Books: Keineth

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"I came this way intending to steal her for this Yellowstone trip,
though perhaps she'd better not go." Keineth put her hand to her face
involuntarily as though to cover the shameless freckles. "But I feel
that I ought to talk over with you--well, the plans for her school in
the fall." Keineth swept a frightened glance toward Mrs. Lee. Aunt
Josephine went on in the voice she always used when doing her duty:
"Miss Edgecombe has a very select school for girls a few blocks from me
in New York. I know Miss Edgecombe well and she is holding a place open
for Keineth. I feel she is a very suitable person to train a child. You
know," with a tone of apology, "my brother had no sense at all in
bringing up the girl! He left everything to that queer old governess."
Mrs. Lee suddenly sat up very straight on the divan,

"When Keineth came to us she had to learn to be like other children.
Yes, she had been shut up too much with that very good governess; her
little brain had grown faster than her body. It's her body's turn now,
the brain can wait. Mr. Randolph said that he wished her to remain with
us until he returned. Keineth and I have a plan of our own for the
fall, to play and work on our music." She smiled at Keineth.

Aunt Josephine hesitated as though she could not find the right words
to express what she felt. "I thought it was my duty to speak to Miss
Edgecombe," she said stiffly; "she is my brother's child and will
probably, some day, inherit what I have. I should like to have her with
me, but," there was a wistful ring in her voice, "I suppose she is
better off with you."

"The things Miss Edgecombe can teach her can wait, perhaps," Aunt
Nellie answered, smiling down at Keineth. "Keineth is happy in our
simple life--"

"Simple life--that's just it!" Aunt Josephine spoke rapidly, as though
Mrs. Lee had suddenly helped her to find the words she wanted. "You're
so simple that you're wonderful! You've learned to live real lives
without all the shams that make slaves of the rest of us. Why, my life
seems as empty as a bubble and the things I do worth just about as much
as a bubble by the side of this." She swept her hand out toward the
lamp-lighted room. "And I must have lived like this once--but I've
forgotten! I've always thought my brother queer and that governess he
had insufferable--but I guess you and he know what's best. I'm glad the
child is with you. Yes," the wistful note crept back into her voice, "I
would have enjoyed having her, but, she's better off, all freckled and
in those absurd clothes."

As Mrs. Winthrop drove away through the starlit night, a costly robe
protecting her from the chill of the evening, Celeste at hand for
instant service, Kingston guiding the monster car, she looked back over
her shoulder at the little house outlined against the sky and sighed--a
lonely little sigh.

In a tumult of joy Keineth had thrown her arms about Mrs. Lee's neck.
"Oh, I was so frightened!" she cried. "Thank you for not letting me go.
I'd have just _hated_ Miss Edgecombe's--after this! And I do want to
stay with Peggy!" she finished with a tight hug. Then, as they climbed
the stairs together, she said softly--without knowing why in the least
she said it:

"Poor Aunt Josephine! It must be awful to be rich."

CHAPTER XVII

SCHOOL DAYS

September had come, and busy days! For Overlook had to be closed, the
city home cleaned and aired and made ready; Barbara must be sent away
to college and the younger children started off in school.

"I feel all sort of queer inside," said Peggy, astride of a trunk, "the
way you do when you hear sad songs. I wish it was always summer and
nothing but play."

"And no school," chimed in Billy. He was on his knees packing toys. "I
don't see what good school does, anyway! If nobody went to school it'd
all be the same."

"I just hate beginning and then I love it," cried Alice.

"You won't love it when you get into fractions," retorted Billy,
"'course its fun down in the baby grades!" He spoke from the lofty
distinction of a sub-freshman in the Technical High. Some day Billy
was going to make boilers like his father.

"I don't mind school, but it's the fuss getting things ready. I just
despise dressmakers! You wait, Ken, until mother gets after you and you
stand by the hour and have Miss Harris fit you! The only fun is
watching to see how many pins she can put in her mouth without
swallowing any. Did that governess make your clothes?"

Keineth described the funny little shop where Tante took her twice a
year. "They kept my measurements there and Tante would just look at the
materials."

"And you never decided as to what color you wanted or had ribbons and
things?" cried Peggy wonderingly.

Keineth's face colored a little. "Madame Henri thought plain things
better," she explained.

"That's what mother says, but that plain things can be pretty, too. She
always lets us choose our color because she says it trains our tastes.
And this year, if I don't have a pink dress for best I'm going to make
an awful fuss!" "I'd like a pink dress," Keineth agreed shyly, "I never
had one!"

Peggy jumped off the trunk.

"Let's tease for pink dresses just alike; and now what do you say to a
last game of tennis?"

"Make it doubles! I'll play with Alice," cried Billy, eagerly dropping
his work. And with merry laughter they rushed away.

To close Overlook was an almost sacred task to the Lee family. Each did
his or her part tenderly, reluctantly. Mrs. Lee and Barbara folded away
the pretty hangings; Billy made the garden ready for the fall
fertilizing, took Gyp to his winter home at a nearby farm, and put the
barn in order; the younger girls helped Nora polish and cover the
kitchen utensils.

And never had the days seemed more glorious nor inviting, filled with
the hazy September glow that turned everything into gold.

"It's always just the nicest when we have to go to the city," Peggy
complained sadly. They were gathered for the last time on the veranda
watching the sunset. On the morrow they would return to town. Mr. Lee
looked over the young faces--the tanned cheeks and the eyes glowing
with health; the straight backs and limbs strong and supple from the
summer's exercise.

"You're a fine-looking bunch to begin the winter's work," he laughed.
"It ought to be very easy to you youngsters."

"How lucky we are to be able to live like this," Barbara said with a
little sigh. She was thinking as she said it that she was often going
to be very lonesome for home and this dear circle. Eager as she was to
begin her new life in college, she could not bear the breaking of the
home ties.

And bravely she had decided she would tell no one of this heartache,
for one day she had surprised her mother gently crying over the piles
of undergarments they had made ready. Mrs. Lee had tried to laugh as
she wiped away her tears.

"I'm just foolish, darling, only it seems such a little while ago that
you were a baby, my first baby--and here you are going off to college,
away from me!"

So not for the world would Barbara have distressed her mother by
showing the ache in her own heart. In answer she had thrown her arms
about her mother's neck in a passion of affection.

"I'll always, always, always love home best," she vowed.

And this would not be hard, for the Lees' home, made beautiful by love
rather than wealth, was of the sort that would always be "home," and no
matter how far one of them might travel or in what gay places linger,
would always be "best of all!"

The Lees' city home was not at all like Keineth's old home in New York,
nor like Aunt Josephine's pretentious house on Riverside Drive. Though
it seemed right in the heart of the city and only a stone's throw from
the business centre, it was on a quiet, broad street and had a little
yard of its own all around it. The house was built of wood and needed
painting, but the walks and lawns were neatly kept. Within it was
simple and roomy, with broad halls and wide windows, shaded by the elms
outside. Its walls were brown-toned, and yellow hangings covered the
white frilled curtains at the windows. There was one big living-room,
with rows and rows of bookshelves, easy chairs and soft rugs, a worn
davenport in front of the fire, tables with lamps, and books and
magazines spread out upon them in inviting disorder. There were flowers
here, too, as at Overlook, and Peggy's bird had its home in the big bay
of the dining-room, where he welcomed each morning's sunshine with glad
song.

Each little girl had a room of her own, too, hung with bright chintz,
with covers on the bureau and bed to match. Peggy's and Keineth's had a
door opening from one to the other. Billy with his beloved wireless and
other things that Peggy called "truck" was happily established in the
back of the house.

In a twinkling the entire family was settled in the city, "just as
though we'd never been away," Peggy declared. Then two days later
Barbara started off for college.

The parting was merry. The girls had helped her pack her trunks;
sitting on her bed they had superintended the important process of
"doing up" her hair; and then had taken turns carrying to the station
the smart patent-leather dressing-case which had been her father's
gift. Everyone smiled up to the last moment before the train pulled out
of the station--then everyone coughed a great deal and Mr. Lee blew his
nose and Mrs. Lee wiped her eyes and Peggy sighed.

"I'd hate to be grown-up," she admitted, and as she walked away she
held her mother's hand tightly.

Although Barbara's going made a great gap in the little circle,
everyone was too busy to grieve. School began and with it home work;
there was basket-ball and dancing school and shopping, hats and shoes
to buy. Miss Harris arrived for her annual visit and much time was
spent over samples and patterns. And Peggy and Keineth got their pink
dresses! Then there were old friends to see, new ones to make and
relatives to visit. In this whirl of excitement the Overlook days were
soon forgotten!

With the city life a little of Keineth's shyness had returned. She felt
lost among Peggy's many friends; the hours when Peggy was in school
dragged a little. The simplicity of the Lees' city home had made her
homesick for the big house in Washington Square--for its very
emptiness! So because of this loneliness she spent hours at the piano
eagerly practicing the technic that under Tante had been so tiresome.
Mrs. Lee had engaged one of the best masters in the city and Keineth
went almost daily to his funny little studio. At first she had been a
little afraid of him. He was a Pole, a round-shouldered man with long
gray hair that hung over his collar and queer eyes that seemed to look
through and through one. But after she had heard him play she lost her
shyness, for in his music she heard the voices she loved. He called her
"little one," and told her long stories of Liszt and Chopin and the
other masters. "They are the people that live forever," he would say.

One rainy afternoon after school Peggy went to Keineth's room and found
its door shut. Peggy was cross because a cold had kept her home from
basket-ball, and she deeply resented this closed door.

"I s'pose you're doing something you don't want me to know." Her ear
had caught the quick rustle of paper. In a moment Keineth had opened
the door, but Peggy was turning away with a toss of her head.

"Oh, if you don't want me--"

"Please, Peg," begged Keineth. She pulled her into the room. "I didn't
know you were home, honest!"

Peggy glimpsed the corner of a paper half hidden under some books. Upon
it were written bars of music.

"You _have_ got a secret," she cried excitedly, "you're writing music!
Keineth Randolph, if you don't tell your very best friend, now!"

Keineth, her face scarlet, drew out the tell-tale paper.

"It's just a little thing," she explained shyly. "Your mother showed me
how to write last summer, but I wanted to surprise everybody. I was
going to tell you, though, when it was done. Peg, I'm going to try to
sell it!"

"Sell it! Get real money?" cried Peggy.

"Yes--that's what the masters did--only they were nearly always
starving. 'Course I'm not, but I would like to earn some money." "Oh,
wouldn't it be fun?" Peggy caught Keineth's elbows and whirled her
around. "What would you ever do with it? But where do you sell music?
And what is its name?"

"I call it 'The Castle of Dreams,'" answered Keineth with shining eyes.
"And Mr. Cadowitz told me there's a music house right here in the
city--Brown and Co."

"Let's go there together! Let's go _now!_ Mother's away and it's just
the time!"

The sore throat was forgotten. Peggy helped Keineth arrange the sheets
in a little roll and together they started forth on their secret
errand. They found the music house without any difficulty, but
Keineth's courage almost failed her when she found herself confronted
by a long line of clerks. To the one who came forward she explained her
errand. She wanted to see the manager--she had some music she wished to
sell!

At his amused glance her face flushed scarlet.

"Why, you're just a kid!" he answered impudently. "Mr. Brown's pretty
busy!" Then it suddenly occurred to him that it would be something like
a joke on the "boss" to take these two children to his busy office. The
clerk was not overfond of the head of the firm.

"Well, come along," he concluded, winking at the other men. He led the
two girls through a labyrinth of offices and up a stairway to the
manager's door.

"Two young ladies to see you!" he announced and shut the door of the
office quickly behind him.

Keineth, frightened, had to swallow twice before she could make a
sound. Then, holding the manuscript out, she explained her errand to
the manager. Tipped back in his chair he listened with a smile;
however, he took the roll from her and, opening it, glanced over it
indifferently.

"Let me play it for you," begged Keineth desperately.

He led them into an inner room in the centre of which stood an open
grand piano. Keineth went straight to it and began to play. He listened
through to the end.

"Wait a moment;" he waved her back to the stool. "I want Gregory to
hear you." The tone of his voice had changed.

In answer to a summons Gregory came in, a thin, tired-looking man. The
manager turned to him:

"This girl has brought in some music! I want you to hear it," and he
nodded to Keineth to begin.

She played it through again while the two men held the manuscript
between them and read as she played. The man called Gregory nodded
again and again. His face had suddenly lost its tired look!

"Why, we've found a little gem!" Peggy heard him mutter. Then to
Keineth: "What did you say your name was?" Keineth repeated it and the
manager wrote it down with Mr. Lee's address. He took the sheets of
music, rolled them, and put them in a drawer and locked it.

"We will consider it and let you know in a few weeks," he said. Then he
shook hands with Keineth and Peggy. "And if you write anything more,
please bring it to us."

"Oh, Peg, wouldn't it be grand if I could sell lots?" cried Keineth
later, in an ecstasy of ambition.

"If I wasn't on the street I'd whoop," and Peggy squeezed her friend's
arm. "Why, Ken--maybe you'll be a master!"

"And remember, don't tell a soul, Peg! Honor bright, cross your heart!"

"Honor bright, cross my heart!" Peggy promised.

CHAPTER XVIII

CHRISTMAS

"Christmas isn't half as much fun after you don't believe in Santa
Claus." Peggy heaved a mighty sigh as she worked her needle in and out
of the handkerchief she was hemstitching. "How old were you, Keineth,
when you found there wasn't a Santa Claus?"

Keineth did not answer for a moment. Her shining eyes had a far-away
look. She did not know what to say to make Peggy understand that, as
far back as she could remember, the beloved Santa and the Christmas
Spirit and her Daddy had always seemed to be one and the same person.
Always on Christmas morning her father had come to her bed, helped her
hurry on her slippers and robe and had carried her on his back down the
long stairway to the shadowy library where, on a table close to the
fireplace, a-twinkle with tiny candles and bright with tinsel, they
would find the tree he had trimmed. She could not bear to speak of it
Instead she told Peggy of the way she and her father always spent
Christmas Eve; how he would take her to a funny little restaurant where
they would eat roast pig and little Christmas cakes and then go to the
stores and wander along looking into the gaily-trimmed windows.

"You see there are ever and ever so many children near our home that
never have any Christmas, and we used to wait for some to come and look
into the window. Then Daddy'd invite them to go inside and pick out a
toy. They'd be frightened at first, as if they couldn't believe it, but
after they'd see Daddy smile they'd look so happy and talk so fast.
Daddy always told them to pick out what they'd always wanted and never
had, and the boys most always took engines and the girls wanted
dolls--dolls with eyes that'd shut and open. Daddy and I used to think
that was more fun than getting presents ourselves."

Mrs. Lee had listened with much interest. Her face, as she bent it over
her needle-work, was serious.

"If I told you girlies of a family I ran across the other day, would
you like to help make their Christmas a little merrier?" They begged
her to tell them.

Though Mrs. Lee never lacked time for the many demands of her family
and friends, she was a woman who went about among the poor a great
deal. Not like Aunt Josephine, who was the president of several
charitable societies and sent her yellow car about the poorer parts of
New York that Kingston might bestow for her deserving aid in places
where she herself could not go--Mrs. Lee worked quietly, going herself
into the homes of the sick and needy and carrying with her, besides
warm clothing and food, the comfort and cheer that she gave to her own
dear ones. No one could know just how much she did, because she rarely
spoke of it.

"These people live in a tenement down near the river. The father was
crippled in an explosion several years ago and the mother has to work
to support her family. There are seven children--the oldest is fifteen.
What do you think they do at Christmas--and they love Christmas just
the way you do! They take turns having presents! And one of them has
been very, very ill this fall, so Tim, whose turn it really is this
year, is going to give up his Christmas for Mary. Isn't that fine in
Tim? Think of waiting for your turn out of seven and then giving it
up."

Peggy threw down her work. "Oh, Mother, can't we make up a jolly basket
for them all like we did for the Finnegans two years ago? And put in
something extra for Tim because he's so--so fine?"

"That's just what I wanted you to say," and Mrs. Lee smiled at her
little girl. "Make out a list of what you want to put in the basket and
then when you get your Christmas money you can go shopping."

"Oh, what fun it will be to take the basket there! How old are the
children, Mother?"

Peggy brought pencils and paper. The work was laid aside and the
children commenced to make the list of things for the basket. Alice and
Billy were consulted and agreed eagerly to their plans, Billy deciding
that he would take the money he had been saving for a new tool set and
with it buy a moving-picture machine for Tim.

Keineth had dreaded Christmas coming without her daddy. But there was
so much to do and think about that she had no time to be unhappy. There
was much shopping to do and the stores were so exciting. Mrs. Lee had
given her the same amount of spending money that Peggy had received and
she and Peggy went together to purchase the things for the basket,
besides other mysterious packages to be hidden away until Christmas
morning. Then one evening there was a family council to decide just
what they would do on Christmas.

"We always do this," whispered Peggy to Keineth as they sat close
together, "and then we always do just what Alice wants us to do, 'cause
she's the baby."

And Alice begged them all to hang up their stockings and to have a
tree, if it was just a teeny, weeny one!

"We'll do it," Mr. Lee agreed, as if there had been a moment's doubt of
it.

"I suppose we'll go on hanging up our stockings after we're doddering
old grandparents," Mrs. Lee had laughed, though there was a suspicion
of tears in her eyes.

"Mother and Daddy just spend all their time making everything jolly for
us children," Peggy said afterwards. The children were sitting around
the table, their school-books before them. "I just wish we could do
something that'd be an awful nice surprise for them." She stared
thoughtfully at the blank paper before her on which a map ought to be.

"Let's do something on Christmas that they won't know about," suggested
Alice.

"What?" put in Billy.

"Janet Clark's cousins have charades Christmas night."

"Oh, charades are stupid!" Billy hated guessing.

Peggy's pencil was going around in tiny circles. She was thinking very
hard. Suddenly she sprang to her feet.

"I know! Ken, let's write a play!"

"A play!" cried the others.

"Yes. I've got it all in my head, now. Barb will help us when she comes
home. You know Mother is going to invite Aunt Cora and Uncle Tom
Jenkins and the Pennys over for dinner Christmas night; we'll surprise
them with the play. Marian and Ted and the Penny girls can be in it!
Oh, I've always wanted to act! Won't it be _fun!"_

Peggy's enthusiasm won instant support from the others. Because Peggy
and Keineth had recently attended a matinee performance of "The
Midsummer Night's Dream," sitting in a box and wearing the new pink
dresses, Billy and Alice conceded that they knew more about plays and
must manage this. There were hours and hours then spent behind locked
doors and Mrs. Lee could hear shrieks of laughter with Peggy's voice
rising sternly above it. Now and then she caught glimpses of flying
figures draped in pink and white, but because it was Christmas-time and
the air full of mystery, she pretended to hear and see nothing.

Barbara returned four days before Christmas, very much of a young lady.
Though her manner toward the younger children was at first a little
patronizing, after a few hours at home it quickly gave way to the
old-time comradeship. As soon as she could Peggy dragged her to her
room and read to her the lines of the play which she and Keineth had
scribbled on countless sheets of paper. Barbara promised to help. To
guard the secret the last rehearsals were held at Marian Jenkins',
under Barbara's coaching; and Billy and Ted Jenkins printed the
programs on Ted's printing press. "Oh, it's going to be the best part
of Christmas," Keineth cried delightedly.

But it was not quite the best, for on Christmas morning, after the
children had returned from taking their basket to Tim and his family,
Keineth found a cablegram from her Daddy, wishing her a merry, merry
Christmas!

Somehow, after that, it seemed as if her joy was complete!

The gifts that the Lee children had found in their stockings had been
very simple; beside them the elaborate presents that had come in a box
from Aunt Josephine seemed vulgar and showy, although Barbara had cried
out in delight at her bracelet. To Keineth and Peggy she had sent tiny
wrist watches, circled with turquoise.

"Much too lovely for children like you," had been Mrs. Lee's comment.

While Mrs. Lee was helping Nora prepare the dinner the children put the
finishing touches to their costumes and with much whispering arranged
the stage for the play. The little tree around which the play must be
acted had been put at one end of the long living-room; the door close
to it on the right, leading into the hall, would serve as a stage
entrance. The only property needed was a rock, and by covering it with
a strip of gray awning, the piano stool would look very real.

At six o'clock Aunt Cora and Uncle Tom, Marian and Ted arrived; a
little later all the Pennys. Eighteen sat down at the table that
creaked with the good things Mrs. Lee and Nora had prepared. Everyone
talked at once. Keineth, looking down the length of the room, decked
with the holly the children had fastened over doors and windows,
thought that nowhere could Christmas be merrier than right there at the
Lees! And what helped make the merriment was the comforting thought
that Tim and his family were eating a Christmas dinner, too!

At eight o'clock Peggy stole quietly to her mother.

"May we children go up to the playroom, Mummy? It'd be more fun there,"
she whispered. Mrs. Lee nodded.

The playroom was really a part of the attic, partitioned off and
lighted. Here the children donned the cheesecloth costumes they had
made. There was a great deal of laughter; Peggy was giving orders to
everyone at once! Barbara sat on a trunk pinning wings to fairies'
shoulders. And at the last moment Marian brought out some real make-up
stuff she had borrowed!

Then Billy, in a clown's robe made out of an old pair of night-drawers
and a great deal of paper, went downstairs to give out the programs.

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