CHAPTER IX—GIRLS’ LIFE A LA MODE

Housekeeping, however irksome when a positive duty, is always a delight when “tried on” in miniature.

So it was when the Wellington girls installed themselves in Miss Jordan’s apartment, they had no idea of the novelty in store for them. The house was one of the old mansions now falling into the shadow of the Village. The Village, we recall, is that part of New York City where artists of various sorts congregate, and live the life they term Bohemian. Incidentally, there are many within the village who will never have any claim to the title artist—other than to have possessed the ambition to be so classified, but like half the aspirants for honors, they may aspire, but not conspire, as they do not work honestly to achieve the place they pretend to appropriate. But our girls did not go within the village limits; they were just at its “gates” and so had an opportunity of observing the interesting types of girls and young women passing in and out, affecting the Bohemian.

Long-haired men and short-haired women. Velvet-jacketed men and cloth-upholstered women—such persistent contradictions lending a peculiar picturesqueness to the otherwise prosaic Metropolis.

A kitchenette and two sleeping rooms had been assigned to the Wellingtons by Miss Jordan, the larger dining room being shared by two groups. Miss Jordan explained she had found the individual kitchen indispensable, for all girls had their own ideas about kitchen work, while a dining room might be made communal, many persons having similar table habits, obviously. The living room was delightful. A long, high ceiled drawing room originally. Miss Jordan had preserved the splendor of the crystal chandelier, and the glory of the hand carved marble mantel. Here all the girls were wont to congregate in their evenings, and those of them who had the opportunity came together around the square piano or curled themselves up with books in the bay window’s cushions in the late afternoons.

The clientele was sufficiently varied to be interesting, at the same time Miss Jordan personally vouched for the general standing of each of her paying guests. In fact, the rendezvous for young girls who might be in New York temporarily, and without personal chaperons, was a real innovation, and it did fill a perfectly legitimate long-felt want.

“Home was never like this,” declared Judith, passing the chocolates to a little dark-haired art student, who had just come in from a morning’s work in a co-operative studio. The art student called herself Anaa Kole, and just why she insisted on the second “a” to her otherwise plain Ana had not yet been discovered by Judith. It looked to her like a waste of type, that could not be vocally made use of.

“Miss Jordan is so motherly,” admitted Anaa. “I sometimes wonder what I should have done if I had not found her apartment. I came here because my college directed me to.”

“That is just what happened to me,” Judith declared. “I came here because Wellington actually toted me to the doorstep. Have some more chocolates, do!”

“Oh, thank you, I do like sweets when I am tired. What are you studying?”

“Here? Nothing especially. We are just getting ready for our junior year. All but Miss Podonsky. She is just beginning.”

“Isn’t she dear? But why does she run every time the bell rings?”

“Does she? I hadn’t noticed,” prevaricated Judith. “She is a little shy, being a stranger, I suppose.”

“And she never practices when anyone is around. I have so wished to hear her play her violin. I am sure she is a wonder at it. But every time I do have the good luck to come in while she is playing she stops instantly as I enter.”

“Don’t you think most geniuses are peculiar?” parried Judith. “Helen will not play for us unless—well, unless Miss Allen especially requests it. She adores Jane.”

“I don’t blame her,” admitted Anaa. “I am charmed with her myself. She is one of the girls with rare character who is not forever advertising it. When I came in with wet feet the other night she did not insist on me draining her chocolate pot. Most girls do, and I abhor hot drinks for wet feet.”

Judith laughed. Anaa was naive, if a trifle conspicuous with her bobbed hair. Of course bobbed hair was so comfy, and so becoming, too bad it was not the general style, mused Judith, patting her own heavy coil, that would slip down her neck every time she attempted to relax outside of bed quilts.

“I shall almost hate to leave for school,” Judith supplied. “It has been so jolly here.”

“I do not find New York exactly a playground,” Miss Kole followed, “but, then, I am studying.”

“Of course that’s different. We are shopping, shopping and after meals shopping again. I wonder if there are any bargains left? I adore buying pretty underlies, but I am not so keen on the practicals. But my friend Jane has set up enough stuff to make a hope chest for all Wellington.”

“She is from the West, you said?”

“Yes, from Montana. But that does not mean that she has never seen pretty things before and is overdoing it,” Judith hurried to qualify in justice to Jane.

“Oh, of course not. I did not mean to infer that,” Miss Kole apologized. “But I do think Westerners, as a rule, are so much more generous, and so much more enthusiastic than the cold Easterners. I am from New England, and all I can remember of holidays around home is that the rag rugs were taken off the carpets, and the powdered sugar sprinkled over the doughnuts. Life in my home was always a question of rivalry in economy. When I came here I set out for days to buy every imaginable sort of food I had been reading labels of all my life. Of course at college I had all I wanted, but even there it was not on my own initiative. I longed to find out how it felt to be free to buy without a pencil, and paper and premium list.”

“Oh, don’t call your home town such hard names,” Judith put in kindly. “I am quite sure it has made you very dependable. I wouldn’t wonder if a term there would fit me for life with much better qualifications than I can now boast of. But here come Jane and Helen.” (They had Americanized the Helka.) “And now more bundles.”

“Oh, the darlingest tams,” announced Jane, dropping down on the big sofa. “I just had to carry them home to show you. Couldn’t wait for delivery. See Anaa,” to Miss Kole, “aren’t they perfectly dear?”

“Oh, this year’s tams are really classic,” contributed the art student.

Judith already had the hunter’s green, soft velvet tam on her frowsy head. “Jane, which is mine?”

“Well, I did not know what you would like best with your riding habit. It would have been too uncertain to guess at the green, and the brown was rather dark, so I thought perhaps this burgundy would go.”

“Stunning, perfectly so!” exclaimed Judith. “I have always wanted wine color and been afraid to try it. Isn’t it wonderful?” And the lovely soft little cap was coaxed to a proper angle on the dark head.

“And this is Helen’s,” Jane shook from its wrappers another cap of a deep violet hue. Helen blushed prettily as Judith insisted on trying it on her curly head.

“Oh, look, girls!” Judith suddenly exclaimed, grasping Helen and swinging her around unceremoniously. “Now I know the color of her eyes! They are pure violet.”

The unexpected exclamation, and the energy of Judith’s swing gave Helen a perceptible start. For a moment she seemed about to dash off. She changed color from flush to pallor and was surely trembling. Then realizing it was all a joke, she quickly regained her composure, but not before the girls had noted her curious attitude and alarm. Even Jane, slow to criticise, could not but admit Helen was frightened, and at such a trifle!

Why was she always so fearful? What was there for her to be so markedly nervous about?

That she had asked, and even insisted that the Polish name of Helka Podonsky be changed to the American substitute, Helen Powderly, had seemed reasonable enough to the girls, when just after their arrival in New York Helen explained that name meant “power” and while the “sky” stood for distinction in Poland, it would mean nothing but possible ridicule in her school life. To this Jane and Judith had assented. Perhaps it would be best, they agreed, not to antagonize the less broadminded girls with the foreign title. Also, Helen had so earnestly wished it. All this flashed before their minds now, when a simple girlish exclamation caused a panic of fear. It must be nerves, of course. Perhaps Helen had studied too hard in qualifying for the scholarship!

Girls are often jumpy, but not often quite so easily overcome, Jane thought.

“But what shall we do with so many hats?” asked Helen naïvely recovering herself. “We shall be at school always.”

“Oh, not half of always,” replied Jane. “You see, Helen, we must ride, I haven’t told you about your horse (the violet eyes widened with pleasure) and then,” continued Jane, “we are going on all sorts of hikes and hunts and outside jaunts. We are going to beg you in as a junior. Sometimes the juniors, that’s Judith and me, are allowed to have what we call pupils. It isn’t really catalogued but we occasionally get a younger girl to go with us, so that we may try out our knowledge on her.”

“Yes, and my particular stunt is,” Judith acclaimed, trying her tam at another angle, “to get a girl who knows more than I do, and let her try out her knowledge on me. Last year I found a perfect wizard in Meta Noon. She knew more about bi-ology than I shall ever have a chance to learn, and in the woods—what Meta didn’t tell me about queer bugs, and buzzards and beetles and bombus and—well, I was buzzing for a week after one hike.”

“After all,” sighed Anaa, “school days have a charm. But we never realize it until it is gone.”

“Then of what value is the charm?” asked Jane.

“Exactly like cutting a tooth—only good after all the cutting is done,” decided Judith.

“We take no note of time but from its loss, you know the poet says,” followed Jane, “and I often think of the concise truth of that statement. We do not even know it is the hour until the hour is past. Oh, la-la! but we are getting philosophical. Personally, I am more interested in the kitchenette at this moment. Judith, it is your turn to do the K. P.”

“What ever branch of the A. E. F. instituted the Kitchen Police should have been tried by court martial,” blurted Judith. “The K. P. is a duty for the enemy, not for the home guard,” and she dove for the divan and the chocolate crumbs.

“Oh, do let me get the dinner again,” begged Helen. “You know I love to. The little place is like a—baby play house.”

“Oh, yes, Helen, do run along and play,” promptly agreed Judith. “As it is my turn, I give you full permission——”

“Judy Stearns,” called Jane in mock severity. “You are an awful fraud. Helen is too good to you. I shall make you do guard duty this evening when we are out in the park. Besides, I am not going to give you your surprise.”

She got no further. The tall girl bounced over the room after Jane, who was ducking nimbly only to be finally enmeshed in cushions and portieres.

“Will you give it to me?” commanded Judith. “Or shall I wrest it from you! And what is it and where is it? Maybe a telegram, summoning me to my jolly cowboys’ wedding or funeral. Oh, shall I ever be able to forget my jolly cowboys?”

“Easy, girls, easy,” cautioned Anaa, “Miss Jordan is putty in our hands, until we attempt football with her cushions. Then she turns alabaster. Don’t, Judith, it is a lot better to ‘don’t’ than to ‘did.’ Take the advice of a good friend.”

At this the chase was halted. Jane was panting from the shaking and choking Judith had administered, while Judith was looking for the ever fractious hairpins, the same being the last of a precious set of shell pins imported from the Western coast. Judith and hairpins were always at painful odds.

“Judy,” said Jane seriously, “do you realize our days are flying and we will be due at Wellington very soon?”

“Oh, Jane Allen! You horrid girl! Can’t I have a day’s peace here in this wonderful New York without having Wellington poked at me?” and Judith facetiously jabbed at her eyes. “I have a very good mind to play hookey.”

Anaa had slipped out of the room, leaving Jane and Judith together.

“Jane,” whispered Judith, “whatever do you suppose makes Helen so nervous about strangers? She is positively timid in crowds. And when a man with queer whiskers, the Russian kind, brushed by us to-day on the avenue I could feel her shiver. Now, Janie, you do not suppose we are harboring a runaway, or anything like that?”

“Why, Judy, how foolish. You know Mrs. Weatherbee would not have agreed that father’s scholarship be given Helen if she had not first carefully examined all her credentials. You know Mrs. Weatherbee and care. A regular text book. But I will admit, the child is afraid in public places. Much as I like it here, I should have been glad of a week in a big hotel just for the experience, if we could have induced her to go with us. It is a little queer, still Helen is lovely, don’t you think so?”

“Too sweet for classification. Look at her now doing my chores,” and Judith laughed. “Oh, Janie, dear, it is fun to be here, and to have your purse at the back of it. I never had so much spot cash in all my life as I have seen you flourish since we located at the Jordan apartment. It perfectly scares me.”