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diff --git a/37871.txt b/37871.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb9bd1f --- /dev/null +++ b/37871.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6043 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dandelion Cottage, by Carroll Watson Rankin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dandelion Cottage + +Author: Carroll Watson Rankin + +Illustrator: Mary Stevens + +Release Date: October 28, 2011 [EBook #37871] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANDELION COTTAGE *** + + + + +Produced by Charlene Taylor, Betsie Bush, Matthew Wheaton +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Dandelion Cottage + + CARROLL WATSON RANKIN + + + _Illustrated by Mary Stevens_ + + JOHN M. LONGYEAR RESEARCH LIBRARY + + Marquette, Michigan + + 1977 + + + _First published in 1904_ + + THE MARQUETTE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY + 213 North Front Street + Marquette, Michigan 49855 + + FOURTH EDITION + + First Printing, February 1977 + + Printed in the USA by + THE BOOK CONCERN, INC. + Hancock, Michigan + + + _To_ + RHODA, FRANCES, AND ELEANOR + + _whose lively interest made the writing + of this little book a joyful task._ + + + + + THE PERSONS OF THE STORY + + + BETTIE TUCKER:} + JEANIE MAPES:} _The Dandelion Cottagers_ + MABEL BENNETT:} + MARJORY VALE:} + THE TUCKER FAMILY: _Mostly boys_ + THE MAPES FAMILY: _Two parents, two boys_ + DR. AND MRS. BENNETT: _Merely Parents_ + AUNTY JANE: _A Parental Substitute_ + MRS. CRANE: _The Pleasantest Neighbor_ + MR. BLACK: _The Senior Warden_ + MR. DOWNING: _The Junior Warden_ + MISS BLOSSOM: _The Lodger_ + MR. BLOSSOM: _The Organ Tuner_ + GRANDMA PIKE: _Another Neighbor_ + MR. AND MRS. MILLIGAN:} + LAURA MILLIGAN:} + THE MILLIGAN BOY AND} _The Unpleasantest Neighbors_ + THE MILLIGAN BABY:} + THE MILLIGAN DOG:} + + + + + Contents + + + 1. _Mr. Black's Terms_ + 2. _Paying the Rent_ + 3. _The Tenants Take Possession_ + 4. _Furnishing the Cottage_ + 5. _Poverty in the Cottage_ + 6. _A Lodger to the Rescue_ + 7. _The Girls Disclose a Plan_ + 8. _An Unexpected Crop of Dandelions_ + 9. _Changes and Plans_ + 10. _The Milligans_ + 11. _An Embarrassing Visitor_ + 12. _A Lively Afternoon_ + 13. _The Junior Warden_ + 14. _An Unexpected Letter_ + 15. _An Obdurate Landlord_ + 16. _Mabel Plans a Surprise_ + 17. _Several Surprises Take Effect_ + 18. _A Hurried Retreat_ + 19. _The Response to Mabel's Telegram_ + 20. _The Odd Behavior of the Grown-ups_ + 21. _The Dinner_ + + + + +Dandelion Cottage + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +Mr. Black's Terms + + +The little square cottage was unoccupied. It had stood for many years on +the parish property, having indeed been built long before the parish +bought the land for church purposes. It was easy to see how Dandelion +Cottage came by its name at first, for growing all about it were great, +fluffy, golden dandelions; but afterwards there was another good reason +why the name was appropriate, as you will discover shortly. + +The cottage stood almost directly behind the big stone church in +Lakeville, a thriving Northern Michigan town, and did not show very +plainly from the street because it was so small by contrast with +everything else near it. This was fortunate, because, after the Tuckers +had moved into the big new rectory, the smaller house looked decidedly +forlorn and deserted. + +"We'll leave it just where it stands," the church wardens had said, many +years previously. "It's precisely the right size for Doctor and Mrs. +Gunn, for they would rather have a small house than a large one. When +they leave us and we are selecting another clergyman, we'll try to get +one with a small family." + +This plan worked beautifully for a number of years. It succeeded so +well, in fact, that the vestry finally forgot to be cautious, and when +at last it secured the services of Dr. Tucker, the church had grown so +used to clergymen with small families that the vestrymen engaged the new +minister without remembering to ask if his family would fit Dandelion +Cottage. + +But when Dr. Tucker and Mrs. Tucker and eight little Tuckers, some on +foot and some in baby carriages, arrived, the vestrymen regretted this +oversight. They could see at a glance that the tiny cottage could never +hold them all. + +"We'll just have to build a rectory on the other lot," said Mr. Black, +the senior warden. "That's all there is about it. The cottage is all out +of repair, anyway. It wasn't well built in the first place, and the last +three clergymen have complained bitterly of the inconvenience of having +to hold up umbrellas in the different rooms every time it rained. Their +wives objected to the wall paper and to being obliged to keep the +potatoes in the bedroom closet. It's really time we had a new rectory." + +"It certainly is," returned the junior warden, "and we'll all have to +take turns entertaining all the little Tuckers that there isn't room for +in the cottage while the new house is getting built." + +Seven of the eight little Tuckers were boys. If it hadn't been for +Bettie they would _all_ have been boys, but Bettie saved the day. She +was a slender twelve-year-old little Bettie, with big brown eyes, a mop +of short brown curls, and such odd clothes. Busy Mrs. Tucker was so in +the habit of making boys' garments that she could not help giving a +boyish cut even to Bettie's dresses. There were always sailor collars to +the waists, and the skirts were invariably kilted. Besides this, the +little girl wore boys' shoes. + +"You see," explained Bettie, who was a cheerful little body, "Tommy has +to take them next, and of course it wouldn't pay to buy shoes for just +one girl." + +The little Tuckers were not the only children in the neighborhood. +Bettie found a bosom friend in Dr. Bennett's Mabel, who lived next door +to the rectory, another in Jeanie Mapes, who lived across the street, +and still another in Marjory Vale, whose home was next door to Dandelion +Cottage. + +Jean, as her little friends best liked to call her, was a sweet-faced, +gentle-voiced girl of fourteen. Mothers of other small girls were always +glad to see their own more scatterbrained daughters tucked under Jean's +loving wing, for thoroughly-nice Jean, without being in the least +priggish, was considered a safe and desirable companion. It doesn't +_always_ follow that children like the persons it is considered best for +them to like, but in Jean's case both parents and daughters agreed that +Jean was not only safe but delightful--the charming daughter of a +charming mother. + +Marjory, a year younger and nearly a head shorter than Jean, often +seemed older. Outwardly, she was a sedate small person, slight, +blue-eyed, graceful, and very fair. Her manners at times were very +pleasing, her self-possession almost remarkable; this was the result of +careful training by a conscientious, but at that time sadly +unappreciated, maiden aunt who was Marjory's sole guardian. There were +moments, however, when Marjory, who was less sedate than she appeared, +forgot to be polite. At such times, her ways were apt to be less +pleasing than those of either Bettie or Jean, because her wit was +nimbler, her tongue sharper, and her heart a trifle less tender. Her +mother had died when Marjory was only a few weeks old, her father had +lived only two years longer, and the rather solitary little girl had +missed much of the warm family affection that had fallen to the lot of +her three more fortunate friends. Those who knew her well found much in +her to like, but among her schoolmates there were girls who said that +Marjory was "stuck-up," affected, and "too smart." + +Mabel, the fourth in this little quartet of friends, was eleven, large +for her age and young for her years, always an unfortunate combination +of circumstances. She was intensely human and therefore liable to err, +and, it may be said, she very seldom missed an opportunity. In school +she read with a tremendous amount of expression but mispronounced half +the words; when questions were asked, she waved her hand triumphantly +aloft and gave anything but the right answer; she had a surprising stock +of energy, but most of it was misdirected. Warm-hearted, generous, +heedless, hot-tempered, and always blundering, she was something of a +trial at home and abroad; yet no one could help loving her, for +everybody realized that she would grow up some day into a really fine +woman, and that all that was needed in the meantime was considerable +patience. Rearing Mabel was not unlike the task of bringing up a St. +Bernard puppy. Mrs. Bennett was decidedly glad to note the growing +friendship among the four girls, for she hoped that Mabel would in time +grow dignified and sweet like Jean, thoughtful and tender like Bettie, +graceful and prettily mannered like Marjory. But this happy result had +yet to be achieved. + +The little one-story cottage, too much out of repair to be rented, stood +empty and neglected. To most persons it was an unattractive spot if not +actually an eyesore. The steps sagged in a dispirited way, some of the +windows were broken, and the fence, in sympathy perhaps with the house, +had shed its pickets and leaned inward with a discouraged, hopeless air. + +But Bettie looked at the little cottage longingly--she could gaze right +down upon it from the back bedroom window--a great many times a day. It +didn't seem a bit too big for a playhouse. Indeed, it seemed a great +pity that such a delightful little building should go unoccupied when +Bettie and her homeless dolls were simply suffering for just such a +shelter. + +"Wouldn't it be nice," said Bettie, one day in the early spring, "if we +four girls could have Dandelion Cottage for our very own?" + +"Wouldn't it be sweet," mimicked Marjory, "if we could have the moon and +about twenty stars to play jacks with?" + +"The cottage isn't _quite_ so far away," said Jean. "It _would_ be just +lovely to have it, for we never have a place to play in comfortably." + +"We're generally disturbing grown-ups, I notice," said Marjory, +comically imitating her Aunty Jane's severest manner. "A little less +noise, if you please. Is it really necessary to laugh so much and so +often?" + +"Even Mother gets tired of us sometimes," confided Jean. "There are days +when no one seems to want all of us at once." + +"I know it," said Bettie, pathetically, "but it's worse for me than it +is for the rest of you. You have your rooms and nobody to meddle with +your things. I no sooner get my dolls nicely settled in one corner than +I have to move them into another, because the babies poke their eyes +out. It's dreadful, too, to have to live with so many boys. I fixed up +the cunningest playhouse under the clothes-reel last week, but the very +minute it was finished Rob came home with a horrid porcupine and I had +to move out in a hurry." + +"Perhaps," suggested Marjory, "we could rent the cottage." + +"Who'd pay the rent?" demanded Mabel. "My allowance is five cents a week +and I have to pay a fine of one cent every time I'm late to meals." + +"How much do you have left?" asked Jeanie, laughing. + +"Not a cent. I was seven cents in debt at the end of last week." + +"I get two cents a hundred for digging dandelions," said Marjory, "but +it takes just forever to dig them, and ugh! I just hate it." + +"I never have any money at all," sighed Bettie. "You see there are so +many of us." + +"Let's go peek in at the windows," suggested Mabel, springing up from +the grass. "That much won't cost us anything at any rate." + +Away scampered the four girls, taking a short cut through Bettie's back +yard. + +The cottage had been vacant for more than a year and had not improved in +appearance. Rampant vines clambered over the windows and nowhere else in +town were there such luxurious weeds as grew in the cottage yard. +Nowhere else were there such mammoth dandelions or such prickly burrs. +The girls waded fearlessly through them, parted the vines, and, pressing +their noses against the glass, peered into the cottage parlor. + +"What a nice, square little room!" said Marjory. + +"I don't think the paper is very pretty," said Mabel. + +"We could cover most of the spots with pictures," suggested practical +Marjory. + +"It looks to me sort of spidery," said Mabel, who was always somewhat +pessimistic. "Probably there's rats, too." + +"I know how to stop up rat holes," said Bettie, who had not lived with +seven brothers without acquiring a number of useful accomplishments. +"I'm not afraid of spiders--that is, not so _very_ much." + +"What are you doing here?" demanded a gruff voice so suddenly that +everybody jumped. + +The startled girls wheeled about. There stood Bettie's most devoted +friend, the senior warden. + +"Oh!" cried Bettie, "it's only Mr. Black." + +"Were you looking for something?" asked Mr. Black. + +"Yes," said Bettie. "We're looking for a house. We'd like to rent this +one, only we haven't a scrap of money." + +"And what in the name of common sense would you do with it?" + +"We want it for our dolls," said Bettie, turning a pair of big pleading +brown eyes upon Mr. Black. "You see, we haven't any place to play. +Marjory's Aunty Jane won't let her cut papers in the house, so she can't +have any paper dolls, and I can't play any place because I have so many +brothers. They tomahawk all my dolls when they play Indian, shoot them +with beans when they play soldiers, and drown them all when they play +shipwreck. Don't you think we might be allowed to use the cottage if +we'd promise to be very careful and not do any damage?" + +"We'd clean it up," offered Marjory, as an inducement. + +"We'd mend the rat holes," offered Jean, looking hopefully at Bettie. + +"Would you dig the weeds?" demanded Mr. Black. + +There was a deep silence. The girls looked at the sea of dandelions and +then at one another. + +"Yes," said Marjory, finally breaking the silence. "We'd even dig the +weeds." + +"Yes," echoed the others. "We'd even dig the weeds--and there's just +millions of 'em." + +"Good!" said Mr. Black. "Now, we'll all sit down on the steps and I'll +tell you what we'll do. It happens that the Village Improvement Society +has just notified the vestry that the weeds on this lot must be removed +before they go to seed--the neighbors have complained about them. It +would cost the parish several dollars to hire a man to do the work, and +we're short of funds just now. Now, if you four girls will pull up every +weed in this place before the end of next week you shall have the use of +the cottage for all the rest of the summer in return for your services. +How does that strike you?" + +"Oh!" cried Bettie, throwing her arms about Mr. Black's neck. "Do let +me hug you. Oh, I'm glad--glad!" + +"There, there!" cried stout Mr. Black, shaking Bettie off and dropping +her where the dandelions grew thickest. "I didn't say I was to be +strangled as part of the bargain. You'd better save your muscle for the +dandelions. Remember, you've got to pay your rent in advance. I shan't +hand over the key until the last weed is dug." + +"We'll begin this minute!" cried enthusiastic Mabel. "I'm going straight +home for a knife." + + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +Paying the Rent + + +"This is a whopping big yard," said Mabel, looking disconsolately at two +dandelions and one burdock in the bottom of a bushel basket. "There +doesn't seem to be any place to begin." + +"I'm going to weed out a place big enough to sit in," announced Bettie. +"Then I'll make it bigger and bigger all around me in every direction +until it joins the clearing next to mine." + +"I'm a soldier," said Marjory, brandishing a trowel, "vanquishing my +enemies. You know in books the hero always battles single-handed with +about a million foes and always kills them all and everybody lives happy +ever after--zip! There goes one!" + +"I'm a pioneer," said Jean, slashing away at a huge, tough burdock. "I'm +chopping down the forest primeval to make a potato patch. The dandelions +are skulking Indians, and I'm capturing them to put in my bushel-basket +prison." + +"I'm just digging weeds," said prosaic Mabel, "and I don't like it." + +"Neither does anybody else," said Marjory, "but I guess having the +cottage will be worth it. Just pretend it's something else and then you +won't mind it so much. Play you're digging for diamonds." + +"I can't," returned Mabel, hopelessly. "I haven't any imagination. This +is just plain dirt and I can't make myself believe it's anything else." + +By supper time the cottage yard presented a decidedly disreputable +appearance. Before the weeds had been disturbed they stood upright, +presenting an even surface of green with a light crest of dandelion +gold. But now it was different. Although the number of weeds was not +greatly decreased, the yard looked as if, indeed, a battle had been +fought there. Mr. Black, passing by on his way to town, began to wonder +if he had been quite wise in turning it over to the girls. + +At four o'clock the following morning, sleepy Bettie tumbled out of bed +and into her clothes. Then she slipped quietly downstairs, out of doors, +through the convenient hole in the back fence, and into the cottage +yard. She had been digging for more than an hour when Jean, rubbing a +pair of sleepy eyes, put in her appearance. + +"Oh!" cried Jean, disappointedly. "I meant to have a huge bare field to +show you when you came, and here you are ahead of me. What a lot you've +done!" + +"Yes," assented Bettie, happily. "There's room for me and my basket, +too, in my patch. I'll have to go home after a while to help dress the +children." + +Young though she was--she was only twelve--Bettie was a most helpful +young person. It is hard to imagine what Mrs. Tucker would have done +without her cheerful little daughter. Bettie always spoke of the boys as +"the children," and she helped her mother darn their stockings, sew on +their buttons, and sort out their collars. The care of the family baby, +too, fell to her lot. + +The boys were good boys, but they were boys. They were willing to do +errands or pile wood or carry out ashes, but none of them ever thought +of doing one of these things without first being told--sometimes they +had to be told a great many times. It was different with Bettie. If Tom +ate crackers on the front porch, it was Bettie who ran for the broom to +brush up the crumbs. If the second-baby-but-one needed his face +washed--and it seemed to Bettie that there never was a time when he +_didn't_ need it washed--it was Bettie who attended to it. If the cat +looked hungry, it was Bettie who gave her a saucer of milk. Dick's +rabbits and Rob's porcupine would have starved if Bettie had not fed +them, and Donald's dog knew that if no one else remembered his bone kind +Bettie would bear it in mind. + +The boys' legs were round and sturdy, but Bettie's were very much like +pipe stems. + +"I don't have time to get fat," Bettie would say. "But you don't need to +worry about me. I think I'm the healthiest person in the house. At least +I'm the only one that hasn't had to have breakfast in bed this week." + +Neither Marjory nor Mabel appeared during the morning to dig their share +of the weeds, but when school was out that afternoon they were all on +hand with their baskets. + +"I had to stay," said Mabel, who was the last to arrive. "I missed two +words in spelling." + +"What were they?" asked Marjory. + +"'Parachute' and 'dandelion.' I hate dandelions, anyway. I don't know +what parachutes are, but if they're any sort of weeds I hate them, too." + +The girls laughed. Mabel always looked on the gloomiest side of things +and always grumbled. She seemed to thrive on it, however, for she was +built very much like a barrel and her cheeks were like a pair of round +red apples. She was always honest, if a little too frank in expressing +her opinions, and the girls liked her in spite of her blunt ways. She +was the youngest of the quartet, being only eleven. + +"There doesn't seem to be much grass left after the weeds are out," said +Bettie, surveying the bare, sandy patch she had made. + +"This has _always_ been a weedy old place," replied Jean. "I think the +whole neighborhood will feel obliged to us if we ever get the lot +cleared. Perhaps our landlord will plant grass seed. It would be fine to +have a lawn." + +"Perhaps," said Marjory, "he'll let us have some flower beds. Wouldn't +it be lovely to have nasturtiums running right up the sides of the +house?" + +"They'd be lovely among the vines," agreed Bettie. "I've some poppy +seeds that we might plant in a long narrow bed by the fence." + +"There are hundreds of little pansy plants coming up all over our yard," +said Jean. "We might make a little round bed of them right here where +I'm sitting. What are you going to plant in _your_ bed, Mabel?" + +"Butter-beans," said that practical young person, promptly. + +"Well," said Bettie, with a long sigh, "we'll have to work faster than +this or summer will be over before we have a chance to plant _anything_. +This is the biggest _little_ yard I ever did see." + +For a time there was silence. Marjory, the soldier, fell upon her foes +with renewed vigor, and soon had an entire regiment in durance vile. +Jean, the pioneer, fell upon the forest with so much energy that its +speedy extermination was threatened. Mabel seized upon the biggest and +toughest burdock she could find and pulled with both hands and all her +might, until, with a sharp crack, the root suddenly parted and Mabel, +very much to her own surprise, turned a back somersault and landed in +Bettie's basket. + +"Hi there!" cried a voice from the road. "How are you youngsters getting +along?" + +The girls jumped to their feet--all but Mabel, who was still wedged +tightly in Bettie's basket. There was Mr. Black, with his elbows on the +fence, and with him was the president of the Village Improvement +Society; both were smiling broadly. + +"Sick of your bargain?" asked Mr. Black. + +The four girls shook their heads emphatically. + +"Hard work?" + +Four heads bobbed up and down. + +"Well," said Mr. Black, encouragingly, "you've made considerable headway +today." + +"Where are you putting the weeds?" asked the president of the Village +Improvement Society. + +"On the back porch in a piano box," said Bettie. "We had a big pile of +them last night, but they shrank like everything before morning. If they +do that _every_ time, it won't be necessary for Mabel to jump on them to +press them down." + +"Let me know when you have a wagon load," said Mr. Black. "I'll have +them hauled away for you." + +For the rest of the week the girls worked early and late. They began +almost at daylight, and the mosquitoes found them still digging at dusk. + +By Thursday night, only scattered patches of weeds remained. The little +diggers could hardly tear themselves away when they could no longer find +the weeds because of the gathering darkness. Now that the task was so +nearly completed it seemed such a waste of time to eat and sleep. + +Bettie was up earlier than ever the next morning, and with one of the +boys' spades had loosened the soil around some of the very worst patches +before any of the other girls appeared. + +By five o'clock that night the last weed was dug. Conscientious Bettie +went around the yard a dozen times, but however hard she might search, +not a single remaining weed could she discover. + +"Good work," said Jean, balancing her empty basket on her head. + +"It seems too good to be true," said Bettie, "but think of it, +girls--the rent is paid! It's 'most time for Mr. Black to go by. Let's +watch for him from the doorstep--our own precious doorstep." + +"It needs scrubbing," said Mabel. "Besides, it isn't ours, yet. Perhaps +Mr. Black has changed his mind. Some grown-up folks have awfully +changeable minds." + +"Oh!" gasped Marjory. "Wouldn't it be perfectly dreadful if he had!" + +It seemed to the little girls, torn between doubt and expectation, that +Mr. Black was strangely indifferent to the calls of hunger that night. +Was he never going home to dinner? Was he _never_ coming? + +"Perhaps," suggested Jean, "he has gone out of town." + +"Or forgotten us," said Marjory. + +"Or died," said Mabel, dolefully. + +"No--no," cried Bettie. "There he is; he's coming around the corner +now--I can see him. Let's run to meet him." + +The girls scampered down the street. Bettie seized one hand, Mabel the +other, Marjory and Jean danced along ahead of him, and everybody talked +at once. Thus escorted, Mr. Black approached the cottage lot. + +"Well, I declare," said Mr. Black. "You haven't left so much as a blade +of grass. Do you think you could sow some grass seed if I have the +ground made ready for it?" + +The girls thought they could. Bettie timidly suggested nasturtiums. + +"Flower beds too? Why, of course," said Mr. Black. "Vegetables as well +if you like. You can have a regular farm and grow fairy beanstalks and +Cinderella pumpkins if you want to. And now, since the rent seems to be +paid, I suppose there is nothing left for me to do but to hand over the +key. Here it is, Mistress Bettie, and I'm sure I couldn't have a nicer +lot of tenants." + + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +The Tenants Take Possession + + +"Our own house--think of it!" cried Bettie, turning the key. "Push, +somebody; the door sticks. There! It's open." + +"Ugh!" said Mabel, drawing back hastily. "It's awfully dark and stuffy +in there. I guess I won't go in just yet--it smells so dead-ratty." + +"It's been shut up so long," explained Jean. "Wait. I'll pull some of +the vines back from this window. There! Can you see better?" + +"Lots," said Bettie. "This is the parlor, girls--but, oh, what raggedy +paper. We'll need lots of pictures to cover all the holes and spots." + +"We'd better clean it all first," advised sensible Jean. "The windows +are covered with dust and the floor is just black." + +"This," said Marjory, opening a door, "must be the dining-room. Oh! What +a cunning little corner cupboard--just the place for our dishes." + +"You mean it would be if we had any," said Mabel. "Mine are all +smashed." + +"Pooh!" said Jean. "We don't mean doll things--we want real, grown-up +ones. Why, what a cunning little bedroom!" + +"There's one off the parlor, too," said Marjory, "and it's even +cunninger than this." + +"My! what a horrid place!" exclaimed Mabel, poking an inquisitive nose +into another unexplored room, and as hastily withdrawing that offended +feature. "Mercy, I'm all over spider webs." + +"That's the kitchen," explained Bettie. "Most of the plaster has fallen +down and it's rained in a good deal. But here's a good stovepipe hole, +and such a cunning cupboard built into the wall. What have _you_ found, +Jean?" + +"Just a pantry," said Jean, holding up a pair of black hands, "and lots +of dust. There isn't a clean spot in the house." + +"So much the better," said Bettie, whose clouds always had a silver +lining. "We'll have just that much more fun cleaning up. I'll tell you +what let's do--and we've all day tomorrow to do it in. We'll just +regularly clean house--I've _always_ wanted to clean house." + +"Me too," cried Mabel, enthusiastically. "We'll bring just oceans of +water--" + +"There's water here," interrupted Jean, turning a faucet. "Water and a +pretty good sink. The water runs out all right." + +"That's good," said Bettie. "We must each bring a broom, and soap--" + +"And rags," suggested Jean. + +"And papers for the shelves," added Marjory. + +"And wear our oldest clothes," said Bettie. + +"Oo-ow, wow!" squealed Mabel. + +"What's the matter?" asked the girls, rushing into the pantry. + +"Spiders and mice," said Mabel. "I just poked my head into the cupboard +and a mouse jumped out. I'm all spider-webby again, too." + +"Well, there won't be any spiders by tomorrow night," said Bettie, +consolingly, "or any mice either, if somebody will bring a cat. Now +let's go home to supper--I'm hungry as a bear." + +"Everybody remember to wear her oldest clothes," admonished Jean, "and +to bring a broom." + +"I'll tie the key to a string and wear it around my neck night and day," +said Bettie, locking the door carefully when the girls were outside. +"Aren't we going to have a perfectly glorious summer?" + +When Mr. Black, on the way to his office the next morning, met his four +little friends, he did not recognize them. Jean, who was fourteen, and +tall for her age, wore one of her mother's calico wrappers tied in at +the waist by the strings of the cook's biggest apron. Marjory, in the +much shrunken gown of a previous summer, had her golden curls tucked +away under the housemaid's sweeping cap. Bettie appeared in her very +oldest skirt surmounted by an exceedingly ragged jacket and cap +discarded by one of her brothers; while Mabel, with her usual +enthusiasm, looked like a veritable rag-bag. When Bettie had unlocked +the door--she had slept all night with the key in her hand to make +certain that it would not escape--the girls filed in. + +"I know how to handle a broom as well as anybody," said Mabel, giving a +mighty sweep and raising such a cloud of dust that the four +housecleaners were obliged to flee out of doors to keep from +strangling. + +"Phew!" said Jean, when she had stopped coughing. "I guess we'll have to +take it out with a shovel. The dust must be an inch thick." + +"Wait," cried Marjory, darting off, "I'll get Aunty's sprinkling can; +then the stuff won't fly so." + +After that the sweeping certainly went better. Then came the dusting. + +"It really looks very well," said Bettie, surveying the result with her +head on one side and an air of housewifely wisdom that would have been +more impressive if her nose hadn't been perfectly black with soot. "It +certainly does look better, but I'm afraid you girls have most of the +dust on your faces. I don't see how you managed to do it. Just look at +Mabel." + +"Just look at yourself!" retorted Mabel, indignantly. "You've got the +dirtiest face I _ever_ saw." + +"Never mind," said Jean, gently. "I guess we're all about alike. I've +wiped all the dust off the walls of this parlor. Now I'm going to wash +the windows and the woodwork, and after that I'm going to scrub the +floor." + +"Do you know how to scrub?" asked Marjory. + +"No, but I guess I can learn. There! Doesn't that pane look as if a +really-truly housemaid had washed it?" + +"Oh, Mabel! Do look out!" cried Marjory. + +But the warning came too late. Mabel stepped on the slippery bar of +soap and sat down hard in a pan of water, splashing it in every +direction. For a moment Mabel looked decidedly cross, but when she got +up and looked at the tin basin, she began to laugh. + +"That's a funny way to empty a basin, isn't it?" she said. "There isn't +a drop of water left in it." + +"Well, don't try it again," said Jean. "That's Mrs. Tucker's basin and +you've smashed it flat. You should learn to sit down less suddenly." + +"And," said Marjory, "to be more careful in your choice of seats--we'll +have to take up a collection and buy Mrs. Tucker a new basin, or she'll +be afraid to lend us anything more." + +The girls ran home at noon for a hasty luncheon. Rested and refreshed, +they all returned promptly to their housecleaning. + +Nobody wanted to brush out the kitchen cupboard. It was not only dusty, +but full of spider webs, and worst of all, the spiders themselves seemed +very much at home. The girls left the back door open, hoping that the +spiders would run out of their own accord. Apparently, however, the +spiders felt no need of fresh air. Bettie, without a word to anyone, ran +home, returning a moment later with her brother Bob's old tame crow +blinking solemnly from her shoulder. She placed the great, black bird on +the cupboard shelf and in a very few moments every spider had vanished +down his greedy throat. + +"He just loves them," said Bettie. + +"How funny!" said Mabel. "Who ever heard of getting a crow to help clean +house? I wish he could scrub floors as well as he clears out cupboards." + +The scrubbing, indeed, looked anything but an inviting task. Jean +succeeded fairly well with the parlor floor, though she declared when +that was finished that her wrists were so tired that she couldn't hold +the scrubbing-brush another moment. Marjory and Bettie together scrubbed +the floor of the tiny dining-room. Mabel made a brilliant success of one +of the little bedrooms, but only, the other girls said, by accidentally +tipping over a pail of clean water upon it, thereby rinsing off a thick +layer of soap. Then Jean, having rested for a little while, finished the +remaining bedroom and Marjory scoured the pantry shelves. + +The kitchen floor was rough and very dirty. Nobody wanted the task of +scrubbing it. The tired girls leaned against the wall and looked at the +floor and then at one another. + +"Let's leave it until Monday," said Mabel, who looked very much as if +the others had scrubbed the floor with her. "I've had all the +housecleaning I want for _one_ day." + +"Oh, no," pleaded Bettie. "Everything else is done. Just think how +lovely it would be to go home tonight with all the disagreeable part +finished! We could begin to move in Monday if we only had the house all +clean." + +"Couldn't we cover the dirtiest places with pieces of old carpet?" +demanded Mabel. + +"Oh, what dreadful housekeeping that would be!" said Marjory. + +"Yes," said Jean, "we must have every bit of it nice. Perhaps if we sit +on the doorstep and rest for a few moments we'll feel more like +scrubbing." + +The tired girls sat in a row on the edge of the low porch. They were all +rather glad that the next day would be Sunday, for between the +dandelions and the dust they had had a very busy week. + +"Why!" said Bettie, suddenly brightening. "We're going to have a +visitor, I do believe." + +"Hi there!" said Mr. Black, turning in at the gate. "I smell soap. +Housecleaning all done?" + +"All," said Bettie, wearily, "except the kitchen floor, and, oh! we're +_so_ tired. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it until Monday, but we just +hate to." + +"Too tired to eat peanuts?" asked Mr. Black, handing Bettie a huge paper +bag. "Stay right here on the doorstep, all of you, and eat every one of +these nuts. I'll look around and see what you've been doing--I'm sure +there _can't_ be much dirt left inside when there's so much on your +faces." + +It seemed a pity that Mr. Black, who liked little girls so well, should +have no children of his own. A great many years before Bettie's people +had moved to Lakeville, he had had one sister; and at another almost +equally remote period he had possessed one little daughter, a slender, +narrow-chested little maid, with great, pathetic brown eyes, so like +Bettie's that Mr. Black was startled when Dr. Tucker's little daughter +had first smiled at him from the Tucker doorway, for the senior warden's +little girl had lived to be only six years old. This, of course, was the +secret of Mr. Black's affection for Bettie. + +Mr. Black, who was a moderately stout, gray-haired man of fifty-five, +with kind, dark eyes and a strong, rugged, smooth-shaven countenance, +had a great deal of money, a beautiful home perched on the brow of a +green hill overlooking the lake, and a silk hat. This last made a great +impression on the children, for silk hats were seldom worn in Lakeville. +Mr. Black looked very nice indeed in his, when he wore it to church +Sunday morning, but Bettie felt more at home with him when he sat +bareheaded on the rectory porch, with his short, crisp, thick gray hair +tossed by the south wind. + +Besides these possessions, Mr. Black owned a garden on the sheltered +hillside where wonderful roses grew as they would grow nowhere else in +Lakeville. This was fortunate because Mr. Black loved roses, and spent +much time poking about among them with trowel and pruning shears. Then, +there were shelves upon shelves of books in the big, dingy library, +which was the one room that the owner of the large house really lived +in. A public-spirited man, Mr. Black had a wide circle of acquaintances +and a few warm friends; but with all his possessions, and in spite of a +jovial, cheerful manner in company, his dark, rather stern face, as +Bettie had very quickly discovered, was sad when he sat alone in his pew +in church. He had really nothing in the world to love but his books and +his roses. It was evident, to anyone who had time to think about it, +that kind Mr. Black, whose wife had died so many years before that only +the oldest townspeople could remember that he had had a wife, was, in +spite of his comfortable circumstances, a very lonely man, and that, as +he grew older, he felt his loneliness more keenly. There were others +besides Bettie who realized this, but it was not an easy matter to offer +sympathy to Mr. Black--there was a dignity about him that repelled +anything that looked like pity. Bettie was the one person who succeeded, +without giving offense, in doing this difficult thing, but Bettie did it +unconsciously, without in the least knowing that she _had_ accomplished +it, and this, of course, was another reason for the strong friendship +between Mr. Black and her. + +The girls found the peanuts decidedly refreshing; their unusual exercise +had given them astonishing appetites. + +"I wonder," said Bettie, some ten minutes later, when the paper bag was +almost empty, "what Mr. Black is doing in there." + +"I think, from the swishing, swushing sounds I hear," said Jean, "that +Mr. Black must be scrubbing the kitchen." + +"What!" gasped the girls. + +"Come and see," said Jean, stealing in on tiptoe. + +There, sure enough, was stout Mr. Black dipping a broom every now and +then into a pail of soapy water and vigorously sweeping the floor with +it. + +"I _think_," whispered Mabel, ruefully, "that that's Mother's best +broom." + +"Never mind," consoled Jean. "You can take mine home if you think she'll +care. It's really mine because I bought it when we had that broom drill +in the sixth grade. It's been hanging on my wall ever since." + +"Hi there!" exclaimed Mr. Black, who, looking up suddenly, had +discovered the smiling girls in the doorway. "You didn't know I could +scrub, did you?" + +Mr. Black, quite regardless of his spotless cuffs and his polished +shoes, drew a bucket of fresh water and dashed it over the floor, +sweeping the flood out of doors and down the back steps. + +"There," said Mr. Black, standing the broom in the corner, "if there's a +cleaner house in town than this, I don't know where you'll find it. In +return for scrubbing this kitchen, of course, I shall expect you to +invite me to dinner when you get to housekeeping." + +"We will! We do!" shouted the girls. "And we'll cook every single thing +ourselves." + +"I don't know that I'll insist on _that_," returned Mr. Black, +teasingly, "but I shan't let you forget about the dinner." + + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +Furnishing the Cottage + + +After tea that Saturday night four tired but spotlessly clean little +girls sat on Jean's doorstep, making plans for the coming week. + +"What are you going to do for a stove?" asked Mrs. Mapes. + +"I have a toy one," replied Mabel, "but it has only one leg and it +always smokes. Besides, I can't find it." + +"I have a little box stove that the boys used to have in their camp," +said Mrs. Mapes. "It has three good legs and it doesn't smoke at all. If +you want it, and if you'll promise to be very careful about your fire, +I'll have one of the boys set it up for you." + +"That would be lovely," said Bettie, gratefully. "Mamma has given me +four saucers and a syrup jug, and I have a few pieces left of quite a +large-sized doll's tea set." + +"We have an old rug," said Marjory, "that I'm almost sure I can have for +the parlor floor, and I have two small rocking chairs of my own." + +"There's a lot of old things in our garret," said Mabel; "three-legged +tables, and chairs with the seats worn out. I know Mother'll let us take +them." + +"Well," said Bettie, "take everything you have to the cottage Monday +afternoon after school. Bring all the pictures you can to cover the +walls, and--" + +"Hark!" said Mrs. Mapes. "I think somebody is calling Bettie." + +"Oh, my!" said Bettie, springing to her feet. "This is bath night and I +promised to bathe the twins. I must go this minute." + +"I think Bettie is sweet," said Jean. "Mr. Black would never have given +us the cottage if he hadn't been so fond of Bettie; but she doesn't put +on any airs at all. She makes us feel as if it belonged to all of us." + +"Bettie _is_ a sweet little girl," said Mrs. Mapes, "but she's far too +energetic for such a little body. You mustn't let her do _all_ the +work." + +"Oh, we don't!" exclaimed Mabel, grandly. "Why, what are you laughing +at, Marjory?" + +"Oh, nothing," said Marjory. "I just happened to remember how you +scrubbed that bedroom floor." + +From four to six on Monday afternoon, the little housekeepers, heavily +burdened each time with their goods and chattels, made many small +journeys between their homes and Dandelion Cottage. The parlor was soon +piled high with furniture that was all more or less battered. + +"Dear me," said Jean, pausing at the door with an armful of carpet. "How +am I ever to get in? Hadn't we better straighten out what we have before +we bring anything more?" + +"Yes," said Bettie. "I wouldn't be surprised if we had almost enough for +two houses. I'm sure I've seen six clocks." + +"That's only one for each room," said Mabel. "Besides, none of the four +that _I_ brought will go." + +"Neither will my two," said Marjory, giggling. + +"We might call this 'The House of the Tickless Clocks,'" suggested Jean. + +"Or of the grindless coffee-mill," giggled Marjory. + +"Or of the talkless telephone," added Mabel. "I brought over an old +telephone box so we could pretend we had a telephone." + +There were still several things lacking when the children had found +places for all their crippled belongings. They had no couch for the sofa +pillows Mabel had brought, but Bettie converted two wooden boxes and a +long board into an admirable cozy corner. She even upholstered this +sadly misnamed piece of furniture with the burlaps and excelsior that +had been packed about her father's new desk, but it still needed a +cover. The windows lacked curtains, the girls had only one fork, and +their cupboard was so distressingly empty that it rivaled Mother +Hubbard's. + +They had planned to eat and even sleep at the cottage during vacation, +which was still some weeks distant; but, as they had no beds and no +provisions, and as their parents said quite emphatically that they could +_not_ stay away from home at night, part of this plan had to be given +up. + +Most of the grown-ups, however, were greatly pleased with the cottage +plan. Marjory's Aunty Jane, who was nervous and disliked having children +running in and out of her spotlessly neat house, was glad to have +Marjory happy with her little friends, provided they were all perfectly +safe--and out of earshot. Overworked Mrs. Tucker found it a great relief +to have careful Bettie take two or three of the smallest children +entirely off her hands for several hours each day. When these infants, +divided as equally as possible among the four girls, were not needed +indoors to serve as playthings, they rolled about contentedly inside the +cottage fence. Mabel's mother did not hesitate to say that she, for one, +was thankful enough that Mr. Black had given the girls a place to play +in. With Mabel engaged elsewhere, it was possible, Mrs. Bennett said, to +keep her own house quite respectably neat. Mrs. Mapes, indeed, missed +quiet, orderly Jean; but she would not mention it for fear of spoiling +her tender-hearted little daughter's pleasure, and it did not occur to +modest Jean that she was of sufficient consequence to be missed by her +mother or anyone else. + +The neighbors, finding that the long-deserted cottage was again +occupied, began to be curious about the occupants. One day Mrs. +Bartholomew Crane, who lived almost directly opposite the cottage, found +herself so devoured by kindly curiosity that she could stand it no +longer. Intending to be neighborly, for Mrs. Crane was always neighborly +in the best sense of the word, she put on her one good dress and started +across the street to call on the newcomers. + +It was really a great undertaking for Mrs. Crane to pay visits, for she +was a stout, slow-moving person, and, owing to the antiquity and +consequent tenderness of her best garments, it was an even greater +undertaking for the good woman to make a visiting costume. Her best +black silk, for instance, had to be neatly mended with court-plaster +when all other remedies had failed, and her old, thread-lace collars had +been darned until their original floral patterns had given place to a +mosaic of spider webs. Mrs. Crane's motives, however, were far better +than her clothes. Years before, when she was newly married, she had +lived for months a stranger in a strange town, where it was no unusual +occurrence to live for years in ignorance of one's next-door neighbor's +very name. During those unhappy months poor Mrs. Crane, sociable by +nature yet sadly afflicted with shyness, had suffered keenly from +loneliness and homesickness. She had vowed then that no other stranger +should suffer as she had suffered, if it were in her power to prevent +it; so, in spite of increasing difficulties, kind Mrs. Crane +conscientiously called on each newcomer. In many cases, hers was the +first welcome to be extended to persons settling in Lakeville, and +although these visits were prompted by single-minded generosity, it was +natural that she should, at the same time, make many friends. These, +however, were seldom lasting ones, for many persons, whose business kept +them in Lakeville for perhaps only a few months, afterwards moved away +and drifted quietly out of Mrs. Crane's life. + +That afternoon the four girls realized for the first time that Dandelion +Cottage was provided with a doorbell. In response to its lively +jingling, Mabel dropped the potato she was peeling with neatness but +hardly with dispatch, and hurried to the door. + +"Is your moth--Is the lady of the house at home?" asked Mrs. Crane. + +"Yes'm, all of us are--there's four," stammered Mabel, who wasn't quite +sure of her ability to entertain a grown-up caller. "Please walk in. Oh! +don't sit down in that one, please! There's only two legs on that chair, +and it always goes down flat." + +"Dear me," said Mrs. Crane, moving toward the cozy corner, "I shouldn't +have suspected it." + +"Oh, you can't sit _there_, either," exclaimed Mabel. "You see, that's +the Tucker baby taking his nap." + +"My land!" said stout Mrs. Crane. "I thought it was one of those +new-fashioned roll pillows." + +"_This_ chair," said Mabel, dragging one in from the dining room, "is +the safest one we have in the house, but you must be careful to sit +right down square in the middle of it because it slides out from under +you if you sit too hard on the front edge. If you'll excuse me just a +minute I'll go call the others--they're making a vegetable garden in the +back yard." + +"Well, I declare!" said Mrs. Crane, when she had recognized the four +young housekeepers and had heard all about the housekeeping. "It seems +as if I ought to be able to find something in the way of furniture for +you. I have a single iron bedstead I'm willing to lend you, and maybe I +can find you some other things." + +"Thank you very much," said Bettie, politely. + +"I hope," said Mrs. Crane, pleasantly, "that you'll be very neighborly +and come over to see me whenever you feel like it, for I'm always +alone." + +"Thank you," said Jean, speaking for the household. "We'd just love to." + +"Haven't you _any_ children?" asked Bettie, sympathetically. + +"Not one," replied Mrs. Crane. "I've never had any but I've always loved +children." + +"But I'm _sure_ you have a lot of grandchildren," said Mabel, +consolingly. "You look so nice and grandmothery." + +"No," said Mrs. Crane, not appearing so sorrowful as Mabel had supposed +an utterly grandchildless person _would_ look, "I've never possessed any +grandchildren either." + +"But," queried Mabel, who was sometimes almost too inquisitive, "haven't +you any relatives, husbands, or _anybody_, in all the world?" + +Many months afterward the girls were suddenly reminded of Mrs. Crane's +odd, contradictory reply: + +"No--Yes--that is, no. None to speak of, I mean. Do you girls sleep +here, too?" + +"No" said Jean. "We want to, awfully, but our mothers won't let us. You +see, we sleep so soundly that they're all afraid we might get the house +afire, burn up, and never know a thing about it." + +"They're quite right," said Mrs. Crane. "I suppose they like to have you +at home once in a while." + +"Oh, they do have us," replied Bettie. "We eat and sleep at home and +they have us all day Sundays. When they want any of us other times, all +they have to do is to open a back window and call--Dear me, Mrs. Crane, +I'll have to ask you to excuse me this very minute--There's somebody +calling me now." + +Other visitors, including the girls' parents, called at the cottage and +seemed to enjoy it very much indeed. The visitors were always greatly +interested and everybody wanted to help. One brought a little table that +really stood up very well if kept against the wall, another found +curtains for all the windows--a little ragged, to be sure, but still +curtains. Grandma Pike, who had a wonderful garden, was so delighted +with everything that she gave the girls a crimson petunia growing in a +red tomato can, and a great many neat little homemade packets of flower +seeds. Rob said they might have even his porcupine if they could get it +out from under the rectory porch. + +By the end of the week the cottage presented quite a lived-in +appearance. Bright pictures covered the dingy paper, and, thanks to +numerous donations, the rooms looked very well furnished. No one would +have suspected that the chairs were untrustworthy, the tables crippled, +and the clocks devoid of works. The cottage seemed cozy and pleasant, +and the girls kept it in apple-pie order. + +Out of doors, the grass was beginning to show and little green specks +dotted the flower beds. Other green specks in crooked rows staggered +across the vegetable garden. + +The four mothers, satisfied that their little daughters were safe in +Dandelion Cottage, left them in undisturbed possession. + +"I declare," said Mrs. Mapes one day, "the only time I see Jean, +nowadays, is when she's asleep. All the rest of the time she's in school +or at the cottage." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bennett, "when I miss my scissors or any of my dishes +or anything else, I always have to go to the cottage and get out a +search warrant. Mabel has carried off a wagonload of things, but I don't +know _when_ our own house has been so peaceful." + + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +Poverty in the Cottage + + +"There's no use talking," said Jean, one day, as the girls sat at their +dining-room table eating very smoky toast and drinking the weakest of +cocoa, "we'll have to get some provisions of our own before long if +we're going to invite Mr. Black to dinner as we promised. The cupboard's +perfectly empty and Bridget says I can't take another scrap of bread or +one more potato out of the house this week." + +"Aunty Jane says there'll be trouble," said Marjory, "if I don't keep +out of her ice box, so I guess I can't bring any more milk. When she +says there'll be trouble, there usually is, if I'm not pretty careful. +But dear me, it _is_ such fun to cook our own meals on that dear little +box-stove, even if most of the things do taste pretty awful." + +"I wish," said Mabel, mournfully, "that somebody would give us a hen, so +we could make omelets." + +"Who ever made omelets out of a hen?" asked Jean, laughing. + +"I meant out of the eggs, of course," said Mabel, with dignity. "Hens +lay eggs, don't they? If we count on five or six eggs a day--" + +"The goose that laid the golden egg laid only one a day," said Marjory. +"It seems to me that six is a good many." + +"I wasn't talking about geese," said Mabel, "but about just plain +everyday hens." + +"Six-every-day hens, you mean, don't you?" asked Marjory, teasingly. +"You'd better wish for a cow, too, while you're about it." + +"Yes," said Bettie, "we certainly need one, for I'm not to ask for +butter more than twice a week. Mother says she'll be in the poorhouse +before summer's over if she has to provide butter for _two_ families." + +"I just tell you what it is, girls," said Jean, nibbling her cindery +crust, "we'll just have to earn some money if we're to give Mr. Black +any kind of a dinner." + +Mabel, who always accepted new ideas with enthusiasm, slipped quietly +into the kitchen, took a solitary lemon from the cupboard, cut it in +half, and squeezed the juice into a broken-nosed pitcher. This done, she +added a little sugar and a great deal of water to the lemon juice, +slipped quietly out of the back door, ran around the house and in at the +front door, taking a small table from the front room. This she carried +out of doors to the corner of the lot facing the street, where she +established her lemonade stand. + +She was almost immediately successful, for the day was warm, and Mrs. +Bartholomew Crane, who was entertaining two visitors on her front porch, +was glad of an opportunity to offer her guests something in the way of +refreshment. The cottage boasted only one glass that did not leak, but +Mabel cheerfully made three trips across the street with it--it did not +occur to any of them until too late it would have been easier to carry +the pitcher across in the first place. The lemonade was decidedly weak, +but the visitors were too polite to say so. On her return, a thirsty +small boy offered Mabel a nickel for all that was left in the pitcher, +and Mabel, after a moment's hesitation, accepted the offer. + +"You're getting a bargain," said Mabel. "There's as much as a glass and +three quarters there, besides all the lemon." + +"Did you get a whole pitcherful out of one lemon?" asked the boy. "You'd +be able to make circus lemonade all right." + +Before the other girls had had time to discover what had become of her, +the proprietor of the lemonade stand marched into the cottage and +proudly displayed four shining nickels and the empty pitcher. + +"Why, where in the world did you get all that?" cried Marjory. "Surely +you never earned it by being on time for meals--you've been late three +times a day ever since we got the cottage." + +"Sold lemonade," said Mabel. "Our troubles are over, girls. I'm going to +buy _two_ lemons tomorrow and sell twice as much." + +"Good!" cried Bettie, "I'll help. The boys have promised to bring me a +lot of arbutus tonight--they went to the woods this morning. I'll tie it +in bunches and perhaps we can sell that, too." + +"Wouldn't it be splendid if we could have Mr. Black here to dinner next +Saturday?" said Jean. "I'll never be satisfied until we've kept that +promise, but I don't suppose we could possibly get enough things +together by that time." + +"I have a sample can of baking powder," offered Marjory, hopefully. +"I'll bring it over next time I come." + +"What's the good?" asked matter-of-fact Mabel. "We can't feed Mr. Black +on just plain baking powder, and we haven't any biscuits to raise with +it." + +"Dear me," said Jean, "I wish we hadn't been so extravagant at first. If +we hadn't had so many tea parties last week, we might get enough flour +and things at home. Mother says it's too expensive having all her +groceries carried off." + +"Never mind," consoled Mabel, confidently. "We'll be buying our own +groceries by this time tomorrow with the money we make selling lemonade. +A boy said my lemonade was quite as good as you can buy at the circus." + +Unfortunately, however, it rained the next day and the next, so lemonade +was out of the question. By the time it cleared, Bettie's neat little +bunches of arbutus were no longer fresh, and careless Mabel had +forgotten where she had put the money. She mentioned no fewer than +twenty-two places where the four precious nickels might be, but none of +them happened to be the right one. + +"Mercy me," said Bettie, "it's dreadful to be so poor! I'm afraid we'll +have to invite Mr. Black to one of our bread-and-sugar tea-parties, +after all." + +"No," said Jean, firmly. "We've just got to give him a regular +seven-course dinner--he has 'em every day at home. We'll have to put it +off until we can do it in style." + +"By and by," said Mabel, "we'll have beans and radishes and things in +our own garden, and we can go to the woods for berries." + +"Perhaps," said Bettie, hopefully, "one of the boys might catch a +fish--Rob _almost_ did, once." + +"I suppose I could ask Aunty Jane for a potato once in a while," said +Marjory, "but I'll have to give her time to forget about last month's +grocery bill--she says we never before used so many eggs in one month +and I guess Maggie _did_ give me a good many. Potatoes will keep, you +know. We can save 'em until we have enough for a meal." + +"While we're about it," said Bettie, "I think we'd better have Mrs. +Crane to dinner, too. She's such a nice old lady and she's been awfully +good to us." + +"She's not very well off," agreed Mabel, "and probably a real, +first-class dinner would taste good to her." + +"But," pleaded Bettie, "don't let's ask her until we're sure of the +date. As it is, I can't sleep nights for thinking of how Mr. Black must +feel. He'll think we don't want him." + +"You'd better explain to him," suggested Jean, "that it isn't convenient +to have him just yet, but that we're going to just as soon as ever we +can. We mustn't tell him why, because it would be just like him to send +the provisions here himself, and then it wouldn't really be _our_ +party." + +In spite of all the girls' plans, however, by the end of the week the +cottage larder was still distressingly empty. Marjory had, indeed, +industriously collected potatoes, only to have them carried off by an +equally industrious rat; and Mabel's four nickels still remained +missing. Things in the vegetable garden seemed singularly backward, +possibly because the four eager gardeners kept digging them up to see if +they were growing. Their parents and Marjory's Aunty Jane were firmer +than ever in their refusal to part with any more staple groceries. + +Perhaps if the girls had explained why they wanted the things, their +relatives would have been more generous; but girllike, the four +poverty-stricken young housekeepers made a deep mystery of their dinner +plan. It was their most cherished secret, and when they met each morning +they always said, mysteriously, "Good morning--remember M. B. D.," which +meant, of course, "Mr. Black's Dinner." + +Mr. Black, indeed, never went by without referring to the girls' +promise. + +"When," he would ask, "is that dinner party coming off? It's a long time +since I've been invited to a first-class dinner, cooked by four +accomplished young ladies, and I'm getting hungrier every minute. When +I get up in the morning I always say: 'Now I won't eat much breakfast +because I've got to save room for that dinner'--and then, after all, I +don't get invited." + +The situation was growing really embarrassing. The girls began to feel +that keeping house, not to mention giving dinner parties, with no income +whatever, was anything but a joke. + + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +A Lodger to the Rescue + + +Grass was beginning to grow on the tiny lawn, all sorts of thrifty young +seedlings were popping up in the flower beds, and Jean's pansies were +actually beginning to blossom. The girls had trained the rampant +Virginia creeper away from the windows and had coaxed it to climb the +porch pillars. From the outside, no one would have suspected that +Dandelion Cottage was not occupied by a regular grown-up family. Book +agents and peddlers offered their wares at the front door, and appeared +very much crestfallen when Bettie, or one of the others, explained that +the neatly kept little cottage was just a playhouse. Handbills and +sample packages of yeast cakes were left on the doorstep, and once a +brand-new postman actually dropped a letter into the letter-box; Mabel +carried it afterward to Mrs. Bartholomew Crane, to whom it rightfully +belonged. + +One afternoon, when Jean was rearranging the dining-room pictures--they +had to be rearranged very frequently--and when Mabel and Marjory were +busy putting fresh papers on the pantry shelves, there was a ring at the +doorbell. + +Bettie, who had been dusting the parlor, pushed the chairs into place, +threw her duster into the dining-room and ran to the door. A +lady--Bettie described her afterwards as a "middle-aged young lady with +the sweetest dimple"--stood on the doorstep. + +"Is your mother at home?" asked the lady, smiling pleasantly at Bettie, +who liked the stranger at once. + +"She--she doesn't live here," said Bettie, taken by surprise. + +"Perhaps you can tell me what I want to know. I'm a stranger in town and +I want to rent a room in this neighborhood. I am to have my meals at +Mrs. Baker's, but she hasn't any place for me to sleep. I don't want +anything very expensive, but of course I'd be willing to pay a fair +price. Do you know of anybody with rooms to rent? I'm to be in town for +three weeks." + +Bettie shook her head, reflectively. "No, I don't believe I do, +unless--" + +Bettie paused to look inquiringly at Jean, who, framed by the +dining-room doorway, was nodding her head vigorously. + +"Perhaps Jean does," finished Bettie. + +"Are you _very_ particular," asked Jean, coming forward, "about what +kind of room it is?" + +"Why, not so very," returned the guest. "I'm afraid I couldn't afford a +very grand one." + +"Are you very timid?" asked Bettie, who had suddenly guessed what Jean +had in mind. "I mean are you afraid of burglars and mice and things like +that?" + +"Why, most persons are, I imagine," said the young woman, whose eyes +were twinkling pleasantly. "Are there a great many mice and burglars in +this neighborhood?" + +"Mice," said Jean, "but not burglars. It's a _very_ honest neighborhood. +I think I have an idea, but you see there are four of us and I'll have +to consult the others about it, too. Sit here, please, in the cozy +corner--it's the safest piece of furniture we have. Now if you'll +excuse us just a minute we'll go to the kitchen and talk it over." + +"Certainly," murmured the lady, who looked a trifle embarrassed at +encountering the gaze of the forty-two staring dolls that sat all around +the parlor with their backs against the baseboard. "I hope I haven't +interrupted a party." + +"Not at all," assured Bettie, with her best company manner. + +"Girls," said Jean, when she and Bettie were in the kitchen with the +door carefully closed behind them, "would you be willing to rent the +front bedroom to a clean, nice-looking lady if she'd be willing to take +it? She wants to pay for a room, she says, and she _looks_ very polite +and pleasant, doesn't she, Bettie?" + +"Yes," corroborated Bettie, "I like her. She has kind of twinkling brown +eyes and such nice dimples." + +"You see," explained Jean, "the money would pay for Mr. Black's dinner." + +"Why, so it would," cried Marjory. "Let's do it." + +"Yes," echoed Mabel, "for goodness' sake, let's do it. It's only three +weeks, anyway, and what's three weeks!" + +"How would it be," asked Marjory, cautiously, "to take her on approval? +Aunty Jane always has hats and things sent on approval, so she can send +them back if they don't fit." + +"Splendid!" cried Mabel. "If she doesn't fit Dandelion Cottage, she +can't stay." + +"Oh," gurgled Marjory, "_what_ a dinner we'll give Mr. Black and Mrs. +Crane! We'll have ice cream and--" + +"Huh!" said Mabel, "most likely she won't take the room at all. Anyhow, +probably she's got tired of waiting and has gone." + +"We'll go and see," said Jean. "Come on, everybody." + +The lady, however, still sat on the hard, lumpy cozy corner, with her +toes just touching the ground. + +"Well," said she, smiling at the flock of girls, "how about the idea?" + +The other three looked expectantly at Jean; Mabel nudged her elbow and +Bettie nodded at her. + +"_You_ talk," said Marjory; "you're the oldest." + +"It's like this," explained Jean. "This house isn't good enough to rent +to grown-ups because it's all out of repair, so they've lent it to us +for the summer for a playhouse. The back of it leaks dreadfully when it +rains, and the plaster is all down in the kitchen, but the front bedroom +is really very nice--if you don't mind having four kinds of carpet on +the floor. This is a very safe neighborhood, no tramps or anything like +that, and if you're not an awfully timid person, perhaps you wouldn't +mind staying alone at night." + +"If you did," added Bettie, "probably one of us could sleep in the other +room unless it happened to rain--it rains right down on the bed." + +"Could I go upstairs to look at the room?" asked the young woman. + +"There isn't any upstairs," said Bettie, pulling back a curtain; "the +room's right here." + +"Why! What a dear little room--all white and blue!" + +"I hope you don't mind having children around," said Marjory, somewhat +anxiously. "You see, we'd have to play in the rest of the house." + +"Of course," added Jean, hastily, "if you had company you could use the +parlor--" + +"And the front steps," said Bettie. + +"I'm very fond of children," said the young lady, "and I don't expect to +have any company but you because I don't know anybody here. I shall be +away every day until about five o'clock because I am here with my father +who is tuning church organs, and I have to help him. I strike the notes +while he works behind the organ. He has a room at Mrs. Baker's, but she +didn't have any place to put me. I think I should like this little room +very much indeed. Now, how much are you going to charge me for it?" + +Jean looked at Bettie, and Bettie looked at the other two. + +"I don't know," said Jean, at last. + +"Neither do I," said Bettie. + +"Would--would a dollar a week be too much?" asked Marjory. + +"It wouldn't be enough," said the young woman, promptly. "My father pays +five for the room _he_ has, but it's really a larger room than he +wanted. I should be very glad to give you two dollars and a half a +week--I'm sure I couldn't find a furnished room anywhere for less than +that. Can I move in tonight? I've nothing but a small trunk." + +"Ye-es," said Bettie, looking inquiringly at Jean. "I _think_ we could +get it ready by seven o'clock. It's all perfectly clean, but you see +we'll have to change things around a little and fix up the washstand." + +"I'm sure," said the visitor, turning to depart, "that it all looks +quite lovely just as it is. You may expect me at seven." + +"Well," exclaimed Marjory, when the door had closed behind their +pleasant visitor, "isn't this too grand for words! It's just like +finding a bush with pennies growing on it, or a pot of gold at the end +of the rainbow. Two and a half a week! That's--let me see. Why! that's +seven dollars and a half! We can buy Mr. Black's dinner and have enough +money left to live on for a long time afterwards." + +"Mercy!" cried Mabel. "We never said a word to her about taking her on +approval. We didn't even ask her name." + +"Pshaw!" said Jean. "She's all right. She couldn't be disagreeable if +she wanted to with that dimple and those sparkles in her eyes; but, +girls, we've a tremendous lot to do." + +"Yes," said Mabel. "If she'd known that the pillows under those ruffled +shams were just flour sacks stuffed with excelsior, she wouldn't have +thought everything so lovely. Girls, what in the world are we to do for +sheets? We haven't even one." + +"And blankets?" said Marjory. + +"And quilts?" said Bettie. "That old white spread is every bit of +bedclothes we own. I was _so_ afraid she'd turn the cover down and see +that everything else was just pieces of burlap." + +"It's a good thing the mattress is all right," said Marjory. "But there +isn't any bottom to the water pitcher, and the basin leaks like +anything." + +"We'll just have to go home," said Jean, "and tell our mothers all about +it. We'll have to borrow what we need. We must get a lamp too, and some +oil, because there isn't any other way of lighting the house." + +The four girls ran first of all to Bettie's house with their surprising +news. + +"But, Bettie," said Mrs. Tucker, when her little daughter, helped by +the other three, had explained the situation, "are you _sure_ she's +nice? I'm afraid you've been a little rash." + +"Just as nice as can be," assured Bettie. + +"Yes," said Dr. Tucker, "I guess it's all right. I know the organ +tuner--I used to see him twice a year when we lived in Ohio. His name is +Blossom and he's a very fine old fellow. I met his daughter this +afternoon when they were examining the church organ, and she seemed a +pleasant, well-educated young woman--I believe he said she teaches a +kindergarten during the winter. The girls haven't made any mistake this +time." + +"Then we must make her comfortable," said Mrs. Tucker. "You may take +sheets and pillow-cases from the linen closet, Bettie, and you must see +that she has everything she needs." + +Excited Bettie danced off to the linen closet and the others ran home to +tell the good news. + +"I've filled a lamp for you, Bettie," said Mrs. Tucker, meeting Bettie, +with her arms full of sheets at the bottom of the stairs. "Here's a box +of matches, too." + +When Bettie was returning with her spoils to Dandelion Cottage she +almost bumped into Mabel, whom she met at the gate with a pillow under +each arm, a folded patchwork quilt balanced unsteadily on her head, and +her chubby hands clasped about a big brass lamp. + +"The pillows are off my own bed," said Mabel. "Mother wasn't home, but +she wouldn't care, anyway." + +"But can you sleep without them?" + +"Oh, I'll take home one of the excelsior ones," said Mabel. "I can sleep +on anything." + +Jean came in a moment later with a pile of blankets and quilts. She, +too, had a lamp, packed carefully in a big basket that hung from her +arm. Marjory followed almost at her heels with more bedding, towels, a +fourth lamp, and two candlesticks. + +"Well," laughed Bettie, when all the lamps and candles were placed in a +row on the dining-room table, "I guess Miss Blossom will have almost +light enough. Here are four big lamps and two candles--" + +"I've six more candles in my blouse," said Mabel, laughing and fishing +them out one at a time. "I thought they'd do for the blue candlesticks +Mrs. Crane gave us for the bedroom." + +"Isn't it fortunate," said Jean, who was thumping the mattress +vigorously, "that we put the best bed in this room? Beds are such hard +things to move." + +"Ye-es," said Bettie, rather doubtfully, "but I think we'd better tell +Miss Blossom not to be surprised if the slats fall out once in a while +during the night. You know they always do if you happen to turn over +too suddenly." + +"We must warn her about the chairs, too," said Marjory. "They're none of +them really very safe." + +"I guess," said Jean, "I'd better bring over the rocking chair from my +own room, but I'm afraid she'll just have to grin and bear the slats, +because they _will_ fall out in spite of anything I can do." + +By seven o'clock the room was invitingly comfortable. The washstand, +which was really only a wooden box thinly disguised by a muslin curtain +gathered across the front and sides, was supplied with a sound basin, a +whole pitcher, numerous towels, and four kinds of soap--the girls had +all thought of soap. They were unable to decide which kind the lodger +would like best, so they laid Bettie's clear amber cake of glycerine +soap, Jean's scentless white castile, Marjory's square of green cucumber +soap, and Mabel's highly perfumed oval pink cake, in a rainbow row on +the washstand. + +The bed, bountifully supplied with coverings--had Dandelion Cottage been +suddenly transported to Alaska the lodger would still have had blankets +to spare, so generously had her enthusiastic landladies provided--looked +very comfortable indeed. At half-past seven when the lodger arrived with +apologies for being late because the drayman who was to move her trunk +had been slow, the cottage, for the first time since the girls had +occupied it, was brilliantly lighted. + +"We thought," explained Bettie, "that you might feel less frightened in +a strange place if you had plenty of light, though we didn't really mean +to have so many lamps--we each supposed we were bringing the only one. +Anyway, we don't know which one burns best." + +"If they should _all_ go out," said Mabel, earnestly, "there are candles +and matches on the little shelf above the bed." + +When the lodger had been warned about the loose slats and the +untrustworthiness of the chairs, the girls said good-night. + +"You needn't go on _my_ account," said Miss Blossom. "It's pleasant to +have you here--still, I'm not afraid to stay alone. You must always do +just as you like about staying, you know; I shouldn't like to think that +I was driving you out of this dear little house, for it was nice of you +to let me come. I think I was very fortunate in finding a room so near +Mrs. Baker's." + +"Thank you," said Jean, "but we always have to be home before dark +unless we have permission to stay any place." + +"I _have_ to go," confided Mabel, "because I was so excited that I +forgot to eat my supper." + +"So did I," said Marjory, frankly, "and I'm just as hungry as a bear." + +"Everybody come home with me," said Jean. "We always have dinner later +than you do and the things can't be _very_ cold." + + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +The Girls Disclose a Plan + + +"Did you sleep well, Miss Blossom?" asked Bettie, shyly waylaying the +lodger who was on her way to breakfast. + +"Ye-es," said Miss Blossom, smiling brightly, "though in spite of your +warning and all my care, the bottom dropped out of my bed and landed the +mattress on the floor. But no harm was done. As soon as I discovered +that I was not falling down an elevator shaft, I went to sleep again. I +think if I had a few nails and some little blocks of wood I could fix +those slats so they'd stay in better; you see they're not quite long +enough for the bed." + +"I'll find some for you," said Bettie. "You'll find them on the parlor +table when you get back." + +Before the week was over, the girls had discovered that their new friend +was in every way a most delightful person. She proved surprisingly +skillful with hammer and nails, and besides mending the bed she soon had +several of the chairs quite firm on their legs. + +"Why," cried Bettie one day as she delightedly inspected an old black +walnut rocker that had always collapsed at the slightest touch, "this +old chair is almost strong enough to _walk_! I'm so glad you've made so +many of them safe, because, when Mrs. Bartholomew Crane comes to see us, +she's always afraid to sit down. She's such a nice neighbor that we'd +like to make her comfortable." + +"We do have the loveliest friends," said Jean, with a contented sigh. +"It's hard to tell which is the nicest one." + +"But the dearest _two_," exclaimed Marjory, discriminating nicely, "are +Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane--except you, of course, Miss Blossom." + +"Somehow," added Bettie, "we always think of those two in one breath, +like Dombey and Son, or Jack and Jill." + +"But they couldn't be farther apart _really_," declared Jean. "They're +both nice, both are kind of old, both are dark and rather stout, but +except for that they're altogether different. Mr. Black has everything +in the world that anybody could want, and Mrs. Crane hasn't much of +anything. Mr. Black is invited to banquets and things and rides in +carriages and--" + +"Has a silk hat," Mabel broke in. + +"And Mrs. Crane," continued Jean, paying no attention to the +interruption, "can't even afford to ride in the street car--I've heard +her say so." + +"I wish," groaned generous Mabel, with deep contrition, "that I'd never +taken a cent for that lemonade I sold her last spring. If I'd dreamed +how good and how poor she was, I wouldn't have. She might have had +_four_ rides with that money." + +"_I_ wish," said Jean, "we could do something perfectly grand and +beautiful for Mrs. Crane. She's always doing the kindest little things +for other people." + +"Well," demanded Marjory, "aren't we going to have her here to dinner, +too, when we have Mr. Black? Please don't tell anybody, Miss +Blossom--it's to be a surprise." + +"Still, just a dinner doesn't seem to be enough," said Jean, who, with +her chin in her hand, seemed to be thinking deeply. "Of course it +helps, but I'd rather save her life or do something like that." + +"Little things count for a great deal in this world, sometimes," said +Miss Blossom, leaning down to brush her cheek softly against Jean's. +"It's generally wiser to leave the big things until one is big enough to +handle them." + +"Mrs. Crane _is_ pretty big," offered matter-of-fact Mabel. + +"Oh, dear," laughed Miss Blossom, "that wasn't at all what I meant." + +"Mr. Black," said Bettie, dreamily, "has enough _things_, but I don't +believe he really cares about anything in the world but his roses. His +face is different when he talks about them, kind of soft all about the +corners and not so--not so--" + +"Daniel Webstery," supplied Jean, understandingly. + +"It must be pretty lonely for him without any family," agreed Miss +Blossom. "I don't know what would become of Father if he didn't have me +to keep him cheered up--we're wonderful chums, Father and I." + +"Oh", mourned tender-hearted Bettie, "I _wish_ I could make Mrs. Crane +rich enough so she wouldn't need to mend all the time, and that I could +provide Mr. Black with some really truly relatives to love him the way +you love your father." + +"Oh, Bettie! Bettie!" cried Mabel, suddenly beginning, in her +excitement, to bounce up and down on the one chair that possessed +springs. "I know exactly how we could help them both. We could beg seven +or eight children from the orphan asylum--they're _glad_ to give 'em +away--and let Mrs. Crane sell 'em to Mr. Black for--for ten dollars +apiece." + +Such a storm of merriment followed this simple solution of the problem +that Mabel for the moment looked quite crushed. Her chair, incidentally, +was crushed too, for Mabel's final bounce proved too much for its frail +constitution; its four legs spread suddenly and lowered the surprised +Mabel gently to the floor. Everybody laughed again, Mabel as heartily as +anyone, and, for a time, the sorrows of Mrs. Crane and Mr. Black were +forgotten. + +The dinner party, however, still remained uppermost in all their plans. +Mabel was in favor of giving it at once, but the other girls were more +cautious, so the little mistresses of Dandelion Cottage finally decided +to postpone the party until after Miss Blossom had paid her rent in +full. + +"You see," explained cautious Marjory, one day when the girls were +alone, "she might get called away suddenly before the three weeks are +up, and if we spent more money than we _have_ it wouldn't be very +comfortable. Besides, I've never seen seven dollars and a half all at +once, and I'd like to." + +But the dinner plan was no longer the profound secret that it had been +at first, for when the young housekeepers had told their mothers about +their lodger, they had been obliged to tell them also what they intended +to do with the money. In the excitement of the moment, they had all +neglected to mention Mrs. Crane, but later, when they made good this +omission, their news was received in a most perplexing fashion. The +girls were greatly puzzled, but they did not happen to compare notes +until after something that happened at the dinner party had reminded +them of their parents' incomprehensible behavior. + +"Mamma," said Bettie, one evening at supper time, soon after Miss +Blossom's arrival, "I forgot to tell you that we're going to ask Mrs. +Crane, too, when we have Mr. Black to dinner. It's to be a surprise for +both of them." + +"What!" gasped Mrs. Tucker, dropping her muffin, and looking not at +Bettie, but at Dr. Tucker. "Surely not Mrs. Crane and Mr. Black, too! +You don't mean both at the same time!" + +"Why, yes, Mamma," said Bettie. "It wouldn't cost any more." + +Then the little girl looked with astonishment first at her father and +then at her mother, for Dr. Tucker, with a warning finger against his +lips, was shaking his head just as hard as he could at Mrs. Tucker, who +looked the very picture of amazement. + +"Why," asked Bettie, "what's the matter? Don't you think it's a good +plan? Isn't it the right thing to do?" + +"Yes," said Dr. Tucker, still looking at Bettie's mother, who was +nodding her approval, "I shouldn't be surprised if it might prove a +_very_ good thing to do. Your idea of making it a surprise to both of +them is a good one, too. I should keep it the darkest kind of secret +until the very last moment, if I were you." + +"Yes," agreed Mrs. Tucker, "I should certainly keep it a secret." + +Jean, too, happened to mention the matter at home and with very much the +same result. Mr. Mapes looked at Mrs. Mapes with something in his eye +that very closely resembled an amused twinkle, and Jean was almost +certain that there was an answering twinkle in her mother's eye. + +"What's the joke?" asked Jean. + +"I couldn't think of spoiling it by telling," said Mrs. Mapes. "If +there's anything I can do to help you with your dinner party I shall be +delighted to do it." + +"Oh, will you?" cried Jean. "When I told you about it last week I +thought, somehow, that you weren't very much interested." + +"I'm very much interested indeed," returned Mrs. Mapes. "I hope you'll +be able to keep the surprise part of it a secret to the very last +moment. That's always the best part of a dinner party, you know." + +"Yes," said Mr. Mapes, "if you know who the other guests are to be, it +always takes away part of the pleasure." + +When Marjory told the news, her Aunty Jane, who seldom smiled and who +usually appeared to care very little about the doings in Dandelion +Cottage, greatly surprised her niece by suddenly displaying as many as +seven upper teeth; she showed, too, such flattering interest in the +coming event that Marjory plucked up courage to ask for potatoes and +other provisions that might prove useful. + +"When you've decided what day you're going to have your party," said +Aunty Jane, with astonishing good nature, "I'll give or lend you +anything you want, provided you don't tell either of your guests who the +other one is to be." + +When Mabel told about the plan, she too was very much perplexed at the +way her news was received. Her parents, after one speaking glance at +each other, leaned back in their chairs and laughed until the tears +rolled down their cheeks. But they, too, heartily approved of the dinner +party and advised strict secrecy regarding the guests. + +School was out, and, as Bettie said, every day was Saturday, but the +days were slipping away altogether too rapidly. The lawn, by this time, +was covered with what Mabel called "real grass," great bunches of Jean's +sweetest purple pansies had to be picked every morning so they wouldn't +go to seed, and the long bed by the fence threatened to burst at any +moment into blossom. Even the much-disturbed vegetable garden was doing +so nicely that it was possible to tell the lettuce from the radish +plants. + +Two of Miss Blossom's three weeks had gone. She herself was to leave +town the following Thursday, and the dinner party was to take place the +day after; but even the thought of the great event failed to keep the +little cottagers quite cheerful, for they hated to think of losing their +lovely lodger. Whenever this charming young person was not busy at one +or another of the various churches with her father, she was playing with +the children. "Just exactly," said Bettie, "as if she were just twelve +years old, too." Her clever fingers made dresses for each of the four +biggest dolls, and such cunning baby bonnets for each of the four +littlest ones. + +Best of all, she taught the girls how to do a great many things. She +showed them how to turn the narrowest of hems, how to gather a ruffle +neatly, and how to take the tiniest of stitches. Bettie, who had to +help with the weekly darning, and Marjory, who had to mend her own +stockings, actually found it pleasant work after Miss Blossom had shown +them several different ways of weaving the threads. + +"I just wish," cried Mabel, one day, in a burst of gratitude, "that +you'd fall ill, or something so we could do something for _you_. You're +just lovely to _us_." + +"Thank you, Mabel," said Miss Blossom, with eyes that twinkled +delightedly, "I'm sure you'd take beautiful care of me--I'm almost +tempted to try it. Shall I have measles, or just plain smallpox?" + + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +An Unexpected Crop of Dandelions + + +In spite of the prospect of losing her, the last week of Miss Blossom's +stay was a delightful one to the girls because so many pleasant things +happened. The best of all concerned the cottage dining-room. + +This room had proved the hardest spot in the house to make attractive, +for it seemed to resist all efforts to make a well-furnished room of it. +Most of the faded paper was loose and much of it had dropped off in +patches during the time that the cottage was vacant, showing the ugly, +dark, painted wall underneath. It was only too evident that the pictures +that the girls had fastened up carefully with pins had been put up for +purposes of concealment, the ceiling was stained and dingy, and the rug +was far too small to cover the floor where some industrious former +occupant had daubed paint of various gaudy hues while trying, perhaps, +to find the right shade for the woodwork. + +Moreover, what little furniture there was in the dining-room showed very +plainly that it had not been intended originally for dining-room use; +the buffet, in particular, proclaimed loudly in big black letters that +it was nothing but a soap box, and Bettie's best efforts could not make +anything else of it. Now that the day for the long-postponed dinner +party was actually set, the girls' attention was more than ever directed +toward the forlorn appearance of the little dining-room. + +"Dear me," said Bettie, one day when the five friends, seated around the +table, were cutting out pictures for a wonderful scrap-book for the +little lame boy whom Miss Blossom had discovered living near one of the +churches, "I do wish this dining-room didn't look so sort of bedroomy." + +"Yes," said Jean, "I've tried putting the buffet in every corner and +all around the walls, and it _won't_ look like anything but a wooden +box." + +"I tried covering it with a gathered curtain," said Mabel, "but that +made it look so like a washstand that I took it off again." + +"Why," exclaimed Miss Blossom, "you've given me a beautiful idea! I +believe we could make a splendid sideboard out of that piano box that's +so in our way on the back porch. We'd just have to saw the ends down a +little, nail on some boards, paint it some plain, dark color, and spread +a towel over the top, and we'd have a beautiful Flemish oak sideboard. +I'll buy the can of paint." + +"I'll do the painting," said Jean. "I helped Mother paint our kitchen +floor, so I know a little about it." + +"That would be lovely. I've been thinking, too, that it would be a good +idea to fix a little shelf under this window to hold your petunia and +these two geraniums that are suffering so for sunshine. I think I could +make it from the boards in that soap box." + +"Oh, thank you!" cried Bettie. "I don't believe there's _anything_ you +don't know how to do." + +The piano box, transformed by Miss Blossom and the four girls into a +very good imitation of a Flemish oak sideboard, did indeed make such an +imposing piece of furniture that the rest of the room looked shabbier +than ever by contrast. + +"I'm afraid," said Miss Blossom, surveying the effect with an air of +comical dismay, "that the rest of our dining-room really looks worse +than it did before; it's like trying to wear a new hat with an old gown. +But I'm proud of our handiwork." + +"Yes," said Jean, "it's a great deal more like a sideboard than it is +like a piano box." + +"It's the sideboardiest sideboard I ever saw," said Mabel, "but it's +certainly too fine for this room." + +"Never mind," said cheerful Bettie. "We'll let Mr. Black sit so he can +see the sideboard, and we'll have Mrs. Crane face the geraniums on that +cunning shelf. If their eyes begin to wander around the room we'll just +call their attention to the things we want them to see. When Mamma +entertains the sewing society she always invites the first one that +comes to sit in the chair over the hole in the sitting-room rug so the +others won't notice it. If we catch Mr. Black looking at the ceiling +we'll say: 'Oh, Mr. Black, did you notice the flowers on the +sideboard?'" + +Everybody laughed at Bettie's comical idea. This desperate measure, +however, was not needed, for one afternoon, the day after the sideboard +was finished, something happened, something lovelier than the girls had +ever even dreamed _could_ happen. + +It was only three o'clock, yet there was Miss Blossom coming home two +whole hours earlier than usual; her white-haired father was with her +and under his arm in a long parcel were seven rolls of wall paper. + +"My contribution to the cottage," said Mr. Blossom, laying the bundle at +Bettie's feet and smiling pleasantly at the row of girls on the +doorstep. + +"It's paper for the dining-room," explained Miss Blossom. "We happened +to pass a store, on our way to work this noon, where they were +advertising a sale of odd rolls of very nice paper at only five cents a +roll. There were two rolls that were just right for the ceiling, and +five rolls for the side wall. It seemed just exactly the right thing for +Dandelion Cottage, so we couldn't help buying it." + +"It would have been wicked," said Mr. Blossom, cutting the string about +the bundle, "not to buy such suitable paper at such a ridiculous price." + +"Oh! oh!" cried the delighted girls, as Mr. Blossom held up a roll for +inspection. "It might have been made for this house!" + +"Dandelion blossoms in yellow, with such lovely soft green leaves," said +Bettie, "and such a lovely, light, creamy background. Oh! what's that?" + +"That's the border," replied Miss Blossom. "See how graceful the pattern +is, and how saucily those dandelions hold their heads. Show them the +ceiling paper, Father." + +"Oh!" cried Mabel, "just picked-off dandelions scattered all over an +ocean of milk--how pretty!" + +"We'll have the Village Improvement Society after us," laughed Marjory. +"They don't allow a dandelion to show its head." + +"I love dandelions," said Miss Blossom; "real ones, I mean; they're such +gay, cheerful things and such a beautiful color." + +"I love them, too," said Jean, "because, you know, they paid our rent +for us." + +"But," said Mabel, "I'm thankful we haven't got to dig all these +dandelions." + +"Now," said Miss Blossom, "we must go right to work. If everybody will +help, Father and I will put it on for you. You needn't be afraid to +trust us, because last spring we papered our two biggest rooms, and they +really looked _almost_ professional except for one strip that Father got +upside-down; but your dining-room will be in no danger on that score, +for Father never makes the same mistake twice. Jean, you and Mabel can +move all the furniture except the table and sideboard into the +kitchen--we'll have to stand on the table. Bettie, take down all the +pictures. Father, you can be trimming the ceiling paper here on the +sideboard while Marjory starts a fire in the kitchen stove so I can have +hot water for my paste. We'll have our wall covered with dandelions in +just no time!" + +"Now," said Mr. Blossom, when the furniture was out and the pictures +were all down, "we must dig the soil up well or our dandelions won't +grow. Everybody must tear as much as she can of this old paper off the +wall; it's so ragged it comes off very easily." + +"The roof used to leak," said Bettie, "but my brother Rob unrolled some +tin cans and nailed them over the place where the truly shingles are +gone, and it never leaked a mite the last four times it rained." + +"The plaster seems fairly good," said Mr. Blossom. "I could mend these +holes with a little plaster of Paris if some obliging young lady would +run with this dime to the drugstore for ten cents' worth." + +"I'll go," said Mabel. "I don't think I like peeling walls." + +"Mabel," said Miss Blossom, "isn't really fond of work, though I notice +that she usually does her share." + +Everybody helped to mend the cracks, and everybody watched with +breathless interest to see the first long strip, upheld by Mr. Blossom +and guided by Miss Blossom and the cottage broom, go into place. + +"Wouldn't it be awful," whispered Mabel, "if it shouldn't stick?" + +But it did stick, smooth and flat, and the paper was even prettier on +the wall than it had been in the roll. + +"A side strip next, Father, so we can see how it's going to look," +pleaded Miss Blossom. "Remember, we're just children." + +At five o'clock, when half of the ceiling and one side of the wall were +finished, the front door was opened abruptly. + +"Hi there!" said Mr. Black, putting his head in at the dining-room door. +"Why don't you listen when I ring your bell? Is that dinner of mine +ready? I'm losing a pound a day." + +"No," said Bettie, jumping down from her perch on the sideboard, "but it +will be next Friday. We're getting it ready just as fast as ever we can. +We're even papering the dining-room for the occasion." + +"Well," said Mr. Black, "I just stopped in to say that unless you could +give me that dinner this very minute, I shall have to go hungry for the +next five weeks." + +"Oh!" cried Bettie, in dismay, "why?" + +"Because I'm going to Washington tonight by the six o'clock train and I +shall be gone a whole month--perhaps longer." + +"Oh, dear," cried Bettie, "we just _couldn't_ have you tonight. We're +papering the dining-room, and besides we haven't a single thing to eat +but some stale cake that Mrs. Pike gave us." + +"I strongly suspect," said Mr. Black, smiling over Bettie's head at Mr. +Blossom, "that you don't really _want_ me to dinner." + +"Oh, we do, we do," assured Bettie, earnestly, "but we just _can't_ have +company tonight. If you'll just let us know exactly when you're coming +home, you'll find a beautiful dinner ready for you." + +"All right," said Mr. Black, "I'll telegraph. I'll say: 'My dear Miss +Bettykins, of Dandelion Cottage: It will give me great pleasure to dine +with you tomorrow--or would you rather have me say the day after +tomorrow?--evening. Yours most devotedly and-so-forth.'" + +"Yes, yes," cried Bettie, "that will be all right, but you must give us +three days to get ready in." + +After all, however, it was Mabel that sent the telegram, and it was a +very different one. + + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +Changes and Plans + + +When the little dining-room was finished it was quite the prettiest room +in the house, for the friendly Blossoms had painted the battered +woodwork a delicate green to match the leaves in the paper; and by +mixing what was left of the green paint with the remaining color left +from the sideboard, clever Miss Blossom obtained a shade that was +exactly right for as much of the floor as the rug did not cover. Of +course all the neighbors and all the girls' relatives had to come in +afterwards to see what Bettie called "the very dandelioniest room in +Dandelion Cottage." + +It seemed to the girls that the time fairly galloped from Monday to +Thursday. They were heartily sorry when the moment came for them to lose +their pleasant lodger. They went to the train to see the last of her and +to assure her for the thousandth time that they should never forget her. +Mabel sobbed audibly at the moment of parting, and large tears were +rolling down silent Bettie's cheeks. Even the seven dollars and fifty +cents that the girls had handled with such delight that morning paled +into insignificance beside the fact that the train was actually whisking +their beloved Miss Blossom away from them. When she had paid for her +lodging she advised her four landladies to deposit the money in the bank +until time for the dinner party, and the girls did so, but even the +importance of owning a bank account failed to console them for their +loss. The train out of sight, the sober little procession wended its way +to Dandelion Cottage but the cozy little house seemed strangely silent +and deserted when Bettie unlocked the door. Mabel, who had wept stormily +all the way home, sat down heavily on the doorstep and wept afresh. + +Pinned to a pillow on the parlor couch, Jean discovered a little folded +square of paper addressed to Bettie, who was drumming a sad little tune +on the window pane. + +"Why, Bettie," cried Jean, "this looks like a note for you from Miss +Blossom! Do read it and tell us what she says." + +"It says," read Bettie: "'My dearest of Betties: Thank you for being so +nice to me. There's a telephone message for you.'" + +"I wonder what it means," said Marjory. + +Bettie ran to the talkless telephone, slipped her hand inside the little +door at the top, and found a small square parcel wrapped in tissue +paper, tied with a pink ribbon, and addressed to Miss Bettie Tucker, +Dandelion Cottage. Bettie hastily undid the wrappings and squealed with +delight when she saw the lovely little handkerchief, bordered delicately +with lace, that Miss Blossom herself had made for her. There was a +daintily embroidered "B" in the corner to make it Bettie's very own. + +Marjory happened upon Jean's note peeping out from under a book on the +parlor table. It said: "Dear Jean: Don't you think it's time for you to +look at the kitchen clock?" + +Of course everybody rushed to the kitchen to see Jean take from inside +the case of the tickless clock a lovely handkerchief just like Bettie's +except that it was marked with "J." + +Marjory's note, which she presently found growing on the crimson +petunia, sent her flying to the grindless coffee-mill, where she too +found a similar gift. + +"Well," said Mabel, who was now fairly cheerful, "I wonder if she forgot +all about _me_." + +For several anxious moments the girls searched eagerly in Mabel's behalf +but no note was visible. + +"I can't think where it could be," said housewifely Jean, stooping to +pick up a bit of string from the dining-room rug, and winding it into a +little ball. "I've looked in every room and--Why! what a long string! I +wonder where it's all coming from." + +"Under the rug," said Marjory, making a dive for the bit of paper that +dangled from the end of the string. "Here's your note, Mabel." + +"I think," Miss Blossom had written, "that there must be a mouse in the +pantry mousetrap by this time." + +"Yes!" shouted Mabel, a moment later. "A lovely lace-edged mouse with an +'M' on it--no, it's 'M B'--a really truly monogram, the very first +monogram I ever had." + +"Why, so it is," said Marjory. "I suppose she did that so we could tell +them apart, because if she'd put M on both of them we wouldn't have +known which was which." + +"Why," cried Jean, "it's nearly an hour since the train left. Wasn't it +sweet of her to think of keeping us interested so we shouldn't be quite +so lonesome?" + +"Yes," said Bettie, "it was even nicer than our lovely presents, but it +was just like her." + +"Oh, dear," said Mabel, again on the verge of tears, "I wish she might +have stayed forever. What's the use of getting lovely new friends if you +have to go and lose them the very next minute? She was just the nicest +grown-up little girl there ever was, and I'll never see--see her any--" + +"Look out, Mabel," warned Marjory, "if you cry on that handkerchief +you'll spoil that monogram. Miss Blossom didn't intend these for +crying-handkerchiefs--one good-sized tear would soak them." + +Miss Blossom was not the only friend the girls were fated to lose that +week. Grandma Pike, as everybody called the pleasant little old lady, +was their next-door neighbor on the west side, and the cottagers were +very fond of her. No one dreamed that Mrs. Pike would ever think of +going to another town to live; but about ten days before Miss Blossom +departed, the cheery old lady had quite taken everybody's breath away by +announcing that she was going west, just as soon as she could get her +things packed, to live with her married daughter. + +When the girls heard that Grandma Pike was going away they were very +much surprised and not at all pleased at the idea of losing one of their +most delightful neighbors. At Miss Blossom's suggestion, they had spent +several evenings working on a parting gift for their elderly friend. The +gift, a wonderful linen traveling case with places in it to carry +everything a traveler would be likely to need, was finished at +last--with so many persons working on it, it was hard to keep all the +pieces together--and the girls carried it to Grandma Pike, who seemed +very much pleased. + +"Well, well," said the delighted old lady, unrolling the parcel, "if you +haven't gone and made me a grand slipper-bag! I'll think of you, now, +every time I put on my slippers." + +"No, no," protested Jean. "It's a traveling case with places in it for +'most everything _but_ slippers." + +"We all sewed on it," explained Mabel. "Those little bits of stitches +that you can't see at all are Bettie's. Jean did all this +feather-stitching, and Marjory hemmed all the binding. Miss Blossom +basted it together so it wouldn't be crooked." + +"What did _you_ do, Mabel?" asked Grandma Pike, smiling over her +spectacles. + +"I took out the basting threads and embroidered these letters on the +pockets." + +"What does this 'P' stand for?" + +"Pins," said Mabel. "You see it was sort of an accident. I started to +embroider the word soap on this little pocket, but when I got the S O A +done, there wasn't any room left for the P, so I just put it on the +_next_ pocket. I knew that if I explained that it was the end of 'Soap' +and the beginning of 'Pins' you'd remember not to get your pins and soap +mixed up." + +During the lonely days immediately following Miss Blossom's departure, +Mrs. Bartholomew Crane proved a great solace. The girls had somewhat +neglected her during the preceding busy weeks; but with Miss Blossom +gone, the cottagers became conscious of an aching void that new wall +paper and lace handkerchiefs and a bank account could not quite fill; so +presently they resumed their former habit of trotting across the street +many times a day to visit good-natured Mrs. Crane. + +Mrs. Crane's house was very small and looked rather gloomy from the +outside because the paint had long ago peeled off and the weatherbeaten +boards had grown black with age; but inside it was cheerfulness +personified. First, there was Mrs. Crane herself, fairly radiating +comfort. Then there was a bright rag carpet on the floor, a glowing red +cloth on the little table, a lively yellow canary named Dicksy in one +window, and a gorgeous red-and-crimson but very bad-tempered parrot in +the other. There were only three rooms downstairs and two bed-chambers +upstairs. Mrs. Crane's own room opened off the little parlor, and +visitors could see the high feather bed always as smooth and rounded on +top as one of Mrs. Crane's big loaves of light bread. The privileged +girls were never tired of examining the good woman's patchwork quilts, +made many years ago of minute, quaint, old-fashioned scraps of calico. + +Even the garden seemed to differ from other gardens, for every inch of +it except the patch of green grass under the solitary cherry tree was +given over to flowers, many of them as quaint and old-fashioned as the +bits of calico in the quilts, and to vegetables that ripened a week +earlier for Mrs. Crane than similar varieties did for anyone else. Yet +the garden was so little, and the variety so great, that Mrs. Crane +never had enough of any one thing to sell. She owned her little home, +but very little else. The two upstairs rooms were rented to lodgers, and +she knitted stockings and mittens to sell because she could knit without +using her eyes, which, like so many soft, bright, black eyes, were far +from strong; but the little income so gained was barely enough to keep +stout, warm-hearted, overgenerous Mrs. Crane supplied with food and +fuel. The neighbors often wondered what would become of the good, lonely +woman if she lost her lodgers, if her eyes failed completely, or if she +should fall ill. Everybody agreed that Mrs. Crane should have been a +wealthy woman instead of a poor one, because she would undoubtedly have +done so much good with her money. Mabel had heard her father say that +there was a good-sized mortgage on the place, and Dr. Bennett had +instantly added: "Now, don't you say anything about that, Mabel." But +ever after that, Mabel had kept her eyes open during her visits to Mrs. +Crane, hoping to get a glimpse of the dreadful large-sized thing that +was not to be mentioned. + +On one occasion she thought she saw light. Mrs. Crane had expressed a +fear that a wandering polecat had made a home under her woodshed. + +"Is mortgage another name for polecat?" Mabel had asked a little later. + +"No," imaginative Jean had replied. "A mortgage is more like a great, +lean, hungry, gray wolf waiting just around the corner to eat you up. +Don't ever use the word before Mrs. Crane; she has one." + +"Where does she keep it?" demanded Mabel, agog with interest. + +"I promised not to talk about it," said Jean, "and I won't." + +Miss Blossom had been gone only two days when something happened to Mrs. +Crane. It was none of the things that the neighbors had expected to +happen, but for a little while it looked almost as serious. Bettie, +running across the street right after breakfast one morning, with a +bunch of fresh chickweed for the yellow canary and a cracker for cross +Polly, found Mrs. Crane, usually the most cheerful person imaginable, +sitting in her kitchen with a swollen, crimson foot in a pail of +lukewarm water, and groaning dismally. + +"Oh, Mrs. Crane!" cried surprised Bettie. "What in the world is the +matter? Are--are you coming down with anything?" + +"I've already come," moaned Mrs. Crane, grimly. "I was out in my back +yard in my thin old slippers early this morning putting hellebore on my +currant bushes, and I stepped down hard on the teeth of the rake that +I'd dropped on the grass. There's two great holes in my foot. How I'm +ever going to do things I don't know, for 'twas all I could do to crawl +into the house on my hands and knees." + +"Isn't there something I can do for you?" asked Bettie, sympathetically. + +"Could you get a stick of wood from the shed and make me a cup of tea? +Maybe I'd feel braver if I wasn't so empty." + +"Of course I could," said Bettie, cheerily. + +"I tell you what it is," confided Mrs. Crane. "It's real nice and +independent living all alone as long as you're strong and well, but just +the minute anything happens, there you are like a Robinson Crusoe, cast +away on a desert isle. I began to think nobody would _ever_ come." + +"Can't I do something more for you?" asked Bettie, poking scraps of +paper under the kettle to bring it to a boil. "Don't you want Dr. +Bennett to look at your foot? Hadn't I better get him?" + +"Yes, do," said Mrs. Crane, "and then come back. I can't bear to think +of staying here alone." + +For the next four days there was a deep depression in the middle of Mrs. +Crane's puffy feather bed, for the injured foot was badly swollen and +Mrs. Crane was far too heavy to go hopping about on the other one. At +first, her usually hopeful countenance wore a strained, anxious +expression, quite pathetic to see. + +"Now don't you worry one bit," said comforting little Bettie. "We'll +take turns staying with you; we'll feed Polly and Dicksy, and I believe +every friend you have is going to offer to make broth. Mother's making +some this minute." + +"But there's the lodgers," groaned Mrs. Crane, "both as particular as a +pair of old maids in a glass case. Mr. Barlow wants his bedclothes +tucked in all around so tight that a body'd think he was afraid of +rolling out of bed nights, and Mr. Bailey won't have his tucked in at +all--says he likes 'em 'floating round loose and airy.' Do you suppose +you girls can make those two beds and not get those two lodgers mixed +up? I declare, I'm so absent-minded myself that I've had to climb those +narrow stairs many a day to make sure I'd done it right." + +"Don't be afraid," said Jean, who had joined Bettie. "Marjory's Aunty +Jane has taught her to make beds beautifully, and I have a good memory. +Between us we'll manage splendidly." + +"But there's my garden," mourned the usually busy woman, who found it +hard to lie still with folded hands in a world that seemed to be +constantly needing her. "Dear me! I don't see how I'm going to spare +myself for a whole week just when everything is growing so fast." + +"We'll tend to the garden, too," promised Bettie. + +"Yes, indeed we will," echoed Mabel. "We'll water everything and weed--" + +"No, you won't," said Mrs. Crane, quickly. "You can do all the watering +you like, but if I catch any of you weeding, there'll be trouble." + +The young cottagers were even better than their promises, for they took +excellent care of Mrs. Crane, the lodgers, the parrot, the canary, and +the garden, until the injured foot was well again; but while doing all +this they learned something that distressed them very much, indeed. Of +course they had always known in a general way that their friend was far +from being wealthy, but they had not guessed how touchingly poor she +really was. But now they saw that her cupboard was very scantily filled, +that her clothing was very much patched and mended, her shoes +distressingly worn out, and that even her dish-towels were neatly +darned. + +"But we won't talk about it to people," said fine-minded Jean. "Perhaps +she wouldn't like to have everybody know." + +Even Jean, however, did not guess what a comfort proud Mrs. Crane had +found it to have her warm-hearted little friends stand between her +poverty and the sometimes-too-prying eyes of a grown-up world. + +Unobservant though they had seemed, the girls did not forget about the +Mother-Hubbardlike state of Mrs. Crane's cupboard. After that one of +their finest castles in Spain always had Mrs. Crane, who would have made +such a delightful mother and who had never had any children, enthroned +as its gracious mistress. When they had time to think about it at all, +it always grieved them to think of their generous-natured, +no-longer-young friend dreading a poverty-stricken, loveless, and +perhaps homeless old age; for this, they had discovered, was precisely +what Mrs. Crane was doing. + +"If she were a little, thin, active old lady, with bobbing white curls +like Grandma Pike," said Jean, "lots of people would have a corner for +her; but poor Mrs. Crane takes up so much room and is so heavy and slow +that she's going to be hard to take care of when she gets old. Oh, _why_ +couldn't she have had just one strong, kind son to take care of her?" + +"When I'm married," offered Mabel, generously, "I'll take her to live +with me. I won't _have_ any husband if he doesn't promise to take Mrs. +Crane, too." + +"You shan't have her," declared Jean. "I want her myself." + +"She's already promised to me," said Bettie, triumphantly. "We're going +to keep house together some place, and I'm going to be an old-maid +kindergarten teacher." + +"I don't think that's fair, Bettie Tucker," said Marjory, earnestly. "I +don't see how my children are to have any grandmother if she doesn't +live with _me_. Imagine the poor little things with Aunty Jane for a +grandmother!" + + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +The Milligans + + +To the moment of Grandma Pike's departure, all their neighbors had been +so pleasant that the girls were deceived into thinking that neighbors +were never anything _but_ pleasant. Although they felt not the slightest +misgiving as to their future neighbors, they had hated to lose dear old +Grandma Pike, who had always been as good to them as if she had really +been their grandmother, and whose parting gifts--sundry odds and ends +of dishes, old magazines, and broken parcels of provisions--gave them +occupation for many delightful days. In spite of the lasting pleasure of +this unexpected donation, however, they could not help feeling that, +with Mr. Black away, Miss Blossom gone, Mrs. Pike living in another +town, and only disabled Mrs. Crane left, they were losing friends with +alarming rapidity. Grief for the departed, however, did not prevent +their taking an active interest in the persons who were to occupy the +house next door, which Mrs. Pike's departure had left vacant. + +"I wonder," said Marjory, pulling the curtain back to get a better view +of the empty house, "what the new people will be like. It's exciting, +isn't it, to have something happening in this quiet neighborhood? What +did Grandma Pike say the name was?" + +"Milligan," replied Bettie. + +"Kind of nice name, isn't it?" asked Jean. + +"Yes," agreed Mabel, brightening suddenly. "I made up a long, long rhyme +about it last night before I went to sleep. Want to hear it?" + +"Of course." + +"This one really rhymes," explained Mabel, importantly. Her verses +sometimes lacked that desirable quality, so when they did rhyme Mabel +always liked to mention it. "Here it is: + + "As soon as a man named Milligan + Got well he always fell ill again--ill again--ill-- + +"Dear me, I can't remember how it went. There was a lot more, but I've +forgotten the rest." + +"It's a great pity," said Marjory, drily, "that you didn't forget _all_ +of it, because if there's really a Mr. Milligan, and I ever see him, +I'll think of that rhyme and I won't be able to keep my face straight." + +"We must be very polite to the Milligans," said considerate Bettie, "and +call on them as soon as they come. Mother always calls on new people; +she says it makes folks feel more comfortable to be welcomed into the +neighborhood." + +"Mrs. Crane does it, too. We're the nearest, perhaps we ought to be the +first." + +"I think," suggested Jean thoughtfully, "we'd better wait until they're +nicely settled; they might not like visitors too soon. You know _we_ +didn't." + +"They're going to move in today," said Mabel. "Goodness! I wish they'd +hurry and come; I'm so excited that I keep dusting the same shelf over +and over again. I'm just wild to see them!" + +It was sweeping-day at the cottage when the Milligans' furniture began +to arrive, but it looked very much as if the sweeping would last for at +least _two_ days because the girls were unable to get very far away from +the windows that faced west. These were the bedroom windows, and, as +there were only two of them, there were usually two heads at each +window. + +"There comes the first load," announced Marjory, at last. "There's a +high-chair on the very top, so there must be a baby." + +"I'm so glad," said Bettie. "I just love a baby." + +Two men unpacked the Milligans' furniture in the Milligans' front yard, +and each load seemed more interesting than the one before it. It was +such fun to guess what the big, clumsy parcels contained, particularly +when the contents proved to be quite different from what the girls +expected. + +"Somehow, I don't think they're going to be very nice people," said +Mabel. "I b'lieve we're going to be disappointed in 'em." + +"Why, Mabel," objected Jean, "we don't know a thing about them yet." + +"Yes, I do too. Their things--look--they don't look _ladylike_." + +"Oh, Mabel," laughed Marjory, "you're so funny." + +"Perhaps," offered Jean, "the Milligans are poor and the children have +spoiled things." + +"No," insisted Mabel. "They've got some of the newest and shiningest +furniture I ever saw, but I b'lieve it's imitation." + +"Oh, Mabel," laughed Jean, "I hope you won't watch the loads when _I_ +move. For a girl that's slept for three weeks on an imitation pillow, +you're pretty critical." + +Presently the Milligans themselves arrived. Mabel happened to be +counting the buds on the poppy plants when they came. + +"Girls!" she cried, rushing into the cottage with the news. "They've +come. I saw them all. There's a Mr. Milligan, a Mrs. Milligan, a girl, a +boy, a baby, and a dog. The girl's the oldest. She's just about my +size--I mean height--and she has straight, light hair. The baby walks, +and none of them are so very good-looking." + +It did not take the newcomers long to discover that their next-door +neighbors were four little girls. Mrs. Milligan found it out that very +afternoon when she went to the back door to borrow tea. Bettie +explained, very politely, that Dandelion Cottage was only a playhouse, +and that their tea-caddy contained nothing but glass beads. When Mrs. +Milligan returned to her own house, she told her own family about it. + +"You might as well run over and play with them, Laura," she said. "Take +the baby with you, too. He's a dreadful nuisance under my feet. That'll +be a real nice place for you both to play all summer." + +The girls received their visitors pleasantly; almost, indeed, with +enthusiasm; but after a very few moments, they began to eye the baby +with apprehension. He refused to make friends with them but wandered +about rather lawlessly and handled their treasures roughly. Laura paid +no attention to him but talked to the girls. She seemed a bright girl +and not at all bashful, and she used a great many slang phrases that +sounded new and, it must be confessed, rather attractive to the girls. + +"Oh, land, yes," she said, "we came here from Chicago where we had all +kinds of money, and clothes to burn--we lived in a beautiful flat. Pa +just came here to oblige Mr. Williams--he's going to clerk in Williams's +store. Come over and see me--we'll be real friendly and have lots of +good times together--I can put you up to lots of dodges. Say, this is a +dandy place to play in--I'm coming over often." + +Jean looked in silence at Bettie, Bettie at Mabel, and Mabel at Marjory. +Surely such an outburst of cordiality deserved a fitting response, but +no one seemed to be able to make it. + +"Do," said Jean, finally, but rather feebly, "we'd be pleased to have +you." + +Except for a few lively but good-natured squabbles between Marjory, who +was something of a tease, and Mabel, who was Marjory's favorite victim, +the little mistresses of Dandelion Cottage had always played together in +perfect harmony; but with the coming of the Milligans everything was +changed. + +To start with, between the Milligan baby and the Milligan dog, the girls +knew no peace. Mrs. Milligan was right when she said that the baby was a +nuisance, for it would have been hard to find a more troublesome +three-year-old. He pulled down everything he could reach, broke the +girls' best dishes, wiped their precious petunia and the geraniums +completely out of existence, and roared with a deep bass voice if anyone +attempted to interfere with him. The dog carried mud into the neat +little cottage, scratched up the garden, and growled if the girls tried +to drive him out. + +"Well," said Mabel, disconsolately, in one of the rare moments when the +girls were alone, "I _could_ stand the baby and the dog. But I _can't_ +stand Laura!" + +"Laura certainly likes to boss," said Bettie, who looked pale and +worried. "I don't just see what we're going to do about it. I try to be +nice to her, but I _can't_ like her. Mother says we must be polite to +her, but I don't believe Mother knows just what a queer girl she is--you +see she's always as quiet as can be when there are grown people around." + +"Yes," agreed Mabel, "her company manners are so much properer than mine +that Mother says she wishes I were more like her." + +"Well," said Marjory, uncompromisingly, "I'm mighty glad you're not. +Your manners aren't particularly good, but you haven't two sets. I +think Laura's the most disagreeable girl I ever knew. Just as she fools +you into almost liking her, she turns around and scratches you." + +"Perhaps," said Jean, "if her people were nicer--By the way, Mother says +that after this we must keep the windows shut while Mr. Milligan is +splitting wood in his back yard so we can't hear the awful things he +says, and that if we hear Mr. and Mrs. Milligan quarreling again we +mustn't listen." + +"Listen!" exclaimed Mabel. "We don't _need_ to listen. Their voices keep +getting louder and louder until it seems as if they were right in this +house." + +"Of course," said Marjory, "it can't be pleasant for Laura at home, but, +dear me, it isn't pleasant for _us_ with her over here." + +Badly-brought-up Laura was certainly not a pleasant playmate. She wanted +to lead in everything and was amiable only when she was having her own +way. She was not satisfied with the way the cottage was arranged but +rearranged it to suit herself. She told the girls that their garments +were countrified, and laughed scornfully at Bettie's boyish frocks and +heavy shoes. She ridiculed rotund Mabel for being fat, and said that +Marjory's nose turned up and that Jean's rather large mouth was a good +opening for a young dentist. Before the first week was fairly over, the +four girls--who had lived so happily before her arrival--were grieved, +indignant, or downright angry three-fourths of the time. + +Laura had one habit that annoyed the girls excessively, although at +first they had found it rather amusing. Later, however, owing perhaps to +a certain rasping quality in Laura's voice, it grew very tiresome. She +transposed the initials of their names. For instance, Bettie Tucker +became Tettie Bucker, Jeanie Mapes became Meanie Japes, while Mabel +became Babel Mennett. It was particularly distressing to have Laura +speak familiarly in her sharp, half-scornful tones, of their dear, +departed Miss Blossom, whose name was Gertrude, as Bertie Glossom. Mr. +Peter Black, of course, became Beter Plack, and Mrs. Bartholomew Crane +was Mrs. Cartholomew Brane, to lawless young Laura. + +"I don't think it's exactly respectful to do that to grown-up people's +names," protested Bettie, one day. + +"Pooh!" said Laura. "Mrs. Cartholomew Brane looks just like an old +washtub, she's so fat--who'd be respectful to a washtub? There goes +Toctor Ducker, Tettie Bucker. Huh! I'd hate to be a parson's +daughter--they're always as poor as church mice. What did you say your +mother's first name is?" + +"I didn't say and I'm not going to," returned Bettie. + +"Well, anyhow, her bonnet went out of style four years ago. I should +think the parish'd take up a subscription and get her a new one." + +"I wish, Laura," said exasperated Jean, another day, "that you wouldn't +meddle with our things. This bedroom is mine and Bettie's, and the other +one is Mabel's and Marjory's. We wouldn't _think_ of looking into each +other's private treasure boxes. I've seen you open mine half a dozen +times this week. The things are all keepsakes and I'd rather not have +them handled." + +"Huh! I guess I'll handle 'em if I want to. My mother can't keep me out +of her bureau drawers, and I don't think you're so very much smarter." + +A day or two later, the girls of Dandelion Cottage were invited to a +party in another portion of the town. The invitations were left at their +own cottage door and the delighted girls began at once to make plans for +the party. + +"Let's carry our new handkerchiefs," suggested Jean, going to her +treasure box. "I believe I'll take mine home with me--I dreamed last +night that the cottage was on fire and that mine got burned. Besides, +I'll have to get dressed at home for the party and it would be handier +to have it there." + +"Guess I will, too," said Bettie. + +"Great idea," said Marjory, taking her own box from its shelf. "I never +should have thought of anything so bright. Let's all write to Miss +Blossom and tell her that we carried our--Why! mine isn't in my box!" + +"Neither is mine," cried Mabel, who had turned quite pale at the +discovery. "It was there this morning. Girls, did any of you touch our +handkerchiefs?" + +"Of course we didn't," said Jean. "See, here's mine with 'J' on it, and +there are no others in my box." + +"Of course not," echoed Laura. + +"Mine's here, all right," said Bettie, who had been struggling with her +box, which opened hard. "Are you sure you left them in your boxes?" + +"Certain sure," replied Mabel. "I saw it this morning." + +"So did I see mine," asserted Marjory. "After I'd shown it to Aunty Jane +I brought it back to put in my treasure box." + +"Laura," asked Jean, "was Marjory's handkerchief in her box when you +looked in it this morning? I heard the cover make that funny little +clicking noise that it always makes, and just a minute afterward you +came out of her room." + +"I--I don't know," stammered Laura. "I didn't see it--I never touched +her old box. If you say I did, I'll go right home and tell my mother you +called me a thief. I'm going now, anyway." + +The girls were in the dining-room just outside of the back bedroom +door. As Laura was brushing past Jean, the opening of the new girl's +blouse caught in such a fashion on the corner of the sideboard that the +garment, which fastened in front, came unbuttoned from top to bottom. +From its bulging front dropped Bettie's bead chain, various articles of +doll's clothing, and the two missing handkerchiefs. + +"They're mine!" cried Laura, making a dive for the things. + +"They're not any such thing!" cried indignant Jean. "I made that doll's +dress myself, and I know the lace on those handkerchiefs." + +"They're my mother's," protested Laura. "I took 'em out of her drawer." + +"They're not," contradicted Mabel, prying Laura's fingers apart and +forcing her to drop one of the crumpled handkerchiefs. "Look at that +monogram--'M B' for Mabel Bennett." + +"It's no such thing," lied Laura, stoutly. "It stands for Bertha +Milligan and that's my mother's name." + +"Give me that other handkerchief this instant," demanded Jean, giving +Laura a slight shake. "If you don't, we'll take it away from you." + +"Take the old rag," said Laura. "My mother gives away better +handkerchiefs than these to beggars. I just took 'em anyway to scare +Varjory Male and Babel Mennett, the silly babies." + +After this enlightening experience, the girls never for a moment left +their unwelcome visitor alone in any of the rooms of Dandelion Cottage. +They stood her for almost a week longer, principally because there +seemed to be no way of getting rid of her. Mabel, indeed, had several +lively quarrels with her during that time, because quick-tempered Mabel, +always strictly truthful herself, could not tolerate deceit in anyone +else, and she had, of course, lost all faith in Laura. + +The end came suddenly one Friday afternoon. Miss Blossom had sent to the +girls, by mail, a photograph of her own charming self, and nothing that +the cottage contained was more precious. After one of the usual tiffs +with Mabel, high-handed Laura spitefully scratched a disfiguring +mustache right across the beautiful face, ruining the priceless treasure +beyond repair. + +Even Laura looked slightly dismayed at the result of her spiteful work. +The others for a moment were too horror-stricken for words. Then Mabel, +with blazing eyes, sprang to her feet and flung the cottage door wide +open. + +"You go home, Laura Milligan!" she cried. "Don't you ever dare to come +inside this house again!" + +"Yes, go," cried mild Bettie, for once thoroughly roused. "We've tried +to be nice to you and there hasn't been a single day that you haven't +been rude and horrid. Go home this minute. We're done with you." + +"I won't go until I'm good and ready," retorted Laura, tearing the +disfigured photograph in two and scornfully tossing the pieces into a +corner. "Such a fuss about a skinny old maid's picture." + +"You shan't stay one instant longer!" cried indignant Jean, stepping +determinedly behind Laura, placing her hands on the girl's shoulders, +and making a sudden run for the door. "There! You're out. Don't you ever +attempt to come in again." + +Bettie, grasping the situation and the Milligan baby at the same time, +promptly set the boy outside. She had handled him with the utmost +gentleness, but he always roared if anyone touched him, and he roared +now. + +"Yah!" yelled Laura, "I'll tell my mother you pinched him--slapped him, +too." + +"Sapped him, too," wailed the baby. + +"Well," said Jean, turning the key in the lock, "we'll have to keep the +door locked after this. Mercy! I never behaved so dreadfully to anybody +before and I hope I'll never have to again." + + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +An Embarrassing Visitor + + +Up to the time of the unpleasantness with Laura, the girls had unlocked +the cottage in the morning and had left it unlocked until they were +ready to go home at night, for the girls spent all their waking hours at +Dandelion Cottage. Bettie, indeed, had the care of the youngest two +Tucker babies, but they were good little creatures and when the girls +played with their dolls they were glad to include the two placid babies, +just as if they too were dolls. The littlest baby, in particular, made +a remarkably comfortable plaything, for it was all one to him whether he +slept in Jean's biggest doll's cradle, or in the middle of the +dining-room table, as long as he was permitted to sleep sixteen hours +out of the twenty-four. When he wasn't asleep, he sucked his thumb +contentedly, crowed happily on one of the cottage beds, or rolled +cheerfully about on the cottage floor. The older baby, too, obligingly +stayed wherever the girls happened to put him. After this experience +with the Tucker infants, the Milligan baby had proved a great +disappointment to the girls, for they had hoped to use him, too, as an +animated doll; but he had refused steadfastly to make friends even with +Bettie, whose way with babies was something beautiful to see. + +The girls were all required to do their own mending, but they found it +no hardship to do their darning on their own doorstep on sunny days, or +around the dining-room table if the north wind happened to be blowing, +for they always had so many interesting things to talk about. + +During the daytime, the cottage was never left entirely alone. It was +occupied even at mealtimes because the four families dined and supped at +different hours; for instance, Marjory's Aunty Jane always liked her tea +at half-past five, but Jean's people did not dine until seven. Owing to +the impossibility of capturing all the boys at one time, supper at the +Tucker house was a movable feast, so Bettie usually ate whenever she +found it most convenient. As for Mabel, it is doubtful if she knew the +exact hours for meals at the Bennett house because she was invariably +late. After the handkerchief episode, the girls planned that one or +another of them should always be in the cottage from the time that it +was opened in the morning until it was again locked for the night. The +morning after the later quarrel, however, the girls met by previous +arrangement on Mabel's doorstep, went in a body to the cottage, and, +after they were all inside, carefully locked the door. + +"We'll be on the safe side, anyway," said Jean. "Though I shouldn't +think that Laura would ever want to come near the place again." + +"Oh, she'll come fast enough," said Mabel. "She's cheeky enough for +anything. Do you s'pose she told her mother about it? She said she was +going to." + +"Pshaw!" said Marjory. "She was always threatening to tell her mother, +but nothing ever came of it. If she'd told her mother half the things +she _said_ she was going to, she wouldn't have had time to eat or +sleep." + +It was hopeless, the girls had decided, to attempt to mend the ruined +photograph, so, at Bettie's suggestion, they had sorrowfully cut it into +four pieces of equal size, which they divided between them. They had +just laid the precious fragments tenderly away in their treasure boxes +when the doorbell rang with such a loud, prolonged, jangling peal that +everybody jumped. + +"Laura!" exclaimed the four girls. + +"No," said Jean, cautiously drawing back the curtain of the front window +and peeping out. "It's Mrs. Milligan!" + +"Goodness!" whispered Marjory, "there's no knowing what Laura told +her--she never _did_ tell anything straight." + +"Let's keep still," said Mabel. "Perhaps she'll think there's nobody +home." + +"No hope of that," said Jean. "She saw us come in. But, pshaw! she can't +hurt us anyway." + +"No," said Marjory. "What's the use of being afraid? _We_ didn't do +anything to be ashamed of. Aunty Jane says we should have turned Laura +out the day she took the handkerchiefs." + +"I'm not exactly afraid," said Bettie, "but I don't like Mrs. Milligan. +Still, we'll have to let her in, I suppose." + +A second vigorous peal at the bell warned them that their visitor was +getting impatient. + +"You're the biggest and the most dignified," said Marjory, giving Jean a +shove. "_You_ go." + +"Don't ask her in if you can help it," warned Bettie, in a pleading +whisper. "The doorbell sounds as if she didn't like us very well." + +But the visitor did not wait to be asked to come in. The moment Jean +turned the key the door was flung open and Mrs. Milligan brushed past +the astonished quartet and sailed into the parlor, where she seated +herself bolt upright on the cozy corner. + +"I'd like to know," demanded Mrs. Milligan, in a hard, cold tone that +fell unpleasantly on the cottagers' ears, "if you consider it ladylike +for four great overgrown girls to pitch into one poor innocent little +child and a helpless baby? Your conduct yesterday was simply +_outrageous_. You might have injured those children for life, or even +broken the baby's back." + +"Broken the baby's back!" gasped Bettie, in honest amazement. "Why, I +simply lifted him with my two hands and set him just outside the door. I +never was rough with _any_ baby in all my life!" + +"I happen to know, on excellent authority," said Mrs. Milligan, "that +you slapped both of those helpless children and threw them down the +front steps. Laura was so excited about it that she couldn't sleep, and +the poor baby cried half the night--we fear that he's injured +internally." + +"Nobody _here_ injured him," said Mabel. "He always cries all the time, +anyhow." + +"We _did_ put them out and for a very good reason," said Jean, speaking +as respectfully as she could, "but we certainly didn't hurt either of +them. I'm sorry if the baby isn't well, but I know it isn't our fault." + +"Laura walked down the steps," said Bettie, "and the baby turned over +and slid down on his stomach the way he always does." + +"I should think that a _minister's_ daughter," said Mrs. Milligan, with +a withering glance at poor shrinking Bettie, "would scorn to tell such +lies." + +Bettie, who had never before been accused of untruthfulness, looked the +picture of conscious guilt; a tide of crimson flooded her cheeks and she +fingered the buttons on her blouse nervously. She was too dumbfounded to +speak a word in her own defense. Mabel, however, was only too ready. + +"Bettie never told a lie in her life," cried the indignant little girl. +"It was your own Laura that told stories if anybody did--and I guess +somebody did, all right. Laura _never_ tells the truth; she doesn't know +how to." + +"I have implicit confidence in Laura," returned Mrs. Milligan, frowning +at Mabel. "I believe every word she says." + +"Well," retorted dauntless Mabel, "that's more than the rest of us do. +We kept count one day and she told seventy-two fibs that we _know_ of." + +"Oh, Mabel, do hush," pleaded scandalized Bettie. + +"Hush nothing," said Mabel, not to be deterred. "I'm only telling the +truth. Laura took our handkerchiefs and then fibbed about it, and we've +missed a dozen things since that she probably carried off and--" + +"Mabel, Mabel!" warned Jean, pressing her hand over Mabel's too reckless +lips. "Don't you know that we decided not to say a word about those +other things? They didn't amount to anything, and we'd rather have peace +than to make a fuss about them." + +"I can see very plainly," said Mrs. Milligan, with cold disapproval, +"that you're not at all the proper sort of children for my little Laura +to play with. I forbid you to speak to her again; I don't care to have +her associate with you. I can believe all she says about you, for I've +never been treated so rudely in my life." + +"Apologize, Mabel," whispered Jean, whose arm was still about the +younger girl's neck. + +"If I was rude," said candid Mabel, "I beg your pardon. I didn't _mean_ +to be impolite, but every word I said about Laura was true." + +"I shall not accept your apology," said Mrs. Milligan, rising to depart, +"until you've sent a written apology to Laura and have retracted +everything you've said about her, besides." + +"It'll never be accepted then," said quick-tempered Mabel, "for we +haven't done anything to apologize for." + +"No, Mrs. Milligan," said Jean, in her even, pleasant voice. "No apology +to Laura can ever come from us. We stood her just as long as we could, +and then we turned her out just as kindly as anyone could have done it. +I told Mother all about it last night and she agreed that there wasn't +anything else we _could_ have done." + +"So did Mamma," said Bettie. + +"So did Aunty Jane." + +"Well," said Mrs. Milligan, pausing on the porch, "I'd thank you young +gossips to keep your tongues and your hands off my children in the +future." + +Jean closed the door and the four girls looked at one another in +silence. None of their own relatives were at all like Mrs. Milligan and +they didn't know just what to make of their unpleasant experience. At +last, Marjory gave a long sigh. + +"Well," said she, "I came awfully near telling her when she forbade our +playing with Laura that my Aunty Jane has forbidden _me_ to even speak +to her poor abused Laura." + +"As for me," said Mabel, with lofty scorn, "I don't _need_ to be +forbidden." + +"Come, girls," said Jean, "I'm sorry it had to happen, but I'm glad the +matter's ended. Let's not talk about it any more. Let's have one of our +own good old happy days--the kind we had before Laura came." + +"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Bettie. "We'll each write out a bill +of fare for Mr. Black's dinner party, and we'll see how many different +things we can think of. In that way, we'll be sure not to forget +anything." + +"But the Milligans," breathed Marjory, promptly seeing through Bettie's +tactful scheme. + +The Milligan matter, however, was not by any means ended. It was true +that the girls paid no further attention to Laura, but this did not +deter that rather vindictive young person from annoying the little +cottagers in every way that she possibly could, although she was afraid +to work openly. + +As Laura knew, the girls took great pride in their little garden. +Bettie's good-natured big brother Rob had offered to take care of their +tiny lawn, and he kept it smooth and even. The round pansy bed daily +yielded handfuls of great purple, white, or golden blossoms; the thrifty +nasturtiums were beginning to bloom with creditable freedom; and many of +the different, prettily foliaged little plants in the long bed near the +Milligans' fence were opening their first curious, many-colored flowers. + +Some of the vegetables were positively getting radishes and carrots on +their roots, as Bettie put it. The pride of the vegetable garden, +however, was a huge, rampant vine that threatened to take possession of +the entire yard. There was just the one plant; no one knew where the +seed came from or how it had managed to get itself planted, but there it +was, close beside the back fence. For want of a better name, the girls +called it "The Accident," and they expected wonderful things from it +when the great yellow trumpet-shaped flowers should give place to fruit, +although they didn't know in the least what kind of crop to look for. +But this made it all the more delightful. + +"Perhaps it'll be pumpkins," said Jean. "I guess I'd better hunt up a +recipe for pumpkin pie, so's to be ready when the time comes." + +"Or those funny, pale green squashes that are scalloped all around the +edge like a dish," said Marjory. + +"Or cucumbers," said Bettie. "I took Mrs. Crane a leaf, one day, and she +said it _might_ be cucumbers." + +"Or watermelons," said Mabel. "Um-m! wouldn't it be grand if it should +happen to be watermelons?" + +"What I'm wondering is," said Jean, "whether there's any danger of the +vine's going around the house and taking possession of the front yard, +too. I could almost believe that this was a seedling of Jack's beanstalk +except that it runs on the ground instead of up." + +"If it tries to go around the corner," laughed Bettie, "we'll train it +up the back of the house. Wouldn't it be fun to have pumpkins, or +squashes, or cucumbers, or melons, or maybe all of them at once, growing +on our roof?" + +The day after Mrs. Milligan's visit, Laura, who was not invited to the +party, and who found time heavy on her hands, watched the girls, after +stopping for Marjory, set out in their pretty summer dresses to spend +the afternoon at a young friend's house. Laura gazed after them +enviously. There was no reason why she should have been invited, for she +had never met the little girl who was giving the party, but she didn't +think of that. Instead, she foolishly laid the unintentional slight at +the little cottagers' door. + +Mrs. Milligan was sewing on the doorstep and had given Laura a +dish-towel to hem. Saying something about hunting for a thimble, Laura +went to the kitchen, took the bread-knife from the table drawer, stole +quietly out of the back door, and slipped between the bars of the back +fence. Reaching the splendid vine that the girls loved so dearly, she +parted the huge, rough leaves until she found the spot where the vine +started from the ground. First looking about cautiously to make certain +that no one was in sight, spiteful Laura drew the knife back and forth +across the thick stem until, with a sudden, sharp crack, the sturdy vine +parted from its root. + +Two minutes later, Laura, looking the picture of propriety, sat on the +Milligans' doorstep hemming her dish-towel. + +Of course, when the girls made their next daily excursion about their +garden they were almost broken-hearted at finding their beloved vine +flat on the ground, all withered and dead. + +"Oh," mourned Marjory, "now we'll never know _what_ 'The Accident' was +going to bear, pumpkins or squashes or--" + +"Yes," said Mabel, who was blinking hard to keep the tears back, "that's +the hardest part of it, it was cut off in its p-prime--Oh, dear, I guess +I'm g-going to cry." + +"What _could_ have done it?" asked Bettie, who was not far from +following Mabel's example. "Has anyone stepped on it?" + +"Perhaps a potato bug ate it off," suggested Jean. + +"A two-legged potato bug, I guess," said Marjory, who had been examining +the ground carefully. "See, here are small sharp heel prints close to +the root." + +"Whose handkerchief is this?" asked Mabel, picking up a small tightly +crumpled ball and unrolling it gingerly. "There's a name on it but my +eyes are so teary I can't make it out." + +"It looks like Milligan," said Bettie, turning it over, "but we can't +tell how long it's been here." + +"Horrid as she is," said charitable Jean, "it doesn't seem as if even +Laura would do such a mean thing. I can't believe it of her." + +"_I_ can," said Mabel. "If _she_ had a squash vine, or a pumpkin vine, +I'd go straight over and spoil it this minute." + +"No, no," said Jean, "we mustn't be horrid just because other folks are. +We won't pay any attention to her--we'll just be patient." + +The girls found four small, green, egglike objects growing on the +withered vine; they cut them off and these, too, were laid tenderly away +in their treasure boxes. + +"When we get old," said Mabel, tearfully, "we'll take 'em out and tell +our grandchildren all about 'The Accident.'" + +But even this prospect did not quite console the girls for the loss of +their treasure. + +For the next few days, Laura remained contented with doing on the sly +whatever she could to annoy the girls. One evening, when the girls had +gone home for the night and while her mother was away from home, Laura +threw a brick at one of the cottage windows, breaking a pane of glass. +Reaching in through the hole, she scattered handfuls of sand on the +clean floor that the girls had scrubbed that morning. Another night she +emptied a basketful of potato parings on their neat front porch and +daubed molasses on their doorknob--mean little tricks prompted by a mean +little nature. + +It wasn't much fun, however, to annoy persons who refused to show any +sign of being annoyed, and Laura presently changed her tactics. Taking a +large bone from the pantry one day, when the girls were sitting on their +doorstep, she first showed it to Towser, the Milligan dog, and then +threw it over the fence into the very middle of the pansy bed. Of +course, the big clumsy dog bounded over the low fence after the bone, +crushing many of the delicate pansy plants. After that at regular +intervals, Laura threw sticks and other bones into the other beds with +very much the same result. + +The next time Rob cut the grass he noticed the untidy appearance of the +beds and asked the reason. The girls explained. + +"I'll shoot that dog if you say so," offered Rob, with honest +indignation. + +"No, no," said Bettie, "it isn't the _dog's_ fault." + +"No," said Jean, "we're not sure that the dog isn't the least +objectionable member of the Milligan family." + +"How would it do if I licked the boy?" asked Rob. + +"It wouldn't do at all," replied Bettie. "He works somewhere in the +daytime and never even looks in this direction when he's home. He's +afraid of girls." + +"Then I guess you'll have to grin and bear it," said Rob, moving off +with the lawn-mower, "since neither of my remedies seems to fit the +case." + + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +A Lively Afternoon + + +It happened one day that Mrs. Milligan was obliged to spend a long +afternoon at the dentist's, leaving Laura in charge of the house. +Unfortunately it happened, too, that this was the day when the sewing +society met, and Mrs. Tucker had asked Bettie to stay home for the +afternoon because the next-to-the-youngest baby was ill with a croupy +cold and could not go out of doors to the cottage. Devoted Jean offered +to stay with her beloved Bettie, who gladly accepted the offer. Before +going to Bettie's, however, Jean ran over to Dandelion Cottage to tell +the other girls about it. + +"Mabel," asked Jean, a little doubtfully, "are you quite sure you'll be +able to turn a deaf ear if Laura should happen to bother you? I'm half +afraid to leave you two girls here alone." + +"You needn't be," said Mabel. "I wouldn't associate with Laura if I were +paid for it. She isn't my kind." + +"No," said Marjory, "you needn't worry a mite. We're going to sit on the +doorstep and read a perfectly lovely book that Aunty Jane found at the +library--it's one that she liked when _she_ was a little girl. We're +going to take turns reading it aloud." + +"Well, that certainly ought to keep you out of mischief. You'll be safe +enough if you stick to your book. If anything _should_ happen, just +remember that I'm at Bettie's." + +"Yes, Grandma," said Marjory, with a comical grimace. + +Jean laughed, ran around the house, and squeezed through the hole in the +back fence. + +Half an hour later, lonely Laura, discovering the girls on their +doorstep, amused herself by sicking the dog at them. Towser, however, +merely growled lazily for a few moments and then went to sleep in the +sunshine--he, at least, cherished no particular grudge against the +girls and probably by that time he recognized them as neighbors. + +Then Laura perched herself on one of the square posts of the dividing +fence and began to sing--in her high, rasping, exasperating voice--a +song that was almost too personal to be pleasant. It had taken Laura +almost two hours to compose it, some days before, and fully another hour +to commit it to memory, but she sang it now in an offhand, haphazard way +that led the girls to suppose that she was making it up as she went +along. It ran thus: + + There's a lanky girl named Jean, + Who's altogether too lean. + Her mouth is too big, + And she wears a wig, + And her eyes are bright sea-green. + +Of course it was quite impossible to read even a thrillingly interesting +book with rude Laura making such a disturbance. If the girls had been +wise, they would have gone into the house and closed the door, leaving +Laura without an audience; but they were _not_ wise and they _were_ +curious. They couldn't help waiting to hear what Laura was going to sing +about the rest of them, and they did not need to wait long; Laura +promptly obliged them with the second verse: + + There's another named Marjory Vale, + Who's about the size of a snail. + Her teeth are light blue-- + She hasn't but two-- + And her hair is much too pale. + +Laura had, in several instances, sacrificed truth for the sake of rhyme, +but enough remained to injure the vanity of the subjects of her song +very sharply. Marjory breathed quickly for a moment and flushed pink but +gave no audible sign that she had heard. Laura, somewhat disappointed, +proceeded: + + There's a silly young lass called Bet, + Thinks she's ev'rybody's sweet pet. + She slapped my brother, + Fibbed to my mother-- + I know what _she's_ going to get. + +Mabel snorted indignantly over this injustice to her beloved Bettie and +started to rise, but Marjory promptly seized her skirt and dragged her +down. Laura, however, saw the movement and was correspondingly elated. +It showed in her voice: + + But the worst of the lot is Mabel, + She eats all the pie she's able. + She's round as a ball, + Has no waist at all, + And her manners are bad at the table. + +Marjory giggled. She had no thought of being disloyal, but this verse +was certainly a close fit. + +"You just let me go," muttered Mabel, crimson with resentment and +struggling to break away from Marjory's restraining hand. "I'll push her +off that post." + +"Hush!" said diplomatic Marjory, "perhaps there's more to the song." + +But there wasn't. Laura began at the beginning and sang all the verses +again, giving particular emphasis to the ones concerning Mabel and +Marjory. This, of course, grew decidedly monotonous; the girls got tired +of the constant repetition of the silly song long before Laura did. +There was something about the song, too, that caught and held their +attention. Irresistibly attracted, held by an exasperating fascination, +neither girl could help waiting for her own special verse. But while +this was going on, Mabel, with a finger in the ear nearest Laura, was +industriously scribbling something on a scrap of paper. + +As everybody knows, the poetic muse doesn't always work when it is most +needed, and Mabel was sadly handicapped at that moment. She was not +satisfied with her hasty scrawl but, in the circumstances, it was the +best she could do. Suddenly, before Marjory realized what was about to +happen, Mabel was shouting back, to an air quite as objectionable as +the one Laura was singing: + + There's a very rude girl named Laura, + Whose ways fill all with horror. + She's all the things she says _we_ are; + All know this to their sorrow. + +"Yah! yah!" retorted quick-witted Laura. "There isn't a rhyme in your +old song. If I couldn't rhyme better 'n that, I'd learn how. Come over +and I'll teach you!" + +For an instant, Mabel looked decidedly crushed--_no_ poet likes his +rhymes disparaged. Laura, noting Mabel's crestfallen attitude, went into +gales of mocking laughter and when Mabel looked at Marjory for sympathy +Marjory's face was wreathed in smiles. It was too much; Mabel hated to +be laughed at. + +"I _can_ rhyme," cried Mabel, springing to her feet and giving vent to +all her grievances at once. "My table manners _are_ good. I'm _not_ fat. +I've got just as much waist as _you_ have." + +"You've got more," shrieked delighted Laura. + +Faithless Marjory, struck by this indubitable truth, laughed outright. + +"You--you can't make Indian-bead chains," sputtered Mabel, trying hard +to find something crushing to say. "You can't make pancakes. You can't +drive nails." + +"Yah," retorted Laura, who was right in her element, "you can't throw +straight." + +"Neither can you." + +"I can! If I could find anything to throw I'd prove it." + +Just at this unfortunate moment, a grocery-man arrived at the Milligan +house with a basketful of beautiful scarlet tomatoes. In another second, +Laura, anxious to prove her ability, had jumped from the fence, seized +the basket and, with unerring aim, was delightedly pelting her +astonished enemy with the gorgeous fruit. Mabel caught one full in the +chest, and as she turned to flee, another landed square in the middle of +her light-blue gingham back; Marjory's shoulder stopped a third before +the girls retreated to the house, leaving Laura, a picturesque figure on +the high post, shouting derisively: + +"Proved it, didn't I? Ki! I proved it." + +Marjory, pleading that discretion was the better part of valor, begged +Mabel to stay indoors; but Mabel, who had received, and undoubtedly +deserved, the worst of the encounter, was for instant revenge. Rushing +to the kitchen she seized the pan of hard little green apples that +Grandma Pike had bequeathed the girls and flew with them to the porch. + +Mabel's first shot took Laura by surprise and landed squarely between +her shoulders. Mabel was surprised, too, because throwing straight was +not one of her accomplishments. She hadn't hoped to do more than +frighten her exasperating little neighbor. + +Elated by this success, Mabel threw her second apple, which, alas, flew +wide of its mark and caught poor unprepared Mr. Milligan, who was coming +in at his own gate, just under the jaw, striking in such a fashion that +it made the astonished man suddenly bite his tongue. + +Nobody likes to bite his tongue. Naturally Mr. Milligan was indignant; +indeed, he had every reason to be, for Mabel's conduct was disgraceful +and the little apple was very hard. Entirely overlooking the fact that +Laura, who had failed to notice her father's untimely arrival, was still +vigorously pelting Mabel, who stood as if petrified on the cottage steps +and was making no effort to dodge the flying scarlet fruit, Mr. Milligan +shouted: + +"Look here, you young imps, I'll see that you're turned out of that +cottage for this outrage. We've stood just about enough abuse from you. +I don't intend to put up with any more of it." + +Then, suddenly discovering what Laura, who had turned around in dismay +at the sound of her father's voice, was doing, angry Mr. Milligan +dragged his suddenly crestfallen daughter from the fence, boxed her ears +soundly, and carried what was left of the tomatoes into the house; for +that particular basket of fruit had been sent from very far south and +express charges had swelled the price of the unseasonable dainty to a +very considerable sum. + +Marjory, in the cottage kitchen, was alternately scolding and laughing +at woebegone Mabel when Jean and Bettie, released from their charge, ran +back to Dandelion Cottage. Mabel, crying with indignation, sat on the +kitchen stove rubbing her eyes with a pair of grimy fists--Mabel's hands +always gathered dust. + +"Oh, Mabel! how _could_ you!" groaned Jean, when Marjory had told the +afternoon's story. "I'll never dare to leave you here again without some +sensible person to look after you. Don't you _see_ you've been +almost--yes, quite--as bad as Laura?" + +"I don't care," sobbed unrepentant Mabel. "If you'd heard those +verses--and--and Marjory _laughed_ at me." + +"Couldn't help it," giggled Marjory, who was perched on the corner of +the kitchen table. + +"But surely," reproached gentle-mannered Jean, "it wasn't necessary to +throw things." + +"I guess," said Mabel, suddenly sitting up very straight and disclosing +a puffy, tear-stained countenance that moved Marjory to fresh giggles, +"if you'd felt those icy cold tomatoes go plump in your eye and every +place on your very newest dress, _you'd_ have been pretty mad, too. +Look at me! I was too surprised to move after I'd hit Mr. Milligan--I +never saw him coming at all--and I guess every tomato Laura threw hit me +some place." + +"Yes," confirmed Marjory, "I'll say that much for Laura. She can +certainly throw straighter than any girl I ever knew--she throws just +like a boy." + +Jean, still worried and disapproving, could not help laughing, for +Laura's plump target showed only too good evidence of Laura's skill. +Mabel's new light-blue gingham showed a round scarlet spot where each +juicy missile had landed; and besides this, there were wide muddy +circles where her tears had left highwater marks about each eye. + +"But, dear me," said Jean, growing sober again, "think how low-down and +horrid it will sound when we tell about it at home. Suppose it should +get into the papers! Apples and tomatoes! If boys had done it it would +have sounded bad enough, but for _girls_ to do such a thing! Oh, dear, I +_do_ wish I'd been here to stop it!" + +"To stop the tomatoes, you mean," said Mabel. "You couldn't have stopped +anything else, for I just _had_ to do something or burst. I've felt all +the week just like something sizzling in a bottle and waiting to have +the cork pulled! I'll _never_ be able to do my suffering in silence the +way you and Bettie do. Oh, girls, I feel just loads better." + +"Well, you may _feel_ better," said irrepressible Marjory, "but you +certainly look a lot worse. With those muddy rings on your face you look +just like a little owl that isn't very wise." + +"Oh, dear," mourned Bettie, "if Miss Blossom had only stayed we wouldn't +have had all this trouble with those people." + +"No," said Marjory, shrewdly, "Miss Blossom would probably have made +Laura over into a very good imitation of an honest citizen. I don't +think, though, that even Miss Blossom could make Laura anything more +than an imitation, because--well, because she's Laura. It's different +with Mabel--" + +Mabel looked up expectantly, and Marjory, who was in a teasing mood, +continued. + +"Yes," said she, encouragingly, "Miss Blossom _might_ have succeeded in +making a nice, polite girl out of Mabel if she'd only had time--" + +"How much time?" demanded Mabel, with sudden suspicion. + +"Oh, about a thousand years," replied Marjory, skipping prudently behind +tall Jean. + +"Never mind, Mabel," said Bettie, who always sided with the oppressed, +slipping a thin arm about Mabel's plump shoulders. "We like you pretty +well, anyway, and you've certainly had an awful time." + +"Do you think," asked Mabel, with sudden concern, "that Mr. Milligan +_could_ get us turned out of the cottage? You know he threatened to." + +"No," said Bettie. "The cottage is church property and no one could do +anything about it with Mr. Black away because he's the senior warden. +Father said only this morning that there was all sorts of church +business waiting for him." + +"Well," said Mabel, with a sigh of relief, "Mr. Black wouldn't turn us +out, so we're perfectly safe. Guess I'll go out on the porch and sing my +Milligan song again." + +"I guess you won't," said Jean. "There's a very good tub in the Bennett +house and I'd advise you to go home and take a bath in it--you look as +if you needed _two_ baths and a shampoo. Besides, it's almost supper +time." + +Laura's version of the story, unfortunately, differed materially from +the truth. There was no gainsaying the tomatoes--Mr. Milligan had seen +those with his own eyes; but Laura claimed that she had been compelled +to use those expensive vegetables as a means of self-defense. According +to Laura, whose imagination was as well trained as her arm, she had been +the innocent victim of all sorts of persecution at the hands of the +four girls. They had called her a thief and had insulted not only her +but all the other Milligans. Mabel, she declared, had opened hostilities +that afternoon by throwing stones, and poor, abused Laura had only used +the tomatoes as a last resort. The apple that struck Mr. Milligan was, +she maintained, the very last of about four dozen. + +Had the Milligans not been prejudiced, they might easily have learned +how far from the truth this assertion was, for the porch of Dandelion +Cottage was still bespattered with tomatoes, whereas in the Milligan +yard there were no traces of the recent encounter. This, to be sure, was +no particular credit to Mabel for there _might_ have been had Mr. +Milligan delayed his coming by a very few minutes, since Mabel's pan +still contained seven hard little apples and Mabel still longed to use +them. + +The Milligans, however, _were_ prejudiced. Although Laura was often rude +and disagreeable at home, she was the only little girl the Milligans +had; in any quarrel with outsiders they naturally sided with their own +flesh and blood, and, in spite of the tomatoes, they did so now. In her +mother Laura found a staunch champion. + +"I won't have those stuck-up little imps there another week," said Mrs. +Milligan. "If you don't see that they're turned out, James, I will." + +"They stick out their tongues at me every time they see me," fibbed +Laura, whose own tongue was the only one that had been used for +sticking-out purposes. "They said Ma was no lady, and--" + +"I'm going to complain of them this very night," said Mrs. Milligan, +with quick resentment. "I'll show 'em whether I'm a lady or not." + +"Who'll you complain to?" asked Laura, hopefully. + +"The church warden, of course. These cottages both belong to the +church." + +"Mr. Black is the girls' best friend," said Laura. "He wouldn't believe +anything against them--besides, he's away." + +"Mr. Downing isn't," said Mr. Milligan. "I paid him the rent last week. +We'll threaten to leave if he doesn't turn them out. He's a sharp +businessman and he wouldn't lose the rent of this house for the sake of +letting a lot of children use that cottage. I'll see him tomorrow." + +"No," said Mrs. Milligan, "just leave the matter to me. _I'll_ talk to +Mr. Downing." + +"Suit yourself," said Mr. Milligan, glad perhaps to shirk a disagreeable +task. + +After supper that evening, Mrs. Milligan put on her best hat and went to +Mr. Downing's house, which was only about three blocks from her own. The +evening was warm and she found Mr. and Mrs. Downing seated on their +front porch. Mrs. Milligan accepted their invitation to take a chair and +began at once to explain the reason for her visit. + +The angry woman's tale lost nothing in the telling; indeed, it was not +hard to discover how Laura came by her habit of exaggerating. When Mrs. +Milligan went home half an hour later, Mr. Downing was convinced that +the church property was in dangerous hands. He couldn't see what Mr. +Black had been thinking of to allow careless, impudent children who +played with matches, drove nails in the cottage plaster, and insulted +innocent neighbors, to occupy Dandelion Cottage. + +"Somehow," said Mrs. Downing, when the visitor had departed, "I don't +like that woman. She isn't quite a lady." + +"Nonsense, my dear," said Mr. Downing. "If only _half_ the things she +hints at are true, there would be reason enough for closing the cottage. +The place itself doesn't amount to much, I've been told, but a fire +started there would damage thousands of dollars' worth of property. +Besides, there's the rent from the house those people are in--we don't +want to lose that, you know." + +"Still, there are always tenants--" + +"Not at this time of the year. I'll look into the matter as soon as I +can find time." + +"Remember," said Mrs. Downing, thinking of Mrs. Milligan's rasping +tones, "that there are two sides to every story." + +"My dear," said Mr. Downing, complacently, "I shall listen with the +strictest impartiality to both sides." + + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +The Junior Warden + + +By nine o'clock the next morning, the girls were all at the cottage as +usual. Mrs. Mapes had given them materials for a simple cake and Jean +and Bettie were in the kitchen making it. Marjory, singing as she +worked, was running her Aunty Jane's carpet-sweeper noisily over the +parlor rug, while Mabel, whistling an accompaniment to Marjory's song, +was dusting the sideboard; at all times the cottage furniture received +so much unnecessary dusting that it would not have been at all +surprising if it had worn thin in spots. + +When the doorbell rang suddenly and sharply, Marjory's tune stopped +short, high in air, and Mabel ran to the window. + +"It's a man," announced Mabel. + +"Mr. Milligan?" asked Marjory, anxiously. + +"He's moved so I can't tell." + +"Try the other window," urged Marjory, impatiently. + +"It doesn't look like Mr. Milligan's legs--I can't see the rest of him. +They look neat and--and expensive." + +"Probably it's just an agent; they're kind of thick lately. You go to +the door and tell him we're just pretend people, while I'm putting the +sweeper out of sight." + +"Good morning," said Mr. Downing. "Are you--Why! this is a very cozy +little place. I had no idea that it was so comfortable. May I come in?" + +"Ye-es," returned Mabel, eyeing him doubtfully, "but I think you're +probably making a mistake. You see, we're not really-truly people." + +"Indeed!" said Mr. Downing, with an amused glance at plump Mabel. "Is it +possible you're a ghost?" + +"I mean," explained Mabel, "we're just children and this is only a +playhouse, not a real one. If you have anything to sell, or are looking +for a boarding place, or want to take our census--" + +"No," said Mr. Downing, "I don't want either your dollars or your +senses. My name is Downing and I'm not selling anything. I called on +business. Who is the head of this--this ghostly corporation?" + +"It has four," said Mabel. "I'll get the rest." + +Bettie and Jean, with grown-up gingham aprons tied about their necks, +followed Mabel to the parlor. Mr. Downing had seated himself in one of +the chairs and the girls sat facing him in a bright-eyed row on the +couch. Their countenances were so eager and expectant that Mr. Downing +found it hard to begin. + +"I've come in," he said, "to talk over a little matter of business with +you. I understand that you've been having trouble with your +neighbors--exchanging compliments--" + +"No," said honest Mabel, turning crimson, "it was apples and tomatoes. +The Milligans are the most troublesome neighbors we've ever had." + +"So-o?" said the visitor, raising his eyebrows in genuine surprise. +"Why, I understood that it was quite the other way round. I'd like to +hear your version of the difficulty." + +Jean and Bettie, with occasional assistance from Marjory and much +prompting from Mabel, told him all about it. During the recital Mr. +Downing's attention seemed to wander, for his eyes took in every detail +of the neat sitting-room, strayed to the prettily papered dining-room, +and even rested lingeringly upon the one visible corner of the dainty +blue bedroom. Bettie had neglected to close the door between the kitchen +and the dining-room, which proved unfortunate, because the tiny scrap of +butter that Jean had left melting in a very small pan on the kitchen +stove, got too hot and with threatening, hissing noises began to give +forth clouds of thick, disagreeable smoke. Jean, the first of the girls +to notice it, flew to the kitchen, snatched a lid from the stove, and, +with a newspaper for a holder, swept the burning butter, pan and all, +into the fire. Then the paper in Jean's hand caught fire, and for the +instant before she stuffed it into the stove and clapped the lid into +place, fierce red flames leaped high. + +To the visitor, prepared by Mrs. Milligan for just such doings, it +looked for a moment as if all the rear end of the cottage were in +flames; but Jean returned to her place on the couch with an air of what +looked to Mr. Downing very much like almost criminal unconcern. How was +Mr. Downing, who did no cooking, to know that paper placed on a +cake-baking fire _always_ flares up in an alarming fashion without doing +any real harm? He didn't know, and the incident decided the matter he +was turning over in his mind. The girls had found it a little hard to +tell their story, for it was plain that their visitor was using his eyes +rather than his ears; moreover, they were not at all certain that he had +any right to demand the facts in the case. When the story was finished, +Mr. Downing looked at the row of interested faces and cleared his +throat; but, for some reason, the words he had meant to speak refused to +come. He hadn't supposed that the evicting of unsatisfactory tenants +would prove such an unpleasant task. The tenants, all at once, seemed +part of the house, and the man realized suddenly that the losing of the +cottage was likely to prove a severe blow to the four little +housekeepers. Perhaps it was disconcerting to see the expression of +puzzled anxiety that had crept into Bettie's great brown eyes, into +Jean's hazel ones, into Marjory's gray and Mabel's blue ones. At any +rate, Mr. Downing decided to be well out of the way when the blow should +fall; he realized that it would prove a trying ordeal to face all those +young eyes filled with indignation and probably with tears. + +"Ah-hum," said Mr. Downing, rising to take his leave. "I'm much obliged +to you young ladies. Hum--the number of this house is what, if you +please?" + +"Number 224," said Bettie, whose mind worked quickly. + +"Hum," said Mr. Downing, writing it on the envelope he had taken from +his pocket, and moving rather abruptly toward the door, as if desirous +to escape as speedily as possible with the knowledge he had gleaned. +"Thank you very much. I bid you all good morning." + +"Now what in the world did that man want?" demanded Mabel, before the +front door had fairly closed. "Do you s'pose he's some kind of a lawyer, +or--" and Mabel turned pale at the thought--"a policeman disguised as +a--a human being? Do you suppose the Milligans are going to get us +arrested for just two apples--and--and a little poetry?" + +"More probably," suggested Jean, "he's a burglar. Didn't you notice the +way he looked around at everything? I could see that he sort of lost +interest after while--as if he had concluded that we hadn't anything +worth stealing." + +"Nonsense!" said Bettie. "I don't know what he does for a living, but he +can't be a burglar. He hasn't lived here very long, but he goes to our +church and comes to our house to vestry meetings. Sometimes on warm +Sundays when there's nobody else to do it, he passes the plate." + +"Well," said Mabel, "I hope he isn't a policeman weekdays." + +"It's more likely," said Marjory, "that he does reporting for the +papers. The time Aunty Jane was in that railroad accident, a reporter +came to our house to interview her, and he asked questions just as that +Mr. Downing--was that his name?--did. He took the number of the house, +too." + +"Oh, mercy!" gasped Mabel, turning suddenly from white to a deep +crimson. "If those green apples get into the paper, I'll be too ashamed +to live! Oh, _girls_! Couldn't we stop him--couldn't we--couldn't we pay +him something _not_ to?" + +"It's probably in by now," said Marjory, teasingly. "They do it by +telegraph, you know." + +"He _couldn't_ have been a reporter," protested Mabel. "Reporters are +always young and very active so they can catch lots of scoons--no, +scoots." + +"Scoops," corrected Jean. + +"Well, scoops. He was kind of slow and a little bit bald-headed on +top--I noticed it when he stooped for his hat." + +"Well, anyway," comforted Jean, "let's not worry about it. Let's rebuild +our fire--of course it's out by now--and finish our cake." + +In spite of the cake's turning out much better than anyone could have +expected, with so many agitated cooks taking turns stirring it, there +was something wrong with the day. The girls were filled with uneasy +forebodings and could settle down to nothing. Marjory felt no desire to +sing, and even the cake seemed to have lost something of its flavor. +Moreover, when they had stood for a moment on their doorstep to see the +new steam road-roller go puffing by, Laura had tossed her head +triumphantly and shouted tauntingly: "_I_ know something _I_ shan't +tell!" After that, the girls could not help wondering if Laura really +did know something--some dreadful thing that concerned them vitally and +was likely to burst upon them at any moment. + +For the first time in the history of their housekeeping, they could find +nothing that they really wanted to do. During the afternoon they had +several little disagreements with each other. Mild Jean spoke sharply to +Marjory, and even sweet-tempered Bettie was drawn into a lively dispute +with Mabel. Moreover, all three of the older girls were inclined to +blame Mabel for her fracas with the Milligans; and the culprit, ashamed +one moment and defiant the next, was in a most unhappy frame of mind. +Altogether, the day was a failure and the four friends parted coldly at +least an hour before the usual time. + + + + +CHAPTER 14 + +An Unexpected Letter + + +The next morning, Jean, with three large bananas as a peace offering, +was the first to arrive at Dandelion Cottage. Jean, a wise young person +for her years, had decided that a little hard work would clear the +atmosphere, so, finding no one else in the house, she made a fire in the +stove, put on the kettle, put up the leaf of the kitchen table, and +began to take all the dishes from the pantry shelves. Dishwashing in the +cottage was always far more enjoyable than this despised occupation +usually is elsewhere, owing to the astonishing assortment of crockery +the girls had accumulated. No two of the dishes--with the exception of a +pair of plates bearing life-sized portraits of "The frog that would +a-wooing go, whether his mother would let him or no"--bore the same +pattern. There was a bewildering diversity, too, in the sizes and shapes +of the cups and saucers, and an alarming variety in the matter of color. +But, as the girls had declared gleefully a dozen times or more, it would +be possible to set the table for seven courses when the time should come +for Mr. Black's and Mrs. Crane's dinner party, because so many of the +things almost matched if they didn't quite. Jean was thinking of this as +she lifted the dishes from the shelf to the table, and lovingly arranged +them in pairs, the pink sugar bowl beside the blue cream-pitcher, the +yellow coffee cup beside the dull red Japanese tea cup, and the +"Love-the-Giver" mug beside the "For my Little Friend" oatmeal bowl. She +had just taken down the big, dusty, cracked pitcher that matched nothing +else--which perhaps was the reason that it had remained high on the +shelf since the day Mabel had used it for her lemonade--when the +doorbell rang. + +Hastily wiping her dusty hands, Jean ran to the door. No one was there, +but the postman was climbing the steps of the next house, so Jean +slipped her fingers expectantly into the little, rusty iron letter-box. +Perhaps there was something from Miss Blossom, who sometimes showed that +she had not forgotten her little landladies. + +Sure enough, there was a large white letter, not from Miss Blossom to be +sure, but from somebody. To the young cottagers, letters were always +joyous happenings; they had no debts, consequently they were +unacquainted with bills. With this auspicious beginning, for of course +the coming of a totally unexpected letter was an auspicious beginning, +it was surely going to be a cheerful, perhaps even a delightful, day. +Jean hummed happily as she laid the unopened letter on the dining-room +table, for of course a letter somewhat oddly addressed to "The Four +Young Ladies at 224 Fremont Street, City," could be opened only when all +four were present. When Marjory and Bettie came in, they fell upon the +letter and examined every portion of the envelope, but neither girl +could imagine who had sent it. It was impossible to wait for Mabel, who +was always late, so Bettie obligingly ran to get her. Even so there was +still a considerable wait while Mabel laced her shoes; but presently +Bettie returned, with Mabel, still nibbling very-much-buttered toast, at +her heels. + +"You open it, Jean," panted Bettie. "You can read writing better than we +can." + +"Hurry," urged Mabel, who could keep other persons waiting much more +easily than she herself could wait. + +"Here's a fork to open it with," said Marjory. "I can't find the +scissors. Hurry up; maybe it's a party and we'll have to R. S. V. P. +right away." + +"Oh, goody! If it is," squealed Mabel, "I can wear my new tan Oxfords." + +"It's from Yours respectably--no, Yours regretfully, John W. Downing," +announced Jean. "The man that was here yesterday, you know." + +"Read it, read it," pleaded the others, crowding so close that Jean had +to lift the letter above their heads in order to see it at all. "Do +hurry up, we're crazy to hear it." + + "My Dear Young Ladies," read Jean in a voice that started + bravely but grew fainter with every line. "It is with sincere + regret that I write to inform you that it no longer suits the + convenience of the vestrymen to have you occupy the church + cottage on Fremont Street. It is to be rented as soon as a few + necessary repairs can be made, and in the meantime you will + oblige us greatly by moving out at once. Please deliver the key + at your earliest convenience to me at either my house or this + office. + + "Yours regretfully, + + "JOHN W. DOWNING." + +For as much as two minutes no one said a word. Jean had laid the open +letter on the table. Marjory and Bettie with their arms tightly locked, +as if both felt the need of support, reread the closely written page in +silence. When they reached the end, they pushed it toward Mabel. + +"What does it mean in plain English?" asked Mabel, hoping that both her +eyes and her ears had deceived her. + +"That somebody else is to have the cottage," said Jean, "and that in the +meantime we're to move." + +"In the meantime!" blurted Mabel, with swift wrath. "I should say it +_was_ the meantime--the very meanest time anybody ever heard of. I'd +just like to know what right 'Yours-respectably-John-W.-Downing' has to +turn us out of our own house. I guess we paid our rent--I guess there's +blisters on me yet--I guess I dug dandelions--I guess I--" + +But here Mabel's indignation turned to grief, and with one of her very +best howls and a torrent of tears she buried her face in Jean's apron. + +"Bettie," asked Jean with her arms about Mabel, "do you think it would +do any good to ask your father about it? He's the minister, you know, +and he might explain to Mr. Downing that we were promised the cottage +for all summer." + +"Papa went away this morning and won't be home for ten days. He has +exchanged with somebody for the next two Sundays." + +"My pa-pa-papa's away, too," sobbed Mabel, "or he'd tell that vile Mr. +Downing that it was all the Mill-ill-igans' fault. _They're_ the folks +that ought to be turned out, and I just wuh-wuh-wish they--they had +been." + +"Why wouldn't it be a good idea," suggested Marjory, "for us all to go +down to Mr. Downing's office and tell him all about it? You see, he +hasn't lived here very long and perhaps he doesn't understand that we +have paid our rent for all summer." + +"Yes," assented Jean, "that would probably be the best thing to do. He +won't mind having us go to the office because he told us to take the key +there. But where _is_ his office?" + +"I know," said Bettie. "Here's the address on the letter, and the +dentist I go to is right near there, so I can find it easily." + +"Then let's start right away," cried eager Mabel, uncovering a +disheveled head and a tear-stained countenance. "Don't let's lose a +minute." + +"Mercy, no," said Jean, taking Mabel by the shoulders and pushing her +before her to the blue-room mirror. "Do you think you can go _any_ place +looking like that? Do you think you _look_ like a desirable tenant? +We've all got to be just as clean and neat as we can be. We've got to +impress him with our--our ladylikeness." + +"I'll braid Mabel's hair," offered Bettie, "if Marjory will run around +the block and get all our hats. I'm wearing Dick's straw one with the +blue ribbon just now, Marjory. You'll find it some place in our front +hall if Tommy hasn't got it on." + +"Bring mine, too," said Jean; "it's in my room." + +"I don't know _where_ mine is," said Mabel, "but if you can't find it +you'd better wear your Sunday one and lend me your everyday one." + +"I don't see myself lending you any more hats," said Marjory, who had, +like the other girls, brightened at the prospect of going to Mr. +Downing's. "I haven't forgotten how you left the last one outdoors all +night in the rain, and how it looked afterwards, when Aunty Jane made me +wear it to punish me for _my_ carelessness. You'll go in your own hat or +none." + +"Well," said Mabel, meekly, "I guess you'll probably find it in my room +under the bed, if it isn't in the parlor behind the sofa." + +"Now, remember," said Jean, who was retying the bow on Bettie's hair, +"we're all to be polite, whatever happens, for we mustn't let Mr. +Downing think we're anything like the Milligans. If he won't let us have +the cottage when he knows about the rent's being paid--though I'm +almost sure he _will_ let us keep it--why, we'll just have to give it up +and not let him see that we care." + +"I'll be good," promised Bettie. + +"You needn't be afraid of _me_," said Mabel. "I wouldn't humble myself +to _speak_ to such a despisable man." + + + + +CHAPTER 15 + +An Obdurate Landlord + + +Twenty minutes later when Mr. Downing roared "_Come in_" in the +terrifying voice he usually reserved for agents and other unexpected or +unwelcome visitors, he was plainly very much surprised to see four pale +girls with shocked, reproachful eyes file in and come to an embarrassed +standstill just inside the office door, which closed of its own accord +and left them imprisoned with the enemy. They waited quietly. + +"Oh, good morning," said he, in a much milder tone, as he swung about in +his revolving chair. "What can I do for you? Have you brought the key so +soon?" + +"We came," said Jean, propelled suddenly forward by a vigorous push from +the rear, "to see you about Dandelion Cottage. We think you've made a +mistake." + +"Indeed!" said Mr. Downing, who did not at any time like to be +considered mistaken. "Suppose you explain." + +So sweet-voiced Jean explained all about digging the dandelions to pay +the rent, about Mr. Black's giving them the key at the end of the week, +and about all the lovely times they had had and were still hoping to +have in their precious cottage before giving it up for the winter. + +Mr. Downing, personally, did not like Mr. Black. He had a poor opinion +of the older man's business ability, and perhaps a somewhat exalted +opinion of his own. He considered Mr. Black old-fashioned and far too +easy-going. He felt that parish affairs were more likely to flourish in +the hands of a younger, shrewder, and more modern person, and he had an +idea that he was that person. At any rate, now that Mr. Black was out of +town, Mr. Downing was glad of an opportunity to display his own superior +shrewdness. He would show the vestry a thing or two, and incidentally +increase the parish income, which as everybody knew stood greatly in +need of increasing. He had no patience with slipshod methods. He was +truly sorry when business matters compelled him to appear hard-hearted; +but to him it seemed little short of absurd for a man of Mr. Black's +years to waste on four small girls a cottage that might be bringing in a +comfortable sum every month in the year. + +"Now that's a very pretty little story," said Mr. Downing, when Jean had +finished. "But, you see, you've already had the cottage more than long +enough to pay you for pulling those few weeds." + +"_Few!_" exclaimed Mabel, in indignant protest and forgetting her +promise of silence. "_Few!_ Why, there were _billions_ of 'em. If we'd +been paid two cents a hundred for them, we'd all be _rich_. Mr. Black +promised us we could have that cottage for all summer and our rent +hasn't half perspired yet." + +"She means _ex_pired," explained Marjory, "but she's right for once. Mr. +Black did say we could stay there all summer, and it isn't quite August +yet, you know." + +"Hum," said Mr. Downing. "Nobody said anything to _me_ about any such +arrangement, and I'm keeping the books. I don't know what Mr. Black +could have been thinking of if he made any such foolish promise as that. +Of course it's not binding. Why, that cottage ought to be renting for +ten or twelve dollars a month!" + +"But the plaster's very bad," pleaded Bettie, eagerly, "and the roof +leaks in every room in the house but one, and something's the matter +underneath so it's too cold for folks to live in during the winter. It +was vacant for a long time before _we_ had it." + +"It looked very comfortable to _me_," said Mr. Downing, who had lived in +the town for only a few months and neither knew nor suspected the real +condition of the house. "I'm afraid your arrangement with Mr. Black +doesn't hold good. Mr. Morgan and I think it best to have the house +vacated at once. You see, we're in danger of losing the rent from the +next house, because the Milligans have threatened to move out if you +don't." + +"If--if seven dollars and a half would do you any good," said Mabel, +"and if you're mean enough to take all the money we've got in this +world--" + +"I'm not," said Mr. Downing. "I'm only reasonable, and I want you to be +reasonable too. You must look at this thing from a business standpoint. +You see, the rent from those two houses should bring in twenty-five +dollars a month, which isn't more than a sufficient return for the money +invested. The taxes--" + +"A note for you, Mr. Downing," said a boy, who had quietly opened the +office door. + +"Why," said Mr. Downing, when he had read the note, "this is really +quite a remarkable coincidence. This communication is from Mr. Milligan, +who has found a desirable tenant for the cottage he is now in, and +wishes, himself, to occupy the cottage you are going to vacate. Very +clever idea on Mr. Milligan's part. This will save him five dollars a +month and is a most convenient arrangement all around. He wishes to move +in at once." + +"Mr. Milligan!" gasped three of the astonished girls. + +"Those Milligans in _our_ house!" cried Mabel. "Well, _isn't_ that the +worst!" + +"You see," said Mr. Downing, "it is really necessary for you to move at +once. I think you had better begin without further loss of time. Good +morning, good morning, all of you, and please believe me, I'm sorry +about this, but it can't be helped." + +"I hope," said Mabel, summoning all her dignity for a parting shot, +"that you'll never live long enough to regret this--this outrage. There +are seven rolls of paper on the walls of that cottage that belong to us, +and we expect to be paid for every one of them." + +"How much?" asked Mr. Downing, suppressing a smile, for Mabel was never +more amusing than when she was very angry. + +"Five cents a roll--thirty-five cents altogether." + +Mr. Downing gravely reached into his trousers pocket, fished up a +handful of loose change, scrupulously counted out three dimes and a +nickel, and handed them to Mabel, who, with averted eyes and chin held +unnecessarily high, accepted the price of the Blossom wall paper +haughtily, and, following the others, stalked from the office. + +The unhappy girls could not trust themselves to talk as they hastened +homeward. They held hands tightly, walking four abreast along the quiet +street, and barely managed to keep the tears back and the rapidly +swelling lumps in their little throats successfully swallowed until +Jean's trembling fingers had unlocked the cottage door. + +Then, with one accord, they rushed pell-mell for the blue-room bed, +hurled themselves upon its excelsior pillows, and burst into tears. Jean +and Bettie cried silently but bitterly; Marjory wept audibly, with long, +shuddering sobs; but Mabel simply bawled. Mabel always did her crying on +the excellent principle that, if a thing were worth doing at all, it was +worth doing well. She was doing it so well on this occasion that Jean, +who seldom cried and whose puffed, scarlet eyelids contrasted oddly and +rather pathetically with her colorless cheeks, presently sat up to +remonstrate. + +"Mabel!" she said, slipping an arm about the chief mourner, "do you want +the Milligans to hear you? We're on their side of the house, you know." + +Jean couldn't have used a better argument. Mabel stopped short in the +middle of one of her very best howls, sat up, and shook her head +vigorously. + +"Well, I just guess I don't," said she. "I'd die first!" + +"I thought so," said Jean, with just a faint glimmer of a smile. "We +mustn't let those people guess how awfully we care. Go bathe your eyes, +Mabel--there must be a little warm water in the tea kettle." + +Then the comforter turned to Bettie, and made the appeal that was most +likely to reach that always-ready-to-help young person. + +"Come, Bettie dear, you've cried long enough. We must get to work, for +we've a tremendous lot to do. Don't you suppose that, if we had all the +things packed in baskets or bundles, we could get a few of your brothers +to help us move out after dark? I just _can't_ let those Milligans gloat +over us while we go back and forth with things." + +Bettie's only response was a sob. + +"Where in the world can we put the things?" asked Marjory, sitting up +suddenly and displaying a blotched and swollen countenance very unlike +her usual fair, rose-tinted face. "Of course we can each take our dolls +and books home, but our furniture--" + +"I'm going to ask Mother if we can't store it upstairs in our barn. I'm +sure she'll let us." + +"Oh, I _wish_ Mr. Black were here. It doesn't seem possible we've +really got to move. There _must_ be some way out of it. Oh, Bettie, +_couldn't_ we write to Mr. Black?" + +"It would take too-oo-oo long," sobbed Bettie, sitting up and mopping +her eyes with the muslin window curtain, which she could easily reach +from the foot of the bed. "He's way off in Washington. Oh, dear--oh, +dear--oh, dear!" + +"Why couldn't we telegraph?" demanded Marjory, with whom hope died hard. +"Telegrams go pretty fast, don't they?" + +"They cost terribly," said Bettie. "They're almost as expensive as +express packages. Still, we might find out what it costs." + +"I dow the telegraph-mad," wheezed Mabel from the wash-basin. "I'll go +hobe ad telephode hib ad ask what it costs--I've heard by father give +hib bessages lots of tibes. Oh, by, by dose is all stuffed up." + +"Try a handkerchief," suggested Jean. "Go ask, if you want to; it won't +do any harm, nor probably any good." + +Mabel ran home, taking care to keep her back turned toward the Milligan +house. During her brief absence, the girls bathed their eyes and made +sundry other futile attempts to do away with all outward signs of grief. + +"He says," cried Mabel, bursting in excitedly, "that sixty cents is the +regular price in the daytime, but it's forty cents for a night message. +It seems kind of mean to wake folks up in the middle of the night just +to save twenty cents, doesn't it?" + +"Yes," said Bettie. "I couldn't be impolite enough to do that to anybody +I like as well as I like Mr. Black. If we haven't money enough to send a +daytime message, we mustn't send any." + +"Well, we haven't," said Jean. "We've only thirty-five cents." + +"And we wouldn't have had that," said Mabel, "if I hadn't remembered +that wall paper just in the nick of time." + +Strangely enough, not one of the girls thought of the money in the bank. +Perhaps it did not occur to them that it would be possible to remove any +portion of their precious seven dollars and a half without withdrawing +it all; they knew little of business matters. Nor did they think of +appealing to their parents for aid at this crisis. Indeed, they were all +too dazed by the suddenness and tremendousness of the blow to think very +clearly about anything. The sum needed seemed a large one to the girls, +who habitually bought a cent's worth of candy at a time from the +generous proprietor of the little corner shop. Mabel, the only one with +an allowance, was, to her father's way of thinking, a hopeless little +spendthrift, already deeply plunged in debt by her unpaid fines for +lateness to meals. + +The Tucker income did not go round even for the grown-ups, so of course +there were few pennies for the Tucker children. Marjory's Aunty Jane had +ideas of her own on the subject of spending-money for little +girls--Marjory did not suspect that the good but rather austere woman +made a weekly pilgrimage to the bank for the purpose of religiously +depositing a small sum in her niece's name; and, if she had known it, +Marjory would probably have been improvident enough to prefer spot cash +in smaller amounts. Only that morning tender-hearted Jean had heard +patient Mrs. Mapes lamenting because butter had gone up two cents a +pound and because all the bills had seemed larger than those of the +preceding month--Jean always took the family bills very much to heart. + +The girls sorrowfully concluded that there was nothing left for them to +do but to obey Mr. Downing. They had looked forward with dread to giving +up the cottage when winter should come, but the idea of losing it in +midsummer was a thousand times worse. + +"We'll just have to give it up," said grieved little Bettie. "There's +nothing else we _can_ do, with Mr. Black away. When I go home tonight +I'll write to him and apologize for not being able to keep our promise +about the dinner party. That's the hardest thing of all to give up." + +"But you don't know his address," objected Jean. + +"Yes, I do, because Father wrote to him about some church business this +morning, before going away, and gave Dick the letter to mail. Of course +Dick forgot all about it and left it on the hall mantelpiece. It's +probably there yet, for I'm the only person that ever remembers to mail +Father's letters--he forgets them himself most of the time." + +"Now let's get to work," said Jean. "Since we have to move let's pretend +we really want to. I've always thought it must be quite exciting to +really truly move. You see, we _must_ get it over before the Milligans +guess that we've begun, and there isn't any too much time left. I'll +begin to take down the things in the parlor and tie them up in the +bedclothes. We'll leave all the curtains until the last so that no one +will know what we're doing." + +"I'll help you," said Bettie. + +"Mabel and I might be packing the dishes," said Marjory. "It will be +easier to do it while we have the table left to work on. Come along, +Mabel." + +Mabel followed obediently. When the forlorn pair reached the kitchen, +Marjory announced her intention of exploring the little shed for empty +baskets, leaving Mabel to stack the cups and plates in compact piles. +Mabel, without knowing just why she did it, picked up her old friend, +the cracked lemonade-pitcher and gave it a little shake. Something +rattled. Mabel, always an inquisitive young person, thrust her fingers +into the dusty depths to bring up a piece of money--two pieces--three +pieces--four pieces. + +"Oh," she gasped, "it's my lemonade money! Oh, what a lucky omen! +Girls!" + +The next instant Mabel clapped a plump, dusty hand over her own lips to +keep them from announcing the discovery, and then, stealthily concealing +the twenty cents in the pocket that still contained the wall-paper +money, she stole quickly through the cottage and ran to her own home. + + + + +CHAPTER 16 + +Mabel Plans a Surprise + + +The girls were indignant later when they discovered Mabel's apparent +desertion. It was precisely like Mabel, they said, to shirk when there +was anything unpleasant to be done. For once, however, they were +wronging Mabel--poor, self-sacrificing Mabel, who with fifty-five cents +at her disposal was planning a beautiful surprise for her unappreciative +cottage-mates. The girls might have known that nothing short of an +ambitious project for saving the cottage from the Milligans would have +kept the child away when so much was going on. For Mabel was at that +very moment doing what was for her the hardest kind of work; all alone +in her own room at home she was laboriously composing a telegram. + +She had never sent a telegram, nor had she even read one. She could not +consult her mother because Mrs. Bennett had inconsiderately gone down +town to do her marketing. Dr. Bennett, however, was a very busy man and +sometimes received a number of important messages in one day. Mabel felt +that the occasion justified her studying several late specimens which +she resurrected from the waste-paper basket under her father's desk. +These, however, proved rather unsatisfactory models since none of them +seemed to exactly fit the existing emergency. Most of them, indeed, were +in cipher. + +"I suppose," said Mabel, nibbling her penholder thoughtfully, "they make +'em short so they'll fit these little sheets of yellow paper, but +there's lots more space they _might_ use if they didn't leave such wide +margins. I'll write small so I can say all I want to, but, dear me, I +can't think of a thing to say." + +It took a long time, but the message was finished at last. With a deep +sigh of satisfaction, Mabel folded it neatly and put it into an envelope +which she carefully sealed. Then, putting on her hat, and taking the +telegram with her, she ran to Bettie's home and opened the door--none of +the four girls were required to ring each other's doorbells. There, sure +enough, was the letter waiting to be mailed to Mr. Black. Mabel, who had +thought to bring a pencil, copied the address in her big, vertical +handwriting, and without further ado ran with it to her friend, the +telegraph operator, whose office was just around the corner. All the +distances in the little town were short, and Mabel had frequently been +sent to the place with messages written by her father, so she did not +feel the need of asking permission. + +The clerk opened the envelope--Mabel considered this decidedly rude of +him--and proceeded to read the message. It took him a long time. Then he +looked from Mabel's flushed cheeks and eager eyes to the little +collection of nickels and dimes she had placed on the counter. Mabel +wondered why the young man chewed the ends of his sandy mustache so +vigorously. Perhaps he was amused at something; she looked about the +little office to see what it could be that pleased him so greatly, but +there seemed to be nothing to excite mirth. She decided that he was +either a very cheerful young man naturally, or else he was feeling +joyful because the clock said that it was nearly time for luncheon. + +"It'll be all right, Miss Mabel," said he at last. "It's a pretty good +fifty-five cents' worth; but I guess Mr. Black won't object to that. I +hope you'll always come to me when you have messages to send." + +"I won't if you go and read them all," said Mabel, at which her friend +looked even more cheerful than he had before. + +Ten minutes later Mabel, mumbling something about having had an errand +to attend to, presented herself at the cottage. Beyond a few meekly +received reproaches from Marjory, no one said anything about the +unexplained absence. Indeed, they were all too busy and too preoccupied +to care, the greater grief of losing the cottage having swallowed up all +lesser concerns. + +At a less trying time the girls would have discovered within ten minutes +that Mabel was suffering from a suppressed secret; but everything was +changed now. Although Mabel fairly bristled with importance and gave out +sundry very broad hints, no one paid the slightest attention. Gradually, +in the stress of packing, the matter of the telegram faded from Mabel's +short memory, for preparing to move proved a most exciting operation, +and also a harrowing one. Every few moments somebody would say: "Our +last day," and then the other three would fall to weeping on anything +that happened to come handy. Of course the packing had stirred up +considerable dust; this, mingled with tears, added much to the +forlornness of the cottagers' appearance when they went home at noon +with their news. + +The parents and Aunty Jane said it was a shame, but all agreed that +there was nothing to be done. All were sorry to have the girls deprived +of the cottage, for the mothers had certainly found it a relief to have +their little daughters' leisure hours so safely and happily occupied. +Mabel's mother was especially sorry. + +Never was moving more melancholy nor house more forlorn when the moving, +done after dark with great caution, and mostly through the dining-room +window on the side of the house farthest from the Milligans, was finally +accomplished. The Tucker boys had been only too delighted to help. By +bedtime the cottage was empty of everything but the curtains on the +Milligan side of the house. An hour later the tired girls were asleep; +but under each pillow there was a handkerchief rolled in a tight, grimy +little ball and soaked with tears. + +In the morning, the girls returned for a last look, and for the +remaining curtains. Dandelion Cottage, stripped of its furniture and +without its pictures, showed its age and all its infirmities. Great +patches of plaster and wall paper were missing, for the gay posters had +covered a multitude of defects. The indignant Tucker boys had disobeyed +Bettie and had removed not only the tin they had put on the leaking +roof, but the steps they had built at the back door, the drain they had +found it necessary to place under the kitchen sink, and the bricks with +which they had propped the tottering chimneys. + +Before the day was over, the tenants whom the Milligans had found for +their own house were clamoring to move in, so the Milligans took +possession of the cottage late that afternoon, getting the key from Mr. +Downing, into whose keeping the girls had silently delivered it that +morning. To do Mr. Downing justice, nothing had ever hurt him quite as +much as did the dignified silence of the three pale girls who waited for +a moment in the doorway, while equally pallid Jean went quietly forward +to lay the key on his desk. He realized suddenly that not one of them +could have spoken a word without bursting into tears; and for the rest +of that day he hated himself most heartily. + + + + +CHAPTER 17 + +Several Surprises Take Effect + + +Mr. Black opened the door of his hotel apartment in Washington one +sultry noon in response to a vigorous, prolonged rapping from without. +The bellboy handed him a telegram. When Mr. Black had read the long +message he smiled and frowned, but cheerfully paid the three dollars and +forty-one cents additional charges that the messenger demanded. + +It was Mabel's message; the clerk had transmitted it faithfully, even +to the two misspelled words that had proved too much for the excited +little writer. If the receiving clerk had not considerately tucked in a +few periods for the sake of clearness, there would have been no +punctuation marks, because, as everybody knows, very few telegrams _are_ +punctuated; but Mabel, of course, had not taken that into consideration. +It was quite the longest message and certainly the most amusing one that +Mr. Black had ever received. It read: + + "DEAR MR. BLACK, + + "We are well but terribly unhappy for the worst has happened. + Cant you come to the reskew as they say in books for we are + really in great trouble because the Milligans a very unpolite + and untruthful family next door want dandelion cottage for + themselves the pigs and Mr. Downing says we must move out at + once and return the key our own darling key that you gave us. + We are moving out now and crying so hard we can hardly write. I + mean myself. Is Mr. Downing the boss of the whole church. Cant + you tell him we truly paid the rent for all summer by digging + dandelions. He does not believe us. We are too sad to write any + more with love from your little friends + + "JEAN MARJORY BETTIE AND I. + + "P. S. How about your dinner party if we lose the cottage?" + +Mr. Black read and reread the typewritten yellow sheet a great many +times; sometimes he frowned, sometimes he chuckled; the postscript +seemed to please him particularly, for whenever he reached that point +his deep-set eyes twinkled merrily. Presently he propped the dispatch +against the wall at the back of his table and sat down in front of it to +write a reply. He wrote several messages, some long, some short; then he +tore them all up--they seemed inadequate compared with Mabel's. + +"That man Downing," said he, dropping the scraps into the waste-basket, +"means well, but he muddles every pie he puts his finger in. Probably if +I wire him he'll botch things worse than ever. Dear me, it _is_ too bad +for those nice children to lose any part of their precious stay in that +cottage, now, for of course they'll have to give it up when cold weather +comes. If I can wind my business up today there isn't any good reason +why I can't go straight through without stopping in Chicago. It's time I +was home, anyway; it's pretty warm here for a man that likes a cold +climate." + +Meanwhile, things were happening in Mr. Black's own town. + +It was a dark, threatening day when the Milligans, delighted at the +success of their efforts to dislodge its rightful tenants, hurriedly +moved into Dandelion Cottage; but, dark though it was, Mrs. Milligan +soon began to find her new possession full of unsuspected blemishes. +Now that the pictures were down and the rugs were up, she discovered the +badly broken plaster, the tattered condition of the wall paper, the +leaking drain, and the clumsily mended rat-holes. She found, too, that +she had made a grievous mistake in her calculations. She had supposed +that the tiny pantry was a third bedroom; with its neat muslin curtains, +it certainly looked like one when viewed from the outside; and crafty +Laura, intensely desirous of seeing the enemy ousted from the cottage at +any price, had not considered it necessary to enlighten her mother. + +"My goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Milligan, a thin woman with a shrewish +countenance now much streaked with dust. "I thought you said there was a +fine cellar under this house? It's barely three feet deep, and there's +no stairs and no floor. It's full of old rubbish." + +"I never was down there," admitted Laura, dropping a dishpanful of +cooking utensils with a crash and hastily making for safe quarters +behind a mountain of Milligan furniture, "but I've often seen the trap +door." + +"It hasn't been opened for years. And where's the nice big closet you +said opened off the bedroom? There isn't a decent closet in this house. +I don't see what possessed you--" + +"It serves you right," said Mr. Milligan, unsympathetically. "You +wouldn't wait for anything, but had to rush right in. I told you you'd +better take your time about it, but no--" + +"You know very well, James Milligan," snapped the irate lady, "that the +Knapps wouldn't have taken our house if they couldn't have had it at +once." + +"Well, I _don't_ know," growled Mr. Milligan, scowling crossly at the +constantly growing heaps of incongruously mixed household goods, "where +in Sam Hill you're going to put all that stuff. There isn't room for a +cat to turn around, and the place ain't fit to live in, anyway." + +Bad as things looked, even Mr. Milligan did not guess that first busy +day how hopelessly out of repair the cottage really was; but he was soon +to find out. + +The summer had been an unusually dry one; so dry that the girls had been +obliged to carry many pails of water to their garden every evening. The +moving-day had been cloudy--out of sympathy, perhaps, for the little +cottagers. That night it rained, the first long, steady downpour in +weeks. This proved no gentle shower, but a fierce, robust, pelting +flood. Seemingly a discriminating rain, too, choosing carefully between +the just and the unjust, for most of it fell upon the Milligans. With +the sole exception of the dining-room, every room in the house leaked +like a sieve. + +The tired, disgusted Milligans, drenched in their beds, leaped hastily +from their shower baths to look about, by candlelight, for shelter. Mr. +Milligan spread a mattress, driest side up, on the dining-room floor, +and the unfortunate family spent the rest of the night huddled in an +uncomfortable heap in the one dry spot the house afforded. + +Very early the next morning they sent post-haste for Mr. Downing. + +Mr. Downing, who hated to be disturbed before eight, arrived at ten +o'clock; and, with an expert carpenter, made a thorough examination of +the house, which the rain had certainly not improved. + +"It will take three hundred--possibly four hundred dollars," said the +carpenter, who had been making a great many figures in a worn little +note-book, "to make this place habitable. It needs a new roof, new +chimneys, new floors, a new foundation, new plumbing, new plaster--in +short, just about _everything_ except the four outside walls. Then there +are no lights and no heating plant, which of course would be extra. It's +probably one of the oldest houses in town. What's it renting for?" + +"Ten dollars a month." + +"It isn't worth it. Half that money would be a high price. Even if it +were placed in good repair it would be six years at least before you +could expect to get the money expended on repairs back in rent. The +only thing to do is to tear it down and build a larger and more modern +house that will bring a better rent, for there's no money in a +ten-dollar house on a lot of this size--the taxes eat all the profits." + +"Well," said Mr. Downing, "this house certainly looked far more +comfortable when I saw it the other day than it does now. Those children +must have had the defects very well concealed. They deceived me +completely." + +"They deceived us all," said Mrs. Milligan, resentfully. "Half of our +furniture is ruined. Look at that sofa!" + +Mr. Downing looked. The drenched old-gold plush sofa certainly looked +very much like a half-drowned Jersey calf. + +"Of course," continued Mrs. Milligan, sharply, "we expect to have our +losses made good. Then we've had all our trouble for nothing, too. Of +course we can't stay here--the place isn't fit for pigs. I suppose the +best thing _we_ can do is to move right back into our own house." + +"Ye-es," said Mr. Milligan, overlooking the fact that Mrs. Milligan had +inadvertently called her family pigs, "it certainly looks like the best +thing to do. I'll go and tell the Knapps that they'll have to move out +at once--we can't spend another night under this roof." + +The Knapps, however, proved disobliging and flatly declined to move a +second time. The Milligans had begged them to take the house off their +hands, and they had signed a contract. Moreover, it was just the kind of +house the Knapps had long been looking for, and now that they were +moved, more than half settled, and altogether satisfied with their part +of the bargain, they politely but firmly announced their intention of +staying where they were until the lease should expire. + +There was nothing the former tenants could do about it. They were +homeless and quite as helpless as the four little girls had been in +similar circumstances; and they made a far greater fuss about it. By +this they gained, however, nothing but the disapproval of everybody +concerned; so, finally, the Milligans, disgusted with Dandelion Cottage, +with Mr. Downing, and for once even a little bit with themselves, +dejectedly hunted up a new home in a far less pleasant neighborhood, and +moved hurriedly out of Dandelion Cottage--and, except for the memories +they left behind them, out of the story. + + + + +CHAPTER 18 + +A Hurried Retreat + + +The girls, of course, had been barred out while all these exciting +latest events were taking place in their dear cottage; but Marjory, who +lived next door to it, had seen something of the Milligans' hasty exit +and had guessed at part of the truth. Mrs. Knapp, who seemed a pleasant, +likable little woman, in spite of her unwillingness to accommodate her +new landlord, unknowingly confirmed their suspicions when she told her +friend Mrs. Crane about it; for Mrs. Crane, in her turn, told the news +to the four little housekeepers the next morning as they sat homeless +and forlorn on her doorstep. It was always Mrs. Crane to whom the +Dandelion Cottagers turned whenever they were in need of consolation +and, as in this case, consolation was usually forthcoming. + +The girls, in their excitement at hearing the news about their late +possession, did not notice that sympathetic Mrs. Crane looked tired and +worried as she sat, in the big red rocking chair on her porch, peeling +potatoes. + +"Oh!" squealed Mabel, from the broad arm of Mrs. Crane's chair, "I'm +glad! I'm glad! I'm glad!" + +"I can't help being a little bit glad, too," said fair-minded Jean. "I +suppose it wasn't very pleasant for the Milligans, but I guess they +deserved all they got." + +"They deserved a great deal more," said Marjory, resentfully. "Think of +these last awful days!" + +"If they'd had _much_ more," said Mrs. Crane, "they'd have been drowned. +Why, children! the place was just flooded." + +"I'm ashamed to tell of it," said Bettie, "but I'm awfully afraid that +our boys took off part of the pieces of tin that they nailed on the roof +last spring. I heard them doing _something_ up there the night we +moved; but Bob only grinned when I asked him about it." + +"Good for the boys!" cried Marjory, gleefully. "I wouldn't be unladylike +enough to set traps for the Milligans myself, but I can't help feeling +glad that somebody else did." + +"It was Bob's own tin," giggled delighted Mabel, almost tumbling into +Mrs. Crane's potato pan in her joy. "I guess he had a right to take it +home if he wanted to." + +"Anyway," said Jean, from her perch on the porch railing, "I'm glad +they're gone." + +"But it doesn't do _us_ any good," sighed Bettie. "And the summer's just +flying." + +"Yes, it does," insisted Jean. "We _can_ stand having the cottage +empty--we can pretend, you know, that it's an enchanted castle that can +be opened only by a certain magic key that--" + +"Somebody's baby has swallowed," shrieked Mabel, the matter-of-fact. + +"Mercy no, goosie," said Marjory. "She means a magic word that nobody +can remember." + +"That's it," said Jean. "Of course we couldn't do even that with the +cottage full of Milligans." + +"No," assented Marjory, "the most active imagination would refuse to +activate--" + +"To _what_?" gasped Mabel. + +"To work," explained Marjory. + +"I should say so," agreed Mabel, again threatening the potatoes. "It was +just as much as I could do to come over here this morning to breathe the +same air with that cottage with those folks in it staring me in the +face, but now--" + +"After all," sighed Bettie, sorrowfully, from the other arm of Mrs. +Crane's big chair, "having the Milligans out of the cottage doesn't make +_much_ difference, as long as we're out, too. Oh, I _did_ love that +little house so. I just hated to think of cold weather coming to drive +us out; but I never dreamed of anything so dreadful as having to leave +it right in this lovely warm weather." + +"If Mr. Black had stayed in town," said Mabel, feelingly, "we'd be +dusting that darling cottage this very minute." + +Mrs. Crane sniffed in the odd way she always did whenever Mr. Black's +name was mentioned. This scornful sniff, accompanying Mrs. Crane's +evident disapproval of their dearest friend, was the only thing that the +girls disliked about Mrs. Crane. + +"I _know_ you'd like Mr. Black if you only knew him," said Bettie, +earnestly. "In some ways you're a good deal like him. You're both the +same color, your eyebrows turn up the same way at the outside corners, +and you both like us. Mr. Black has a beautiful soul." + +"Indeed," said Mrs. Crane. "And haven't I a beautiful soul too?" + +"Why, of course," said Bettie, leaning down to rub her cheek against +Mrs. Crane's. "I meant _both_ of you. We like you both just the same." + +"Only it's different," explained Jean. "Mr. Black doesn't need us, and +sometimes you do. We _like_ to do things for you." + +"I'm glad of that," said Mrs. Crane, "for I need you this very minute. +But don't you be too sure about his not needing you as well. He must +lead a pretty lonely life, because it's years since his wife died. I +never heard of anybody else liking her, but I guess _he_ did. He's one +of the faithful kind, maybe, for he's lived all alone in that great big +house ever since. I guess it does him good to have you little girls for +friends." + +"What was his wife like?" asked Mabel, eagerly. "Did you use to know +her?" + +"No, indeed," said Mrs. Crane, again giving the objectionable sniff. +"That is, not so very well--a little light-headed, useless thing, no +more fit to keep house--but there! there. It doesn't make any difference +_now_, and I've learned that it isn't the best housekeepers that get +married easiest. If it was, I wouldn't be so worried _now_." + +"Is anything the matter?" asked Jean, quick to note the distress in Mrs. +Crane's voice. + +"Yes," returned the good woman, "there are two things the matter." + +"Your poor foot?" queried Bettie, instantly all sympathy. + +"No, the foot's all right. It's Mr. Barlow and my eyes. Mr. Barlow is +going to be married to a young lady he's been writing to for a long +time, and I'm going to lose him because he wants to keep house. It won't +be easy to find another lodger for that little, shabby, old-fashioned +room. I'm trying to make a new rag carpet for it, but I'm all at a +standstill because I can't see to thread my needle. I declare, I don't +know what is going to become of me." + +"When I grow up," said Bettie, "you shall live with me." + +"But what am I to do while I'm waiting for you to grow up?" asked Mrs. +Crane, smiling at Bettie's protecting manner. + +"Let us be your eyes," suggested Jean. "Couldn't we thread about a +million needles for you? Don't you think a million would last all day?" + +"I should think it might," said Mrs. Crane, somewhat comforted. "I +haven't quite a million, but if Marjory will get my cushion and a spool +of cotton I'll be very glad to have you thread all I have." + +The girls worked in silence for fully five minutes. Then Mabel jabbed +the solitary needle she had threaded into the sawdust cushion and said: + +"Don't you suppose Mr. Downing might let us have the cottage _now_, if +we went to him? Nobody else seems to care about it. What do you think, +Mrs. Crane?" + +"Why, my dear, I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to ask. You'd better +see what your own people think about it." + +"Let's go ask them now," cried impetuous Mabel, springing to her feet. +Forgetting all about the needles and without waiting to say good-by to +Mrs. Crane, the eager girl made a diagonal rush for the corner nearest +her own home. + +The others remained long enough to thread all the needles. Then they, +too, went home with the news about the cottage and about Mrs. Crane. +They were realizing, for the first time, that their good friend might +become helpless long before they were ready to use her as a grandmother +for their children, but they couldn't see just what was to be done about +it. The idea of going to Mr. Downing, however, soon drove every other +thought away, for the parents and Aunty Jane, too, advised them to ask. +They even encouraged them. + +But when Jean and Bettie, hopefully dressed in their Sunday-best, and +Marjory and Mabel, with their abundant locks elaborately curled +besides, presented themselves and their request at Mr. Downing's house +that evening, they were not at all encouraged by their reception. + +Mr. Downing, a man of moods, had just come off second-best in an +encounter with Mrs. Milligan, whom he had accidentally met on his way +home to dinner, and, at the moment the girls appeared, the cottage was +just about the last subject that the badgered man cared to discuss. +Before Jean had fairly stated her errand, the enraged Mr. Downing roared +"_No!_" so emphatically that his four alarmed visitors backed hurriedly +off the Downing porch and fled as one girl. Mabel, to be sure, measured +her length in the canna bed near the gate, but she scrambled up, +snorting with fright and indignation, and none of them paused again in +their flight until Jean's door, which seemed safest, had closed behind +them. + + + + +CHAPTER 19 + +The Response to Mabel's Telegram + + +The night of their flitting from Dandelion Cottage, the girls had +hastily eaten all the radishes in the cottage garden to prevent their +falling into the hands of the grasping Milligans. Now, the morning after +their visit to Mr. Downing, they were wishing that they hadn't; not +because the radishes had disagreed with them, but for quite a different +reason. They could not enter the cottage, of course, but it had +occurred to them that it might be possible to derive a certain +melancholy satisfaction from tending and replenishing the little garden. +That pleasure, at least, had not been forbidden them; but before +beginning active operations, they took the precaution of enlarging the +hole in the back fence, so that instantaneous flight would be possible +in case Mr. Downing should stroll cottageward. + +Their motive was good. When Mr. Black returned, if he ever should, +Bettie meant that he should find the little yard in perfect order. + +"We'll keep to our part of the bargain, anyway," said Bettie, as the +four girls were making their first cautious tour of inspection about the +cottage yard. "There's lots of work to be done." + +"Yes," agreed Jean. "We said we'd keep this yard nice all summer, and it +wouldn't be right not to do it." + +"I wonder if we ought to ask Mr. Downing?" asked conscientious Bettie, +stooping to pull off some gone-to-seed pansies. + +"Perhaps you'd like the job!" suggested Marjory, with mild sarcasm. + +"My sakes!" said Mabel. "I wouldn't go near that man again if I was +going to swallow an automobile the next moment if I didn't. I could hear +him roar '_No_' every few minutes all night. I fell out of bed twice, +dreaming that I was trying to get off of that old porch of his before he +could grab me." + +"Well, I guess we'd better not ask," said Jean, "because I'm pretty sure +he'd have the same answer ready." + +"He certainly ought not to mind having us take care of our own flowers," +said Marjory. + +"That's true," said Bettie, poking the moist earth with a friendly +finger. "They're growing splendidly since the rain. See how nice and +full of growiness the ground is." + +"I can get more pansy plants," offered Marjory, "to fill up these holes +the Milligan dog made." + +"Mrs. Crane promised to give us some aster plants," said Mabel. "Let's +put 'em along by the fence." + +"Let's do," said Jean. "You go see if you can have them now." + +"I _know_ Mr. Black will be pleased," declared Bettie, "if he finds this +place looking nice. I'm so thankful we didn't remember to ask Mr. +Downing about it." + +"We didn't have a chance," said Jean, ruefully; "but just the same, I'm +willing to keep on forgetting until Mr. Black comes." + +It began to look, however, as if Mr. Black were never coming. Bettie had +written as she had promised but had had no reply, though the letter had +not been mailed for ten minutes before she began to watch for the +postman. Even Mabel, having had no response to her telegram and +supposing it to have gone astray, had given up hope. + +Mabel, ever averse to confessing the failure of any of her enterprises, +had decided to postpone saying anything about the telegram until one or +another of the girls should remember to ask what had become of the +thirty-five cents. So far, none of them had thought of it. + +Still, it seemed probable, in spite of Mr. Black's continued absence, +that he would get home some time, for he had left so much behind him. In +the business portion of the town there was a huge building whose sign +read: "PETER BLACK AND COMPANY." Then, in the prettiest part of the +residence district, where the lawns were big and the shrubs were planted +scientifically by a landscape gardener and where the hillside bristled +with roses, there was a large, handsome stone house that, as everybody +knew, belonged to Mr. Black. Although there were industrious clerks at +work in the one, and a middle-aged housekeeper, with a furnace-tending, +grass-cutting husband equally busy in the other, it was reasonable to +suppose that Mr. Black, even if he had no family, would have to return +some time, if only to enjoy his beloved rose-bushes. + +Thanks to Mabel's telegram (Bettie's letter, forwarded from Washington, +did not reach him for many days) he did come. He had had to stop in +Chicago, after all, and there had been unexpected delays; but just a +week from the day the Milligans had left the cottage, Mr. Black +returned. + +Without even stopping to look in at his own office, the traveler went +straight to the rectory to ask for Bettie. Bettie, Mrs. Tucker told him, +he would probably find in the cottage yard. + +Mr. Black took a short cut through the hole in the back fence, arriving +on the cottage lawn just in time to meet a procession of girls entering +the front gate. Each girl was carrying a huge, heavy clod of earth, out +of the top of which grew a sturdy green plant; for the cottageless +cottagers had discovered the only successful way of performing the +difficult feat of restocking their garden with half-grown vegetables. +Their neighbors had proved generous when Bettie had explained that if +one could only dig deep enough one could transplant _anything_, from a +cabbage to pole-beans. Some of the grown-up gardeners, to be sure, had +been skeptical, but they were all willing that the girls should make the +attempt. + +"Oh, Mr. Black!" shrieked the four girls, dropping their burdens to make +a simultaneous rush for the senior warden. "Oh! oh! oh! Is it really +you? We're so glad--so awfully glad you've come!" + +"Well, I declare! So am I," said Mr. Black, with his arms full of girls. +"It seems like getting home again to have a family of nice girls waiting +with a welcome, even if it's a pretty sandy one. What are you doing with +all the real estate? I thought you'd all been turned out, but you seem +to be all here. I declare, if you haven't all been growing!" + +"We were--we are--we have," cried the girls, dancing up and down +delightedly. "Mr. Downing made us give up the cottage, but he didn't say +anything about the garden--and--and--we thought we'd better forget to +ask about it." + +"Tell me the whole story," said Mr. Black. "Let's sit here on the +doorstep. I'm sure I could listen more comfortably if there were not so +many excited girls dancing on my best toes." + +So Mr. Black, with a girl at each side and two at his feet, heard the +story from beginning to end, and he seemed to find it much more amusing +than the girls had at any time considered it. He simply roared with +laughter when Bettie apologized about Bob and the tin. + +"Well," said he, when the recital was ended, and he had shown the girls +Mabel's telegram, and the thoroughly delighted Mabel had been praised +and enthusiastically hugged by the other three, "I _have_ heard of +cottages with more than one key. Suppose you see, Bettie, if anything on +this ring will fit that keyhole." + +Three of the flat, slender keys did not, but the fourth turned easily in +the lock. Bettie opened the door. + +"Possession," said Mr. Black, with a twinkle in his eye, "is nine points +of the law. You'd better go to work at once and move in and get to +cooking; you see, there's a vacancy under my vest that nothing but that +promised dinner party can fill. The sooner you get settled, the sooner I +get that good square meal. Besides, if you don't work, you won't have an +appetite for a great big box of candy that I have in my trunk." + +"Oh," sighed Bettie, rubbing her cheek against Mr. Black's sleeve, "it +seems too good to be true." + +"What, the candy?" teased Mr. Black. + +"No, the cottage," explained Bettie, earnestly. "Oh, I do hope winter +will be about six months late this year to make up for this." + +"Perhaps it'll forget to come at all," breathed Mabel, hopefully. "I'd +almost be willing to skip Christmas if there was any way of stretching +this summer out to February. Somebody please pinch me--I'm afraid I'm +dreaming--Oh! ouch! I didn't say _everybody_." + +By this time, of course, all the young housekeepers' relatives +were deeply interested in the cottage. After living for a +never-to-be-forgotten week with the four unhappiest little girls in +town, all were eager to reinstate them in the restored treasure. The +girls, having rushed home with the joyful news, were almost overwhelmed +with unexpected offers of parental assistance. The grown-ups were not +only willing but anxious to help. Then, too, the Mapes boys and the +young Tuckers almost came to blows over who should have the honor of +mending the roof with the bundles of shingles that Dr. Bennett insisted +on furnishing. Marjory's Aunty Jane said that if somebody who could +drive nails without smashing his thumb would mend the holes in the +parlor floor she would give the girls a pretty ingrain carpet, one side +of which looked almost new. Dr. Bennett himself laid a clean new floor +in the little kitchen over the rough old one, and Mrs. Mapes mended the +broken plaster in all the rooms by pasting unbleached muslin over the +holes. Mr. Tucker replaced all broken panes of glass, while his busy +wife found time to tack mosquito-netting over the kitchen and pantry +windows. + +So interested, indeed, were all the grown-ups and all the brothers that +the girls chuckled delightedly. It wouldn't have surprised them so very +much if all their people had fallen suddenly to playing with dolls and +to having tea-parties in the cottage; but the place was still far too +disorderly for either of these juvenile occupations to prove attractive +to anybody. + +In the midst of the confusion, Mr. Downing stopped at the cottage door +one noon and asked for the girls, who eyed him doubtfully and +resentfully as they met him, after Marjory had hesitatingly ushered him +into the untidy little parlor. + +Mr. Downing smiled at them in a friendly but decidedly embarrassed +manner. He had not forgotten his own lack of cordiality when the girls +had called on him, and he wanted to atone for it. Mr. Black had +tactfully but effectively pointed out to Mr. Downing--already deeply +disgusted with the Milligans--the error of his ways, and Mr. Downing, as +generous as he was hasty and irascible, was honest enough to admit that +he had been mistaken not only in his estimate of Mr. Black, but also in +his treatment of the little cottagers. Now, eager to make amends, he +looked somewhat anxiously from one to another of his silent hostesses, +who in return looked questioningly at Mr. Downing. Surely, with Mr. +Black in town, Mr. Downing _couldn't_ be thinking of turning them out a +second time; still, he had disappointed them before, probably he would +again, and the girls meant to take no chances. So they kept still, with +searching eyes glued upon Mr. Downing's countenance. All at once, they +realized that they were looking into friendly eyes, and three of them +jumped to the conclusion that the junior warden was not the heartless +monster they had considered him. + +"I came," said Mr. Downing, noticing the change of expression in +Bettie's face, "to offer you, with my apologies, this key and this +little document. The paper, as you will see, is signed by all the +vestrymen--my own name is written _very_ large--and it gives you the +right to the use of this cottage until such time as the church feels +rich enough to tear it down and build a new one. There is no immediate +cause for alarm on this score, for there were only sixty-two cents in +the plate last Sunday. I have come to the conclusion, young ladies, that +I was overhasty in my judgment. I didn't understand the matter, and I'm +afraid I acted without due consideration--I often do. But I hope you'll +forgive me, for I sincerely beg _all_ your pardons." + +"It's all right," said Bettie, "as long as it was just a mistake. It's +easy to forgive mistakes." + +"Yes," said Marjory, sagely, "we all make 'em." + +"It's all right, anyway," added Jean. + +Mr. Downing looked expectantly at Mabel, who for once had preserved a +dead silence. + +"Well?" he asked, interrogatively. + +"I don't suppose I can ever really _quite_ forgive you," confessed +Mabel, with evident reluctance. "It'll be awfully hard work, but I guess +I can try." + +"Perhaps my peace-offering will help your efforts a little," said Mr. +Downing, smiling. "It seems to be coming in now at your gate." + +The girls turned hastily to look, but all they could see was a very +untidy man with a large book under his arm. + +"These," said Mr. Downing, taking the book from the man, who had walked +in at the open door, "are samples of inexpensive wall papers. You're to +choose as much as you need of the kinds you like best, and this man will +put it wherever it will do the most good, and I'll pay the bill. Now, +Miss Blue Eyes, do I stand a better chance of forgiveness?" + +"Yes, yes!" cried Mabel. "I'm almost glad you needed to apologize. You +did it beautifully, too. Mercy, when _I_ apologize--and I have to do a +_fearful_ lot of apologizing--I don't begin to do it so nicely!" + +"Perhaps," offered Mr. Downing, "when you've had as much practice as I +have, it will come easier. I see, however, that you are far more +suitable tenants than the Milligans would have been, for my humble +apologies to them met with a very different reception. I assure you +that, if there's ever any rivalry between you again, my vote goes with +you--you're so easily satisfied. Now don't hesitate to choose whatever +you want from this book. This paperhanger is yours, too, until you're +done with him." + +"Oh, thank you, thank you, _thank_ you," cried the girls, with happy +voices, as Mr. Downing turned to go; "you _couldn't_ have thought of a +nicer peace-offering." + +Of course it took a long, long time for so many young housekeepers to +choose papers for the parlor and the two bedrooms, but after much +discussion and many differences of opinion, it was finally selected. The +girls decided on green for the parlor, blue for one bedroom, and pink +for the other, and they were easily persuaded to choose small patterns. + +Then the smiling paperhanger worked with astonishing rapidity and said +that he didn't object in the least to having four pairs of bright eyes +watch from the doorway every strip go into place. It seemed to be no +trouble at all to paper the little low-ceilinged cottage, and, oh! how +beautiful it was when it was all done. The cool, cucumber-green parlor +was just the right shade to melt into the soft blue and white of the +front bedroom. As for the dainty pink room, as Bettie said rapturously, +it fairly made one smell roses to look at it, it was so sweet. + +It was finished by the following night, for no paperhanger could have +had the heart to linger over his work with so many anxious eyes +following every movement. Mrs. Tucker washed and ironed and mended the +white muslin curtains; and, with such a bower to move into, the second +moving-in and settling, the girls decided, was really better than the +first. When their belongings were finally reinstalled in the cottage +even Mabel no longer felt resentful toward the Milligans. + + + + +CHAPTER 20 + +The Odd Behavior of the Grown-ups + + +Even with all its ingenious though inexpensive improvements, the +renovated cottage would probably have failed to satisfy a genuine +rent-paying family, but to the contented girls it seemed absolutely +perfect. + +At last, it looked to everybody as if the long-deferred dinner party +were actually to take place. There, in readiness, were the girls, the +money, the cottage, and Mr. Black, and nothing had happened to Mrs. +Bartholomew Crane--who might easily, as Mabel suggested harrowingly, +have moved away or died at any moment during the summer. + +One day, very soon after the cottage was settled, a not-at-all-surprised +Mr. Black and a very-much-astonished Mrs. Crane each received a formal +invitation to dine under its reshingled roof. Composed by all four, the +note was written by Jean, whose writing and spelling all conceded to be +better than the combined efforts of the other three. Bettie delivered +the notes with her own hand, two days before the event, and on the +morning of the party she went a second time to each house to make +certain that neither of the expected guests had forgotten the date. + +"Forget!" exclaimed Mr. Black, standing framed in his own doorway. "My +dear little girl, how _could_ I forget, when I've been saving room for +that dinner ever since early last spring? Nothing, I assure you, could +keep me away or even delay me. I have eaten a _very_ light breakfast, I +shall go entirely without luncheon--" + +"I wouldn't do that," warned Bettie. "You see it's our first dinner +party and something _might_ go wrong. The soup might scorch--" + +"It wouldn't have the heart to," said Mr. Black. "_No_ soup could be so +unkind." + +Of course the cottage was the busiest place imaginable during the days +immediately preceding the dinner party. The girls had made elaborate +plans and their pockets fairly bulged with lists of things that they +were to be sure to remember and not on any account to forget. Then the +time came for them to begin to do all the things that they had planned +to do, and the cottage hummed like a hive of bees. + +First the precious seven dollars and a half, swelled by some mysterious +process to seven dollars and fifty-seven cents, had to be withdrawn from +the bank, the most imposing building in town with its almost oppressive +air of formal dignity. The rather diffident girls went in a body to get +the money and looked with astonishment at the extra pennies. + +"That's the interest," explained the cashier, noting with quiet +amusement the puzzled faces. + +"Oh," said Jean, "we've had that in school, but this is the first time +we've ever seen any." + +"We didn't suppose," supplemented Bettie, "that interest was real money. +_I_ thought it was something like those x-plus-y things that the boys +have in algebra." + +"Or like mermaids and goddesses," said Mabel. + +"She means myths," interpreted Marjory. + +"I see," said the cashier. "Perhaps you like real, tangible interest +better than the kind you have in school." + +"Oh, we do, we do!" cried the four girls. + +"After this," confided Bettie, "it will be easier to study about." + +Then, with the money carefully divided into three portions, placed in +three separate purses, which in turn were deposited one each in Jean's, +Marjory's, and Bettie's pockets, Mabel having flatly declined to burden +herself with any such weighty responsibility, the four went to purchase +their groceries. + +The smiling clerks at the various shops confused them a little at first +by offering them new brands of breakfast foods with strange, oddly +spelled names, but the girls explained patiently at each place that they +were giving a dinner party, not a breakfast, and that they wanted +nothing but the things on their list. It took time and a great deal of +discussion to make so many important purchases, but finally the +groceries were all ordered. + +Next the little housekeepers went to the butcher's to ask for a chicken. + +"Vat kind of schicken you vant?" asked the stout, impatient German +butcher. + +Jean looked at Bettie, Bettie looked at Marjory, and Marjory, although +she knew it was hopeless, looked at Mabel. + +"Vell?" said the busy butcher, interrogatively. + +"One to cook--without feathers," gasped Jean. + +"A spring schicken?" + +"Is that--is that better than a summer one?" faltered Bettie, +cautiously. "You see it's summer now." + +"Perhaps," suggested Mabel, seized with a bright thought, "an August +one--" + +"Here, Schon," shouted the busy butcher to his assistant, "you pring +oudt three-four schicken. You can pick von oudt vile I vaits on dese +odder gostomer." + +"I think," said Jean, indicating one of the fowls John had produced for +her inspection, "that that's about the right size. It's so small and +smooth that it ought to be tender." + +"I wouldn't take that one, Miss," cautioned honest John, under his +breath, "it looks to me like a little old bantam rooster. Leave it to me +and I'll find you a good one." + +To his credit, John was as good as his word. + +The little housekeepers felt very important indeed, when, later in the +day, a procession of genuine grocery wagons, drawn by flesh-and-blood +horses, drew up before the cottage door to deliver all kinds of +really-truly parcels. They had not quite escaped the breakfast foods +after all, because each consignment of groceries was enriched by several +sample packages; enough altogether, the girls declared joyously, to +provide a great many noon luncheons. + +Of course all the parcels had to be unwrapped, admired, and sorted +before being carefully arranged in the pantry cupboard, which had never +before found itself so bountifully supplied. Then, for a busy half-day, +cook books and real cooks were anxiously consulted; for, as Mabel said, +it was really surprising to see how many different ways there were to +cook even the simplest things. + +Jean and Bettie were to do the actual cooking. The other two, in +elaborately starched caps and aprons of spotless white (provided Mabel, +though this seemed doubtful, could keep hers white), were to take turns +serving the courses. The first course was to be tomato soup; it came in +a can with directions outside and cost fifteen cents, which Mabel +considered cheap because of the printed cooking lesson. + +"If they'd send printed directions with their raw chickens and +vegetables," said she, "maybe folks might be able to tell which recipe +belonged to which thing." + +"Well," laughed Marjory, "_some_ cooks don't have to read a whole page +before they discover that directions for making plum pudding don't help +them to make corned-beef hash. You always forget to look at the top of +the page." + +"Never mind," said Jean, "she found a good recipe for salad dressing." + +"That's true," said Marjory, "but before you use it you'd better make +sure that it isn't a polish for hardwood floors. There, don't throw the +book at me, Mabel--I won't say another word." + +The three mothers and Aunty Jane, grown suddenly astonishingly obliging, +not only consented to lend whatever the girls asked for, but actually +thrust their belongings upon them to an extent that was almost +overwhelming. The same impulse seemed to have seized them all. It +puzzled the girls, yet it pleased them too, for it was such a decided +novelty to have six parents (even the fathers appeared interested) and +one aunt positively vying with one another to aid the young cottagers +with their latest plan. The girls could remember a time, not so very far +distant, when it was almost hopeless to ask for even such common things +as potatoes, not to mention eggs and butter. Now, however, everything +was changed. Aunty Jane would provide soup spoons, napkins, and a +tablecloth--yes, her very best short one. Marjory could hardly believe +her ears, but hastily accepted the cloth lest the offer should be +withdrawn. The girls, having set their hearts on using the "Frog that +would a-wooing go" plates for the escalloped salmon (to their minds +there seemed to be some vague connection between frogs and fishes), were +compelled to decline offers of all the fish plates belonging to the four +families. The potato salad, garnished with lettuce from the cottage +garden, was to be eaten with Mrs. Bennett's best salad forks The +roasted chicken was not to be entrusted to the not-always-reliable +cottage oven but was to be cooked at the Tuckers' house and carved with +Mr. Mapes's best game set. Mrs. Bennett's cook would make a pie--yes, +even a difficult lemon pie with a meringue on top, promised Mrs. +Bennett. + +Then there were to be butter beans out of the cottage garden, and sliced +cucumbers from the green-grocer's because Mrs. Crane had confessed to a +fondness for cucumbers. There was one beet in the garden almost large +enough to be eaten; that, too, was to be sacrificed. The dessert had +been something of a problem. It had proved so hard to decide this matter +that they decided to compromise by adding both pudding and ice cream to +the Bennett pie. A brick of ice cream and some little cakes could easily +be purchased ready-made from the town caterer, with the change they had +left. Thoughts of their money's giving out no longer troubled them, for +had not Mabel's surprising father told them that if they ran short they +need not hesitate to ask him for any amount within reason? + +"I declare," said bewildered Mabel, "I can't see what has come over Papa +and Mamma. Do I look pale, or anything--as if I might be going to die +before very long?" + +"No," said Marjory, "you certainly don't; but I've wondered if Aunty +Jane could be worried about _me_. I never knew her to be so +generous--why, it's getting to be a kind of nuisance! Do you s'pose +they're going to insist on doing _everything_?" + +"Well," said Bettie, "they've certainly helped us a lot. I don't know +_why_ they've done it, but I'm glad they have. You see, we _must_ have +everything perfectly beautiful because Mr. Black is rich and is +accustomed to good dinners, and Mrs. Crane is poor and never has any +very nice ones. If our people keep all their promises, it can't help +being a splendid dinner." + +The three mothers and Aunty Jane and all the fathers did keep their +promises. They, too, wanted the dinner to be a success, for they knew, +as all the older residents of the little town knew--and as the children +themselves might have known if the story had not been so old and their +parents had been in the habit of gossiping (which fortunately they were +not)--that there was a reason why Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were the last +two persons to be invited to a tete-a-tete dinner party. Yet, strangely +enough, there was an equally good reason why no one wanted to interfere +and why everyone wanted to help. + + + + +CHAPTER 21 + +The Dinner + + +The girls, a little uneasy lest their alarmingly interested parents +should insist on cooking and serving the entire dinner, were both +relieved and perplexed to find that the grown-ups, while perfectly +willing to help with the dinner provided they could work in their own +kitchens, flatly declined the most urgent invitations to enter the +cottage on the afternoon or evening of the party. + +It was incomprehensible. Until noon of the very day of the feast the +parents and Aunty Jane had paid the girls an almost embarrassing number +of visits. Now, when the girls really wanted them and actually gave each +of them a very special invitation, each one unexpectedly held aloof. +For, as the hour approached, the girls momentarily became more and more +convinced that something would surely go wrong in the cottage kitchen +with no experienced person to keep things moving. They decided, at four +o'clock, to ask Mrs. Mapes to oversee things. + +"No, indeed," said Mrs. Mapes. "You may have anything there is in my +house, but you can't have _me_. You don't need _anybody_; you won't have +a mite of trouble." + +Finding Mrs. Mapes unpersuadable, they went to Mrs. Tucker, who, next to +Jean's mother, was usually the most obliging of parents. + +"No," said Mrs. Tucker, "I couldn't think of it. No, no, no, not for one +moment. It's much better for you to do it all by yourselves." + +Still hopeful, the girls ran to Mrs. Bennett. + +"Mercy, no!" exclaimed that good woman, with discouraging emphasis. "I'm +not a bit of use in a strange kitchen, and there are reasons--Oh! I mean +it's your party and it won't be any fun if somebody else runs it." + +"Shall we ask your Aunty Jane?" asked Bettie. "We don't seem to be +having any luck." + +"Yes," replied Marjory. "She loves to manage things." + +But Marjory's Aunty Jane proved no more willing than the rest. + +"No, _ma'am_!" she said, emphatically. "I wouldn't do it for ten +dollars. Why, it would just spoil everything to have a grown person +around. Don't even _think_ of such a thing." + +So the girls, feeling just a little indignant at their disobliging +relatives, decided to get along as well as they could without them. + +At last, everything was either cooked or cooking. The table was +beautifully set and decorated and flowers bloomed everywhere in +Dandelion Cottage. Jean and Bettie, in the freshest of gingham aprons, +were taking turns watching the things simmering on the stove. Mabel, +looking fatter than ever in her short, white, stiffly starched apron, +was on the doorstep craning her neck to see if the guests showed any +signs of coming, and Marjory was busily putting a few entirely +unnecessary finishing touches to the table. + +The guests were invited for half-past six, but had been hospitably urged +by Bettie to appear sooner if they wished. At exactly fifteen minutes +after six, Mrs. Crane, in her old-fashioned, threadbare, best black +silk and a very-much-mended real-lace collar, and with her iron-gray +hair far more elaborately arranged than she usually wore it, crossed the +street, lifting her skirts high and stepping gingerly to avoid the dust. +She supposed that she was to be the only guest, for the girls had not +mentioned any other. + +Mabel, prodigiously formal and most unusually solemn, met her at the +door, ushered her into the blue room, and invited her to remove her +wraps. The light shawl that Mrs. Crane had worn over her head was the +only wrap she had, but it was not so easily removed as it might have +been. It caught on one of her hair pins, which necessitated rearranging +several locks of hair that had slipped from place. This took some time +and, while she was thus occupied, Mr. Black turned the corner, went +swiftly toward the cottage, mounted the steps, and rang the doorbell. + +Mabel received him with even greater solemnity than she had Mrs. Crane. + +"I think I'd better take your hat," said she. "We haven't any hat rack, +but it'll be perfectly safe on the pink-room bed because we haven't any +Tucker babies taking naps on it today." + +Mr. Black handed his hat to her with an elaborate politeness that +equaled her own. + +"Marjory!" she whispered as she went through the dining-room. "He's +wearing his dress suit!" + +"Sh! he'll hear you," warned Marjory. + +"Well, anyway, I'm frightened half to death. Oh, _would_ you mind +passing all the wettest things? I hadn't thought about his clothes." + +"Yes, I guess I'd better; he might want to wear 'em again." + +"They're both here," announced Mabel, opening the kitchen door. + +"You help Bettie stir the soup and the mashed potatoes," said Jean, +whisking off her apron and tying it about Mabel's neck. "I'll go in and +shake hands with them and then come back and dish up." + +Jean found both guests looking decidedly ill at ease. Mr. Black stood by +the parlor table absent-mindedly undressing a family of paper dolls. +Mrs. Crane, pale and nervously clutching the curtain, seemed unable to +move from the bedroom doorway. + +"Oh!" said Jean, "I do believe Mabel forgot all about introducing you. +We told her to be sure to remember, but she hasn't been able to take her +mind off of her apron since she put it on. Mrs. Crane, this is our--our +preserver, Mr. Black." + +The guests bowed stiffly. + +Jean began to wish that she could think of some way to break the ice. +Both were jolly enough on ordinary occasions, but apparently both had +suddenly been stricken dumb. Perhaps dinner parties always affected +grown persons that way, or perhaps the starch from Mabel's apron had +proved contagious; Jean smiled at the thought. Then she made another +effort to promote sociability. + +"Mrs. Crane," explained Jean, turning to Mr. Black, who was nervously +tearing the legs off of the father of the paper-doll family, "is our +very nicest neighbor. We like her just ever so much--everybody does. +We've often told _you_, Mrs. Crane, how fond we are of Mr. Black. It was +because you are our two very dearest friends that we invited you both--" + +"Je-e-e-e-an!" called a distressed voice from the kitchen. + +"Mercy!" exclaimed Jean, making a hurried exit, "I hope that soup isn't +scorched!" + +"No," said Bettie, slightly aggrieved, "but _I_ wanted a chance, too, to +say how-do-you-do to those people before I get all mixed up with the +cooking. I thought you were _never_ coming back." + +"Well, it's your turn now," said Jean. "Give me that spoon." + +Bettie, finding their guests seated in opposite corners of the room and +apparently deeply interested in the cottage literature--Mr. Black buried +in _Dottie Dimple_ and Mrs. Crane absorbed in _Mother Goose_--naturally +concluded that they were waiting to be introduced, and accordingly made +the presentation. + +"Mrs. Crane," said she, "I want you to meet Mr. Black, and I hope," +added warm-hearted Bettie, "that you'll like each other very much +because we're so fond of you both. You're each a surprise party for the +other--we thought you'd both like it better if you had somebody besides +children to talk to." + +"Very kind, I'm sure," mumbled Mr. Black, whose company manners, it +seemed to Bettie, were far from being as pleasant as his everyday ones. +Bettie gave a deep sigh and made one more effort to set the +conversational ball rolling. + +"I'm afraid I'll have to go back to the kitchen now, and leave you to +entertain each other. Please both of you be _very_ entertaining--you're +both so jolly when you just run in." + +Bettie's eyes were wistful as she went toward the kitchen. Was it +possible, she wondered, that her beloved Mr. Black could despise Mrs. +Crane because she was _poor_? It didn't seem possible, yet there was +certainly something wrong. Perhaps he was merely hungry. That was it, of +course; she would put the dinner on at once--even good-natured Dr. +Tucker, she remembered, was sometimes a little bearlike when meals were +delayed. + +Five minutes later, Marjory escorted the guests to the dining-room, and, +finding both of these usually talkative persons alarmingly silent, she +inferred of course that Mabel had forgotten--as indeed Mabel had--her +instructions in regard to introducing them. Marjory's manners on formal +occasions were very pretty; they were pretty now, and so was she, as she +hastened to make up for Mabel's oversight. + +"Oh, Mr. Black," she cried, earnestly, "I'm afraid no one remembered to +introduce you. It's our first dinner party, you know, and we're not very +wise. This is our dearest neighbor, Mrs. Crane, Mr. Black." + +The guests bowed stiffly for the third time. Practice should have lent +grace to the salutation, but seemingly it had not. + +"Aren't some of you young people going to sit down with me?" demanded +Mr. Black, noticing suddenly that the table was set for only two. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Crane with evident dismay, "surely you're coming to the +table, too." + +"We can't," explained Marjory. "It takes all of us to do the serving. +Besides, we haven't but two dining-room chairs. Sit here, please, Mrs. +Crane; and this is your place, Mr. Black." + +Mr. Black looked red and uncomfortable as he unfolded his napkin. Mrs. +Crane looked, as Marjory said afterward, for all the world as if she +were going to cry. Perhaps the prospect of a good dinner after a long +siege of poor ones was too much for her, for ordinarily Mrs. Crane was a +very cheerful woman. + +Although both guests declared that the soup was very good indeed, +neither seemed to really enjoy it. + +"They just kind of worried a little of it down," said the distressed +Marjory, when she handed Mr. Black's plate, still three-quarters full, +to Jean in the kitchen. "Do you suppose there's anything the matter with +it?" + +"There can't be," said Bettie. "I've tasted it and it's good." + +"They're just saving room for the other things," comforted Mabel. "I +guess _I_ wouldn't fill myself up with soup if I could smell roasted +chicken keeping warm in the oven." + +Although Mabel had asked to be spared passing the spillable things, it +seemed reasonably safe to trust her with the dish of escalloped salmon. +She succeeded in passing it without disaster to either the dish or the +guests' garments, and her apron was still immaculate. + +"Why," exclaimed Mabel, suddenly noticing that the guests sat stiff and +silent, "the girls said I was to be sure to introduce you the moment you +came, and I never thought a thing about it. Do forgive me--I'm the +stupidest girl. Mrs. Black--I mean Mr. Crane--no, _Mrs._ Crane--" + +"We've been introduced," said Mr. Black, rather shortly. "Might I have a +glass of water?" + +A pained, surprised look crept into Mabel's eyes. A moment later she +went to the kitchen. + +The instant the guests were left alone, Mrs. Crane did an odd thing. She +leaned forward and spoke in a low, earnest tone to Mr. Black. + +"Peter," she said, "can't we pretend to be sociable for a little while? +It isn't comfortable, of course, but it isn't right to spoil those +children's pleasure by acting like a pair of wooden dolls. Let's talk to +each other whenever they're in the room just as if we had just met for +the first time." + +"You're right, Sarah," said Mr. Black. "Let's talk about the weather. +It's a safe topic and there's always plenty of it." + +When Marjory opened the door to carry in the salad there was a pleasant +hum of voices in the dining-room. It seemed to all the girls that the +guests were really enjoying themselves, for Mr. Black was telling Mrs. +Crane how much warmer it was in Washington, and Mrs. Crane was informing +Mr. Black that, except for the one shower that fell so opportunely on +the Milligans, it had been a remarkably dry summer. The four anxious +hostesses, feeling suddenly cheered, fell joyously to eating the soup +and the salmon that remained on the stove. Until that moment, they had +been too uneasy to realize that they were hungry; but as Marjory carried +in the crackers, half-famished Mabel breathed a fervent hope that the +guests wouldn't help themselves too lavishly to the salad. + +To the astonishment of Mabel, who carried the chicken successfully to +its place before Mr. Black, who was to carve it, Mr. Black did not ask +the other guest what part she liked best, but, with a whimsical smile, +quietly cut off both wings and put them on Mrs. Crane's plate. + +Mrs. Crane looked up with an odd, tremulous expression--sort of weepy, +Mabel called it afterwards--and said: "Thank you, Peter." + +It seemed to Mabel at the time that the guests were getting acquainted +with a rapidity that was little short of remarkable--"Peter" indeed. + +Then, when everything else was eaten, and Marjory had brought the nuts +and served them, Mrs. Crane, hardly waiting for the door to close behind +the little waitress, leaned forward suddenly and said: + +"Peter, do you remember how you pounded my thumb when I held that hard +black walnut for you to crack?" + +"I remember everything, Sarah. I've always been sorry about that +thumb--and I've been sorry about a good many other things since. Do you +think--do you think you could forgive me?" + +"Well, I just guess I could," returned Mrs. Crane, heartily. "After all, +it was just as much my fault as it was yours--maybe more." + +"No, I never thought that, Sarah. _I_ was the one to blame." + +When the door opened a moment later to admit the finger-bowls and all +four of the girls, who had licked the ice-cream platter and had nothing +more to do in the kitchen since everything had been served--there, to +the housekeepers' unbounded amazement, were Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane, +with their arms stretched across the little table, holding each other's +middle-aged hands in a tight clasp, and both had tears in their eyes. + +The girls looked at them in consternation. + +"Was--was it the dinner?" ventured Mabel, at last. "Was it as bad as--as +all that?" + +"Well," said Mr. Black, rising to go around the table to place an +affectionate arm across Mrs. Crane's plump shoulders, "it _was_ the +dinner, but not its badness--or even its very goodness." + +"I guess you'd better tell 'em all about it, Peter," suggested Mrs. +Crane, whose eyes were shining happily. "It's only fair they should know +about it--bless their little hearts." + +"Well, you see," said Mr. Black, who, as the girls had quickly +discovered, was once more their own delightfully jolly friend, "once +upon a time, a long time ago, there was a black-eyed girl named Sarah, +and a two-years-younger boy, who looked a good deal like her, named +Peter, and they were brother and sister. They were all the brothers and +sisters that each had, for their parents died when this boy and girl +were very young. Peter and Sarah used to dream a beautiful dream of +living together always, and of going down hand-in-hand to a peaceful, +plentiful old age. You see, they had no other relative but one very +cross grandmother, who scolded them both even oftener than they +deserved--which was probably quite often enough. So I suspect that those +abused, black-eyed, half-starved children loved each other more than +most brothers and sisters do." + +"Yes," agreed Mrs. Crane, nodding her head and smiling mistily, "they +certainly did. The poor young things had no one else to love." + +"That," said Mr. Black, "was no doubt the reason why, when the +headstrong boy grew up and married a girl that his sister didn't like, +and the equally headstrong girl grew up and married a man that her +brother _couldn't_ like--a regular scoundrel that--" + +"Peter!" warned Mrs. Crane. + +"Well," said Mr. Black, hastily, "it's all over now, and perhaps we +_had_ better leave that part of it out. It isn't a pretty story, and +we'll never mention it again, Sarah. But anyway, girls, this foolish +brother and sister quarreled, and the brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law +and even the grandmother, who was old enough to know better, quarreled, +until finally all four of those hot-tempered young persons were so angry +that the brother named Peter said he'd never speak to his sister again, +and the sister named Sarah said she'd never speak to her brother +again--and they haven't until this very day. Just a pair of young geese, +weren't they, Sarah?" + +"Old geese, too," agreed Mrs. Crane, "for they've both been fearfully +lonely ever since and they've both been too proud to say so. One of +them, at least, has wished a great many times that there had never been +any quarrel." + +"_Two_ of 'em. But now this one," said Mr. Black, placing his forefinger +against his own broad chest, "is going to ask this one--" and he pointed +to Mrs. Crane--"to come and live with him in his own great big empty +house, so he'll have a sister again to sew on his buttons, listen to his +old stories, and make a home for him. What do you say, Sarah?" + +"I say yes," said Mrs. Crane; "yes, with all my heart." + +"And here," said Mr. Black, smiling into four pairs of sympathetic eyes, +"are four young people who will have to pretend that they truly belong +to us once in a while, because we'd both like to have our house full of +happy little girls. You never had any children, Sarah?" + +"No, and you lost your only one, Peter." + +"Yes, a little brown-eyed thing like Bettie here--she'd be a woman now, +probably with children of her own." + +"It's--it's just like a story," breathed Bettie, happily. "We've been +part of a real story and never knew it! I'm so glad you let us have +Dandelion Cottage, _so_ glad we invited you to dinner, and that nothing +happened to keep either of you away." + +"Peter and I are glad, too," said Mrs. Crane, who indeed looked +wonderfully happy. + +"Yes," said Mr. Black, "it's the most successful dinner party I've ever +attended. Of course I can't hope to equal it, but as soon as Sarah and I +get to keeping house properly and have decided which is to pour the +coffee, we're going to return the compliment with a dinner that will +make your eyes stick out, aren't we, Sarah?" + +"Oh, we'll do a great deal more than that," responded generous Mrs. +Crane. "We'll keep four extra places set at our table all the time." + +"Of course we will," cried Mr. Black, heartily. "And we'll fill the +biggest case in the library with children's books--we'll all go tomorrow +to pick out the first shelfful--so that when it gets too cold for you to +stay in Dandelion Cottage you'll have something to take its place. +You're going to be little sunny Dandelions in the Black-Crane house +whenever your own people can spare you. But what's the matter? Have you +all lost your tongues? I didn't suppose you could be so astonishingly +quiet." + +"Oh," sighed Bettie, joyfully, "you've taken _such_ a load off our +minds. We were simply dreading the winter, with no cottage to have good +times in." + +"Yes," said Jean. "We didn't know how we could manage to _live_ with the +cottage closed. We've been wondering what in the world we were going to +do." + +"But with school, and you dear people to visit every day on the way +home," said Marjory, "we'll hardly have time to miss it. Oh! won't it be +perfectly lovely?" + +"I'm going to begin at once to practice being on time to meals," said +Mabel. "I'm not going to let that extra place do any waiting for _me_." + +These were the things that the four girls said aloud; but the joyous +look that flashed from Jean to Bettie, from Bettie to Marjory, from +Marjory to Mabel, and from Mabel back again to Jean, said even more +plainly: "_Now_ there'll be somebody to take care of Mrs. Crane. _Now_ +there'll be somebody to make a home for lonely Mr. Black." + +And indeed, subsequent events proved that it was a beautiful arrangement +for everybody, besides being quite the most astonishing thing that had +happened in the history of Lakeville. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Dandelion Cottage, by Carroll Watson Rankin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANDELION COTTAGE *** + +***** This file should be named 37871.txt or 37871.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/8/7/37871/ + +Produced by Charlene Taylor, Betsie Bush, Matthew Wheaton +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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