Chapter 4

WITH PAIL AND BROOM

"Please forscuse me. Here's the key," and Elsmere held out to Catherine the aforesaid article, his honeyed voice and polite words matched by a cherubic smile.

"The key?" asked Catherine. "O, the key to the library. How did you get it?"

"Algy give it to me. I Algy's little help-boy," smiled the cherub.

Catherine tried to take the key, but it refused to come.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "It seems to be caught."

Elsmere squirmed a little. "Tieded," he murmured, and Catherine, bending closer to investigate, discovered that the key was so secured to the child's apparel that sharp steel was necessary to sever the connection.

"Algy hasn't too much confidence in his little help-boy, after all," she thought. "Thank you, Elsmere. Now run along home like a good boy."

"No, Elsmere go, too, like a good boy. I help."

Catherine sighed. The library was to be cleaned that morning as soon as the girls could be spared by their respective mothers. She had been waiting for Algernon to bring the key, and had counted on his muscular assistance in the labor before her. Now, instead, she had only the key, and that almost as hopelessly affixed to Elsmere as it had been before she cut it loose. She took up her bundle of rags, scrubbing-brush and soap resignedly, and calling "Good-by" to Dr. Helen started off down the hill. On the way she stopped for Agnes, who came out with a broom. Polly, bearing a pail, met them at the corner. At the library they found Bertha, mop-laden, pressing her nose against the pane to see inside.

"Hello!" she called to them. "How can we get hot water?"

"Let's go over to Henderson's and borrow a little oil stove for a few hours, and we'll heat the water in this pail. One of you might go to the pump in the park and get it full now. Whose broom?" touching one, leaning by the window.

"Dot's. She came and went off again. Bert passed, driving a ten-cent express and she hailed him and they've gone over to Mr. Kittredge's to get the books he promised."

"The crazy children! Where will we ever put books to-day, with the room in such a state?"

Catherine fitted the key to the lock, and the band of cleaners entered, unrolled their big aprons and began, with much energy and good nature, to sweep down the walls and ceiling and gather the milliner's rubbish into two big baskets found in the shed. Elsmere picked over the pile, making rapturous discoveries.

"Aren't these very small bushel baskets?" asked Agnes. "They fill up so fast."

"They're just about the average size, I think," remarked Catherine. "They don't vary much more than yardsticks do in length! But I do wish some of those lazy boys were here to carry them out and empty them for us."

"What's that?" asked Max's voice in the doorway. Immaculate in white flannels, with Bess by his side, bewilderingly beruffled, he viewed the scene before him dispassionately.

Catherine and Agnes, red and warm and somewhat dishevelled, returned the gaze for a moment silently. In that moment an entirely natural resentment was forced into outward pleasantness.

"We were just wishing some one was here to make a bonfire of this _débris_ for us," said Catherine cheerfully, "but never mind. There comes Polly with a man from Henderson's, and he'll take it out."

"All right. Wish you luck. We'd stop and help, only we've got to meet Arch and Win, and we're late already. So long!" and Max lifted his cap, Bess waved her sunshade, and the two went around the corner out of sight.

The man from Henderson's did some lifting very willingly, rescued what was left of the water Bertha was tugging from the park, lighted the stove and even stayed to poke the bonfire he made for them in the street, and keep it from spreading.

"It's a good thing," he said, as he went away amid a chorus of "Thank you." "Everybody'd ought to help all they can."

"I'd like to make him a member of the club," growled Polly, "and turn one or two people I could mention out."

"Dorcas doesn't seem so zealous as she did yesterday," remarked Catherine. "I hope she isn't angry, because we didn't fall in with her suggestions."

Bertha looked conscious, and stole a glance at Agnes, but said nothing. Catherine, catching the look, laughed.

"Father says Dorcas does us all a lot of good, as a counter-irritant. Whenever we begin to feel a little cross with each other, we all turn in and feel very cross with Dorcas. I was simply raging when Max and Bess sailed by in their purple and fine linen, but at least they hadn't pretended to be interested, and Dorcas--"

"She may be busy," said Agnes. "There's a lot of work at their house, and Dorcas usually does her share. I'll say that much for her, though she does make me awfully angry sometimes. Where is Elsmere? He might go over to the store and get something to polish this window-glass with."

"I don't know. Elsmere! Elsmere! Where are you? Come here, dear." No response.

"O, never mind," sighed Catherine wearily. "I'm not responsible for him. It is a relief to have him out of the way for a while. I wanted to send him home before, but he had such a sweet lady-like way with him this morning, I couldn't bring myself to. Girls! Hark!"

The four laborers had dropped upon a long box to rest a few minutes from their toil. Their low voices had been the only sound. Now distinctly, in a remote corner of the room, could be heard a little scratch, scratch. Then across the floor, serene and fearless, "right where I had been sweeping," Catherine said later with a shiver, ran a small gray mouse.

With one accord the four tucked their skirts about them and sat closer. No one spoke, but each measured the distance to the door with an accurate eye. And then, silently, but with haste, they beat a swift retreat.

The fair wide street before them, the door shut behind them, they drew deep breaths of relief, though each avoided the others' eyes.

"Some girls wouldn't mind going right up and killing it," said Polly, "but I simply could not."

"Nor I," said Catherine firmly. "I could go to battle or the stake like Joan of Arc, but I draw the line at mice."

"What's the matter? What are you all out here for? I thought you came to clean."

It was Dorcas, of course. The girls hung their heads with shame, and Bertha, who had defied her so boldly when last they met, answered with meekness.

"We did. But there's a mouse."

Dorcas looked them all over with an expression of deep scorn.

"Give me the key," she said, and it was given to her.

Then the fearful ones flattened their faces against the unwashed window-pane to see what would happen. The little gray creature placidly nibbled a tidbit in a corner. Dorcas approached him. He lifted his head and regarded her. She faltered a little and glanced behind her. She even felt hastily of her skirts. The respect in the watching faces lightened a little. Every woman is born knowing how mice delight to hide in skirts.

After a moment Dorcas opened the door and came out, passed the group of watchers without a word and crossed the street to Henderson's. Coming back a minute later with a trap, she re-entered the room, set the trap and waited. So did the others, breathless, clinging to each other. Bert and Dot, driving up on their ten-cent express, saw that something unusual was going on, and drove quietly around into the alley. Peeping in at the back window, they took in the situation quickly: Dorcas on one side of the room, the little gray mouse on the other, the trap between. The silence lasted for several seconds. Then came a sharp crack! And Dorcas, throwing her arm across her eyes, ran out of the room with a shriek and fell upon Agnes, who was nearest.

"He's killed," she sobbed. "I--I saw him!"

"So he is," soothed Agnes. "None of the rest of us would have dared set the trap, if we had been bright enough to think of it. There! It was harrowing, but it's all over now."

"No, no," shuddered Dorcas. "He's in there yet, and he's _dead_!"

Catherine spied Bert's two mischievous eyes looking around the corner of the building. In an instant she had despatched him to clear the room of its horror, and was bringing Dot, a protesting prisoner, to join the group.

"Where did you come from?" asked every one, while Dorcas collected herself.

"O, our chariot's just outside," answered Dot. "We saw you all peeping in, so we drove around behind to have a look ourselves. Got there in time to see the final fatality. Dorcas was heroic until she won. Are you girls honestly afraid of mice?"

"I am of live ones," confessed Catherine.

"I am of dead ones," said Dorcas.

"Dead or alive, they, 'turn my blood to ice within me, and make the breath of my heart wax pale,' as the lecturer said last night," said Polly. "But now that you dare-devil people have cleared the field for action, we may as well go in and scrub. We'd only just finished sweeping. Dot, you may take the death-bed boards. And, O, there comes Bert, back from the funeral. As President of the Winsted Boat Club and Library Association, I hereby appoint you and Geraldine Winthrop a Standing Mouse Committee with full power to act."

"Dorcas to be official executioner, I trust," and Bert held the door open for Dorcas, bowing low as she passed.

That afternoon the B. C. & L. A. gathered in force. Even Tom Davis, brother of Bertha and Agnes, asked for a half-day's vacation and helped Algernon whitewash. Bert had impressed Max into carpentering, and the work of bookcase-building went on noisily inside the shed. The girls sat on the weedy patch of ground outside, sewing sash curtains.

"It would be quicker to make them on the machine at home, but not nearly so much fun," said Agnes. "How many books did you and Bert gather up this morning, Dot?"

"Fifty-three volumes besides Miss Ainsworth's. Those were already over here in the shed. Where is Archie?"

"He and Winifred are coming. They were going to bring a rug Win's mother said we could have, and two lamps."

"They will enjoy carrying them over this hot afternoon!" said Bess, deftly hemming a curtain. "But it can't be so bad as this morning. Girls, we had a perfectly dreadful time. It was all on account of that terrible little Swinburne boy. You see, we thought we'd take the big Penfield boat, instead of the canoes, and just as we were pushing off, that child stepped into the boat from the dock and announced serenely that he was going boating-ride. He did look dear, and quite clean, and we all knew that it was hard to make him change his mind, so we let him come. He sat very still and was as good as gold till we had got a long way from home, and then he began."

Catherine sighed appreciatively. "I can imagine, Bess dear. But do tell us."

"You can't imagine. Nobody could. He talked a blue streak. And the things he said! He asked what he was made of, and how God got the eyes in. He told about somebody's having a tooth out and went into dreadful details. And then he got off on a worse tack, and asked Archie where his wife was, and when Archie said he wasn't married, he sighed and looked so sorry, and said: 'Wasn't you _ever_ marwied, Archie? Not even once?' He simply spoiled our morning. It wasn't so much what he did say, as what we thought he might be going to. We had to turn around and come home long before we wanted to, just on account of that child."

"If you had only thought to have Win sing to him," said Catherine. "He will drop off to sleep with the least assistance, even when he seems widest awake, and Win's lullabies are irresistible. There! that's the last curtain. And there come Archie and Win with a donkey-cart, and--why, what do you think they have? It can't be just a rug and two lamps."

Every one broke off work to go to meet the donkey-cart, a low, long, box affair, with Winifred and Archie on the seat, and a quantity of furniture and boxes in the back.

Algernon, still holding a brush, took the donkey by the bridle and backed him up.

"There, unload everything. It's all right. I sent these folks after them. Didn't have time to go myself. Yes, yes, they belong here. The Three R's sent the table."

With eager exclamations, the boys and girls unloaded six chairs, an oak table, a rocker, a box spilling over with stationery and colored cards, a miscellaneous lot of books, two neat rugs and half a dozen lamps of a variety of styles and shapes.

"The Three R's gave the table and chairs," explained Algernon, "and Mrs. Kittredge said to call at her house for the rocker and some of those lamps. And these other things I bought. Miss Crockett over at Hampton told me what to order and they came to-day, and I opened them up at the house."

Catherine came up beside Algernon and watched him unpack the boxes of cards, pens, paper clips, mending tissue, paste, shears and other new and shining articles. She was distinctly surprised. A large share of their little capital must have gone into these purchases. And Algernon had told no one, not even herself, that he was buying them.

Dorcas caught up a sheet of the paper.

"It seems to me it's rather fresh of you to spend the association's money for paper with your name on it, without knowing whether the permanent organization will want you or not."

The glow faded from Algernon's eyes. The consideration with which he had been treated these last few days had taught him to estimate properly the tolerance which had been all he had received before. Catherine, even, looked puzzled and not quite pleased.

"O, I say," he protested sadly. "You don't think I'd go and spend the public money, do you? I thought it would be fun to have these things all ready. I didn't know you'd rather have had me give the money and let the rest of you send in the order. I just did it for my share,--I'm awfully sorry."

Catherine lifted her head brightly.

"Indeed, you did exactly right. None of us would have known half so wisely how to use it. What did I tell you people? How many towns have librarians who work without pay, and furnish all their materials besides?"

Bert suddenly mounted the seat of the donkey-cart.

"What's the matter with the Boat Club?" he inquired hoarsely.

"We're all right," modestly replied the Boat Club, boys and girls together.

"What's the matter with the Three R's?"

"They're all right."

"What's the matter with the library?"

"It's all right."

"And now three cheers and a tiger for A. Swinburne, librarian. Hip, hip, hooray!"