Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays Part 18

"Like _what_ sunny-side up?" gasped Bess.

"Yer eggs."

"Which is the sunny-side of an egg?" asked Bess faintly, while Nan was convulsed with laughter.

"Hi!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Inez again. "Ain't you the greenie? D'ye want yer egg fried on one side, or turned over?"

"Turned over," Bess murmured.

"An' you?" asked the flower-seller of Nan.

"I always like the sunny-side of everything," our Nan admitted.

"Hi, Mother Beasley!" shouted Inez, to the woman in the kitchen. "Two of them eggs sunny-side up, flop the other."

Nan burst out laughing again at this. Bess was too funny for anything--to look at!

There were other girls in the long room, but none near where Nan and Bess and their strange little friend sat. Plainly the strangers were working girls, somewhat older than the chums, and as they finished their late dinners, one by one, they went out. Some wore cheap finery, but most of them showed the shabby hall-mark of poverty in their garments.

By and by the steaming food appeared. Inez had been helping herself liberally to bread and b.u.t.ter and the first thing Mother Beasley did was to remove the latter out of the flower-seller's reach.

"It's gone up two cents a pound," she said plaintively. "But if it was a dollar a pound some o' you girls would never have no pity on neither the bread nor the b.u.t.ter."

The stew really smelled good. Even Bess tried it with less doubt. Inez ate as though she had fasted for a week and never expected to eat again.

"Will you have coffee, dearies?" asked Mother Beasley.

"Three cents apiece extry," said Inez, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Yes, please," Nan said. "And if there is pie, we will have pie."

"Oh, you pie!" croaked Inez, aghast at such recklessness. "I reckon you _do_ 'blong up to Was.h.i.+ngton Park."

Nan had to laugh again at this, and even Bess grew less embarra.s.sed. When Mrs. Beasley came back with the coffee and pie, Nan drew her into conversation.

"Inez, here, says she introduced two other girls from the country to your home a few days ago," said Nan. "Two girls who were looking for jobs with the movies."

"Were they?" asked Mrs. Beasley, placidly. "My girls are always looking for jobs. When they get 'em, if they are good jobs, they go to live where the accommodations are better. I do the best I can for 'em; but I only accommodate poor girls."

"And I think you really must do a great deal of good, in your way, Mrs.

Beasley," Nan declared. "Did these two we speak of chance to stay with you until now?"

"I was thinkin'," said Mrs. Beasley. "I know, now, the ones you mean.

Yes, Inez _did_ bring 'em. But they only stayed one night. They wus used to real milk, and real b.u.t.ter, and strictly fresh eggs, and feather beds.

They was real nice about it; but I showed 'em how I couldn't give 'em live-geese feather beds an' only charge 'em a dollar apiece a week for their lodgin's.

"They had money--or 'peared to have. And they heard the movin' picture studios were all on the other side of town. So they went away."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Bess.

"Well, they were all right at that time. I'll write and tell Mrs.

Morton," Nan said.

"Did they tell you their names, Mrs. Beasley?" she asked.

"Bless you! if they did, I don't remember. I have twenty-five girls all the time and lots of 'em only stay a few nights. I couldn't begin to keep track of 'em, or remember their names."

This was all the information the chums could get from Mrs. Beasley regarding the girls whom Nan and Bess believed to be the runaways. A little later they went out with Inez, the latter evidently filled to repletion.

"Hi! but that _was_ a feed! You girls must be millionaires' daughters, like the newspapers tell about," said the street girl.

"Oh, no, we're not," Nan cried.

"Well, you better be joggin' along toward Was.h.i.+ngton Park. I don't want youse should get robbed while I'm with you. Mebbe the police'd think I done it."

"If you will put us on the car that goes near this address," said Nan, seriously, showing Inez Walter Mason's card, "we'll be awfully obliged."

Inez squinted at the address. "I kin do better'n that," she declared.

"I'll put youse in a jitney that'll drop ye right at the corner of the street--half a block away."

"Oh! a jitney!" Bess cried. "Of course."

Inez marched them a couple of blocks and there, on a busy corner, hailed the auto-buss. Before this Nan had quietly obtained from the child her home address and the name of her aunt.

"In you go," said the flower-seller. Then she shouted importantly to the 'bus-driver: "I got your number, mister! You see't these ladies gets off at their street or you'll get deep into trouble. Hear me?"

"Sure, Miss! Thank ye kindly, Miss," said the chauffeur, saluting, with a grin, and the jitney staggered on over the frozen snow and ice of the street.

They came to the Mason house, safe and sound. An important-looking man in a tail coat and an imposing s.h.i.+rt-front let the girls into the great house.

"Yes, Miss," he said, in answer to Nan's inquiry. "There must have been some mistake, Miss. Miss Grace and Mister Walter went to the station to meet you, and returned long ago. I will tell them you have arrived."

He turned away in a stately manner, and Bess whispered: "I feel just as countrified as that little thing said we looked."

Nan was looking about the reception room and contrasting its tasteful richness with Mother Beasley's place.

CHAPTER XVI

A SPIN IN THE PARK

Grace's home was a beautiful, great house, bigger than the Harley's at Tillbury, and Nan Sherwood was impressed by its magnificence and by the s.p.a.cious rooms. Her term at Lakeview Hall had made Nan much more conversant with luxury than she had been before. At home in the little cottage on the by-street, although love dwelt there, the Sherwoods had never lived extravagantly in any particular. Mrs. Sherwood's long invalidism had eaten up the greater part of Mr. Sherwood's salary when he worked in the At.w.a.ter Mills; and now that Mrs. Sherwood's legacy from her great uncle, Hugh Blake of Emberon, was partly tied up in the Scotch courts, the Sherwoods would continue to limit their expenditures.

At Mrs. Sherwood's urgent request, her husband was going into the automobile business. A part of the money they had brought back from Scotland had already been used in fitting up a handsome showroom and garage on the main street of Tillbury; and some other heavy expenses had fallen upon Mr. Sherwood, for which he would, however, be recompensed by the sale of the first few cars.