Part 7

The afternoon passed quietly, Ernie and Haze carrying our usual Christmas package to the little Kerns, whose mother used to wash for us, once on a time. She is an invalid, now, and the family are even poorer than we, poor lambs!

“So whatever we may have to go without ourselves, we can’t afford to economise on Luella, Joseph, and Angeline,” remarked Ernie some two or three weeks ago. And immediately she and Robin set to work patching up their dilapidated toys and picture books, generously casting aside those that were “too shabby,” clipping, stitching, and gluing, till “the Kern shelf” in the nursery cupboard presented a very attractive appearance, indeed.

Mother added oranges, a jar of beef extract, and half a pound of tea.

“I do hope they will like their things as well as we like ours,” sighed Robin responsibly, stuffing his molasses candy pig and the last of the sugar plums into Haze’s overcoat pocket. “Do you think they will, mother dear?”

“I don’t see why they should not,” mother answered, and then she took Robin in her lap in the big rocker, and read him the Christmas story from St. Matthew, explaining about the Wise Men and the gifts they brought. After which she lowered the nursery shades, and left him to take a nap, “because,” she explained, “I want our boy to be fresh and rested for this evening.”

“What?” I asked. “More surprises?”

“Just a little one,” returned mother, modestly.

Yet it turned out to be the most charming of all. You would never guess! A tiny toy Christmas tree, not more than a foot and a half high, lighted with twelve little candles, and gay with popcorn wreaths, gilded walnuts, and silver tinsel.

“I found it on the Bowery,” explained mother, half guiltily,—“in a small German shop. It was very cheap, Elizabeth. So don’t worry!”

How Robin’s eyes shone as he was carried into the back parlour, where the little tree stood sparkling on a table drawn up beside the couch!

“There are presents on it, too,” says mother.

And so there were! For from every branch and twig dangled a series of coloured pasteboard discs, lettered in white ink, and reading thus:—

“A pearl ring, with much love to Elizabeth from mother.”

“A pair of skates, for dear Ernie from mother.”

“Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_,—three volumes, good type,—for Hazard from mother.”

“A canary in a gold cage, for Robin from mother.”

“An ermine muff and stole, for Elizabeth from mother,” etc., etc.

All the dear, beautiful, dream gifts that mother would have given to her children, if only she had been able!

The candles on the little tree began to blink and twinkle like living stars, the way lights will when looked at through happy tears. Even Robin understood.

“I love my autoharp better than anything in the world,” he declared, dangling the small pasteboard disc by its red cord. “Even, even, better than Abraham Lincoln!” he cried. “Thank you _so much_, mother dear!”

“And that Lockhart’s _Life_!” echoed Haze, as enthusiastically as if he expected to sit down to the first volume next minute. “_U-m-m!!_”

“I hope I have not only succeeded in making you dissatisfied, my poor lambs,” said mother, a little anxiously.

“Dissatisfied!” cried Ernie, striking out in fine skating style for the piano. “Do you think it’s a brood of ungrateful brutes you’ve hatched into the wor-rld, mum? Let’s have some carols now. I want to shout!”

And so we did! Hazard quite off the tune, as usual, Robin piping away in his gay little treble, Ernie and I trying our best to keep the others up to time.

It was all very jolly; and, as I said when I first sat down to write, we simply could not have passed a lovelier Christmas, no matter how much money we might have spent,—now do you think we could?

Thursday, January 1.

We sat up last night to watch the New Year in,—Haze, Geof, Ernie, and I. The workshop was cold, and we missed the flying-machine.

“I do not believe,” declared Ernie, dejectedly, “that Resolutions do a bit of good. I have made the same four regularly for the last two years. I’ve written them out in red ink on a slip of paper, and kept them in my Bible;—and nobody seems to find me any nicer!”

“Perhaps they were not the right kind,” hazarded Geof. “A good deal depends upon what one resolves, I suppose.”

“The idea!” flashed Ernie. “I guess you did not make any better;—say my prayers, wash my teeth, love God, and the Boarders, so there!”

“Too general,” criticised Haze. “You ought to do those things whether you resolve them or not,—and it wouldn’t be especially annoying even if you didn’t. It is my opinion that no man is competent to make his own resolutions. He doesn’t know where he most needs reform. If one’s family made them for one, now, and one was pledged in advance——”

“All right,” agreed Geof. “Let’s try it. I resolve, old chap, that you hold up your head when you walk, and quit peering through your glasses like a Reuben at a County fair.”

“And take only one butter-ball at dinner,” seconded Ernie.

“And brush your coat every morning. If one isn’t handsome, one can at least be neat,” I cried.

“I’ll see myself hanged,” retorted Hazard, angrily, “before I resolve one of those things! They are childish, as well as insulting. If this meeting is going to degenerate into a travesty, I withdraw.” And he stalked haughtily from the room.

“Silly chap!” chuckled Geof. “What did he get mad at?”

“Haze must be very conceited, if he can’t stand a little friendly criticism,” agreed Ernie. “Shall we take Elizabeth next?”

“No,” I amended hastily. “I have just thought of such a good one for you, Ernie dear. Don’t wear stockings with Jacob’s ladders running up the leg. It isn’t ladylike, and you have plenty of time to darn them.”

“And stop worrying about the shape of your nose,” added Geof. “You can’t change it, you know.”

“I don’t worry,” snapped Ernie, untruthfully. “You are a pig, Geoffrey Graham! And I resolve that you learn to dance, so there!”

“Shan’t do it,” said Geof, with whom dancing is still a sore subject. “And if you are going to call names, I think it is about time for me to go home.”

“Good-night,” consented Ernie, readily.

“Good-night,” returned Geof. And he picked up his cap, and left.

“Dear me!” I remarked as the first horn sounded, and the bells began to chime their welcome to the New Year;—“what made everybody so cross to-night? I am the only person who did not get mad.”

“You are the only person who did not have a resolution made for you,” replied Ernie. “Here is one,—and you can just see how you like it! Stop being so everlastingly ready to preach, Elizabeth. I know you call it ‘sympathy,’ but it bores people.”

“Oh, Ernie!” I gasped. “Do you really mean that?”

“Well, perhaps not entirely,” admitted Ernie, with a swift return to normal lovableness. “But there is some truth in it, dear. One likes to be blue at times, and feel that it isn’t noticed. Come along to bed. I’m sorry I let Geof go without saying ‘Happy New Year,’ and I’m sorry we forgot to eat the Italian chestnuts he brought. After all, the old way of making resolutions was best.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “and pleasanter, by far!”

Then we kissed one another, and laughed, and crept down the attic stairs hand in hand;—for it isn’t often that Ernie and I come near a quarrel, and the New Year was in. I wonder what it will bring us? Oh, I do want to be good,—resolutions apart,—not “preachy,” of course,—just stronger, and more contented and happy in our lot.

Monday, January 5.

Ernie wore her new dress to school this morning. She has been working hard on it ever since Christmas time, and the result is really very creditable.

“The girls will never believe I made it myself, Elizabeth,” she remarked, standing proudly before the mirror while I buttoned her up the back. “It actually _fits_, and look at these box-pleats! Could anything be more stylish! Don’t you think I’m clever, honey? now, _don’t_ you?”

Indeed, Ernie’s spirits rose to such bubbling point,—what with the openly expressed admiration of the girls, and her own inward conviction of merit,—that she found it impossible to keep them corked up during school hours, and so got into trouble, poor child!

Under the circumstances it is doubly hard. For ever since September, when a “Visiting Board,” as Ernie persists in calling him, was so impressed with the intelligent answers he obtained to his questions in the Sixth Grammar Grade of School No. 47 that he was moved to offer five dollars’ worth of books to be awarded as a prize at the end of the term to the pupil whose general average in attendance, conduct, and scholarship should be highest, her record has been impeccable.

“I simply must come out ahead,” she has declared, over and over again. “It is too good a chance to miss. Five dollars’ worth of books, Elizabeth! Think of it! And if I should get ’em, I’ll choose the kind that will be appropriate to every age and gender, and then I’ll put ’em away, and give them as birthday presents to the family during the year. Isn’t that a scheme?”

So, spurred on by this proud ambition, Ernie has done wonderfully:—even succeeding in subduing her mercurial temperament to such a degree that “there is not a betther gur-rul in all the school than me an’ me hated rival, Lulu Jennings,” as she was moved to confess last Saturday night.

This aforesaid rival is a “creature,” according to Ernie and her chum, Mary Hobart. She has shifty little eyes, a thin, blond pigtail, and “_no shape_ to her legs, at all.” Also, she smells of cheap perfume. Yet these imperfections might be forgiven her, if only she were what the girls call “straight.”

“I’ve seen her myself,” says downright Mary, “with an open Geography hid under a handkerchief in her lap during recitation. She tattles, too, and I believe she’d copy off her own grandmother, if only she got the chance.”

Naturally such sins are not easily forgiven; and there is a decided opinion among the girls that at all hazards Lulu Jennings must be prevented from winning the prize. Feeling runs high on the subject. “She’s smarter than all the rest of us put together in some ways,” they admit. “You can never foresee what trick she is going to play next. But you are clever, too, Ernie, in a way we like better. So keep up the good fight!”

“All right,” promised Ernie, with a weary little sigh. “I don’t mind the studying so much; but I must confess I’m tired of being a plaster saint!”

And, alas! to-day, which was composition day, the poor little plaster saint fell! It happened in this wise. The subject assigned the Sixth Grade was Benjamin Franklin. Ernie, who takes naturally to writing, finished her essay as usual before any of the other girls; and then, just for the fun of the thing, and as an outlet, I suppose, to the general ebullition of vivacity caused by her new frock, she started in to write a second theme, in verse this time, making it as nonsensical and ridiculous as ever she could.

As soon as finished, she passed the lines to Mary Hobart, her seatmate, who began to read and giggle at the same moment,—till finally she was so overcome by mirth that she was obliged to put her head into her desk, and pretend to look for a slate pencil.

Lulu Jennings, who sits directly across the aisle from Mary, observed these demonstrations. “What’s the matter?” she whispered.

And Mary thoughtlessly passed her Ernie’s effusion;—proud, I suppose, to prove to the enemy how clever her chum really was.

Lulu cast one quick glance down the lines. Then, taking up a pencil, she scrawled the query along the margin,—“Why don’t you ask to read it aloud?” And handed the paper back to Ernie.

“I will, if you like,” returned Ernie with a chuckle; supposing, of course, that the suggestion was only part of the fun.

“All right, I dare you to,” whispered Lulu.

Quick as a flash Ernie was out of her seat. She has never been known to take a dare, yet; and Lulu counted upon this weakness, we feel sure.

“May I read my composition, Miss Horton?” asked Ernie. There was nothing unusual in the request, since any girl who considers her theme extra-good is accorded this privilege.

Miss Horton looked up from the exercises she was correcting.

“Certainly, if you think it will interest us, Ernestine,” she said.

Mary Hobart pulled at Ernie’s skirt, shook her head, and motioned imperiously to the first composition which still lay upon the desk.

But Lulu’s little eyes flashed the mean message,—“I knew you would not dare!”

And, without a moment’s hesitation, Ernie in a clear, serious voice began to read:

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

Benjamin Franklin was, when a boy, His mother’s delight, and his grandmother’s joy; He would chase after lightning wherever he spied it, Because he declared that he wanted to ride it. His hair was quite straight, but his nose he could curl, And so people thought him “a dear little girl!”

There was a general shout from the class, while Miss Horton rapped sharply on the desk with her ruler:—

“Silence!” she commanded. “Proceed with your composition, Ernestine.”

And Ernie, with a rosy and rather abashed countenance, was about to begin the second stanza when the door opened and Miss O’Connell, the principal, entered the room. Miss O’Connell is a very imposing person, and endowed with a rather high temper. All the girls are afraid of her. She stood for a moment looking majestically about.

“What was the cause of the outburst of disorder I heard just now?” she finally asked Miss Horton.

“Ernestine Graham is reading her composition on Benjamin Franklin,” answered Miss Horton, really anxious to shield Ernie, it would seem. “There was something in it that struck the girls as funny.”

“So I should judge,” answered Miss O’Connell. “It might be well for me to hear the rest of the composition myself. You may proceed, Ernestine.”

Poor Ernie! her knees were literally clapping together with horror beneath the elegant box-pleats of her new plaid skirt. The thought of her cherished record assailed her. She turned a piteous, sickly smile upon Miss O’Connell, who met it with a glance of adamant. Evidently no quarter was to be expected from that direction. So, steadying her voice as well as she could, Ernie began to read again. This time you might have heard a pin drop:—

Benjamin’s father, a terrible man, Kept in the closet a worn rattan; When Ben or his brothers did what was wrong, Their father would chant them this horrible song:— “Run, run, to my closet as quick as you can, And bring me my rat-te-tee, tat-te-tee, tan! And with it I’ll rat-te-tee, tat-tee-tan you, Until with your eyeses you crieses, boo-hoo!”

Ernie gasped for breath.

“Is that all?” asked the inexorable Miss O’Connell.

“No, ma’am,” answered Ernie, plaintively; and spurred on by the recklessness of despair, she began the last stanza:—

So Ben and his brothers they grew very good, They never stole nothing, not even their food! But lived upon pickles, and peanuts, and paint, And when asked, “Are you hungry?” replied, “No, we ain’t; But we’ll take, if you’ll give it, a wee bite of soap!” And now they’re all dead, and in heaven, I hope.

With a final, hysterical giggle, Ernie dropped back into her seat.

Miss O’Connell stood looking at her.

“What possessed you,” she asked at last, “to write such a composition as that? Have you no respect for your teacher? have you no respect for your school? have you no respect for _me_? Miss Horton, you may mark Ernestine a failure in her conduct and her English, too. She will remain after school, and rewrite her composition along _more conservative_ lines. The class may now proceed with its studies.” And Miss O’Connell swept from the room.

Well, Ernie had had her little joke. Poor child! it was all she could do to blink back the mortified tears as she felt Mary Hobart’s sympathetic hand in hers, and divined instinctively that the thoughts of every girl in the room were busy with her shattered record.

“I am sorry, Ernestine,” said Miss Horton not unkindly, as she took up her pencil and opened the portentous covers of the Conduct Book. “Do you really think it was worth while?”

Lulu Jennings snickered; but quickly recovered herself with a prim pursing of the lips. Apparently, she was the one person in the room to experience any touch of satisfaction in the public downfall of “the plaster saint.” Which speaks pretty well for Ernie’s popularity, it seems to me.

“The mean _sneak_!” declared Mary Hobart indignantly, some half-hour later, to the little group of sympathisers who lingered in the schoolyard till Ernie should be released. “It was all a plot! And to think that I should have helped to lead Ernie into it! Well, I’m more determined than ever that she shall win the prize. We mustn’t let her feel too discouraged, girls! we mustn’t! The poor, silly darling!”

And now, lest you mistake me for a wizard, I will confess that Mary came home with Ernie after school. The two girls talked the excitement over as they set the table for dinner, while I stood in the kitchen doorway and listened, potato-knife in hand, till I felt quite as if I had witnessed it all myself,—and so I have set it down here, though it is hard to snatch time on a Monday.

Tuesday, January 6.

Oh, dear! I am tired to-night. I have been ironing all day,—and I’m only seventeen.

Sunday, January 11.

You haven’t any idea how poor we are. It is half funny and half terrible,—trying to keep house for a family of six people on seven dollars a week! Just at first it did not seem impossible. There was a false impetus, so to speak; coal in the cellar, coffee, oatmeal, flour, etc., in the kitchen cupboard. For a while we were even able to keep up a semblance of our usual table, and Miss Brown did not seem to suspect. But she must find out soon. Will she leave us when she knows? What shall we do, if she does? Each meal is a crisis. I grow quite white and shaky before sounding the bell.

Mother still refuses to draw anything from the bank, and we can’t borrow of Uncle George, either; because he was so hateful after the Hancocks left, and said things about father that it will be hard to forgive. If we had Haze’s salary, we might advertise the rooms more often;—but, as things stand, it is impossible, on account of that dreadful dollar.

Why did he have to lose so much money,—dear Haze,—when he had made such sacrifices to earn something, just for us? Why did Mrs. Hudson have to go, and the Hancocks, too? Oh, I do try to be brave; but to-night I feel rebellious,—and worried! I don’t dare go to bed, though Ernie has been asleep this last half-hour. I wish I were more like her,—hopeful and full of expedients.

“The one thing that will do this family any good,” she remarked the other morning, as she stood in the dining-room window waiting for the postman to come down the block,—“is a legacy. I have given up all hope of the Dump-Cart Contract. It simply can’t be found. But why shouldn’t a rich relation, of whom we’ve never heard, die and leave us his wealth? Such things have been known to happen.”

And now, absurdly, we are all expecting it! Even mother starts at the sound of the familiar whistle, and some one of us rushes breathless to the door to glower through the letters that are handed in. Heaven knows why!—for we haven’t any rich relation except Uncle George. I suppose it just shows how desperate we are.

Saturday is pay-day, and we younger ones have acquired the habit of gulping our breakfast on that particular morning, and leaving the table as expeditiously as possible; so as to give Miss Brown, who is very delicate where money matters are concerned, an early opportunity to settle.

“Will she do it? will she say she is going to leave?” we whisper anxiously to one another, as we hang over the basement banisters. And Haze can’t make up his mind to go downtown till he knows.

Yesterday morning we had a dreadful fright. Miss Brown came down a little late. Her expression was troubled, almost severe. When she put her pocket handkerchief into her lap, we made sure that her purse was not concealed, as usual, among the folds.

“May I be excused, mother dear?” piped Ernie,—though she had only just begun her oaten-meal. “I want to go up to the nursery and sit with Robin.”

Haze and I followed as quickly as we could, and then the waiting began. It seemed as if mother and Miss Brown would never be done. We could hear their voices in low, earnest discussion.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Hazard. “The game is up.”

But it wasn’t. Miss Brown had had facial neuralgia during the night. She was asking mother for remedies. She could not make up her mind whether it would be wise to put off the shopping trip that she had planned. Her purse was with her as usual. Saved again!

And the funny thing is, once we get those seven dollars, we feel quite rich for a few hours, mother and I.—

“What shall we have for to-morrow morning’s breakfast?” one asks the other magnificently. “I notice that grape-fruit are selling two for twenty-five cents.”

“Scallops would make a nice change,” comes the cheerful reply. “Grape-fruit, scallops, and corn-muffins!”

Not that we ever commit ourselves to any such extravagance; but the little flight is exhilarating, and the final compromise on oranges and fish-cakes not too abrupt. It is true,—we are fed from day to day like the sparrows. If we can only wait and have patience, I suppose things will come out right in the end. And I said that I wanted to be good this year. Well, I believe I could be on ten dollars more a week.

Friday, January 16.

This afternoon a lady called to look at rooms.

She had a little girl with her, perhaps a couple of years older than Robin. She said that she had been recommended to us,—by Mrs. Hudson!

Ernie let them in, and galloped upstairs to tell mother. You can imagine our excitement.

“Hush!” whispered Ernie, as she and I crouched behind the half-closed nursery door, listening with all our ears. “She told me the location was what she wanted. Oh, Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”

At that moment the lady swept on her way downstairs.

“The terms seem reasonable enough,” we heard her observe, “and the room is sunny and pleasant. I should want a comfortable cot placed in it for Lilian,”—the little girl. “You have children of your own, Mrs. Graham?” Then, stopping in the lower hall,—

“Is that an invalid chair?” she asked, abruptly.

“Yes,” returned mother. “It belongs to my little son;—he is not at all well this winter.”

“And his trouble?” There was no hint of sympathy in the question.

“Hip complaint,” replied mother. “Robin has not been strong since he was a baby.”

“In that case, I am sorry, but it will be impossible to engage the room,” came the unexpected reply. “Lilian is a very sensitive child,—and, naturally, my first consideration. I make it a rule to shield her from every depressing influence. Let me see,—there are three other places on our list. If we hurry, we can make time to visit them this afternoon. Good-day, Mrs. Graham.” The door closed sharply on our prospective boarders.

And this on a Friday,—the bluest day in the week!

Mother’s face was quite white and stern as she came upstairs.

“If you will get dinner, Elizabeth, I’ll stay with Robin,” she said. And she took Bobsie in her arms, and carried him tenderly to the big rocker in the window, while Ernie and I crept, mouse-like, from the room.

“One might have known she was a friend of Mrs. Hudson,” remarked Ernie, vindictively, as we reached the foot of the basement stairs. “Depressing influence, indeed! I’d like to depress her precious Lilian for her!”

“Oh, Ernie,” I sighed. “It would have meant fifteen dollars more each week!”