"Oh, you know that I don"t really mean I hate you, I only mean that I am horribly envious and jealous of your having all the money you want and being able to do things without worry, not just things for yourself, but things for other people." And Polly bit her lips and ceased speaking, both because of the note of warning in her mother"s face and because the brightness had died away from Betty"s.
"I wish you would understand, Polly, that just having things does not necessarily make one happy; I often think it must be nicer to be poor and to have to help like you and Mollie do. This afternoon I was feeling quite forlorn myself, as I had a kind of headache and no one came to see me, and then just like magic from out our haunted chamber there appeared well, I can hardly call her a good fairy, she was too homely, but at least a girl who told me of something so delightful that it sounds almost like a fairy tale. I talked of it to father at dinner and then rushed over to tell you, as I thought you might be interested, but perhaps I had better wait--"
From the foot of the lounge Mollie O"Neill now interrupted. Utterly unlike either her sister or friend in her disposition, her influence often held them together.
"We do want to hear what you have to tell us, Betty, most dreadfully.
Just because we happen to be specially worried about something to-night is no reason why Polly should be so mysterious. I vote we tell you what our trouble is and then you tell us your secret."
Polly got up from the floor. She was always curiously intense, not deliberately, but perhaps as a part of her inheritance. Now she made a little bow to Betty. "I am sorry I was rude to you, Princess," she said gently, "but tell you the reason for my special tirade against poverty to-night, I will not and Mollie shall not tell either."
Without replying Betty turned to pick up her blue cloak which had dropped from her shoulders as she knelt by the lounge. It had a cap attached with a blue silk lining and this she slipped over her head.
"It isn"t worth while for me to talk of my plan to-night, then," she returned, "for if Polly won"t be interested, you and, I could never make a go of it by ourselves, Mollie. Good-night; I promised not to stay very long." Pa.s.sing by the lounge Mrs. O"Neill reached out, slipping her hand in Betty"s and drew her to a place beside her. Usually a girl with the three other girls there was now and then a note in Mrs.
O"Neill"s voice which they seldom failed to recognize.
"Mollie is right, as Betty is almost one of our family, it is only fair to tell her what has put Polly in her present mood. The truth is, dear, the doctor thinks I am not very well and am needing a rest, so I am being made to lie down every evening after my work, by my daughters, and I am sure when warm weather comes I shall be all right again."
"You won"t," Polly interrupted, "and if that is all you mean to tell Betty, why I shall certainly tell her everything now you have started."
Polly went on quickly, with two bright spots of color in her cheeks: "Resting in the evenings is not going to help mother; Dr. Hawkes says she needs months and months of rest and unless she has it she will soon be having a nervous breakdown or something else; that working for nearly eight years in an office supporting herself and two daughters is enough to tire any woman out. Then to-day a wonderful invitation came from my father"s relatives, who have never paid the least attention to us before, asking mother to spend the summer with them in Ireland, and--"
Betty"s hands were clapped eagerly together as she concluded, "So you are going to accept and Polly"s blue at the thought of being separated from you, but really I can"t see any reason why I should not have been told of this."
Instead of replying, Polly frowned and Mrs. O"Neill shook her head, so the explanation fell to Mollie. "No, mother is not going to accept; that is what the trouble is and that is why Polly and I sometimes feel cross with you, Betty, because rich people never seem to be able to understand about poor ones. You do what you like without thinking of the money, and we can"t do anything we like without thinking of it.
Mother feels she can"t afford to go."
Looking almost as depressed as her two friends, Betty now turned her back deliberately on both girls to whisper in the older woman"s ear.
"Oh, Mary, won"t you, can"t you; you know how happy it would make us."
But she knew her answer even before it was given and also understood that Polly"s pride would never have agreed to let her mother accept any favor through her. Indeed, never in all the long years of their friendship had Betty ever dared do half the things she longed to do for her two friends, and indeed Mrs. Ashton often said that Betty accepted far more than she was able to return, since she spent so much of her time in Mrs. O"Neill"s home.
"You are awfully foolish, Mary," Betty argued, "because if you should really get ill--"
"That is just what I have been saying, Betty dear, for the past two hours," Polly protested, forgetting the difference between herself and her friend and edging close enough to the lounge to lay her head in, the other girl"s lap. "And the worst of it is, Mr. Wharton says mother can have the holiday, he will pay her salary while she is away, and she only won"t go because she says she can"t leave Mollie and me alone and can"t afford to pay any one to look after us. It is so foolish, when we are old enough to be taking care of her! I suppose she wouldn"t be afraid to leave Mollie, it is just me! Sometimes it does not seem quite fair to be born a twin, because see how things are put into Mollie divided, all the good got and all the bad into me; so I suppose mother thinks I would set the house on fire or run away and go on the stage as I sometimes threaten, so soon as her back was turned. Oh, Mavourneen darling of the world, the very name of Lake Killarney, where our cousins live, would make you well."
But again Polly stopped talking because Betty had seized her by both shoulders, giving her a decided shake. "Say it again to me quickly. Is it just because Mary does not know what to do with you and Mollie that she won"t go away?"
And both sisters nodded silently.
With a cry of what sounded like delight, Betty rose hurriedly to her feet, letting the blue cloak slip away from her for the second time.
Then dancing across the kitchen she seized the two tall candlesticks from the mantelpiece and setting them down in the center of the floor afterwards added the third, with which Polly had lighted their way through the hall. Above them she made a mystic sign by flattening the fingers of her right hand against those of her left, while slowly she revolved about them chanting: "Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo, in you lies the answer to all our difficulties," to the entire amazement of her small audience.
CHAPTER III
"WORK, HEALTH AND LOVE"
"Much learning hath made her mad," sighed Polly mournfully, Betty being a notoriously poor student.
Mollie was staring thoughtfully at their visitor. "That is an Indian folk dance; perhaps Betty is pretending to be Pocahontas," she suggested, with such an evident attempt to explain away her friend"s eccentricities that Betty stopped in her dance to laugh, and Polly and Mrs. O"Neill followed suit.
"I am not mad and I am not playing at being Pocahontas, but as usual Mollie is nearer right than her sister Polly because there is a good deal about the Indians in what I want to tell you." Betty sat down before the three shining candles and taking a little stick from the pile of wood near by she pointed it at her third candle. "You are to guess what my strange word, "Wohelo" means. No, it is not an Indian, word, although it sounds like it. Mary, you begin by taking the last syllable first. What is the greatest thing in the world?"
Mrs. O"Neill, some minutes before, had risen half way up from her lounge and was leaning her head on her arm, while she watched Betty"s curious proceedings. "The greatest thing in the world?" she repeated softly.
"Far wiser persons than I found the answer to that question many years ago. The greatest thing in the world is love."
Betty nodded. "Now, Polly, you may have the next guess, though you are sure to say the wrong thing. What is the next greatest thing to love?"
Polly shrugged her thin shoulders, her face still moody in spite of her recently awakened interest. "Oh, I told you the answer to that question when you first came into this room, Betty Ashton, though none of you chose to believe me. It is plain as a pipe-stem to me that wealth is the next best thing to love and sometimes it is better when you happen to love the wrong thing--or person."
"It rhymes with wealth but begins with the letter "h"," the questioner returned hastily, too much in earnest to waste further time in argument.
"Now, Mollie, you have the third turn, remember you are to decide what the first syllable stands for, "Wo"."
For a few seconds the third girl hesitated, her cheeks flushing uncomfortably. Not so quick or clever with her tongue as Polly and Betty she was far more gifted with her fingers. "I am sure I don"t know what you mean," she replied. ""Wo" is the beginning of the word "woman", but you can"t mean woman. I know you and Polly think books of plays and novels the greatest things in the world, but I don"t and besides I can"t find the right word for them. You know what I really like best is just cooking and cleaning up and putting flowers on the table, stupid household things that can"t have anything to do with your wonderful word." And Mollie looked so apologetic for her own domestic tastes that her mother took both her hands and held them tight.
"For goodness" sake, Mollie dear, even in these days of the advanced female it is still something to be proud of, to have real womanly tastes. Because some women go out into the world is no reason why they should lose their womanly instincts. What we are all working for, both men and women, is really just the making of a home, a big or a little one. I don"t know myself what word Betty is searching for, but I do believe these very things that you like best come very close to my own guess. For if love is the greatest thing in the world, the making of a home to shelter it is most important. I have an idea that love would come to a tragic end if, when it returned home to dinner, Polly should meet it in the character of Ophelia, with wild flowers in her hair, offering it rosemary and rue for dinner instead of meat and vegetables."
Again the audience laughed because of Polly"s well-known devotion to the drama and because if she were left alone to look after the cooking, her mother and Mollie often returned to find her poring over her recitations with the dinner burning on the stove.
"If mother is going to preach a sermon with me for a text, Betty"s candles will sputter and die out before ever she explains her word,"
Polly suggested.
"Oh, the word is "work"; Mollie wasn"t so far wrong, though work may mean different things to different people. Wohelo means "Work, Health and Love"," Betty explained quickly, still keeping her eyes on the candle flames.
But Polly rising from her place slipped over and took Betty by both shoulders.
"Elizabeth Ashton, more commonly known as "The Princess," Bettina or Betty, will you kindly explain yourself? No doubt those are three estimable things you are recommending to us, but please tell me how Work, Health and Love are going to solve our present difficulties and help mother get the rest she needs. It seems to me she has given us too much of the first and last of your watchword already and has too little of the middle thing left in consequence."
Betty"s long lashes swept her cheeks in a tantalizing fashion and her color deepened as, clasping her hands over her knees, she began slowly swaying back and forth, her eyes fastened on Polly.
"I am dreadfully long in coming to my point," she confessed, "but it is such fun to keep you guessing and I do so want you to be interested.
You see, I suppose you know about the Camp Fire Girls, everybody seems to have heard except me, but now "That light which has been given to me, I desire to pa.s.s undimmed to others." Will you, won"t you, will you, won"t you be a Camp Fire Girl?" Her manner, which had been a queer combination of fun and seriousness, now at last appeared entirely grave.
"Mollie and Polly," she continued quietly, "You know how often we have talked lately of being dissatisfied, of feeling that here we are growing older and older every day and yet not learning half the things we ought to learn nor having half the fun we ought to have. Of course we read novels all the time, because it is the only way for nice girls to learn about romance or adventure, but we would like really to live the things we think about just the same as boys do. They don"t dream and scold about the things they want to do; they go ahead and do them, teaching one another by working things out together. They belong to things and don"t just have to have things belong to them" to make them happy like girls do."
"Hear, hear!" cried Polly, not exactly seeing what Betty was driving at and desiring to tease her into greater confusion.
But as Mrs. O"Neill shook her head encouragingly, Betty would not deign to consider her tormentor.
"Oh, it is foolish for me to try to explain all the Camp Fire idea means," she added simply. "I couldn"t if I tried, for Esther Clark, the strange girl who has been living at the asylum and has just come to our house, only told me what she knew this afternoon. But I want to find out by living the Camp Fire idea, I want to see what we could get out of forming a Camp Fire Club, the first one here in Woodford. Just take Polly and Mollie and me, for example, Mary dear," she continued coaxingly. "I am longing to know the things Mollie does about cooking and housekeeping and all the rest and I can"t learn at home. Think what it means to go messing about in our kitchen with, cook and half a dozen servants laughing at you! Then Mollie really would like to know what Polly and I find so fascinating in books and in prowling about together in the woods and Polly--well, I don"t know that she wishes to learn anything from Mollie or me or anybody else who joins our club, but if she doesn"t, that is just what she ought to learn."
Polly held up both hands. "For goodness sake, Betty, stop talking, I will join your Camp Fire Club and be made an example of at any time, also I will use my n.o.ble influence to persuade any girls you wish to join. All the same I don"t see what your wretched club has to do with helping us solve our problem about mother, and that is all I care about at present."
"Has to do,--why everything," Betty repeated slowly. But before she was able to finish her sentence there was a sudden loud ringing of the front door bell and the three girls jumped to their feet. In another moment Polly had disappeared into the hall, returning with her expression changed again to its original look of gloom.
"It"s that granite man, mother, Mr. Wharton, with his entire family, son and daughter. I wonder why they can"t leave you alone after business hours? I had to ask them in the parlor, since we can"t entertain any one in the kitchen except "The Princess," but we simply can"t join you until we hear what she has to say."