Part 4

Penelope read it again and then folded the letter.

"It's just exactly what I wanted Caroline to say!"

"But, Daddy, I don't care--now--about not going back to Miss Prindle's, but I'd hate a tutor or anything like that!"

"All play and no work----"

"But I do work! Ask Aunt Pen if I haven't made my bed every morning!"

"I have some plans," Aunt Pen began slowly, "the girls ought to have some studies and----"

"And a tutor, Aunt Pen?" Aunt Pen nodded. "Not that awful Miss Gray--please, Aunt Pen!"

"No, not Miss Gray! I think I know someone whom you'll like--or at least you are very fond of her now!"

Amused at the real distress in Pat's face her father broke in:

"Aunt Pen says she has some plans! Her plans are generally very interesting," with a sidelong glance at his sister, "though I admit that sometimes she is very heartless! Let's hear them! Then if you don't like them, why----"

"Well, then," cried Pat resignedly, "let's hear them!"

Renee was listening with deep interest. She had never gone to school except for the three years following her mother's death when she had on pleasant days gone to the communal school at St. Cloud. Before that her mother had taught her; she had stored away, too, in her mind valuable knowledge from the books which had been always about her. Now the thought of going to an American school filled her with terror!

Aunt Pen assumed a comically serious air. "I will tell the girls my plans and they shall decide, for unless they go into the work with all their hearts it will do them little good! First, each day must be divided into periods, the first to begin at eight o'clock. Between eight and nine there will be instruction in household arts"--she could not resist a sly wink at Pat's father--"that includes making beds without wrinkles and tidying the corners; of the room, especially behind the wardrobe where things collect--"

"Aunt Pen, you are _just_ joking!"

"No, my dear! I never was more serious in my life! To my thinking accuracy in such work is as important as accuracy in algebra or geometry! And I am sure you did not get it at Miss Prindle's!"

"What then?" cried Pat and her father.

"An hour of out-of-door exercise in the morning and one in the afternoon, or at least two hours out-of-doors each day, regardless of weather!"

"Oh, I _like that_!" interrupted Pat.

Aunt Pen continued severely: "And that does not mean riding with Watkins! That leaves six hours for study, classes and indoor recreation."

"Study what?" demanded Pat, still suspicious that there must be something unpleasant somewhere.

"Well, different things for each of you. Besides the classes in bed-making, sweeping and dusting, cooking and home-nursing, I think you should study Algebra and spelling, Renee may study English and she will help you with your French, and you will both have Latin. Then in the evening you may read American history from books selected by your tutor----"

"Did ever anyone hear of a school like that?" cried Pat, clapping her hands. "I love it, Aunt Pen, and I'll work hard--honest! Oh----" her face fell. "Who will be the tutor?"

"Where can you find anyone who can make bread and teach Latin infinitives?" put in Mr. Everett mischievously.

"Well," Aunt Pen tried to look modest, "how would I do?"

"You!" cried Pat incredulously, certain now that the whole plan was only a joke. "You--really, truly?"

"Really, truly, my dear! I will dearly love to teach you and help you both!"

Pat threw both arms about her neck in a strangling hug. "Oh, Aunt Pen, it will be such fun and I'll really, truly try to learn Latin and I won't stuff things behind the wardrobe any more--that was my half of the room, you know! And maybe, with Renee to help me, I can soon speak French as well as Celia!"

"And I'll offer a prize for the best loaf of bread that one of my girls makes!" added Mr. Everett.

"No, there shall be no prizes in this school! If one of the girls can do something better than the other then she is going to help the other! More than all the French and Latin, in the world I want my pupils to learn unselfishness! And we will keep reports and the reward will come when Pat and Renee show these reports to Pat's mother."

"What do you think about it, Mouse?" That was the name Mr. Everett had given Renee. Her eyes were shining with delight.

"Oh, I will like it very much! And there is so much I want to learn if I am to live in America and I will try so hard! I was afraid to go to school!" she confessed.

"It is very natural that you should have dreaded it, my dear! After a little that shyness will wear off and you will find many staunch friends and playmates."

"I want to learn to iron as nicely as Sheila can," announced Pat with her accustomed enthusiasm. "And cook, too--make tarts and things! Why, Aunt Pen, all that is what we'll need to be second-class scouts!" The thought suddenly brought concern to her face. "Will we have time, Aunt Pen, to study for the tenderfoot test? Peggy Lee and Keineth Randolph are going to teach us to tie knots and, you know," she added hastily, "that is important! Everybody should be able to tie all sorts of knots--it's very useful, lots of times!"

Aunt Pen nodded. "Of course! You shall have a chance to learn all that!"

"Peggy says her brother will teach us how to semaphore, too! Oh, we'll be _so_ busy, Renee! I think I'll write to Angeline all about it!"

She ran to the spinnet desk across the room and pulled out paper and pen. Her head was whirling with Aunt Pen's delightful plans! She wrote furiously for a few moments, with a loud scratching of her point. But as she wrote into her mind slowly crept a vivid picture of the girls at Miss Prindle's and of the life there! With the page half written she stopped. Then she caught up the paper and tore it across, dropping the pieces one by one into the waste-basket. From the divan before the fire Aunt Pen was watching her, wondering at the fleeting shadow that had crossed the brightness of her face.

"What is it, Pat?" she asked gently.

Pat hesitated. "Oh--nothing!" There was a note of defiance in her voice. She did not add that into her heart had suddenly come the illuminating conviction that the girls she had known at Miss Prindle's would laugh at Aunt Pen's "school!"

"There was just so much to write about that I couldn't seem to begin!"

*CHAPTER VIII*

*BREADWINNERS*

A perplexing problem confronted Pat. Her scout uniform must be bought out of money she had earned herself. And she had never earned a penny in her life!

"I earned my money knitting mittens and selling them and True Scott crocheted tam-o'-shanters. They were awfully pretty and all the girls ordered them. Peggy Lee worked on Saturdays in a grocery store--taking telephone orders," Sheila explained.

"I can't knit well enough or crochet or do anything," Pat wailed afterwards, in gloomy consultation with Renee and Sheila.

Then at Sheila's suggestion the girls studied the "Help Wanted" column of the newspaper. They spread it out upon the floor and knelt around it; Renee reading off each advertisement and Sheila and Pat passing upon its possibilities. After considerable discussion it was decided that on the next afternoon Pat should go to a certain office address where, as the advertisement read, any refined lady, young or old, would be told how to make ten dollars a week, in pleasant occupation, in her spare hours!

"That will be just right for me!" Pat declared enthusiastically. "It won't interfere with 'school.'"

Aunt Pen's "school" was well started. At first Pat had been inclined to treat rather lightly the schedule of "household arts," but she realized very soon that Aunt Pen was in earnest and that she intended to demand the same thoroughness and accuracy in the simple tasks about the house that were necessary in the sums in Algebra! At the beginning Pat had detested what Melodia called "the upstairs work," but under Aunt Pen's pleasant instruction and with Renee's cheerful company--that little lady was a true housewife and her hands flew eagerly about her work--Pat began to feel more interest and to try very hard to do everything just right! And at the end of the first week Aunt Pen had allowed the girls to make apple pies which Mr. Everett had declared were better than any apple pies he had ever tasted!

"And ten dollars a week!" Pat went on, "I will be rich very soon! Now we must find something for Renee!"

"Perhaps I might earn a little arranging flowers in shop windows; often I helped Colette Voisin, who had a stall at St. Cloud, and I loved it!"

"Just the thing!" cried Pat, delighted with anything out of the ordinary. "Most of the flower shops look hideous and they'd probably pay you well! While I go for my position to-morrow afternoon, you and Sheila can stop at each one of the florists and offer to trim their windows!"

The fortune-seekers spent an excited hour preparing for their adventure. Aunt Pen had gone out for the afternoon, so they were undisturbed. Pat insisted upon fastening her hair tightly back from her face so as to give to herself an appearance of mature severity! At the last moment she donned a long coat of Aunt Pen's which concealed her own kilted skirt and then for a finishing touch added Celia's last year's sable furs!

"There--I'm sure anyone would take me easily for twenty-one!" she declared, surveying herself with satisfaction. And to Pat twenty-one seemed old enough to suit the most exacting employer!

They had arranged to meet Sheila at her gate. Renee was frightened to death, and as the three girls trudged on toward the business section of the city she repeated over and over, after Pat, just what she must say upon entering each florist's shop!

"Be sure to tell them that you used to fix that flower stall in France!" warned Pat as they parted. She waved her hand, calling "good luck," and walked on with a brave step. Sheila was to stay with Renee because Renee was not acquainted with the city streets.

But two hours later it was a crestfallen trio who met--as they had agreed to do--in Sheila's kitchen. Pat, in spite of her ridiculous make-up, looked like an unhappy, thwarted child! She had waited over an hour in a stuffy office, packed in with dozens of other "refined lady" applicants who had--although Pat would not tell this even to Sheila or Renee--openly laughed at her!

"And by the time it was my turn to go in I was so tired waiting that I got all sort of scared and couldn't say a word," she explained in deep disgust. "Anyway, it was to sell "Beauty Packages" at people's houses--things that'd make straight hair curly and remove freckles and everything else and you had to deposit twenty-five dollars before they'd even let you begin!"

"And all the flower shops said they had experts to decorate their windows--they would not even let me tell of Colette's stall! I think they thought I was too little," sighed Renee; "often they laughed!"

"Well," Pat tossed her head, "we just mustn't get discouraged but try, try again!"

Renee shuddered. "Oh, I can't--not like that!" she cried vehemently.

"Would you rather not be a scout?" demanded Pat. "You never get anything without trying for it and I guess I'm not going to let one failure discourage me!" In the pleasant shelter of the Quinn kitchen she felt very brave! But a threat of tears in Renee's eyes softened her. "Don't worry, Ren, we'll find something! Maybe," she hesitated, "maybe we'd better consult Aunt Pen!"

"Oh, I wish you would!" Renee cried eagerly. Pat's adventurous spirit frightened her a little.

"I'll think about it and maybe to-morrow----"

For Pat was not quite sure, in her own mind, just what Aunt Pen might think of the borrowed coat and Celia's furs!

By countless little signs Aunt Pen knew that her girls had something on their minds! Hurrying down to dinner she had caught a glimpse, as she had passed Pat's door, of her own coat and Celia's furs thrown on Pat's bed; the girls had been unusually silent during the evening meal and she had twice intercepted an appealing glance from Renee to Pat which had drawn a nod of assurance from Pat in answer! Pat's room work the next morning had been sadly careless and her Latin recitation had found her abstracted! Aunt Pen was too sensible to force a confidence--she was sure that it was only a matter of a little time before Pat would bring to her anything that troubled!

So she was not surprised when after the morning's work was over Pat came to her door.

"Renee and I want to talk to you, Aunt Pen!" she said so seriously that for a moment Penelope was startled.

The two stood before her, Pat with her hands clasped behind her as she had often seen her father stand.

"You see it's like this, Aunt Pen--Renee and I have got to earn some money to buy our uniforms! We can't just use allowances! It's about six dollars and a half apiece! We can't knit well enough to sell things and Peggy Lee worked in a grocery store, but it was where her mother traded and they were nice about it! But we--can't--find--any work!"

"Then you've tried?"

Pat colored. "Yes--we tried yesterday!" Without going too much into detail and carefully giving their experience as much dignity as possible, she recounted the efforts of the afternoon before to find employment. Aunt Pen was suddenly seized with a violent coughing fit which left her tearful!

"I _hope_ you're not laughing," Pat ended with some wrath in her voice. "I'm sure we're old enough to earn money--_boys_ do at our age! And I am not in the _least_ discouraged!"

"That is right, Pat," cried Aunt Pen admiringly. "But perhaps you have not gone about it the right way! Let's sit down now and go over the whole thing!"

Afterwards Pat told Sheila that one thing she always liked about Aunt Pen was that she treated a person as though that person _knew_ something!

And Pat never dreamed that it was not her own mental processes that, after a few words, arrived at the conclusion that she and Renee must content themselves with just trying to do what they were qualified to do!

"Renee is too young to be employed even for any part of a day in a store--we have a law that forbids it! And you, Pat, could scarcely sell enough Beauty Packages in what spare time you have to replace the shoe leather you'd wear out!"

"But what _will_ we do?" cried Pat, humble now.

Aunt Pen thought for a long time. Pat's earnestness was a very precious thing--she must guard it!

Suddenly she clapped her hands with the girlishness that made her such an understanding companion.

"I have a brilliant idea! You remember the box of apples that came last week from my farm? We must have at least fifty bushels of them! My farmer said he was going to take them to market next week. Instead, you and Renee may go around and take orders! You can sell them for a dollar and seventy-five cents a bushel--even then it'll be under the grocer's price--and you will pay the farmer a dollar and a half, which is all he'd get wholesale, anyway."

"Then we'll make a quarter a bushel?"

"Yes. If you sell the whole lot, you'll have twelve dollars and a half to divide between you, besides lots of exercise and some experience! And you can take orders for potatoes, too, up to twenty bushels."

"Oh, great!" cried Pat. She danced around Indian-fashion. "May we begin this afternoon? And may I take some of the apples that came here around in a basket to show people?"

"That is a good idea! I think you'll find it pleasanter than selling Beauty Packages! Then other ways of earning money may turn up. You know one thing you can learn, even when you are little girls, that will help you all through life is to know and grasp opportunities when they come."

"I don't know what we'd do without you, Aunt Pen! I'll keep accounts in a little book, for I love putting down and adding figures. Let's call ourselves 'LaDue and Everett, Agents.'"

Renee, whose face reflected her pleasure and approval of the new plan and her relief that the afternoon need not bring further search for employment, spoke now, shyly:

"I want so much to earn some money so as to send a little to Susette and Gabriel. I have so much here and they may need many things! Do you think I could sell Christmas cards?"

"What kind, child?"

Renee told, then, of the little cards she had painted and sold in St. Cloud. She ran to her room to bring a few that she had. Penelope exclaimed with real admiration over them:

"Why, my dear, they are beautiful! Of course you can sell them! And you must make more! And dinner cards, too!"

"Then valentines!" cried Pat. "And I'll sell them, 'cause you see I am bigger! We can buy your paints and cardboard out of our apple money and--"

"What a business woman you have suddenly become!" Aunt Pen declared.

"We'll need a great big account book and an office----" Pat stopped suddenly and clapped her hands to her head, a motion which always indicated that she had an idea!

"Oh, spliffy! Renee--come on! I've the _best_ plan!" That it was to be a secret was certain! She caught Renee's two hands and dragged her from the room, leaving Aunt Pen convulsed with laughter.

There ensued, then, from the third floor, between the lunch hour and the afternoon study period, a rumbling like thunder, mingled with pounding and scraping and bursts of laughter. To add to the mystery Pat rushed downstairs to return shortly with broom and dustpan and a mob cap over her dark head.

Not until the next afternoon was the secret revealed! Then with much ceremony Pat and Renee escorted Aunt Pen to the third floor. For years the low-gabled room stretching across the east wing of the house had served as a sewing room where the Archer sisters had worked stitching frocks for Celia and Pat and mending the household linen. The Archer sisters--Pat had always thought they looked like gnomes---were dead now and Mrs. Everett had the girls' dresses made by a downtown dressmaker. The room had not been used for a long time.

Now upon its door had been nailed an imposing and elaborately decorated sign which read: "_Eagles' Eyrie_." And beneath that, emphasizing its warning with a skull and crossbones, was another sign: "_No Admittance_."

"Three knocks and then a quick one is the signal," explained Pat mysteriously; "and you and Sheila and Peggy and Keineth and True Scott are the only ones that will know it--except, of course, Ren and me!"

Pat was unlocking the door as she spoke. She threw it open proudly. "This isn't going to be any silly club!" she explained. "Everyone that comes here must work! That desk over there is mine and Renee has this table because she can paint on it and the light's good. And that big table is for the other girls, only we have to keep it against the wall 'cause one leg's off!"

A few hours' work had utterly transformed the room and had removed all traces of the patient Archer sisters and their livelihood. The floor, very dusty in spots, was covered with strips of an old hall carpeting which, when hardwood floors had been laid, had been stored away. Pat had also resurrected from the storeroom the antiquated desk and tables and a dilapidated assortment of chairs. Over one of these, to add a note of elegance to the room, she had thrown an old Bagdad lounge cover and across the windows the girls had hung pieces of faded velour, replaced a few years before in the living rooms below. The air was heavy with the smell of camphor and dust; the three-legged table had a pathetically helpless look, a corner of the wall was stained from a leak in the roof, but to Pat and Renee it was an inspiring retreat!

"My account books are there in my desk, and I'll have you know, Aunt Pen, that 'LaDue and Everett' have gotten orders for ten bushels of apples which wasn't bad for one afternoon's work and for girls, too!" declared Pat.

"Oh, that reminds me!" Aunt Pen's voice was as enthusiastic as that of the junior member of the firm. "I have an order for LaDue and Everett! Miss Higgins will take twelve of the Christmas cards! I showed her one this morning. She is going to put them on sale in her tea room. She may order more! You must decide as to your prices, Renee."

Renee was too delighted to answer. Pat fairly bubbled with excitement. She caught Aunt Pen and Renee in a whirling step that almost completely demolished an ancient chair that lay in her mad path.

"Hurrah for the Eagles' Eyrie! And won't we just have fun? You, know"--she quieted suddenly--"the day mother and Celia went away I was awfully miserable and I wrote the silliest things in my diary! But that was before I found Renee! And now we've got Sheila and you and our jolly school and our business and I'm glad's can be they left me home and I didn't go back to Prindle's!"

Aunt Pen, for lack of breath and a chair had sunk down upon the floor. She looked up laughing.

"I'd hate to have to analyze that sentence of yours, Patsy! But even if your English is constructed badly your heart is gold and I say--good luck to you and your Eagles' Eyrie!"

*CHAPTER IX*

*THE NEW LODGER*

"Whatever in the world are all those whistles blowing for?" asked Pat, springing from her bed and running to her window. "Something's happening--I know!"

The girls listened. The early morning air was filled with incessant sound; the shriek of sirens, shriller blasts, the heavy tones of boats' whistles from the harbor, intoning bells.

"It makes you shiver!"

"Let's dress quickly!" Pat reached out for a stocking. "Maybe it's peace!" she declared suddenly.

"Oh-h!" was all Renee answered, but there was a world of meaning in the single sound. "Listen! There are more bells! Aren't they beautiful? Perhaps they are ringing all over the world."

Downstairs they found everyone wildly excited. Even Jasper, who had not been over from England for so many years that he had forgotten his relatives there, was talking volubly to Aunt Pen and passing her sugar for her boiled egg!

"What is it, Aunt Pen?" cried Pat and Renee in one voice.

"My dears--the fighting has stopped--at last!" Mr. Everett answered. He seemed too moved to say more.

"I don't know whether I feel more like praying or shouting," laughed Aunt Pen with two tears rolling down her cheeks.

From the extra which Jasper had brought in Mr. Everett read to them all the terms of the armistice to which Germany had agreed. Melodia and Maggie listened from the door.

"I feel all queer inside!" announced Pat.

Renee's breakfast lay before her, untouched. Aunt Pen, seeing the real distress on the child's face, divined the ache that lay in her heart. So that when Renee, unable to control herself longer, rushed toward the door she felt two quick arms fold about her and draw her close to a friendly shoulder.

"Dearie, tell us! Don't grieve by yourself!"

Then poor Renee buried her face; it was several moments before she could speak.

"I wish I was--there! Home, I mean--poor Susette is old--and has--only Gabriel! We worked so hard--we made a flag, Susette and I, and we tried to make it just like your Stars and Stripes; we put in the thirteen bars, 'cause I had counted--but not--nearly--enough stars! We'd promised Emile when peace came--he said that the Germans _would_ be beaten--we'd hang it from the corner of the roof, 'long side of Gabriel's old French flag! And"--the head went back against Penelope's shoulder--"I'm 'fraid Susette--will forget--and it--will not--be there!"

"She will remember, Renee, because right at this moment I know her heart and her mind are full of thoughts of you, just as you are homesick for her and the little cottage!"

Mr. Everett, who had been deeply moved by Renee's story, interposed some practical comfort.