The S. W. F. Club Part 10

They found Patience sitting on the barn floor, utterly regardless of her white frock. A whole family of kittens were about her.

"Aren't they dears!" Patience demanded.

"Mrs. Boyd says I may have my choice, to take home with me," Hilary said. The parsonage cat had died the fall before, and had had no successor as yet.

Patience held up a small coal-black one. "Choose this, Hilary!

Miranda says a black cat brings luck, though it don't look like we needed any black cats to bring--"

"I like the black and white one," Pauline interposed, just touching Patience with the tip of her shoe.

"Maybe Mrs. Boyd would give us each one, that would leave one for her,"

Patience suggested cheerfully.

"I imagine mother would have something to say to that," Pauline told her. "Was Josie over yesterday, Hilary?"

Hilary nodded. "In the morning."

As they were going back to the house, they met Mr. Boyd, on his way to pay his regular weekly visit to the far pasture.

"Going to salt the colts?" Patience asked. "Please, mayn't I come?"

"There won't be time, Patience," Pauline said.

"Not time!" Mr. Boyd objected, "I'll be back to supper, and you girls are going to stay to supper." He carried Patience off with him, declaring that he wasn't sure he should let her go home at all, he meant to keep her altogether some day, and why not to-night?

"Oh, I couldn't stay to-night," the child a.s.sured him earnestly. "Of course, I couldn't ever stay for always, but by'n'by, when--there isn't so much going on at home--there's such a lot of things keep happening at home now, only don't tell Hilary, please--maybe, I could come make you a truly visit."

Indoors, Pauline and Hilary found Mrs. Boyd down-stairs again from her nap. "You ain't come after Hilary?" she questioned anxiously.

"Only to see her," Pauline answered, and while she helped Mrs. Boyd get supper, she confided to her the story of Uncle Paul's letter and the plans already under way.

Mrs. Boyd was much interested. "Bless me, it'll do her a heap of good, you'll see, my dear. I'm not sure, I don't agree with your uncle, when all's said and done, home's the best place for young folks."

Just before Pauline and Patience went home that evening, Mrs. Boyd beckoned Pauline mysteriously into the best parlor. "I always meant her to have them some day--she being my G.o.d-child--and maybe they'll do her as much good now, as any time, she'll want to fix up a bit now and then, most likely. s.h.i.+rley had on a string of them last night, but not to compare with these." Mrs. Boyd was kneeling before a trunk in the parlor closet, and presently she put a little square sh.e.l.l box into Pauline's bands. "Box and all, just like they came to me--you know, they were my grandmother's--but Hilary's a real careful sort of girl."

"But, Mrs. Boyd--I'm not sure that mother would--" Pauline knew quite well what was in the box.

"That's all right! You just slip them in Hilary's top drawer, where she'll come across them without expecting it. Deary me, I never wear them, and as I say, I've always meant to give them to her some day."

"She'll be perfectly delighted--and they'll look so pretty. Hilary's got a mighty pretty neck, I think." Pauline went out to the gig, the little box hidden carefully in her blouse, feeling that Patience was right and that these were very fairy-story sort of days.

"You'll be over again soon, won't you?" Hilary urged.

"We're going to be tre-men-dous-ly busy," Patience began, but her sister cut her short.

"As soon as I can, Hilary. Mind you go on getting better."

By Monday noon, the spare room had lost its look of prim order. In the afternoon, Pauline and her mother went down to the store to buy the matting. There was not much choice to be had, and the only green and white there was, was considerably beyond the limit they had allowed themselves.

"Never mind," Pauline said cheerfully, "plain white will look ever so cool and pretty--perhaps, the green would fade. I'm going to believe so."

Over a low wicker sewing-chair, she did linger longingly; it would look so nice beside one of the west windows. She meant to place a low table for books and work between those side windows. In the end, prudence won the day, and surely, the new paper and matting were enough to be grateful for in themselves.

By the next afternoon the paper was on and the matting down. Pauline was up garret rummaging, when she heard someone calling her from the foot of the stairs. "I'm here, Josie," she called back, and her friend came running up.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Pauline held up an armful of old-fas.h.i.+oned chintz.

"Oh, how pretty!" Josie exclaimed. "It makes one think of high-waisted dresses, and minuets and things like that."

Pauline laughed. "They were my great-grandmother's bed curtains."

"Goodness! What are you going to do with them?"

"I'm not sure mother will let me do anything. I came across them just now in looking for some green silk she said I might have to cover Hilary's pin-cus.h.i.+on with."

"For the new room? Patience has been doing the honors of the new paper and matting--it's going to be lovely, I think."

Pauline scrambled to her feet, shaking out the chintz: "If only mother would--it's pink and green--let's go ask her."

"What do you want to do with it, Pauline?" Mrs. Shaw asked.

"I haven't thought that far--use it for draperies of some kind, I suppose," the girl answered.

They were standing in the middle of the big, empty room. Suddenly, Josie gave a quick exclamation, pointing to the bare corner between the front and side windows. "Wouldn't a cozy corner be delightful--with cover and cus.h.i.+ons of the chintz?"

"May we, mother?" Pauline begged in a coaxing tone.

"I suppose so, dear--only where is the bench part to come from?"

"Tom'll make the frame for it, I'll go get him this minute," Josie answered.

"And you might use that single mattress from up garret," Mrs. Shaw suggested.

Pauline ran up to inspect it, and to see what other treasures might be forthcoming. The garret was a big, shadowy place, extending over the whole house, and was lumber room, play place and general refuge, all in one.

Presently, from under the eaves, she drew forward a little old-fas.h.i.+oned sewing-chair, discarded on the giving out of its cane seat. "But I could tack a piece of burlap on and cover it with a cus.h.i.+on," Pauline decided, and bore it down in triumph to the new room, where Tom Brice was already making his measurements for the cozy corner.

Josie was on the floor, measuring for the cover. "Isn't it fun, Paul?

Tom says it won't take long to do his part."

Tom straightened himself, slipping his rule into his pocket. "I don't see what you want it for, though," he said.

"'Yours not to reason why--'" Pauline told him. "We see, and so will Hilary. Don't you and Josie want to join the new club--the 'S. W. F.

Club'?"

"Society of Willing Females, I suppose?" Tom remarked.