The Camp Fire Girls on the Open Road Part 12

I grew to like my work more and more, as the days went by, and gradually learned to handle quite a bit of it myself. Mrs. Harper was very busy; she did a great deal of Red Cross and other war work, besides keeping up in all her clubs, and she got into the habit of telling me what to say to people and letting me write the letters myself. Early in March she went out of town to a convention and left me with a great many letters to write to various people, telling me to sign her name for her. I took very great pains with all those letters so as to be sure to say the right things to the right people, and I felt satisfied when the week was out that I had done myself credit.

Accordingly, it struck me like a thunderbolt when, several days after her return, Mrs. Harper came to me, blazing with anger, and demanded to know what I meant by writing such letters in her absence. Startled, I asked her what she referred to.

"You wrote Mr. Samuel Butler that if he didn't hurry and pay up his subscription to the Red Cross Mr. Harper would pay it for him and take it out of his next bill," said Mrs. Harper furiously. "Mr. Butler is insulted and has withdrawn his subscription of ten thousand dollars to the Perkins Settlement House, which I am trying so hard to establish.

Whatever possessed you to write such a letter?"

"I never wrote a letter like that," I replied with spirit. "I wrote Mr.

Butler a very polite, respectful reminder that his pledge was due this month; I never mentioned Mr. Harper or anything about paying it and taking the amount out of any bill."

I was completely at sea.

"You _did_ write that letter!" declared Mrs. Harper angrily. "How dare you deny it? Mr. Butler showed it to me. It was written on this very stationery, on this typewriter with the green ribbon, and signed with my name in the way you sign it. You wrote it to be funny, I suppose. Well, I can tell you that I can't have anything like that. I won't have any further need for your services."

She was so positive I had written it that I began to have an awful feeling that I might have written it in my sleep. You know what strange things I do in my sleep sometimes. But all the while I knew who had done it. Ethel Harper had sworn to get even with me for making her tell her mother about the locket. She had written that letter in place of the one I had written. I remembered that one day while Mrs. Harper was away I had been called downstairs and kept talking for over an hour to one of Mrs.

Harper's committee members who had undertaken to distribute some literature and came for instructions. During that time Ethel would have had plenty of chance to read through my mail upstairs.

I started to tell Mrs. Harper that I suspected someone else of writing it, intending to lead gently up to the subject of Ethel, but Mrs. Harper scoffed at the idea.

"There isn't anyone else in the house who can run the typewriter," she said flatly.

This was untrue. Ethel could run it; she had done so several times when I was there. But what was the use of accusing Ethel when her mother wouldn't believe it anyway? I realized the hopelessness of trying to convince Mrs. Harper of something she didn't want to believe.

"And further," continued Mrs. Harper, "I have found that you have not been attending strictly to business. Ethel tells me that you often go over to her room when she is there and stand and talk to her instead of giving your time to my work."

"Little snake-in-the-gra.s.s!" I thought vengefully. I had never gone to her room unless she had called me to do something.

I made up my mind I wouldn't stay there another minute. I didn't have to work for such people. I drew myself up stiffly. "If you believe such things, Mrs. Harper," I said icily, "there can be no business relations between us. I shall not even take the trouble to prove the truth about that letter. I shall go immediately." And go I did. I knew Mr. Barrett would be very much put out over the affair, because he seemed to think Mrs. Harper had done his school an honor by hiring one of his pupils, but what was I to do? Stay there and be the scapegoat for all Ethel's sins.

Not while I had feet to walk away on.

As I went down the steps I met Ethel coming up. She looked at me with a meaning expression and a triumphant smile. She had kept her word and gotten even with me.

I felt badly over it, of course, for who can lose a good position and not be cut up about it? I suppose I must have looked pretty doleful for a couple of days, because I met Mrs. Anderson, that friend of Nyoda's, who used to lend us so many "props" for our Winnebago performances, on the street and she asked me right away what was the matter.

"You're lonesome for those friends of yours," she went on, without giving me a chance to answer. "I'm lonesome, too," she went on. "My husband has been in Was.h.i.+ngton all winter. Come out and spend a few days with me. You used to be pretty good company, if I remember rightly."

She persuaded me and I went. You remember the Anderson place out on the East Sh.o.r.e, don't you? We were all out there once last year. Perfect duck of a house all made of soft gray s.h.i.+ngles and seven acres of garden and woods around it. I tramped all over the place through the March mud, looking for signs of spring, and had a perfectly glorious time.

"There's one sign of spring, over there," said Mrs. Anderson, who was with me on one of my tramps.

"Where?" I asked, looking around.

"Young man's fancy," said Mrs. Anderson with a laugh of tolerant amus.e.m.e.nt, "lightly turning to thoughts of love. Look up on the barn there."

I looked where she pointed, and saw a boy of about eighteen standing on the roof of the barn gazing off into s.p.a.ce through a field gla.s.s. He had a white flag tied to his right wrist, which he was waving over his head, like the soldiers do when they signal.

"Who is he and what is he doing?" I asked.

"That's Peter, the boy who helps around the stable," replied Mrs.

Anderson. "He's sending messages to his lady love. A certain combination of flourishes means 'I love you,' and another means 'Meet me to-night,'

and so on. He told John, my chauffeur, about it, and John told me."

"How silly!" said I, with a laugh for poor lovesick Peter. "Who is the object of his affection?"

"Some servant girl from the next estate," replied Mrs. Anderson. "They carry on their affair through field gla.s.ses and with signals. They think they are having a thrilling romance."

"Disgusting!" said I. "How could any girl make such a fool of herself where everybody can see her!"

Mrs. Anderson laughed indulgently, but I could feel her scorn underneath it. "Some girls will sell every sc.r.a.p of dignity they have for what they consider a good time, my dear," she said, laying her hand on my arm in a motherly way.

We left Romeo on the barn flouris.h.i.+ng out his messages in the late March suns.h.i.+ne and wandered over to the next estate. There was a new litter of prize bull pups over there and Mrs. Anderson had promised that I should see them before I went home. A creek divided the two estates, which we crossed on a little foot bridge. The path led along beside the creek for a while until the little stream widened out into a beautiful pond, big enough for boating. A pier had been built at one side of the pond, running out into the water. Someone was standing out on the end of the pier, and as we came up we saw that we had discovered the other half of the romance. A girl, with a field gla.s.s held to her eyes and a white flag tied around her right wrist, was signalling in the direction of the Anderson barn, the roof of which was visible in the distance, beyond Mrs.

Anderson's apple orchard.

Something about the girl was familiar, even in the distance, and as we came near I recognized the mink coat that I had seen many times lately.

There was no doubt about it. The girl on the end of the pier was Ethel Harper. I stood still, too much disgusted to speak. Ethel Harper, the daughter of one of the "first" families, with the best social position in the city, her mother prominent in all great uplift movements, carrying on a vulgar flirtation with Mrs. Anderson's stable boy! So this was the great romance she had been hinting about at various times! Randall--that was the name of the girl she was intimate with; this was the Randall place. She had been coming here so often for the sake of the boy next door. Did she know he was an ignorant servant? I doubted it. Anything in men's clothes set her silly head awhirl. I wished her haughty mother could have seen her then.

Mrs. Anderson suddenly laughed out loud and at that Ethel turned around and saw us. She gave a great start as she recognized me, took a step backward and fell off the end of the pier into the pond, disappearing with a shriek into the deep water.

I slipped out of my coat, threw off my shoes and went in after her. The water was so icy I could hardly swim at first. When I did get hold of her it was a battle royal to get her back to the pier. She was so weighted down by the fur coat and she struggled so fiercely that several times I thought we were both going down. Mrs. Anderson threw us a plank and with its help I finally got her to the pier.

"Now run for your life!" I ordered, my own teeth chattering in my head.

"Drop that wet coat and I'll race you to the house." She didn't move nearly fast enough to avoid a chill and I took hold of her hand and pulled her along.

Up in a cosy bedroom in the Randall's house we sat up, some hours later, wrapped in blankets, and looked at each other gravely. Mrs. Anderson had been in and talked with Ethel like a big sister about the cheapness of carrying on flirtations with strange boys. Ethel had seen her little affair in its true light, robbed of all romance, and shame had taken hold of her. Mrs. Anderson explained how the gallant Romeo had seen his Juliet fall into the pond and had fled basely in the other direction for fear he would be blamed, making no effort to rescue her, and she might have been drowned if I hadn't fished her out.

Ethel had been frightened out of her wits when she fell into the water; she was still suffering from the shock. She flushed hotly as she caught my glance, and cast down her eyes.

"Thank you, Miss Brewster, for saving my life," she said rather shame-facedly. Then she went on in a low tone, "I want to tell you something. I wrote that letter to Mr. Butler,--the one that made mamma so angry."

"I know," I answered gravely.

"You knew, and you jumped into the water after me anyway?" she said in a tone of unbelief. "Why, you might have let me drown as easy as not."

"O no, I mightn't," I answered. "That isn't the way a Camp Fire Girl gets even."

Ethel was silent a long while. Then she said, "Will you come back to our house after I have told mother the whole thing? She misses you a lot, says she never had anyone do her work so well as you did it, and she has been in a terrible temper ever since you left."

"I don't know," I answered slowly. I had been very deeply hurt and my foolish pride was still on its hind legs.

"Will you please come?" pleaded Ethel, slipping out of her chair and putting her arms around me. "We can have such good times after your work hours. Please, for my sake, I want you. You're the most wonderful girl I've ever met!"

Old Mr. Pride and I had a final round and we came out with me sitting on his head. "I'll come back," I said, slipping my arm around Ethel.

So you see, Katherine, adventure isn't dead, not by any means, even if you do have to take it along with your bread and b.u.t.ter.

Loads of love from your stenographic friend, Sadie Shorthander, once upon a time your

Sahwah.