"Oh, dear, I will have to be late," she said. "Just look at me! I will have to go back and put on a clean dress." She turned reluctantly and ran back home, while the others went on to school and the automobile carried the old gentleman rapidly to the office of his doctor.
While the physician was attending to the hand, the old gentleman, whose name was Harriman, sat and sputtered:
"First time I ever saw any children with a grain of common sense!" he declared. "Little girl acted in a fairly intelligent manner. Suppose it wouldn"t happen again. Children never know anything, especially girls.
Bah!"
"Oh, yes, they do, Mr. Harriman," said Doctor Greene soothingly. "Oh, yes, they do! Now I have two little girls of my own, and I can tell you--"
"Don"t!" said Mr. Harriman. "I make it a point never to listen to fond parents. I am sure the two girls who fixed me up were unusual--very unusual."
"Yes, they were," said the doctor. "You will have an easier time with this hand of yours, thanks to their skill."
"Queer!" said Mr. Harriman. "Seemed to know just what to do."
"Must have been Girl Scouts," said the doctor musingly.
"Girl Scouts? What foolishness is that?" said Mr. Harriman.
The doctor smiled. He thought of his own two daughters.
"Ask them about it," he said, rising, and would say no more.
Mr. Harriman limped out.
"What are Girl Scouts?" Mr. Harriman asked his chauffeur as they drove to his office.
"I dunno, sah," said the colored man, starting. He always jumped when Mr. Harriman spoke. Everyone wanted to.
"Idiot!" said Mr. Harriman.
"Yes, sah," said the chauffeur cheerfully.
There seemed nothing else to say.
Mr. Harriman"s hand healed very quickly for so old a man, and the doctor stubbornly gave all the credit to Rosanna"s first-aid treatment. Mr.
Harriman could say "Stuff and nonsense!" as many times as he liked, but it made no difference to the doctor, who smiled and refused to discuss the matter. Mr. Harriman commenced to have a troublesome conscience. He felt as though he should call and thank the little girl who had befriended him to such good purpose, especially as he had known Rosanna"s grandmother all her life, but he could not bring himself to do it and contented himself with sending two immense wax dolls and a huge box of candy to Rosanna"s house addressed to "The two girls who recently bound up my hand." Rosanna and Helen were quite embarra.s.sed, but Mrs.
Horton, who was immensely amused, told them that all that was necessary was a note of thanks, which they wrote and sent off in a great hurry.
They didn"t want to keep Mr. Harriman waiting. No one did. But he couldn"t find out anything about the Girl Scouts because the only persons he asked were the very persons who would never know anything much about anything that had to do with girls or good times or youth or happiness. He asked his old friends at the club, when he felt like talking at all, and so the time went on.
In the meantime, at a Scout meeting Rosanna found herself telling the girls all about Gwenny and the play and the plans for sending the poor little cripple to Cincinnati for the operation which might make her well. It was only _might_. Doctor MacLaren and the other doctors whom he had taken to see Gwenny would only say that it could be _tried_. And the great surgeon, Dr. Branshaw, had written Dr. MacLaren that as soon as the child was in a fit condition she could be brought to him and he would do what he could. He said nothing about the cost, Rosanna noticed, when she read his letter, so she could not tell the girls what the operation would cost. They were all as interested as they could be and promised to work as hard as they could selling tickets, and the ones who were chosen to take parts in the play were very happy about it. As a matter of fact, all of them were to come on the stage, for those who had no speaking parts came on and marched and so had a share in the glory.
And the way they learned their parts! They almost mastered them over night. Rehearsals went on, and the day was set for the entertainment.
There was a great deal of hammering up in Mrs. Hargrave"s barn. Mrs.
Hargrave and Miss Hooker and Uncle Robert spent a good deal of time up there, but they would not let anyone else in. Even Elise was barred out, and although she wrung her little hands and talked a funny mixture of French and English in her pretty coaxing way, not one of the three would relent and let her peek in. "Wait until it comes time for the dress rehearsals," was all they would say.
A week before the play, a big box came for Uncle Robert. He opened it in Rosanna"s room. It was full of tickets nicely printed on yellow pasteboard. Rosanna read them with rapture: the name of the play, _her_ play, and at the top in large print,
BENEFIT PERFORMANCE
"You have not said anything about what the performance is to be a benefit _for_." said Rosanna.
"That"s all right," said her uncle.
"And you have forgotten to say the price of the tickets," wailed Helen, who was again spending the night.
"Well," said Mr. Horton, "when I went to order those tickets for you, I had an idea. And it was this. I thought as long as this was a benefit performance, why not let it benefit everybody present?"
"How can it do that?" asked Rosanna.
"In this way," said Uncle Robert. "There will be all sorts of people there, because some of the Girl Scouts, Miss Hooker says, are very poor indeed, and some of them belong to families who have plenty of money. So Miss Hooker suggested a very good scheme. Tell the girls when they sell tickets to say that as it is a benefit and so forth and so forth, that the tickets are simply to let the people into the hall. As they go out they are to pay whatever they think it is worth, from five cents up."
"Perfectly splendid!" said Helen, catching the idea at once.
"I don"t know," answered Rosanna. "They will have seen the performance and suppose everybody will feel as though it is worth only a nickel?"
"Oh, they won"t feel like that at all, Rosanna," said Helen. "I think every single person will think it is worth a quarter. Think if they would all pay twenty-five cents!"
"I know several who expect to pay a dollar," said Uncle Robert.
"If they only will," cried Rosanna, almost sobbing, "Gwenny can go to Cincinnati this very winter! I think it is a good idea, Uncle Robert.
After all, it is a good thing that you did consult with Miss Hooker, even if it _has_ taken a lot of your time. I think you have been so kind."
"Oh, I haven"t minded," said Uncle Robert in a generous way.
"Why, you must have minded," went on Rosanna. "I have kept track all I could, because I was so much obliged to you, and you have been over there at Miss Hooker"s house consulting--well, you had to go over five nights last week, and Miss Hooker is always saying, "I had a telephone today from your uncle." You must be tired to death. I nearly told Miss Hooker so, but I thought it might sound rude."
"You are right about that, Rosanna; it would have been very rude indeed, excessively rude I may say," said Mr. Horton with some haste. "I can scarcely think of anything worse for you to say. My sainted Maria!"
"I didn"t say it," Rosanna a.s.sured him, "and the thing is so nearly over now, only a week more, that it really doesn"t matter."
"Not a particle!" said Mr. Horton. "But I wish you would promise me that you won"t say anything of the sort. Not that it matters, but I seem to feel nervous."
"Of course I will promise," agreed Rosanna. "I love Miss Hooker but of course I love you more, and I just do hate to have you bothered."
"It is mighty nice of you, sweetness, but you must not worry about me at all. Now to change the conversation, as the man said when he had nearly been hanged by mistake, you give these tickets out to your Girl Scouts and tell them to offer them to the people who would be most likely to give more than a nickel. It ought to be easy. They are to say that the benefit will cost them five cents or up as they leave the hall. With your permission, I will make a few remarks and tell them about Gwenny.
But we will not mention her by name, because if there should be a newspaper reporter lurking around he would put it in the papers and that would be very embarra.s.sing."
After Uncle Robert had gone out the girls made the tickets up in little bundles, one for each girl in the group. Their own they spread out on the table, planning how they would dispose of them.
"Whom shall you sell to first?" asked Helen.
"Mr. Harriman," said Rosanna quietly.
Helen dropped her tickets. "Dear _me_, Rosanna!" she cried. "I would be too afraid to offer him a ticket."
"_I_ am not," said Rosanna. "I would do more than that for Gwenny, and I am not afraid of him at all. Not even if he roars. And he has lots and lots of money. I shouldn"t wonder at all that he will be one of the dollar ones if he comes. And he has _got_ to come if I go after him."