CHAPTER II

GAY STREET SETTLES DOWN

Tramp, tramp, upon the little porch. Peter flung the door wide, and in marched the four male members of the house of Bell. The door opened hospitably at once into the living-room, so that the four were able at a glance to see what had been accomplished, and they immediately gave voice to their surprise. "Hi!" This was fifteen-year-old Rufus's exclamation. "Hi! hi! Hip, hip, hurray-ay!"

"Well, well, they must have worked!" said Peter. "I was up here an hour this morning, and they had n't got further than washing the windows."

"When it comes to hustling work, Mother Bell and corps can't be beaten," declared Ross McAndrew, the cousin of the Bells, a pleasant-faced lad of eighteen.

There was a rush from the rear of the house, and Nancy was upon them--Nancy, the twelve-year-old, with the thick brown braids and the round, bright face. Ross caught her and swung her up to his shoulder, where she struggled frantically.

"I 'm too old, Ross!" she pleaded, rumpling his curly fair hair in revenge until it stood on end. "Put me down! Put me down at once! O-oh, you 're bumping my head against the ceiling!"

He looked up and laughing swung her gently down. "It is n't a very lofty apartment, is it, Nan? Did it hurt?"

"Only my feelings. Does n't it look nice here? Mother worked at the kitchen, and Jane and I did all this. We wanted it to look like home when you came."

"It does, indeed. But I must admit I 'm glad mother kept at the kitchen," laughed her father, with a tweak of one fat braid. "It seems too much to expect that we should have a meal to-night in all the disorder, but Peter brought back word this morning that we were to come."

"Indeed you are," said a voice from an inner doorway, and everybody turned. A fresh white apron tied about her trim waist--where did she find it in the confusion?--her beautiful hair in careful order, Mrs. Bell beamed at her big family. "We've nothing but an Irish stew for you, but we had it on this morning as soon as the fire was built, and it's tender and fine."

"Good for you! We like nothing better. Where's Janey?"

"In the kitchen, trying to make places for you all at the kitchen table. We could n't do anything with the dining-room. The paperer has only just gone."

"Come on, you people!" called a blithe voice from the next room, and Jane's face looked over her mother's shoulder. "Turn to the right as you come through the door, and follow the wall round. I 've made a passage that way, but you 're likely to get into perilous places if you try to steer for yourselves."

In single file they followed directions, all but young Rufus, who preferred leaping from box to barrel, and from table to trunk, and so reached the haven of the kitchen first.

"_Whoo-p!_" he ejaculated. "Say, but this is jolly! _Mm-m_! Smell that stew? Hope you 've lots of it?"

"All you can eat," responded Jane, confidently. "Now if you 'll let me seat you all, I 'll make a place for every one. Mother to go first, at the other end, in the chair--our only one available as yet. Next, Ross, on the cracker-box, and Nan on the wood-box. Daddy's to have this soap-box all to himself, with a cushion on it. Peter can sit on that coal-hod, turned upside down."

There was a roar at this, and a protest from Peter. "'Can't I have a newspaper to pad the top of it, sis?"

"If you will find one," Jane responded, unmoved. "Rufe will have to take the top of that flour-barrel, and we 'll hand up his things."

Mrs. Bell was a famous cook, and understood well the quantity of food necessary to appease the keen appetites of her big family, so the bowls were replenished again and again, until all were satisfied, and still the kettle was not quite empty.

"You're not much like a girl I saw to-day, Janey," remarked Peter, balancing himself in the attempt to sit comfortably back upon his coal-hod, while his sister removed the plates and set forth a dish of baked apples and cream. Peter laughed at the recollection. "She was too stately and languid to lift her eyes to look at me, after the first frosty glance. We rode up town on the same street car yesterday, when I was coming here to make sure the house was ready for us. It was the rush hour, of course, and I gave her my seat. I think--yes, I really think"--Peter paused to reflect--"she said, 'Thank you,' though since of course I was n't looking at her as I took off my hat I did n't see her lips move. She and I got off the car together, and came up Gay Street together----"

"Together!" from Jane.

"On opposite sides of the street. She was a little ahead, for the car stopped on her side. I looked across at her with interest as I came along--wanted to find out what our neighbors were like, you know. She was carrying a big muff, and had some things in it--been shopping, of course. Oh, I don't mean parcels--she would n't be caught carrying a parcel--but letters and a purse and a card-case and a pocket-handkerchief, and so forth. Well, as we came along I noticed she had dropped something--handkerchief, by the way it fluttered down. Of course I bolted across the street, through six inches of spring mud, grasped the article, and rushed after her. I said, 'Pardon me, but you dropped your handkerchief,' and held it out. She took it, murmured 'Thank you!'--I saw her lips move this time--"and sailed on like a queen. I took off my hat, waded back through the mud, and was continuing on my thankless way----"

"Thankless!--I thought you just admitted she thanked you," objected Ross, with a twinkle.

"It was one of those thankless thank-yous, just the same," explained Peter, with gravity. "Well, as I say, I went on--like this story--meditating upon her cordial manner, when I saw something else fall from the capacious muff."

"You didn't!" Jane looked incredulous.

"Pardon me, I did. This time I did not bolt across the street; indeed, I stopped to consider whether I should not shout, 'Hi, hi, there, you 've dropped your purse, lady!' like a street gamin. But reflecting on the embarrassment this might cause me at some future date, when she and I should really meet, I picked my way across again, seized the pocketbook, and was about to pursue her, when she looked round and caught me in the act of scrutinizing it, as one naturally does upon picking up a gold-mounted, aristocratic affair like that, the like of which he expects never----"

"Oh, go on!" Rufus could no longer endure his brother's tantalising eloquence.

"I hastened to her side," continued Peter, who was gifted in the art of putting things elaborately when he chose, "and remarked, 'I believe this is yours?' She--now what, friends, would you naturally expect a girl to do on receiving the third favour from a stranger within fifteen minutes?"

"What did you expect? Did you suppose she would fly into your----"

"Did you want her to open the pocketbook and hand you a quarter, saying, 'Here, my honest lad----'"

"Think she 'd say, 'You must call and see father. He will give you a position in his----'"

"Your suggestions are far-fetched and improbable. I expected none of these things to happen. But consider the situation. Here was I, crossing the street for the third time in the mud----"

"Go on!"

"Would n't you have thought, considering the absurdity of the affair--her strewing things along the street like that--the least she could have done would have been to----"

"Smile!" supplied Jane. "_Did n't_ she, Peter?"

"She did not," avowed Peter. "She just looked at me as if she thought I had been about to steal her purse, took it, and went on, this time without saying thank you!"

"Good gracious!" This from Ross. "She must be a nice girl to know. And you look pretty well, too, Pete, in that blue suit."

"Where does she live?" Nancy inquired, her round face sympathetic with Peter's mock humiliation.

"In the big house across the street. If you get out of milk or eggs, Janey, don't hesitate to run across and borrow some," counselled Peter.

"Now if you 'll just make use of us all this evening," proposed Mr. Bell, rising, "we can accomplish a good deal--eh, boys? Shall I open the boxes and barrels, Martha?"

At this suggestion three more pairs of strong arms were put at Mrs. Bell's service. She set every one at work at once.

"Yes, Joe, dear," she agreed, "if you will open the boxes, I 'll take out the things and put them in place as far as I can. That's right, Nancy, you help Jane with the dishes, and when they are done you can go up stairs and make up the beds. Ross and Peter----"

"Yes, we 'll set up the beds," said Peter, with alacrity, anticipating the division of work, "and uncrate the chests of drawers and the bedroom furniture generally. Come on, Ross. You 're as much one of the family as any of us now, since you helped us move, and a little family labour like this will complete the job. Whoever lives with us has to learn to be handy man about the house."

"I 'm ready." Ross looked it. There was an air of alertness about him, for he was slimmer and lighter than Peter, and his fair curly hair made him appear much younger, although only two years separated the ages of the cousins.

"You will find the furniture mostly in the rooms where it belongs," Mrs. Bell called after them. "Jane will be up soon and straighten you out, if you get mixed. Rufus, suppose you go round after the others and bring away all the litter they leave after the uncrating, and make a neat pile of it in the wood-shed."

The steep and narrow little staircase ascended abruptly between walls from the dining-room and led to low-ceiled regions above, which, to the eyes of Murray and Shirley Townsend, from the big house across the street, facing Worthington Square, would have seemed too cramped and small of dimensions to be habitable, to say nothing of the possibility of their ever being made comfortable. But the Bells were of the sort who make the best of everything, and so far none of them had suggested that the little house was not an abode fit for the finest.

"Jane and Nan in one room, Rufe and I in another, and Mr. Ross McAndrew alone in state in this little one in the corner. I judge by the signs that's the stowing of the crowd intended," speculated Peter, surveying each room in turn.

"That corner room's as big as any. I don't think I ought to have it all to myself," objected Ross.

"What, not that spacious eight-by-nine apartment, with one whole side under the eaves?" laughed Peter. "Well, since we can't split ourselves into halves, and like the family of the famous poem 'we are seven,' I don't see but you 'll have to make the best of your loneliness. The beds are only three-quarters size, and Rufe takes up less room than you do, so he and I naturally chum it."

"All right. Let's make a start. Catch hold of that bureau, and heave it around into place."

They fell to work with a will. Ross, the more lightly built, showed the greater energy of the two, though Peter worked away quite as steadily. But after an hour of hard labour Peter called a halt.

"Oh, let's put it through," and Ross bent over a box with undiminished ardour.

His attitude appealed to Peter, spoiling for fun after a long day at the factory, and in a twinkling he had tipped his cousin head first into the nearly empty box. Shouts, laughter and a lively scuffle ensued--so lively a scuffle, indeed, that Mr. Bell, Jane and Nancy, in the dining-room below, energetically sweeping up the litter made by the paperer, smiled at one another in mock dismay as the floor above resounded with the pounding and scraping of boot-heels, and the very walls of the small house trembled with the fray.

"Goodness, I should think it was elephants up there!" cried Nancy, and ran half-way up the stairs to see what was going on.

Mr. Bell opened his mouth to say, "Tell them it's an old house, Nan, and the ceiling 's cracked"--when the thing happened.

The ceiling was old, the house was not too solidly built, and the battle above had reached its height when, quite without warning, down upon the freshly cleaned floor fell a great mass of plaster. The powdery lime rose in a suffocating cloud and covered Jane and her father with dust and debris.

It was a minute more before the combatants, wrestling furiously over the bare floors above, could be made to understand by a horrified young person, who shrieked the news at them from the top of the staircase, the havoc they had wrought.

But when they comprehended what had happened they hurried downstairs.

"Well, of all the----" Ross was too shocked to finish.

"I say, but we've done it now, have n't we?" exclaimed Peter, in disgust. "Janey--dad--it did n't hurt you, did it?"

"Only my pride--and my hair," answered Jane, as she vainly tried to brush her curly locks free from plaster.

"It's a shame! Why didn't you stop us? Clumsy louts! Pulling the place down about our ears the very first night!"

"And how we hurried that paper man, to get him through to-night!" lamented Nancy, brushing off her father with anxious fingers. "We were going to have the dining-room all settled to-morrow----"

"And to-morrow 's a holiday," murmured Jane, from under her hair.

She was bending forward, with her head at her knees, while Mrs. Bell shook out the clinging lumps from the tangle of hair in which they were caught.

"It's a quarter of ten," announced Rufus, cheerfully. "Do we have to clear this up to-night?"

"I should say so!" Ross caught up a broom.

"It's the least we can do. Get a box, will you, Rufe, and let's have the worst over. Pete and I will do the job, and the rest of you can go upstairs and dance a hornpipe over our heads. If you will throw things at us from time to time down the stairs it may relieve your feelings."

"Don't feel too badly. I had a notion all the time that that ceiling ought to have been pulled down before we papered the room; it looked old and shaky to me. Now we 'll have a new one that will stand pillow-fights as long as we live here," said Mrs. Bell, smiling at the rueful countenance of her nephew.

"Right you are, and I'll have a man here to put that plaster on in the morning, holiday or no holiday," promised Peter.

In ten minutes the plaster had been swept up, Jane's hair had received a thorough brushing, Mr. Bell had been relieved of several lumps which had worked their way down his back, and the family went to bed in as good spirits as if nothing had happened.

The next morning Peter started early in quest of a plasterer to restore the ceiling, and finding it by no means easy to discover one who cared to work when he might play, came home after two hours' search baffled but still determined. A passing acquaintance gave him a clue, and he was presently hurrying across the street in search of the Townsends' coachman, whose brother, the acquaintance had said, might be persuaded to do the job.

In the stables, much to his astonishment, he came fairly upon the girl whose propensity for losing things he had described with so much gusto the evening before.

"I beg your pardon," he said, quickly--he seemed to be always begging her pardon--"but I was looking for your coachman. I--he--I hoped he could tell me the name--that is, of course he knows the name--I mean, I wanted his brother's address."

Peter was no stammerer, and it irritated him very much to be saying all this so awkwardly, but there was something about the cool dark eyes of this girl, as she stood looking at him, which rather disconcerted him. She had evidently just dismounted from her horse, and now Peter observed two things--first that she was rather oddly pale, and second, that her side-saddle had slipped, and rested at an altogether improper angle upon the horse's back. As he saw this he came forward.

"What is the matter?" he asked quickly. "You haven't had a fall? You didn't ride this way, of course?"

"Yes, I did," she answered, lifting her head rather high, and then suddenly drooping it again.

"How far? When did it slip? Were you alone?" Peter examined the side-saddle.

"It began to slip--back--at--the boulevard," said the girl, rather slowly. "I--I don't know just how I kept on, but I did. Lewis is n't here. He ought to be. I can't put up Blackthorn myself."

"Let me do it for you." Peter took the bridle from her. He soon had the horse in the stall and had put away the saddle and bridle.

"That was a plucky thing to do," declared Peter, coming back to the stable door, where the girl had dropped into the coachman's chair, "to ride home with a slipping saddle. But you ought not to have done it, you know. It might have slipped a lot more with a jerk, and thrown you. See here, you 're not feeling just right, are you? Shall I call somebody?"

"No, no!" She started up. "If mother knew the least thing went wrong she would n't let me ride at all. If you--if you just would n't mind staying here a little, till I feel like myself again----"

"Why, of course I will"--and Peter stayed.

It was only for a few minutes, and meanwhile Lewis, the coachman, had returned, and the matter of the loose saddle-girth had been fully discussed by all three. Then Peter took his way home.

Jane met him at the door. "Did you find where the plasterer lives?" she asked, eagerly.

Peter stared at her, turned about, and gazed across the street, as if he expected to see a plasterer following in his path, trowel and float in hand. Then he burst into a laugh. He mumbled something which sounded like a very peculiar name, if it was a name, and rapidly retraced his footsteps across the street, to make his inquiry of Lewis, the coachman.