Three Little Women Part 16

However, Eleanor was only a child in her aunt's eyes, and, fond as she was of her, in her own peculiar way, she could not resist a final word:

"Well, I've no patience with such goin's on. And now here's a pretty kettle of fish and no mistake. You've taken Hadyn Stuyvesant's house for a year, and of course you've got to _keep_ it, yet every cent you've got in this world to live on is twelve hundred dollars a year.

That means less than twenty-five dollars a week to house, clothe and feed five people. I 'spose it can be done--plenty do it--but they're not Carruths, with a Carruth's ideas. And now _you_ want to quit school and go to work? Well, I don't approve of it; no, not for a minute.

You'll do ten times better to stay at school and then enter college next fall. _You've_ got the ability to do it, and it's flyin' in the face of Providence _not_ to."

Aunt Eleanor might just as well have added, "I representing Providence," since her tone implied as much.

"Now run along home and leave me to think out this snarl. I can think a sight better when I'm alone," and with that summary and rather unsatisfactory dismissal, Eleanor departed for her own home to be met by Jean with her trials and tribulations.

Meanwhile Mrs. Carruth had gone in quest of that young lady, for upon Mammy's return from market, Jean, Baltie and the box of candy had been missed, and the old woman had raised a hue and cry. At first they believed it to be some prank, but as the hours slipped away and Jean failed to reappear, Mrs. Carruth grew alarmed and all three set forth in different directions to search for her. Constance going to Amy Fletcher's home. Mammy to their old home, or at least all that was left of it, for Jean frequently went there on one pretext or another, and Mrs. Carruth down town, as the marketing section of Riveredge was termed. While there, one of the shopkeepers told her that Jean had driven by, headed for South Riveredge.

Upon the strength of this vague information Mrs. Carruth had 'phoned home that she was setting out for South Riveredge by the trolley and hoped to find the runaway.

But the search, naturally, was unavailing and she was forced to return in a most anxious state of mind. As she turned into Hillside street and began to mount the steep ascent, her limbs were trembling, partly from physical and partly from nervous exhaustion. Before she reached the top she saw the object of her quest bearing down upon her with arms outstretched and burnished hair flying all about her.

Jean had not paused for the hat or coat, which she had impatiently flung aside upon entering Eleanor's room. Her one impulse after learning of the calamity which had overtaken them was to offer consolation to her mother. The impact when she met that weary woman came very near landing them both in the gutter, and nothing but the little fly-away's agility saved them. Jean was wonderfully strong for her age, her outdoor life having developed her muscles to a most unusual degree.

"Oh, mother, mother. I'm _so_ sorry I frightened you. I didn't mean to; truly I didn't. I only wanted to prove I _could_ help, and now I _can_, 'cause I've got a _lot_ of new customers and made most four dollars. I could have made more if some of the papers hadn't bursted and spilt the candy in the road. We got some of it up, but it was all dirty and I couldn't take any money for _that_, though the boys _ate_ it after they'd washed if off at the hose faucet. It wasn't so very dirty, you know. And now I'm going out there every single Sat.u.r.day morning, and Connie and I--"

"Jean; Jean; stop for mercy's sake. What _are_ you talking about? Have you taken leave of your senses, child?" demanded poor Mrs. Carruth, wholly bewildered, for until this moment she had heard absolutely nothing of the candy-making, Mammy and Constance having guarded their secret well. It had never occurred to Jean that even her mother was in ignorance of the enterprise, and now she looked at her as though it had come her turn to question her mother's sanity. They had now reached the house and were ascending the steps, Jean a.s.sisting her mother by pus.h.i.+ng vigorously upon her elbow.

"Come right into the living-room with me, Jean, and let me learn where you've been this morning. You have alarmed me terribly, and Mammy has been nearly beside herself. She was sure you and Baltie were both killed."

"Pooh! Fiddlesticks! She might have known better. She thinks Baltie is as fiery as Mr. Stuyvesant's Comet, and that n.o.body can drive him but herself. I've been to East Riveredge with the candy--"

"_What_ candy, Jean? I do not know what you mean."

"_Constance's_ candy!" emphasized Jean, and then and there told the whole story so far as she herself knew the facts regarding it. Mrs.

Carruth sat quite speechless during the recitation, wondering what new development upon the part of her offspring the present order of things would bring to light.

"And Mumsey, darling," continued Jean, winding her arms about her mother's neck and slipping upon her lap, "I'm going to help _now_; I really am, 'cause Nornie has told me about that horried old insurance and I know we haven't much money and--"

"Nornie has told _you_ of the insurance trouble, Jean? How came she to do such a thing?" asked Mrs. Carruth, at a loss to understand why Eleanor had disobeyed her in the matter.

"She told me 'cause I was so mad at her and Connie for having secrets, and treating me as if I hadn't the least little bit of sense, and couldn't be trusted. I am little, Mumsey, dear, but I can help. You see if I can't, and the boys were just splendid and want me to come every Sat.u.r.day. Please, please say I may go," and Jean kissed her mother's forehead, cheeks and chin by way of persuasion.

It must be confessed that Mrs. Carruth responded to these endearments in a rather abstracted manner, for she had had much to think of within the past few hours.

"Please say yes," begged Jean.

"Childie, I can not say yes or no just this moment. I am too overwhelmed by what I have heard. I must know _all_ now, and learn it from Mammy and Constance. I cannot realize that one of my children had actually entered upon such a venture. What _would_ your father say?"

ended Mrs. Carruth, as though all the traditions of the Carruths, to say nothing of the Blairsdales, had been shattered to bits and thrown broadcast.

"But you'll tell me before _next_ Sat.u.r.day, won't you? You know the boys will be on the lookout for their candy and will be _so_ disappointed if I don't take it."

"I can not promise _anything_ now. The first thing to do is to eat our luncheon; it is long past two o'clock. _Then_ we will hold a family council and I hope I shall recover my senses; I declare I feel as though they were tottering."

Mrs. Carruth rose from her chair and with Jean dancing beside her entered the dining-room to partake of a very indifferent meal, for Mammy had been too exercised to give her usual care and thought to its preparation.

CHAPTER XVII

A Family Council

Luncheon was over and Mrs. Carruth, the girls and Mammy were seated in the library; Mammy's face being full of solicitude for her Miss Jinny.

Mammy could no more have been left out of this family council than could Eleanor.

"An' you haint got dat 'surance money and cyant git hit, Baby?" she asked, when Mrs. Carruth had finished explaining the situation to them.

"No, Mammy; it is impossible. I have hoped until the last moment, but now I must give up all hope."

"But--but I done _paid_ de prem'ym ter dat little Sniffin's man, an'

_he_ say we _git_ de money all right an' straight," argued Mammy, loath to give up _her_ hope.

"I know that, Mammy. He told you so in all good faith. It is not his fault in the least. It would have been settled at once, had we not--had we not--" Mrs. Carruth hesitated. She was reluctant to lay the blame upon Eleanor.

"Oh, it is _all_ my fault! All. If I had not brought those hateful acids into the house we would _never_ have had all this trouble. I shall never forgive myself, and I should think you'd all want to kill me," wailed the cause of the family's misfortune, springing to her feet to pace rapidly up and down the room, quite unconscious that a long feather boa which happened to have been upon the back of her chair, had caught upon her belt-pin and was trailing out behind in a manner to suggest Darwin's theory of the origin of man.

"My child you need not reproach yourself. You were working for our mutual benefit. You knew nothing of the conditions--"

"Knew nothing! Knew nothing!" broke in Eleanor. "That's just _it_. It was my business to know! And I tell you one thing, in future I _mean_ to know, and not go blundering along in ignorance and wrecking everybody else as well as myself. I'm just no better than a fool with _all_ my poring over books and experimenting. After this I'll find out where my _feet_ are, even if my head _is_ stuck in the clouds. And now, mother, listen: Since I _am_ responsible for this mess it is certainly up to me to help you to pull out of it, and I'm going to _do_ it, I've spoken to Mr. Hillard, and asked him about coaching, and he says he can get me plenty of students who will be only too glad if I can give them the time. And I'm going to do it three afternoons a week. I shall have to do it between four and six, as those are my only free hours, and if I can't coach better than some I've known to undertake it, I'll quit altogether."

As Eleanor talked, Mammy's expression became more and more horrified.

When she ceased speaking the old woman rose from the ha.s.sock upon which she sat, and crossing the room to Mrs. Carruth's side laid her hand upon her shoulder as she asked in an awed voice:

"Baby you won't _let_ her do no sich t'ing as dat? Cou'se you won't.

Wimmin folks now-a-days has powerful strange ways, dat I kin see myse'f, but we-all don' do sich lak. Miss Nornie wouldn't never in de roun' worl' do _dat_, would she, honey? She jist a projectin', ain't she?"

Mammy's old face was so troubled that Mrs. Carruth was much mystified.

"Why Mammy, I don't know of anything that Eleanor is better qualified to do than coach. And Mammy, dear, we _must_ do something--every one of us, I fear. We can not all live on the small interest I now have, and I shall never touch the princ.i.p.al if I can possibly avoid doing so.

Eleanor can materially help by entering upon this work, and Constance has already shown that she can aid also. Even Baby has helped," added Mrs. Carruth, laying her arm caressingly across Jean's shoulders, for Jean had stuck to her side like a burr.

"Then you _will_ let me go to East Riveredge with the candy?" cried Jean, quick to place her entering wedge.

"We will see," replied Mrs. Carruth, but Jean knew from the smile that the day was won.

"I know all dat, honey," resumed Mammy, "but dis hyer coachin'

bisness. I ain' got _dat_ settle in my mind. Hit just pure scandal'zation 'cordin' ter my thinkin'. Gawd bress my soul what we-all comin' to when a Blairsdale teken ter drive a nomnibus fer a livin'? Tck! Tck!" and Mammy collapsed upon a chair to clasp her hands and groan.

Then light dawned upon the family.

"Oh, Mammy! I don't intend to become a stage-coach driver," cried Eleanor, dropping upon her knees beside the perturbed old soul, and laying her own hands upon the clasped ones as she strove hard not to laugh outright. "You don't understand at _all_, Mammy. A coach is someone who helps other students who can't get on well with their studies. Who gives an hour or two each day to such work. And it is very well paid work, too, Mammy."

Mammy looked at her incredulously as though she feared she was being made game of. Then she glanced at the others. Their faces puzzled her, as well they might, since the individuals were struggling to repress their mirth lest they wound the old woman's feelings, but still were anxious to rea.s.sure her.