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Title: Plain Jane and pretty Betty
The girl who won out
Author: May Hollis Barton
Release date: February 1, 2026 [eBook #77832]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Cupples & Leon Company, 1926
Credits: David Edwards, Dori Allard and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY ***
Transcriber’s Notes: Italicized text is surrounded by
underscores: _italics_. Bold text is surrounded by equal signs:
=bold=.
[Illustration: JANE’S EYES WERE FIXED WITH A FRIGHTENED LOOK ON BILLY.
_Plain Jane and Pretty Betty._ _Page 76_]
Plain Jane and
Pretty Betty
OR
The Girl Who Won Out
BY
MAY HOLLIS BARTON
AUTHOR OF “THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY,” “NELL
GRAYSON’S RANCHING DAYS,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Books for Girls
BY MAY HOLLIS BARTON
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY
Or Laura Mayford’s City Experiences
THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL
Or The Mystery of the School by the Lake
NELL GRAYSON’S RANCHING DAYS
Or A City Girl in the Great West
FOUR LITTLE WOMEN OF ROXBY
Or The Queer Old Lady Who Lost Her Way
PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY
Or The Girl Who Won Out
(_Other volumes in preparation._)
CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY
Made in the U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON THE MOVING VAN 1
II. A BAD SPILL 10
III. MAD MARION 19
IV. THE NEW HOME 24
V. JANE MEETS PRETTY BETTY 32
VI. INVENTIONS 39
VII. THE GREAT FIRE 46
VIII. BENEATH THE WRECKAGE 52
IX. DISASTER 57
X. SUSPECTED 66
XI. BILLY ANSWERS 73
XII. A GENEROUS THOUGHT 81
XIII. JANE LOOKS FOR WORK 89
XIV. A FIRST REFUSAL 96
XV. A TASTE OF SUCCESS 104
XVI. A BUSINESS DAY 112
XVII. BETTY MAKES HER CHOICE 120
XVIII. A DREADFUL DISCOVERY 128
XIX. A CHANGE OF EMPLOYERS 136
XX. BETTY COMES THROUGH 143
XXI. THE NEW HOME 153
XXII. BETTY IS JEALOUS 159
XXIII. JANE AND BILLY 167
XXIV. A SURPRISE 177
XXV. THE REVELATION 188
PLAIN JANE AND
PRETTY BETTY
CHAPTER I
ON THE MOVING VAN
“Here’s the moving van now!”
Jane Cross ran into the front room where Mrs. Powell was sitting
patiently on one of the many roped boxes that was to go with the load.
“It isn’t more than half an hour late, at that,” Jane added, as Mrs.
Powell looked up at her questioningly.
“Pretty good for a moving van,” said the latter, with a faint smile.
“Especially in Coal Run. Is it here?”
For answer, Jane pointed to the big van that had backed its yawning
doors close to the broken boardwalk that led from the road to the
Powell front porch.
Mrs. Powell got up with a gesture of weariness and went out to two
burly men who dropped from the van. Jane followed and remained on the
porch, watching.
Queer thoughts were running through Jane’s head, jubilant thoughts,
almost.
She was leaving Coal Run! That dirty, dreary little town the
population of which consisted to a great extent of miners with their
more or less dirty and stupid families.
Jane was not at home with these people, with the boys and girls who
attended the dingy schoolhouse on Cattle Creek. For some reason that
she could not fathom, the crude ways, the uncouth manners of the
inhabitants of the mining town offended and puzzled her.
Jane had fought against this inherent difference, this instinctive
shrinking. She had been brought up to believe that pride was sinful.
She believed this, and honestly tried to change herself since she
alone was odd among the children of Coal Run.
It was hard, though; and Jane Cross had succeeded but indifferently.
If one had asked her schoolmates, they would have said that she
succeeded not at all, would have given her no credit for a hard fight.
Meanwhile, they felt her difference and resented it.
No matter how poor her clothes, Jane was always neat, her hands and
face were scrubbed to a shining cleanliness, her bobbed brown hair
was brushed sleekly close to her small round head until it shone.
Though she was not homely, was even nice looking in a simple
unobtrusive way, the school children of Coal Run had retaliated by
calling her “Plain Jane,” jeering at her and taunting her in a way
that made the sensitive girl’s life miserable.
There was nothing that she could regret leaving behind in Coal Run
except, perhaps, the little house where she had lived contentedly
with Mrs. Cross for as long back as she could remember.
The latter had been a widow--this, too, for as long as Jane could
remember. Mr. Cross, a miner, had been killed in a mine explosion.
The company he had worked for had provided for his widow during her
lifetime and would have continued to provide for her if she had lived
twenty years longer.
But Mrs. Cross had died quietly one night in her sleep, and Jane
awoke to find herself alone in the world and--penniless.
Things might have gone very hard for the girl--then only ten--had it
not been for the prompt friendliness of Mr. and Mrs. Powell. This
plump and kindly couple took the heartbroken girl into their home,
and into their hearts as well, and from that time on treated her as
though she were their own.
Now Jane was sixteen, though looking and seeming younger by a year or
two, and misfortune had come to Mr. Powell. There was a merger and
a change of officers in the coal company for which Mr. Powell had
worked in their local office for years, with the result that Jane’s
benefactor presently found himself without a position and with only a
little money in the bank.
It was hard on him, a change like this coming late in life, and for
a time it seemed as though the blow had paralyzed him. He rallied
soon, emerging from his dazed state to find himself a position in the
thriving town of Greenville, forty miles from Coal Run.
It was a bookkeeper’s job that did not pay much that had been offered
him, but it was a raft to cling to until he could look about and
find something better. Mr. Powell accepted the post gratefully and
immediately made preparations for the removal of Mrs. Powell and Jane
to their future home.
Jane was not sorry to leave Coal Run. Greenville might prove little
better, but at least it would be a change from the mining town, and
youth is hopeful. Jane would try to be very pleasant and patient and
helpful in Greenville. She would truly try to make people like her.
The wounds inflicted by the thoughtlessly cruel children of Coal Run
went deeper than even Jane thought, and, unless quickly healed,
promised to leave scars that might gravely affect her future.
Even now she was shy, shrinking, super-sensitive, quick to see a
slight even where none was intended. It was good for her that she was
leaving Coal Run before the habit of thinking herself inferior became
a fixed obsession.
Now as she watched the moving-men and Mrs. Powell from the vantage
point of the porch she was surprised to see Mr. Powell descend from
the truck, his short legs dangling so far from the ground that he had
to jump to reach it.
Mr. Powell was so short and round and comfortable-looking generally
that few suspected him of possessing the temper of a lean six-footer.
This temper would blaze out at times, blasting all before it, only to
retire as suddenly as it had come, leaving Mr. Powell as bland and
round and smiling as ever. It was a righteous temper however, and
only flashed forth in a righteous cause. Therefore, people feared
it and were wont to treat its owner with a respect they might not
otherwise have accorded him.
Jane loved him, as indeed she loved both these kindly people, and
would have gone on hands and knees to serve either one of them.
Mr. Powell was not in a temper now, Jane was glad to see. In fact,
he appeared very much pleased with himself and was on exceedingly
friendly terms with both the burly moving-men.
“You see I came with them, to make sure they got here before night,
Lou,” the girl heard him call to Mrs. Powell. “And what’s more, I’m
going all the way to Greenville with them, to make sure of the same
thing.”
“What’s to become of Jane and me?” Mrs. Powell retorted.
“You will go on the train, of course,” returned her husband.
“Unless,” jokingly, “you’d like to ride on top of the van.”
It was then that Jane had her bold thought. How she dared put it
into words she never afterward could tell. But in a moment she found
herself running over the broken boards of the walk toward Mr. Powell.
“Oh!” she cried, “I don’t suppose you really would let me go with you
on the van?”
“Bless us!” cried Mr. Powell, appealing to the cheerfully grinning
moving-men to share the joke with him. “Jane has taken me seriously.
She really does want to ride on the top of the van.”
“Not on the top of the van,” Jane wheedled--and she knew just how to
do it, too, with those she loved. “In the front seat, or in the van,
or on the furniture itself--anywhere, so long as I can go with you.”
“Bless us!” said Mr. Powell again. “The child’s in earnest. After
all,” shaking his head and looking attentively at the moving-men,
“what’s to prevent?”
“Nothing, sir,” said one of the latter, grinning broadly. “I can sit
up behind with the load and there’s room for three on the front seat,
if the young lady wants to go along.”
Jane’s eyes began to dance. There was color in her usually pale face.
She looked appealingly at Mrs. Powell.
“Do you mind?” she asked. “Will it be very lonesome for you, going up
without me on the train?”
Mrs. Powell smiled reassuringly.
“I am so tired that I shall probably sleep all the way to Greenville,
anyway,” she said. “If it will be any pleasure to you, go along on
the truck, my dear child, by all means!”
So it was settled, and Jane waited impatiently while the furniture
was piled on the truck and securely fastened in at the back with
ropes.
This took only a short time, for the possessions of the Powells were
limited, and Jane was soon standing beside the truck, her hat and
coat on, waiting for one of the men to hand her to the high seat.
While she stood there, her eyes happened to turn up the road.
She became suddenly white and grasped at the arm of the man nearest
her.
“Oh, please!” she gasped. “Can’t we get away from here? Oh, I must
get away from here, in a hurry!”
Alarmed by her look and manner, the good-hearted fellow half lifted
Jane to the high seat and swung himself up after her.
“All set, Bill!” he called to his mate. “Mr. Powell, ready?”
At the words Mr. Powell himself appeared at the side of the truck and
swung himself up into the seat beside Jane. The girl huddled down
between the two men, her eyes fixed steadily on the road ahead of her.
As the engine of the truck turned over with a grumbling roar the
sound of children’s shrill voices raised tauntingly came from the
road behind them.
“Plain Jane! Plain Jane! Had to ride in the van! Couldn’t ride in the
train! Plain Jane! Plain Jane!”
Long after the voices had been drowned by distance and by the roaring
of the motor they rang in Jane’s ears, filled her eyes with tears and
her heart with an aching pain.
Oh, she was glad to leave Coal Run! Glad! Glad!
After a while the cool air on her face and Mr. Powell’s gently
tactful and very funny conversation soothed her and brought a faint
smile to her lips.
After all, she was a very lucky girl to have such dear, kind friends
as the Powells. And she was leaving Coal Run! Greenville could not be
worse. It might be much, much better.
A half-hour passed. Coal Run was left far behind when a sudden lurch
of the truck caused her to grip the seat with both hands. The driver
was taking a sharp curve on a rough, hilly road at a perilous rate of
speed, Jane thought. She wished he would not be quite so daring.
Then came a noise like the exploding of a cannon in her ears.
Jane cried out in terror as the truck lurched, then skidded
sickeningly across the road.
CHAPTER II
A BAD SPILL
If the tree had not been directly in the way a serious accident might
have been avoided.
But the tree was in the way. The driver wrenched at his wheel in an
effort to right the van and regain the road.
No use!
With a terrific impact van and tree came together, and Jane was
hurled from her seat. For an instant that seemed an eternity she felt
herself flying through the air, then came with a crash and a crackle
of broken twigs into a mass of bushes fifteen feet from the road.
She lay there dazed for a moment, the breath knocked out of her body.
She was almost afraid to try to move, for fear she would find she
could not do so.
It had been an accident, a pretty bad accident. She ought, by all
rights, she thought, to have been killed!
It was consideration for Mr. Powell and what might have happened to
him that made her decide to get up. This, she found, was by no means
an easy matter!
She seemed to be lying on a bed of thistles, and her slightest
gesture dug a sharp point deeper into her shrinking flesh. She was
becoming increasingly conscious that her body was all one dull ache.
Her nerves were jumping, and she had an absurd desire to cry.
Some one was breaking through the bushes behind her.
They were not all dead then! Some one had survived!
That some one was lifting her up from her uncomfortable couch, some
one who chuckled softly.
“Well, we’re all alive, anyway,” said the author of the chuckle as
he set Jane gently on her feet. “And, judgin’ from the sounds back
there, some of us are kickin’, too!”
Jane saw nothing to laugh about, or even chuckle over. She was sore
all over and her legs wabbled painfully. The thought came to her
that perhaps moving-men were used to knocking trees over with their
moving vans, and so did not take such incidents as seriously as more
ordinary people.
“Is--is--Mr. Powell--all right?” Jane asked tremulously. Her lips
would quiver.
“Yes, Miss. Hale and hearty as ever and in full possession of his
lungs, as you’ll hear if you listen quiet for a minute.”
Jane listened, and was inclined to believe that the moving-man was
right. Mr. Powell was evidently in one of his towering rages and was
giving the unfortunate driver of the truck full benefit of it.
Shakily, with the arm of the moving-man through hers, Jane made her
way back to the road.
She was not badly hurt. In fact, it seemed a miracle to her that none
of them was badly hurt. Except for a good many bruises, a severe
shaking up, and the shock, they seemed as good as ever!
The furniture appeared to have got the worst of it. Not new to start
with and showing an irritating tendency to fall apart even before
they had been loaded into the van, several of the chairs and other
articles of furniture belonging to the Powells had been rather
severely damaged.
It was this fact that Mr. Powell was pointing out to a bruised and
sheepish moving-man when Jane and her rescuer reappeared on the road.
“But I couldn’t help it if a tire burst,” the man pointed out, not
unreasonably. “That’s likely to happen to any one. We was on a hill
and I couldn’t keep the blamed thing from skiddin’.”
“Yes, that may be all very well! But why were going so fast on the
hill?” cried Mr. Powell, his point not unreasonable either. “I
thought you were going too fast and, if you will remember, I said so
several times.”
“It wouldn’t have made no difference,” the man persisted doggedly.
“When a tire busts a truck skids, and the heavier the truck the worse
the skid.”
“Then do you mean to tell me,” Mr. Powell rose on tiptoes and fairly
towered in his wrath over the taller man, “that you and your company
don’t hold yourself responsible for my broken furniture? Do you
mean to tell me that because a tire is likely to burst and cause an
accident, I will have to pay for the damages that result from that
accident? Do you mean to tell me----”
“I ain’t meanin’ to tell you anything!” the moving-man interrupted
belligerently. He was evidently a good-tempered, easy-going fellow,
but almost any one will lose his natural good temper if a wrathful
finger is shaken long enough beneath his nose. “It ain’t my business
to tell you anything! If you’ve got to fight any one, go fight the
company. I ain’t got nothing to say about it! Anyway----”
“No, but if I have anything to say about it, you’ll lose your job!”
cried Mr. Powell, his anger whetted by opposition. “When I do put in
a complaint to your company, I’ll tell them----”
“What will you tell ’em?” growled the moving-man, and moved a little
closer.
Here Jane thought it was time for her to take a hand in the
discussion. This she did literally, taking Mr. Powell’s hand that was
doubled into a belligerent fist and clinging to it resolutely.
“Please don’t, Uncle Dink,” she begged. Mr. Powell’s first name was
Dickinson, but every one called him “Dink” and it seemed, somehow, to
fit him.
Mr. Powell tried to take his hand away, but Jane still clung to it.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it, Uncle Dink----”
“Who said he meant it?” Mr. Powell pretended to growl at the girl,
but he was weakening. Jane followed up her advantage.
“It was an accident, Uncle Dink. I’m sure the company will make good
on any damage----”
“Sure, it will,” broke in the moving-man, for he was a peaceable
fellow when given half a chance. “It don’t want no dissatisfied
customers, and it’ll make good on all the damage. Although lot of the
makin’ good will come out of my pocket,” he added ruefully.
“And serve you right!” snapped Mr. Powell, still irate, though
softened. “Now if you’ll get busy and try to make up for lost time
I’ll be obliged to you. We’ve a long way to go and I’d like to reach
there before dark.”
“So would I,” growled the driver, with a doubtful glance at the van.
“The question right now is--will the old bus run?”
In the next few minutes that proved to be a very pertinent question
indeed! Something had been done to the engine of the “old bus” that
made it very doubtful if it would ever run again.
As the two men several times declared in the exasperating hour that
followed, they had been employed to move furniture, not to repair
engines.
“You’ve been employed to get me to Greenville this afternoon,” said
Mr. Powell irascibly. “How are you going to do it?”
The driver glared at the smaller man.
“If you could tell us that, you might save us a lot of trouble,” he
grumbled. “And now if you want to get to Greenville at all, you’d
better stop talking.”
Again Jane acted the part of peacemaker.
“If we could get some horses to tow us,” she suggested, “maybe we
could find some place where we could get help.”
“There ain’t no sech animal, Miss,” the second man assured her
gloomily. “As for horses, it would take about six to tow this load.
And where are we going to get ’em?”
Another question, and still unanswerable.
It seemed to Jane as time passed and the driver still tinkered
vainly with his engine that they might spend the night in that lonely
place.
Once one of the men suggested that the two passengers might walk on
to the railway station. It was only about a mile-and-a-half away, he
said, and Mr. Powell and the young girl could go on to Greenville,
leaving them to follow with the disabled van, as soon as they could.
This suggestion Mr. Powell would not listen to for a moment.
“I’ll stick with the furniture,” he said. “Though you can go, Jane,
if you like. I’ll take you to the station.”
But Jane was game and decided to stick, too.
It was about an hour after that that the engine gave a few puffs and
then turned over once or twice. This was at least more encouraging
than dead silence, and Jane began to view the efforts of the
moving-men with more hopefulness.
They finally managed to get the motor to running haltingly. Then the
damaged tire was replaced by a spare, and everybody climbed hastily
aboard, determined to make the best of their luck while it lasted.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten trip. The van stopped every quarter of
a mile or so, and every time it stopped Jane held her breath for fear
it would never start on again.
Mr. Powell did not hold his breath--nor his tongue. If Jane had not
been there to act as peacemaker, it is quite certain that “Uncle
Dink” and the driver of the truck would have come to blows at some
point along the road to Greenville.
When they finally reached the fringe of the town it was well after
dark. Jane was tired and ravenously hungry. Also she was disappointed
that her first acquaintance with their adopted town could not have
been made by daylight.
“If Lou has reached here before us I hope she had sense enough to go
to an inn or a hotel, or at least to a neighbor’s house,” said Mr.
Powell, voicing a thought that had been worrying Jane for some time.
“Kind of dreary going to an empty house and waiting and having no one
come. I suppose,” with a worried frown, “she’s had us killed some
dozen times already!”
They--or rather the van--limped through the streets of Greenville and
finally stopped in a street devoid of lights.
“Here we are, boss,” said the driver, flashing his electric torch on
an empty, dreary-looking little house set well back from the street.
“This is the address you gave me. Guess you might say we’re here!”
“And small thanks to you,” Mr. Powell would have added had not a
gentle squeeze of Jane’s hand reminded him that it was foolish to
irritate the fellow needlessly.
“Well, we’re lucky to get here at all--with whole necks, anyway,” he
said, descending with difficulty.
Jane tried to stand, and gave an involuntary cry of pain.
“I can’t find my feet,” she explained when Mr. Powell came around to
help her to the ground. “They’re asleep, I guess.”
“As the rest of you should have been long ago,” grumbled Mr. Powell.
In spite of his own sore stiff muscles, he half-lifted Jane down from
the high seat and set her gently on her feet.
“If you’ll make a light in the house, we’ll unload your stuff,”
suggested one of the men.
“I’m going to see where my wife is first,” said Mr. Powell in a
worried tone. “She couldn’t have got here or she would have had a
light going herself.”
He started up the walk toward the dark house when suddenly Jane
caught at his sleeve. A broad band of yellow light streamed from the
open door of the house next door.
“Look, Uncle Dink,” cried Jane. “Some one is calling to us!”
CHAPTER III
MAD MARION
Some one was certainly calling to the new arrivals. And that some
one proved, to their delighted surprise, to be none other than Mrs.
Powell herself!
The latter came halfway to meet them as they hurried across the lawn
toward the band of yellow light.
“Oh, I’m so relieved!” cried Mrs. Powell, as she hugged Jane and
threw her arms about her husband’s neck. “I have the key to the house
right here, Dink, if you want to let the moving-men in. The people
next door have been just lovely to me! You’d never guess how nice
they’ve been! But why, why have you been so long on the road?”
“I’ll tell you everything, my dear,” Mr. Powell promised, “as soon as
I get these men started to unloading the stuff. I suppose they are
hungry and tired as well as we,” he added in a kinder voice than he
had used during that whole wearisome, exasperating journey.
“Well, they must come in and get something to eat, too. No--no
refusals. I won’t take any. I positively insist!”
No one had noticed the approach of a light bobbing and blinking in
the hand of some one from the house next door.
Now every one turned, startled, to see an odd little person winking
and smiling in the fitful light of the lantern.
“This is our very kind neighbor,” said Mrs. Powell, referring to the
little old lady. “You’ve no idea how kind she is.”
“Not kind--only thoughtful once in a while,” said the queer person,
with an odd simpering laugh. “Here’s a light!” thrusting it abruptly
at Mr. Powell. “Hard to find one in a dark house at this time of
night. Might help to have a light!”
Mr. Powell was frankly staring at this odd apparition. His wife
brought him to his senses with a sharp dig of her elbow in his ribs.
“Take the light,” she ordered in a whisper for his ear alone. “Poor
thing’s a little touched in the head. Can’t you do anything but stand
there staring like a wooden soldier?”
Mr. Powell took the light with a stammered thanks and went into the
empty house with the moving-men, who had told the queer woman that
they would be expected in their own homes and, as much as they would
like to, could not eat with her.
This new abode in Greenville had been rented by the Powells, “sight
unseen.” Martin and Hull, wholesale grain dealers with whom Mr.
Powell had secured his position as bookkeeper through the kindly
intercession of a mutual friend, had suggested that they be allowed
to procure quarters for their new employee; some house within walking
distance of the company’s storehouses and one that could be procured
at a modest rental.
Mr. Powell had been glad to accept this suggestion, and the result
was this little house on a side street of the town of Greenville.
It would not look so dismal by daylight. They all knew that, and
as the moving-men began to growl about the difficulty of unloading
furniture at night, Mrs. Powell had a suggestion to make.
“Why not wait until morning to unload?” she said. “It will be so much
easier then.”
It was not hard to come to terms on this, since all were tired and
disgruntled and badly in need of food.
“If you will tell us of some hotel or boarding house in town where
we can put up for the night we will be very much obliged,” said Mr.
Powell to the odd little person from next door (the moving-men had
already departed gladly toward the center of town and a hot dinner).
“We can’t very well sleep without beds and we are badly in need of
refreshment.”
“And you can have both by coming next door,” said the queer person,
bobbing and smiling. “Dinner is hot on the stove. I believe you can
smell it from here. As for beds,” with another bob and another smile,
“we have plenty of beds, a great many beds. Yes, indeed, plenty.”
Still mumbling a little to herself and bobbing and smiling, she
preceded them over the small patch of lawn toward the light that
streamed from the still-open door.
Mr. Powell hesitated and glanced sharply at his wife. Even Jane hung
back a little.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Powell explained in a quick, hurried whisper.
“She has a nice sister. The sister told me all about this poor thing.
She is really as harmless as a kitten and never happy unless she is
doing something for somebody. Come along, do! Don’t hold back or
you’ll hurt her feelings!”
Mr. Powell no longer held back, though it was evident he was
unconvinced. With a great deal of curiosity Jane accompanied her two
kind friends to the open door of the house next door.
“Mad Marion,” for so the poor, afflicted little woman was known to
the people of Greenville, waved them gleefully into a warm brightly
lighted room.
It was a large room, and seemed to combine sitting room, dining room,
and kitchen. It ran along the front of a house that was as queer as
the sisters who lived in it.
Afterward Jane was to learn that, back of this
kitchen-dining-room-living-room were a series of some five or six
rooms strung out in a row and connected by doors and tiny, odd
flights of stairs that seemed to have no use or purpose other than to
provide stumbling blocks for the unwary visitor.
At the moment, sight of that one large room was enough for the
bruised and weary travelers.
A large table in the center of the room was neatly set for two. A
woman bent over a stove, stirring a savory mixture in a large pot.
At the sound of movement in the doorway the latter turned.
“Bring them in, Marion,” she said in a harsh, strident voice that
made Jane jump. “What are you waiting for?”
CHAPTER IV
THE NEW HOME
The sisters were certainly the oddest pair that Jane had ever
seen--these two who were to be their near neighbors while Jane and
the Powells lived in Greenville.
Lydia, the elder of the two, was as different from her poor
half-demented sister as it was possible for any one to be.
Lydia was tall, built on heroic lines with a breadth of shoulder
amazing in a woman. She had a face that matched the rest of her,
large featured, rugged, with a mouth that seldom smiled. When Lydia
Terrin did smile, Jane was reminded of a sunbeam shining for a
transient moment on a slab of jagged granite. The smile never lighted
up her features, but lingered for a moment and then vanished, leaving
one to wonder if she had really smiled at all.
Such was the woman who faced the weary travelers now over a pot of
savory beef stew.
She did not smile. Her manner was almost forbidding. But the gesture
of her long wooden spoon toward the table was unmistakable.
“Sit down,” she said. “We have been waiting for you as one pig waits
for another. I hope you will like the stew, though it is not as good
as the pot we made last week. Do you think so, Marion?”
“Mad Marion,” who had been pulling out the chairs of her guests,
bowing and smiling all the time in a truly remarkable manner, started
at the abrupt question. She looked bewildered, Jane thought, and a
little frightened.
“Certainly, my dear! I mean certainly not!” cried the poor creature.
“Oh dear, I’m not sure what I mean!”
“Don’t act so silly,” retorted sister Lydia sternly. “The trouble
with you, Marion, is that you talk too much!”
Jane had an hysterical desire to giggle. She checked the desire since
to have laughed at that moment would have been neither polite nor
kind.
As she sank into a chair and allowed the “granite sister,” as she
ever afterward called Lydia Terrin in her thoughts, fill a great
plate with the steaming savory stew, Jane felt like Alice in her
famous adventures in Wonderland.
“The poor little crazy sister could be the Mad Hatter,” she thought,
as she accepted and buttered a slice of delicious bread. “And the
other--well I don’t know who she’d be unless it was the Duchess who
had a baby that turned into a pig. Oh, dear, maybe I’m crazy too!”
However, no eccentricities of the Terrin sisters could make that meal
any other than a delicious, wonderfully satisfactory one.
“Guess I had better go to bed, if you’ll show me where I am to
sleep,” Jane said, almost as soon as the meal was over and struggling
to keep her heavy eyes open, and in a few minutes more was ushered to
a room.
It did not take her long to undress, and then she slipped in between
the caressing sheets of a bed as soft as the fleeciest cloud and
breathed a deep sigh of utter weariness.
Then came morning, with a hot sun streaming in at her windows.
Jane’s first impulse was to jump up quickly and dress. She would be
late for school!
Then came the swift realization that there would be no school this
morning. They had left Coal Run, its dirt and confusion and misery
behind them. This was Greenville, and though it might not be better
than the mining town, it might be kinder.
She winced at the memory of her departure from Coal Run--of the
children running down the road and calling after her tauntingly.
There was a stir in the room. Jane turned over quickly and saw poor
Marion bobbing and smiling in the doorway.
“Breakfast’s ready. Oh, dear, yes! Been ready for some time.”
Jane jumped up, confused and sorry. She winced at the sudden action
and felt tentatively her stiff muscles. She had forgotten the
accident of yesterday and that she must expect to be lame and sore
for some time to come.
“Oh, I’m sorry to have been so lazy,” she apologized, as the little
woman continued to bob and smile in the doorway. “What must you think
of me, coming here and sleeping so late?”
“Perfectly all right, my dear--perfectly. Tired out after yesterday.
Yes, yes! Natural! Youth must be served!”
“Marion!” cried Lydia sternly from the kitchen. “Come out here! You
talk too much!”
Poor Marion disappearing on the instant, Jane looked with wonder
about the bare little room with its comfortable bed.
Who were these queer, eccentric women who kept house all alone, who
seemed, by the furnishings of their house and the clothes they wore,
to be very poor, and yet who were so hospitable to strangers?
She pondered the question as she dressed slowly and painfully.
There were purple bruises all over her and every joint and muscle
protested as she moved.
“I’d better rub something on me or I won’t be of any use at all,” she
thought ruefully.
In a few moments she had done all she could toward making herself
presentable. Her clothes were torn from the accident of the previous
day, and though she wore a comb in her sleek bobbed hair, there was
no brush to smooth it to its usual plain neatness.
She felt uncomfortable and unlike her usual clean, neat self when she
entered the large cozy front room of the Terrin sisters.
A delicious, plentiful breakfast served from the stove by Lydia
helped to raise her spirits, and her heart warmed more than ever
toward these two hospitable people.
Mr. and Mrs. Powell had breakfasted long before, Lydia told Jane,
while Marion nodded and beamed at her from a chair across the table.
Jane could see from the window that the moving-men had returned and
were unloading the furniture. Instantly she was impatient to be
off and help Mrs. Powell with the hundred and one tasks she knew
confronted her.
She finished a cup of hot chocolate and her second egg in hurried,
grateful gulps, then pushed back her chair.
“You’ve both been awfully good,” she said, looking from Marion to her
sister. “When we get settled you must come over and have dinner with
us. I must run and help Mrs. Powell now.”
When she was gone both eccentric sisters stared after her for a
moment.
“Old-fashioned little thing,” said Lydia, as she jerked a plate from
the table and set it in the sink. “Plain but capable. I’ll bet my
life she’s capable.”
“Oh, yes, by all means, very. Surely,” murmured Marion. She was
muttering on vaguely when a stern glance from her sister sent her
into deep confusion.
“You talk too much, Marion,” said Lydia. “Come, help me with the
dishes.”
Next door at the house that had seemed so dreary the night before
Jane found everything bustle and confusion and--sunshine. As she went
from room to room Jane’s heart warmed to this sunniness, for there
was scarcely a spot in the little house that did not receive a share
of it. She wondered how she could ever have thought it dreary!
When she asked harassed, dust-grimed Mrs. Powell to set her to work,
that lady confronted her with a list of things she needed from the
general store.
“You will help me more by doing the shopping than in any other way,
Jane. Why,” with a dramatic gesture of the hand, “I haven’t a thing
to clean with, even.”
Jane smiled, for this indeed was tragedy to Mrs. Powell. She took the
list and pledged herself to secure the articles on it. One of the
moving men, a resident of Greenville, took it upon himself to direct
her to “the best store in town.”
“You go down two short blocks,” he said, indicating the direction
with the wave of a dirty, stubby forefinger. “Then you turn to your
left and go up two long blocks until you come to the foot of Rose
Hill, where all the swells live. There you’ll find Mason’s general
store and you can get everything at Mason’s from canned soup to fish
hooks.”
Jane thanked him and set out, glad to be free of the noise and
confusion for a little while and have a look at the town from which
she hoped so much.
Nor did Greenville disappoint her. It was as different from Coal
Run as night is from day. Where in Coal Run were squalor, dirt,
disorder; here was neatness, cleanliness, beauty. Greenville was a
thriving town, and showed it. Its inhabitants shared in the general
prosperity, and showed that too. The plainest little house was
freshly painted and displayed its patch of carefully tended garden.
There was a poorer section in Greenville over beyond the railroad
tracks, but Jane did not know this until some time later.
As she proceeded toward the center of town the girl’s delight grew.
Here the houses became more pretentious until, at the foot of Rose
Hill Jane could look up at handsome houses that seemed palatial to
the dazzled eyes of the girl from Coal Run.
There was a store at hand, and a sign proclaimed it as Mason’s. This
was the store, thought Jane, where one could get everything from
“canned soup to fish hooks.”
Jane suddenly remembered her torn dress, her dusty shoes, her
unbrushed hair. Mason’s was so immaculate that she hated to enter it
as she was. Still, Mrs. Powell needed those things----
She marched resolutely to the door of the store and pulled it open.
There was a gasp and a protest in a high, petulant, very pretty
feminine voice.
“Oh, how stupid! You have made me drop my package!”
CHAPTER V
JANE MEETS PRETTY BETTY
The owner of the petulant voice was the most beautiful being Jane had
ever seen; she was quite sure of that.
This was a girl of about her own age, perhaps a little older. It was
hard for Jane to judge, dazzled as she was by the magnificence of the
girl.
The latter was dressed in sheer, rose-colored organdy that set off
the heavenly blue of her eyes and made them appear a deep violet. She
wore white shoes and stockings and no hat whatever on her head. Her
hair was thick and curling and the color of imprisoned sunshine.
Jane had never seen anything so lovely as this girl, and for a moment
she could only stand in helpless admiration.
But the eyes of the pretty girl did not return this admiration. Oh,
dear, no! They stared angrily at Jane and the pretty lips were caught
for a moment in a very unlovely droop.
“Stupid!” the girl muttered again angrily.
Jane saw what she had done. In opening the store door so abruptly she
had evidently jerked the door knob from the hand of the girl in the
pretty frock, causing her to drop her bundle.
With a murmured apology, Jane stooped now, picked up the package, and
handed it to the other girl.
“I’m awfully sorry,” she said. “I did not know you were just coming
out.”
The pretty fair-haired girl accepted the package without comment.
She seemed to think the service unworthy even of a “thank you,” and
without another word stepped daintily from the store and out into the
sunshine, leaving Jane to stare after her with a hurt, questioning
look on her face.
“I would at least have said ‘thank you,’” she thought. “If people are
going to be as unkind to me here in Greenville as they were in Coal
Run, then I--I--don’t know what I shall do!”
The hurt, miserable tears of angry humiliation were in her eyes as
she turned back into the store.
It happened that Billy Dobson was behind the counter at that moment
and it happened also that Billy Dobson had witnessed the encounter
between the two girls. He was sorry for the plain, poor girl, and his
humorous eyes proclaimed his sympathy.
“Polite, wasn’t she?” he commented as Jane slowly approached the
counter. “But then, if you live in Greenville long you’ll find that
the Rose Hillites don’t think they need politeness like common
folks.”
“Rose Hillites?” repeated Jane, as she spread Mrs. Powell’s long list
out on the counter.
“Folks that live on Rose Hill--swell folks,” Billy elucidated as he
cast an experienced eye over the list. “They have plenty of money and
put on a lot of dog and don’t notice folks that haven’t a French car
and a tiled bathroom--or six or eight of ’em! Let’s see, you want
five bars of laundry soap----”
There was no one else in the store, and Jane’s mind was still filled
with the vision of the beautiful girl with sulky eyes who had not
thought it worth her while to be polite to one less fortunate than
herself. She could not resist the temptation to question this
good-looking, amiable young man who offered her sympathy and seemed
to share her resentment.
“Does she,” with a little jerk of her head toward the door, “live on
Rose Hill?”
“Betty Browning? I’ll say she does! The Brownings are the swellest
of the swell. They have the biggest house, the biggest car, and the
worst manners. That goes for Miss Betty and her mother. The old man’s
all right, though. A pretty good sport.”
“The old man?” Jane prompted.
Billy had made a neat pile of the articles on Mrs. Powell’s order.
Now he wrapped them in a piece of stout paper and bound them about
with twine, skilfully inserting a handle in the top of the bundle.
“By the old man I mean Mr. Browning.” Billy grinned good-naturedly
at her. “He’s all right, nice to everybody in town. I bet if he’d
seen Betty hand you that haughty stare this morning he’d have wanted
to spank her. He wouldn’t have done it, though,” he added, with a
chuckle. “Miss Betty and her mother have pretty much everything to
say in their house, I shouldn’t wonder! Say, now, this bundle’s
pretty heavy,” he added, as Jane lifted the package from the counter
and her young shoulder sagged under the weight of it. “If there was
any one else in the store I’d walk home with you and carry it.”
Jane smiled and shook her head.
“That’s nice of you,” she said. “But I don’t live far and--and I’m
used to heavy bundles.”
Despite the attempted lightness of her tone there was a quaver in her
voice as she said this that made good-natured Billy Dobson spring to
the door and hold it open for her.
“You’re new in town, aren’t you?” he asked, as she smiled her thanks.
“Yes,” returned Jane. “We just came last night.”
“Hope to see you again, then,” said Billy, with his cheerful grin.
“Deal at Mason’s. Best store in town. We carry a full line of
merchandise and will cheerfully refund money on all articles not
meeting with your entire, complete, and unqualified approval!”
“Sounds good,” admitted Jane, smiling at his nonsense. “I’ll be
back--probably this afternoon.”
But once away from Mason’s and Billy Dobson’s cheerful smile,
Jane’s spirits drooped. The first person she had met in
Greenville--excepting her eccentric next door neighbors, of
course--had treated her with disdain, as some one not even important
enough to merit ordinary politeness.
What was it about her that made people treat her so? she wondered.
Was it her plain clothes or her plain face or something, perhaps,
inherently lacking in her make-up?
Jane longed for a chance to make something of herself, to prove to
disdainful, pretty Betty Browning that even Plain Jane Cross was
worth a little notice!
“I have a fine chance of that,” Jane thought, laughing bitterly at
herself. “I suppose if I live in Greenville all the rest of my life
Betty Browning will not even know that I am here!”
Having arrived at the little house where everything was still in an
appalling state of confusion, Jane tried to forget the unpleasant
incident of the morning by throwing herself with feverish energy into
the work of getting settled.
They really did accomplish wonders, and as the shadows of the long
afternoon began to lengthen into dusk, Mrs. Powell was able to
announce that “by this time to-morrow afternoon we’ll be able to live
in the place, anyway.”
They had found in unloading the furniture that fewer objects had been
damaged by the smash the day before than they had feared. A rocker
was off one chair, the whole side of another was staved in, and some
of the smaller pieces of furniture were rather severely scratched.
But aside from that the damage was negligible.
Mr. Powell, recovering his good temper, had told the moving-men
before he started for his new place of business that morning that he
would say nothing concerning the accident. Such a complaint might
lose the men their jobs, whereas he himself would be able to repair
the damage done to the furniture.
This was a relief to all concerned and to Jane in particular. She had
liked the good-natured driver of the moving van and the man who had
picked her out of the bushes after the accident, and was reluctant to
see them punished for what really might have happened to any one.
At noontime Marion came bobbing and smiling in, carrying a tray
heaped with sandwiches. She set this down on a table and vanished to
return almost immediately with a teapot and three cups.
Jane hugged the poor little woman, for she was becoming very fond of
these kindly, eccentric next-door neighbors, and she and Mrs. Powell
sat down gratefully to the appetizing lunch, not waiting for Mr.
Powell, who came in later.
“There are kind people in Greenville,” Jane thought, as she tried
valiantly to banish the unpleasant memory of the morning. “There are
these neighbors; there is the pleasant clerk behind the counter at
Mason’s!”
And yet--there was Betty Browning, pretty Betty Browning who had not
noticed plain Jane Cross except to call her stupid!
“I’m not stupid!” thought Jane, in a sudden rush of hot anger. “And
some day I’ll show Betty Browning that I’m not, that I’m worth
knowing and speaking to politely, even if I am ‘plain Jane.’”
CHAPTER VI
INVENTIONS
The settling down in Greenville of the Powell family, lately of Coal
Run, was very easy and pleasant.
The little house on the side street was as cozy and comfortable as
Mrs. Powell’s energy and Jane’s helpful hands could make it.
There were only five rooms, but these were sufficient for the needs
of the small family.
The front room was small, but once dressed with Mrs. Powell’s mission
furniture, red tablecover, cushions and rugs, with immaculate muslin
curtains covering no less immaculate windows, the room was very
homelike and pleasant.
Back of the sitting room was the dining room. Though the furniture
in it was more or less rickety--containing the staved-in chair and
the one-rockered rocker which Mr. Powell had not yet had time to
fix--this room, like the other, had a cozy, pleasant air.
Rents in the brown rug had been patiently mended by Mrs. Powell
before the moving, and now pieces of furniture were placed in such
a way as to cover the most conspicuous patches. It was a nice room,
and there was hardly any time in the day when it was not flooded with
sunshine.
Back of the dining room was the kitchen--a small kitchen for a
country house but all the better for that.
Mrs. Powell had scrubbed the dingy paint until it shone. Even then,
though the walls were a cheerful cream-color, the woodwork was a dull
brown that gave a gloomy tone to the room.
One day, after a short excursion into the town, Jane appeared with a
can of paint and a new paint brush.
She smiled when Mrs. Powell stared at her.
“I thought I’d give the wood in the kitchen a coat of cream-colored
paint,” she said. “Do you mind?”
“Mind!” cried the older woman delightedly. “Why, it’ll be just the
thing! But take care you don’t tire yourself out, Jane Cross,” she
added warningly. “There’s more work in that kitchen than you think
for, most likely.”
But Jane to whom a can of paint, a paint brush, and something to
paint were an unmitigated joy, set to work with a will on the kitchen
woodwork.
The result was more delightful than even she had dared to hope. Not
only the woodwork of the little kitchen but the kitchen table and the
chairs as well, blossomed out in two coats of ivory paint that was a
joy to behold.
“They look just as good as new!” Mrs. Powell exclaimed, as she
and Jane hung yellow curtains at the window. These last had been
an inspiration of Jane’s as well, and with the sunlight streaming
through them, they made the kitchen indescribably pretty and cheerful.
“I declare, Jane Cross, you’re a wonder!”
The transformation of the kitchen was complete and Mrs. Powell
surveyed the pleasant result, one arm about Jane. She turned
and regarded the girl’s face steadily and affectionately for a
moment, marked the clear steady purpose of the eyes, the streak of
ivory-colored paint at the corner of her mouth--a mouth too wide for
beauty--and suddenly Mrs. Powell smiled.
“You’re the kind of girl, Jane Cross,” she said, “that does
everything well that she wants to. You’re a sweet child and a great
comfort to me. Now run along and get that streak of paint off your
face!”
Upstairs were two bedrooms. One thought, looking at the two rooms,
that the builder when planning the house might well have spared a
slice of the larger room to add to the smaller and so arranged his
space in a more impartial manner.
As it was, the big room was very, very big--like the little girl with
the curl--and the small room, if not exactly horrid, was certainly
very small.
The small room, of course, was turned over to Jane, and she did the
best she could with it. Her single iron bed took up an alarming
amount of space. She had just room to squeeze a tiny table and a
chair in beside it and leave space enough at the foot of the bed for
the dresser.
The builder had been unfair in the matter of windows, too.
While the front room had four of these--rather a superfluous number
one would think--Jane’s room had only one, and that not in the best
position to catch the sun. For the greater part of the day the room
was gloomy, and Jane seldom visited it except to go to bed.
She thought of Betty Browning in the richest, most palatial house on
Rose Hill and wondered what her room was like. She would have liked
just once to have been allowed to look inside it.
Meanwhile, Mr. Powell became enthusiastic about his new position with
Martin and Hull.
“They’re old men, but square shooters, both of them!” he exclaimed.
“I like ’em and if I have luck I may be able to rise before long to
a much better position than I have now. It may be the luckiest thing
that ever happened to us that we had to leave Coal Run.”
Jane thought so too. She could have been quite happy in her new
environment had it not been for her meeting with Betty Browning and
that pretty girl’s insolent, disdainful attitude toward her.
Meanwhile, Jane became friendly with Billy Dobson, the grocer’s
clerk. She found out that he was not an ordinary grocer’s clerk at
all, and this is how it happened:
About a week after her arrival with the Powells at Greenville Jane
was on her usual round of marketing--Mrs. Powell declared that she
could trust Jane to pick out a chicken or any other kind of fowl,
fish, or meat, far more readily than she could trust herself!--and,
with a large bundle already in her arms, entered Mason’s store to
complete her purchases.
A loud guffaw of laughter greeted her entrance, and Jane thought
sensitively that some one was laughing at her. But she saw her
mistake almost instantly.
It was Billy Dobson who was being laughed at, and by the jovial owner
of the store himself, large, fat, jolly Mr. Mason.
Billy, Jane thought, looked as though he disliked being laughed at.
The young fellow’s usual cheerful grin was absent and he scowled at
his employer.
“You can laugh all right,” Billy retorted, anger in his voice. “All
the inventors that ever lived have had to be laughed at by people
that couldn’t understand their inventions.”
“Go on, my boy, I don’t mean to make you mad.” Mr. Mason laid a
kindly hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Maybe you have got a good idea, I
don’t know. But you take your inventions so seriously that sometimes
it strikes me funny.”
“It’s only one invention,” said Billy, irritably rubbing the back of
his head. “And I must say it never struck me as funny.”
Here Billy espied Jane and his face smoothed to its usual expression
as he took her order.
Jane had an opportunity to speak to him while Mr. Mason was taking
care of another customer.
“I didn’t know you invented things,” she said. “I think it’s
wonderful!”
Billy’s face brightened and he looked at Jane with increased
interest. Here was a girl who was evidently as sensible as she
looked! He pretended modesty.
“I wish I could find some one else who would think it’s
wonderful--some one with stacks of money.”
“You probably will,” said Jane, and added innocently: “Inventors have
to, don’t they?”
“They do,” said Billy, looking suddenly grim and quite old, Jane
thought, much older than he really was. “And that, let me tell you,
is the hard part of inventing--not the invention itself.”
Jane thought about Billy a great deal after that. Billy was an
inventor, one of those wonderful beings to whom ordinary people could
only look up with awe and wonder. Suppose Billy should be lucky
and make a fortune from his invention? Wonderful! After that Billy
Dobson, the grocer’s clerk, carried about with him an aura of romance
which, in Jane’s mind at least, set him apart from the crowd as a
wonderful and superior being.
“Maybe some day I can say ‘I knew him when he was only a grocer’s
clerk,’” she thought, and thrilled to the thought.
It was not so very long after this remarkable discovery that Jane was
awakened one night by a strange light in her room. The red glow came
through her one window and danced eerily on the walls.
Jane sprang from the bed, her heart in her mouth.
“Fire!” she cried, unaware that she had spoken the word aloud.
CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT FIRE
A startled exclamation came from the front room. A moment later Mr.
Powell, wrapped in a bathrobe, stumbled sleepily into Jane’s room.
Jane could see Mrs. Powell’s face peering at her, white and startled,
over her husband’s shoulder.
Jane pointed with unsteady hand at the dancing red light on the wall.
“Fire!” she cried again, in a breathless voice. “It must be a
terrible one!”
Mr. Powell flung himself across the room to peer from the window. At
the same moment the hideous shriek of a siren rent the air.
“The fire department is on the job,” muttered Mr. Powell. “It’s a
regular blaze, all right! Look at that sky!”
“Is it near by, Dink?” Mrs. Powell’s teeth chattered with excitement.
“Can you see where it is?”
Jane had ducked beneath Mr. Powell’s arm and was staring out with
dilated eyes at the sky that was stained bright red.
“Maybe it’s the grocery store!” she cried. “Oh, I do hope Billy
Dobson doesn’t keep his invention there!”
With an exclamation of anxiety and dread Mr. Powell jerked himself
from the window and started to leave the room. His wife caught him by
the arm.
“Where do you think it is?” she cried.
“Seems to be right in the center of town,” returned her husband. “I’m
worried about Martin and Hull!”
“Oh!” cried Jane, following out into the hall. “Do you think it’s the
feed and grain place?”
“I think it is!” replied Mr. Powell, as he flung into his room. “But
you can bet I’m going to find out! I’ve got some papers in my desk
that I’m going after, if it is!”
In a short time he came out of the room again fully dressed and Jane
heard him clatter down the stairs.
“Don’t bother to dress,” he called up to his wife. “The fire will
probably be out soon and not much damage done. I’ll be home as soon
as I can.” The door slammed behind him.
All this time Jane had been standing at her window looking out,
fascinated by the illuminated sky. Now she heard a noise in the
doorway and turned sharply.
Mrs. Powell was there.
“I’m going out, Jane,” said the older woman in a strained voice. “I’m
dreadfully worried. If it really is Martin and Hull’s, nobody--police
nor fireman--can keep Dink from rushing in for those papers.”
“Wait a minute and I’ll be with you,” Jane cried.
It never took long for Jane to dress. This time it did not take as
long as usual. She flung on her clothes and ran down the stairs
two at a time just after Mrs. Powell had opened the front door and
stepped into the street.
Other people had been alarmed by the red glow in the sky and by the
wailing siren of Greenville’s fire department.
Mad Marion and her sister Lydia joined Mrs. Powell and Jane almost
immediately. The former was in a pitiful state of excitement and
alarm while the “granite sister” appeared entirely unmoved. Lydia
scarcely spoke except to tell Marion not “to talk so much.”
People began to straggle from the houses, looking sleepy and
frightened.
A large fire in Greenville might easily prove a serious thing.
The small fire department was probably inadequate to cope with
anything but small unimportant fires. And to make things worse, a
brisk breeze had sprung up--a breeze that might whip the flames from
house to house, perhaps destroying the entire town.
Such was the anxious prophecy that fell in fragmentary sentences from
the lips of passersby--people who were running toward the fire.
Mrs. Powell and Jane started to run, too, caught in the general
hysteria.
Jane clutched at the arm of a man who seemed to have come from the
scene of the fire and whose face was grave and anxious.
“What is it?” cried the girl. “Is it the grocery store?”
The man shook his head.
“Feed and grain place--Martin and Hull’s,” he replied briefly.
“Better keep away from there, girl. The walls are apt to cave in any
minute, and then some one may get hurt!”
Mrs. Powell gave a cry that was very terrible to Jane’s ears.
“He’s in there! He’s in there, fighting that fire! I knew it!” Mrs.
Powell muttered, as she took Jane’s arm and hurried her along. “Oh,
what shall I do? What shall I do?”
“He won’t get hurt. Uncle Dink won’t get hurt!” Jane’s teeth were
chattering so that she could scarcely force the words between them.
“P--probably the man doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Oh, please
don’t look that way, Aunt Lou! Please d--don’t!”
“Hurry, Jane! Hurry!” Mrs. Powell’s grip upon the girl’s arm was
almost painful. She broke into a swift run. “We may be too late!”
Other people were running, other faces were lined and anxious, but
Mrs. Powell did not seem to notice them.
At the next corner she stopped short and her voice rose almost to a
shriek as she pointed ahead of them.
“Look! It _is_ the feed and grain place! Oh, Dink, Dink, where are
you?”
It was a magnificent spectacle for any one who could enjoy it.
The granaries of Martin and Hull were one mass of flame, shooting
skyward. Showers of sparks and burning brands fell on the roofs of
buildings near by only to hiss and go out on timbers watered by the
fire-fighters.
Against the flaming background black figures crawled or ran,
pigmy-like, against the unleashed giant they were fighting. It seemed
an unfair battle with only one result possible.
Before Jane could stop her Mrs. Powell broke away and ran toward the
burning buildings. The heat almost blistered her face, but she did
not stop until a fireman caught her and pushed her backward.
“Can’t go any nearer, lady,” said the man, looking pityingly at her
haggard face. “You’ve got to get back. Do you walk or will I have to
carry you? Say which, quick I ain’t got no time to waste!”
“My husband!” gasped Mrs. Powell. “He’s in there! I’ve got to get to
him----”
There was a wild shout. People began running backward.
The burning wall of the building nearest the street swayed for an
awful second; then, like the wall of a card house, toppled to the
street.
A wild wailing sound that was horrible to hear rose from the
spectators.
CHAPTER VIII
BENEATH THE WRECKAGE
“There are men under those burning walls!” some one yelled, hoarse
with horror. “I saw them! They couldn’t get quite clear!”
Mrs. Powell reeled, a hand across her eyes.
She found Jane’s arm about her, Jane’s reassuring voice in her ear.
“It isn’t Uncle Dink! I know it isn’t! Oh, help me some one!
She’s--she’s fainted!”
Many willing, kindly hands came to Jane’s aid and helped carry Mrs.
Powell into a shoe store near by. Her temporary faintness was perhaps
a good thing for both Mrs. Powell and Jane, since they were saved the
harrowing sight of the frenzied rescue work that followed.
Men rushed to the scene of the calamity, carrying axes, saws, any
implement with which they could hope to cut away the timbers that
held the imprisoned men.
The thick stream from the hose of the fire department was turned upon
this spot, and here the flames were quickly conquered. The men who
had been caught beneath this outer edge of the falling wall would not
be burned to death. It remained to be seen how badly they had been
crushed by the weight of the débris.
“Here they are, Bill,” one of the firemen cried. “Just give me a
hand, will you, with this board? Ataboy! Heave away, now!”
Several others came to the aid of these two, and, with the push of
broad backs beneath it, the board heaved and gave back, carrying
with it other timbers that had been either partly or wholly leaning
against it.
At the moment a figure came flying toward them, the figure of a woman.
She was a wild apparition, her staring eyes and wild disordered hair
redly illumined by the darting flames of the burning building.
At her elbow, holding her arm, vainly trying to comfort her, was a
young girl.
“My husband!” cried the woman. “Where is he? Have you found him yet?”
One of the men held her off kindly but firmly, while the others went
feverishly on with the work of rescue.
“Don’t come any closer, ma’am,” said the man who was holding poor
frenzied Mrs. Powell. “You can’t do anything and you’ll only get in
the way. If I was you,” he added after a moment when the shouts of
the rescuers and their increased activity proclaimed that they had
found one of the victims, “I’d look the other way.”
“My husband!” muttered Mrs. Powell, and to save her life she could
not have taken her eyes from that awful scene. “Have they found him?
Is he dead? Oh, let me go!”
“Please, please look away,” cried Jane, scarcely knowing what she
said. “Oh, if we could only have kept you in that shop a little while
longer! If you had only stayed there! If you would only come away
now!”
Mrs. Powell took no more notice of her than if she had not spoken.
She started forward suddenly with a wild cry.
They had taken somebody from the wreck--were carrying him away.
The man who was holding her drew her back.
“If your name’s Powell, that ain’t your man,” he said. “Don’t look.”
Mrs. Powell was moaning now like an animal in pain.
Jane, agonized, took the cold hand in one of hers and pressed it to
her face.
The expression of the older woman did not change. She continued to
stare at the mass of wreckage where men worked, hacking, lifting,
smashing, striving desperately to save the lives of the two men they
thought were still imprisoned there.
Again they lifted something from the wreckage, and again Mrs. Powell
started forward.
“Not yet, ma’am,” said the man at her side. “That ain’t your husband.
Probably ain’t here at all,” he said in a voice he tried to make
reassuringly matter-of-fact. “Probably out there in the crowd lookin’
for you, or maybe he’s home now, wondering where you’re at.”
Mrs. Powell took no more notice of him than she had of Jane.
“There’s another one under here, boys,” she heard one of the rescue
workers say. “But I don’t think he’s hurt bad. Seems like a lot of
those timbers have jammed and made a sort of shed over him. We’ve got
to watch out we don’t loosen one of them and let the whole thing down
on him.”
After that the men worked swiftly and silently while Jane held tight
to Mrs. Powell’s hand, trembling, and the woman herself stared
straight before her, uttering that queer heartbroken sound that Jane
was to hear in imagination many times afterward.
“Here he is!” cried a voice suddenly. “And it’s like I said. He ain’t
scarcely hurt!”
“Only my hands, boys,” came a voice that was faint and weak but
striving to be jocular. “Be easy on ’em. They feel as if they were
broken in sixteen places at once.”
Seeing that the third victim when helped by the men could stand
shakily on his feet, Mrs. Powell’s captor released his hold on her
arm.
“There’s your husband, ma’am,” he said in a relieved voice. “And
lucky for you he wasn’t one of the other two fellows. Seems like they
got a bit more than their share.”
Mrs. Powell was not listening. She had reached her husband’s side and
was patting him all over incredulously.
“They say you’re not hurt badly,” she said, her lips quivering.
“Is--is that true?”
“Let go my hand, old girl,” he said, as his wife grasped it in her
eagerness. “My hands got caught under a couple of weights that felt
like a ton apiece. Guess they got bunged up good and plenty.”
Mrs. Powell gasped as she held up one of the poor crushed bleeding
hands. Her own hand was sticky with blood.
“Oh get a doctor, some one, quick!” she cried.
“Well, old lady,” Jane heard Mr. Powell say, as she ran to find some
one who could attend to him, “I guess your husband’s out of a job
now, for good and all!”
CHAPTER IX
DISASTER
Meanwhile in the finest house on Rose Hill the shrill sound of the
siren had roused pretty Betty Browning from scented rose-colored
slumber.
With a petulant exclamation the girl sat up in bed, prettier than
ever with her curling, golden hair disordered and her lovely eyes
dewy with sleep.
“What is all the noise about?” she cried, and would have stamped her
foot had she been on the floor instead of in bed. “Something ought
to be done about that siren, waking people up in the middle of the
night!”
Something in the red of the sky and shouts from without that came to
her faintly penetrated through her self-centered irritation.
With a slight shiver of dread--or perhaps the breeze from the window
was unexpectedly cool--she slipped on a filmy negligee, inserted
her pretty feet into satin mules, and padded across the room to the
window.
“It seems to be a rather serious fire at that,” thought Betty, as
she leaned from the window. Every one in town appeared to be abroad.
Still there was nothing, it seemed to her, to make such a fuss
about. The fire department would put out the fire. That’s what fire
departments were for!
She yawned, and her petulance returned.
She pattered back to the bed, kicked off the mules and prepared once
more to woo sweet slumber. But she was disturbed again, this time by
the sound of voices.
She heard her father speak in a quick agitated tone. He seemed to be
in the hall just outside her door, while her mother’s languid, bored
voice came from the direction of her bedroom.
Then suddenly the telephone rang and Betty heard her father go
quickly to answer it.
There was a moment of excited conversation, unintelligible to Betty.
Then she heard her father slam up the receiver and fairly run through
the hall.
“They say it’s Martin and Hull’s!” he cried. “If it is, I’m about
ruined!”
This brought Betty to her feet in earnest.
She slipped on the mules again, ran to the door, and flung it open.
She was still petulant, a little bewildered, yet vaguely alarmed.
She heard her mother’s voice say sharply:
“What do you mean by that preposterous statement? You, ruined! You?
Why, I never heard anything so absurd!”
“Maybe, my dear. But true, nevertheless.” Her father’s voice was
grim, so changed from its ordinary tone that Betty could scarcely
recognize it.
The girl could hear her mother stirring languidly, could guess at the
look of annoyance on her handsome face.
“If you must speak in riddles, Clyde Browning,” said Mrs. Browning,
still more sharply, “perhaps you will not object to giving me an
answer to this one.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Mr. Browning spoke in a slow
measured tone that struck a queer dread to the heart of the girl who
listened.
“I would give you an answer quickly enough, Lily, if I thought you
could understand or would even care to try. As it is, I can only tell
you that I have met with some rather heavy losses lately. Before I
knew of these losses----”
“You are always having losses, Clyde,” Mrs. Browning’s voice broke
in, bored and angry. “You have had losses ever since I married you,
yet we continue to live in the handsomest house on Rose Hill. We have
two cars and servants still. You must know that I am rather well
seasoned to your false alarms by this time.”
“This is no false alarm,” returned Mr. Browning in that same grim
voice. “I wish to heaven it were. If I could get back that thirty
thousand----”
“What thirty thousand?” asked his wife sharply.
“Thirty thousand dollars that I lent Martin and Hull only two weeks
ago,” Mr. Browning returned. “If Martin and Hull’s has burned down,
then my thirty thousand has probably burned with it, for their
building was not fireproof, and if they had any insurance it was
little. That--try to understand this, Lily--wipes out just about
everything I had left in the world!”
Betty gave a strangled cry and pressed her hands to her lips. She
listened, expecting to hear her mother cry out in alarm. It was with
an odd shock then that she heard a laugh, a mocking, tinkling laugh.
“Surely, you don’t intend me to think that you haven’t something more
than that to fall back upon, Clyde?” she said. “You, who, from a
small beginning, amassed a fortune. You are joking, of course.”
Mr. Browning gave a harsh, exasperated exclamation and came down the
hall. Betty could see that he was fully dressed and ready for the
street. She ran to him.
“Dad, I didn’t mean to listen--I hardly knew what I was doing,” she
gasped. “It--what you said--isn’t true?”
“I’m afraid it is, Betty.” Mr. Browning stood for a moment, looking
at her oddly. “But don’t bother your pretty head about it. Young
girls can’t understand such things. Go to bed now and see if you
can’t finish your sleep. I’ll be back soon.”
“Are you going to the fire?” Betty asked as he turned away.
“I’m going to see if that burning building is really Martin and
Hull’s,” her father returned grimly.
Betty was left standing in the hall, shivering.
“Betty!”
It was her mother’s voice, high, querulous.
“Yes, mother?”
“Is that you in the hall?”
“Yes, mother.”
“Then come in here. Shut the door, too. I do hope,” she continued
when Betty had obeyed, “that none of the servants heard what your
father was saying.”
“Why?”
Betty’s tone was distant. She was trying vaguely to understand
something that was new and bewildering to her, something that
frightened her.
That new thing in her father’s tone and manner! What if he were not
joking, as her mother seemed to think? What if he were really in
danger of losing all his money? What if they were really to be poor?
“Why!” Her mother’s sharp voice broke into her unpleasant
meditations. “It isn’t like you to ask such a silly question,
Elizabeth.” Mrs. Browning only called her daughter by her full name
when she was in a state of extreme annoyance with her. This seemed
to be one of those occasions. “Why, indeed! Because it is vulgar to
let the servants know one’s private affairs--especially when they are
unpleasant.”
“Mother,” Betty spoke in an odd tone, a tone odd enough, indeed, to
catch even Mrs. Browning’s languid attention, “suppose what dad said
is true? Suppose we _have_ lost all our money?”
“Nonsense, child!” A dark frown marred Mrs. Browning’s otherwise
perfect forehead. “You ought to know your father well enough by this
time to know that he is always worrying about something. I don’t
think he would be happy,” she said, with an impatient movement of her
handsome shoulders, “if he hadn’t something to worry about.”
“He didn’t seem happy to-night,” said Betty in a monotonous voice.
Mrs. Browning switched on her bed-light, and in its rose-shaded,
flattering light surveyed her daughter.
Betty was amazingly pretty in her lacy blue negligee with her yellow
hair rumpled charmingly and her lovely eyes wide and thoughtful. She
was a vision to soothe even Mrs. Browning’s irate heart. For with all
her failings, and they were many, this lady was inordinately fond and
proud of her pretty daughter.
“What can be the matter with you, child?” she said, but not as
sharply as she had intended. “You are far too pretty and much too
young to bother your head with money matters. Run along now and get
your beauty sleep.”
“But I don’t want to go to sleep,” Betty persisted. “I’d like to talk
about dad, mother. I never saw him like that before. I’m sure he
really is worried.”
“Worried!” Mrs. Browning spoke lightly and even laughed a little. “Of
course he’s worried. I think I remember saying before that that is
how he takes his pleasure. Now run along, like a good girl. You may
speak lightly of beauty sleep, but I, never! To-morrow we’ll write
to Chevot’s, darling, and order several of those sports frocks you
fancied. That’s right--leave the door open just a crack as you go.”
Doubtless her mother was asleep soon after that. Betty did not go
back to see; though, oddly enough, she would have liked to.
What she did not know was that her mother had attached more
importance to Mr. Browning’s announcement of money losses than
she had pretended to. Although she refused entirely to credit his
statement that if Martin and Hull’s burned, her husband would lose
the great bulk of his fortune, Mrs. Browning did believe that he had
suffered more or less severe reverses in some of his investments.
“I do wish he would be careful,” she thought, as she switched off the
rosy bed-light and settled herself impatiently in a luxurious, downy
bed. “I may have to do without that jet evening gown I admired. Of
course this had to come at a time when Chevot’s offerings are almost
irresistible!”
Mrs. Browning fell asleep shortly after that with nothing weighing
more heavily upon her mind, apparently, than the loss of the jet
evening gown.
Betty, on the contrary, was suffering a rare experience. She could
not sleep.
The reflection of the flames still danced on the walls of her pretty
room. For a time they seemed to burn more brightly, and objects of
furniture stood out almost as clearly as though it were day.
“Suppose the whole town should go up in flames,” thought Betty.
Such things had happened before, she knew.
But after what seemed to her--and, in reality, were--hours of
waiting, the menacing glare of the flames wavered, lessened, changed
from red to salmon, from salmon to a faint yellow, and then merged,
sullen and beaten, into the dreary gray of early dawn.
Betty heard her father come in soon after that. His step dragged. In
that halting sound was weariness--defeat.
Betty wanted to go to him, but did not dare.
CHAPTER X
SUSPECTED
It seemed a miracle to Jane when she thought of it afterward that Mr.
Powell had not been more seriously injured. The other two men who
had been taken from under the ruins of the wall were much more badly
hurt. It was rumored that one might die and that the other would be
forced to keep to his bed for many weeks to come.
Doctor Pendleton, a busy physician and surgeon, dressed Mr. Powell’s
injured hands. He looked grave when the work was done.
“The bruises on your body will get well quickly,” he told him. “But
the hands are a different matter. Some of the small bones are broken,
the tendons are stretched. You will have to give your hands a good
long rest before they will be of any use to you again.”
They went home then, although the fire was still blazing and sparks
from it, despite all the precautions of the firemen, had set fire to
the roof of the building nearest it.
“Looks as if the whole town might go,” muttered Mr. Powell
unhappily, as he allowed his wife and Jane to lead him homeward.
“I don’t care if it does,” said Mrs. Powell, “as long as you are
safe----”
“And out of a job,” said the man, with a short bitter laugh. “Don’t
forget that, Lou!”
“I’m not forgetting it,” returned Mrs. Powell stoutly. “But even if
you had a job you couldn’t work at it with those poor hands. As soon
as you’re well there will be plenty more jobs for you.”
She spoke bravely, far more bravely, Jane imagined, than she felt.
Jane was very thoughtful during the rest of the walk home and
afterward when she sat by the one window in her room, watching the
flames paint strange pictures in the sky.
“If Uncle Dink has no position and couldn’t possibly work at one if
he had it until his hands are well, I wonder what we’ll do?” she
asked herself. “I don’t suppose Aunt Lou has much money laid by, and
even if she had, it wouldn’t last long with nothing coming in. And
I’ll just be an extra expense to them. Oh, dear, Jane, I wish you
could think of something!”
So it came to pass that two girls in Greenville, one the girl they
called “Plain Jane,” the other, “Pretty Betty,” spent that night in
anxious wakefulness, pondering in their different ways the same
puzzling question, “What does one do when one has no money?” To
neither of them then came the only answer, the very simple answer,
really, to the query.
As the first gray light of dawn dimmed the fire-reddened sky,
the firemen conquered the blaze. An early sun rose upon an ugly,
blackened scene of desolation.
The two buildings adjoining Martin and Hull’s were almost as badly
damaged as their neighbor’s. The actual loss in dollars had not been
figured as yet, but one could guess that it would be enormous, for
the insurance companies had only lately refused to carry the risk on
these buildings.
Those most interested in the calamity, having retired for a few hours
of much-needed rest, returned, one after another, to the scene of
desolation.
A crowd gathered, gesticulating, speculating.
Poor Mr. Martin, of Martin and Hull, was wandering about the ruins
in a dazed way. He seemed only to half realize the extent of the
calamity, yet could not drag himself away from the scene of it. He
answered questions put to him vaguely--if he answered them at all.
After vainly trying to exact some plausible explanation of the fire
from him, Mr. Browning went in search of Hull.
“Maybe I can get some sense out of him,” he muttered. “Though I doubt
it.”
Mr. Browning did not know that Betty was following him. If he had, he
would, in all probability, have ordered her back home again for fear
that she would realize too soon the extent of the misfortune that had
come to the house of Browning.
But Betty was following somewhat after the manner of a Persian kitten
at the heels of a mastiff, and those who saw her wondered that she
should be there at all.
Though her face was unnaturally pale and her eyes unnaturally large,
Betty Browning made a very pleasing picture in a woolly white sport
coat and a white felt hat pulled down close over her golden bobbed
hair.
Many of the curious who were among the crowds at the scene of the
fire nudged each other as the pretty girl passed, and speculated as
to what would happen if the rumor, already mysteriously spreading
about town, that Mr. Browning had lost his money should prove true.
Meanwhile Betty was unconscious of the curious scrutiny of these
people. Her eyes were only for her father, for the unremembered
lines in his handsome face, for the unaccustomed stoop of his broad
shoulders.
If it had not been for these things, Betty might have thought she
had dreamed that conversation last night between her father and
mother. She was bewildered, frightened, but, more than anything else,
incredulous. She had been so long accustomed to think of money as
something that was her right, as something as certain as the rolls
and coffee that were served to her in her bedroom each morning, that
she could not imagine herself without it.
Only the change in her father fed the bewilderment and fright in her
heart and fought the incredulity.
So Betty Browning followed where her father went, stopped when he
stopped, watching him always with puzzled eyes, while her anxiety
grew.
Mr. Browning found the junior partner of Martin and Hull in the
remains of what had once been an office and was now only a dreary
ruin of sodden débris.
Hull had been searching for something. He straightened up as he saw
Mr. Browning and his face became a dull red. He turned away, fiddling
futilely with the remains of an old leather case.
“I’m sorry, Browning,” he muttered. “There was a bare chance that I
might recover some at least of those securities of yours----”
“But you haven’t?”
From a distance where she could see but not hear, Betty could see her
father’s broad shoulders sag, noticed his hand go out gropingly like
a blind man feeling for support.
“The small safe is gone completely,” Hull said dully. “Melted, I
suppose by the intense heat of the fire. I was going to take your
thirty thousand up to the city to-day, Browning. Couldn’t possibly
get away before.”
“To-day is too late!” said Clyde Browning in a hard voice.
Mr. Hull looked up. There was something pathetic in the helpless
appeal of his voice.
“I’m sorry! I can’t say more. After all I had no reason to anticipate
the ruin of my business before to-day----”
Mr. Browning cut him short with an impatient gesture.
“How about yourself?” he said. “Are you insured?”
“Partly,” replied the grain dealer. “You know the insurance company
pulled in on us. Although my loss will be a heavy one. I doubt,” he
added, with a quiver in his voice, “whether either Martin or I will
have the courage to start all over again.”
There was a momentary silence between the two men.
“Have you any idea as to how the fire started?”
Hull looked at his questioner’s shaggy white eyebrows lowering over
wrathful eyes.
“I think it was that young fool, Billy Dobson!” he said.
Mr. Browning started and looked more closely at the other man.
“Billy Dobson! Why, I have always said that boy was honest as the
day----”
“I never said he wasn’t honest, did I?” the older man protested
testily. “But he’s a fool just the same--a visionary young fool. And
a temper with a dangerous flash and bang to it, let me tell you.”
“He came in here asking me to finance some invention or other,”
continued the grain dealer, while Mr. Browning listened with absorbed
interest. “Offered to make a million for me in a year or two. I
reckon he expected there’d be several millions in it for himself,
young fool----”
“And you laughed at him, I suppose,” broke in Mr. Browning’s cool,
curt voice.
“Of course I did! Who wouldn’t? I told him to take his child’s toy
elsewhere and be quick about it. The lad went but his parting words
were a promise that I’d be ‘sorry some day.’”
“H’m--I see! Well, come along, Hull. Something tells me this hunch of
yours will bear looking into!”
CHAPTER XI
BILLY ANSWERS
Outside, the two men found several others formerly employed by Martin
and Hull ruefully inspecting the ruins.
These Mr. Browning questioned circumspectly but could gather no
information that might substantiate the theory that Billy Dobson had
started the fire.
Finally when they had just about given up hope of finding anything
there, one man came up and of his own accord volunteered the
information they had been looking for.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Hull,” the fellow said, touching his cap, “but it’s
been on my mind to tell you something ever since the fire happened.”
“All right, Higgins. Speak out,” said Mr. Hull, trying not to show
too great an interest.
“It’s only this. I was coming home pretty late--I’d been to the
doctor’s to get him for my little girl who is very sick, as you can
find out to be the truth by inquiring--and on my way I had to pass
the place. I saw some one sort of hangin’ around the buildings and I
got curious.”
“Yes, go on!” cried his two listeners together.
“Well, gentlemen, I came a little closer and I could easy see who the
feller was. It was Dobson, Mr. Hull, the feller who clerks over at
Mason’s store.”
A glance passed between Mr. Browning and Mr. Hull.
Then the latter said calmly:
“You’re sure you couldn’t have been mistaken, Higgins?”
“I’m so sure,” the man returned, “that I’d be willin’ to stake my
chances of a long and happy life on it. No, sir, there ain’t no
mistake about it, Mr. Hull. I made sure of my man!”
A crowd had gathered about the three men and listened curiously to
the conversation. Rapidly, as news always spreads in a crowd, the
word passed from mouth to mouth that Billy Dobson was suspected of
starting the fire.
There was a great amount of excitement, for in Greenville Billy
Dobson was a favorite. Everybody liked him and a great many people
believed in him. Still, there was, of course, always the possibility
of his being guilty.
Mr. Hull thanked the man Higgins and dismissed him. By a common
impulse Mr. Browning and his companion turned their steps in the
direction of Mason’s grocery store.
Some of the crowd followed, eager, curious, some convinced already
of the guilt of Billy Dobson, some stubbornly incredulous.
On the outskirts of this crowd came Betty, not of it, but with it
in spirit. She had caught enough of the rumor to know that it was
Billy Dobson who was suspected, and Betty was in a mood just then to
condemn almost any one.
It happened that as this crowd reached the corner upon which Mason’s
grocery store was situated Jane also reached it, coming from a
different direction.
Jane had been sent to the store for butter and eggs. Her mind was
still preoccupied with what they should do now that Mr. Powell was
incapacitated, and in this anxiety she had temporarily forgotten the
fire that had wiped out Martin and Hull’s.
Now she was shocked rudely from her unhappy reverie by sight of the
crowd. She saw Betty Browning on the edge of it, and her color flamed
high.
What did it all mean? That excited crowd! Betty Browning with the
white face and strained expression, so unlike the girl that Jane
remembered!
She guessed instantly that this strange sight had some bearing on
the calamity of the night before, but she had no way of knowing the
actual cause.
The crowd turned in at Mason’s store. So did Jane--a little in the
rear of it.
Billy Dobson was behind the counter waiting upon Mad Marion with all
the kindness and deference he would have given to one of the richest
patrons from Rose Hill.
Mr. Mason himself was in the rear of the store, stacking up fresh
groceries on the immaculate shelves.
Both men looked surprised as the crowd entered the store and Marion
turned, bobbing and smiling delightedly at something that promised
excitement.
Mr. Browning wasted no time. With Mr. Hull at his elbow he went
direct to the counter and himself addressed Billy Dobson. His eyes
were keen and cold as they rested on the frank blue eyes of the lad.
“Were you in the vicinity of Martin and Hull’s before the fire last
night?” he asked.
Jane had pushed her way through the crowd until she was close enough
to hear the question distinctly. She was so close to Betty that she
could hear the girl’s quick, indrawn breath as she waited for the
answer.
Jane’s eyes were fixed with a frightened look on Billy. What did it
all mean?
Billy looked surprised for a moment at the question.
“Why, yes, sir,” he said then, his eyes unwavering. “I believe I was.
In fact, I know I passed there last night.”
A sigh arose from the crowd, a queer sound that was almost like an
accusation.
Jane felt her heart beat fast. She did not yet fully understand,
but she did realize instinctively that Billy was in danger of some
sort--Billy who had been kind to her, who had stood as her friend
from the very first day in Greenville.
Mr. Hull spoke now. Something of the dull hopelessness of his manner
had gone and been replaced by anger.
“Will you kindly explain then,” he said, “what you were doing there
after twelve o’clock last night--it was that late, was it not?” he
interrupted himself to ask.
“Fully that,” said Billy, his gaze unflinching. “I should say nearer
half-past twelve.”
“Better be a little careful what you say, Billy,” cautioned Mr.
Mason, with an impulse of true friendliness toward the young man.
“Don’t talk too fast, lad. Better keep a guard on your tongue.”
“I have no reason to keep a guard on my tongue,” Billy retorted
quietly. “Now, Mr. Hull, if you have any more questions to ask me----”
“I have several,” said Mr. Hull dryly.
Mr. Browning’s keen, searching gaze never once left the lad’s face.
“The most important among them is,” Mr. Hull proceeded, “What were
you doing skulking about my place at a time that was nearer half-past
twelve than twelve o’clock last night?”
“I object to the word ‘skulking’,” Billy returned furiously. Jane
clenched her hands. She was proud of him. “If you will take that
back, I’ll answer your question--not otherwise!”
Mr. Hull was plainly annoyed. The crowd was growing restive. Betty,
close to Jane, gave an impatient shrug of her shoulders. Her pretty
mouth was set in a straight line.
Only Mr. Browning betrayed a slight change in his distrustful
attitude toward Billy Dobson. Jane thought she detected a faint gleam
of admiration in his eyes.
“All right, cut it out, then,” said Hull, snapping angrily at the
words. “Only answer my question. What were you doing near my place
late last night--just before the fire started?”
Again there was a murmur from the crowd. Billy’s glance swept it
wonderingly before he answered.
“I often walk for miles at night,” he said quietly. “It’s been a
habit with me for a long time, because that is when I get my good
ideas.”
There was a titter in the crowd. Some one laughed outright. Another
cried jeeringly:
“That’s a fine line, that is!”
“My lad, you’ll get nowhere with an explanation like that,” Mr. Hull
stated. But Mr. Browning cut him short, with a gesture. He turned to
Billy, his gaze never leaving the clerk’s face.
“What ideas do you mean?” he asked, not unkindly.
For the first time Billy’s glance wavered. When he spoke his tone was
almost sullen.
“You’ll laugh,” he said. “Everybody laughs. But since I see it’s
important for me to tell the truth right now----”
“_Very_ important!” broke in the grain dealer dryly.
“I’ll give you a chance to laugh,” finished Billy, looking not at Mr.
Hull but at Mr. Browning. “I’ve invented a couple of things that I
think are pretty good, and I’ve got the ideas for them when I’ve been
walking about at night. Now,” bitterly as the titter spread through
the crowd, “go ahead and laugh. Have a good one on me!”
Mr. Browning said nothing. He was looking very thoughtful. Hull was
irate.
“A pretty explanation that is!” he said. “I don’t mind telling you,
my boy, that it would stand about two half-seconds in a court of law.
Now suppose you tell me the real reason. And be quick about it. I’m
getting impatient!”
Billy gripped the edge of the counter and leaned forward.
“I’ve told you the truth of how I happened to pass your place last
night,” he said. “Though why I should have to answer your questions,
I don’t know--and I don’t care. If you don’t believe what I’ve told
you, then you know what you can do, don’t you?”
“I know what I will do,” said the irate grain dealer, shaking his
finger under Billy’s nose. “I’ll put you in jail!”
“But before you do it,” Billy’s voice was still calm but there was
a glint in his eye, “I’d be obliged if you’d tell me just what I’m
accused of!”
“I’ll tell you what you’re accused of!” Mr. Hull was shaking with
wrath, and he went on, though Mr. Browning tried vainly to stop him.
“You’re accused of deliberately setting fire to my property last
night in revenge for my having refused you a loan! That is what you
are accused of! Now, deny it, if you dare!”
CHAPTER XII
A GENEROUS THOUGHT
“Deny it, if you dare!”
The cry rang through the suddenly still, tense store like the crack
of a whip.
Billy Dobson straightened up and looked steadily at his accuser.
“I do deny it! It’s a lie!”
There was something in the fearless honesty of the young man’s eyes
that convinced most of those in the crowd. There were some who
doubted, however; one who doubted openly, and that one was Hull.
“Well, my lad, we’ll see,” said the latter, with a dubious shake of
his head. “But I warn you, if you try to get away, it may go hard
with you.”
“I won’t try to get away,” said Billy proudly. “You can find me any
time you want me, either here or at my own house.”
Jane was indignant. She turned to poor Marion who had been looking
rather frightened during the inquisition.
“It’s an outrage!” said Jane, loud enough for those about her to
hear. “Why, Billy Dobson couldn’t do a thing like that!”
“You seem very sure!”
The words were uttered in a low tone, but there was an icy quality
in them that caused Jane to wheel about suddenly. She found herself
looking into the disdainful eyes of pretty Betty Browning.
“If I were you,” said Betty in the same icy tone, “I would be a
little careful what I said. Billy Dobson is guilty, and you may get
yourself in trouble by defending him!”
Before Jane could recover from her astonishment and retort, Betty
turned her back upon the plain girl and walked from the store.
Mr. Browning had been deep in a conversation with Hull and had not
appeared to notice his daughter. The latter’s going seemed a signal
for the breaking up of the crowd. They straggled off reluctantly,
going in groups of two and three and talking excitedly about the new
turn events had taken.
Jane stood rooted to the spot, her eyes following the figure of
pretty Betty as the girl proceeded slowly up the slope of Rose Hill.
Jane became aware suddenly that Marion was tugging at her sleeve.
“Lovely girl, Betty Browning,” said the latter, bobbing and smiling
wistfully. “Lovely girl, but cold--cold and proud like her mother.
No heart, they say. All ice. Yes, yes, all ice.”
Jane smiled at the poor little woman and patted her hand.
“Well, we needn’t worry, Miss Marion,” she said, biting her lips to
keep them from trembling. “It isn’t our fault if some people are
unkind, is it?”
“No, no! Of course, not at all!” simpered Marion. She squeezed Jane’s
hand and with many backward glances and smiles and nods managed to
get herself out of the store.
Mr. Browning had gone out too, in earnest conversation with Hull.
Jane found herself alone with Billy when his employer followed Mr.
Browning and Mr. Hull to the street.
Jane’s impulse was to go away, for Billy looked as if he wanted to be
alone. But there were the things that Mrs. Powell needed right away,
and then Jane thought that she must speak to Billy and assure him of
her friendship, at least.
“Billy!”
The young man, who had turned away and pretended to be absorbed in
contemplation of the goods on the shelves, turned toward her.
Jane was startled at the sight of his face. It seemed to have aged
incredibly in the past ten minutes. He was white, there were lines
about his mouth and suffering had left a cloud in his usually merry
eyes.
“Billy, I’m so sorry!” she cried, impulsively, reaching a hand across
the counter to him. “It was all a trumped-up charge, and they ought
to be ashamed of themselves! I’ll tell them so, too, any old time I
happen to meet them!”
“You did,” said Billy, his face softening into a smile of
comradeship. “I heard you stand up for me, and I heard what Betty
Browning said, too. You’re a good little sport, Jane, and, believe
me, I’m not going to forget it!”
He took her outstretched hand of friendship and pressed it so hard it
hurt. Dear Billy! He was badly in need of comfort just then. Jane’s
heart ached for him.
“They can’t do anything to you, Billy.” The words were more a
fearful question than a statement, though Jane tried her best to
seem confident. “They certainly couldn’t convict a person on no more
evidence than they have!”
“I don’t suppose so,” said Billy, and sighed, rubbing a hand across
his forehead. “But it really doesn’t matter so much whether they get
out a formal charge against me or not. I’m just about done for in
this town.”
“What do you mean?” gasped Jane, alarmed at his tone.
Billy looked at her queerly.
“You’re only a kid, after all, Jane, in spite of the sixteen years
you claim, and I don’t suppose you know what a thing like this can
do to a fellow in a small town. Suspicion is almost as bad as proved
guilt.”
“Oh, no!” cried Jane. “How could it be?”
“It puts a fellow under a cloud,” explained Billy. Jane could see
that it did him good to talk to some one, and so she encouraged him
with all her might. “It puts a fellow under a cloud,” Billy repeated,
“and turn as he will he finds the cloud following him, wrapping him
in a mist of doubt and suspicion. In the city a fellow can get away
from it, but in a place like Greenville--never!”
“But I’m quite sure that most of the people in Greenville don’t
believe a word that that old Mr. Hull said!” Jane protested. “And if
they are like me, Billy, it will only make them feel more friendly to
you because you have been treated so unjustly.”
“But there aren’t many like you, Jane,” said Billy, fervently
grateful for the girl’s loyal friendship. “If there were, I shouldn’t
wonder if the world would be a much better place to live in. But
Greenville is Greenville, and as far as any future for me here is
concerned, I might as well stop trying.”
“But your inventions!” exclaimed Jane.
“It’s my inventions I’m thinking of,” Billy retorted grimly. “Do
you suppose any one is going to lend me money to back my ideas now,
when I’ve been accused of setting one place on fire already because
the proprietors wouldn’t finance me? No sir, I never had much of a
chance, but that’s gone now.”
Jane was silent for a moment, thinking hard, while Billy beat a
restless tattoo with his fingers on the edge of the counter.
“Billy, if you could get away from Greenville, you’d have a chance of
getting some one to back you, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” agreed the lad. “But with the wages I’m getting here and no
prospect of ever getting any more as far as I can see,” he added
bitterly, “I might as well try to get to Mars. But never mind,
Jane,” he added in a different tone, seeing how worried and really
distressed the girl looked, “it’ll all come out in the wash. And
anyway,” with another grateful pressure of the small friendly hand,
“I’ll always remember you stood up for me when I was down and needed
friends. It’s the people who stand by you at a time like this that
you know you can count on. And now,” with a faint return of his old
cheerful grin, “what can I do for you this morning?”
So the girl gave her order and left the store with her purchases.
But Jane had other things to think of that morning beside Billy’s
troubles. Things had begun to look black at home with Mr. Powell
laid up for an indefinite period. She had noticed how careful Mrs.
Powell had been in ordering things from the store. She knew it was a
question of money.
So she was very thoughtful on her way back to the Powell cottage. An
idea was forming in her mind.
She had not started to school in Greenville. It was too near the end
of the term. The whole summer stretched before her.
Why not?
Bustling in with her bundles from the store, eager to win Aunt Lou’s
consent to her new idea, Jane found that good woman in the sunshiny
kitchen dissolved in tears.
“Why, Aunt Lou!” she cried, alarmed. “What is the matter?”
Mrs. Powell dried her eyes hastily and tried to smile.
“N-nothing, Jane,” she said. “I--did you get everything from the
store?”
Jane knew only too well the meaning of those tears. Mrs. Powell could
easily stand up against the added task of caring for her husband
during his illness. But where was the money coming from with which
to pay the rent, the doctor, the store bills? She rightly suspected
that the moving alone had cut deeply into the Powells’ savings.
A sudden flood of gratitude for this good woman who had been so kind
to her overwhelmed Jane. She went over to Mrs. Powell and laid a hand
lightly on her shoulder.
“Aunt Lou,” she challenged, with a little thrill in her voice, “I bet
you don’t know who I am!”
CHAPTER XIII
JANE LOOKS FOR WORK
To say that Aunt Lou was surprised at this change in her sober little
mouse would not adequately express her state of mind as she stared at
Jane.
“Of course I know who you are!” she cried. “You’re Jane Cross and one
of the best and dearest girls alive.”
Jane shook her head gaily.
“That’s only half of it,” she cried. “Try again!”
Mrs. Powell was so completely puzzled that Jane decided to keep her
in suspense no longer.
She pushed the bundles aside so as to make room for herself on the
kitchen table; then sat on the edge of the table, one foot swinging.
“It’s so simple I must have been sound asleep not to think of it long
ago,” she said. “Aunt Lou, I’ve decided to be a business woman!”
“A--what?” gasped Mrs. Powell.
“Well, anyway, a business girl,” Jane compromised. “Yes, ma’am, I’m
going to get a job, and I think I’ll start out looking for it no
later than to-morrow morning. Now, Mrs. Powell, what have you got to
say to that?”
This was such a different Jane that the poor lady was utterly
bewildered.
“Why, Jane dear, what can you do? A girl like you? Why,” protesting,
“you’re scarcely more than a child!”
“I’m sixteen, if I don’t look it,” Jane said stoutly. “And I’m
sure there ought to be something I can do in this town, if I only
find out what it is. Anyway,” the swinging foot stopped swinging
and Jane looked suddenly very sober, “I can’t be a drag on you and
Uncle Dink when you have been so kind to me. Don’t you suppose,” she
added quickly when Mrs. Powell would have interrupted, “that I know
what you were crying about when I came in? You were worried because
expenses are going on just the same and there is no money coming in
to meet them. Well, I’m going out and make some money!”
It was a valiant resolve, but when Jane thought of actually putting
it into practice she quailed.
She was so shy and sensitive that it was actual pain for her to meet
strangers. The thought of asking any one of these for work filled her
with dread.
Still, it seemed the only thing for her to do.
“I’ll be killing three birds with one stone if I can only get work
somewhere,” she thought. “First of all, I can help Aunt Lou. Then
I can show that Betty Browning that I am somebody, even though
she thinks she can talk to me as if I were some sort of bug. And
then,” color tinged her face and her eyes began to shine with the
thought, “maybe I can put a little bit aside to help Billy get out
his invention. I don’t think he’d mind taking help from plain Jane,
especially if he knew how happy it made her to be able to help him.
Anyway,” with a resolution that made her heart thump wildly, “I’m
going to try!”
When Mr. Powell heard of Jane’s determination, his round,
good-natured face shone with something more than gratitude and he
proposed three cheers and a tiger in a husky voice.
“It won’t be for long, Jane,” he told the girl, regarding his
bandaged hands ruefully. “I’ll get a job again pretty soon, and then
you can give yours up. You’re a plucky youngster and a good one.
You’ll make good in anything you try, Jane Cross.”
It was a great occasion, that Monday on which Jane started to look
for work.
Mrs. Powell, good soul, had spent two whole days making a dress which
she said would “look modest and businesslike and, at the same time,
not too plain,” and the seeking for a position had been postponed
until this should be finished.
The effect was not bad, considering the fact that the dress had
originally been one of Mrs. Powell’s, new three seasons back. It was
of gray, light-weight jersey and was made on long boyish lines that
suited Jane.
Mrs. Powell had found an old hat, too, which she and Jane remodeled
rather cleverly. It was small and fitted Jane’s sleek head closely,
giving her a well-groomed look.
Then the Monday morning came that they had set for the great attempt.
Jane’s new things were hung as carefully in her neat bare closet as
though they had just come from a Fifth Avenue fashion shop, and it is
safe to say that Jane prized them almost as much as though they had
been of such aristocratic origin.
It was a long time since she had had anything she thought so pretty
as that simple gray jersey frock and the close-fitting hat.
“I’ll feel quite grown up,” she said, as she did up buttons with
fingers that trembled on that eventful Monday morning. “Oh, I do hope
nobody guesses that I’m barely sixteen! I’m sure I look much older
than that!”
She did not look even that, however, and for all her hopeful speech,
she knew it. But her very youth was appealing and could be counted on
to plead for her far more effectively than any number of added years
could have done.
When the gray dress had been put on and adjusted to a nicety, Jane
regarded herself in the glass.
Her hair was mussed a little and she smoothed it to a glossier
neatness. Her face was flushed with excitement and her eyes sparkled.
She put on the little hat, pulled it far down over her hair, then
went to the head of the stairs and called Mrs. Powell.
The latter came, hands sudsy with dish water, to “pass on Jane.”
Her first glance was one of pleasure and astonishment.
“I declare to goodness, Jane, you’re certainly good to look at!”
she said. “And smart, too, in that dress, if I do say it of my own
dressmaking!”
Mr. Powell was brought in to marvel and to praise, which he did
with such heartiness that Jane glowed with happiness and felt a new
confidence in herself.
“I’ll bring home a job to-night,” she told them, laughing. “The new
dress is bound to bring good luck!”
Poor Jane! She was soon to find that getting work was a much more
difficult matter than she supposed it would be.
First, there was Haley’s tea room to visit.
This place, just opened and trying to be as smart as its city
cousins, was actually more restaurant than tea room. One could have
eaten three good meals a day there and have been satisfied--which
is proof that the name “tea room” did not adequately describe
it. Jane thought she could be a waitress. Not so much to being a
waitress--just a matter of wearing a black dress and a smart white
apron and cap and passing around good things on a tray to hungry
people. Jane thought she could learn the trick quickly and be a very
good waitress. She supposed that sort of work brought very little
money to begin with, but then, if she looked sharp and proved herself
reliable, she might find herself in the position of head-waitress and
from that on up to--well, who knew what?
Jane did not, nor did she know many other things that she was to
learn within the next few hours.
The shop was on Main street, about two blocks west of Rose Hill.
Jane had to pass Mason’s grocery store on the way. She saw Billy
through the plate-glass door and nodded gaily. She might soon have
good news for Billy!
There was the tea shop.
She opened the door with her first feeling of timidity.
Whom did one approach, she wondered, on an errand of this sort? It
was all very bewildering.
Jane hesitated within the door of the shop.
There were several people at the daintily appointed tables and some
looked curiously at Jane. Among those who did not look at Jane at
all, was Betty Browning.
Betty appeared to be having either a late breakfast or an early lunch
of cinnamon rolls and coffee. There were deep circles under her eyes
and she buttered a roll absently as though her mind were miles away.
If Jane had needed anything to stiffen her courage, the sight of
Betty was enough. She lifted her chin and marched straight to the
rear of the store where a self-sufficient young person was sitting
behind a counter and a wire cage.
“I’d like to get work here,” Jane said in a steady voice to this
young person. “Do you know where I can ask about it?”
The girl behind the counter treated Jane to a cool, appraising gaze;
then rose and opened a door marked “Office. Private.”
She disappeared, leaving Jane to stand there, feeling hot and cold by
turns.
CHAPTER XIV
A FIRST REFUSAL
Minutes, that seemed ages to Jane, passed.
Then the self-sufficient young person, who chewed gum so
nonchalantly, returned and pointed with her thumb toward the open
door.
“She’ll see you,” said the latter with a sigh of exquisite boredom.
“Walk in!”
Jane was not sure she could walk. Her knees were feeling very wabbly.
She managed the distance to the door very creditably, however, pushed
the door open, and stepped within the room beyond.
A gray-haired, bespectacled, sharp-nosed person sat very still in
a chair near a desk. She looked up as Jane entered, frowned, and
pointed toward the door.
“Shut it!” she commanded.
Hardly a very promising beginning, thought Jane.
Nevertheless, she obeyed the command and approached the desk with a
firmer step.
She was about to speak when the grim-faced individual gave her a
quick glance and said sharply:
“What is your business, young woman? Be quick, for I have a great
deal to do.”
Jane had supposed the girl in the iron cage had explained her errand.
It was a shock to find that she was to be forced to break the ice
twice over.
“I’d like a position,” she said bravely. “I--I hope you have an
opening. I’d try to be very careful and give good service.”
“Good gracious!” The spectacles glared at Jane as though she had
committed some heinous offense. “Do I hear aright? Do you want to
become a waitress--_here_?”
The emphasis on the “here” was so marked that Jane at once felt how
presumptuous she had been even to think of such a thing! She faltered:
“I did hope that--that you might have an opening.”
“Well, I haven’t!” The words were snapped out smartly. “Next time
please explain your business at the desk before you force your way in
here and waste my time. It is valuable, young woman, though you may
not know it.”
Jane did not stop to explain to this sharp-tongued woman that she had
told her business to the girl at the desk and that the last thought
in her mind was to force herself in anywhere.
She only wanted to get away from there.
She found her way blindly to the door, opened it, closed it, and
stumbled through the store toward the entrance.
In passing the table where Betty Browning sat she stumbled over an
uneven spot in the rug and lurched against the elbow of the pretty
girl.
The latter cried out in annoyance as the coffee slopped over in her
saucer. Instantly a waitress was at her side.
“I’ll get you a fresh cup, Miss,” said the girl, all solicitude for
Betty and all hard looks for Jane. “It’s a pity some people can’t
watch where they’re going!”
“Yes,” Jane heard Betty’s bored voice say as she opened the door,
“isn’t it!”
Jane ran for two whole blocks and drew up at the corner of the second
one rather out of breath but far more normal in mind.
“Well, I’ve got that out of my system,” she thought, trying to laugh
and making a bad business of it. “Now I’ll try again. Better luck
next time.”
But her confidence was severely shaken.
The attitude of the sharp woman with the spectacles was discouraging.
She had not even given Jane a real answer to her request for a
position. Of course what she had said was a plain enough refusal, but
Jane’s sense of justice was outraged. The woman might at least have
told her that she had no vacancy at the present but that she would
keep her in mind and perhaps have a place for her at some future date.
As it was, she had been positively insulting. Hot color rushed to
Jane’s face as she thought of the interview. And as though that were
not enough, she had been awkward and gawkish before pretty Betty
Browning again.
How quick the waitress had been to serve Betty--how quick to blame
Jane!
Jane put a hand to her burning face and walked on swiftly.
There was all the difference in the world between Plain Jane and
Pretty Betty. But she would show them--she would show them all yet!
She went to Greenville’s largest drygoods store then. She might be
able to get a position there.
Mr. Grey, the proprietor, received her pleasantly enough but was
discouraging when she mentioned her need of work.
“I’m sorry, my dear young lady,” he said. “But we have all the clerks
we need. One of ’em might die and leave a vacancy, but that’s about
the only chance there would be for you. And right now, they’re a
pretty healthy lot.”
Jane understood that he meant this pleasantry in a kindly way, but it
grated just the same. Jane was in no mood for pleasantries.
From this store she went to the Palace, Greenville’s one moving
picture house.
“I thought you might need some one to give out tickets or to act
as usher,” she said timidly to Max Rosenberg, the florid-faced,
thick-lipped proprietor of the Palace.
Max Rosenberg was one of those men who think themselves charmingly
humorous but are, in reality, only offensive. Jane left the place
wearily, and without her position, feeling for the first time faintly
apprehensive.
“Suppose I can’t get a job, after all?” she thought. “I always
supposed any one could find work to do if they really wanted to do it
badly enough. _Now_--where do I go?”
She went to many places during the remainder of that long afternoon
and met with no success anywhere.
She was hot, tired, and hungry. Several times she had been on the
point of returning home for a little rest and refreshment, but each
time stopped herself with the thought that she would try one more
place before giving up for the day.
“I won’t go home without something to do!” she told herself, and the
more weary she became, the brighter burned her resolution.
At the corner of Cherry and Blossom Streets she paused for a moment
to rest her feet. The afternoon was hot and she had walked a long
way.
While she rested, a sign across the street caught her attention. She
started and looked more closely.
This was Garwick’s Real Estate Agency. Jane had heard Mr. Powell
speak of John Garwick as the most successful realtor in town.
She had not thought of applying to him for a position, principally
because she had not thought of herself as being useful in a real
estate office.
What made her think of it now was a feeling of desperation and a
sign that had been inserted in one end of the street window. It was
a large sign, blackly lettered. Jane had no difficulty in reading it
from across the street. The sign said merely, “Clerk Wanted.” But
that was enough for Jane.
Marshaling what was left of her courage and leaving herself no time
for thought, Jane crossed the street and pushed open the door of
Garwick’s Real Estate Agency.
Two men were in earnest conversation, heads close together, voices
low.
Jane felt that she was interrupting and gasped an embarrassed apology.
The gray-haired man in the swivel chair near the desk glanced up at
her and smiled pleasantly.
The black-haired man leaned back in the wicker chair and looked
curious.
Jane’s face was red, but she could not back out now.
“What can I do for you?” asked the gray-haired man pleasantly.
“I--I saw your sign in the window,” Jane said. “I thought,
perhaps----”
“It meant what it said and that I really wanted a clerk?” finished
the gray-haired man, taking pity on her confusion. “Well, so I do.
If you will be kind enough to take a seat while I finish my business
with this gentleman, I will be very glad to talk to you.”
Jane sank down in one of the wicker chairs with a quick intake of
breath that was almost a sob.
Here was something that seemed to hold out a little hope. She was
grateful to John Garwick and loved him from that moment with the love
of a child for the first person who has been truly kind.
If only she could suit him! If only she might be allowed to work for
him!
Mr. Garwick’s business with the black-haired man was soon finished.
The two seemed on the best of terms and parted in a very friendly
manner.
When the door had closed upon his client, Mr. Garwick turned to Jane.
“Well, young lady,” he said, “so you saw my sign in the window. I
presume you came in answer to it. Am I right?”
“Yes, sir!” Jane felt breathless. It was all she could do to speak
at all. “I want a position so much, and when I saw your sign I
thought--well, I thought maybe I might do your work. I’m willing to
try very hard. Indeed I am!”
The half-bantering smile on Mr. Garwick’s face faded at the vehemence
of her tone and his expression took on an answering earnestness.
“I believe you,” he said, and added slowly, as he continued to study
Jane’s face: “I shouldn’t wonder if you are exactly the type of young
person I want.”
CHAPTER XV
A TASTE OF SUCCESS
Jane Cross could not believe that she had heard the real estate
dealer correctly. She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. She
pressed them tight together and continued to look at Mr. Garwick, her
eyes very large and dark.
“You see,” the pleasant-faced gentleman continued, “the young fellow
I had with me here for a long time deserted me for a New York firm
that offered him broader opportunities. You can’t blame the boy, but
at the same time you can see that his desertion left me in rather a
hole.”
“A man!” gasped Jane. “Do--why do you think--I could possibly take
the place of a--man?”
By this speech it may be seen how very unaccustomed indeed Jane was
to the ways of a modern business world. But Mr. Garwick liked her
none the less for it, though he was amused.
“Of course, that remains to be seen,” he pointed out. “You are the
first person to answer my sign, which was placed in the window only
this noon, and I’m inclined to give you a chance.
“The work isn’t difficult,” he went on, seeing that Jane looked a bit
frightened. “It will be mostly a matter of taking telephone messages
at first and of attending to clients while I am forced to be away
from the office.”
“I’m quite sure that I could do that!” Jane said earnestly.
“So am I,” smiled Mr. Garwick. “You look like a young person who
would put her mind to whatever she attempted. Well, suppose we do
this.” He swung about in his chair and placed the fingers of his two
hands together in a meditative gesture. “Suppose we try you out for a
month and see how you like us? At the end of that time--well, we may
even raise the salary.”
Jane knew what the other alternative would be--what would happen--in
case Mr. Garwick did not like her!
But she was grateful for a chance. That was all, she told herself
breathlessly, that she asked.
“Well, what do you say?” asked Mr. Garwick, smiling.
“Oh, thank you! I’ll try so hard to do what you want me to. When--”
Jane hesitated, then plunged boldly: “When will you want me to start?”
“The sooner the better.” Mr. Garwick fumbled restlessly with some
papers on his desk. “I’ve fallen behind in my collections, and now
it’s necessary for me to make up for lost time. Can you start
to-morrow morning? I will start you at twelve dollars a week.”
Could she! And twelve dollars a week!
Jane almost clapped her hands, but remembered just in time that that
would be childish. She was practically grown up now and about to
embark upon a career! She must be careful.
So instead of clapping her hands she merely looked her gladness and
said “Yes, indeed!” in such an eager voice that Mr. Garwick seemed
satisfied.
“All right,” he said. “Nine o’clock sharp, for we’ll have a busy day
before us.”
He opened the door for her with his pleasant smile and Jane found
herself once more in the hot street. But with what a difference!
Main Street, baking in the mid-afternoon heat of the sun, was no
longer merely the main business street of a small town. It was,
to Jane’s happy fancy, a thoroughfare of romance, and if she had
suddenly awakened to find the streets paved with gold she would
not have been surprised. So had life changed for her in one scant
half-hour!
“I’ve got a job! I’ve got a job!” The triumphant refrain sang itself
over and over again in her mind, banishing all feeling of fatigue,
filling her with a desire to dance, to sing, to tell her happiness to
every one she met.
If she had encountered Betty Browning now, her eyes would not
have fallen beneath the glance of the rich girl. She had grown
immeasurably in her own estimation during the past half-hour. She
was no longer just Plain Jane, but Plain Jane _with a job at twelve
dollars a week_, and again, what a difference!
On the way home she had to pass Mason’s store again.
She remembered that Mrs. Powell had said something in the morning
about needing sugar and flour and a dozen eggs. Jane would just stop
in and see whether Mrs. Powell had been to market yet, and, if not,
she would take the provisions home herself.
She felt very gay and independent as she opened the familiar door.
A customer came out as she entered, and for a moment the store was
empty of all but herself and Billy.
The latter had his back turned toward her as he straightened some
packages on the shelves and Jane’s heart was touched by the pathetic
droop of his shoulders.
Billy was having a hard time of it. Nothing had been proved against
him in connection with the Martin and Hull disaster, but he was under
a cloud, a heavy dark cloud that could not be dispelled until some
solution of the mystery had been reached.
Rumors were that Martin and Hull had collected enough insurance to
permit of their building again on a small scale. But they were both
old men, and it was hard for them to start again at their time of
life, forced as they were to pocket a loss that made it extremely
doubtful whether the feed and grain business would ever function
again on its old-time scale of prosperity.
Small wonder that they were bitter against the one they thought
responsible for their misfortune. And, to do the old men justice,
they were both firmly convinced in their hearts that Billy Dobson was
the one responsible.
They considered all would-be inventors slightly mad to begin with,
and they knew Billy’s excitable temper as well as his passionate
desire to find some one who would finance his latest invention. They
fully believed that in a fit of vengeful rage against them he had
set fire to their place. What was worse, they intended that all of
Greenville should believe it. Not all of Greenville did, of course,
but Billy was destined to remain under a cloud, nevertheless, until
his innocence was proved.
“Billy!”
There was something so breathless and triumphant in Jane’s voice that
the lad whirled about, half startled.
“Hello, Jane! What’s up?”
“Billy, I’ve got a job--a life-sized job--with Mr. Garwick!”
“With John Garwick?” asked Billy, and as Jane nodded, whistled his
amazement.
“Say, that’s great! But say, Jane, I didn’t know you wanted a job!”
“Neither did I until a little time ago,” laughed Jane, pleased by
Billy’s unfeigned delight and astonishment. “But now I’ve got it,
wild horses couldn’t drag me away from it. I’m so happy I just had to
tell somebody or go crazy.”
“I always said you were a game kid,” said Billy, looking at her
approvingly. “Now I know it. Go in, Jane, and win!”
There were more customers then and no chance for further conversation.
After he had done up her bundle for her, however, Billy’s hand
squeezed hers in comradely fashion and he said under his breath:
“How about going to the movies some night, Jane? I want to hear more
about the big job.”
“All right.”
“How about to-morrow night?”
Jane nodded, and, feeling rather breathless, hurried from the store.
Her first job and her first invitation to the movies, all in one day!
It was too much! Jane thought she must burst with joy!
She entered the house calling for Mrs. Powell, and at the sound of
her voice the latter came running.
One glance at Jane’s face was enough.
“Jane, you don’t mean to tell me you’ve got it!”
“Oh, Aunt Lou--here, let me get this package out of my arms--there,
now I’m going to hug you, look out! I’ve got it; yes, I have! You
needn’t look at me as if I’d gone crazy. It’s my first job, you know,
and I’ve got to get used to the feel of having it. Aunt Lou, aren’t
you glad? Quick! Say you’re as glad as I am!”
“You crazy child! If you’ll stop squeezing my neck and let me catch
my breath! There, that’s better! Now tell me again, Jane. You’re sure
you’re not joking?”
So Jane told her to the minutest detail what had happened from the
moment she stepped inside the real estate office up to that happy
moment when she stepped out of it again.
Mr. Powell came in from a visit to the doctor and a redressing of his
bandaged hands in time to hear the end of the recital, and of course
the story had to be told all over again for his benefit.
Mr. and Mrs. Powell were very proud of Jane and, looking upon her
with fond eyes, thought she could not have been dearer to them if she
had been their own.
On her part, Jane was thinking how generous and kind they had always
been to her and that nothing she could do in return could more than
partly pay her debt to them.
The next day, the first of Jane’s altered life, dawned gloriously.
She took this as a good omen and sallied forth to work filled with
enthusiasm and hope.
“I’ve got to please him!” she told herself, remembering Mr. Garwick’s
words of yesterday. “I’m only on trial, really, and to lose a
position I should think would be even worse than not finding one at
all!”
She was even a little ahead of time, and Mr. Garwick greeted her in
friendly fashion and set her to work at once.
“We won’t let any grass grow under our feet,” he told her, with a
pleasant smile. “Now let me show you what you are to do.”
Half an hour later Jane was left alone with her responsibility and
the telephone--and she was not sure which frightened her the more!
“If you ring,” she told the telephone, “I’ll run a mile--Oh, my good
gracious,” as the bell rang shrilly, insistently, “there you go now!”
CHAPTER XVI
A BUSINESS DAY
That ’phone was a nightmare to Jane that first day. It seemed to ring
incessantly--though of course it did not--and the girl’s fingers
became tired holding the pencil.
Some of those disembodied voices over the wire were so soft that Jane
could scarcely hear them, and she disliked to ask them to repeat too
many times, for fear of appearing stupid.
She took the messages, and, what is even more remarkable, she took
them correctly.
There were personal callers, too, of course, and these interested
Jane.
She was shy and self-conscious at first, but soon lost this shyness
and self-consciousness in the fascination of the work she was doing.
It was wonderful to feel herself part of the hum and swing of
business. Seeing how much business Mr. Garwick handled, she soon
began to take pride in her employer and in the fact that she was his
representative.
People who entered the real estate office of John Garwick found
a young woman plainly but neatly dressed who rose to greet them
pleasantly and asked their business in a professional voice.
Those clients liked her and talked freely to her--more freely,
perhaps, than they would have talked to John Garwick himself.
As for Jane, she took a personal interest in each one of them
and listened to the recital of their individual problems with a
flattering interest.
From fright at the responsibility that had been placed on her young
shoulders, Jane came to delight in her new importance.
By the time Mr. Garwick returned from his round of rent collecting,
Jane’s face was flushed, her over-neat hair rather tousled here and
there. Altogether she looked like a different girl.
“Well, how did you get along?” asked her employer, with a smile.
“Many people been here? How about ’phone messages?”
Jane showed him her neat memorandum list of telephone calls and the
notes she had made of personal calls.
“Here they all are,” she said, and added anxiously: “I do hope they
are all right!”
Contrary to Mr. Garwick’s expectations, founded on rather long
experience of new clerks, they were.
He called up his various clients and verified Jane’s report on them.
Then he smiled at her.
“I see we are going to get along, young lady,” he said. “You have
done a good day’s work!”
Jane was happier than she had ever been in her life as she sat beside
Billy that evening in the moving picture house and watched the
impossibly handsome hero of the picture go through impossibly heroic
“stunts” on the screen.
“I’m going to love the work, Billy,” she said, in response to the
latter’s sympathetic questions. “Mr. Garwick said some mighty nice
things to me to-day, and if I don’t make him like me and my work lots
better in the next few weeks, it won’t be because I haven’t tried!”
Later she attempted to get Billy to talk about his inventions. But
the youth was unexpectedly gruff and taciturn when the subject was
broached and Jane soon dropped it.
“He’s discouraged--poor Billy!” she thought, and became even more set
in her determination to help him if such a thing were possible.
So matters went on for about a week.
Jane became so different from the quiet mouse-like girl she had been
that those who knew her best marveled.
She got up in the morning with a song on her lips. She fairly danced
through her dressing, the tidying of her own room, and breakfast.
She was all smiles and sunny good humor to Mr. and Mrs. Powell,
insisted on helping the latter with the dishes before she ran off
to work, prophesying the most optimistic things about Mr. Powell’s
injured hands and the probability of his soon finding work again, and
generally acting like a streak of sunshine in the house.
Also, responsibility was changing her quickly from the child she had
always been, younger in seeming than her years, to a young woman.
“We thought we were doing Jane a kindness to take her in and give her
a home when Sarah Cross died,” Mrs. Powell said to her husband one
morning after Jane had run off, throwing a kiss to them as she turned
the corner on her way to work. “If we did, we’ve surely been paid for
it. What would we do now without that girl I’d like to know, since
we’ve had such bad luck?”
“She’s one in a thousand,” Mr. Powell agreed. “And if we weather this
hard period, it’ll be because of her.”
By this time Jane and Mr. Garwick were firm friends. The girl was so
careful, so painstaking, so eager to learn, and, withal, so clever
that the genial realtor began to feel that he had found a treasure.
Her pay was raised to fifteen dollars a week.
For one so young, Jane picked up the rudiments of the business in
a surprisingly short time, and she handled clients or prospective
clients with a tact and ease that surprised her employer.
She was eager to learn details concerning the property handled by
the Garwick Agency, and several times went out to inspect various
tracts or blocks of buildings after working hours simply because she
was interested in the business and wanted to find out all she could
about it. First, second, and purchase mortgages became of fascinating
interest to her, and she pored over papers and contracts until her
employer laughingly declared she would ruin her eyes and would
perhaps have to wear a pair of those great horn-rimmed spectacles
that made a young person look like an owl.
Then one morning Mr. Garwick had news for her.
“We’ve got a new house to list,” he says, glancing at her oddly. “The
kind of house this agency hasn’t handled for a long while.”
The very word “house” was enough to rouse Jane’s interest. She looked
her question.
“It’s the very finest of all the places on Rose Hill,” said Mr.
Garwick. “Clyde Browning’s house.”
“Oh!” The exclamation came from between Jane’s lips. “Then--oh, why
does he wish to sell his house?”
“I guess it isn’t a case of wish,” said Mr. Garwick, and Jane could
see that he was genuinely sorry. “It’s a case, I take it, of stark
necessity. He has to sell.”
“Then it’s true,” Jane said slowly. “It’s true what I’ve heard people
say--that Mr. Browning has lost all his money?”
“I don’t know much about all of it,” said Mr. Garwick, tapping
thoughtfully with his pencil on the edge of his desk. “I imagine he
must have some left. But not nearly enough to keep up that big house
on the hill with its servants and motor cars. It will be quite a come
down for Browning, and I’m sorry. He’s always been a good fellow and
a mighty popular one in town. Every one likes him--and pities him.”
“Because he’s lost his money?” Jane asked.
“That, of course.” Mr. Garwick nodded, but his face darkened as he
added: “What Browning is to be most pitied for are those two selfish
extravagant women of his. They’ll do nothing to help him through this
crisis, you can bank on that.”
Jane was silent for a moment. She was thinking of Betty Browning--of
the pretty, petulant face, the disdainful, almost rude manner of the
girl who had lived in the finest house on Rose Hill.
Jane had no reason to love Betty Browning. Yet, being Jane, she took
no pleasure in the contemplation of the downfall of the pretty,
spoiled girl. She felt only how hard it would be for a person like
that to meet poverty and accustom herself to it.
She said something of this to Mr. Garwick, and he looked at her
curiously.
“I wouldn’t waste any pity on conceited doll-faced Betty Browning,”
he said, with a grimace of distaste. “From the airs that girl puts
on, any one might think she owned Greenville. No, I’m not in the
least sorry for her or for that extravagant selfish mother of hers.
I’m thinking of Browning, and I tell you I wouldn’t be in that
fellow’s shoes just now for a million dollars!”
Outside of business hours Jane thought of little else that day and
for many days to follow.
The beautiful house on Rose Hill to be sold! Betty Browning no longer
able to lord it over the small town like a royal princess! What would
she do?
Meanwhile, that was the very thing that Betty Browning was wondering,
pretty Betty in the big house on Rose Hill.
Since that nightmare night of the fire at Martin and Hull’s when her
world had threatened to topple about her feet, Betty had lived in a
daze of unreality.
At first she hoped that her father would tell her it had all been a
big mistake--that his investments had turned out well in spite of his
fears, and that the horror of financial ruin was farther off than it
had ever been.
But this Mr. Browning failed to do. He kept silence, going about
his business with a grim face and set lips that told nothing. Betty
watched him covertly and wondered how her mother could be so blind to
the tragedy in his every look and gesture.
Mrs. Browning conducted herself to all intents and purposes as though
the revealing conversation of that awful night had not been. The only
sacrifice she made was to relinquish thought of the black gown that
had caught her fancy.
Then one day, the final blow fell.
A maid knocked on Betty’s door while the girl was dressing to go out
to a tea at one of the neighboring houses on Rose Hill.
Betty looked very lovely in a dress the color of a summer sky.
She turned to the maid and said curtly:
“Well, Nanette?”
“Mr. Browning is in the library,” said Nanette, with a curious stare
at her pretty mistress. “He says, will you please come down at once.”
CHAPTER XVII
BETTY MAKES HER CHOICE
Nothing unusual nor very alarming in this summons, thought Betty, as
she turned for a final look at her pretty reflection in the glass.
Her father often called her into the library when he had anything
special to speak to her about. The summons usually meant a row about
her allowance, she thought, with a suggestion of a pout on her pretty
mouth.
What if she did sometimes spend a month’s allowance in a week?
Were they not the owners of the best house, the best cars, the
most expensive clothes in Greenville? Did they not employ the
highest-waged servants? Surely they had a position to keep up!
How like your mother, Betty! Mr. Browning would have said, and smiled
could he have read his daughter’s thoughts just then, but it would
not have been a happy smile!
One more fluffing up of the fair hair and with an added droop of
discontent on her pretty mouth Betty turned toward the door.
Halfway there a thoughtful look came into her eyes.
This summons might mean more than the ordinary bi-monthly “row,”
which Betty almost invariably won, having her mother on her side.
Perhaps her father meant to break his silence concerning his involved
affairs. Perhaps the time had come----
She did not complete the thought, but hurried toward the stairway,
vague panic in her heart.
There was the sound of voices in the library, her mother’s petulant
but controlled, her father’s, a gruff undertone.
As Betty descended the stairs silence fell, and the girl read
something dreadful into that silence.
She knocked at the closed door of the library and her father called a
brief, “Come in.”
Betty stood just within the doorway and looked upon the scene with
widening eyes.
It was a luxurious room, this library in the finest house on Rose
Hill.
There was a big open fireplace where, in the winter, burning logs
blazed cheerily. The floor was brightly polished and animal skins
were scattered in an effect of careless beauty over its polished
surface.
A davenport was drawn up before the fireplace, and this, heaped with
cushions, backed up against a long slender table that bore a lamp of
exquisite design and workmanship.
Books there were lining three sides of the room, well-thumbed books
that looked as if they had been well read by at least one member of
the family.
Easy chairs were scattered about, and the whole room bore an air of
homeliness not characteristic of the rest of the house.
This was Mr. Browning’s room. He had insisted that one place in
the house that had been built with his money should be furnished
according to his taste. He loved books, and so had chosen the library
as his room.
In one of the big easy chairs reposed Mrs. Browning--though Betty
thought at the moment that the expression on her mother’s face was
anything but reposeful. But since it was Mrs. Browning’s private
boast that nothing could disturb her self-control or poise, she
reclined gracefully now, even in face of the truly devastating shock
just dealt her by her husband.
Mrs. Browning’s face was sullen and angry and as her daughter entered
the room she turned away so that only her profile was visible.
Mr. Browning had evidently been striding up and down the room.
He paused as Betty came in and motioned her to a seat.
“I’ll keep you but a few moments,” he said in a curiously hard, dry
voice. “I thought you ought to know this, Betty, and, since your
mother desired me to tell you, now is as good a time as any.”
Betty sat down on the edge of a chair while her father resumed his
restless pacing up and down, up and down, the room.
What was he about to say? What could that look on his face mean?
For several moments her father did not speak, and the room was tense
with suspense. Betty glanced at her mother and saw that the latter
was stubbornly looking the other way. A small, exquisitely shod foot
was tapping, tapping on the polished floor.
Mr. Browning came and stood before his daughter, his eyes steadily
meeting hers.
“The long and short of it is, Betty, I’ve lost practically all my
money. That’s the simple truth, and the sooner we all get used to it,
the better.”
“Your father can speak of it like that!” Mrs. Browning whirled
about and faced her daughter, hand upraised. “To drag us down into
poverty--and then to speak of it like that!”
“I--I don’t think I quite understand, dad,” Betty was groping,
bewildered. Her eyes had never once left her father’s face. “Shall we
be really poor?”
“I’m afraid so, Betty.” The father’s tone had softened; there were
deep unhappy lines about his mouth. “We have very little left.”
“We shall have to--leave this house?” Betty passed a hand before her
eyes as though to brush aside a curtain that obscured her sight.
“Assuredly.”
Mr. Browning was watching her intently. Even Mrs. Browning’s foot
stopped its restless tapping as she watched, with angry attention,
the scene between father and daughter.
“And the servants will have to go, I suppose,” said Betty, still
groping her way. “And we can’t have either of the cars?”
“Good gracious, Betty! Can’t you understand that your father has
ruined us, that he has dragged us down to poverty!”
“Wait!” commanded Mr. Browning, his hand uplifted, his eyes on Betty.
“Give the girl a chance. It’s all pretty new--and pretty rotten, eh,
Betty?”
“I--I don’t know.”
Betty got up and walked over to the window, the eyes of both her
parents following her. She stood for a long time looking out at the
beautifully kept grounds that had, for almost as long as she could
remember, formed the boundaries of her life and wondered what life
would seem like without all the luxurious things to which she had
been accustomed.
She had always had money, and so her imagination failed her when she
tried to consider life without it.
Still, other people had no money and they seemed to get along. When
you lost your money you didn’t just die. You must get along some way.
Behind her she heard her mother recommence her high-pitched, nagging
accusations. She listened to them absently, still turning the problem
over and over in her own mind, trying to understand.
“You have always been reckless,” she heard her mother say. “You have
always taken chances with your money----”
“And those chances made us a fortune,” her father interrupted, in
hopeless, dogged tones.
“Yes, and where is it now? I always told you you would lose
everything you had if you didn’t stop gambling.”
“Who was it drove me on and on to wilder chances by extravagance, by
demands out of all proportion to my income? But this must stop,” he
caught himself up harshly. “Recriminations never did help, and they
can’t help now. The fact is that we shall have to give up this house
at once.”
“Now?” cried his wife, startled from her languid pose. “Why, that’s
impossible!”
“At once!” repeated Mr. Browning, as though he had not heard her.
“Everything else must go. Our two cars, servants, everything.”
“I never heard such nonsense! Give up both cars? Never!”
“Then what are you going to do, dad?” Betty spoke quietly from the
window, startling her parents to attention.
“I am going into business,” said Mr. Browning with a promptness that
showed he had thought the thing out long before. “And I am going to
start right in this town where I first made my money.”
Mrs. Browning gave a shriek and sank back among the cushions.
“Oh, the disgrace! The disgrace of it!” she moaned. “I shall never be
able to hold up my head again!”
“Oh, mother, don’t! Can’t you see how you are worrying dad?”
“Worrying him?” Mrs. Browning looked at her daughter in honest
bewilderment. “You can speak of worrying him after what he has
done to me--to us! Have you no thought for yourself, if you cannot
consider your poor mother?”
“Why,” said Betty, her eyes wandering to the grim, haunted-eyed face
of her father, “just then I was thinking of dad!”
Mr. Browning tried to speak, but sank down heavily in a chair near
the table, holding his head in his hands.
The drooping of his shoulders, the struggling of emotion she had seen
in his lined face before he hid it from her, did something queer to
Betty.
She could see with a sudden startling plainness all that her father
had passed through during that last week or two, could see that he
had faced his trouble all alone, but bravely. There had been no one
to care, no one to help him, no one to do anything but blame and
reproach him.
Slowly she crossed the room and laid a hand on his broad shoulder.
“It must have been awfully hard, dad. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry--for me, Betty?” Mr. Browning looked up incredulously into
the lovely face of his daughter. His fingers reached up until they
grasped the slender hand on his shoulder.
“So sorry, dad! Is there anything I can do to help?”
CHAPTER XVIII
A DREADFUL DISCOVERY
The look that dawned in her father’s face, Betty Browning was to
remember for many a long day. The face that had been so stern and set
softened magically.
“So you want to help, do you, Betty? You want to help your old dad?”
Betty nodded, and Mr. Browning got up suddenly and walked to the
window.
He stood for a moment, looking, but seeing nothing, then turned and
held out his arms.
“Come here, Betty,” he said in a voice that, for all his failure, had
a ring of triumph in it. “Come here and get hugged!”
Mrs. Browning could not understand. She was honestly bewildered by
Betty’s attitude, by what she called her “desertion.”
“No one sympathizes with me,” she moaned. “No one! The fact that I
must give up my home, my servants, my cars, means nothing to any
one. Betty, to whom it should mean as much as it means to me, seems
to think it will all be a pleasant adventure, losing everything and
being as poor as church mice!”
“I don’t expect it to be pleasant,” Betty began patiently, only to
have her mother wave her aside with an angry, impatient gesture.
“Oh, don’t speak to me! Don’t talk to me! I know just how it is!
Don’t think I can’t understand! You care more for your father than
you do for me! You will stand up for him, no matter what he has done!”
“But he hasn’t done anything, purposely,” Betty cried, exasperated,
only to have her mother throw up her hands and moan:
“You see? She stands up for her father against everything and
everybody--even her poor mother!”
Against this, of course, Betty could do nothing. Nor could Mr.
Browning. They gave up trying after a while and left Mrs. Browning to
her lamentations, while together, father and daughter, they tried to
pick up the pieces of their ruined fortunes in the hope of salvaging
something from the wreck.
Meanwhile, Jane was very busy in Mr. Garwick’s office. While she
wondered a great deal about unfortunate Mr. Browning and his pretty
daughter, she heard nothing further concerning them and so allowed
herself to become absorbed in her work.
She saw a great deal of Billy, even though she knew that Greenville
talked about her friendship with him and was prone to extend the dark
cloud of suspicion that hovered over him to include her also if she
flaunted her championship of him too openly.
The Powell front porch became a veritable “parking place” for Billy,
as he himself expressed it. While both Mr. and Mrs. Powell liked the
young fellow very much and were in their hearts convinced that Billy
knew no more of the origin of the Martin and Hull fire than they did
themselves, they disliked to see Jane too intimate with him.
Mr. Powell ventured a gentle protest one night, but Jane flamed
out right royally in defense of her friend and Mr. Powell retired,
defeated, in chuckling admiration of her loyalty.
“She’s true blue, that girl,” he told his wife. “I took a chance for
her sake. But I’m glad she didn’t listen to me. I’d have thought the
worse of her for it if she had.”
Then came the wonderful day when Mr. Garwick gave Jane her second
increase in salary. This gave her twenty dollars a week, and it
wafted Jane to the seventh heaven of delight and hopefulness.
Without saying anything to anybody, Jane started a little fund.
“We managed to get along fairly well on my salary before I got the
increase,” she told herself, experiencing all the delight of a
cheerful conspirator. “It won’t be so very long before I have quite a
little sum, and then--oh just wait till I tell Billy!”
After that she worked harder than ever for her employer. Mr. Garwick
came more and more to depend upon the quick-witted sensible girl. He
even began to discuss little business problems with her that bothered
him and was amazed and delighted by her quick grasp of the subject
and her clear reasoning.
As a matter of fact, Jane was head over ears in love with the
business and welcomed the occasional confidences of Mr. Garwick more
eagerly than she would the reading of an adventure story--and Jane
loved stories of adventure, especially when there was a spice of
mystery in them.
Delighted at the eager interest of his young assistant, Mr. Garwick
initiated her more and more into his confidences until there came a
day when he admitted to his wife that he scarcely knew who ran the
business, himself or Jane!
While she lost herself in her absorbing work, things were happening
in the Powell cottage that were to effect Jane’s entire future.
When Mrs. Cross had died in Coal Run, leaving Jane to the kindly Mrs.
Powell’s care, there had been a trunk of the girl’s things that were
to be used for Jane by Mrs. Powell as the latter saw fit.
The trunk had remained in the Powell’s storeroom from that day,
untouched and practically forgotten. Jane, who knew of her mother’s
habit of saving practically worthless things, had felt no interest
in it. When they moved from Coal Run the trunk had come too, and had
been put in the open attic of the new house.
It would in all probability have remained there indefinitely, to be
covered with dust and cobwebs and finally forgotten if Mrs. Powell
had not been reminded of it by necessity.
Jane must have clothes. That much was certain, but where to get them
was the problem.
Mrs. Powell thought that she could do with her old clothes at home,
but Jane, as temporary wage-earner of the family, should be well
dressed--if such a thing were possible.
Dubiously, Mrs. Powell examined her own wardrobe and Jane’s, only to
decide finally that they were hopeless. Everything Jane had, had been
changed and made over and dyed so often that they were only fit now
for the rag-bag.
“Poor child, she must have some new clothes! But how?”
It was here that Mrs. Powell thought of the old trunk in the attic.
“Just the very thing! Why didn’t I think of it before?”
Mrs. Powell had the key of the trunk somewhere. It took her a
considerable time to find it, but finally, armed and triumphant, she
ascended to the attic to examine the things left by Mrs. Cross.
There was something almost eerie about the proceeding. The attic
seemed very close and dusty, the silence of the empty house
oppressive as Mrs. Powell fitted the key in the lock of the trunk and
flung back the lid.
The contents lay revealed to her, clothing neatly folded, laid there
by the hands of the dead woman.
Mrs. Powell felt a curious reluctance to disturb those things. She
wanted suddenly to close the lid of the trunk, lock it, and leave the
trunk, contents and all, to the accumulative cobwebs and dust of the
attic.
“Nonsense!” she scolded, ashamed of her mood. “The things belong to
Jane, they were to be used for her. Don’t be such a fool, Lou Powell!”
She took out layer after layer of faded, worn dresses, things that
had been carefully laid away by a careful woman as having some
possible use in time to come.
“Nothing for Jane here,” Mrs. Powell muttered, disappointed. “The
clothes she has now are better than these old things. Hello--what’s
this?”
“This” was a carefully folded piece of dark blue serge.
Here was a discovery! Enough for a new dress for Jane, probably.
Mrs. Powell shook it out eagerly, and to her amazement a large white
envelope fell from the folds of it.
She picked up the envelope curiously and examined the words that were
scrawled across it in pencil.
“To be read by Jane’s guardian and the contents to be disclosed
to Jane, should the guardian see fit.
“Sarah Cross.”
Mrs. Powell stared at the envelope for a long time, her brow wrinkled
with bewilderment. Then, suddenly making up her mind, she tore open
the flap of the envelope and drew forth a folded slip of paper.
Whatever the message of the dead woman, it disturbed Mrs. Powell
profoundly.
She read and re-read the words on the paper, the frown on her face
growing, the look of pain in her eyes deepening.
“My poor Jane! My poor, dear, loyal little Jane. Oh, this is
dreadful, dreadful!” she moaned.
She sat there on the floor of the attic, the bit of paper in her
hand, until the lengthening shadows warned her that the afternoon was
almost gone.
She roused herself then and, with a deep sigh, she thrust the paper
back into the envelope.
“Awful, awful! What shall I do?”
Automatically she replaced the faded dresses in the trunk, keeping
out only the piece of dark serge that was to make Jane the
much-needed new dress.
Then she rose wearily and stumbled down the steep steps of the attic.
She went into Jane’s room, that little barrack of a room with the
one window where the sun seldom penetrated. Slowly Mrs. Powell
looked about the room. In spite of its bareness, it was neat, clean,
cheerful--like Jane herself.
“Dear child! I can’t tell her! I won’t tell her! Why, it would break
her heart!”
CHAPTER XIX
A CHANGE OF EMPLOYERS
All unconscious that anything unusual had happened, Jane came home
that night, beaming with happiness.
“Everything is going so beautifully at the office,” she told her
kind friend, and added, as she took off her hat and put on her apron
preparatory to helping with the dinner:
“What do you think? Pretty Betty Browning’s house has been sold!”
Mrs. Powell put down the potato masher and looked at Jane
thoughtfully.
“Is that so? Who bought it?” she asked.
“A man named Ridgeway. I understand from Mr. Garwick that he is a
business acquaintance of Mr. Browning’s. Anyway,” with a smile, “he
seemed to have plenty of money. And I guess he had to have, to be
able to buy the Browning place. He paid a big price for it, I can
tell you.”
“H’m!” Mrs. Powell was thoughtful for some time. Then she said
slowly: “I wonder what the Browning family will do now.”
“I don’t know.” Jane took off the cover of the teapot to see if
she had filled it too full, found she had, and poured out some of
the amber-colored liquid. “They may take a small house in town, I
suppose.”
Mrs. Powell gave a short, scornful laugh.
“I can’t imagine Mrs. Browning being content to live in a small house
anywhere,” she said. “And from all I can hear, that daughter of hers
is just like her. I feel sorry for poor Mr. Browning, I tell you!”
In spite of the fact that she tried to keep up a cheerful
conversation, Jane could see that Mrs. Powell was worried about
something and several times tried to draw her around to the subject.
But Mrs. Powell insisted there was nothing at all the matter--except
perhaps with Jane’s imagination!
“How can I tell you what’s troubling me, Jane Cross, when there isn’t
a thing?” she cried at last in simulated exasperation.
Faced with this unanswerable query, Jane was silenced, but
unconvinced. Mrs. Powell found the girl looking thoughtfully at her
several times that evening and realized that she must guard her
secret very carefully if she was to guard it at all!
After that several days passed uneventfully--though they were always
eventful enough for Jane, absorbed as she was in the fascination of
her work. The only cloud on the girl’s horizon at this time was
Billy.
The young man was downhearted and morose much of the time. When he
was out with her his attempts at cheerfulness were pathetic. He would
not talk about his inventions, and Jane was afraid that he had become
definitely discouraged.
She thought wistfully of the little pile of money growing in her
bureau drawer. It grew so slowly and Billy’s need was so great! If
she could only think of a way to make a big sum of money all at once!
Poor Jane! How many people before her had felt that way and been just
as hopeless as she of attaining their heart’s desire!
Jane was bitter against the people of Greenville for treating Billy
so. Why could not some one with money see the real worth of his
inventions as she did and believe in him enough to back him and
give him his chance? If she could only prove him innocent of any
connection with the Martin and Hull fire some one might give him that
chance. But in this she was powerless, too.
Then one day Mr. Garwick brought startling news to her.
Jane had barely entered the office and taken off her hat when he
announced it.
“I’m going to sell out, Jane,” he said, holding her with his
twinkling gaze. “You are going to have a new boss.”
Jane stared at him for a moment, thinking he must be joking.
“A new boss!” she repeated dazedly. “Why, I don’t understand!”
“I’ve sold out the business,” Mr. Garwick repeated, enjoying her
mystification. “I’ve sold out to Clyde Browning!”
Jane sat down hard in a chair. If Mr. Garwick had told her the world
was coming to an end she could not have been much more surprised, nor
startled.
“But why? I don’t understand!” she cried.
“Well, now, I’ll tell you.” Mr. Garwick put the tips of his fingers
together as he always did when about to launch into an explanation of
some importance. “I’m getting old, Jane----”
“Old!” cried Jane impulsively. “Oh, you’re not!”
Mr. Garwick pretended to smile at this, but he was pleased just the
same.
“You are a flatterer, young woman, but we’ll let that pass. Even if
I’m not old, I often feel old and pretty tired. I want to rest a
little, travel, and see something of the world; in other words get a
little good out of the money I’ve been piling up all these years. Do
you see?”
“Why, yes--but I--oh, I’m sorry! We--I--I was so happy working for
you, Mr. Garwick!”
Mr. Garwick was touched by her sincerity. He patted her hand in
fatherly fashion and smiled on her with genuine affection.
“Well, there, Jane, I’m glad you’ve been happy in your work and that
I’ve been able to make things pleasant for you. But this won’t be a
question at all of your losing your position, you know.”
Jane looked at him questioningly.
“Why, I don’t know what you mean?” she said slowly. “Do you think
that after Mr. Browning has taken over the business he’ll want me
here?”
“I’m quite sure of it--especially when I tell your new boss that he
has a chance of getting the best go-getter in the business. That’s
what I’m going to tell him, Jane. And furthermore,” he paused and
regarded her with twinkling eyes, “I don’t know but what I’ll make
that a provision of the sale. Take Jane Cross, too, or nothing!”
Jane laughed, unsteadily.
“You’re awfully kind,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t know how to
thank you for all your kindness, but--it won’t seem the same at all!”
She met Billy on the way home from work that evening and talked it
over with him.
“I wouldn’t let it worry me much,” said the latter reassuringly. “Mr.
Garwick meant what he said about recommending you to Mr. Browning.
He’s a mighty good sort, Jane, and I’ve not a bit of doubt that
after he gets through talking, Mr. Browning will be only too glad to
get you.”
“Mr. Garwick is awfully good,” said Jane thoughtfully, her eyes on
the street ahead. “And from what I’ve seen and heard of Mr. Browning,
he’s a mighty nice man, too. I might be able to keep my position
there if it wasn’t for----”
She paused, and Billy looked at her curiously.
“I bet you’re thinking of Betty Browning,” he said after a minute.
Then he added: “Don’t worry, Jane. Pretty Betty isn’t going to
stick her curly head into old dad’s office. I heard some people in
the store to-day say that Mrs. Browning has already gone to some
relatives out of town, and I’ve no doubt our lovely Betty will soon
follow. Soft, rich folks like those, Jane, don’t show up very well
when they have to come up against a few of the hard knocks of life,”
he philosophized, kicking a stone out of the way and watching it
intently as it went spinning over and over in the roadway. “They
don’t know how to take ’em--the hard knocks, that is--and their first
instinct is to get as far from the scene of disaster as possible. Oh,
no, Betty’ll be flying to those rich relatives of hers, don’t you
worry, and she won’t even know that there is such a person as Jane
Cross in her dad’s office.”
“They’ve sold their house, Billy. Do you know where they are going
to live? Oh, yes, I remember! Mr. Garwick said they were making a
deal for that empty cottage on Maple Street where the Devoes used to
live.”
Billy whistled softly.
“Quite a change from Rose Hill!” he said. “Poor old Browning! I sure
pity him!”
Jane was very thoughtful for the rest of that evening and for the
next few days--the time that had necessarily to elapse before the
final consummation of the deal between Mr. Garwick and Clyde Browning.
Jane hoped that Billy had been right about Betty, but she was not by
any means sure.
Then one day her employer and Mr. Browning came into the office,
laughing and joking in friendly fashion.
“Browning,” said Mr. Garwick, turning to Jane with his pleasant,
twinkling smile, “this is the young lady I’ve been telling you
about and whose services you can’t afford to lose. Miss Cross--Mr.
Browning!”
CHAPTER XX
BETTY COMES THROUGH
Apparently Jane was very much at ease as she gave her hand to Mr.
Browning and smiled at him. In reality she was only a frightened girl
wondering what would happen next.
But Mr. Browning was very nice, very courteous and pleasant, and
before they had been in conversation five minutes Jane felt that they
would get along together and that the change she had so dreaded was
not going to be so dreadful after all.
For the rest of that day Jane remained in almost complete charge of
the office while her old employer and new went over details of the
business together.
Mr. Garwick was very nice, often referring to her and asking her for
certain details that he knew she had right at her tongue’s end.
Jane felt that he was doing this to impress Mr. Browning with her
worth, and she appreciated and in her heart thanked him for it even
while tears of regret rose often to her eyes at thought of severing
the old connection.
The day was over at last. Mr. Garwick slapped down a huge sheaf of
papers on the desk and rose to his feet. He held out a hand to Mr.
Browning.
Jane watched them, her heart beating rapidly, knowing that the moment
of parting had come.
“Well, I’ve done all I can for you, Browning,” Mr. Garwick said, as
the two men shook hands heartily. “If there’s anything you want to
know about, you know where you can get in touch with me at a moment’s
notice. Although,” and here he turned to Jane, “I’m quite sure you
will find I am leaving you a veritable dictionary of information in
the person of Miss Cross here. Call on her for anything, Browning,
and if you’re ever disappointed in her, then my name’s not John
Garwick!”
Feeling embarrassed but very grateful to her old employer, Jane found
herself shaking hands with him and saying with a little catch behind
the words:
“Thank you for--everything, Mr. Garwick. I wish you the best luck in
the world!”
There was a pleasant response, and then the door closed behind John
Garwick and Jane was left alone with her new employer.
“Well, Miss Cross,” Mr. Browning was speaking and Jane liked the way
he included her in his sweeping gesture about the office, “we seem to
have been left in possession of the field. We’ve done about enough
work for one day, I should think. Suppose we close the office and
start fresh again to-morrow morning?”
Jane gave him a smile that said she would be perfectly willing,
and went for her hat. She put it on and went toward the door. Mr.
Browning rose and came over to her, holding out his hand.
“Mr. Garwick has given me a most excellent recommendation of you,” he
said. Jane thought how handsome he was but how tired he looked with
those deep lines about the corners of his mouth. “I am convinced that
I could not have a worthier helper than Miss Jane Cross. I hope you
will find things just as pleasant here as you did under Mr. Garwick’s
regime.”
Jane thanked him and went out. She was very thoughtful all the way
home.
“I like him--and I’m very sorry for him,” she told herself,
remembering the lines of suffering in the face of her new employer.
“What a shame that his wife and daughter can’t stand by him now! I’d
like to go to that Betty Browning and give her a piece of my mind!”
Meanwhile, the subject of Jane’s rather strenuous reflections was
living through a period in her life that seemed to the former rich
girl as bewildering and tantalizing as a dream.
Her solid world had been knocked from beneath her feet. Everything
was new, unreal. The only solid fact of her existence was her father,
and to him she clung with a desperation that soon ripened into a
beautiful affection.
“I never knew dad before,” she told herself, wondering. “He seemed
always to be there, but I just never--thought about him!”
That had been the fault of her up-bringing, though Betty did not
realize it. Brought close to the hard facts of existence, she could
see her father as an individual, not merely the holder of the
money-bags to whom one went when the allowance ran short and a new
dress seemed an absolute necessity.
Viewed as an individual, Betty found her father very interesting and,
more than anything else, lovable. He responded to her new personal
dependence upon him in a wonderful way, and Betty began to wonder
vaguely if, in losing everything she had heretofore regarded as
necessary to her very existence, she had not found something far more
precious and desirable in the new relationship between herself and
her father.
The parting with her mother was a wrench--a bad one. Betty loved
her mother despite the fact that she was bewildered by the selfish
indifference with which she treated the man who had suffered so much.
Mrs. Browning’s father had evidently known his daughter, and he had
left her the little he had to leave in the form of an annuity. It
was a meager income according to Mrs. Browning’s standards, but at
least it would not leave her a penniless dependent on her relatives,
to whom she now went for the sake of the ease and luxury of their
homes and to escape the narrow life her husband could give her in the
little cottage.
“You don’t think of dad at all, mother,” Betty protested the day
before Mrs. Browning was to leave Greenville for an indefinite stay
with her relatives. “Don’t you suppose he is having a bad time, at
all?”
“He deserves it,” Mrs. Browning snapped back at her. “He has been
criminally careless, and he deserves everything he gets! In a case
like this it’s the innocent family that suffers every time.”
“I don’t know as we have been so innocent,” said Betty slowly.
Her mother whirled about and stared at her for all the world, thought
Betty, as though she were looking at a stranger. And so she was, for
Mrs. Browning, who thought she knew her daughter so well, was looking
at this Betty for the first time.
“Not innocent! What do you mean, Elizabeth?”
Betty turned and met her mother’s cold glance steadily.
“Well, we have gone on spending money just the same, haven’t we?”
said the girl. “Even when dad said we were too extravagant and asked
us to be careful, we never tried to help him. I am only trying to
say,” she added, seeing that her mother’s stony gaze never wavered
from her, “that perhaps dad isn’t altogether to blame for--what
happened.”
“This is your father’s work,” said Mrs. Browning angrily. “He has
turned you against me!”
“Oh, never!” cried Betty. “He has never said a word!”
“Silence!” Mrs. Browning held up a white, jeweled hand--she had
refused to part with any of her jewels. “I’ll not listen to another
word. If you prefer your father to me, Elizabeth, you are free
to make your choice. Stay here with him--and may you enjoy the
experience more than I think you will!”
That was the first wrench. The second came with the actual selling
and vacating of their house.
That was hard, for pretty Betty had loved her home, and the thought
of moving into strange quarters, poor ones, filled her with terror.
She shrank from the solicitude of her friends. Some of them, to
whom the social leadership of the Brownings had always been a thorn
in the flesh, gloated almost openly. Others pretended sympathy and
patronizingly gave Betty to understand that a mere loss of fortune
need make no difference in their relations.
But it scarcely mattered which group they belonged to, for Betty was
to realize with an aching sense of loss that among all her so-called
friends there was not one--not one!--who had an actual claim to that
term! She began to realize dimly that just as she had failed to think
of her father, so she had failed, by her selfishness, to make true
and lasting friends.
She came to long only for the time when she and her father might be
alone together in whatever place he might choose for them. There
would be some privacy at least, a place where they could shut the
door against the cruel curiosity of their “friends.”
Again her father was the only solid, real, unchanging thing on her
horizon.
Despite his absorption in the winding up of his affairs and
preparation for a new start in business, he watched her closely with
those understanding eyes of his and seemed ever at her side when she
needed comfort.
There was that time after Gladys Vane had been to call and had left
Betty wincing beneath the venomous thrusts of her poisonous tongue.
Mr. Browning came in as Gladys went out. He made straight for the
library and found Betty crouched in one of the big chairs, staring
unseeingly before her.
“Never mind, Betty,” her father said and touched her cheek gently as
he sat on the arm of her chair. “The life we’re going to, you and I,
may not be as glittery as the one we’re leaving but it’s a lot more
real. You will make real friends from now on, Betty girl, friends
that are worthy of the name.”
“Well,” said Betty bravely as she cuddled her cheek against his hand,
“I’ve got one mighty good friend, already! Daddy,” she added after
a pause, “I don’t see quite how it was, but I guess it was in part
my fault. I wasn’t always nice to the girls, and if we don’t give
friendship I suppose we don’t get it--not the real kind.”
Then there was the day when they were to move into their “new
quarters” as Mr. Browning always called the cottage he had rented for
himself and Betty.
Betty had never seen it--she could not bring herself to speak of it
even to her father.
No one ever learned how she had pictured the place in her mind, nor
just what kind of life she thought she was to be called upon to
endure, now that they were poor.
Her mother had so harped upon their poverty and pictured the horrors
of it so vividly that it was not at all strange if, in trying to
picture it to herself, Betty beheld in her mind the ugly vision of
the tenements across the railroad where herded a drifting, lazy class
of occasional workers and sometimes beggars of Greenville with their
slipshod families.
However that may be, when the day of her actual parting with the old
life arrived Betty found herself in sore need of comfort.
She was standing by the window in her own sitting room, watching for
the van that was to take a few--a very few--of their belongings to
the new home, when she heard her father’s quick step in the hall.
Betty felt her father’s hands on her shoulders, turning her about so
that she must face him. There were telltale tears in her eyes, but
she smiled, hoping that he would not notice them.
He did notice them, as he noticed everything about her now. The lines
about his eyes and mouth deepened and he looked very tired, almost
old.
“The van will be here in a few minutes, Betty,” he said. “And before
it comes, I want to tell you a few things about our new home--I want
to prepare you.”
“It’s coming!” thought Betty. She braced her shoulders for the shock,
but even then did not forget to smile. How tired he looked, how
weary and discouraged. She would not make things harder for him!
“It’s very different from this; but it’s not so bad, Betty. It’s a
little cottage set well back from the street, and it has five rooms
in it that could be made into a home--if anybody cared--” His voice
broke but he went on quickly. “It has a pleasant kitchen and a
nice porch with neglected roses that might be coaxed into blooming
sometime--perhaps next spring. It isn’t so bad, Bettykin. We might be
pretty happy there----”
Looking into his pleading, tired eyes, Betty forgot herself, forgot
everything but that he was appealing to her for hope and comfort and
that she must not fail him.
“Why, then, daddy,” she said, putting her arms about him, “I’ll make
a home for you. We’ll make it together. And, daddy dear, I do love
roses!”
If Betty had wanted any reward she got it in the strength of his arms
about her and his muffled cry.
“Betty, I knew you had it in you--you good little sport!”
CHAPTER XXI
THE NEW HOME
That was the beginning of a happier time for Betty Browning.
After having imagined such terrible things about her new home, she
found the reality strangely unappalling.
The cottage, set well back from the street, was not pretentious,
certainly, but neither was it unbeautiful. It had a good-natured,
flat, comfortable look like a fat, jolly, woman who needs only a
white apron to make her perfect.
A coat of paint--white paint--thought Betty, would work wonders.
Inside the rooms were pleasant. Bare at first, of course, but the
distribution of the furniture brought from the house on Rose Hill
soon remedied that.
Betty took a curious delight in putting the new home to rights. If
any one had told her two months before that she would actually enjoy
swathing herself in an unbecoming gingham apron and doing tasks that
then the more superior of her mother’s servants would have scorned,
she would have laughed at the joker.
But she did enjoy these things now, not so much for the sake of the
tasks themselves as in her anticipation of the smile on her father’s
tired face when, in triumph, she brought him in to exclaim over some
further proof of her unsuspected housewifely talents.
He never failed to exclaim and, even on the occasions when the roast
was overdone or the biscuits underdone, ate on manfully under Betty’s
half-proud, half-fearful eye. In thinking of it afterward, Betty was
convinced that he would have died of indigestion if need be, rather
than disappoint her in the slightest thing!
There were disappointments, of course, and mistakes, some of them
ludicrous and some of them almost tragic. But, in all, it was a happy
time in which Betty and her father grew very close together and the
cottage became a real home.
Meanwhile, time was passing swiftly. Late summer merged into fall,
fall into early winter.
As Betty was Mr. Browning’s “right-hand man” at home, so Jane had
become his “right-hand man” at the office.
Mrs. Powell had made up the dark blue serge she had found in the
trunk--not without many unhappy thoughts of the secret she had
discovered there at the same time.
Jane needed a coat, but she would have to wait for that. Meanwhile,
the old one, carefully brushed and mended in a place or two where its
shabbiness was most glaringly apparent, would have to do.
Mr. Powell’s hands were well at last, and, though he would always be
dreadfully scarred and the left hand would always be a trifle stiff,
he was able to look for work again.
The business of Martin and Hull had never been reopened. The two old
men, without the heart to start again in the business fight, had
pocketed their losses and were living in comparative obscurity on the
outskirts of the town.
No chance for Mr. Powell there. But there must be other places in
town where his services would be needed. With his usual optimism, Mr.
Powell started on the dreary round of job hunting.
Mrs. Powell tried to be hopeful, too. With another wage earner in the
family to lift the burden from Jane’s shoulders, the girl could have
the clothes she needed.
Poor child! What if she could guess that secret hidden in the trunk
upstairs! With all her heart, Mrs. Powell prayed that Jane might
never know it!
In time the day came when Betty made her first visit to her father’s
place of business.
In the talks between father and daughter, business news had crept in,
too. Mr. Browning had mentioned Jane’s name occasionally, and Betty
had become faintly jealous of this assistant of whom her father spoke
in such glowing terms.
Betty longed to know this person, and finally decided that there was
no reason why she should not.
It was on a dazzlingly bright day when the nippy tang of fall had
given place to more bitter winter weather that Betty finally decided
to visit her father’s office.
Her beautiful clothes and personal jewelry Betty had brought with her
from the old life. She had found very little use for them since she
had become her father’s housekeeper.
Now she took the clothes from her closet almost with a feeling of
wonder that she had ever worn those things as a matter-of-course.
She selected a beautiful jade-green dress that set off her brilliant
fairness to perfection. Then she found the prettiest pair of black
suede slippers she had and cobweb thin silk stockings.
She got out her squirrel coat with the silver fox collar. It was a
beautiful thing, that coat. Betty thought of the many times she had
worn it with her mother, and her heart was sore.
Betty wanted her mother more than she confessed, and many nights she
could not sleep for wondering if that mother would ever come to her.
There was dad. He needed her, too. Was he to be separated from his
wife forever?
On these points Mrs. Browning herself did not enlighten Betty. She
wrote often, but her letters were one long reproach to her daughter
and the girl received little comfort from them.
That her father had letters too, Betty knew. They often came in the
morning mail and Betty put them beside her father’s plate at dinner
time, hoping that he would read them then and perhaps tell her
something that was in them.
But this her father never did, and when his long silence on the
subject of her mother continued Betty began to fear that the
separation between the two people she loved best in the world was
indeed final and that she would have to choose definitely between
them in the end.
Now she fingered the squirrel coat caressingly, thinking of her
mother, and at last put it on and pulled a small velvet hat of the
same shade as the coat down tight over her ears.
The close-fitting hat hid all but a few distracting tendrils of
golden hair. Betty arranged these in a still more becoming fluff
about her face and regarded her reflection approvingly.
She was certainly as pretty a girl as one would see in a long
winter’s walk, and, to do Betty justice, she knew it.
With a high heart she left the modest little cottage looking like
the daughter of a millionaire, and walked downtown. People turned to
stare at her as she went, and those who knew her wondered if Clyde
Browning had got his money back or made another fortune.
“Certainly, pretty Betty looks like ready money!” observed one
admiring youth.
Betty paused before the real estate office upon whose window her
father’s name was emblazoned in large gold letters. It seemed a
modest place to the girl, and there was resentment in her heart at
the thought that her father must work there.
With a toss of her head and a discontented droop to her mouth, Betty
turned the knob of the door and entered the office.
CHAPTER XXII
BETTY IS JEALOUS
Betty was about to call out a greeting to her father when something
stopped her. That something was the sight of her father bending over
a desk and smiling into the delighted eyes of--“that girl!”
For in the flash of a second Betty recognized in her father’s
assistant that awfully plain girl who was always stumbling against
people and knocking bundles out of their hands!
She was not so awfully plain now, though, thought Betty, and was
suddenly conscious of a keen stab of jealousy.
“What right has that girl to look at my dad like that!” her jealousy
whispered.
As a matter of fact, neither Jane nor Mr. Browning was aware of
Betty’s presence at the moment. In fact, Jane was living through one
of the most wonderful moments of her life.
Just a short time before Mr. Browning had said with that nice look in
his tired eyes:
“I believe you know almost more of the business than I do, Miss
Cross. You are a born realtor. You are so full of enthusiasm that
you communicate it to our customers. I’ve kept tabs on you, young
lady, and I know that you have brought actual business into this
office, and that that business is computed in terms of gratifying
profit on our books. We are doing well--better than I dared to hope.
Now, under the circumstances, what do you think I ought to do about
it?”
Jane, who had flushed beneath her employer’s commendation, smiled
demurely at this.
“I really--don’t know,” she said, and tried not to look as pleased
and proud as she felt.
“Well then, I’ll tell you.”
It was at this point that Mr. Browning rose and went over to her
desk--yes, Jane had risen to the dignity of a desk of her own by this
time--and it was at this point also that Betty chanced to come into
the office.
“The first thing I’m going to do,” Betty heard her father’s pleasant
voice say, “is to raise your salary five dollars a week.”
“Mr. Browning, that--that’s marvelous!” There was a choke of sheer
joy in Jane’s voice.
But Mr. Browning raised a hand and smiled.
“But that isn’t all,” he said. “I’ve noticed, too, that you have
a knack in handling people, of getting a lot out of them without
letting them guess it. I don’t know whether you’ve guessed what
a valuable asset that is in the real estate business, but it is
extremely valuable just the same--especially when it comes to a
question of collecting rents.”
Jane sat very still and looked at him.
Betty stood very still and looked at him, too. Probably that is the
reason Mr. Browning and Jane remained unaware of her presence.
“How would you like to have a rent route to collect?” asked Jane’s
employer, smiling at her just as calmly as if he were not paying
her the greatest compliment in his power. “That will mean a small
percentage on all the rents you collect--just a little encouragement
for you to use all your tact on those slippery customers who
invariably run and hide the moment a rent-collector shows his--or
her--nose about the corner. Come now--what do you say?”
Jane drew a long breath.
“Say!” she repeated. “What can I say except that you are giving me
the chance of a lifetime, and I--when shall I start?”
Mr. Browning laughed and broke the tension.
Betty started forward from her place beside the door.
“Dad!” she cried.
Mr. Browning wheeled about and his face lit up with pleasure at the
unexpected visit.
Jane, who had flushed a bright red upon recognizing Betty, busied
herself absorbedly with the papers on her desk.
But after his first greeting of his daughter, Mr. Browning showed no
intention of leaving Jane out of things. He drew Betty, the latter
reluctant but not quite liking to protest, over to Jane’s desk and
introduced the two girls.
There was the barest conventional murmur from Jane accompanied by a
steady look at Betty that showed her on the defensive. From Betty a
condescending nod and a frigid, “Charmed, I’m sure!” that etched a
line between her father’s brows.
Then Betty promptly and pointedly ignored the plain girl. It was
time, she thought, to teach that girl a lesson, to put her in her
place! So Betty perched herself like a charming butterfly on the edge
of her father’s desk and chatted merrily.
She found her father disappointing. He did not play up to her mood.
After his first pleased greeting of her he became moody and distrait
and did not seem to hear half of what she said.
When Betty taxed him with this a little pettishly he looked up at her
and smiled, the old patient, tired look in his eyes.
“You’ll have to bear with me, my dear,” he said. “It’s been a very
busy day and there is still a great deal to do before I can relax.
Just a moment, daughter.”
He swung about in his chair and his glance fell on Jane. The girl met
his look, smiled and half rose.
“Do you want me to see Mr. Bleeker now and arrange for his lease?”
she asked, in her clear bright voice.
“If you please.” Another sharp pang of jealousy stabbed Betty as she
saw how the tired look left her father’s eyes as he spoke to this
other girl, how his shoulders straightened and the years seemed to
fall from him.
“And while you’re out, Miss Cross, you might just scout about a
bit and get used to your rent route. You won’t be able to do much
to-day--in the way of collecting rents I mean--although you might
try your hand at it if you like. Here, I’ll give you that list of
addresses----”
“But Mrs. Buell, who was coming in to-day to arrange terms for the
Haddock house----”
“Don’t worry.” Mr. Browning smiled teasingly at Jane, thought Betty,
as her small foot in the pretty suede slipper tapped the floor. There
was an air of comradery, of perfect understanding, between these two
that puzzled Betty as much as it angered her.
“I’ll take care of Mrs. Buell; though I admit I probably shan’t be
able to handle her as well as you. Still, I’ll do my best! Meanwhile,
here’s the list of the tenements you will have to visit. I’m afraid
you won’t find it the finest or most exclusive neighborhood in
Greenville.”
So, on and on, with their heads close together while Betty must
sit in idleness and simulated patience while that plain Jane Cross
monopolized her father!
There--it was over at last!
Jane slipped into her shabby old coat, crushed the shabby old hat
down over her shining hair, and, laughing, thrust the paper of
addresses into her pocket.
“I’ll do my best,” she said, in answer to some remark of her
employer. “And if I don’t come back with more money than I’m taking
away with me, it certainly won’t be my fault!”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” murmured Betty, her head in the air as a
draught of cold air advertised Jane’s exit into the street. “From the
look of her she couldn’t very well have less money than she has right
now.”
Mr. Browning turned his slow, thoughtful gaze upon his daughter.
Betty, for some reason she could not understand, became restless and
ill-at-ease under the scrutiny.
“Why do you look at me like that, daddy?” she pettishly broke out at
last. “Is there anything wrong with my clothes?”
“No,” said Mr. Browning. His eyes were very weary again, a little
quizzical. “I was merely thinking, Bettykin, how impossible it would
have been for Jane Cross to have made a remark like that one of yours
a moment ago.”
“Jane Cross!” Betty jumped to her feet, her hands clenched at her
side, her pretty mouth hard with sudden fury. “I suppose that
plain-faced, frumpy-looking girl is everything fine and wonderful! I
suppose you’d like to have a girl like that for your daughter!”
The eyes of father and daughter met. Betty’s were the first to waver
and fall before that encounter.
“Jane Cross is the salt of the earth,” said Mr. Browning quietly.
“She is the kind of girl who goes around making the world a better
and happier place for the rest of us to live in. If she wears shabby
clothes, it is because she loves others a little better than herself.
Her clothes make no difference to me, nor to any one else who really
knows her. Pretty clothes are a good thing to have, but a heart and
courage like Jane’s are a better thing. Think it over, Bettykin--it’s
true.”
Betty ran out of the office then with a hand childishly covering her
ears as though she could not bear to hear another word.
The unbelievable had happened. She had gone to conquer and had come
away conquered! Jane Cross in her shabby clothes with her plain face
was strong where she, Betty Browning, was weak. Betty was tasting
defeat, and at first it made her bitter.
She got home and walked the floor thinking of Jane Cross and hating
her.
Jane had turned her father against her! Jane was responsible for
everything! Her father, her beloved dad, had actually held this
plain-faced chit up to her, Betty, as an example to be followed! Oh,
it was dreadful, incredible!
Then she thought of how hard she had tried to gain her father’s love
and complete confidence and sat down in his favorite easy chair and
cried.
The tears softened Betty’s anger, and gradually a different mood came
to her.
By the time Mr. Browning came home that night she had definitely
decided what she would do.
“Dad,” she said, meeting him at the door, “I--I want a job!”
CHAPTER XXIII
JANE AND BILLY
At first Mr. Browning laughed at the suggestion. But he was wise
enough to see that Betty was in dead earnest and, realizing his
mistake, laughed no more.
He tried reasoning.
“You have all you can do at home here, Betty,” he told her. “What
would I do without my housekeeper?”
“I have ever so much time to spare,” Betty returned. “There are hours
when I have to sit with my hands folded and nothing to do, or else go
for a walk and take a chance of meeting people who--well, who make it
a point to be nice to me. It isn’t very pleasant, daddy--and I really
want to help.”
That was the way it started.
Mr. Browning could not see at first how he could use Betty in his own
business, and he was reluctant to have her try for work anywhere else.
Finally he compromised by saying that she might take charge of the
office during Jane’s absence. She could be of real use there when
Mr. Browning himself was forced to be absent on business.
A bitter pill for Betty! But she swallowed it bravely and reported
promptly Monday morning for work.
It says much for Betty’s change of mood--and mind--that she did not
wear an ornate dress in the hope of impressing plain Jane Cross with
her superiority, but selected one of plain cloth instead. The very
simplicity of this frock made it distinguished, and one could see at
a glance that it had never been designed for wear in an office. But
it was the most appropriate thing Betty had, and it at least showed a
desire to improve.
Mr. Browning regarded the dress approvingly as Betty took off her
coat and the line between his brows smoothed out a little.
“She’s true blue,” he thought. “Trust her to make the grade all
right.”
Jane took Betty in hand and “showed her the ropes.”
“There really isn’t anything very hard about it,” Jane would say when
Betty’s pretty forehead puckered in bewilderment over rows of figures
and realty terms that were as clear as day to Jane. “You simply have
to get used to it, that’s all. Now, here’s this deed of Mr. Small’s.
Suppose he wanted to take up a two-thousand-dollar mortgage on it.
What would he do?”
So on and on, coaching, explaining, impervious to Betty’s fits of
temper and her pettish moods, until gradually Betty’s tolerance for
Jane grew into grudging admiration and finally into a reluctant
liking.
“She’s clever,” said Betty, watching the pleasant, energetic girl
at her work. “Whatever else she may be, you’ve got to admit she’s
clever!”
If Jane had not been Jane, she might have gloated a little at her
ascendency over the pretty girl. Instead, she was sorry for her and
sincerely wanted to help her.
About the time of the first deep winter snow Jane became conscious
of a change in Billy Dobson. Billy had finished and patented a new
invention--a new type of store scales that he was enthusiastic over.
He showed the scales to Jane, and she shared his enthusiasm.
“What I need now is money enough to get away from here and interest
some big company in the thing,” he told Jane, the old wistful hunger
in his eyes. “I know I can put it over this time, Jane! I’m sure I
could, if I only had a chance!”
Jane thought of that steadily growing secret fund that she had put
away in her drawer against just this emergency. Her rent commissions
had increased this some. Now as she waded through the first heavy
snowfall of the winter, she decided the time was ripe.
Billy was coming to-night! To-night she would tell him!
Jane was filled with a strange excitement as she went down to the
cozy living room that night to wait for Billy. Would he understand
what she was trying to do, she wondered, or would he, in his stubborn
pride, resent it?
She had not long to ask herself this question, for she had just
settled comfortably in one of the mission armchairs when a sharp ring
at the bell announced Billy’s arrival.
She ran to answer the doorbell and the young man swept into the house
laughing and bringing a draft of cold air with him.
“You look like Santa Claus!” cried Jane, as he shook the snow from
his overcoat.
“And feel like it,” laughed Billy.
His face was ruddy from the cold, his blue eyes snapped. He took
Jane’s hand and drew her into the living room where he laughingly
seated her in a big chair and drew up another close before her.
“Jane,” he announced, “something wonderful has happened! I’ve got my
big chance!”
Jane’s heart skipped a beat, two beats!
“Oh, I might have known it by the way you looked! Tell me, Billy!
Hurry!”
“I found the names of several big men in the city,” said Billy, “men
I thought might be interested in my new type of scales. I described
it to them or, at least, just enough to whet their appetites for
more--so I hoped. Well,” Billy paused and Jane could see by the
tightening of his jaw and the grip of his hand on the chair arm
what a great thing this was to him, “I got a letter from one of
them to-day, Jane, saying he was interested and would like to see
me. He hinted that if my scales were as good as I had led him to
believe--and I’ve no doubt on that score, Jane!--he might be ready to
talk business!”
“Billy!”
“So I’ve wired to him that I’ll be in town to-morrow! Say, Jane, I
want to know--how’s that?”
“Oh, marvelous, Billy! I’m so glad for you! If this man likes your
scales, just what will that mean? I’m so ignorant about these things,
you know!”
“Mean!” Billy got up and strode about the room, hands thrust deep
in his pockets. “It will mean everything, Jane. It means that this
man will back my patent by putting up hard cash and in return will
get a certain percentage of the profits. But I’ll get a percentage,
too--enough probably, if everything goes well, to about fix me for
life. How’s that, Jane?”
“I always told you you’d do it, Billy, didn’t I?” Jane looked up at
him proudly and Billy, pausing in his restless pacing of the room,
sat down again and took her hand gently in his.
“You bet you did, Jane!” he said exuberantly. “And don’t think I’m
forgetting the little pal that backed me when every one else was dead
set against me. I haven’t won out yet, Jane, but if I do--and I begin
to feel now as though I would--I want you to know that a good deal of
it is your doing! I don’t think even you know just how much you’ve
helped.”
“I’m glad Billy. And--it gives me courage to say something else.”
Her voice was little more than a murmur and Billy had to lean close
to catch her words. “I thought the time might come when you would
need--a little practical help--from your friends. So I--I--oh, here,
Billy, take it--and please don’t be offended with me!”
Jane thrust a little packet into his hand, rose quickly and went to
the window where she stood looking out into the stormy night.
Billy looked at her wonderingly, then back again to the packet in his
hand. Slowly he unwrapped the covering.
A roll of neatly folded bills--that slowly accruing little fund that
had lain for so long at the back of Jane’s dresser drawer!
Billy looked at it for a long moment; then he crushed it in his hand
and turned to Jane. She was still watching the storm outside the
window.
“You meant this for me, Jane?” said Billy slowly.
Wordlessly Jane nodded. She did not turn about or look at him.
Billy got up softly and went over to her. He took her hand, put the
roll of bills in it, then closed her fingers over it gently, one by
one.
Jane said, in a stifled voice:
“Then--then you don’t need it, Billy?”
“I’ve a little of my own saved up. But, Jane--say, Jane,” his voice
had lowered and was very gruff, “I can’t say what I’m feeling. Guess
you’ll have to guess at it. But that was more than good of you, Jane!”
The warm clasp of his hand, the look in his eyes, was answer enough
for Jane. Billy did not need her money, perhaps, but he did need her
friendship.
The next day when she started for her rent route she met Billy. He
was going to the station, and if ever any one looked buoyant and
hopeful and headed for success, that young man was Billy Dobson.
Betty, from the windows of her father’s office, saw the meeting, and
a frown puckered her white forehead.
“I never knew Billy Dobson was so good looking,” she thought. “And
there seems to be no doubt whatever what he thinks of Jane. It’s
wonderful how that girl, plain as she is, can wind men around her
little finger! She has something you haven’t, Betty Browning, for
all that your eyes are blue and your hair naturally curly! I wonder
if it really was Billy Dobson that set Martin and Hull’s on fire and
started all our bad luck! I must say, he doesn’t look like that sort
of person.”
Betty saw Jane hold out both her hands impulsively and saw the eager
way the youth grasped them. Then Billy was gone, with a buoyant lift
of his hat, and Jane, in her shabby coat, disappeared around the
corner.
With a sigh Betty turned to the tiresome work of straightening up
Jane’s desk and her father’s and laying the latter’s letters close to
his hand.
It was several hours later, and Mr. Browning had been in, consulted
with several clients and gone out again with one of them to arrange a
new lease on some property or other--Betty could never remember the
details of these transactions as Jane did--and Betty was once more
alone and feeling rather bored when the door opened and a shabby,
poorly dressed old woman entered the office.
Betty looked up, surprised as the newcomer paused at the door and
seemed in doubt whether to advance or retreat.
“Come in,” said Betty. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Well,” hesitated the woman, “I was hoping to see Mr. Browning--or
Miss Jane Cross.”
Betty winced inwardly, as she still did when any one expressed a
preference for Jane, but she said politely enough:
“Mr. Browning and Miss Cross are both out at present. If you will
leave a message with me, I’ll see that it gets to them safely.”
“We--ell--” The woman came forward and seated herself gingerly on the
edge of a chair. “I came to tell you what started the Martin and Hull
fire.”
Betty could be pardoned for her stare of amazement.
“You have?” she asked incredulously.
“Leastways, my husband says he thinks he knows what started it,” the
old woman continued, taking no note of Betty’s amazement. “He never
listens much to what people are sayin’ or what gossip goes about the
town but the other evenin’ when he heard some of the men talkin’
about Billy Dobson and sayin’ as how the lad had set Martin and
Hull’s on fire, why, that sort of got him right het up, as you might
say, and he says right off that he knowed what set the place afire.”
“What did?” cried Betty excitedly. Here, miraculously, it seemed, was
the answer to the question she had asked herself only that morning!
“The wires was all wrong,” said the woman, whose name was Mrs. Shiff.
“Martin Shiff--that’s my man--and he’s a lineman for the electric
light company--says as how he told Mr. Hull time and again there’d be
trouble if they didn’t get busy and have some new wirin’ done. But
the old man kept puttin’ it off and off, and Martin says it looks
like he just got what was coming to him.”
Betty had jumped to her feet. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright.
“Is your husband sure of this?”
“He’s as sure,” said Mrs. Shiff dryly, “as he can be of anything on
this earth!”
CHAPTER XXIV
A SURPRISE
Betty Browning waited until she and her father were seated at dinner
that night before she told of the electrician’s important disclosures
concerning the defective wiring of Martin and Hull’s place.
Mr. Browning was greatly interested and promised Betty that he would
set an investigation afoot at once to discover whether there was any
truth in Mr. Shiff’s assertions.
“First of all, we’ll get a signed statement from this electrician.
Then with that we’ll confront Mr. Hull and ask him to confirm it. If
he will and if we can also find some one else who will testify that
the wiring was defective or can even testify that he heard Shiff say
as much previous to the blaze, we’ll have gone a long way toward
clearing Billy Dobson’s name. Jane will be glad,” he finished. “She
has always championed Billy.”
“I know.” Betty played with a spoon and did not look toward her
father. “And that brings me to something else I want to say, dad. I’d
just a little rather Jane didn’t know until--until we’ve got it all
fixed up.”
Mr. Browning regarded his daughter’s pretty profile thoughtfully a
moment. Then he put his hand understandingly over the hand that still
played restlessly with the spoon.
“A surprise? All right, honey; that’s an easy promise.”
Several days later--when Jane’s surprise was almost ready for
her--Jane herself received a shock that sent her little world
crashing about her ears.
It happened one day when she was out collecting rents from the
tenement dwellers on the farther side of the railroad tracks.
There was a new family in 18 Blecker Street, so Mr. Browning had told
her. Jane was to collect the first month’s rent from them that day
and in addition had been commissioned to look them over and report as
to their general character, reliableness, etc. Mr. Browning had long
ago found that Jane’s judgment in such matters was almost infallible.
If Jane found any one trustworthy in her estimation, Mr. Browning
regarded her recommendation more highly than the best references.
References he must have, of course, but Jane’s intuition, in her
employer’s opinion, was even more to be trusted.
So Jane toiled up the steps of the tenement house at 18 Blecker
Street, and with a feeling of curiosity rang the bell of Apartment 18.
A thin, dark-haired woman came to the door and regarded the girl with
suspicion. Jane was used to this. She supposed most rent collectors
had to be. She did not allow it to affect her friendly attitude nor
the pleasant way she stated her errand.
She was conscious that the woman was regarding her very intently, but
at that was scarcely prepared for the latter’s next statement, or
rather question.
“You’re the girl who used to live with Mrs. Cross, ain’t you?”
Jane was startled by the abrupt change of subject, but she said,
still pleasantly:
“I am Mrs. Cross’s daughter, yes.”
“Her daughter!” blurted the woman. “Why, she never had no daughter!”
“Never had a daughter!” Jane cried, anger mingling with her
astonishment. “What are you talking about? _I_ am her daughter!”
The woman appeared to be one of those little souls who delight in
creating a sensation, no matter who may be wounded or hurt during the
process.
“Me and my husband came to Coal Run about the same time as Mrs. Cross
and her man,” the woman continued, while Jane stood staring at her
in a daze. “But before that we lived in Walling--you mind that’s not
more than twenty miles from Coal Run. The Crosses lived there too,
and one day when the orphan asylum burned they adopted a little girl
who had been brought to the asylum when she was a baby.”
“A little girl,” said Jane dazedly. “And that little girl
was--was----”
“You,” said the woman, with a sharp laugh. “They called you Janet at
the asylum, but seems like that struck Mrs. Cross too fancy-like, so
she changed it to Jane.”
Since she had not given her name to this woman the fact that the
latter knew it seemed a sort of confirmation of her incredible story.
Jane felt numbed, and yet her brain was acting with extraordinary
clearness.
“If this thing is true,” she said slowly, “how is it that I don’t
recognize you?”
“We didn’t live in Coal Run long,” said the woman, with a shrug of
her shoulders. “Probably you was so little when we moved away that
you couldn’t remember us. Well, might as well get down to business. I
suppose you’ve got to have the rent?”
“Yes,” said Jane, speaking automatically, “I’ve got to have the rent.”
But after the woman had given her the money--her name was
Hensel--Jane collected no more rents that day.
She went straight home and walked in suddenly upon Mrs. Powell, who
was working in the kitchen.
The latter looked at Jane’s white, stricken face and dried her hands.
“My dear child! What is it?”
Jane dropped into one of the straight kitchen chairs and looked at
this kind friend, the friend that had tried to take a mother’s place
to her--a mother’s place----
“Aunt Lou! Aunt Lou!” she cried, her lips quivering, “who is my
mother?”
Mrs. Powell paused and looked strangely at Jane. Then with a cry she
sank to her knees and gathered the white-faced girl into her arms.
“Oh, my poor child! You’ve found out then----”
Jane pushed Mrs. Powell gently away from her and held her at arm’s
length for a moment. Her brown eyes were oddly still as they met the
pitying gaze of the older woman.
“It’s true then?” she said slowly. “I was--taken from an orphan
asylum by the one I thought was--my mother? My name--is not--Jane
Cross, at all?”
“I’m afraid not, Jane.” Mrs. Powell was abashed by the girl’s
quietness, by the intentness of her look. “Mrs. Cross took you from
an asylum in Walling when you were a small child. If she had lived
you might never have found out the truth.”
“When did you find this out?” asked Jane in the same quiet voice.
“Just a short time ago, Jane.” Mrs. Powell’s tone had become
pleading. She was more alarmed by the quietness of Jane’s manner than
she would have been by the most hysterical outburst of tears. “It was
when I found the material for your serge dress.”
“As long ago as that!” said Jane softly. “And you never told me?”
“I didn’t dare, Jane,” pleaded Mrs. Powell. “I was afraid it would
break your heart. You are not angry with me for keeping the secret
from you, Jane?”
“No--oh, no!” In the same dazed way, Jane pushed Mrs. Powell gently
from her, got up, and walked over to the window. “How could I be
angry with you, who have been so good to me always? No, no, I’m not
angry.”
But when Mrs. Powell would have gone to her to take her in her arms
again and try to comfort her, Jane raised her hand in a weary little
gesture.
“Please,” she said very softly, “I want to be alone for a little
while, dear Aunt Lou. You don’t mind?”
Jane went toward the door, hand outstretched before her as though she
could not see.
Mrs. Powell watched her pityingly and heard her murmur just before
she crossed the threshold, “Mother! Who--was--my mother?”
Jane did not cry that day or the next while she went mechanically
about the business of collecting rents--the business she had
neglected the day before. She could not cry, but something within her
that had been bright and warm and laughter-loving had frozen into a
cold aching indifference to everything but her pain.
Because she was out of the office almost all the next day, Betty
had no chance to spring the “surprise” upon her that had been so
carefully prepared by her father and herself with the invaluable help
of Martin Shiff and several friends of the latter. These friends were
ready to swear at a moment’s notice that Shiff had made in their
presence much the same statement concerning the faulty wiring of
Martin and Hull’s that Mrs. Shiff had made to Betty.
Betty had been impatiently awaiting Jane’s arrival all afternoon, and
when the latter came at last, almost at closing time, Betty turned
eagerly toward the sound of the opening door.
“Oh, I’m so glad you came!” she cried, advancing eagerly toward Jane.
“I’ve got a surprise for you, Jane, a marvelous surprise!”
Jane regarded the vision of Betty’s flushed cheeks and dancing eyes
wonderingly. Betty had never approached her in this way before. Jane
took off her hat and coat and turned a wan, listless face to the
pretty girl.
“That’s nice,” she said, trying to smile. “What is it?”
Betty bore her triumphantly to the desk and picked up the paper that
had been written and signed by Martin Shiff, the electrician.
“Read that!” she said, thrusting the paper into Jane’s hand. “Read
that and tell me what you think of it!”
Jane read the paper at first indifferently and then with growing
interest.
“Why,” she said, looking up at Betty, who pressed laughingly close to
her shoulder, “this man seems to think it was defective wiring that
caused the Martin and Hull fire!”
Betty nodded.
“And what’s more, we’ve found lots of others who think so, Jane--now
that this electrician has had the courage to come out into the open
and declare himself. Even Mr. Hull admits that Shiff urged him time
and again to have his place newly wired!”
“Why, then,” said Jane, a thrill in her voice, “this thing
practically clears Billy----”
“Practically clears Billy! Hear the girl!” cried Betty gayly. “Why,
it clears Billy altogether! By this time next week I’m willing to
wager that not a person in town will believe that silly accusation
old Hull made against him!”
Jane had been reading the paper again. Now she glanced up at Betty.
“This was your surprise for me?” she asked slowly. “You did this for
me--because you knew it would please me?”
“Dad and I did--with the able assistance of this electrician person.
Why, Jane, I believe you’re crying!”
Jane got up quickly and walked over to her desk, where she stood with
her back to Betty, struggling with herself.
Betty hesitated a minute, then went over to the other girl and took
her cold hand within her own warm one.
“Jane--I--I believe there was something wrong when you came in just
now.” She hesitated, but a warm rush of pity urged her on. “Something
dreadful has happened to you, Jane, to make you look like that.
I--I know you--have reasons for not caring to confide in me. I’m
ashamed of the way I’ve acted sometimes. But, Jane, if--if you feel
like--letting me--help a little--I want to, really.”
“How would you like to find out suddenly that you had no mother?”
Jane’s fingers suddenly curled about Betty’s hand in a way that
hurt. Her voice was harsh with pain. “How would you like to find
out that the person you had loved as your mother, the person you
had mourned as your mother after her death, was not your mother at
all, but some one who, out of pity, had taken you from an orphan
asylum and brought you up in ignorance of the truth? How would you
like to feel,” Jane’s voice broke, but her grip on Betty’s hand did
not relax, “that--that you had never known your mother--or your
father----”
“Jane, dear!” pleaded Betty, but Jane rushed on, unheeding.
“To feel that you did not even know your right name--that--that you
had no real place in the world? Just an orphan, picked up out of an
asylum--no--no good to any one----”
“Why, Jane, do you know what I think?”
Betty at last broke through the rush of words and put her arm tight
about the trembling girl. Jane’s eyes were downcast and she traced
strange designs on the top of her desk with her finger.
“I think,” said Betty in a curiously sweet voice, “that there are
lots of people who know all about themselves--their names and
everything--that aren’t half the use in the world that you are, Jane.
Why, just look at me!” with a quiver of laughter that was half a
sob in her voice. “See what you’ve done to me, Jane! You’ve made me
see that the people who are really worth while are the people who
do things and don’t just sit around and watch other people do them.
You go around making life bright for people until they just can’t do
without you. Yes, you do! I’ve watched you, and I know! Dad’s one.
Billy’s another. And I--I’m another, Jane! If I had a sister I’d want
her just like you. Now, look here--this silly girl’s crying again.
Where _did_ I put that hanky!”
CHAPTER XXV
THE REVELATION
When Mr. Browning entered the office a few moments later he found the
two girls clasped in each other’s arms.
Betty was wiping Jane’s eyes with her inadequate little handkerchief
and Jane was trying to laugh and making a poor business of it.
No wonder that he paused in amazement at this sight. No wonder,
either, that his heart leaped with pride and hope as he saw his
pretty Betty in the new role of comforter to Jane.
“She’s come through!” he told himself. “I knew she’d make the grade!”
Then he coughed by way of tactfully announcing his presence.
Betty pulled him down on the settee beside them and, still holding on
to Jane, told the latter’s story.
Mr. Browning was wonderful to her, Jane thought afterward, and so
comforting. He said that he would try at once to find out more about
her parentage, that he would write to the orphan asylum, or perhaps
go to Walling personally.
“Their records are usually pretty accurate,” he told Jane. “In the
meantime, don’t worry, young lady. A girl like you can’t have sprung
from any but good stock. When we find out who your parents were, I’ll
guarantee you can be proud of them. Meantime, I think I’ll have a
talk with Mr. Powell.”
This he did, and his conference with Mr. Powell resulted immediately
in one good thing, at least. He was able to find the latter a
position in Drake’s big hardware store, where he started at a salary
equal to the one he had had with Martin and Hull and where, he was
assured, there was good opportunity for advancement.
About Jane, neither Mr. Powell nor Mr. Browning was so sure. They
were almost afraid to investigate for fear they would find out
something concerning the girl’s parents that might cast a shadow over
her entire life. Nevertheless, they pledged themselves to help her,
and went about it with a will.
When Mr. Browning could not obtain satisfactory information by mail
he announced to Jane and Betty one day his intention of going to
Walling in person.
He seemed vaguely excited about something, but though both girls
questioned him, Betty more insistently than Jane, he would give them
no satisfaction, merely saying that when he found out anything
definite he would tell it to them at once but that at present he had
gained no really authentic information.
He left the office in charge of Jane, and that meant that the girl
was kept “on her toes all day” doing both her own work and the work
of her employer. This was perhaps just as well, since it kept her
from useless brooding. But it was a trying time, even though an
exciting one, for both the girls left behind.
Meanwhile, Billy Dobson came back to Greenville triumphant. He had
been gone for some time, and since he had not written, Jane was
beginning to worry for fear his mission had ended in failure after
all.
He burst unceremoniously into the office one morning just as Jane was
putting her hat on to go out.
Billy was handsomer than ever and there was an air of success about
him just now that was rather thrilling. At least, so thought Betty
from the modest obscurity of her own little desk in the rear of the
office.
Billy rushed directly to Jane and swallowed up both her outstretched
hands in his two great brown ones.
“Congratulations, Jane! Give ’em to me quick! I’ve done it!”
“Billy!”
Jane’s face was shining; her heart was thumping gloriously.
“You mean that man has really accepted your invention?”
“Accepted! Oh, boy, I’ll say he has! And at a price--oh, such a
price! Jane, feast your eyes upon me, for you’re looking at a rich
man--a man, moreover, who some day will be much richer! Are you
getting an eyeful?”
“You’re crazy, of course!” Jane laughed helplessly as Billy continued
to hold on to her hands and beam upon her. “But I don’t blame you at
all, Billy. I feel sort of--unbalanced--myself!”
They had a perfectly marvelous, idiotic time after that, and Jane
drew Betty into it, telling Billy of the investigation the latter had
instigated and giving him the signed statement of Martin Shiff to
read.
Billy looked thoughtfully at Betty after he read it, and then quietly
offered his hand.
“Thanks!” he said. “That was a mighty fine thing for you to do, and
it means a lot to me.”
Betty accepted the hand but nodded mischievously at Jane, all her
pretty dimples in evidence.
“I did it for Jane,” she said demurely. “I knew how pleased she’d be.”
Billy turned to Jane, a slow smile on his lips.
“Were you?” he asked.
Jane flushed, and was surprised and angry at herself for doing it.
“Of course I was glad,” she returned almost shortly. “Who wouldn’t
be?”
“I’d be very sorry,” said Billy gravely, “if Jane wasn’t just a
little bit more pleased than--any one else.”
Jane smiled, her own bright, cordial smile, and gave him her hand
again.
“Of course I am glad, Billy,” she said. “You know how much, without
my telling you.”
Betty smiled knowingly and hid her face so that the mischievous
dimples would not betray her thought. For who can say that all
women--even quite young ones--are not matchmakers at heart!
It was some days before Mr. Browning came home again, and the
suspense made Jane thin and etched dark circles under her eyes.
Billy, of course, had been let into her confidence, and he and Betty
between them did all they could to comfort and encourage her. But
Jane could not sleep at night for the question that said itself over
and over in her mind. “Who was my mother? Who was my father? Oh, what
will Mr. Browning find out about them?”
Then came the night when Mr. Browning arrived quite unexpectedly in
Greenville.
He had engaged a woman in the neighborhood--a bustling wiry person
by the name of Joyce--to stay with Betty during his absence. The
latter protested that she would be perfectly safe without the wiry
Mrs. Joyce, but Mr. Browning would not hear of her staying alone in
the house.
On this particular night Betty was just about ready for bed when
a familiar step on the porch and a key in the door announced the
arrival of her father.
She ran down to him. The flood of questions trembling on her lips was
checked by the look on her father’s face. He shut the door quietly
and then, with a hand on Betty’s arm, drew her into the front room.
“Dad, is anything wrong? Has anything----”
“Listen, Betty.” Mr. Browning seated himself in a chair and drew
Betty down on his knee as though she were a little child again. He
had not even thought to take off his overcoat. “I have something very
important to tell you. I wanted you to know before I saw Jane. That’s
why I timed my arrival after dark. Are you listening?”
* * * * *
The next day Betty entered her father’s office, trying to mask her
excitement. Jane was at her desk, sorting and arranging the morning
mail. Betty went directly to her.
“Jane, dear,” she said, “daddy is in town and he wants very much to
see you.”
Jane started to her feet, her face suddenly very white.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“At home. He thought that perhaps he’d better tell you--what he wants
to--there. Come along.”
“But the office----”
“Oh, bother the old office! It can take care of itself for a little
while!”
Jane was in her coat, her hat on her head in a moment. She closed and
locked the office and automatically put the key in her pocket.
The girls had almost reached Betty’s house, walking swiftly and in
silence, when Jane put a hand on the pretty girl’s arm.
“Tell me just one thing, Betty,” she begged. “Is this news--very bad?”
“Bad? No! Don’t ask me any questions, Jane Cross, or I’ll never keep
the secret--never!”
They said no more until they stepped up on the porch and the door was
opened by Mr. Browning from the inside. Mrs. Joyce had been dismissed
that morning.
Jane was trembling when Mr. Browning helped her off with her coat,
and then led her into the front room.
“Oh, whatever you have to tell me, please tell me quickly,” she
cried, her breath catching. “I can’t bear this a moment longer!”
“All right, then.” Mr. Browning pushed the girl gently down on the
couch and drew up a chair near her. Betty sat down close to Jane, one
arm about her.
“My news isn’t bad news, Jane; so don’t look like that, my dear girl.
But it is strange, so strange that it may be something of a shock to
you. Are you ready to listen?”
“Oh, yes, yes!” cried Jane.
“Well then, this is the story of a girl I know.” Mr. Browning took
a cigar from his pocket and lighted it, feigning an ease he did not
feel. “She was brought up by a woman whom she thought to be her
mother. When she found out this woman was not her mother but had
taken her from an orphan asylum, the truth came, naturally, as a
great shock to her.”
Jane sat very still now, her eyes fixed on Mr. Browning.
“There was a man who took a great interest in her, and who promised
to solve the mystery of her parentage for her. He went to the town
where the orphan asylum was located in the hope of finding out from
the authorities there something concerning this girl’s parents. He
did find out something.”
Mr. Browning paused and regarded the tip of his cigar intently for a
moment. Jane neither moved nor spoke, but sat with her eyes intently
on him.
“He found out something so strange and startling,” Mr. Browning
continued, “that he could not bring himself to believe the truth of
it at first, but must first satisfy himself with absolute proofs.
He found the proofs.” He paused, and for the first time his eyes
met Jane’s. The girl stirred, reached out her hands toward him
imploringly.
“He found,” said Mr. Browning slowly, “that the child’s real name was
not Jane, but Janet, and that her mother was Martha Harper and that
her father was Mark Harper, a sailor who lost his life in a great
gale off the coast.”
Jane was trembling again and Betty’s arm tightened about her.
“The mother,” continued Mr. Browning in a low voice, and even amid
the whirling of her own thought, Jane wondered why he became so
agitated, so distressed at the mention of her mother’s name, “tried
to make her living and support her baby, but her heart was broken
and she died, leaving the baby, the little girl, to the charity of
strangers.”
Jane found herself speaking.
“That girl was I?” she asked.
“I am coming to that,” said Mr. Browning. He bent forward and held
Jane’s gaze with his own. “This is the strange part, the almost
unbelievable part of it. I once had a sister, a gay, high-spirited
girl, who fell in love with--and finally married--a sailor. My
parents opposed the match, and when the girl married against their
wishes, declared they would have nothing more to do with her.”
“Oh, they were cruel!” cried Jane, with a catch in her voice. “Cruel!”
“Yes, it was cruel,” said Mr. Browning. He regarded the end of his
cigar for a moment, then turned his gaze again to Jane. “I want you
to listen very carefully to what I am saying now.” His tone was so
grave that Jane stared at him fascinated, her heart pounding. “That
sister of whom I have not until now been able to find a trace, though
I have tried, bore the name of Martha, and the man she married was
Mark Harper! Now, Jane, do you understand?”
Jane did not understand for a moment. She was so slow, in fact, that
Betty’s patience could not stand the strain.
“Jane, don’t you see?” she cried. “Your mother and my father were
brother and sister! That makes us--well, what does it make us, you
big silly?”
Jane stared at her, while the almost incredible truth flashed to her
mind.
“Why, Betty, it can’t be! It isn’t possible! That makes us cousins!”
“First cousins, you old darling! And, Jane, I feel as if I’d found a
million dollars!”
Betty hugged Jane and hugged her father--whose face was no longer
lined and weary--then went back to Jane and put a mischievous finger
under her chin, lifting up her serious, still incredulous face.
“I wanted you for a sister, Jane,” she said. “’Member? Well, I
couldn’t have you for my sister. But I can have you for my cousin,
and that’s almost as good, now, isn’t it?”
“Almost as good!”
It was a long time before Jane could realize the fact that she and
Betty--pretty Betty Browning who had once lived in the finest house
on Rose Hill--were cousins. It was a still longer time before she
could drag her mind away from that marvelous fact.
Mr. Browning had papers to prove his assertion, but Jane only glanced
at them. His word was enough.
Mr. Browning, fine, distinguished Mr. Browning, was her uncle--the
next best thing to one’s own father, thought Jane, and tried
wistfully to picture that Mark Harper who had died at sea. Mr.
Browning was to be Uncle Clyde after this. How intimate it sounded
and how she loved Uncle Clyde and Betty for being so good to her!
That mother, that impetuous pretty girl Martha, who had braved the
displeasure of her family to marry the man she loved! What of her?
Mr. Browning had brought a tiny locket, a pretty baby’s locket, and
in it was a sweet smiling face whose loveliness brought the tears
smarting to Jane’s longing eyes.
It had been part of the possessions of the little girl, Janet Harper,
when she came to the asylum and had been forgotten when she left.
The authorities had lost sight of her, but had kept the tiny locket,
thinking that some day some one belonging to her would come and claim
it, as some one did!
“Mother! Mother!” whispered Jane, and looking at the lovely pictured
face, gradually lost it in a swimming mist of tears.
It is to be feared that very little work was done at Mr. Browning’s
real estate office that day. True, there was some one there most of
the day and Mr. Browning went about his duties in a perfunctory way,
but Jane and Betty were somewhere in the clouds together and could
not come down to earth.
Mrs. Powell had to be told the wonderful news, of course, and laughed
and cried and exclaimed over Jane to her heart’s content. Marion
came in in the midst of the jubilation and almost had hysterics in
her joy.
“Best girl in the world!” she cried, bobbing and smiling. “Deserves
everything good! Yes, indeed. You have my blessing, Jane--or I should
say, Janet! Good luck go with you, my dear. Yes indeed, I wish it.
Truly.”
“Marion!” Lydia spoke sternly from the doorway. She had followed her
sister to the door and looked with disapproval upon the scene. “Do
come away, Marion! You talk too much!”
“Aren’t they funny?” giggled Betty a few moments later, as she linked
her arm through Jane’s and started toward home. It had been arranged
that Jane should celebrate by having dinner with her newly acquired
relatives.
“But Marion and Lydia are good-hearted,” said Jane. “They will do
anything in the world for you if they think you need help. I’ll never
forget how good they were to us when we first came to Greenville.”
“Well, if you love ’em, Jane, I suppose I’ll have to love ’em too,”
said Betty, with a sigh of mock resignation. “Here’s the butcher
store. We’ll have to stop and get the makings of a dinner.”
“Here’s the whole day gone and I’ve hardly done a stroke of work,”
said Jane. “Mr. Brown----”
“Uncle Clyde!” corrected Betty.
“Uncle Clyde,” repeated Jane with a heightened color and a quick
squeeze of Betty’s hand, “will be firing me!”
“He can’t now,” chuckled Betty, and displayed all her dimples.
“Because, you see, you’re in the family!”
A short time later the girls let themselves into Betty’s house,
chatting gayly, their arms full of bundles.
“Here comes dad,” said Betty, pausing on the threshold and looking
back to wave to her father as he turned the corner and came swiftly
toward them. “Let’s wait for him.”
So it happened that they entered the house together, Mr. Browning
with an arm about each of “his girls,” as he proudly called them.
Something unusual in the atmosphere halted them just within the door.
It was the appetizing smell of a roast browning in the oven.
“Why, dad, you didn’t tell Mrs. Joyce to come back, did you?” asked
Betty, staring at him.
“No,” answered her father briefly, and started toward the kitchen.
The girls followed, wondering.
Through the kitchen doorway they saw some one slip a pan of biscuits
in the oven--a tall handsome some one, swathed in a gingham kitchen
apron.
Mr. Browning paused as if stupefied and stood staring.
Betty drew her arm from Jane’s, shrieked wildly:
“Mother! Mother! Mother!”
She flung herself like a young meteor past her father and into the
arms of the tall, handsome woman in the gingham apron.
“Mother! Dear, darling mother! It isn’t you, is it? It’s some one
that looks like you all dressed up in my funny old apron! Oh, mother,
tell me it’s you and that I’m not dreaming!”
“You foolish child, stop mauling me so! You nearly made me spoil the
soup, and the roast will burn----”
“Oh, bother the roast! Dad--daddy, she’s come back to us!”
All this time Jane had stood, frozen by surprise, scarcely able to
move.
She saw Mr. Browning go forward slowly and take his wife’s hand, saw
the questioning look in his eyes.
“I couldn’t stay away any longer, Clyde,” she heard the proud woman
say, her eyes humble, almost pleading. “What Betty can do I can do,
and I’m ashamed that I let the child teach me this lesson. I’d like
to stay and--do my part--if you want me----”
“Well,” said Mr. Browning slowly, “I guess we won’t exactly put her
out, shall we, Bettykin?”
Jane realized then that this scene was not for her, and she turned
away, feeling for the moment just a little lonely.
But only for a moment.
Betty came flying after her, took her hand, and drew her toward the
kitchen.
“Mother!” she cried in her merry voice, all her dimples flashing,
“allow me to present another member of the family!”
* * * * *
Several years passed by, and Jane, wandering in the garden that
she and Mrs. Powell had coaxed into a riot of color, smiled as she
thought of the changes those years had seen.
She still worked in Mr. Browning’s office, and Betty, not to be
outdone in anything by her beloved cousin, worked side by side with
her.
The business had prospered. Mr. Browning was well on the way to
becoming a rich man again, and it began to look as though before long
he would be able to buy back the big house on Rose Hill if he cared
to. But they were so happy in the little cottage where the roses over
the door no longer drooped their heads in sad neglect that it is
doubtful whether they would ever have the heart to leave it.
Although Mr. and Mrs. Browning urged Jane to come and live with them
and pretty Betty tried all her dimples and all her wiles, Jane would
not leave the Powells, those good friends who had been kind to her
when she needed kindness most. Mr. Browning had been able to throw a
little business in the way of Mr. Powell now and then that he could
look after in his leisure hours, so that he, as well, was better off
than he had ever dreamed of being.
Billy had prospered too--oh, mightily.
Jane’s smile deepened when she thought of Billy. He was off on one of
his many important trips to the city now, but Jane expected him back
almost any time. The marketing of his one invention had made much
easier the placing of the others. There had been something in that
last letter of his----
A quick footstep on the gravel path behind her.
Jane turned to see Billy coming toward her, his fair hair shining in
the sun.
“’Lo Jane! Aunt Lou said I’d find you here talking to the posies.
Thought maybe you’d rather talk to me.”
“Well, so I would, perhaps. How was the trip, Billy?”
“Pretty slick. All I had to do was tell ’em to sign on the dotted
line. We’re going to be rich, Jane!”
“We?” queried Jane, with a smile.
“Yes, I said we! Because you’re going to marry me, whether you
know it or not. Don’t you think, Jane, you’ve kept me waiting long
enough?” he went on more soberly.
Perhaps it was the smell of the flowers or perhaps it was the spring
sunshine or perhaps--it was only Billy. Anyway, Jane said, “Perhaps I
have,” and Billy seemed to think he had his answer.
“Oh-h, excuse me!” A pretty face was poked about the edge of the rose
arbor, a face framed in lovely flyaway golden hair. “You ought to
hang out a sign, you two, warning everybody off the premises!”
“Come in,” grinned Billy. “You’re just in time to be invited to our
wedding.”
“When’s it to be?” came with a chuckle from Betty.
“Next week.”
“Oh, Billy!”
“Don’t talk, darling.” Betty put a hand over Jane’s mouth. “He’s
made up his mind, and when a man makes up his mind there’s no use
arguing with him. You might just as well submit as unprotestingly as
possible.”
“But, Billy, I can’t possibly----”
“No but, young lady. I have to go to the city again next week, and
you’re going with me. We’ll buy what you need when we get there.”
“No,” said Jane. “I must have at least a month, Billy.”
“A month!” cried Billy reproachfully. “How can I wait a month?”
Betty sighed and turned away.
“I see you don’t need _me_,” she murmured, with a mischievous glance.
She picked a rose from a bush near by and leveled it at them sternly.
“I’ll let you have this wedding on one condition!”
“What’s that?” they asked her, smiling.
“That you’ll let me be the bridesmaid.”
“Betty! As though we’d have any one else!”
They watched the pretty figure in the rose-colored frock until it was
out of sight, then Jane and Billy turned to walk slowly down the path
toward the garden of their dreams.
THE END
THE BARTON BOOKS FOR GIRLS
=BY MAY HOLLIS BARTON=
[Illustration: (cover of ‘Nell Grayson’s Ranching Days’)]
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. With colored jacket_
_=Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid=_
_May Hollis Barton is a new writer for girls who is bound to win
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plot and action. Clean tales that all girls will enjoy reading._
=1. THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY=
_or Laura Mayford’s City Experiences_
Laura was the oldest of five children and when daddy got sick she
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=2. THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL=
_or The Mystery of the School by the Lake_
When the three chums arrived at the boarding school they found the
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=3. NELL GRAYSON’S RANCHING DAYS=
_or A City Girl in the Great West_
Showing how Nell, when she had a ranch girl visit her in Boston,
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=4. FOUR LITTLE WOMEN OF ROXBY=
_or The Queer Old Lady Who Lost Her Way_
Four sisters are keeping house and having trouble to make both ends
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=5. PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY=
_or The Girl Who Won Out_
The tale of two girls, one plain but sensible, the other pretty but
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THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES
=BY ALICE B. EMERSON=
[Illustration: (cover of ‘Ruth Fielding in Alaska’)]
_12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors_
_=Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid=_
Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle.
Her adventures and travels make stories that will hold the interest
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=1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL=
=2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL=
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=4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT=
=5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH=
=6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND=
=7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM=
=8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES=
=9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES=
=10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE=
=11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE=
=12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE=
=13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS=
=14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT=
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=16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST=
=17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST=
=18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE=
=19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING=
=20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH=
=21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS=
=22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA=
=23. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREAT SCENARIO=
THE BETTY GORDON SERIES
=BY ALICE B. EMERSON=
[Illustration: (cover of ‘Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm’)]
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors_
_=Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid=_
=1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE=
FARM _or The Mystery of a Nobody_
At twelve Betty is left an orphan.
=2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON=
_or Strange Adventures in a Great City_
Betty goes to the National Capitol to find her uncle and has several
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_or The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune_
From Washington the scene is shifted to the great oil fields of our
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=4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL=
_or The Treasure of Indian Chasm_
Seeking treasures of Indian Chasm makes interesting reading.
=5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP=
_or The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne_
At Mountain Camp Betty found herself in the midst of a mystery
involving a girl whom she had previously met in Washington.
=6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK=
_or School Chums on the Boardwalk_
A glorious outing that Betty and her chums never forgot.
=7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS=
_or Bringing the Rebels to Terms_
Rebellious students, disliked teachers and mysterious robberies make
a fascinating story.
=8. BETTY GORDON AT RAINBOW RANCH=
_or Cowboy Joe’s Secret_
Betty and her chums have a grand time in the saddle.
=9. BETTY GORDON IN MEXICAN WILDS=
_or The Secret of the Mountains_
Betty receives a fake telegram and finds both Bob and herself held
for ransom in a mountain cave.
=10. BETTY GORDON AND THE LOST PEARL=
_or A Mystery of the Seaside_
Betty and her chums go to the ocean shore for a vacation and there
Betty becomes involved in the disappearance of a string of pearls
worth a fortune.
THE LINGER-NOT SERIES
=BY AGNES MILLER=
[Illustration: (cover of ‘The Linger-Nots and the Mystery House’)]
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors_
_=Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid=_
_This new series of girls’ books is in a new style of story writing.
The interest is in knowing the girls and seeing them solve the
problems that develop their character. Incidentally, a great deal of
historical information is imparted._
=1. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE MYSTERY HOUSE=
_or The Story of Nine Adventurous Girls_
How the Linger-Not girls met and formed their club seems commonplace,
but this writer makes it fascinating, and how they made their
club serve a great purpose continues the interest to the end, and
introduces a new type of girlhood.
=2. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE VALLEY FEUD=
_or The Great West Point Chain_
The Linger-Not girls had no thought of becoming mixed up with feuds
or mysteries, but their habit of being useful soon entangled them in
some surprising adventures that turned out happily for all, and made
the valley better because of their visit.
=3. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THEIR GOLDEN QUEST=
_or The Log of the Ocean Monarch_
For a club of girls to become involved in a mystery leading back into
the times of the California gold-rush, seems unnatural until the
reader sees how it happened, and how the girls helped one of their
friends to come into her rightful name and inheritance, forms a fine
story.
=4. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE WHISPERING CHARMS=
_or The Secret from Old Alaska_
Whether engrossed in thrilling adventures in the Far North or
occupied with quiet home duties, the Linger-Not girls could work
unitedly to solve a colorful mystery in a way that interpreted
American freedom to a sad young stranger, and brought happiness to
her and to themselves.
BILLIE BRADLEY SERIES
=BY JANET D. WHEELER=
[Illustration: (cover of ‘Billie Bradley at Twin Lakes’)]
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors_
_=Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid=_
=1. BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER INHERITANCE=
_or The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners_
Billie Bradley fell heir to an old homestead that was unoccupied
and located far away in a lonely section of the country. How Billie
went there, accompanied by some of her chums, and what queer things
happened, go to make up a story no girl will want to miss.
=2. BILLIE BRADLEY AT THREE-TOWERS HALL=
_or Leading a Needed Rebellion_
Three-Towers Hall was a boarding school for girls. For a short time
after Billie arrived there all went well. But then the head of the
school had to go on a long journey and she left the girls in charge
of two teachers, sisters, who believed in severe discipline and in
very, very plain food and little of it--and then there was a row! The
girls wired for the head to come back--and all ended happily.
=3. BILLIE BRADLEY ON LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND=
_or The Mystery of the Wreck_
One of Billie’s friends owned a summer bungalow on Lighthouse Island,
near the coast. The school girls made up a party and visited the
Island. There was a storm and a wreck, and three little children were
washed ashore. They could tell nothing of themselves, and Billie and
her chums set to work to solve the mystery of their identity.
=4. BILLIE BRADLEY AND HER CLASSMATES=
_or The Secret of the Locked Tower_
Billie and her chums come to the rescue of several little children
who have broken through the ice. There is the mystery of a lost
invention, and also the dreaded mystery of the locked school tower.
=5. BILLIE BRADLEY AT TWIN LAKES=
_or Jolly Schoolgirls Afloat and Ashore_
A tale of outdoor adventure in which Billie and her chums have a
great variety of adventures. They visit an artists’ colony and there
fall in with a strange girl living with an old boatman who abuses her
constantly. Billie befriended Hulda and the mystery surrounding the
girl was finally cleared up.
THE CURLYTOPS SERIES
=BY HOWARD R. GARIS=
[Illustration: (cover of ‘The Curlytops at Cherry Farm’)]
_=Author of the famous “Bedtime Animal Stories”=_
_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors_
_=Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid=_
=1. THE CURLYTOPS AT CHERRY FARM=
_or Vacation Days in the Country_
A tale of happy vacation days on a farm.
=2. THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND=
_or Camping out with Grandpa_
The Curlytops camp on Star Island.
=3. THE CURLYTOPS SNOWED IN=
_or Grand Fun with Skates and Sleds_
The Curlytops on lakes and hills.
=4. THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK’S RANCH=
_or Little Folks on Ponyback_
Out West on their uncle’s ranch they have a wonderful time.
=5. THE CURLYTOPS AT SILVER LAKE=
_or On the Water with Uncle Ben_
The Curlytops camp out on the shores of a beautiful lake.
=6. THE CURLYTOPS AND THEIR PETS=
_or Uncle Toby’s Strange Collection_
An old uncle leaves them to care for his collection of pets.
=7. THE CURLYTOPS AND THEIR PLAYMATES=
_or Jolly Times Through the Holidays_
They have great times with their uncle’s collection of animals.
=8. THE CURLYTOPS IN THE WOODS=
_or Fun at the Lumber Camp_
Exciting times in the forest for Curlytops.
=9. THE CURLYTOPS AT SUNSET BEACH=
_or What Was Found in the Sand_
The Curlytops have a fine time at the seashore.
=10. THE CURLYTOPS TOURING AROUND=
_or The Missing Photograph Albums_
The Curlytops get in some moving pictures.
=11. THE CURLYTOPS IN A SUMMER CAMP=
_or Animal Joe’s Menagerie_
There is great excitement as some mischievous monkeys break out of
Animal Joe’s Menagerie.
_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
silently corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences
within the text and consultation of external sources. Some hyphens
in words have been silently removed and some silently added when
a predominant preference was found in the original book. Except
for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text and
inconsistent or archaic usage have been retained.
Page 5: “as suddenly at is” replaced by “as suddenly as it”.
Page 13: “It you’ve got to” replaced by “If you’ve got to”.
Page 14: “clinging to its” replaced by “clinging to it”.
Page 14: “every one called his” replaced by “every one called
him”.
Page 15: “driver glared as” replaced by “driver glared at”.
Page 31: “suddenly remembed” replaced by “suddenly remembered”.
Page 40: “paint until is” replaced by “paint until it”.
Page 50: “and buring brands” replaced by “and burning brands”.
Page 60: “that I leant” replaced by “that I lent”.
Page 82: “struggled off” replaced by “straggled off”.
Page 106: “triumphant refran” replaced by “triumphant refrain”.
Page 107: “to marked yet” replaced by “to market yet”.
Page 111: “he told herself” replaced by “she told herself”.
Page 116: “she poured over” replaced by “she pored over”.
Page 166: “The tears softend” replaced by “The tears softened”.
Page 201: “with a hightened” replaced by “with a heightened”.
Page 203: “shall be, Bettykin” replaced by “shall we, Bettykin”.
Advertisement for Ruth Fielding series: “BRIARWOODHALL” replaced by
“BRIARWOOD HALL”.
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Bold text is
surrounded by equal signs: =bold=.
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