The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted Part 5

"People. They were so astonished. And, besides, I hated the gum. Inez Dolliver used to chew it with such gusto that I thought it must be rather good. And the slang sounded so easy and,--O! lighthearted, you know, and friendly. When you and Hannah Eldred use it, it never seems offensive, just pleasant and gay. But everyone looked so worried and puzzled all day at me, that I decided to stop. And next day they seemed so relieved. I told Dy-the Allen later about it (she's the dearest thing!) and she was very philosophical. She told me it wasn't becoming to my general character, just as pink wasn't becoming to my hair. I told her I had always loved pink, and wanted to wear it, and she suggested that I wear it at night. It wouldn't show in the dark and it was an innocent desire; and perhaps if I did that, I'd not want to use slang or chew gum. I didn't, after I had tried once, anyhow! Polly Osgood, here we are sitting around and I'm telling you foolish stories about myself, when we ought to be discussing library matters."

"The other was more interesting," sighed Polly. "I'm going to give up slang myself soon. I never did chew gum! But I've been terribly bored lately by some rather flip young creatures I've had to see more or less, and I decided to cut it out and talk plain English. What are you smiling at?"

Then, as her own earnest sentences came back to her, she reddened a little, and joined Catherine in smiling. "Isn't that a fright? I mean, isn't that startling? I didn't know I used it so much. Do you suppose I can cure myself and still have time and attention to give to starting the library? It's time we were down there now."

"All right. I'm ready, as soon as I get my hat. Do you ever wear them at college?"

"Never. Now while we go along, tell me just what your idea is. What did the Hampton ladies say?"

Catherine thrust her hatpins in, as she hurried down the steps.

"They advised having some club take it up, for a time at least, and they thought it would be nice to have it be the Boat Club instead of a literary one, because the literary ones often have a spirit of compet.i.tion, and if one of them started the library the others might not feel inclined to use it."

"I see, and the Boat Club, besides being unsectarian and interdenominational and non-partisan, has a lot of waste enthusiasm and energy that might just as well be put to work. Father says he is sure that when the thing is really running, the council will vote a tax and take it off our hands. You are sure Algernon can run it? I thought it took years of special training."

"It does," Catherine answered gravely, "but we could not afford a trained librarian, and Algernon is intelligent and will study. Miss Adams gave him hints as to books to get, and she will help him. He can go over there when he gets into difficulties. She seemed to like him.

They talked about all sorts of technical things,--Algernon had a lot of information stowed away in his head, of course,--and she didn't seem bored at all."

"I've often thought I shouldn't be, if I knew anything about the subjects he talks about," confessed Polly. "There are Bertha and Agnes."

She trilled to the two girls ahead, who turned and waited.

On the flat roof of the boat house half a dozen members of the club were a.s.sembled. Polly hastened to take her seat and call the meeting to order.

"Max Penfield will act as secretary, and we shall expect the minutes done in the most approved University style. Archie Bradly, will you please state the object of the meeting?"

"Fo' de lan's sake, no!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Archie, sitting up and shutting his knife. "That's the very thing I came to find out!"

"Very well," said Polly, twinkling. "Then, of course, you will pay close attention. It will do you more good than carving Andover on the benches.

There's not much s.p.a.ce left on them, now, and it's still early in the season. Catherine, will you tell us the object of the meeting? Ouch!"

for Archie had reached lazily behind her and given one of her yellow braids a gentle yank.

"You all know, already," began Catherine, "except perhaps Archie! We've talked it over with the older people, and they think it's perfectly practical, only some one or some organization has to take it in charge."

"What's 'it'?" asked Archie innocently.

"Why, the library. The Boat Club is going to see that Winsted has a public library."

"Turn into Carnegies?" inquired Max, doing a sketch of Geraldine Winthrop on the margin of the secretary's book.

"Not exactly. We haven't got our own dock built yet, and I don't think we are in a position to endow libraries. But I mean we can work and talk--"

"Talking's work," complained Archie. "That's redundancy."

"It is, when you keep interrupting," cried Bertha Davis. "Go on, Catherine. Don't mind him. Just how can we work?"

"Well, the room will have to be cleaned thoroughly, and we girls can do most of that if the boys will help a little. And there will have to be some plain shelves put up for the books."

"Me for the carpenter job!" cried a long-legged youth who had lain thus far in the shade of his own hat, in entire silence and apparent unconsciousness. "It's just what I want to cure my brain fever."

"Overstudy? Or overwork reading postals last week?" asked Agnes, smiling into Bert's half-shut eyes.

"It's more likely fatty degeneration of the brain, if it's Bert Wyman that has it," said an emphatic voice, and a spruce energetic maiden joined the group. "I just got in on the 10:10, and Mother said you were all over here. What's before the house?"

"Nothing. We're all on the house," explained Archie dryly, but Polly answered the question with careful courtesy. Dorcas listened.

"Very well," she said, when Polly finished. "If it is in order, I move you, Madam President, that we proceed to clean the library at once."

"O, Dorcas, not to-day!" groaned two or three, while Max remarked in an aside to no one that if it was in order it shouldn't need cleaning.

"Why not to-day?" asked Dorcas briskly. "How you-all can loaf around the way you do is more than I can comprehend. Dot, your hair is coming down."

Dot, who was called Dot, because she was a dot, though her parents had intended her to go through life as Geraldine, lifted her eyebrows slightly, and removing her four hairpins, shook down her hair and did it up again. The process took four seconds.

"I'd rather have Dot's curls than Dorcas' brains," growled Bert to Agnes, who reproached him with a look.

While Dorcas' motion was waiting for a second, there came down the road two pretty girls, in fluffy gowns, their white sunshades tilted charmingly. Max slammed the secretary's book shut.

"Hurry up and let's adjourn," he said, and Archie, suddenly energetic, seconded the motion and carried it, so far as it concerned himself, by going out to meet the newcomers and invite them to go canoeing at once.

Max followed suit, and the meeting broke up unceremoniously, but with a sense of valuable achievement.

Dorcas, uttering harsh judgments upon the parliamentary methods of Polly Osgood, and, by inference, of all Wellesley College, attached herself to Bertha and Agnes for the homeward walk.

"See here, Dorcas Morehouse," said Bertha so suddenly that her sister and Dorcas jumped. "If you think that just because you have been to Chicago University for a quarter, you are going to run us all, this summer, you are mightily mistaken. Agnes and Dot and I never went away to school, and neither did Bess nor Winifred, but we aren't stupid, and we won't have you patronizing us. Catherine Smith is intellectual enough for any one, and she never snubs or patronizes; and as for Polly Osgood, you wouldn't dare _hint_ a criticism of Wellesley if she were within hearing, and you know it. So there! If this library scheme is good enough for them, it is for the rest of us, and if you don't like it, you can just stay out of it!"

Whereupon, Bertha, having delivered herself, even more to her own astonishment than to any one else's, turned at the first corner and walked rapidly away, leaving her embarra.s.sed sister to placate the wrathful Dorcas in any way her gentle heart suggested.

CHAPTER FOUR

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."