Books: Half a Dozen Girls
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Anna Chapin Ray >> Half a Dozen Girls
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"But where is Katharine?" asked Mrs. Hapgood anxiously.
"Isn't she up-stairs?" said Molly.
"I haven't seen her," answered her mother.
"Why, we supposed she was with you!" And Alan hurried away to look
for his cousin.
At last he found her. Up in the familiar old garret that she had
loved so well, close by the great gray chimney which seemed to be
shielding her with its giant strength, there lay Katharine on the
shabby old sofa, sobbing as if her heart must break. To the young
lad, these unrestrained tears were much more alarming than her
former quiet, and he dared not speak, as he sat down on the floor
by her side, and put his brown hand against her cheek.
"Oh, Alan!"
"Yes, Kit; I know."
"Let me have my cry out now," she said brokenly. "It must come
sometime; then I can be brave for mamma and Jessie."
Alan stole away to tell his mother where Katharine was, and then
went back to her side. All the morning he remained there,
saying little, but keeping near her with a simple, boyish
devotion of which, in after years, she never lost the memory.
[Illustration: "THERE LAY KATHARINE ON THE SHABBY OLD SOFA,
SOBBING AS IF HER HEART MUST BREAK."--Page 350.]
When Katharine went down-stairs again, she appeared to have grown
years older during that one morning. It was not that she was less
beautiful than she had been; but she seemed to have gained a new,
gentle dignity which suddenly changed her from a child into a
woman. As she entered the room, with her hand on Alan's shoulder,
she met them with a perfect composure which gave no hint of her
trouble; but they all felt instinctively that it was as she had
said to her aunt, her call had come, and she had answered "ready."
The day wore slowly away. They were to start on their journey,
late the next afternoon, accompanied by Mrs. Hapgood, who had made
up her mind to go to her sister for a few weeks, to help her
through the sad changes which must inevitably follow. Late in the
day, Mrs. Adams and Polly came in, for Molly had told them of the
letter. Mrs. Adams took both the girls into her motherly arms, and
her few whispered words were very tender, while Polly threw her
arms around Katharine, as she said,--
"Alan has told me what you said, Kit, about your call's coming,
and I think it was grand; but it isn't one bit more so than we
expected, only it makes us proud to be your friends."
At length it was bedtime, and for the last time the girls went up
to their pleasant room in the old Hapgood house. The whole place
was in confusion, and trunks stood in the middle of the floor,
with piles of clothing, books, and pictures heaped about them,
just as they had been left in the morning. At sight of them,
Jessie threw herself down on the bed.
"Oh, Kit!" she cried; "what are we going to do?" "Please don't cry
so, Jessie," said Katharine wearily. "We must try not to be
babyish about it."
"Babyish!" And Jessie turned on her petulantly. "I do believe you
don't care, Katharine. Oh, poor papa!" Then, as she saw the pain
in her sister's face, she added, "Forgive me, Kit! I know you do
care; but how can you keep so quiet? It's all so dreadful, and we
shall be poor and alone, and nobody will care for us."
"Hush, Jessie!"
Her sister spoke almost sharply, for she felt her own courage fast
giving way. Then, sitting down on the side of the bed, with her
beautiful brown hair waving loose about her shoulders, she took
her sister's hand in hers.
"Jessie dear," she said gently; "listen to me, please. You and I
mustn't give up so and cry about this; we must be brave and
cheerful for mamma's sake. Poor mamma is out there all alone, and
we must go to her and help her to bear it all. We are stronger
than she is, and we have each other, so we must help each other
and help her. We've had a great many good times already, and
nothing can take those away; but now comes the chance to show what
we are, and whether we have any courage. There will be a great
deal to do when we get home, so we have no right to give up and
make ourselves ill with crying. Now we must go to bed and try to
sleep, so we can be ready for to-morrow; and--Oh, Jessie, if we
only knew where papa was to-night! He was always so good and kind
that I know he has never done anything wicked."
Katharine's head went down on the pillow beside Jessie's, and the
two daughters sobbed together over their father's guilt.
They were all at the station to see them off the next night. The
sun was just setting as the train moved away, and the little group
of three on the rear platform looked back to see its golden light
fall upon the friends they were leaving: the girls, Alan, Dr. and
Mrs. Adams, and even patient old Job, who stood quietly in the
background, watching the scene about him with a half wondering air
of sympathy.
Jessie turned to enter the car.
"Wait just a minute more," said Katharine wistfully.
A sudden opening between the buildings gave her one more glimpse
of the figures still standing there as they had left them, and
Katharine strained her eyes to catch the parting wave of Alan's
cap, while her lips quivered. Then she exclaimed excitedly,--
"See, Jessie! See!"
They were just passing within sight of the hospital and, from a
well-known window, a hand was waving a farewell to them. It was
Bridget, who had begged to be moved to the window, that she might
be the one to say the final good by, before the train went rushing
away into the gathering twilight.
"I feel as if I had just been to a funeral," sighed Molly, as she
walked home with Polly; for she and Alan were to stay with Mrs.
Adams during their mother's absence.
"It was just like one," said Jean sorrowfully. But Polly objected.
"No, girls," she said; "no funeral was ever like this, for a
funeral is all sad, and this isn't. I'm sorry for them, more so
than I can tell; but, after all, it has given Katharine a chance
to show how glorious she is. It just makes me glad to know such a
magnificent girl."
And Alan added,--
"Yes, you may talk all day about your heroines; but I've just seen
one of them, and it's a sight I shan't forget soon, either."
CHAPTER XX.
ONE LAST GLIMPSE.
Indian summer had come once more, and the same soft haze which,
only last year, the girls had seen over the blue Connecticut with
its meadows and mountains, now rested quite as lovingly upon the
dull waters of the Missouri, as they wound along between their low
bluffs and level prairies. There, there had been the restful quiet
of the old town, peacefully living on the reputation of its two
centuries of strong, honorable life, justly proud of the famous
names it had given to its state and country; here, there was the
ceaseless, unwearying bustle of a new civilization, the restless
activity of a city whose glory was yet to be and whose present
ambition was only to grow and to accumulate riches. All the
contrast between the two places, all the change from the
surroundings of a year ago to the life of to-day were keenly felt
by the young girl who was sitting on the piazza of a little house
in Omaha, one morning, idly enjoying the late autumn sunshine.
"Come out here a minute, Jessie," she called suddenly, as she
heard some one coming down the stairs behind her. "We shan't have
many more days like this, and do let's take a few minutes to enjoy
this one."
"But Aunt Jane would say it was sinful to waste the golden
moments," said Jessie, laughing, as, duster in hand, she came out
on the steps.
"Not a bit of it," said the other. "I haven't sat down before this
since my breakfast, and I know that lunch will be all the better,
if I take a few minutes to rest and breathe this lovely air.
Where's mamma?"
"She's lying down; she said her head ached. Oh, Kit, doesn't this
make you homesick for last year and all the girls?"
"And Alan, too," added Katharine. "Yes, it does, Jessie, whenever
I stop to think of it. We did have a perfect year at auntie's, and
once in a while I wish we were back there. Do you remember the day
Job was loose, and they couldn't catch him?"
"'I feel it in my bones,' as Miss Bean would say," said Jessie;
"that the time will come when we shall all be together again. At
least, we made the very most of our time."
"True," said Katharine thoughtfully; "and I don't know what we
should have done this summer, Jessie, if we hadn't had those
lessons in cooking. I had no idea then that we shouldn't always
have servants, and if we'd stayed here, we never should have known
anything about housekeeping. And the worst of it is, I like it. I
always knew I had plebeian tastes and, now I am used to it, I
fairly revel in washing dishes."
"I'm not half so homesick for the old house as I thought I should
be," said Jessie, while she meditatively folded a series of tucks
in her gingham apron. "It was dreadful at first, having to leave
the old place and the servants and the furniture; but, after all,
we haven't had such a bad time. I don't know as I want to do
housework for a living, I prefer medicine; but I don't mind it a
bit, for a while. If I'm to keep old maid's hall, I want to know
how to do it."
"Yes; but we can't go on like this much longer, Jessie," her
sister replied. "I was talking about it to mamma, only a few days
ago. We must try to get a young girl to help about the house, for
it is settled that you are to go back into school after
Christmas."
"' Sufficient unto the day,'" said Jessie, laughing. "You know I'd
much rather stay at home and help you than go back to school. Why
must I go, any more than you?"
"I was supposed to be finished last year, ready to come out,"
answered Katharine; "and so I ought to be finished enough to stay
in. But when we get settled down for the winter, I mean to go on
and do a little studying by myself, history or something. I don't
know yet just what it will be. You've had a hard summer and fall,
Jessie," she added, surveying her sister with a motherly air; "but
you've gone through it splendidly, and I'm proud of you."
"It's no harder for me than for you," responded Jessie sturdily;
"and it hasn't made half the difference in my plans. But there are
times, Kit, when I do feel as if I must see papa again."
"I don't dare let myself think about him much," said Katharine
slowly. "It is one of the things we can't undo, and must take as
they come." She was silent for a few moments, then added, with an
evident effort to turn the conversation, "Here comes the postman.
I don't suppose he has anything for us, though."
"Maybe he has," answered Jessie hopefully. "It is ever and ever so
long since we heard from any of the girls."
The sisters sat watching the man as he came slowly down the
street, stopping here and there to leave a part of his precious
burden.
"Don't you ever wish you could know just what is in all those
letters?" asked Jessie, as she rested her chin in her hands.
"No, I don't know as I do," replied Katharine. "If it were all
funny or interesting, it would be well enough; but think of all
the letters that have sad or ugly things to tell. I do wish he
would bring us one, though."
"Perhaps he will. Yes, he's going to!" And Jessie sprang down the
steps to meet the man, who paused long enough to hand her a thick
envelope, and then went on out of sight, quite disregarded by the
girls who were all-absorbed in their mail.
"It's yours," said Jessie, as she deliberately mounted the steps
once more; "but I can't make out whose writing it is. Part of it
looks like Alan's, and part like Polly's. It's from some of them,
anyway. Do see if you can make it out." And she tossed the
envelope into her sister's lap.
No true woman ever opens a letter to find out from whom it comes.
Katharine carefully and minutely studied the one in her hand,
without attempting to resort to the most natural method of
obtaining an answer to the question. At length she raised her head
with a laugh.
"It's from them all," she said. "Polly wrote my name, Molly the
city, and Alan the state. This is one of that boy's pranks."
"Do hurry to open it," said Jessie impatiently.
Katharine recklessly tore it open and' drew out four separate
sheets.
"I told you so," she said triumphantly. "And one from Mrs. Adams,
too! Which shall I take first? None of them are very long."
"Begin with Molly," said Jessie, settling herself comfortably to
listen while her sister read,-
"DEAR KATHARINE AND JESSIE,--I haven't any idea who owes the other
a letter, but I am getting so homesick for you that I shall write
to you anyway. It isn't that I have much to say, for it does seem
as if nothing had happened since you left here. I wrote you,
didn't I, that the Langs have all gone abroad for a year? Only
half of us left here, now! I miss Florence, and I rather envy her;
but, after all, my first journey is going to be to Omaha. Jean and
Polly and I are here, just the same as ever, only Jean is getting
dignified and doesn't walk fences, any longer. But you have no
idea how proud we are of Polly. She had the dearest little poem in
the school paper last month; and this month she is to be editor,
the first time a girl has ever done it. She and Alan are writing,
too. They came in and found out what I was doing, so they said
they were each going to put in a note. I don't think it is quite
fair, for I know they will tell you all the news.
"You ought to have seen the new clothes Florence had, before she
went away. I went there once to see them, and it was like a whole
dry-goods store. She sent for Bridget, one day, and gave her ever
so many of her old things, to be made over for the children; and
Bridget went off hugging the great bundle and crying because she
was 'afraid Miss Florence would get drownded on the way.'
"Polly has just showed me what she has been writing about Aunt
Jane. I do wish you could be here for the wedding. I think Job
almost ought to march in the bridal party, for he helped Mr.
Baxter to get ready for a second marriage.
"Mrs. Adams has just come in, and wants my pen to write a little
note while she waits for mamma to get ready to go out with her, so
I'm not going to write another single word till I hear from you.
Answer this soon, like dear girls. Mamma would send love, if she
knew I was writing.
"Your loving cousin,
"MOLLY HAPGOOD."
"That's short enough, I should think," said Jessie ungratefully.
"My last letter to her was two whole sheets long."
"Nevermind," answered Katharine; "let's see what Mrs. Adams says.
Isn't it good of her to write?"
"My DEAR GIRLS,--This is only a little note to tuck inside Molly's
letter; but I did just want to say how glad I am to hear of the
way my two girls are doing the work that has come to them. I am
proud of them and happy in them, for they both seem almost like my
own daughters.
"And this brings me to my new plan. It occurred to me, the other
day, that we shall be a very lonely, forlorn pair of old people,
when Polly goes off to college. Why wouldn't it be a good idea for
Jessie to plan to come back to us then, and take Polly's place for
the four years, bring a little young life into the home, and study
medicine with the doctor while she does it. It is too soon, of
course, to decide; but I want you both to be thinking about it,
for it seems to me an excellent idea.
"And now I must run away and make a call with Aunt Ruth.
"With a great deal of love from
"'AUNT ISABEL.'"
"Oh-h-h!" And Jessie gave a sigh of rapture.
"Yes, it is lovely of her, and just like her," said Katharine;
"and I don't see why you can't go. But now let's take Alan's
letter. It will be sure to be a good one, even if it is short.
Listen I"
"DEAR KIT,--Is it six months or six years since you went home? We
are all in the dumps without you, and don't have anybody to pull
us out. How comes on your housekeeping? Molly made some biscuits,
last night, that were so hard we had to get hammers to crack them
open, before we could put on any butter. I told her she'd better
send one to you girls, for a curiosity, but she said they were so
heavy that she couldn't afford to pay postage on them.
"Did you know Poll and I are taking Latin lessons together of
Professor Smythe? We go to him twice a week, and have been at it a
month, now. We're racing each other as hard as we can. First she
asks for a longer lesson, just to tease me, then I return the
compliment, and neither of us will give in, so it keeps us
studying all the time, mostly. We don't care much, for nothing
seems to be happening, this year. We must have used up all the
fun, last winter. You and Jessie are gone, Florence is gone,
Bridget is gone, Aunt Jane is going, and the rest of us will
follow her pretty soon, unless Molly gives up trying to cook.
"By the way, Miss Bean--Polly says I shan't tell, but I'm going
to--asked Mrs. Adams, the other day, how she made that oyster
broth she had for first course, the day Polly gave her dinner. She
thought the lumps were oysters.
"That's all for this time.
"ALAN O. HAPGOOD."
"P.S. I entirely forgot to send my love to Jessie."
"Saucy boy!" exclaimed Jessie, laughing.
"Isn't he an imp?" said Katharine, as she folded the letter. "He
made up all that about Miss Bean, I know, for she didn't take any
soup that day. I remember her refusing it. Do you remember--"
"Do you remember?" echoed Jessie mockingly. "I wonder how many
times we have said that, Kit. As if we didn't both of us remember
every single thing that happened through all the year we were
East! What does Polly say?"
"Hers is longer," said Katharine, as she opened it. "She is the
best of them all to write, and her letters sound just like her
funny, topsy-turvy self."
"DEAR GIRLS,--First of all, I must tell you the one grand item of
news. Aunt Jane is going to be married on Thanksgiving Day. The
Baxter children have all been exposed to chicken-pox, and Aunt
Jane has made up her mind to be married at once, so she can take
care of them when they come down with it. Isn't it good of her,
really? I don't think she minds much, though, for she acts fond of
them. _Uncle Sol_, as I call him behind his back, brought the
youngest here, one day early in the fall; and when I went into the
room, there,--fancy it!--there sat Aunt Jane with the baby in her
lap, playing pat-a-cake with it, just as nice as could be. I was
so surprised that I almost dropped down on the floor. But she
insists on being married in black silk, she says it will be so
serviceable. I think it will look just as if she were in mourning
for the first Mrs. Baxter. Alan says that if the children all have
chicken-pox, they won't need to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving.
"Papa wants me to tell you that Bridget keeps just as well and
strong as can be. He drove up there to see her, two or three weeks
ago, and she asked all about yon both. I go to the hospital once
in a while, to see the small boys, and I make Alan go with me
whenever I can. He has cut me all out with Dicky, and the child
won't have anything to say to me, when he can get Alan. You would
hardly know Alan, he has grown so tall; and we think he is getting
quite good-looking, too. Of course, he is always a duck.
"Molly and I are growing good. We haven't had a squabble since
Florence went away. I suppose, now she can't get anybody else, she
has to put up with me. She has just three ideas in her head at
present: cooking, some singing lessons she is going to begin next
month, and her new gown. I suppose she would say I'm envious, for
my new gown this winter is one of mamma's made over.
"Miss Bean came to spend the day, last week. She appeared early,
for she said she wanted time to look over all Aunt Jane's new
things, 'seeing's how' she made the match. She did look them over,
too, and asked what everything cost, and why she didn't have
something else, and then she gave her any quantity of advice about
how to bring up the children.
"I almost forgot to tell you anything about Job. He ran away, the
other day, going up a hill. A bee lighted on the side of his neck
and stung him, and it astonished him so that he just started off
and ran. for almost a quarter of a mile. Then, all of a sudden, he
sat down with all four legs at once, and that stopped him. Poor
fellow, he is getting so old!
"What a long letter I am writing! The others are through, and
waiting for me to carry this to the mail. Alan is making such a
noise that I can't hear myself write. He is singing:
"'Do the work that's nearest,
Though it's dull at whiles,
Helping, when we meet them,
Lame dogs over stiles.'
"I don't know whether he means us with Job, or Aunt Jane with the
Baxter babies, or you with the housekeeping. Perhaps it is for all
three. Anyway, it is good advice.
"Now I must stop. Oh, you dear girls, how I do want to see you!
Papa and Jerusalem always send love. I could go on for ever so
much longer, but at last I must say good by.
"Your friend,
"POLLY ADAMS."
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