CHAPTER XV

DOLLY AND BERNICE

DOLLY went alone to see Bernice. She had wanted Dotty with her for aid and sympathy, but on thinking it over, she decided it would be better to go alone first.

The Forbes house was impressive, the man who opened the door to Dolly’s ring was awe-inspiring, but of these things Dolly was not afraid. Her fear was that she would not be able to present in the most persuasive way, the strange matter on which she had come.

When Bernice came into the reception room, she found Dolly so deep in thought she scarcely heard her.

“Hello, Dolly Fayre,” said the hostess, looking at her inquiringly. “What do you want?”

“You never could guess,” returned Dolly, not resenting this somewhat ungracious greeting.

“Oh, yes, I can, you want to beg some money for some High School performance, or else you want me to be on some rubbishy old committee. You never came here just because you wanted to see me,—myself.”

This frightened Dolly, for it struck perilously near the truth. But she plunged boldly in.

“You’re not far out, Bernice, and yet it’s nothing about school. Can any one hear us?”

“No; but I’ll shut this door. Now, what is it?”

Bernice’s curiosity was roused by Dolly’s air of repressed excitement, and her very evident embarrassment. At least, something unusual was coming.

“Bernice,” she began, “you know my father is in the employ of your father’s railroad. My father is in the freight department—”

“Yes, I know it. What of it?”

“Well, your father has ordered my father to be transferred to Buffalo.”

“Oh, Dolly, I don’t want you to go to Buffalo. Why, you’re the only friend I have in Berwick.”

“Well, this is the point, Bernice. You ought to have more friends in Berwick. With your home and everything, you ought to be the most popular girl in town.”

“I’m not!” and Bernice laughed grimly.

“That’s partly your own fault, and partly not. Now, if you’ll persuade your father to retract that order and let my father stay in Berwick, I’ll make you popular,—I will honest!”

Dolly’s eyes beamed with earnestness. Her plea was out, now it was to follow it up.

“I know that sounds crazy,” she went on, “but think a minute, Bernice. Your father and mine are splendid business men, so perhaps we inherit their business talent. So let’s make a business deal. If I can make good, and put you in the front ranks of our crowd, will you try to coax your father to do what I want?”

“Why, Dolly Fayre, what an idea!”

“I know it. But I don’t want to leave Berwick, none of us do, and yet, we’ll have to go, unless your father changes the orders. I’d ask him myself, only I know he wouldn’t listen to me, but he would to you.”

“Does your father know you’re doing this?”

“Mercy, no! I wouldn’t have him know it for the world! It isn’t wrong, Bernice, and it isn’t underhanded or anything like that. You know yourself, how the railroad men are ordered here and there. Now it seems to me some one else might as well be sent to Buffalo, and my father left in the New York office, where he is now. Don’t you think so? If only your father will agree.”

Dolly looked very pleading. Her little face looked up into Bernice’s with a wistful, hopeful smile. Her hands were clasped in the intensity of her feeling, and her voice quivered as she made her plea.

Bernice looked at her. “I don’t know why I should do this for you, Dolly Fayre,” she said, at last. “You’re the most popular girl in Berwick, you and Dotty Rose. Now, if you go away, I’ll stand a better chance of getting in your crowd, in your place, than if you stay here.”

Dolly hadn’t thought of this. Nor did it strike her at the moment what a selfish and self-seeking spirit Bernice showed. She knit her brows as she thought deeply what to say next.

“You see,” Bernice went on, “I’ve always wanted to be in your set. It’s the nicest set of all. And when I was in Grammar School of course I couldn’t, but now we’re all in High, I want to be one of you. And I’ll do anything I can to get there. But I think I’d stand a better chance with you away. Then I’d be friends with Dotty Rose in your place, maybe.”

Dolly looked aghast. Such presumption! But the absurdity of the idea brought her to her senses.

“Not much you wouldn’t, Bernie!” she said. “Dot is willing to do a lot for you if I stay here. But she knows I’m saying all this to you, and if you don’t help me about Father’s position with the road, you can just bet Dotty Rose won’t have anything to do with you, nor will any one else in our set!”

“Look here, Dolly, isn’t this what the boys call a ‘hold-up’?”

Dolly laughed. “It did sound like that, but listen, Bernice. It’s a straight proposition. You want to be in our set, really in it and of it. Well, I’ll see to it that you get there, if you’ll coax your father to let my father stay here. That’s all, and I don’t think it’s mean or hold-uppish. I think it’s a fair deal between us. I don’t know what my father would say if he knew I asked you, but even though he might think it undignified or silly, he couldn’t say it was really wrong. Now, could he?”

“No,” agreed Bernice, “there’s nothing wrong about it. But can you do your part?”

“Can you?”

“Yes, I know I could. I can make Dad do anything. He spoils me,—and he’d move to Kamchatka if I wanted to, or send anybody else there if I said so.”

“Yes, I knew he was like that. It’s a shame, Bernie, with all your lovely home and privileges and everything, that you’re not top of the heap here.”

“Well, I’m not. And I’m not at all sure, Dolly Fayre, that you can help to put me anywhere near the top.”

“Oh, yes, I can.”

“How? By making the girls come to see me? Or by forcing the boys to dance with me? I know of your efforts in those directions, and don’t you s’pose they make me feel cheap?”

“Bernice, I don’t wonder. And I’m glad you spoke like that. No, I don’t mean to do it that way,—not entirely. But if we go into this bargain, you and I, it must be a real bargain, and you must help,—not hinder any part of it.”

“Oh, Dolly, I’d only be too glad to help. If I could be popular,—I don’t mean actually top of the heap, but just liked by the crowd, I’d be so glad. And if you could help bring it about, I’d make father do what you want. I know I could, But, I won’t do it unless you do what you say you will.”

“All right, Bernice,” and Dolly looked thoughtful. “But, you see, if Dad’s orders are changed, I suppose it ought to be done at once. And I can’t do my part all in a jiffy, it will naturally take a little time.”

“Yes, I see that. When does your father expect to go?”

“In about a month.”

“That’ll be the middle of December. S’pose I get Father to postpone the date till, say, after Christmas. The first of the year they often make changes. That’ll give you nearly two months, and if things are working all right by then, I can easily make Father let you stay here. Why, if I told him I wanted you here in Berwick, he’d make any arrangements to keep you here.”

“Then do it now!” and Dolly’s eyes danced at this easy settlement of the whole matter.

“Nixy! You haven’t done a thing yet! I don’t want to be mean about this, but—well, you know what I _do_ want and it’s up to you.”

“All right, Bernice. Will you ask your father, to-night, to put off Dad’s transfer till after the holidays?”

“Yes, I will, and he’ll do it. Now, what are you going to do first?”

“First of all, I’m going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle!” Dolly’s eyes were dancing now. Her aim was accomplished, at least, in part, and her well thought out campaign was about to be begun.

“You see, Bernice, all I can do will not count at all unless _you_ do something to help along. And what you’ve got to do, is to change your way with ’em. Now, wait a minute. You’re pretty and bright and you have lovely clothes and all that, but you go around with a chip on your shoulder! Yes, you do, and it upsets your whole apple-cart! Now, you’ve just simply _got_ to be sunny and sweet and if you think you see little slights or mean things, swallow them and keep on smiling. I know that sounds hard, even sounds silly, but that’s all there is to it. You’ve got to break down that sort of barrier you’ve built up around you. Do you know what they say about you? They say you’re stuck-up. That’s an awful thing in our crowd. We don’t like stuck-up people. You’re so rich, you see, so much richer than any of the rest of us, that we feel sort of shy of you, unless you come down to our level. I mean our level as to grandeur and style and those things. We don’t care if you have silk dresses when we have gingham, if you don’t rub it in. Oh, _don’t_ you see what I mean?”

“I don’t know as I do, Dolly,” and Bernice looked very serious. “But I begin to, and I do believe I can learn. But it’s so hard when everybody turns the cold shoulder, and nobody wants to speak to me.”

“But it’s so much your own fault! Have you ever tried, real hard, to be nice to any of the girls? Real up and down _nice_?”

“No, I’ve been too busy paying them back for the snubs they gave me.”

“That’s just it! And they only snubbed you because they thought you were snubbing them. Oh, I know all about it, Bernice. Don’t you s’pose I’ve heard them talk you over? And the boys. They say you’re a pretty girl and a good dancer, but—well, I’m going to tell you right out, for I believe it will help you,—they call you a lemon!”

“They do, do they? Then I don’t want anything to do with them!”

“Yes, you do! Now, hold on; they call you that, ’cause you _are_ lemony to them! You know yourself that you snip and snap the boys awfully. They won’t stand it.”

“But, Dolly, I haven’t the sweet sunny disposition that you have.”

“Then get it! You can, if you want to. Good gracious, Bernice, if you _want_ to be popular and have a good time, isn’t it just too easy to quit being a sour old lemon and work up an amiable manner? Anybody would think I was asking you to do something hard! Why, it’s easier to be pleasant than not, if you only think so! Now, that’s _part_ of your part. Next, you must invite people here.”

“Give a party?”

“Yes, if you like. I meant ask just a few at a time. But it would be a good scheme to start in with quite a party. Not too gorgeous,—but a nice, _right_ party.”

“It’ll be my birthday week after next, I might have it then.”

“Just the thing! You do that, and let me help plan your party. You mustn’t have a grand ball, you know.”

“I’ll do just as you say, Dolly,” replied Bernice, meekly.

“All right,” and Dolly laughed. “This is like planning a campaign, and I s’pose it’s sort of foolish for girls of our age, but you’re in wrong, and if I can set you right, I’m only too glad to. And I _can_, if you’ll do as I say.”

“I’m jolly _glad_ to do as you say! But will the crowd come to my party?”

“’Course they will. I’ll make ’em. Now, wait, I know you don’t like to have them come ’cause they’re made to, but it’s got to be that way at first, and then it’s up to you to make it so pleasant they’ll want to come again.”

“But seems to me _I’m_ doing most of this.”

“Oh, that’s the way it seems to you, does it? _Does it!_ Well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you _try_ it without me, and see where you bring up!”

Dolly was a little annoyed at Bernice’s readiness to accept her advices and ignore the very real help that Dolly was able and willing to give.

“I know, Dolly. I sort of forgot myself.”

“Well, you try to remember yourself! And remember too, that while I want you to be one of us, at the same time, I’m bothering about you for the reason I told you when I first came here. I’m not doing it for your sake, but for my own. And, another thing. I want to stay in Berwick mostly, because Dotty Rose is here, and she and I are intimate friends and always will be. She’s ready and glad to help us in this scheme, but it’s because she wants to keep me here in Berwick. So, Bernice Forbes, don’t you try to come between Dot and me, for it won’t do a bit of good and it will do you a lot of harm.”

“I won’t, honest, Dolly. But does Dotty know all about your plan?”

“Every bit. And I tell you, Bernie, if Dot and I set out to make you have a good time, you’ll _have_ it, and that’s all there is about that!”

“I believe you, and I’m glad you’re so outspoken, Dolly. Now, honest, I’m going to try, but you don’t know how hard it is to be nice to those girls when they turn aside and whisper to each other about me and all things like that.”

“They won’t do that, Bernice, if you act differently toward them. Now, look here. You talk over your party with your father and if he says you can have it, get your invitations out soon. My brother and Dot’s will be home for Thanksgiving,—when is your birthday?”

“The 30th of November.”

“Good! They’ll be here then. Well, you ask your father about your party,—and—about that other matter, will you?”

“Yes, I will, to-night. And he’ll say yes to both.”