A Dear Little Girl at School
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Nettie took her off into the next room where there was much whispering for the next few minutes. “I shall get something for mother,” Nettie explained. “I don’t know exactly what but I will find out what she needs the most.”
“I think that is a perfectly lovely plan,” agreed Edna. “Now I must go back and tell Ben, for he will want to know. You come up this afternoon, Nettie, won’t you?”
Nettie promised, and after Edna had gone she said to her mother, “Mother, I think I will spend part of my money on a birthday gift for Edna. It was all her doings about the puzzle and I would like to have her have something I could buy with the money. Will you help me?”
“Indeed I will, my dear, and I think that is an excellent plan.”
So Nettie had her two secrets and in time both gifts were given.
Her meeting was an interesting one. The girls always liked the old attic and it was seldom that a meeting there did not turn out to be one which was thoroughly enjoyed. The refreshments received even more praise than Edna had predicted, for not a crumb of gingerbread, not a single maple-sugar cream, nor a drop of raspberry shrub was left, and the honorary member went home in an exalted frame of mind.
On the very evening of this meeting, while Edna was looking over her favorite page of her father’s paper, she heard him say to his wife. “Humph. That was a bad failure of Green and Adams to-day. Adams was a pretty high-flyer, and a good many of the men on the ’Change have been prophesying this crash.”
“What Adams is that?” asked Mrs. Conway.
“Oliver Adams. He lives on the square, you know, in that large white house with the lions in front.”
Edna pricked up her ears. “Is it Clara Adams’s father?” she asked.
“Does she live on the square?” asked her mother.
“Yes, in a big white house with lions in front just like father said.”
“Then, of course, it is the same.”
“What has happened to him, mother?”
“He has lost a great deal of money, dear?”
“Oh, poor Clara.”
“I’m afraid she will be poor Clara sure enough,” returned her father. “He can’t keep up that way of living very long. His wife is as extravagant as he is, and I doubt if there is much left out of the estate.”
Edna wondered if Clara would have to live in a tiny, little house like Nettie’s and if she would be very unhappy. Would she leave school, and – There were so many wonderings that she asked her mother a great many questions, and went off on Monday morning feeling quite ready to give Clara all the sympathy she needed.
But Clara was not at school on Monday, but on the next day she appeared. The news of her father’s failure was common talk so that every girl in school had heard of it, and wondered if it would have any effect on Clara. For a time it did not, but in a short time it was whispered about that the Adamses had removed to another street and into a much smaller house. Clara no longer came to school in the automobile, and those girls who had clung to her on account of the powers of riches now openly deserted, declared that she had left their neighborhood and in consequence could no longer belong to their club. Then in a little while it was announced that the club had disbanded, and the remaining members came in a body and begged that they might be taken into the G. R.’s. There was much discussion. Some were for, some were against it, but finally the rule of the club was acted upon and the five new members took their places, leaving Clara in lonely grandeur. She treated this desertion with such open scorn and was so very unpleasant to those who had formerly been her friends, that they turned their backs upon her utterly, declaring that they would rather pay a fine every day in the week than be nice to Clara Adams.
“Hateful thing!” Edna heard Nellie Haskell say one day quite loud enough for Clara to hear. “She’s kept us out of a lot of fun and we were geese to keep in with her so long. I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with her. I think she is the most disagreeable girl that ever was.”
Edna looked over at Clara who was sitting very still by herself on a bench in one corner of the playground. She looked after the three girls who had just passed and were now walking down the path with their arms around one another. So had she seen them with Clara not so very long before. She thought she would go over and say something to her old enemy, but what to say – She had no good excuse. Then she remembered an exceedingly pretty paper-doll which had been sent her by her Cousin Louis Morrison. His aunt had painted it and it was much handsomer than one ordinarily saw. Edna had it in the book she carried. She drew in her breath quickly, then started over to Clara’s corner.
“Don’t you want to see my paper-doll?” she asked. “It is such a beauty.” And without waiting for an answer she opened her book and held out the doll for Clara to see. It was given rather a grudging glance, but it was really too pretty not to be admired and Clara replied with a show of indifference, “It is quite pretty, isn’t it?”
Edna sat down by her. “I will show you some of her dresses,” she went on. Clara loved paper-dolls, and she could not but be a little interested. Anything which was painted or drawn was of more interest to her than most things. She had shown her talent in that way by the fatal caricature.
“Somebody told me you could make mighty pretty paper-dolls,” Edna went on, bound to make herself agreeable.
“I do make them sometimes,” replied Clara a little more graciously, “but I could never make any as pretty as this. I can copy things pretty well, but I can’t make them up myself.”
For a moment Edna struggled with herself. The doll was a new and very precious possession, but – She hesitated only a moment and then she said: “Would you like to copy this? I will lend it to you if you would like to.”
There was a time when Clara might have spurned even this kind offer, setting it down as “trying to get in” with her, but her pride and vanity had received a blow when the Neighborhood Club was broken up and she cast forth, and she took the offer in the spirit in which it was meant. “Oh, would you do that?” she said. “I should love to copy it and I will take awfully good care of the doll.”
“You can take it now,” said Edna laying the doll on the other’s lap. There should be no chance for her to change her mind. Clara slipped the doll into one of her books and just then the bell rang, so they went in together.
After school Dorothy clutched her chum. “Edna Conway,” she cried, “did I see you talking to Clara Adams?”
“Um-huh,” returned Edna.
“Well, you are the greatest one. I should think after all she has done that you would want to keep as far away from her as possible.”
“Well,” said Edna. “I said I was going to be nice to her if ever I had the chance and I had the chance.”
“If you are going with her, I can tell you that all the girls will turn their backs on you.”
“I didn’t say I was going with her all the time, but I don’t see why I can’t speak to her if I want to.”
“Oh, I suppose you can speak, but I shouldn’t do much more than that.”
Edna made no reply. She had her own ideas of what she meant to do.
“Where is your paper-doll?” asked Dorothy, “I want to show it to Agnes.”
“I haven’t it with me,” returned Edna a little confusedly.
“You had it when we went down to recess. Is it in your desk? Go on and get it, that is a dear. Agnes wants to see it.”
“It isn’t in my desk. I haven’t it,” returned Edna bluntly.
“You don’t mean to say you have given it away? Edna Conway, you can’t have given it to Clara Adams!” Dorothy’s voice expressed horror and dismay.
“No, I haven’t given it to her; I only lent it to her,” replied Edna.
“Well, of all things!” Dorothy was stricken dumb for a moment. Then she put her arms around her friend and hugged her. “You are an angel,” she said. “I couldn’t have done such a thing to save me, and I don’t believe there is another girl in the school who could. I’m going to tell Agnes.”
“Oh, please don’t,” begged Edna.
But Dorothy was off and presently Agnes came over to where the two had been standing. “What did you lend Clara your doll for, Edna?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t want to pay a fine,” replied she.
Agnes laughed. “That is one way out of it. I suppose the next thing we know you will be proposing that we ask Clara Adams into our club. Half the girls will leave if you do, I can promise you that.”
This was something very like a threat, and it had the effect Agnes meant it should, though it did not prevent Edna from making plans of her own concerning Clara. She smiled at her as she took her seat in class the next morning, and for the very first time in all her life she received from Clara a smile in return.
CHAPTER XI
A NEW MEMBERDuring this time Miss Newman had not won more than respect from her girls. She was an excellent teacher and kept good order, but she had too severe a manner to call forth affection. Nevertheless she did appreciate any little kindness done her, and was not unwilling to repay when the opportunity came. Dorothy and Edna had always stood up for her, and had brought her the small gifts which children like to take their teachers, a particularly large and rosy apple, a bunch of flowers, a more important present at Christmas and a growing plant at Easter. They did not know much about her home life, for she was not the affable person Miss Ashurst had been. Uncle Justus had told Edna that she lived with an invalid sister in quite a different quarter of the city, and that she had a long way to come to school.
One spring afternoon as Celia and Edna were starting forth, a sudden shower overtook them. They were going home every day now as they had done in the early fall, and were hurrying for their train when they saw Miss Newman just ahead of them without an umbrella. “There’s Miss Newman,” said Edna to her sister, “and she has no umbrella; I’m going to give her mine and come under yours, Celia,” then before Celia could say a word she ran on ahead. “Please take my umbrella, Miss Newman,” she said. “I can go under Celia’s.”
“But you may need it before Monday,” said Miss Newman.
“Oh, no, I won’t, for I am going straight home. We are to have a club meeting at the Evanses this afternoon, or I should not be in such a hurry.”
“And I am in a hurry, too,” said Miss Newman, “for I am very anxious to get home to my sister. Thank you very much for the umbrella. I should have had to go in somewhere, it is pouring so, and that would have delayed me.”
By this time Celia came up and Edna slipped under her sister’s umbrella. They took their car at the next corner, but they saw Miss Newman standing on the other side waiting for the car which should come along somewhat later. “Poor thing,” said Edna as she looked from the car window; “she would have been soaked, Celia, if she had had to stand there without an umbrella, and she has a cold now.”
Celia smiled. “I believe you would love a chimpanzee, or a snake, Edna.”
“I think little green snakes are very pretty,” returned Edna calmly. “Cousin Ben likes them, too. He showed me one in the grass last Sunday. I felt sorry for it because nearly everybody hates snakes, and Cousin Ben said this one was perfectly harmless.”
“I draw the line at snakes,” returned Celia. “I suppose you feel sorry for Miss Newman.”
“Yes, I do; she is so unpretty.”
Celia laughed. “That is a delicate way of putting it, I am sure. Well, I am glad she has one friend; no doubt she needs it. Most of the girls aren’t so ready to say nice things of her as they were of Miss Ashurst.”
“I know it,” replied Edna, “and that is one reason Dorothy and I stand up for her. We say suppose we were as – as ugly as that, and had to go a long, long way to school every day to teach horrid girls who didn’t be nice to us, how would we like it?”
“She looks like a cross old thing,” returned Celia rather flippantly.
“She isn’t exactly cross, but she isn’t the kind you can lean up against and say ‘what a pretty tie you have on,’ as we did with Miss Ashurst. Celia, I am afraid Miss Newman never will get married.”
Celia laughed. “Perhaps she doesn’t want to. Everyone doesn’t, you know.”
This was rather beyond Edna’s comprehension, and she sat pondering over the extraordinary statement till the car reached the station. She arrived early in the school-room on Monday morning to find Miss Newman already there. She looked up with a smile as the little girl entered. “I brought back your umbrella,” she said. “I don’t know what I should have done without it. I left my sister rather worse than usual and I wanted very much to get home as soon as possible.”
“Is your sister ill?” asked Edna
“She is never very well. When she was a little girl, younger than you, she fell and hurt her spine. She has never been well since, and at times suffers very much.”
“How was she this morning?” asked Edna sympathetically.
“She was much better. I left her sitting on the porch in the sun. She can walk only a few steps, you see, and sometimes has to be lifted from place to place.”
“Who lifts her?” Edna was much interested at this peep into Miss Newman’s life.
“I do when I am there, for I know just how to do it without hurting her.”
“Will she sit there all day where you left her?”
“Oh, no, for she has a wheeling chair and the old woman who lives with us can wheel her in when she is ready to go.”
“Tell me some more.” Edna leaned her elbows on the table and looked at her teacher with a wistful look. She did feel so very sorry for this poor sister who could not walk.
“She is a very cheerful, bright person,” Miss Newman went on, “and everyone loves her. She is very fond of children and is continually doing something for those in the neighborhood. It is far from being a wealthy street, and back of us there are many very poor people. At Christmas we had a tree for the ones who couldn’t have one at home, and my sister made nearly everything on it, such pretty things they were, too. There was a present for each child.”
“I think that was perfectly lovely,” said Edna. This was the kind of thing that appealed to her. “What is your sister’s name?”
“Her name is Eloise.”
“I think that is a beautiful name. I should like very much to see her.”
“She would like very much to see you, for she knows every one of my class, and asks about each one when I go home. You see she cannot go out into the world where I go, I have to take what I can of it to her.” It was evident that this was the subject which was nearest to the teacher’s heart, and that when talking of it she showed the gentlest side of her nature. “How would you like to go home with me this afternoon to see her, you and Dorothy Evans?”
“I would love to go, but are you sure she would like to have us come?”
“I don’t know of anything that would please her more. She has never seen one of my pupils and has often longed to, for as I told you she has to see the world through my eyes, and anything that interests me interests her.”
“I’ll tell Dorothy as soon as she comes and I will ask Celia if I may go. Thank you, Miss Newman for inviting us.” Then a number of girls came in and school was called to order before Edna had a chance to speak to her sister.
At recess, however, the matter was talked over, both Agnes and Celia listening attentively. “I don’t think they ought to go home with Miss Newman,” decided Agnes, “for she probably has dinner as soon as she gets home and it would make extra trouble. If they could go later it might be all right. I’d better go and talk to Miss Newman myself, then we can tell better what can be done.” She went off and soon came back to say that she had arranged to go with the little girls later in the afternoon. “We can take a car from there which will connect with our line and in that way we shall not have to come all the way back into the city.”
But a better arrangement than that was made, for when Margaret and Jennie heard of the affair they were so eager to be included in the party, that Miss Newman noticing their wistfulness, asked if they, too, would come. “There is nothing my sister likes better than to have a company of children around her to whom she can tell some tale. She is a great one for that, and often has as many as a dozen children on the porch,” she told them.
“Then, I will tell you what we can do,” said Jennie. “I know mother will say we may all go in the motor-car, and I can take you girls home just as well as not. I will call mother up now and tell her all about it.” So in a few minutes the whole matter was arranged by telephone. The three little girls, Edna, Dorothy and Margaret were to go home with Jennie to luncheon and then they would make the start from there.
“That is just like the Ramseys,” said Agnes, “they always come forward at just the right moment and do the thing that makes it pleasantest all around. Now we can go home at the usual time, Celia feeling perfectly safe about the girls.”
Therefore about three o’clock on this bright afternoon in May they set forth in the automobile which was to take them to Miss Newman’s and call for them later. Through a very unfamiliar part of the city they went till they came to a short street with a row of small houses on each side. Each house had a garden in front and a porch. In the very last one which had more ground around it than the rest, Miss Newman lived. The porch was covered with vines and in the garden there was a perfect wealth of flowers. A bird-cage in which a canary was singing, hung near the window. One end of the porch was screened by a bamboo shade. It was a very pretty nesty little place. Huddled down in a chair, with her head supported by pillows was Miss Eloise who smiled up at the girls as Miss Newman brought them forward one after another. Miss Eloise had a much more lovely face than her sister. Her eyes were beautiful, she had quantities of wavy dark hair, a sweet mouth and a delicate nose. The hand she held out was so small and fragile that when Edna clasped it in her plump fingers it seemed almost as if she were holding the claws of some bird.
“So this is Edna,” she said. “She looks just as I thought she did. Dorothy I know her by her hair, and Margaret because she is the tallest of them, so of course the one left must be Jennie. I am so pleased to see you all. Sister, will you wheel me just a little further back so there will be more room for us all?”
Miss Newman was quick to spring to her sister’s side, wheeling the chair at just the right angle, settling the pillows, and then passing her hand caressingly over Miss Eloise’s dark locks. The girls could not imagine her so tender.
“I hope you are feeling well to-day,” began Edna to start the conversation.
“Who wouldn’t feel well in such glorious weather. It is such a beautiful world, and has so many interesting things in it. How is your sister, Edna?”
“She is very well,” replied Edna, surprised that Miss Eloise should know she had a sister.
“And yours, Dorothy? I hear she is such a sweet, pretty girl.”
Dorothy likewise surprised, made answer that Agnes was very well and would have come with them but that the four of them came in the Ramseys’ motor-car.
“And wasn’t it fun to see it come whirling up?” said Miss Eloise. “It was the very first time a motor-car ever came to our door, and I was excited over it. I think it was very sweet of Mrs. Ramsey to give me this pleasure, and, Margaret I cannot tell you how I enjoyed the flowers you used to bring to sister in the winter. Your mother must have the loveliest greenhouse. I never saw such fine big stalks of mignonette. We shall have mignonette a little later, for our flowers are coming on finely. As for the books you all gave sister at Christmas they have been a perfect feast. I am so glad to have you here and to be able to thank you for all the things you have done to make the long winter go more quickly for me.”
The girls looked at one another. If they had known what their little gifts were to mean, how many times they could have added to them. They had not a word to say for they had not understood how a little ripple of kindness may widen till it touches an unknown shore.
“Now tell me about your club,” Miss Eloise went on. “I should so like to hear what you did at the last meeting. Sister tells me all she can, but she doesn’t have a chance to learn as much as I should like. I am so greedy, you see. I am like a child who says when you tell it a story, and think you have finished, ‘Tell on.’ I am always crying ‘Tell on.’ It is the most beautiful club I ever heard of and I am sorry I am not a little girl at your school so I could belong to it and enjoy the good times with you.”
“But, darling, you have your own little club,” said her sister, “and you are always thinking of what you can do for others.”
“Oh, I know, but I live in such a tiny little world, and my ‘little drops of water, little grains of sand’ are such wee things.”
“They mean a great deal more than you imagine,” said her sister gently. “I am sure I could never live without them.”
“Oh, that is because you make so much of me and what I do. She is a great sister,” she said nodding to the girls. “She is a regular Atlas because she has to bring her world home on her back every day to me. Yes, indeed. Perhaps you don’t think I am aware of all that goes on in that school-room. Why I even know when one of you misses a lesson, and if you will let me tell you a secret, I actually cried the day Clara Adams did the caricature.”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” Edna could not help sighing aloud while the other girls looked as much ashamed as if they had done the thing themselves. However, when Miss Eloise saw this she broke into a laugh and began to tell them of some very funny thing she had seen from the porch that morning, then followed one funny tale after another till the girls were all laughing till the tears ran down their cheeks. Miss Eloise had the drollest way of telling things, and the merriest laugh herself. After a while Miss Newman went inside and presently came out with a tray on which were glasses of lemonade and a plate of small cakes. These were passed around, and much enjoyed.
“Now tell them one of your stories,” said Miss Newman to her sister.
“Shall I make up a new one or shall I tell them one of the old ones?”
“Tell them the one the Maginnis children like so much.”
The children settled themselves in pleased anticipation, and a marvelous tale they listened to. Miss Eloise had a wonderful gift of story-telling and made every incident seem real and every character to stand out as vividly as if he or she were actually before them. The children listened in wrapt attention. She was a wonder to them.
The tale was scarcely over when up came the motor-car with Mrs. Ramsey in it. She stepped out and came in the gate and up to the porch. “I wanted to come, too, Miss Newman,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, mother,” cried Jennie, “you are just too late to hear the most beautiful story ever was.”
“Now isn’t that too bad?” said Mrs. Ramsey. “I feel guilty to interrupt this pleasant party, but I am afraid I shall have to take these girls home for it is getting late.”
However, she did not hurry them and there was time for her to have a little talk with both Miss Newman and Miss Eloise. Just as she was about to take her leave she asked, “Do you think you would be able to take a little ride in the motor-car, Miss Eloise, if I were to come for you some day?”
“Oh, sister, could I?” Miss Eloise turned to Miss Newman, her eyes like stars. “I haven’t been off this street for years,” she said to Mrs. Ramsey.
“We would be very careful,” said Mrs. Ramsey, seeing that Miss Newman looked doubtful. “The man could wheel the chair out to the car and could lift her in. It runs very smoothly and we would not go too fast nor on any of the streets which are not asphalt.”
“Oh, sister!” Miss Eloise looked as pleadingly as any child.
“I have never wheeled her further than the corner,” said Miss Newman, “for fear of the jolting when we had to go over the curb, but some day when she is feeling her best – ”
“You will let me know – ” put in Mrs. Ramsey eagerly. “Of course you will go, too, Miss Newman, and as soon as you think she has gone far enough we can come back. You know it is quite smooth and the riding easy going even as far as Brookside.”
“Why that is our station,” spoke up Edna.