Half a Dozen Girls Part 5

"What if you take another plan for your reading?" she asked, pulling off one of her long gloves and turning slightly, as she rested her elbow on the back of the seat. "If you care to come to our house one or two mornings a week, through the rest of the vacation, and read aloud with me some good book,--I don't mean goody,--I should be delighted to have you. You could do the reading and amuse me while I sew."

"That's elegant!" exclaimed Jean rapturously. "What shall we read, girls?"

"But are you sure that you want us?" asked Florence doubtfully, for her mother was not particularly hospitable to the members of the V, and it seemed impossible to her that Mrs. Adams could be in earnest in her proposition.

"Indeed I do," responded Mrs. Adams heartily. "I can take that time for darning the doctor's stockings, and Polly's too, for that matter, for her toes are always coming through. I don't like to do it, but I shall be so well entertained that I probably shan't mind it at all."

"See here," said the practical Jean; "let's all bring our stockings to darn. There can't but one of us read at a time, and I just hate to do nothing but sit and twirl my thumbs."

"But I don't know how to darn stockings," said Florence helplessly.

"Time you did, then," said Jean. "If you had as many small brothers as I do, you'd have plenty of practice. Besides, I think any girl as old as we are ought to know how to mend her own stockings, whether she's rich or poor."

"So do I, Jean," said Mrs. Adams approvingly; "and yet I am ashamed to say that I have never taught Polly. But I think I'll add your plan to mine, and tell the girls to bring their darning- bags with them; and I will give you all lessons in a duty and necessity that can be made almost a fine art."

"I hate to sew," said Molly disconsolately.

"So do I," responded Jean calmly, "but I have to just the same; and that's the reason I thought I'd like to take the time when we read to do some of the worst things."

"I say," remarked Alan meditatively, as he plunged his hands into his pockets, "where's my share in this coming in?"

"Why, nowhere; you're nothing but a boy, you know," replied his sister, with an air of conscious superiority.

"One boy is as good as a dozen girls, though, ma'am," retorted Alan.

"Do you want to come too?" asked Polly. "He can, can't he, mamma?"

"I don't know as I want to, all the time," said Alan. "I'd like it when I can't do anything else; but when the boys are round, I'd rather be with them, of course."

"That settles it," said Polly, leaning forward to tickle his ear with a long-stemmed daisy. "Take us or leave us; but we don't want any half-way friends that like us when they can't get anything any better."

"Don't you mind her, Alan," said Mrs. Adams. "You can come, if you want to, and I'll protect you myself."

"If you come, though," added Polly, determined to have the last word, "you'll have to bring some stockings to darn. We shan't let in any lazy people."

CHAPTER IV.

MISS BEAN COMES TO LUNCH.

"Oh, dear me, Jean!" sighed Polly. "I do believe there's Miss Deborah Bean coming down the street."

"What of her?" inquired Jean indifferently.

"Why, if 'tis, she's coming here to lunch. She says all the hateful things she can think of; and you don't know how queer she is. I can't help laughing at her; and that makes mamma cross, for she wants me to be polite to her, because she's old as Methuselah and poor as Job's turkey."

"I didn't suppose your mother was ever cross," said Jean.

"Oh, she isn't cross, exactly; but sometimes she doesn't like things as well as others."

"Most people don't," remarked Jean sagely.

Miss Bean's present home was in the poorhouse, from which place of retreat she made expeditions into the town, at intervals, to visit her old acquaintances, and among them was Mrs. Adams, for whose mother she had sewed, during her younger, stronger days. On these great occasions, she was wont to cast aside the plain gown which she ordinarily wore, and bring out to the light of day the one that had for years served as her best when she went into the inst.i.tution. Accordingly, it was a strange figure that turned in at the doctor's gate, and came to a halt before the two girls who were sitting on the gra.s.s under one of the tall elms on the lawn.

Her gown was of some black woollen stuff, figured with green, and its short, full skirt fell in voluminous folds over her large hoops. A white muslin cape covered her shoulders; and her head was adorned with a yellow straw shaker bonnet, in the depths of which her wrinkled face, with its pointed chin and bright eyes, looked like the face of some mammoth specimen of the cat tribe, an effect that was increased by her high, shrill voice. Black lace mitts covered her hands; and she carried, point upward, a venerable brown umbrella, loosely rolled up, and held in place with two rubber bands.

"Is your ma at home?" she asked Polly abruptly.

"She's in the house," answered Polly, rising with some reluctance.

"I'll go and call her. You stay here, Jean."

"Jean who?" inquired Miss Bean, bringing her spectacles to bear on Jean's blooming face.

"Jean Dwight, ma'am," said Jean demurely, in spite of a strong desire to laugh.

"Bill Dwight's daughter?"

Jean nodded, while her color rose at the rough abbreviation of her father's name.

"I want to know! He was a son of old Enos Dwight and Melissy Pettigrew; and I can remember the time, and not so very long ago, either, when the Adamses wouldn't have had anything to do with such folks," remarked Miss Bean, who Avas not only a firm believer in the aristocracy of the old town, but regarded it as her right to utter all the disagreeable truths that came into her brain.

To-day she had spoken rashly, for Polly, angry at the insult to her friend, faced her with blazing eyes, while every little curl on her head was dancing with indignation.

"It doesn't make any difference what you think about it, Miss Bean. My mother has charge of me, not you; and she's glad to have Jean come here."

"Dear sakes! Red hair does show in the temper," sighed Miss Bean, unconsciously touching another sore spot, for Polly's hair was one of her trials.

"I'd rather have red hair and a temper, than meddle with what doesn't--" Polly was beginning hotly; but remembering that the old woman, though uninvited, was yet a guest, she added hastily, "Come into the house."

When she came out under the trees again, she found Jean still sitting on the gra.s.s, with a little suspicious moisture around her eyes. Polly dropped down by her side, and impulsively pulling Jean's head over into her lap, she bent down and kissed her.

"It's a shame, Jean!" said she. "Don't you mind a word the old thing says. I don't care anything about your grandpa and grandma; they might have been brought up in jail, for all I care. It's you that I like. She's a horrid old woman."

"I don't mean to care," said Jean disconsolately; "but some people always have to tell me I'm a n.o.body."

"No, you aren't, you're somebody," contradicted Polly. "And as long as you're splendid yourself, I don't see what difference it makes whether you have forty cents or forty million dollars, and whether you carpenter for a living or doctor for it,--or beg for it, the way she does."

They were silent for a minute, and then Polly added, with a laugh,--

"There's one thing about it, we'll have some fun out of her, for she's going to stay to lunch, and she's so funny at the table. She minces so, and she never refuses anything to eat without telling just why she doesn't like it. One time, mamma offered her some pie, and she said, 'Oh, my, no! I never eat it. Pie-crust is grease packed in flour.' I'm so glad you are here to-day."

When the girls went into the house at lunch time, Miss Bean was in the midst of a stream of gossip. Her usual surroundings gave rise to no more varied subjects than the personal appearance of her companions, and the routine of the housework, in which they all had a share. Doubtless it was partly for this reason that the worthy woman made the most of her brief outings, to gather up any bits of information which might serve to enliven the days to come, and render her an object of admiration in the community where she was pa.s.sing her time. In spite of Aunt Jane's frowns, and the efforts of Mrs. Adams to turn the conversation, she was running on and on, helped by an occasional word from the doctor, who derived much amus.e.m.e.nt from the old woman's visits. As Polly and Jean seated themselves across the table from her, she glanced up to eye them with little favor, and then went on,--

"As I was saying, I stopped in to Miss Hapgood's on my way up, and she'd just got a letter from Kate. You remember Kate Harvey, her sister that married Henry Shepard and went out to Omaha to live, don't you? He's made a lot of money, but people always said he was a miserable sort of fellow."

"Let the doctor give you some of the oysters, Miss Bean,"