Peggy Raymond's Vacation Part 18

Lucy put her hand to her forehead. "But it was all I had," she said rather piteously.

"All you had. But not all you can get. Why, I had a friend who went into a business office last winter. She's earning forty dollars a month now, and they'll raise her after she's been with them a year. Forty dollars means a month's work for a beginner. You've lost a month, and you talk as if everything had been lost."

The rear door of the cottage opened, and a young man appeared, a distinctly unprepossessing young man, whose shabby clothing somehow suggested a corresponding shabbiness of soul. He stood irresolute for a moment, then turned and struck off across the fields, his shambling gait increasing the unfavorable impression that Peggy had instantly formed.

Lucy regarded her visitor with burning eyes.

"I didn't mean to tell anybody," she said. "I thought my pride wouldn't let me, but what's the use of my being proud? That was my brother, and he drinks. I guess you'd know it to look at him, wouldn't you? It was he who stole my money. That's the kind of people I belong to."

Peggy got to her feet. She had an odd feeling that she could not do her subject justice sitting on a woodpile, with her feet dangling.

"Lucy Haines," she said with a severity partly contradicted by the kindness of her eyes, "I'm ashamed of you. I can tell just by the little I know of you, what kind of ancestors you had, and you ought to be thankful for them every day you live. Think of all the sickly people in the world, that can't more than half live at best, and you with your splendid, strong body. And think of the stupid ones, who try to learn and can't, and you seeing through everything like a flash. I know what kind of people you belong to, Lucy Haines, and you ought to be proud and thankful, too."

The immediate effect of this outburst was a surprise. Lucy Haines sat down on the chopping-block and began to cry. She cried as if the pent-up sorrows of her life were at last finding outlet, cried as if she never meant to stop. Peggy in her dismay tried coaxing, scolding, petting, each in turn, and at last gave up the vain endeavor, and took her old place on the woodpile, to wait till Lucy should have come to the end of her tears.

At last the figure in the soiled calico was no longer shaken by convulsive sobs. Lucy turned toward the patient watcher on the woodpile, and in spite of her swollen lids and blood-shot eyes, Peggy knew it was the old Lucy looking up at her. "Well?" she demanded cheerfully. "It's all right, isn't it?"

"Yes," Lucy agreed hesitatingly. "I'm going to try again, if that's what you mean."

"And you'll come to-morrow?"

"Yes, I'll come to-morrow, if you're not too disgusted to bother with me any longer," said Lucy humbly.

"Well, it's time for Hobo and me to be going home." Peggy jumped to her feet, crossed briskly to the unkempt figure, and stooping, kissed a tear-stained cheek. And then Lucy's arms went about her, and clasped her close in pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude.

"Peggy Raymond," said a stifled voice, "I can't do anything to pay you back, but this. I promise you I'll make you proud of me yet. You were ashamed of me to-day, but if I live, I'll make you proud of me." And Peggy had one more bewildering impression to add to the varied catalogue of characteristics which made up the Lucy Haines, whom she was beginning to think she had never known till that day.

In spite of this triumphant conclusion to her enterprise, Peggy returned to the cottage heavy of heart. There is always a danger that the sensitive and sympathetic will find the revelation of the misery in the world overwhelming, bringing the temptation to shut one's eyes to suffering, or else in its contemplation, to lose the joy out of life.

And as it only takes an added drop to cause a full cup to brim over, Peggy's dejection reached the overflowing point, through no other agency than the yellow hen.

The girls all noticed that Peggy was silent, as well as uncommunicative.

She fenced skilfully to evade direct answers to their questions, but she did not seem inclined to introduce new topics of conversation. And when Amy called her from the kitchen, where she and Ruth were getting supper, Peggy sat staring abstractedly ahead of her till the call was repeated.

Priscilla glanced up from her magazine. "Say, Peggy, the girls are calling you. Probably they are having trouble with the m.u.f.fins."

"Oh, I didn't hear," Peggy sprang to her feet, and went hastily through the house to the kitchen. But it was not domestic difficulties which accounted for Amy's summons. She stood at the window, flattening her nose against the screen.

"Peggy, I wish you'd tell me what this old vixen is about. Is she trying to punish one of the chickens, or is it only a game?"

For ten days past the yellow hen had been freed from the restraints of the coop, and by day had led her brood in adventurous quest of gra.s.shoppers, and at sunset had conducted them to the waiting nest in the rear of the woodshed. But at the present moment, a peculiar scene was being enacted. At the open door of the woodshed, a sleepy brood huddled close, awaiting the return of their mother, who with an air of determination was pursuing a squawking chick, running as if for his life.

Around the cherry-tree they circled, once, twice, thrice. Then the pursuer overtook her foster-child, and pecked him savagely. It was not a game.

The yellow hen strutted off in the direction of her peeping brood, clucking complacently, as if she congratulated herself on solving some problem satisfactorily. The poor little outcast followed with a piteous pipe, which caused the Spartan mother to turn and repeat her admonition.

For a moment Peggy was at a loss for an explanation. Then she understood. "I know," she cried. "He's a different breed from the others, and he's outgrown them, and the senseless old creature thinks he doesn't belong to her. She's just got to be nice to him, that's all."

But Peggy's efforts at discipline were unavailing. The speckled chicken surrept.i.tiously introduced under the yellow hen's hovering wings, enjoyed the briefest possible period of maternal protection. Before Peggy could get back into the house, the yellow hen was chasing him all around the woodshed, and Peggy found it necessary to make him comfortable for the night in a basket set behind the stove.

And this was the little drop which made her cup overflow. The forlorn peeping of the outcast chicken seemed to blend with poor Lucy's sobs.

Peggy wondered if it could be that the voice of earth's suffering was like the hum of the insects on a summer night, so constant that one might not hear it at all, but an overwhelming chorus if one listened.

"Peggy Raymond, do you think you're coming down with anything?" Amy demanded crossly, at half-past nine o'clock that evening. "Because you're about as much like yourself as chalk is like cheese."

Peggy stood up.

"No, I'm not coming _down with_ anything," she said lightly, "but I'm going _up to_ something, and that's my bed. I believe I'm sleepy."

Before she climbed the stairs, she went out into the kitchen to be sure that the speckled chicken was comfortable. As she touched the basket he answered with a soft, comfortable sound like the coo of a baby, or the chirp of a sleepy little bird, the sound that speaks of warmth and contentment. Peggy stood beside the basket thinking.

"There! I knew something was wrong." Amy had followed her friend out into the kitchen. "You're crying over that chicken. Why, you silly Peg!"

But Amy had misinterpreted the moist eyes. That little contented sound from the basket back of the stove had brought a message to Peggy. She had made the chicken comfortable in spite of its unnatural mother. She had rekindled ambition in Lucy's heart in spite of her thieving brother.

All at once Peggy understood that the compensation for insight is the joy of helpfulness. It was not meant for any heart to bear the burden of earth's grief, but only to lighten it as one can, and be glad.

And so, after all, Peggy went up to bed comforted.

CHAPTER XIII

A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE

Peggy had a bright idea. Any one familiar with the Peggy disposition would have guessed as much from a number of infallible signs. There were periods of abstraction, characterized by long silences or random replies. There were thoughtful little frowns, and sudden dimpling smiles, all for no reason apparent. And when Peggy reached the point of saying to herself in a confidential undertone, "There! That's just the thing!" speculation ran riot in Dolittle Cottage.

But though the guessing was both varied and ingenious, it was all wide of the mark. The announcement of Peggy's project at the breakfast-table one morning took everybody by surprise. "Look here, girls," began Peggy, betraying a degree of nervous excitement in her reckless salting of her scrambled eggs, "what would you think of our giving a benefit performance?"

"Performance of what?" asked half the table. And the other half wanted to know, "Whose benefit?" Peggy answered the last question first.

"Lucy Haines'. She's had--that is, she isn't going to have some of the money she was counting on for next year," Peggy flattered herself that this discreet statement gave no hint of the heartache and humiliation poor Lucy had undergone. "And even if we didn't make very much, a little would help her out."

"But, Peggy, what could we do?" cried Amy, setting down her gla.s.s of milk with an emphasis that sent part of its contents splas.h.i.+ng over the brim. "None of us sing any to speak of, except Priscilla, and she and Claire are the only ones who play. I don't see--"

"Well, I've been wondering why we couldn't repeat that little farce we gave at school last June. It wouldn't be much work, for we all know our parts. Beside ours, there was only one that amounted to anything. I thought maybe Claire would take that. The other characters have so little to do that we could easily pick up girls for the parts. Lucy herself might take one."

"And Rosetta Muriel," suggested Amy, rather maliciously. It was so seldom Peggy really disliked anybody that the temptation to make frequent mention of their pretentious neighbor was too much for Amy's fun-loving disposition. Unconsciously Peggy's face a.s.sumed an expression suggestive of just having swallowed a dose of quinine. "I suppose so,"

she agreed grudgingly, and Amy indulged in a wicked chuckle.

"But where could we give it, Peggy?" Ruth asked with animation. It was easy to see that the suggestion had made a most favorable impression on the company. The little comedy had been given during commencement week and had proved the most popular feature of that festive period. The performers had not had time to forget their parts, and a very few rehearsals would be sufficient to a.s.sure a smooth presentation. Peggy, delighted with the friendly reception accorded her plan, continued her explanation.

"Why, I think they'll let us have it in the schoolhouse. It's just standing empty all summer. I'll have to see Mr. Robbins about that, Mr.

Silas Robbins. He's the committee man who hires teachers, and everything of that sort. And, of course, Lucy ought to know what we are planning before we do anything further. It won't be necessary to have her name put in the paper, or anything like that, but I'm sure the people will be more interested if they know it is a benefit for one of their own girls."

Lucy Haines, on learning the latest of Peggy's schemes for her advantage seemed rather overwhelmed. As a matter of fact, she exaggerated the generosity of the girls who had so cordially endorsed Peggy's plan. The summer days were all very delightful, but the presentation of the little play promised that agreeable variety without which all pleasures pall.

Indeed, Lucy's expression of grat.i.tude, fervent if not fluent, rendered Priscilla really uncomfortable.

"I wish you'd make her understand, Peggy," she said, "that though we're awfully glad to help her, we're not a collection of philanthropists. I'm afraid she doesn't understand that this play is going to be lots of fun."