Brenda's Bargain Part 23

"Oh, I'm going to have them report this morning. You must wait until they come."

In a moment the girls filed in, Concetta, Luisa, Gretchen, Haleema, and the rest whom Brenda knew best, and with them two or three girls from outside who were members of the League; for in this, as in other cla.s.ses, it had seemed wise to enlarge the work a little. So the cla.s.s had taken in some of those whom the members.h.i.+p in the League had interested in things that otherwise they might not have had the interest to study.

As they stood at their places around the table, Miss Soddern gave a resume of what they had already learned about dust and its dangers. They talked with a fluency that surprised Brenda about bacteria and yeasts and spores and moulds, and in most cases showed by examples that they knew what they were talking about.

"I am glad that all these bacteria are not harmful," said Brenda, "for otherwise I should stand in fear of instant death when caught in one of our east winds," and she looked with interest at the plate that showed a great many little spots irregularly distributed within a circle. Each spot represented a colony of bacteria, and though the showing was rather overwhelming, it was not nearly as bad as another exposure made at a crossing in a certain city where the old-fas.h.i.+oned street-cleaning methods prevailed. An exposure made just after the carts had been collecting heaps of dirt showed an almost incredible number, quite beyond counting.

So interesting did Miss Soddern make her lesson that Brenda stayed quite through the hour.

"I've gathered one or two new ideas on the subject of trailing skirts,"

she whispered to Julia in one of the intervals of the lesson. "I always thought it was just a notion, this talk about their being so unclean, but now I shall always think of them as regular bacteria collectors.

Also I've learned one or two things about dusting, and I'm going to watch our maid to-morrow, and if she isn't using a moist cloth, I'll frighten her by asking her why she insists on distributing death-dealing germs around the room."

Half of the cla.s.s that day had to report the result of their own observation of bacteria colonies collected on the gelatine plate, and half were to prepare the little gla.s.s boxes to take home. Brenda watched the process with great interest,--the preparation of the boxes in a vacuum, so that there would be no air inside them when they should be first exposed in the new locality.

"It's something," said Julia, "to get these girls to acquire habits of accuracy."

"Oh, it reminds me of the cla.s.s in physics at Miss Crawdon's," replied Brenda. "I never would take it myself, but some of the girls said that it was splendid; it taught one to be accurate."

At that moment Miss Soddern began to address the girls. They had been so absorbed in their work that they had talked very little during the hour.

"How many of you have anything to report regarding the boxes that you took home last week."

One by one the outside girls gave accounts of their observations, each one vying with the others to describe the most prolific growth of bacteria.

"As the boxes were to be exposed simply in their living-rooms, I am surprised at the results," said the teacher in an aside to Julia; "I'm afraid that some one must have been stirring up the dust. What does your family think of these experiments?" she continued, turning to a bright-eyed American girl.

"Oh, they're so interested," the girl replied. "You've no idea how they've watched it; and since the bacteria have begun to develop,"--she said this with an important air--"they show it to company. Why, you may like to know that our visitors consider it more entertaining than the family alb.u.m."

Miss Soddern herself did not dare to smile at this remark, but Julia and Brenda hastily excused themselves.

"Audible smiling," said Brenda, "is more excusable out here than it would be in the school-room," and then both laughed outright.

"I never did care for family photograph alb.u.ms," said Julia, "and now I see how easy it would be to have a scientific subst.i.tute."

XVII

IDEAL HOMES

The triangular quarrel between Concetta, Haleema, and Angelina had reached such a state that the three spoke only when actually under the eyes of their elders. Even as Maggie had felt jealousy at first, did Angelina now feel jealousy of Concetta.

On pleasant spring Sundays when Angelina walked out with John she would tell him her griefs, and so far as he could he would sympathize with her; but when she talked of running away, he would simply laugh.

"Why, if you wish to go back to s.h.i.+loh, I'm sure Miss Julia would let you; you have only to tell her and she would let you off."

Then Angelina would shake her head. "Ah! you have no idea how important I am. Why, I know they couldn't get along without me, and I'm sure that if I should leave, everything would stop. I'm surprised that you should suggest it, John."

"But you talked of running away."

"Well, so I might, if Concetta keeps on acting in that forward way, as if she were the most important person here. No, I won't desert Miss Julia, even if Miss Brenda does show so much partiality. I suppose it's my Spanish blood that makes me take it so hard."

John looked at Angelina bewildered.

"Spanish blood! why, we're not Spanish; I hadn't heard of it."

"There, John, you haven't a bit of romance; I should think that you could tell that we're Spanish just by looking in the gla.s.s, and I'm sure Spain and Portugal are very near together, and though mother says she was born a Portuguese she may be Spanish. A great many people are beginning to sympathize with me on account of the war."

There! the secret was out. The war with Spain had now come to the foreground, and Angelina wished in some way to be a part of it and of the general excitement. Had John been old enough to enlist she might have worked off some of her energy in urging him to do so. As it was, she amused those who had known her the longest by talking about her fears for her own safety; for although Manila Bay was an American victory, "of course," she would say, "every one has a prejudice against persons of Spanish blood," and Angelina would raise her handkerchief to her eyes, as if she were an exiled princess of Castile.

John only laughed at Angelina when she talked in this way to him, and wished that he could enlist and go toward the South, where the troops were gathering for the war.

"I should like to be a nurse," she then said, "for really this work here with these younger girls is very tiresome, and I don't think that Miss South and Miss Julia properly appreciate me."

"You are ungrateful," John would reply solemnly. "Why, if it wasn't for these young ladies I'm sure that mother wouldn't be alive now; she never could have lived if we'd stayed on in Moon Street, and it was just through them that we were able to have a home of our own, for those bare rooms in Moon Street were not a home."

John was an industrious youth, working hard, saving money, and studying evenings. He was devoted to Manuel, now a strong boy of nine, and anxious that he, too, should have a good education. Angelina's flightiness troubled him, but he hoped that she would in time outgrow it; for though the younger, he always felt that he was in the position of an older brother, and when it came to any particular action, Angelina usually took his advice, after first demurring, and professing that she would rather do something else. Now he felt that he was right in trying to make her keep her place at the Mansion; but even while he was trying to persuade her, he could see that Angelina was thinking of something else.

But the war did not entirely occupy the thoughts of Julia and Pamela and the others at the Mansion, and the former went on with the preparations for her special exhibition after the fas.h.i.+on that she had planned long before the fateful sixteenth of February. Gretchen and Maggie were her chief a.s.sistants in carrying out her plans, and they went about with an air of mystery that was particularly tantalizing to the others.

"What do you suppose it's going to be?" asked Concetta, with two b.u.t.tons conspicuously fastened to her waist bearing the motto, "Remember the Maine."

"Some kind of a picture show, I guess; I saw two boxes of thumb tacks on Miss South's table. I tried to make Maggie tell, but she's as still as a mouse; she always is. Don't she make you think of one?"

"Yes, she does," replied Haleema. "I've a good mind to peek in now; there's n.o.body about."

At that moment Angelina came around the corner.

"I'm exceedingly surprised," she said, in her haughtiest manner, "that you should try to pry into what doesn't concern you."

"I didn't."

"Yes, you were trying to."

"No, I wasn't, and, besides, I have a perfect right to; I belong to Miss Northcote's cla.s.s. So there! You needn't stand and watch me."

"I'll report you to Miss Dreen," said Angelina. "It's your day in the kitchen. I remember that."

Concetta's face clouded as Angelina pa.s.sed on to the kitchen.

"I wish people would attend to their own business."

Concetta had hoped that Miss Dreen, who was a little absent-minded, would fail to notice her absence. Another grievance was added to the long list that she cherished against Angelina.

But after all they were not kept so very long in suspense, for on the Sat.u.r.day after this little episode the doors were thrown open, and all the girls marched in to see what really had been going on behind the closed doors. Those in the secret were proud enough, and Maggie in particular displayed an unexpected talkativeness. At least she was able to explain the why and wherefore of the exhibit quite to the satisfaction of all who heard her.