Witch Winnie's Mystery, or The Old Oak Cabinet Part 16

"Only two of us were concerned in this matter," I replied. "We met Mr.

Van Silver quite by chance, and he very politely offered Milly the protection of his umbrella for a part of the way home, as she had none.

He is an old friend of her family and thoroughly approved of by Mr.

Roseveldt."

"How often have I told you young ladies never to go out, on the pleasantest day, without an umbrella or waterproof, since a storm may come up at any minute?"

"I did take my waterproof," Milly replied.

"Then you had no occasion to accept the gentleman's umbrella," Miss Noakes said sternly.

"But I gave it to Polo," Milly stammered, quite fluttered.

"Polo! Who is Polo? and how can you tell me, Miss Smith, that Miss Roseveldt and you were the only ones implicated in this disgraceful affair, when I saw three of you enter the turret door?"

"The third girl was Polo, the new model whom Professor Waite has engaged to pose for the portrait cla.s.s."

"A professional model? Worse and worse! and how comes it that you were walking with such a questionable character?"

I related the entire story as simply as possible; but it was evident that Miss Noakes did not approve.

"A most extraordinary performance," she commented. "I feel it my duty to report it to Madame."

"You may spare yourself that trouble, Miss Noakes," Adelaide replied.

"Tib, Winnie, and I are going to tell Madame all about it at her next office hour. We want to ask her permission to get up a little entertainment in behalf of Polo's little brother and sisters."

"And I shall suggest to Madame," Miss Noakes added, "the advisability of inquiring into the character and antecedents of this girl, before she allows her to become an accredited dependent of her establishment, or authorizes the bestowal of charity upon her family. Artists' models are often disreputable people with whom your parents would not be willing that you should a.s.sociate, and I advise you not to become too intimate with a perfect stranger."

We had come through the ordeal on the whole quite triumphantly, but Polo had excited Miss Noakes's enmity. She could never be won to regard her as anything but a vagabond, and always spoke of her as 'that model girl'

in a tone that belied the literal signification of the words; and later, when by dint of spying and listening Miss Noakes learned that a robbery had been committed in the Amen Corner, her dislike and suspicion of poor Polo led to very painful consequences. The relation of which, however, belongs to a later chapter.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER X.

THE CATACOMB PARTY.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Polo came on Monday and posed to the satisfaction of Professor Waite and of the cla.s.s. Winnie was successful in entering the two children at the Home, and Adelaide had a happy thought for Polo herself, who was too old to be received there. One of the smallest apartments in her tenement had been taken by Miss Billings and Miss Cohens, two seamstresses, honest, industrious old maids, who had lived and worked together since they were girls. Adelaide called them the two turtle doves, the odd combination of their name suggesting the nickname, and their fondness for each other bearing it out. They were a cheerful pair, and their rooms were bright with flowers and canaries. One morning Miss Billings woke to find her friend dead at her side, having pa.s.sed from life in sleep so peacefully that she neither woke nor disturbed the faithful friend close beside her.

The poor old lady was very lonely and was glad to take Polo in. The young girl brightened her life, and her own influence on the nearly friendless waif was excellent. In the intervals of posing Miss Billings taught Polo how to cut and fit dresses. Polo helped her with her sewing, and Miss Billings promised to take her into partners.h.i.+p by and by. Polo was very happy and grateful, and the girls all liked her immensely. She was a character in her way, an irresistible mimic. She would take off Miss Noakes to the life, while she had a talent which I have never seen equalled for making the most ludicrous and horrible faces. She was almost pretty, and with Miss Billings's help, made over the odds and ends of clothing bestowed upon her very nicely. Her one trinket was a string of coral beads and a little cross which her brother had sent her before she left England. She never gave up her faith in this brother.

"Albert Edward'll turn up some day rich," she said. She flouted the idea that he might be dead. "He ain't the dying kind," she said, when Cynthia suggested the possibility. "None of our family ain't, except father. Why, I've been through enough to kill a cat, and I haven't died yet."

She was especially devoted to Milly, to whom she felt, with reason, that she owed all her good fortune. Professor Waite found her remarkably serviceable as a model, from her versatility and ability to adapt herself to any character, giving a great variety of types for us to copy. When she wore the Italian costume, one would have thought her an Italian, and a complete change came over her when she donned the German cap and wooden shoes. "May be that's because I've lived amongst all sorts of foreigners so much," she said, "and Albert Edward always said I'd make an actress equal to the best. He said I had talent. I do pity them as hasn't. I wouldn't be one of the common herd for anything."

Polo was certainly uncommon. Her use of the English language had an individuality of its own. She hated Miss Noakes and said she had no business to be "tryannic" (meaning tyrannical). She spoke of native Americans as abor-jines (a distortion of aborigines), and intermingled these little variations of her own with c.o.c.kney phrases which were new to our untravelled ears.

She found difficulty in understanding our words and expressions, and once when Professor Waite told her to set up a screen she astonished us all by uttering a most blood-curdling yell, under the impression that he had commanded her to set up a _scream_.

She disliked Cerberus, and to save her from his scornful scrutiny and contemptuous remarks, Professor Waite had a duplicate key made to the turret door, by which Polo entered each morning and mounted directly to the studio.

She was very diverting, but much as we liked her we could not forget that we had a.s.sumed a grave responsibility in taking the support of her little sisters upon our hands, and we now began to actively agitate the plans for the Catacomb Party, which was to raise funds for the Annex with its "Manger and Guest Chambers."

One event of interest to us occurred before the evening of the Catacomb Party. This was the Annual Drill of the Cadet School. All of the Amen Corner and the Hornets had invitations. We occupied front seats in the east balcony of the great armory, vigilantly chaperoned by Miss Noakes.

Her best intentions could not prevent the young cadets from paying their respects to us during the intervals of the drill.

The young men looked handsomely in their gala uniforms of white trousers and gloves, blue coats, and caps set off with plenty of frogging and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. They performed their evolutions with a precision which would have done credit to a regiment of regulars--and received the praise of General Howard, who reviewed them.

Out of all the battalion there were two boys in whom we were chiefly interested: Adelaide's younger brother Jim, color sergeant of the baby company, and Milly's friend Stacey Fitz Simmons, the handsome drum-major.

Winnie insisted that Malcolm Douglas must have been thinking of the practising of this cadet drum corps when he wrote:

"And all of the people for blocks around, Boom-tidera-da-boom!

Kept time at their tasks to the martial sound, Boom-tidera-da-boom!

While children to windows and stoops would fly, Expecting to see a procession pa.s.s by, And they couldn't make out why it never drew nigh, With its boom-tidera-da--boom-a-diddle-dee; Boom-tidera-da-boom!

It would seem such vigor must soon abate; Boom-tidera-da-boom!

But they still keep at it, early and late; Boom-tidera-da-boom!

So if it should be that a war breaks out, They'll all be ready, I have no doubt, To help in putting the foe to rout, With their boom-tidera-da-boom-- _Boom-tidera-da-boom--_ Boom-tidera-da--boom-a-diddle-dee, Boom-Boom-_Boom_!"

Stacey was seventeen, tall for his age, with a little feathery mustache outlining his finely cut upper lip. He was elegant in appearance and manners, and we all admired and liked him with the exception of perverse, wilful Milly. Jim was thirteen and small for his years. The life of privation which he had led during a period when he had been lost, the account of which has been given in the previous volume, had stunted his growth, and given him an appearance of delicacy. But Jim was wiry, and possessed great endurance, and his drilling that evening was noticeable for its accuracy and spirit. Adelaide and Jim were deeply attached to one another. They wrote each other long letters every week, remarkable for their perfect confidence. As Jim's letters give an insight not only into his life at the cadet school, but also into the relations which subsisted between several of the cadets and members of our own school, as well as into a _contretemps_ which introduced great consternation into the Catacomb Party, I will choose two from Adelaide's packet and insert them before describing the mystic entertainment of the Council of Ten.

LETTER NO. 1.

DEAR SISTER:

I like the barracks better than I did. I almost have gotten over being homesick, and the fellows are awfully nice now that I have come to know them. I miss mother, but I would rather die than let any one know it. I've put her photograph down at the bottom of my trunk, for it gave me the snuffles to see it, and Stacey Fitz Simmons caught me kissing it once, and I was so ashamed. He is one of the nicest fellows here, and he didn't rough me a bit about it, only whistled, and said: "You've got a mighty pretty mother; I guess she takes after your sister. Pity there wasn't more beauty left for the rest of the family." He knows you, and I guess you must remember meeting him when you visited the Roseveldts last summer at Narragansett Pier. He asked if you and Milly Roseveldt were at the same school, and would I please send his regards when I wrote. He is one of the Senior A boys, and is going to college next year. I am only Middle C, but he is ever so good to me, I am sure I don't know why. We are drilling, drilling all the time now for the annual drill at the Seventh Regiment Armory.

Stacey is an awfully good fellow. He's the head of everything.

He's drum-major, and you just ought to see him in his uniform leading the drum corps [Jim spelled it _core_]. He's the c.o.c.katoo of the school. Stacey's folks are rich, and his mother wrote the military tailor not to spare expense, but to get Stacey up just as fine as they make 'em, and I don't believe there's a drum-major of any of the crack regiments that can hold a candle to him for style. In the first place he has a high furry hat that looks like the big m.u.f.fs they carried at the old folks' concerts. Then he has a bright scarlet coat all frogged and padded and laced with lots of gold cord, and the nattiest trousers and patent leather boots.

But his baton--oh, Adelaide! words cannot express. I don't believe old Ahasuerus ever had a sceptre half as gorgeous, with a great gold ball on the top, and it will do your eyes good to see him swing it. Doesn't he put on airs, though! Put on isn't the word, for Stacey is airy naturally, and dignified, too. b.u.t.tertub says he walks as if he owned the earth. When he marches backward holding his baton crosswise, I'm always afraid that he will fall and that somebody might laugh, and that would kill him. But he never does fall. He seems to see with the b.u.t.tons on the small of his back, and he stepped over a banana skin while marching to the armory just as dandified as you please. And he never fails to catch his baton when he tosses it into the air, and makes it whirl around twice before it comes down. He never bows to any of the fellows or seems to see them--except me. They are going to have Gilmore's Band at the drill, and Stacey was practising leading them around the armory. I was in the lower balcony, hanging over and watching him. He was going through his fanciest evolutions when he pa.s.sed me. He looked straight ahead and never winked an eye. I didn't think he saw me till I heard him say, "How's that, dear boy?" and I clapped so hard that I nearly fell over.

b.u.t.tertub hates Stacey; he wanted to be drum-major himself.

He calls Stacey wasp-waist, but it only calls attention to his own big stomach. He is always eating, and he won't train, and he can't run without having a fit of apoplexy. He weighs too much for the crew and he can't even ride a bicycle, or do anything except the heavy work on the foot ball team and study. Yes, he can study; that's the disgusting part.

Stacy can do everything. He's a splendid sprinter. There's only one other boy in the school that can equal him, and that's a red-headed boy they call Woodp.e.c.k.e.r. He has longer legs than Stacey and of course takes a longer stride, and that counts. But Stacey is livelier and puts in four strides to three of the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r's, so they are pretty nearly equal. Stacey is a prettier runner, too. He does it just as _easy_, while the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r works all over, arms _and_ legs, and bites on his handkerchief, and his eyes pop out, and when it's all over he falls in a heap and looks as if he were dying, while Stacey takes another lap in better time than the last, just for fun.

Stacey rides the bicycle, too, splendidly. He has one of those big wheels and he can manage it with his feet and do all sorts of tricks with his hands. He has been giving me points on bicycle riding. He picked out my safety for me, and has been coaching me how to manage it. He says I am the best rider for a little chap that he ever saw, and that he means to make me win the race at the inter-scholastic. I tell you Stacey is a trump. He's an all-around athlete. He dances, and he rides, and he shoots in the summer when he goes hunting with his uncle; and he fences, and he's stroke on the crew, and he's our best high jump and there isn't anything that he can't do, except his lessons--sometimes--but they don't count. He says that if it wasn't for the beastly lessons school would be heavenly, and we all agree with him. Ricos said that he would head a pet.i.tion to have lessons abolished and the boys would all sign it, but Stacey said that parents were so unprogressive he didn't believe they would, and he was afraid the head master wouldn't pay much attention to such a pet.i.tion unless it bore the parents' signatures.

I've written an awfully long letter, but I like to write to you, and it was rainy to-day, and we couldn't go to the grounds, and I've hurt my ankle by falling from my bicycle so that I could not practise in the gymnasium. Now don't go and get scared, like a girl, and disapprove of athletics for such a little thing as that.

It was only a little sprain, that will all be well before the drill, and I only barked my s.h.i.+n the least bit, nothing at all to what the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r does most every day.