Part 11

"Oh, it's nothing. Only I've just been at a meeting at the State House."

Then, by dint of a little questioning, Julia learned that Brenda had read the notice of a meeting to be held at the State House in the interests of the Massachusetts troops that should go to the war, and that she had decided to attend it.

"Oh, it was dreadful," she said, not restraining the tears that were now undeniably falling. "They talked about bandages and ambulances and the hundreds that would be killed, and the dreadful things that happened in the Civil War, and I couldn't help thinking how terrible it would be for Arthur and Tom and all the others we know."

"Arthur?" queried Julia; "I knew that Tom was going, but with his regiment from New York--but Arthur, why, he has never been in the militia?"

"Oh, no," responded Brenda, "it's all his being in Washington. I wish that he had never heard of Senator Harmon. It seems that he's to have a commission in the regular army. The President is to make any number of new officers, and you have to have influence. Ralph had a letter this morning,--and I know he'll be killed."

"Nonsense, child! If there is any fighting, it will be only on sea."

"Oh, you should have heard them talk at the meeting to-day; and Papa says that every young man should be ready to fight. He only wishes that he was young enough. Amy writes that Fritz Tomkins is crazy to leave college and volunteer, but his uncle won't let him, because his father is in China. But lots of men are leaving college to go into the army. Don't you think 'tis very noble in Arthur?"

The last sentence was a change from the main subject, for Arthur's college years were far away; but it showed where Brenda's heart lay, and Julia did not laugh at her.

"Come," she said, "let us go upstairs; you have never visited the home economics class, and you are just in time for it."

So hand in hand the two cousins went upstairs, and if Brenda was less cheerful than usual, only Julia noticed this.

"The dusty class," as some of the younger girls called it, because "Dust and its dangers" had been the subject of the lessons.

"How businesslike it is!" exclaimed Brenda, glancing around the plain room, fitted with its long wooden table, plain walls, at one end of which were many glass bottles and tubes.

"Test tubes," explained Julia, as Brenda asked a question; "and these gas jets that rise from the table are very useful in some of their experiments."

"Yes, that is some of Pamela's Ruskin," Julia added, as Brenda stopped before a simply framed card on which in illuminated text was the following:

"There are three material things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got them.

"These are Pure Air, Water, and Earth.

"There are three immaterial things, not only useful, but essential to life. No one knows how to live till he has got them also.

"These are Admiration, Hope, and Love."

"It looks very scientific," said Brenda, "with all those bottles and tubes. I should call it a regular laboratory."

"So it is," responded Julia; "and though the girls are untrained, and rather young to understand thoroughly the scientific value of much that is taught them, they do enjoy the experiments."

At this moment the teacher entered the room.

"Tell me, Miss Soddern," said Julia, after introducing Brenda to the teacher,--"tell me if the girls have had any success with their bacteria; I know that they are very much interested in their little boxes."

"Oh, I'm going to have them report this morning. You must wait until they come."

In a moment the girls filed in, Concetta, Luisa, Gretchen, Haleema, and the rest whom Brenda knew best, and with them two or three girls from outside who were members of the League; for in this, as in other classes, it had seemed wise to enlarge the work a little. So the class had taken in some of those whom the membership in the League had interested in things that otherwise they might not have had the interest to study.

As they stood at their places around the table, Miss Soddern gave a resumé of what they had already learned about dust and its dangers. They talked with a fluency that surprised Brenda about bacteria and yeasts and spores and moulds, and in most cases showed by examples that they knew what they were talking about.

"I am glad that all these bacteria are not harmful," said Brenda, "for otherwise I should stand in fear of instant death when caught in one of our east winds," and she looked with interest at the plate that showed a great many little spots irregularly distributed within a circle. Each spot represented a colony of bacteria, and though the showing was rather overwhelming, it was not nearly as bad as another exposure made at a crossing in a certain city where the old-fashioned street-cleaning methods prevailed. An exposure made just after the carts had been collecting heaps of dirt showed an almost incredible number, quite beyond counting.

So interesting did Miss Soddern make her lesson that Brenda stayed quite through the hour.

"I've gathered one or two new ideas on the subject of trailing skirts," she whispered to Julia in one of the intervals of the lesson. "I always thought it was just a notion, this talk about their being so unclean, but now I shall always think of them as regular bacteria collectors. Also I've learned one or two things about dusting, and I'm going to watch our maid to-morrow, and if she isn't using a moist cloth, I'll frighten her by asking her why she insists on distributing death-dealing germs around the room."

Half of the class that day had to report the result of their own observation of bacteria colonies collected on the gelatine plate, and half were to prepare the little glass boxes to take home. Brenda watched the process with great interest,--the preparation of the boxes in a vacuum, so that there would be no air inside them when they should be first exposed in the new locality.

"It's something," said Julia, "to get these girls to acquire habits of accuracy."

"Oh, it reminds me of the class in physics at Miss Crawdon's," replied Brenda. "I never would take it myself, but some of the girls said that it was splendid; it taught one to be accurate."

At that moment Miss Soddern began to address the girls. They had been so absorbed in their work that they had talked very little during the hour.

"How many of you have anything to report regarding the boxes that you took home last week."

One by one the outside girls gave accounts of their observations, each one vying with the others to describe the most prolific growth of bacteria.

"As the boxes were to be exposed simply in their living-rooms, I am surprised at the results," said the teacher in an aside to Julia; "I'm afraid that some one must have been stirring up the dust. What does your family think of these experiments?" she continued, turning to a bright-eyed American girl.

"Oh, they're so interested," the girl replied. "You've no idea how they've watched it; and since the bacteria have begun to develop,"--she said this with an important air--"they show it to company. Why, you may like to know that our visitors consider it more entertaining than the family album."

Miss Soddern herself did not dare to smile at this remark, but Julia and Brenda hastily excused themselves.

"Audible smiling," said Brenda, "is more excusable out here than it would be in the school-room," and then both laughed outright.

"I never did care for family photograph albums," said Julia, "and now I see how easy it would be to have a scientific substitute."

XVII

IDEAL HOMES

The triangular quarrel between Concetta, Haleema, and Angelina had reached such a state that the three spoke only when actually under the eyes of their elders. Even as Maggie had felt jealousy at first, did Angelina now feel jealousy of Concetta.

On pleasant spring Sundays when Angelina walked out with John she would tell him her griefs, and so far as he could he would sympathize with her; but when she talked of running away, he would simply laugh.

"Why, if you wish to go back to Shiloh, I'm sure Miss Julia would let you; you have only to tell her and she would let you off."

Then Angelina would shake her head. "Ah! you have no idea how important I am. Why, I know they couldn't get along without me, and I'm sure that if I should leave, everything would stop. I'm surprised that you should suggest it, John."

"But you talked of running away."

"Well, so I might, if Concetta keeps on acting in that forward way, as if she were the most important person here. No, I won't desert Miss Julia, even if Miss Brenda does show so much partiality. I suppose it's my Spanish blood that makes me take it so hard."

John looked at Angelina bewildered.

"Spanish blood! why, we're not Spanish; I hadn't heard of it."

"There, John, you haven't a bit of romance; I should think that you could tell that we're Spanish just by looking in the glass, and I'm sure Spain and Portugal are very near together, and though mother says she was born a Portuguese she may be Spanish. A great many people are beginning to sympathize with me on account of the war."

There! the secret was out. The war with Spain had now come to the foreground, and Angelina wished in some way to be a part of it and of the general excitement. Had John been old enough to enlist she might have worked off some of her energy in urging him to do so. As it was, she amused those who had known her the longest by talking about her fears for her own safety; for although Manila Bay was an American victory, "of course," she would say, "every one has a prejudice against persons of Spanish blood," and Angelina would raise her handkerchief to her eyes, as if she were an exiled princess of Castile.

John only laughed at Angelina when she talked in this way to him, and wished that he could enlist and go toward the South, where the troops were gathering for the war.

"I should like to be a nurse," she then said, "for really this work here with these younger girls is very tiresome, and I don't think that Miss South and Miss Julia properly appreciate me."

"You are ungrateful," John would reply solemnly. "Why, if it wasn't for these young ladies I'm sure that mother wouldn't be alive now; she never could have lived if we'd stayed on in Moon Street, and it was just through them that we were able to have a home of our own, for those bare rooms in Moon Street were not a home."

John was an industrious youth, working hard, saving money, and studying evenings. He was devoted to Manuel, now a strong boy of nine, and anxious that he, too, should have a good education. Angelina's flightiness troubled him, but he hoped that she would in time outgrow it; for though the younger, he always felt that he was in the position of an older brother, and when it came to any particular action, Angelina usually took his advice, after first demurring, and professing that she would rather do something else. Now he felt that he was right in trying to make her keep her place at the Mansion; but even while he was trying to persuade her, he could see that Angelina was thinking of something else.

But the war did not entirely occupy the thoughts of Julia and Pamela and the others at the Mansion, and the former went on with the preparations for her special exhibition after the fashion that she had planned long before the fateful sixteenth of February. Gretchen and Maggie were her chief assistants in carrying out her plans, and they went about with an air of mystery that was particularly tantalizing to the others.

"What do you suppose it's going to be?" asked Concetta, with two buttons conspicuously fastened to her waist bearing the motto, "Remember the Maine."

"Some kind of a picture show, I guess; I saw two boxes of thumb tacks on Miss South's table. I tried to make Maggie tell, but she's as still as a mouse; she always is. Don't she make you think of one?"

"Yes, she does," replied Haleema. "I've a good mind to peek in now; there's nobody about."

At that moment Angelina came around the corner.

"I'm exceedingly surprised," she said, in her haughtiest manner, "that you should try to pry into what doesn't concern you."

"I didn't."

"Yes, you were trying to."

"No, I wasn't, and, besides, I have a perfect right to; I belong to Miss Northcote's class. So there! You needn't stand and watch me."

"I'll report you to Miss Dreen," said Angelina. "It's your day in the kitchen. I remember that."

Concetta's face clouded as Angelina passed on to the kitchen.

"I wish people would attend to their own business."

Concetta had hoped that Miss Dreen, who was a little absent-minded, would fail to notice her absence. Another grievance was added to the long list that she cherished against Angelina.

But after all they were not kept so very long in suspense, for on the Saturday after this little episode the doors were thrown open, and all the girls marched in to see what really had been going on behind the closed doors. Those in the secret were proud enough, and Maggie in particular displayed an unexpected talkativeness. At least she was able to explain the why and wherefore of the exhibit quite to the satisfaction of all who heard her.

The first exclamations of pleasure were called out by the sight that met their eyes. One side of the room had been divided by partitions to make two rooms. Each was furnished completely, and even those girls who were too old to play with dolls were fascinated by the house; for each of the two rooms was fitted up with absolute perfectness, from the wall-paper to the tiny cushions on the sofa. They were on a scale large enough for everything to be seen in detail, but a degree or two smaller than life size. Pamela justly prided herself on the completeness of it all, and this completeness had been made possible only by the kindness of Julia, who had told her to spare no expense in having the house furnished exactly as she wished it to be. She was safe in giving this wide permission, since Pamela's friends all knew that extravagance was absolutely impossible with her, and that she would use another's money more carefully even than her own.

Both rooms were furnished like sitting-rooms, but they differed utterly in style. Maggie put it correctly by saying that one was "warm and fussy-looking," while the other was "cool and restful."

The floor-covering on the former, painted to imitate a real carpet, was of bright colors and florid design. The reds and greens of which it was composed were just a little off the tone of the flowered wall-paper,--a greenish background with stiff bunches of red flowers, "that look as if they were ready to jump out at you," as one of the girls put it.

The little chairs and couch were upholstered in bright brocade velvet, each one different from the others, and none in harmony with the paper or with each other. On the tiny centre-table were one or two clumsy pieces of bric-à-brac, and the pictures on the walls were small chromos in ugly gilt frames. There were bright cushions on the divan, and crocheted tidies on every chair.

Nellie thought this room "perfectly beautiful." Her cousin's wife, whose husband was a prosperous teamster, had one almost like it, she said. "Oh what lovely easy-chairs! I hope I'll have a parlor as elegant as this some day."

The other room did not please her, it was too plain; whereas Concetta, within whose breast there must have lingered some remnant of Italian artistic instinct, thought it altogether beautiful.

This second room had a plain, dull-green wall-paper, on which hung a few photographs suitably framed. There was matting on the floor, and in the centre a green art-square. The chairs were of rattan, in graceful shapes, with green cushions, and one of artistic design in black wood with broad arms was comfortably cushioned for a lounging-chair. A bookcase, also of black wood, was filled with plainly bound books. On the rattan centre-table was a tall green vase with a single rose in it, and near by two or three small volumes of good literature. The ornaments on the mantle-piece were few and well chosen, and each had an evident reason for being there. The simple gilt moulding at the top was in contrast with the fussy frieze in the other room, and the plain net draperies at the windows were much more agreeable than the lace curtains in the other room, with their elaborate pattern and plush lambrequins.

Each girl as she came in was given a small blank-book, and was asked to note down what she thought of each room, and to state her reasons for preferring one room to another.

"Ought we to like one more than another?" Inez asked anxiously.

"Oh, Inez," said Haleema, "you are like sheep, you never stand alone," which, although not an exact rendering of the proverb, at least partly described the disposition of little Inez, who was far from independent.

"My book isn't half full," said Phoebe, after she had written for several minutes.

"Ah, that isn't all," rejoined Maggie.

"No, indeed," added Pamela, who had been listening with much interest to all the comments. "You have entirely neglected this end of the room. You will probably find more to do here than at the other end."

Here the wall had been covered with a plain gray denim, against which were pinned samples of wall-paper of every quality and color. Some were quiet and in good taste, as well as inexpensive; others were evidently costly, and at the same time loud and glaring. Each piece was numbered, and the girls were asked to write in their books their opinion of these samples.

Again, on a table near the wall-paper lay a number of cards with pieces of dress fabric fastened to them, and the girls were asked to state which would probably hold their color the best, which would be suitable for a working dress, which for a durable winter dress; and near certain bright-colored fabrics were trimmings of various sorts, and they were asked to tell which would best harmonize with the fabric.

"It ought not to be so very hard for you to answer these questions," said Julia, as she found Concetta scowling over her blank-book. "I know that Miss Northcote has had much to say to you this winter about furniture and wall-papers, and you ought to remember the reasons she has given for calling one thing more beautiful than another. Then, as to dress materials, why, think of our shopping expeditions, and the trouble I have taken to make you understand what is best."

"Yes, 'm," said Concetta. "If there's to be a prize, I'll try to prefer the best things; but if there won't be one, why, I think I'll just say what I really think."

"Oh, Concetta! Concetta! you are hopeless," responded Julia; and though she smiled slightly at this frank confession, she felt a little depressed that her winter's work should have had no better effect.

At five o'clock the books were all collected and put in Pamela's care for discussion at the next meeting of her class, and a few minutes later the aunts or cousins of the girls, as the case might be, began to appear. Their "oh's" and "ah's" were genuine as they looked at the two rooms; the numbers were about equally divided between those who preferred the restful room and those who preferred the fussy and gaudy one. They were greatly surprised to find that the more showy room had had no more money spent on it than the other. To them it looked much the more expensive; whereas to Julia and Nora and the others it was a surprise that the cheap and shoddy things of the gaudy sitting-room had cost as much as those in the really æsthetic apartment.

All had been invited to the six-o'clock tea, and this had been designed to show the skill in cooking of some of the number,--or perhaps I should say skill in the preparation of a meal, since much that was to go on the table was prepared under the eyes of the visitors.

The dainty sandwiches, for instance, were so prepared. There were three or four different kinds, of lettuce, of cheese, and some with nuts laid between, to the great surprise of Mrs. McSorley. She had associated with the name only the sandwich of the ham variety. Then the cold chicken, creamed and served in the chafing-dish, and put steaming on the plates; the chocolate that Maggie prepared on a tiny gas range, crowned with whipped cream that she had whipped before their very eyes,--all these things had their effect. When Luisa showed the blanc-mange that she had made, "without any flavor of soup," Haleema remarked so mischievously, that Luisa had to admit that earlier in the season she had prepared some blanc-mange in a kettle which had not been washed since some strong-flavored soup had been contained in it. Each girl had one special dish that she had made the day before,--cake, or biscuit, or jelly. The results were very satisfactory to the admiring relatives, who went home particularly pleased with the Mansion and the young ladies, as well as with their own particular loaf of cake or mould of jelly, as the case may be. Each one, too, carried away a fine photograph of the Mansion, under which Pamela had written one of her ever applicable Ruskin quotations.

"The girls to spin and weave and sew, and at a proper age to cook all proper ordinary food exquisitely; the youth of both sexes to be disciplined daily in the studies."

This was at the bottom of the card, and at the top she had written:

"Never look for amusement, but be always ready to amuse."

"There," said Julia, after the last visitor had departed, "I don't suppose that any of our guests know that we are college women, nor probably have they heard the time-worn discussion as to whether college women are capable of understanding the management of a house, but it strikes me that we made a pretty good showing this evening."

"Ah," replied Miss South, "I am older than you, and I can say pretty confidently that no one need stand up for the college woman as home maker; she needs no defence. More than half the college graduates of to-day have homes of their own that are well managed, and have a high sanitary standard, and--but there, I am talking as if you needed to be convinced, whereas this is very far from being the case."

"Indeed, Miss South," said Nora, "even I, who am not a college girl--"

"Oh, but you are; don't forget the good work that you did as a special at Radcliffe."

"Thank you, Julia, but I'm only slightly a college girl. Well, even I always have plenty of ammunition ready when one or two persons I might mention have things to say about the uselessness of a college education."

"You are a good champion in any cause, and we thank you," said Julia, slipping her arm in Nora's, and making a low courtesy.

This exhibit of Pamela's was the end of the festivities at the Mansion. The evenings were growing warm, and the interests of the girls were turning in other directions. The meetings of the League were regular sewing circles, and the busy needles of the members struggled through the heavy denim that was to be used in comfort bags for the soldiers, or they hemmed flannel bandages, or applied themselves to other useful bits of work suggested by the Woman's Auxiliary of the Aid Association. While others worked, Angelina read aloud to them, for she was fond of reading; and those girls who had friends or relatives in the regiments that were going South were proud of the fact, and referred to it often.

But Maggie--poor Maggie! It seemed to her that she had reason to be prouder than any of them, for she not only had a letter, but a photograph, from a soldier, and to her Tim was a really heroic figure in his blouse and campaign hat. And the words had a sacred meaning, "I'm going to do something great before you see me again; I'll do something great, and by and by we'll have that home of our own."