Part 8

I went back to my work in disgust. I was so disappointed in Ethel Harper. I had expected that the daughter of such a fine family would be a real lady in every sense of the word--cultured, genuine, thoroughbred; and she had turned out to be nothing but a cheap imitation--slangy, ill-bred, snobbish, overdressed and made up like an actress. Beyond her pretty, baby doll face there was nothing to her. There wasn't an ounce of brains in her poor flat head.

And yet, she was tremendously popular in her own snobbish set, as I could gather from conversations around me, and by the invitations she was constantly receiving to festivities. Although she was not formally out in society, I knew that she went out to dances with men very often, when her mother thought that she was spending the night with girl friends. I found that out from telephone conversations Ethel carried on when her mother was out of the way. It was plain to be seen that Ethel had only one ambition in the world, and that was to have a good time, regardless of how she got it.

It wasn't any of my business, of course, but I couldn't help wondering what Mrs. Harper would do if she knew about some of Ethel's little excursions. Mrs. Harper had a flinty sort of nature and you only had to look into those cold eyes of hers to know that it would go hard with anyone who had displeased her. One morning I had a good chance to see her when she was roused. A Cloisonne locket belonging to Mrs. Harper had disappeared from her jewel box and she had accused her maid, Clarice, of taking it. Clarice, frightened out of her wits, was tearfully protesting her innocence, but Mrs. Harper towered over her like a fury, threatening to hand her over to the police. Ethel, sitting in a rocking chair polishing her finger nails, listened indifferently. I felt embarrassed to witness this painful scene and stood irresolute, unable to decide whether to go out or stay, when Mrs. Harper turned to me and said, "Make out a check for Clarice's wages for the month and deduct twenty-five dollars from it, the value of the locket she stole. Then insert an advertisement in the papers for a new maid."

Clarice, with a fresh burst of grief, declared again that she knew nothing about the locket, and begged not to be sent away with a black character, because she had a paralyzed sister to support, but Mrs. Harper was unmoved. Out went Clarice, bag and baggage, crying as she went and still declaring her innocence.

"These maids will steal you blind, if you give them a chance," said Mrs. Harper, still bristling with anger.

"I never did like Clarice," remarked Ethel with a yawn.

The next day Mrs. Harper went out during the morning and Ethel called me to help her pack her visiting bag. She was going to spend the week-end with a girl friend. No new maid had come to take Clarice's place as yet, so Ethel took advantage of my not having much work to do for her mother that morning to press me into service.

"I can't find my wrist watch," she said as I came in. "I don't know whether I put it in the bag or not, and I haven't time to look. Will you look through the bag while I finish dressing?"

I pawed carefully through the bag, and brought to light, not the wrist watch, but the Cloisonne locket, which Mrs. Harper had accused Clarice of taking.

"Why, Ethel," I said delightedly, "here is your mother's locket! Clarice didn't steal it after all. It was down in your bag."

"I know it was," said Ethel coolly. "I put it there."

"_You_ put it there?" I echoed. "Did you find it, then?"

Ethel laughed disagreeably. "I had it all the while," she said. "I'm going to a dance to-night that mamma doesn't know anything about, and I've set my heart on wearing that locket. Mamma will never let me wear it; it was brought to her from Paris by an old friend that's dead now, and she's afraid I'll lose it. So I just took it out of her jewel box the other day and made her believe Clarice took it."

"Ethel!" I exclaimed in horror. "How could you? How could you sit there and hear your mother accuse poor Clarice of taking it?"

Ethel shrugged her shoulders. "I never did like Clarice," she said. "She was an impertinent piece. It served her right. Put the locket back in the bag. I've got to start in a minute."

But I didn't budge. I stood looking at her until she looked the other way. With all her millions and all her fine connections, I despised Ethel Harper as if she had been a crawling worm. I didn't want to get mixed up in anything that wasn't my business, but I had no intention of letting poor Clarice remain under a cloud.

"I'm not going to put it back in the bag," I replied firmly. "I'm going to take it right back to your mother when she comes home. She must know that it isn't stolen so she can make things right with Clarice."

"Don't you dare tell mamma," said Ethel furiously. "She'll kill me if she knows I've got it. Give it to me, I say." She tried to snatch it out of my hand, but I kept hold of it. "Give it to me, you impertinent little stenographer, you!" she shrieked.

It was getting disgraceful. I tried to save a shred of dignity. I laid the locket on the dresser and faced Ethel steadily. I still had a vivid memory of Clarice's distressed face as she went out that day.

"You have done Clarice a wrong," I said firmly, "and it must be righted. I'll give you your choice. Either you take the locket back to your mother or I'll tell her where it is."

Ethel changed her tactics and tried to bribe me. "I'll give you a dozen pairs of silk stockings if you don't say anything to mamma about it and let her go on thinking it's stolen, so I can wear it whenever I please," she offered.

I longed to choke her. "Don't you try to bribe me, Ethel Harper," I said severely. "I've got a code of honor, even if I am a poor stenographer, which is more than you have, with all your millions."

"Some more of your Campfire stuff," she said sneeringly.

"You bet it is 'Campfire stuff,'" I replied hotly. "You see that little pin? One of things it says is 'Be trustworthy.' If I let Clarice be unjustly accused I wouldn't be worthy of that pin. Remember! Either you tell your mother or I do." And I started for the door.

Ethel changed her tune again and began to cry. "Everybody is so horrid to me," she sobbed. "Mamma will never let me go anywhere I want to go or wear what I want to wear, and the servants won't do what I tell them. Even my mother's stenographer bosses me around! I wish I was dead!"

But I was firm in my championship of Clarice. "You'll have to tell," I repeated. "I see your mother coming in now."

Ethel began to look frightened. "I'll not tell her I took it, she'd kill me," she whined. "I'll tell her I just found it and she can take back what she said to Clarice."

I looked her steadily in the eyes. She flushed and looked down.

"I suppose you'll go and tell anyway, you old tattletale," she said savagely. "I'll get even with you for this, see if I don't!" She ran out of the room and I didn't see her again for several days.

However, I knew the locket had gone back where it belonged, because Mrs. Harper had me send Clarice a check for twenty-five dollars, with the brief statement that the locket had been found. Right there was where I lost some of my regard for Mrs. Harper. She never apologized to Clarice for accusing her wrongfully; never offered to do anything to make it up to her. She just sent that cold little note and the check. A real thoroughbred would have acknowledged herself to be in the wrong, but Mrs. Harper couldn't bring herself to apologize to a servant. The affair blew over and I never heard Clarice mentioned again.

I grew to like my work more and more, as the days went by, and gradually learned to handle quite a bit of it myself. Mrs. Harper was very busy; she did a great deal of Red Cross and other war work, besides keeping up in all her clubs, and she got into the habit of telling me what to say to people and letting me write the letters myself. Early in March she went out of town to a convention and left me with a great many letters to write to various people, telling me to sign her name for her. I took very great pains with all those letters so as to be sure to say the right things to the right people, and I felt satisfied when the week was out that I had done myself credit.

Accordingly, it struck me like a thunderbolt when, several days after her return, Mrs. Harper came to me, blazing with anger, and demanded to know what I meant by writing such letters in her absence. Startled, I asked her what she referred to.

"You wrote Mr. Samuel Butler that if he didn't hurry and pay up his subscription to the Red Cross Mr. Harper would pay it for him and take it out of his next bill," said Mrs. Harper furiously. "Mr. Butler is insulted and has withdrawn his subscription of ten thousand dollars to the Perkins Settlement House, which I am trying so hard to establish. Whatever possessed you to write such a letter?"

"I never wrote a letter like that," I replied with spirit. "I wrote Mr. Butler a very polite, respectful reminder that his pledge was due this month; I never mentioned Mr. Harper or anything about paying it and taking the amount out of any bill."

I was completely at sea.

"You _did_ write that letter!" declared Mrs. Harper angrily. "How dare you deny it? Mr. Butler showed it to me. It was written on this very stationery, on this typewriter with the green ribbon, and signed with my name in the way you sign it. You wrote it to be funny, I suppose. Well, I can tell you that I can't have anything like that. I won't have any further need for your services."

She was so positive I had written it that I began to have an awful feeling that I might have written it in my sleep. You know what strange things I do in my sleep sometimes. But all the while I knew who had done it. Ethel Harper had sworn to get even with me for making her tell her mother about the locket. She had written that letter in place of the one I had written. I remembered that one day while Mrs. Harper was away I had been called downstairs and kept talking for over an hour to one of Mrs. Harper's committee members who had undertaken to distribute some literature and came for instructions. During that time Ethel would have had plenty of chance to read through my mail upstairs.

I started to tell Mrs. Harper that I suspected someone else of writing it, intending to lead gently up to the subject of Ethel, but Mrs. Harper scoffed at the idea.

"There isn't anyone else in the house who can run the typewriter," she said flatly.

This was untrue. Ethel could run it; she had done so several times when I was there. But what was the use of accusing Ethel when her mother wouldn't believe it anyway? I realized the hopelessness of trying to convince Mrs. Harper of something she didn't want to believe.

"And further," continued Mrs. Harper, "I have found that you have not been attending strictly to business. Ethel tells me that you often go over to her room when she is there and stand and talk to her instead of giving your time to my work."

"Little snake-in-the-grass!" I thought vengefully. I had never gone to her room unless she had called me to do something.

I made up my mind I wouldn't stay there another minute. I didn't have to work for such people. I drew myself up stiffly. "If you believe such things, Mrs. Harper," I said icily, "there can be no business relations between us. I shall not even take the trouble to prove the truth about that letter. I shall go immediately." And go I did. I knew Mr. Barrett would be very much put out over the affair, because he seemed to think Mrs. Harper had done his school an honor by hiring one of his pupils, but what was I to do? Stay there and be the scapegoat for all Ethel's sins. Not while I had feet to walk away on.

As I went down the steps I met Ethel coming up. She looked at me with a meaning expression and a triumphant smile. She had kept her word and gotten even with me.

I felt badly over it, of course, for who can lose a good position and not be cut up about it? I suppose I must have looked pretty doleful for a couple of days, because I met Mrs. Anderson, that friend of Nyoda's, who used to lend us so many "props" for our Winnebago performances, on the street and she asked me right away what was the matter.

"You're lonesome for those friends of yours," she went on, without giving me a chance to answer. "I'm lonesome, too," she went on. "My husband has been in Washington all winter. Come out and spend a few days with me. You used to be pretty good company, if I remember rightly."

She persuaded me and I went. You remember the Anderson place out on the East Shore, don't you? We were all out there once last year. Perfect duck of a house all made of soft gray shingles and seven acres of garden and woods around it. I tramped all over the place through the March mud, looking for signs of spring, and had a perfectly glorious time.

"There's one sign of spring, over there," said Mrs. Anderson, who was with me on one of my tramps.

"Where?" I asked, looking around.

"Young man's fancy," said Mrs. Anderson with a laugh of tolerant amusement, "lightly turning to thoughts of love. Look up on the barn there."

I looked where she pointed, and saw a boy of about eighteen standing on the roof of the barn gazing off into space through a field glass. He had a white flag tied to his right wrist, which he was waving over his head, like the soldiers do when they signal.

"Who is he and what is he doing?" I asked.

"That's Peter, the boy who helps around the stable," replied Mrs. Anderson. "He's sending messages to his lady love. A certain combination of flourishes means 'I love you,' and another means 'Meet me to-night,' and so on. He told John, my chauffeur, about it, and John told me."

"How silly!" said I, with a laugh for poor lovesick Peter. "Who is the object of his affection?"

"Some servant girl from the next estate," replied Mrs. Anderson. "They carry on their affair through field glasses and with signals. They think they are having a thrilling romance."

"Disgusting!" said I. "How could any girl make such a fool of herself where everybody can see her!"

Mrs. Anderson laughed indulgently, but I could feel her scorn underneath it. "Some girls will sell every scrap of dignity they have for what they consider a good time, my dear," she said, laying her hand on my arm in a motherly way.

We left Romeo on the barn flourishing out his messages in the late March sunshine and wandered over to the next estate. There was a new litter of prize bull pups over there and Mrs. Anderson had promised that I should see them before I went home. A creek divided the two estates, which we crossed on a little foot bridge. The path led along beside the creek for a while until the little stream widened out into a beautiful pond, big enough for boating. A pier had been built at one side of the pond, running out into the water. Someone was standing out on the end of the pier, and as we came up we saw that we had discovered the other half of the romance. A girl, with a field glass held to her eyes and a white flag tied around her right wrist, was signalling in the direction of the Anderson barn, the roof of which was visible in the distance, beyond Mrs. Anderson's apple orchard.

Something about the girl was familiar, even in the distance, and as we came near I recognized the mink coat that I had seen many times lately. There was no doubt about it. The girl on the end of the pier was Ethel Harper. I stood still, too much disgusted to speak. Ethel Harper, the daughter of one of the "first" families, with the best social position in the city, her mother prominent in all great uplift movements, carrying on a vulgar flirtation with Mrs. Anderson's stable boy! So this was the great romance she had been hinting about at various times! Randall--that was the name of the girl she was intimate with; this was the Randall place. She had been coming here so often for the sake of the boy next door. Did she know he was an ignorant servant? I doubted it. Anything in men's clothes set her silly head awhirl. I wished her haughty mother could have seen her then.

Mrs. Anderson suddenly laughed out loud and at that Ethel turned around and saw us. She gave a great start as she recognized me, took a step backward and fell off the end of the pier into the pond, disappearing with a shriek into the deep water.

I slipped out of my coat, threw off my shoes and went in after her. The water was so icy I could hardly swim at first. When I did get hold of her it was a battle royal to get her back to the pier. She was so weighted down by the fur coat and she struggled so fiercely that several times I thought we were both going down. Mrs. Anderson threw us a plank and with its help I finally got her to the pier.

"Now run for your life!" I ordered, my own teeth chattering in my head. "Drop that wet coat and I'll race you to the house." She didn't move nearly fast enough to avoid a chill and I took hold of her hand and pulled her along.

Up in a cosy bedroom in the Randall's house we sat up, some hours later, wrapped in blankets, and looked at each other gravely. Mrs. Anderson had been in and talked with Ethel like a big sister about the cheapness of carrying on flirtations with strange boys. Ethel had seen her little affair in its true light, robbed of all romance, and shame had taken hold of her. Mrs. Anderson explained how the gallant Romeo had seen his Juliet fall into the pond and had fled basely in the other direction for fear he would be blamed, making no effort to rescue her, and she might have been drowned if I hadn't fished her out.

Ethel had been frightened out of her wits when she fell into the water; she was still suffering from the shock. She flushed hotly as she caught my glance, and cast down her eyes.

"Thank you, Miss Brewster, for saving my life," she said rather shame-facedly. Then she went on in a low tone, "I want to tell you something. I wrote that letter to Mr. Butler,--the one that made mamma so angry."

"I know," I answered gravely.

"You knew, and you jumped into the water after me anyway?" she said in a tone of unbelief. "Why, you might have let me drown as easy as not."

"O no, I mightn't," I answered. "That isn't the way a Camp Fire Girl gets even."

Ethel was silent a long while. Then she said, "Will you come back to our house after I have told mother the whole thing? She misses you a lot, says she never had anyone do her work so well as you did it, and she has been in a terrible temper ever since you left."

"I don't know," I answered slowly. I had been very deeply hurt and my foolish pride was still on its hind legs.

"Will you please come?" pleaded Ethel, slipping out of her chair and putting her arms around me. "We can have such good times after your work hours. Please, for my sake, I want you. You're the most wonderful girl I've ever met!"

Old Mr. Pride and I had a final round and we came out with me sitting on his head. "I'll come back," I said, slipping my arm around Ethel.

So you see, Katherine, adventure isn't dead, not by any means, even if you do have to take it along with your bread and butter.

Loads of love from your stenographic friend, Sadie Shorthander, once upon a time your

Sahwah.

KATHERINE TO THE WINNEBAGOS

April 8, 19--. Dearest Winnies:

Daggers and dirks! Did I say it was dull out here? Deluded mortal! For the past week it's been so strenuous that I have seriously considered moving to Bedlam for a rest. If I'm not gray by the time I'm thirty it'll be because I'm bald.

As Mistress of Ceremonies your humble servant is a rather watery success. You know from sad experience my fatal fondness for trying new and startling experiments and also my genius for leaving the most important things undone. Remember the time I was Lemonade Committee when we climbed Windy Hill and I carefully provided water and sugar and spoons and glasses, and no lemons? And the time I hid the unwashed dishes in the oven at Aunt Anna's and then went home with Gladys and forgot all about them, and Aunt Anna nearly had spasms because she thought her silverware had been stolen? And the time we went to Ellen's Isle and I mislaid the vital portion of my traveling suit half an hour before the train started and had to go in a borrowed suit that didn't fit? Every time little Katherine was given something to do she either forgot to do it altogether, or else did it in such a way as to make herself ridiculous.

The memory of all those things rose up and oppressed me after I had undertaken to stage a Patriotic Pageant for the township of Spencer. I was so afraid I would do something that would turn it into a farce that I began to have nightmares the minute I sank to weary slumber. It was a daring idea, this patriotic pageant. Since history began there had never been a pageant, patriotic or otherwise, in this section. Most of the folks had never seen a circus, or a show, or a parade; so there was nobody to give me any help except Justice. I myself would never have thought of tackling it, but no sooner had my Camp Fire Girls gotten absorbed in Red Cross work, and been thrilled by reading accounts of what Camp Fire Girls were doing in other sections, than they begged me to get up a pageant. I had my misgivings, but, being a Winnebago, I couldn't back out. A pageant it should be, if it cost my head. (It pretty nearly did, but not in the way I had feared.)

Justice Sherman hailed the plan with delight.

"Go to it," he encouraged. "I'm with you to the bitter end. I've never done it before but I'll never begin any younger.

"'There is a tide in the affairs of schoolma'ams, That, taken at the flood, leads on to Pageants.'

"Lead on MacDuff! Trot out the order of events."

At Justice's suggestion I summed up all the possibilities.

"There isn't much to work with," I said thoughtfully, having counted up all my assets on the fingers of one hand. "Just ten Camp Fire Girls, about as many boys, one trick mule, and--you."

"So glad I know, right at the outset, just where I come in," said Justice politely, "after the mule."

"Sandhelo's got his red, white and blue pompom that the girls sent him for Christmas," I went on, ignoring Justice's gibe. "We could make red, white and blue harness for him, too."

"If only he doesn't get temperamental!" said Justice fervently.

"The girls could wear their Red Cross caps and aprons in one part of it," I continued, "and flags draped on them when they act out 'The Spirit of Columbia.' One of the girls can wear her Ceremonial gown and be the Spirit of Nature that comes to tell the others the secret of the soil that will help them win the war. Oh, ideas are coming to me faster than flies to molasses."

"Would you advise me to wear my Ceremonial gown or my Red Cross apron and cap?" asked Justice soberly. "I could braid my hair in two pig-tails--"

"Oh, Justice!" I interrupted, "if you only had a soldier's uniform!" Then, as I saw Justice wince and the laughter die out of his eyes, I stopped abruptly and changed the subject. It was an awfully sore point with him that he had been rejected for the army.

"We'll have a flag raising, of course, and tableaux," I rushed on. "Would you put the flag on the schoolhouse, or set up a pole in the ground?"

"I think on the schoolhouse," said Justice, with a return of interest. "That's where it belongs."

Justice and I held more conferences in the next day or so than the King and his Prime Minister. Lessons in the little schoolhouse were abandoned while we drilled and rehearsed for the pageant. Justice and I put together and bought the flag.

"Who's going to raise it?" asked Justice, shaking the beautiful bright starry folds out of the package.

I considered.

"I think the pupil that has the best record in school should raise it," suggested Justice.

"I think," I said slowly, "I'll let Absalom Butts raise it."