The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted Part 6

Catherine sighed. The library was to be cleaned that morning as soon as the girls could be spared by their respective mothers. She had been waiting for Algernon to bring the key, and had counted on his muscular a.s.sistance in the labor before her. Now, instead, she had only the key, and that almost as hopelessly affixed to Elsmere as it had been before she cut it loose. She took up her bundle of rags, scrubbing-brush and soap resignedly, and calling "Good-by" to Dr. Helen started off down the hill. On the way she stopped for Agnes, who came out with a broom.

Polly, bearing a pail, met them at the corner. At the library they found Bertha, mop-laden, pressing her nose against the pane to see inside.

"h.e.l.lo!" she called to them. "How can we get hot water?"

"Let's go over to Henderson's and borrow a little oil stove for a few hours, and we'll heat the water in this pail. One of you might go to the pump in the park and get it full now. Whose broom?" touching one, leaning by the window.

"Dot's. She came and went off again. Bert pa.s.sed, driving a ten-cent express and she hailed him and they've gone over to Mr. Kittredge's to get the books he promised."

"The crazy children! Where will we ever put books to-day, with the room in such a state?"

Catherine fitted the key to the lock, and the band of cleaners entered, unrolled their big ap.r.o.ns and began, with much energy and good nature, to sweep down the walls and ceiling and gather the milliner's rubbish into two big baskets found in the shed. Elsmere picked over the pile, making rapturous discoveries.

"Aren't these very small bushel baskets?" asked Agnes. "They fill up so fast."

"They're just about the average size, I think," remarked Catherine.

"They don't vary much more than yardsticks do in length! But I do wish some of those lazy boys were here to carry them out and empty them for us."

"What's that?" asked Max's voice in the doorway. Immaculate in white flannels, with Bess by his side, bewilderingly beruffled, he viewed the scene before him dispa.s.sionately.

Catherine and Agnes, red and warm and somewhat dishevelled, returned the gaze for a moment silently. In that moment an entirely natural resentment was forced into outward pleasantness.

"We were just wis.h.i.+ng some one was here to make a bonfire of this _debris_ for us," said Catherine cheerfully, "but never mind. There comes Polly with a man from Henderson's, and he'll take it out."

"All right. Wish you luck. We'd stop and help, only we've got to meet Arch and Win, and we're late already. So long!" and Max lifted his cap, Bess waved her sunshade, and the two went around the corner out of sight.

The man from Henderson's did some lifting very willingly, rescued what was left of the water Bertha was tugging from the park, lighted the stove and even stayed to poke the bonfire he made for them in the street, and keep it from spreading.

"It's a good thing," he said, as he went away amid a chorus of "Thank you." "Everybody'd ought to help all they can."

"I'd like to make him a member of the club," growled Polly, "and turn one or two people I could mention out."

"Dorcas doesn't seem so zealous as she did yesterday," remarked Catherine. "I hope she isn't angry, because we didn't fall in with her suggestions."

Bertha looked conscious, and stole a glance at Agnes, but said nothing.

Catherine, catching the look, laughed.

"Father says Dorcas does us all a lot of good, as a counter-irritant.

Whenever we begin to feel a little cross with each other, we all turn in and feel very cross with Dorcas. I was simply raging when Max and Bess sailed by in their purple and fine linen, but at least they hadn't pretended to be interested, and Dorcas--"

"She may be busy," said Agnes. "There's a lot of work at their house, and Dorcas usually does her share. I'll say that much for her, though she does make me awfully angry sometimes. Where is Elsmere? He might go over to the store and get something to polish this window-gla.s.s with."

"I don't know. Elsmere! Elsmere! Where are you? Come here, dear." No response.

"O, never mind," sighed Catherine wearily. "I'm not responsible for him.

It is a relief to have him out of the way for a while. I wanted to send him home before, but he had such a sweet lady-like way with him this morning, I couldn't bring myself to. Girls! Hark!"

The four laborers had dropped upon a long box to rest a few minutes from their toil. Their low voices had been the only sound. Now distinctly, in a remote corner of the room, could be heard a little scratch, scratch.

Then across the floor, serene and fearless, "right where I had been sweeping," Catherine said later with a s.h.i.+ver, ran a small gray mouse.

With one accord the four tucked their skirts about them and sat closer.

No one spoke, but each measured the distance to the door with an accurate eye. And then, silently, but with haste, they beat a swift retreat.

The fair wide street before them, the door shut behind them, they drew deep breaths of relief, though each avoided the others' eyes.

"Some girls wouldn't mind going right up and killing it," said Polly, "but I simply could not."

"Nor I," said Catherine firmly. "I could go to battle or the stake like Joan of Arc, but I draw the line at mice."

"What's the matter? What are you all out here for? I thought you came to clean."

It was Dorcas, of course. The girls hung their heads with shame, and Bertha, who had defied her so boldly when last they met, answered with meekness.

"We did. But there's a mouse."

Dorcas looked them all over with an expression of deep scorn.

"Give me the key," she said, and it was given to her.

Then the fearful ones flattened their faces against the unwashed window-pane to see what would happen. The little gray creature placidly nibbled a tidbit in a corner. Dorcas approached him. He lifted his head and regarded her. She faltered a little and glanced behind her. She even felt hastily of her skirts. The respect in the watching faces lightened a little. Every woman is born knowing how mice delight to hide in skirts.

After a moment Dorcas opened the door and came out, pa.s.sed the group of watchers without a word and crossed the street to Henderson's. Coming back a minute later with a trap, she re-entered the room, set the trap and waited. So did the others, breathless, clinging to each other. Bert and Dot, driving up on their ten-cent express, saw that something unusual was going on, and drove quietly around into the alley. Peeping in at the back window, they took in the situation quickly: Dorcas on one side of the room, the little gray mouse on the other, the trap between.

The silence lasted for several seconds. Then came a sharp crack! And Dorcas, throwing her arm across her eyes, ran out of the room with a shriek and fell upon Agnes, who was nearest.

"He's killed," she sobbed. "I--I saw him!"

"So he is," soothed Agnes. "None of the rest of us would have dared set the trap, if we had been bright enough to think of it. There! It was harrowing, but it's all over now."

"No, no," shuddered Dorcas. "He's in there yet, and he's _dead_!"

Catherine spied Bert's two mischievous eyes looking around the corner of the building. In an instant she had despatched him to clear the room of its horror, and was bringing Dot, a protesting prisoner, to join the group.

"Where did you come from?" asked every one, while Dorcas collected herself.

"O, our chariot's just outside," answered Dot. "We saw you all peeping in, so we drove around behind to have a look ourselves. Got there in time to see the final fatality. Dorcas was heroic until she won. Are you girls honestly afraid of mice?"

"I am of live ones," confessed Catherine.

"I am of dead ones," said Dorcas.

"Dead or alive, they, 'turn my blood to ice within me, and make the breath of my heart wax pale,' as the lecturer said last night," said Polly. "But now that you dare-devil people have cleared the field for action, we may as well go in and scrub. We'd only just finished sweeping. Dot, you may take the death-bed boards. And, O, there comes Bert, back from the funeral. As President of the Winsted Boat Club and Library a.s.sociation, I hereby appoint you and Geraldine Winthrop a Standing Mouse Committee with full power to act."

"Dorcas to be official executioner, I trust," and Bert held the door open for Dorcas, bowing low as she pa.s.sed.

That afternoon the B. C. & L. A. gathered in force. Even Tom Davis, brother of Bertha and Agnes, asked for a half-day's vacation and helped Algernon whitewash. Bert had impressed Max into carpentering, and the work of bookcase-building went on noisily inside the shed. The girls sat on the weedy patch of ground outside, sewing sash curtains.

"It would be quicker to make them on the machine at home, but not nearly so much fun," said Agnes. "How many books did you and Bert gather up this morning, Dot?"

"Fifty-three volumes besides Miss Ainsworth's. Those were already over here in the shed. Where is Archie?"