Lydia of the Pines Part 29

"Charlie and Kent and Olga and I. Margery's crazy to go, only her mother hasn't given in yet. If she does go, we'll ask Gustus Bach too."

Ma Norton looked at Lydia searchingly. "I didn't know you had anything to do with Olga or with Margery either, now."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Lydia, "this is Charlie's, party! None of 'em would go on my invitation. I--I don't quite see why, but I don't have chums like the rest."

"I wouldn't let it worry me," said Ma. "You've never had time to lally-gag. That's the secret of it."

Lydia turned this over in her mind thoughtfully for a moment and the older woman, looking up from her sewing caught on the young face the look of sadness that should not have been there.

"It would be nice for you to have the camping trip, dear," said Ma.

"You've had so little to do with children your own age. I suppose you're worrying over the money end?"

Lydia nodded. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Every spring you get some one in to help you clean house. If you'll do it in Easter vacation, this year, and let me help, why, that would be a couple of dollars, wouldn't it?"

Ma Norton looked at the slender little figure and thought of the heavy carpet beating, the shoving of furniture, the cleaning of mattresses that the stout old colored man hustled through for her every spring.

And she thought of the winter's b.u.t.ter and egg money (nearly forty dollars it amounted to already) that she was saving for new parlor curtains. Then she recalled the little figure that had nightly trudged two miles delivering milk rather than take Billy's school books as a gift. And Ma Norton smiled a little ruefully as she said,

"All right, you can help me instead of old Job and I'll pay you five dollars."

"Five dollars for what?" asked Billy. He had come in the side door, unheeded.

His mother explained the situation. Billy listened attentively, warming his hands at the stove.

"If I didn't have so much to do at home," said Lydia, "I could work here Sat.u.r.days and Sundays and earn a little, that way."

"Well, you wouldn't, you know," growled Billy. Lydia and Ma Norton looked up, startled at his tone.

"For the land's sake, Billy, why not?" exclaimed Ma.

"Because, Lydia's getting too big now to do these hired girl stunts.

It was bad enough when she was little. But folks'll never forget 'em and always think of her as a hired girl if she keeps on."

Lydia gasped and turned scarlet. Ma Norton stared at her son as if she never had seen him before. Strong and blonde and six feet tall, he seemed suddenly to his mother no longer a boy but a mature man, and a very handsome one at that. As a matter of fact, although Billy's gaunt frame was filling out and his irregular features were maturing into lines of rugged strength, he never would be handsome. He was looking at Lydia now with the curious expression of understanding that she always brought to his gray eyes.

"I'm not ashamed to be a hired girl for your mother, Billy Norton,"

snapped Lydia.

"Well, I'm ashamed for you," answered the young man. "You earn your money some other way."

Lydia looked meaningly at Billy's big hands, rough and red with milking and farm work.

"You do hired man's work for your father. How'll you live that down?"

It was Billy's turn to blush. "I'm a man," he replied.

Lydia's voice suddenly quivered. "Then how can I earn money?"

"Dead easy! You make the best fudge in the world. Put some for sale in the University book store. I'm clerking there an hour every day."

"The very thing!" cried Ma Norton.

"Billy, you are a duck!" shrieked Lydia.

"Gimme something to eat, Ma, before I go out to milk," said Billy, with a grin that struggled to be modest.

Billy's suggestion proved indeed to be a happy one. He was a willing pack horse and middleman for Lydia and though the demand for fudge was never overwhelming, Lydia by the end of May had cleared something over thirty-five dollars.

Her joy over this method of earning money was not confined to its relation to her camping trip. She saw herself helping to pay up their indebtedness to Levine, Marshall having made good his threat to call in the note. She saw herself gradually developing an enormous trade that finally should demand a whole store for itself. The store would develop into a candy factory. The candy factory would grow into a business that would send Lydia, admired and famous, traveling about the world in a private yacht.

In the meantime, she expended the whole of four dollars on a pair of buckskin outing boots and eight dollars on a little corduroy hunting coat and skirt. When the clothes arrived from the Chicago mail order house, Amos, Lizzie and Lydia had an exciting hour. Amos had brought the package home from town with him, and supper had been held back while Lydia tried on the clothes. Amos and Lizzie smiled when the young girl pranced out before them. The suit was cheap but well cut, with belt and pockets and welted seams. The soft buckskin shoes fitted the slender calves like velvet. With her bright cheeks and her yellow hair above the fawn-colored corduroy, Lydia looked half boy, half woman.

"My soul, Lydia, they're just grand!" cried Lizzie.

"What boys are going in that crowd?" demanded Amos.

"Charlie and Kent and--Margery's mother's given in--'Gustus Bach. I told you. Daddy, don't you like the suit?"

"Like it!" exclaimed Amos. "Lydia, I'm stunned by it! It makes me realize my little girl's growing up to be a pretty woman. I wish I could have bought you your first suit myself, Lydia. But on a dollar and a half a day, I swan--"

The brightness suddenly left Lydia's face. "Oh, Daddy," she exclaimed, "I'm a pig to spend all this money on myself! You take the rest of the money, for the note."

Amos gave a laugh that was half gay, half grim. "Lydia, you spend every cent of that money on yourself. You've earned it in more ways than one. I wish John Levine could see you in it. I guess he will though. Congress will rest most of the summer. Let's have supper now."

Lydia spun through her Junior examination blissfully. For once marks and final averages were of little importance to her. For the week after school closed, she was going camping!

Charlie and Kent were making all the camp preparations. Miss Towne and the three girls were to be at Lydia's gate with their suitcases at nine o'clock of a Monday morning. Other than this, they had received no orders.

Amos had been very sober when he said good-by to Lydia, at half past six. "It's your first trip, Lydia. Don't do anything you wouldn't want your mother to see."

Lydia looked at him wonderingly, then threw her arms about his neck.

"Oh, Daddy, I don't want to go off and leave you two whole weeks!"

"It's too late to back out now. Go on and have a good time," said Amos, picking up his dinner pail. Lydia watched him down the road.

Suddenly she realized how lonely her father must be without her mother.

"I oughtn't to go, Lizzie," she said.

"Shucks! Think of all you'll have to tell us when you get home. Don't be a cry baby, child."

Promptly at nine Charlie and Kent whirled up to the gate in a carryall.

The driver was the same man who had moved the Dudley family five years before. He greeted Lydia with a grin.

"You've grow'd some, eh, Lydia? Where's the rest of the women folks?"

"Here come Miss Towne and Olga!" cried Kent. "Margery'll be late, of course."

At nine-fifteen Margery was driven up in state by Elviry, and at nine-twenty the carryall was off to the north in a cloud of dust, leaving Adam howling dismally at the gate.

For fifteen miles the way led up and down hill over a dusty country road that wound for the most part past great wheat farms and grazing lands, vividly green under the June sky. Here and there were woods of young oak and birch, self sowed, replacing the pine long since cleared off. For the last five miles there were few farms. The rolling hills disappeared and low lying lakes, surrounded by marshes took their places. The young rice bordering the lakes was tenderly green and the marshes were like fields of corn with their thick growth of cat-tail.