The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted Part 27

Bert joyfully undertook to bring Archie, and set off at once while Dr.

Helen gave Inga instructions for an especially festive supper, and with her own hands prepared a frozen dessert.

The four girls, who had barely slept apart in the week since Alice's arrival, were now walking along widely separate paths, each one feeling oddly alone, and yet not wholly disliking the sensation. Catherine, well-used to her mother's ways and beliefs, smiled to herself as she went off to tell stories and play cat's cradle with the washerwoman's little girl, who had a "spine" and had to be "kep' quiet with high epidemics somethin' fierce."

"It's just like Mother," she thought. "She knew I was peevish and really needed to be alone. Just as she used to send me to my 'boudoir' to pout by myself when I was little. The hours with the girls seem so precious that I can't bear to lose one, but I suppose I did need to be alone. You know, Mr. Squirrel, or Mr. Oakkitten, as Frieda would call you, what George Herbert said:

'By all means use sometimes to be alone.

Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear.'

"You needn't scamper away up the tree so fast. I'm not going to stay round here long enough to interfere with your looking over your spiritual wardrobe. I wonder if your soul wears soft gray fur?" And the story-teller walked quickly on through the woods, chanting to herself: "Old world, how beautiful thou art!" and planning for an unusually effective denouement for the tale of the Three Little Pigs.

Hannah, traversing the blistering length of Main Street, had arrived at the gloomy brick building labelled Hotel, and had inquired for Mrs.

Tracy of whom her prescription told her this much: "Travelling man's wife, convalescent after long severe illness."

Mrs. Tracy would receive her in her room, and Hannah followed the proprietor, who was also bell-boy and head waiter, up the shabby stairs, feeling decidedly foolish, but determined not to give up.

Once inside the room, she forgot her own feelings. It was a most doleful place, with ugly walls, cheap stained furniture and huge figured curtains; but she was met by a sweet-faced young woman in a soft blue negligee.

"Dr. Helen telephoned me that you were coming," she said, taking Hannah's hand and looking into her eyes with a bright look that made Hannah feel interested at once.

"Will you take the place of honor?" She indicated a stiff little settee, upholstered in magenta cotton velvet.

"It must be what the _Courier_ advertis.e.m.e.nt meant, when it spoke of furniture, 'warranted upholstered,'" said Hannah seating herself, and smiling her most merry smile at her attractive little hostess.

The thin face almost dimpled with pleasure.

"So you read the _Courier_, too! Mr. Tracy bought back numbers of it to amuse me, and I've collected the most delightful clippings. You see, I'm alone so much. The nurse wasn't very entertaining, and my husband has to be away all the week, and I have to have some one to laugh with, or at least, something to laugh at!"

"What fun!" said Hannah. "Do show me your clippings."

"I was just pasting in a birth notice when you came," said Mrs. Tracy, lifting a small sc.r.a.p-book from a table. "It's about as good as anything. 'Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Kling are the proud parents of a fine baby girl. Present indications are that the lovely lump intends to stay.'"

"O!" Hannah shrieked and leaned forward to look. Mrs. Tracy handed her the book.

"That's why I cut them out and paste them. No one would believe them, otherwise. Here is a gem of music criticism: 'As he stepped to the edge of the platform, the word Artist came to every lip. His natural pathos mingled with his baritone in such a manner that it was impossible to tell where one left off and the other began. And in his dramatic numbers, the writhings of his face showed the convulsive agonies of a soul in pain.'"

"One of my friends told me about a singer coming to a little village, and they described her appearance and her dress, and wound up the paragraph by saying: 'The soloist wore white shoes. No other stage decorations were necessary.'"

"Delightful--unless it was deliberate wit! As it was in a Kansas paper, which spoke of some one's 'blowing large chunks of melody out of a flute.' But the charm of these Winsted gems is the entire unconsciousness of the writer. For instance, here: 'The elite lingerie of Winsted invited their gentleman friends to a leap-year ball!'"

"O, see here!" cried Hannah, turning the pages joyfully. "'The hall was decorated with syringe blossoms!'"

"Only a misprint, and I saw in a Chicago paper the other day that one of the fas.h.i.+onable ladies wore a gown with a gold-colored y-o-l-k. This is partly a misprint, too, 'easy _hairs_ were scattered about with a lavish hand.' But I think it would take a hand that was powerful as well as lavish, to scatter easy chairs very generally! That was the same party where the hostess and her daughters 'dispensed with the refreshments in the dining-room!' But I am not going to keep you laughing over the _Courier_ all the afternoon," and Mrs. Tracy tried to take the book away from Hannah.

"Just one more," she begged. "Listen! 'Mrs. Gray's speech was replete with wit, wisdom and winsome ways.' O dear, Mrs. Tracy! I never saw anything so funny as this book in all my life!"

"The trouble with it is that it gets one started on a certain line, and it is very hard to get away from it."

"Like telling funny names you have heard," suggested Hannah. "Alice and Catherine and Frieda and I got to telling those last night, and we laughed so long and so hard that Dr. Helen came up and put us to bed!"

"Did you have any funnier than Pearl b.u.t.ton?"

"Not really?" protested Hannah. "Alice swore she knew one girl called Dusk Delight Dinwiddie, because she was born at twilight and they thought she was delightful. That was what we were laughing over when Dr.

Helen came in, and she stopped long enough to tell us of a college acquaintance of hers named Revelation Rasmussen, who married Will Kelly, and an Ella G. Gray whom they nick-named 'Country Churchyard'!"

"What jolly times you girls must be having," said Mrs. Tracy. "You see, I know all about you. Dr. Helen--I began calling her Dr. Smith, but I couldn't keep it up--has told me all sorts of interesting stories, and those about you four are the most entertaining. I listen to all your doings as though you were characters in a serial story. You don't mind, I hope?"

"Mind? Of course not. We aren't story-book girls at all, though, but very flesh-and-b.l.o.o.d.y! Why didn't Dr. Helen tell us about you before, and let us come to see you?"

"It has only been a little while that I have felt like seeing people, and when she suggested sending her daughter, I told her not to, for I didn't want your fun interrupted. And I remember when I was your age, I dreaded calling on sick people. I always felt as though I ought to carry them tracts or--"

"Wine jelly," finished Hannah. "Yes, that's the way I felt a little, to-day. I was afraid I'd not be able to think of anything to say, and I planned to offer to read to you."

"That was very good of you, but I've read and been read to so much that I'm glad of other occupations. The nurse exhausted the library's resources. Then I took up picture puzzles. Mr. Tracy brings them out to me every week, but we both get cross about them because they interest us so that we spend half his precious day over them! Just now I am trying to teach myself to knit, out of a book, and I'm in a dreadful tangle. I think the chamber-maid knows how, and I mean to ask her."

"O, let me bring Frieda in to show you. She knows how to do all such things, and would dearly love to. And you ought to meet all your story characters and see if we are like what you imagined. I must go now, for Dr. Helen expressly said that I wasn't to stay long, and I know you are tired."

"I'll soon be rested, and it has been such fun to have you. Wait! Let me give you one of my roses!"

Hannah took the rose, and then put out her hand for good-by. There was something so sweet and winning about the white little face, where tired lines were showing in spite of the smile, that Hannah impulsively bent over and kissed it; and then, promising to come next day with Frieda, she flew down the corridor and out into the street, entirely recovered from her ennui of the morning.

Frieda, meanwhile, was following minute directions which led her at last to a tiny cottage by the riverside. She went up the walk and rapped on the door. No one answered. A second attempt was as unsuccessful, and Frieda turned away, half ready to give up this strange errand which she did not quite fancy. Dr. Helen had asked her to go to this house and buy flowers! It did not look like a florist's. There was a garden behind the house, though. She decided to go back there before giving up. Dr. Helen usually was wise.

Behind the house was a neat, neat garden, with vegetables and berry bushes and gorgeous flowers of every kind. There were little trees whitewashed up to the branches, and whitewashed stones marked the corners of the paths. Frieda stood looking about with pleasure, when she saw coming down the path a little old lady with a black knitted shawl over her head, and a little old man in carpet slippers, with a big pipe in his mouth. They met her shyly and she put her errand in her embarra.s.sed English. The old lady shook her head and looked hopefully at the old man. He shook his and grunted. Frieda tried once more. She frequently had difficulty in making herself understood. This time she used gestures, and made such an earnest effort to be clear that the old people began to look worried. The old lady shook her head again and then, turning to her husband, asked him something in German. Then there was excitement! Frieda plunged into German with them, and the others, delighted to find she knew their language, talked fast and faster.

When she told them she was newly come from their beloved country, their eyes filled with tears and they asked question after question. Leading her to an arbor under the whitewashed trees, they made her sit down. The little old lady hurried into the house and brought out _Kuchen_ and beer. Frieda was blissful. They spoke good German, and had visited Berlin. They were full of respect when they learned that Frieda's father was a Herr Professor, for they themselves had been simple tradespeople.

In answer to her questions, they told her how their children had come to America, had prospered, and had sent for the old parents. With sad voices they explained their entire inability to adjust themselves to the new country and the new ways. The language they had not even attempted to acquire. At last, their sons had built this little cottage for them, and, with a grandchild, who spoke both languages, to act as interpreter, they lived peacefully and quietly on.

"But we miss the old country sometimes," said the grandfather. "Our neighbors and the pleasant evenings and the bands."

"Don't you know the other Germans here?" asked Frieda. "Dr. Harlow tells me there are many."

"They are not from our part of Germany," said the little grandmother gently. "And they are Methodists, while we are Lutherans."

"But our sons come often to see us, and we have the garden and each other," said the grandfather cheerfully. "And sometimes we get hold of a German book or paper."

"O!" cried Frieda delightedly. "There will be many German books for you soon," and she told them eagerly about the library and the list of books Algernon had already ordered at her suggestion. They listened with intelligent interest, and exchanged looks of pleasure at the thought of such a storehouse to draw on in the long winter evenings, "when the garden takes its nap," as the little Frau said lovingly.

The sun was perceptibly lower when Frieda rose to go. Then she remembered Dr. Helen's errand. The faces of her host and hostess shone at the name. "Heavenly kind! Yes! She had done much for them. They would send her flowers gladly, but sell them to her? Never!"

With big shears they cut great stalks of everything the garden contained, and, piling Frieda's arms with blossoms, while she uttered protests and exclamations of delight, they escorted her to the gate.

There, in spite of her boasted emanc.i.p.ation from childhood, she dropped a courtesy and left them, crying "_Ade!_" as long as they could see her.

At the supper table at Three Gables, Dr. Helen, with Bert on one side, and Archie on the other, called on each girl in turn for her story of the afternoon.

Alice's turn came last.

"It was such a beautiful prescription!" she said. "I went to see Madam Kittredge. Her daughter took me up to her big room furnished with old mahogany heirlooms that made me feel as though I were in New England.

And there in an arm-chair sat the most beautiful white-haired woman I ever saw. She is quite imposing and grand, but her smile saves her from being awesome. I loved her at first sight, and was not shy about staying alone with her. You would hardly know she is blind, would you? And she is perfectly delightful. She asked about Mrs. Langdon, and told me some droll stories of her odd ways, even when she was a young girl. She and Mrs. Langdon and another girl were together a great deal when they were young, and now they live within a radius of a hundred miles, but she says they never travel, so it might almost as well be a thousand. One is blind and one is lame and the third is deaf! She laughed about it as though it were not sad at all. The deaf one has been quite ill recently, and Madam Kittredge is making the prettiest present for her. She says Mrs. Langdon writes regular letters to them both, but Madam Kittredge can reply only by dictation, or by sending little gifts, and she takes the greatest pleasure in doing that. She showed me what she was getting ready for 'Matty,' as she calls the one who lives in Milwaukee. It seemed so queer to hear her speak of Mrs. Langdon as 'Sue'! If you should see her once,--" turning to Bert, who sat beside her,--"you would appreciate it. She is almost a fierce-looking old lady, and she says the most startlingly frank things if she chooses. I don't believe any ordinary person could help being a little afraid of Mrs. Langdon, but Madam Kittredge seems to think her a delicious joke. But I started to tell about the present. You see, this Matty is all alone in the world.