worn out with the stress of emotion.

“If you are, so am I – whatever it is,” declared Lucy, rubbing her eyes, as determined as ever to keep up with Helen or die in the attempt.

“Hello! is this you, Lewis?” as the connection was quickly made.

“Well,” in a tired, dreary voice. “What is it?”

“This is me, Lewis, Helen Carter! We are all sitting up here dressed in our best waiting for you to come to see us. Douglas says if you don’t hurry she, for one, is going to bed.”

“What’s that?” in a little brisker tone.

“Say, Lewis, we are in an awful lot of trouble. You know Father is ill and has had to go away and we don’t know what is to become of us. We need your advice terribly – ”

“Be ’round in a jiffy,” and so he was.

“That was very tactful of you, Helen,” said Cousin Lizzie lugubriously. “You know ‘Misery loves company.’” But a peal from the front door bell interrupted further quotations and Lewis Somerville came tearing into the house in answer to Helen’s S. O. S.

He did look as dejected as one of his make-up could. It is hard to be dejected very long when one is just twenty, in perfect health, with naturally high spirits and the strength to remove mountains tingling in the veins. A jury of women could not have shipped the young would-be soldier, and it must have taken very hard-hearted men, very determined on maintaining discipline, deliberately to have cut this young fellow’s career in two. Our army must be full of very fine young men if they can so lightly give up such a specimen as this Lewis Somerville. Imagine a young giant of noble proportions, as erect as an ash sapling that has had all the needed room in which to grow, a head like Antinous and frank blue eyes that could no more have harbored a lie than that well-cut, honest mouth could have spoken one.

“I didn’t do it and just to let me know that you don’t believe I did, you have got to kiss me all around.”

“Nonsense, Lewis! Helen and I are too old to kiss you even if you are a cousin,” and Douglas got behind Cousin Lizzie.

“Quite right, Douglas, ‘The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge.’ Lewis is not such very close kin, besides.”

“Why, Aunt Lizzie, I did not expect you to desert me.”

“‘It is not good to eat much honey, so for men to search their own glory is not glory.’”

“Well, Nan and Lucy will kiss me, anyhow. They believe I did not do it.”

“We are sure you are telling the truth,” said Douglas gravely. “We do not know yet what they say you did.”

“They say I helped a lot of fellows tie a plebe to a tree and drop ice down his back, making out it was red hot pennies, until the fellow fainted from his fancied injuries. I never did it, but if I had, it wouldn’t have been a patching on the things the second classmen did to me last year when I was a plebe, and wild horses would not have dragged a complaint from me. It was done by some men who are my chums, but I declare I was not with the crowd.”

“We know it! we know it!” from all the girls.

“But I don’t want to talk about myself – I am so anxious to hear what is the matter with Cousin Robert. Let’s let up on me and talk about your trouble, and if I can help, please command me.”

“Father is very ill,” said Douglas soberly. “He has been working too hard for a long time and now his nerves have just given way and he has had to stop and go on a trip. Dr. Wright assures us that he has stopped in time and a sea trip and a year’s rest will completely restore him. It has come on us so suddenly that we have not had time to catch our breath even.”

“And who is this Dr. Wright?” asked Cousin Lizzie. “I thought Dr. Davis was your family physician. Some Yankee, I’ll be bound, with all kinds of new notions.”

“He is from Washington recently, but I believe he came originally from New York State.”

“Do you mean that you let a perfect stranger pick up your parents and send them off on a journey without consulting a soul?”

“But it was important to avoid all confusion and discussion. Dr. Wright has been lovely about it all. He even got a notary public so I could be given power of attorney to attend to any business that might come up. It so happened, though, that my being under age was a drawback and Father gave him power of attorney instead.”

“Douglas Carter! Do you mean to say that a strange young Yankee doctor that has only been living in Richmond a little while has the full power to sell your father out and do anything he chooses with his estate? Preposterous!”

“But there isn’t any estate,” objected Douglas, and Helen could not help a little gleam of satisfaction creeping into her eyes. She was not the only person who felt that Dr. Wright had been, to say the least, presumptuous.

“No estate! Why I thought Robert Carter was very well off. What has he done with his money, please?”

“We have just lived on it. We didn’t know,” sadly from Douglas.

“I never heard of such extravagance. ‘A fool and his money are soon parted.’”

“We have got just exactly eighty-three dollars and fifty-nine cents in the bank. Father owns this house and a side of a mountain in Albemarle, and that is all.”

“Mercy, child! I can’t believe it.”

“We have got to live somehow, and I believe we all feel that it would be very bad for Father to come back and find debts to be paid off. He has such a horror of debt that he has always paid the bills each month. What do you think we could do – something to make money, I mean? Father was in such a nervous state we could not consult him, and Mother, poor little Mother, of course she does not understand business at all.”

“Humph! I should say not! And what do you chits of girls know about it, either? Are you meaning to stay alone, all un-chaperoned, until this Yankee doctor thinks it is time to let your parents return? Just as like as not there is nothing the matter with your father but a touch of malaria.”

“We had not thought of a chaperone, as we have been so miserable about Father we could not think of ourselves. If we are going to make a living, we won’t need chaperones, anyhow.”

“Make a living, indeed! You are to stay right here in your home and I will come stay with you, and you can curtail your expenses somewhat by dismissing one servant and giving up your car. Robert Carter is not the kind of man who would want his eighteen-year-old daughter and others even younger to go out into the world to make a living. He would rather die than have such a thing happen.”

“But we are not going to have him die,” broke in Helen. “I thought just as you do, Cousin Lizzie, until I saw him this afternoon and realized how worried he has been. We are going to do something and there are to be no debts awaiting him, either. What do you think of boarders? Do you think we could get any?”

“Who on earth would board with us, here in Richmond? Everybody knows what a trifling lot we are. If we have boarders, it will have to be on the side of the mountain in Albemarle,” said Nan, and as usual every one stopped to hear what she had to say. “Besides, a boarding house in summer shuts up shop in cities. Country board is the thing. Let’s rent our house furnished for a year and go to the mountains.”

“But there are nothing but trees and rocks on the side of the mountain in Albemarle,” objected Douglas; “not a piece of a house except a log cabin near the top built by the sick Englishman who used to live there.”

“No room for boarders in that, I know, as Father pointed it out to me once from the train when we were on our way to Wytheville. It had one room and maybe two. It must command a wonderful view. You could see it for miles and miles and when you get up there, there is no telling what you can see. It would make a great camp – Girls! Girls! Cousin Lizzie! Lewis! All of you! I’ve got a scheme! It just came to me!” and Helen jumped up and ran around and hugged everybody, even the cousin she and Douglas had grown too big to kiss.

“Well, cough it up! We are just as anxious as can be to share your idea, or is it so big it got stuck on the way,” laughed Lewis, accepting the caress as it was meant.

“Let’s have a boarding camp, with Cousin Lizzie to chaperone us! I know just lots of girls who would simply die to go, and Albemarle is close enough for week-enders to pour in on us.”

“Hurrah! Hurrah! And I bid to be man-of-all work! I know rafts of fellows who would want to come.”

“Yes, and let’s call it Week End Camp,” said Nan. “Week to be spelled W-E-A-K. What do you think of the plan, Cousin Lizzie? If you are to be chaperone, it seems to me you should be consulted the first thing.”

“Don’t ask me, child. Things are moving too rapidly for me. We must go a little more slowly,” and truly the old lady did look dazed indeed. “‘More haste, less speed,’ is a very good adage.”

“Well, Cousin Lizzie, it does sound crazy in a way, but do you know, I believe we could really do it and do it very well,” said Douglas. “I consider Helen a genius to have thought of such a thing. I don’t think the outlay need be very great, and surely the living would be cheap when once we get there.”

“But, my dear, at my age I could not begin to eat out of doors. I have not done such a thing since I can remember but once, and then I went with the United Daughters of the Confederacy on a picnic. The undertaker went ahead with chairs and tables so everything was done in decency and order.”

Nan’s “Funeral baked meats!” made them all laugh, even Cousin Lizzie.

“I am going to have a short khaki suit with leggins coming way up,” declared Helen, who could not contemplate anything without seeing herself dressed to suit the occasion.

“Me, too,” sleepily from Lucy, who was trying to keep awake long enough to find out what it all meant.

“Aunt Lizzie, I wish you would consent. It all depends on you. You could eat in the cabin and sleep in the cabin and not camp out at all. I could go up right away and build the camp. I’d just love to have something to do. Bill Tinsley, from Charlottesville, got shipped with me and I’m pretty sure he’d join me. You’d like Bill, he’s so quaint. We are both of us great carpenters and could make a peach of a job of it. Do, please, Aunt Lizzie!”

Could this be the young man who, only ten minutes ago, she had described as being in a state of dejection bordering on insanity? This enthusiastic boy with his eyes dancing in joyful anticipation of manual labor to be plunged into? If she consented to go to the mountains, thereby no doubt making herself very uncomfortable, she might save her beloved nephew from doing the thing that she was dreading more than all others, dreading it so much that she had been afraid to give voice to it: going to France to fight with the Allies.

“Well, Lewis, if this plan means that you will find occupation and happiness, I will consent. I can’t bear to think of your being idle. ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’”

“Oh, Cousin Lizzie, I think you are just splendid!” exclaimed Helen.

And, indeed, Miss Elizabeth Somerville was splendid in her way. She was offering herself on the altar of aunthood. It was a real sacrifice for her to consent to this wild plan of going to the mountains. She hated snakes, and while she did not confess that she hated Nature, she certainly had no love for her. Her summer outings had meant, heretofore, comfortable hotels at the springs or seashore, where bridge was the rule and Nature the exception. The promise of being allowed to sleep in the cabin and even eat in it was not any great inducement. A log cabin, built and lived in and finally, no doubt, died in, by a sick Englishman was not very pleasant to contemplate. Miss Lizzie was very old-fashioned in all her ideas with the exception of germs, and she was very up-to-date as to them. No modern scientist knew more about them or believed in them more implicitly. Oh, well! She could take along plenty of C. N. and sulphur candles and crude carbolic. That would kill the germs. She would find out the latest cure for snake bite, and with a pack of cards for solitaire perhaps she could drag out an existence until Robert Carter and Annette got home from this mad trip. All she hoped was that nobody would wake her up to see the sun rise and that she would not be called on to admire the moon every time there was a moon.

“I hope we can get the daily paper,” she moaned feebly. “I hate to go too far from the daily paper.”

“We’ll get it if I have to build a flying machine and fly to Richmond for it,” declared Lewis.

“The place is not half a mile from the post office,” said Helen. “At least, that is the way it looks from the train. When can we get started? I don’t think it is worth while to go back to school any more. We can all of us just stop.”

“Oh, Helen, of course we can’t! Douglas is going to graduate, and Lucy and I have our exams next week. What would Father say at our giving up right now? You can quiturate all you’ve a mind to, but I intend to go on and graduate and go to college like Douglas,” said Nan.

“I am afraid I’ll have to give up college, but I am going to take my Bryn Mawr examinations just the same because I want Father to know I can stand them.” Douglas hoped sincerely that the tear she felt gathering would evaporate before it dropped.

“Give up college! Why, Douglas Carter, I don’t see what you mean. You have been full of it all winter,” exclaimed Helen.

“But Helen, you know perfectly well there is no more money.”

“Oh, I keep on forgetting!”

“There is one thing that I have forgotten, too, and I feel awfully bad about it after all his kindness,” said Douglas. “That is, we must make no decided plans until we consult Dr. Wright.”

“Consult Dr. Wright, indeed! I’d like to know what’s it to him,” said Helen wrathfully. “Can’t we even go on a summer trip without asking his permission?”

“Well, I think inasmuch as he has power of attorney and we can’t do anything without money that we shall have to consult him. He’ll be home to-morrow night and we can ask him immediately. I am pretty sure he will think it a good thing, though.”

“Maybe, but for goodness’ sake, don’t tell him it was my idea originally, as he hates me as much as I hate him, and if he had thought of it, I just know I’d never have consented or thought it a good plan.”

“Well, I know one thing,” said Miss Somerville, “I am dead tired and this child here is asleep. We had better go to bed and get all the rest we can if we are going to camp out for the summer.”

How different the night was from what the Carters had looked forward to! Sleepless misery was what they had been sure would be their lot, and instead, they went to their beds with their heads full of their week-end boarding camp. Father was to get well on his voyage and come back to join them in Albemarle. Instead of finding debts piled on debts, their camp was to pay and he was to find his girls actually making a living.

“Cotton stockings will be the appropriate things to wear at camp,” was the last thought Helen had. “I don’t see how I could spend the summer in town after the oath I have taken. I couldn’t show my face, or rather my feet, on the street.”

CHAPTER VI
THE RECONSTRUCTION

“Helen, I actually slept all night.”

“So did I. If any one had told me I could sleep a wink, I would have been furious. I wish we could hear from Father. You saw Cousin Lizzie felt just exactly as I did about that Dr. Wright. He may be all right and he may be all wrong. If he is all wrong, couldn’t he make us dance, though? He could sell us out, lock, stock and barrel, pocket the proceeds and skidoo.”

“Oh, Helen, how can you even give such a horrid idea a moment’s lodgement in your mind? Dr. Wright is as good as he looks, I am sure. He certainly looks kind and honest.”

“Well, he ought to be honest he is so ugly.”

The girls were still in bed, which they had shared ever since they had been promoted from cradles. It was Saturday morning and the day before had been the one of trial.

“Father likes him a lot and trusts him.”

“Ye – s, I know – but then, you see – ”

“Yes, I see he is a very fine young man who thought, and quite rightly, that we had been blindly selfish and heartless to let Father work so hard; and he let us know what he thought of us and it got your goat.”

“Is that the way you are going to express yourself in your B. M. exams? Because if it is, you will win a scholarship surely.”

“If I only could!.. Come in!” in answer to a knock at the door.

“Telegraph fer you, Miss Douglas. I hope an’ trus’ ’tain’t no bad news ’bout yo’ maw and paw,” said the housemaid, bringing in a dreaded yellow envelope. “Uncle Oscar, he dreamed ’bout aigs las’ night an’ they was whole an’ entire, an’ all de dream books say dat it is a sho’ sign an’ symbol er trouble. De trouble is in de shell an’ time alone will hatch it out.”

“Well, this is good news, Susan,” laughed Douglas as she quickly scanned the message: “‘Your father and mother slept well and are now enjoying breakfast at Pennsylvania Station. Will see you this evening. George Wright.’”

“Well, Glory be! It can’t be Mr. Carter what the bad luck is layin’ fer. I ’low it is dat lo’ down nigger Jim, Uncle Oscar’s sister’s step-son, what got stuck in de lonesome ribs by a frien’ at meetin’ las’ Sunday with one er these here unsafety razors,” and Susan took herself off to give out in the kitchen that no doubt Jim was going to die, since Mr. Carter was improving.

“Now, Helen, don’t you think Dr. Wright is very thoughtful? You just said you wished we could hear from Father.”

“He does seem to think of lots of things. I couldn’t help admiring him for the way he got the drawing room for them and put them on the train at the downtown station to keep them from having to see so many people. That night train is always full of people we know and they all of them get on at Elba. I bet you he got his telegram in ten words, though. I know he is economical and would die rather than spill over. Let me see it. Humph! Nineteen words. I wonder he didn’t send it collect.”

“Oh, Helen! How can you be so hard on the poor young man? I believe you are just pretending to hate him so. I am glad it is Saturday and no school. I think we had better go see real estate agents the first thing this morning and try to rent our house furnished for the summer. I am pretty sure Dr. Wright would approve of that. And also see about selling the car.”

“Selling the car! Why, Douglas, how on earth will we do without it?”

“Of course we must sell it. Helen Carter, I actually believe you think that if you give up wearing silk stockings for a year we can live on your resolution. Do you realize that the cash we have in bank would just about pay the chauffeur and keep us in gasoline for a month?”

“Oh, I am such a dunce! I am afraid my being poor has a kind of musical comedy effect in my mind so far. What are you going to do with me, Douglas?”

“Nothing, honey, but you must not get angry with me when I call you down about money. I feel so responsible somehow.”

“Angry with you! Why, I think you are just splendid, and I am going to be so careful I just know you will never have to call me down.”

Douglas smiled, knowing very well that Helen and economy were not meant to dwell together.

“There is only one thing I am going to make all of you promise, that is NOT TO CHARGE,” with great emphasis.

“Oh, of course not after we get started, but how are we to get our outfits for the mountains? Our khaki skirts and leggins and things that are appropriate? And then the cotton stockings that I have sworn to wear until Father is well! I have to have a new set of them. Ugh! how I hate ’em!”

“But, Helen, we have our Camp-Fire outfits that are thoroughly suitable for what we are going to do. There are loads of middy blouses in the house, so I am sure we need buy no more of them. As for stockings – it seems to me you had better wear out what stockings you have, even if they are silk, before you buy any more.”

“Never! You don’t seem to understand the significance of my oath. When a pilgrim of old swore to put on sackcloth and travel to some distant shrine, he didn’t say he would not go to the expense of sackcloth since he had plenty of velvet suits on hand, did he now? No! He went and bought some sackcloth if he didn’t happen to have any in the house and gave his velvet suits to the poor or had his hand-maidens pack them up in frankincense and myrrh or something until he got back – ”

“All right! All right! But please don’t give away anything to the poor. If Cousin Lizzie should hear of your doing such a thing she would certainly say: ‘Charity begins at home.’”

“I won’t give them away if you think I shouldn’t, but I’d like to put temptation out of my reach. I hope we can get off to the mountains real soon as I am sure I have no desire to flaunt my penance in the face of the Richmond public. Don’t you think, Douglas, that I might have the fifty-nine cents that is in the bank so things will balance better, and with fifty-nine cents I can get three pair of sixteen-and-two-third-cent stockings? I’ll bring back the nine cents change.” Helen was quite solemn in her request, but Douglas was forced to laugh at her lugubrious countenance.

“Yes, dear, if you really feel so strongly about the cotton stockings. Haven’t you any money at all in your purse? I have a little, I believe.”

“Well, I never thought of that! Sure I have!” and Helen sprang out of bed, where they were still lolling while the above conversation was going on, and hunted wildly in a very much mussed drawer for her silver mesh bag. “Hurrah! Three paper dollars and a pile of chicken feed silver! I can get cotton stockings for a centipede with that much money.”

It was a very pretty room that Douglas and Helen Carter shared. Robert Carter had brought to bear all the experience he had gained in building other persons’ houses to make his own house perfect. It was not a very large house but every detail had been thought out so not one brick was amiss. Convenience and Beauty were not sacrificed to one another but went hand in hand. The girls loved their room with its dainty pink paper and egg-shell paint. They had not been in the house long enough for the novelty to wear off, as it was only about a year old. As Douglas lay in her luxurious bed while Helen, being up in search of money, took first bath, she thought of the bitterness of having strangers occupy their room. How often she had lain in that soft, comfortable nest and fancied that it must be like the heart of a pink rose. And the charming private bath-room must be given up, too.

She could hear Helen splashing away, evidently enjoying her morning shower as she was singing with many trills and folderols, trying seemingly to hear herself above the noise of the running water.

“Poor Helen!” thought Douglas. “It is harder, somehow, for her than any of us. Lucy is young enough to learn the new trick of being poor very easily, and Nan is such a philosopher; and dear little Bobby won’t see the difference just so he can have plenty of mud to play in; and I – oh, well – I have got so much to do I can’t think about myself – I must get up and do it, too. Here I am selfishly lying in bed when I know Nan and Lucy want to hear the news from Father just as much as I did.” So, slipping on a kimono, she ran into the room across the hall, shared by the two younger girls.

They were up and almost dressed. “Lucy and I thought maybe we could help, so we hurried. I know you’ve lots to do,” said Nan.

“That was dear of you both. Of course we won’t have so much to do right now, as we have to wait for Dr. Wright to come home; and then if we can rent the house furnished, we must get everything in order. But first listen to the good news!” and she read the telegram.

“Isn’t that splendid and wasn’t it kind of Dr. Wright to send it to you?”

“I think so. If only Helen would not feel so unkindly to him! She utterly refuses to like him,” and Douglas sighed.

“I don’t intend to like him either, then!” exclaimed Lucy. “He shan’t boss me if he isn’t going to boss Helen.”

“How absurd you are,” laughed Nan. “You are so afraid that Helen will get something you don’t have that you won’t even let her have a private little dislike without wanting to have some, too. I bet if Helen got the smallpox you would think yourself abused if you didn’t get it, too.”

“And in your heart of hearts you know you do like him,” said Douglas with a severity that she felt such silliness warranted.

“Well, if I do – and – and – maybe I do, I’m not going to take anything off of him that Helen won’t.”

“Well, I reckon Dr. Wright will be glad to wash his hands of us, anyhow,” said Nan. “I can’t see that it would be any sweet boon to look after you and Helen or any of us, for that matter.”

“I should think not,” laughed Douglas; “but you see his having power of attorney from Father makes it necessary for us to consult with him about some things, selling the automobile, for instance, and renting the house.”

“Selling the car!” wailed Lucy. “I think it is foolishness to do that. I’d like to know how you are to occupy Dan, the chauffeur, if we haven’t a car to keep him busy.”

“Oh, you incorrigible girls! Of course we will have to let the chauffeur go immediately; and I’ve got to tell the servants to-day that we can’t keep them. I’ll give them all a week’s warning, of course.”

“I understand all that,” said Nan, “so please don’t bunch me in with the incorrigibles.”

“But, Douglas, Oscar has been with us since long before we were born. I don’t see how you can have the heart to dismiss him,” and Lucy looked resentfully at her older sister.

“Heart! I haven’t the heart to let any of them go, but it would be a great deal more heartless to have them work for us with no money to pay them with.”

“Now, Lucy Carter, you’ve pretty near made Douglas cry. You sound like a half-wit to me. Heartless, indeed! If you had half of Douglas’s heart and one-fourth of her sense, you wouldn’t make such remarks,” and Nan put her arms around Douglas.

“No, she didn’t make me cry, but what does make me feel bad is that Lucy and Helen can’t even now realize the state of affairs. I hated to have to tell Helen she mustn’t charge anything more, no matter what it is she wants.”

“Charge! I should say not! I think I would walk on my uppers all the rest of my life before I’d put any more burden like that on Father,” declared Nan.

“But don’t people always charge when they haven’t got any money? What will we do when we need things?” asked Lucy.