Amarilly of Clothes line Alley
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Belle K. Maniates >> Amarilly of Clothes line Alley
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11 Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Tony Browne and PG Distributed Proofreaders
AMARILLY OF CLOTHES-LINE ALLEY
BY BELLE K. MANIATES
AUTHOR OF DAVID DUNNE.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. HENRY
1915
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
He was gazing into her intent eyes with a look of adoration
"You may all," she directed, "look at Amarilly's work"
To-night he found himself less able than usual to cope with her caprices
"Be nice to Mr. St. John!" whispered the little peacemaker
[Illustration: He was gazing into her intent eyes with a look of
adoration]
AMARILLY OF CLOTHES-LINE ALLEY
CHAPTER I
The tiny, trivial touch of Destiny that caused the turn in Amarilly's
fate-tide came one morning when, in her capacity as assistant to the
scrub ladies at the Barlow Stock Theatre, she viewed for the first time
the dress rehearsal of _A Terrible Trial_. Heretofore the patient little
plodder had found in her occupation only the sordid satisfaction of
drawing her wages, but now the resplendent costumes, the tragedy in the
gestures of the villain, the languid grace of Lord Algernon, and the
haughty treble of the leading lady struck the spark that fired ambition
in her sluggish breast.
"Oh!" she gasped in wistful-voiced soliloquy, as she leaned against her
mop-stick and gazed aspiringly at the stage, "I wonder if I couldn't
rise!"
"Sure thing, you kin!" derisively assured Pete Noyes, vender of gum at
matinees. "I'll speak to de maniger. Mebby he'll let youse scrub de
galleries."
Amarilly, case-hardened against raillery by reason of the possession of
a multitude of young brothers, paid no heed to the bantering scoffer,
but resumed her work in dogged dejection.
"Say, Mr. Vedder, Amarilly's stage-struck!" called Pete to the ticket-
seller, who chanced to be passing.
The gray eyes of the young man thus addressed softened as he looked at
the small, eager face of the youngest scrubber.
"Stop at the office on your way out, Amarilly," he said kindly, "and
I'll give you a pass to the matinee this afternoon."
Amarilly's young heart fluttered wildly and sent a wave of pink into her
pale cheeks as she voiced her gratitude.
She was the first to enter when the doors opened that afternoon, and she
kept close to the heels of the usher.
"He ain't agoin' to give me the slip," she thought, keeping wary watch
of his lithe form as he slid down the aisle.
In the blaze of light and blare of instruments she scarcely recognized
her workaday environment.
"House sold out!" she muttered with professional pride and enthusiasm as
the signal for the raising of the curtain was given. "Mebby I'd orter
give up my seat so as they could sell it."
There was a moment's conflict between the little scrubber's conscience
and her newly awakened desires.
"I ain't agoin' to, though," she decided. And having so determined, she
gave her conscience a shove to the remotest background, yielding herself
to the full enjoyment of the play.
The rehearsal had been inspiring and awakening, but this, "the real
thing," as Amarilly appraised it, bore her into a land of enchantment.
She was blind and deaf to everything except the scenes enacted on the
stage. Only once was her passionate attention distracted, and that was
when Pete in passing gave her an emphatic nudge and a friendly grin as
he munificently bestowed upon her a package of gum. This she instantly
pocketed "fer the chillern."
At the close of the performance Amarilly sailed home on waves of
excitement. She was the eldest of the House of Jenkins, whose scions,
numbering eight, were all wage-earners save Iry, the baby. After school
hours Flamingus was a district messenger, Gus milked the grocer's cow,
Milton worked in a shoe-shining establishment, Bobby and Bud had paper
routes, while Cory, commonly called "Co," wiped dishes at a boarding-
house. Notwithstanding all these contributions to the family revenue, it
became a sore struggle for the widow of Americanus Jenkins to feed and
clothe such a numerous brood, so she sought further means of
maintenance.
"I've took a boarder!" she announced solemnly to Amarilly on her return
from the theatre. "He's a switchman and I'm agoin' to fix up the attic
fer him. I don't jest see how we air agoin' to manage about feedin' him.
Thar's no room to the table now, and thar ain't dishes enough to go
around, but you're so contrivin' like, I thought you might find out a
way." Memories of the footlights were temporarily banished upon hearing
this wonderful intelligence. A puzzled pucker came between the brows of
the little would-be prima donna and remained there until at last the
exigency was triumphantly met.
"I hev it, ma! When's he comin'?"
"To-morrer fer breakfast."
"Then we must rayhearse to-night afore we kin put it on right. Come, all
you-uns, to the kitchen table."
The Jenkins children, accustomed to the vernacular of the profession,
were eager to participate in a rehearsal, and they scampered
boisterously to the kitchen precincts. Amarilly, as stage director,
provided seats at the table for herself, her mother, Flamingus, Gus, the
baby, and the Boarder, the long-suffering, many-roled family cat
personating the latter as understudy. Behind their chairs, save those
occupied by the Boarder and the baby, were stationed Milton, Bobby, Bud,
and Cory. This outer row, Amarilly explained, was to be fed from the
plates of their elders with food convenient as was Elijah by the
Scriptural ravens. This plan lifted the strain from the limited table
appointments, but met with opposition from the outpost who rebelled
against their stations.
"I ain't agoin' to stand behind Flam or Gus," growled Milton. "I won't
stand no show fer grub at all."
"I ain't, neither," and "Nit fer me!" chorused the near twins, Bobby and
Bud.
"I want to set at the table and eat like folks!" sobbed Cory.
Mrs. Jenkins advocated immediate surrender, but the diplomatic little
general, whose policy was pacification, in shrill, appealing voice
reassured and wheedled the young mutineers back into the ranks.
"It's the only way we can take a boarder," she persuaded, "and if we git
him, we'll hev more to eat than jest hot pertaters and bread and gravy.
Thar'll be meat, fresh or hotted up, onct a day, and pie on Sundays."
The deserters to a man returned from their ignominious retreat.
"Now, Co, you stand behind me, and when you git tired, you kin set on
half my chair. Milt, git behind ma, and Bud and Bobby, stand back of
Flamingus and Gus. If they don't divvy up even they'll hev to change
places with you. Now, to places!" This conciliatory arrangement proving
satisfactory, supper was served on the new plan with numerous directions
and admonitions from Amarilly.
"No self-helpin's, Milt. Bud, if you knock Flammy's elbow, he needn't
give you anything to eat. Bobby, if you swipe another bite from Gus,
I'll spank you. Co, quit yer self-reachin's! Flammy, you hev got to pass
everything to the Boarder fust. Now, every meal that I don't hev to
speak to one of youse in the back row, youse kin hev merlasses spread on
yer bread."
The rehearsal supper finished and the kitchen "red up," Amarilly's
thoughts again took flight and in fancy she winged her way toward a
glorious future amid the glow and glamor of the footlights. To the
attentive family, who hung in an ecstasy of approval on her vivid
portrayal, she graphically described the play she had witnessed, and
then dramatically announced her intention of going on the stage when she
grew up.
"You kin do it fine, Amarilly," said the mother admiringly.
"And we-uns kin git in free!" cried Bobby jubilantly. In the morning the
Boarder, a pleasant-voiced, quiet-faced man with a look of kindliness
about his eyes and mouth, made his entrance into the family circle. He
commended the table arrangements, praised the coffee, and formed
instantaneous friendships with the children. All the difficulties of the
cuisine having been smoothed over or victoriously met, Amarilly went to
the theatre with a lightened heart. When Mr. Vedder came up to her and
asked how she had enjoyed the performance, she felt emboldened to
confide to him her professional aspirations.
The young ticket-seller did not smile. There was nothing about this
diligent, ill-fed, little worker that appealed to his sense of humor.
"It will be a long time yet, Amarilly, before you can go on the stage,"
he counselled. "Besides, you know the first thing you must have is an
education."
Amarilly sighed hopelessly.
"I can't git to go to school till the boys hev more larnin'. I hev to
work here mornin's and help ma with the washin's in the arternoon.
Mebby, arter a little, I kin git into some night-school." A stage-hand
working near by overheard this conversation and displayed instant
interest in the subject of Amarilly's schooling.
"Couldn't you git off Saturday arternoons?" he asked.
"Yes, I could do that," assured Amarilly eagerly. "Is thar a Saturday
arternoon school?"
"Yes," replied the man. "There is a church guild, St. Mark's, that has a
school. My little gal goes. She larns sewin' and singin' and waitin' on
table and such like. You'd better go with her to-morrow."
"I kin sew now," said Amarilly, repeating this conversation to the
family circle that night, "and I'd like to sing, fer of course I'll hev
to when I'm on the stage, but I git enough waitin' on table to hum. I'd
ruther larn to read better fust of all."
"I ain't much of a scholar," observed the Boarder modestly, "but I can
learn you readin', writin', and spellin' some, and figgerin' too. I'll
give you lessons evenin's."
"We'll begin now!" cried the little tyro enthusiastically.
The Boarder approved this promptness, and that night gave the first
lesson from Flamingus's schoolbooks.
The next morning Amarilly proudly informed the ticket-seller that her
education had begun. She was consequently rather lukewarm in regard to
the Guild school proposition, but the little daughter of the stagehand
pictured the school and her teacher in most enticing fashion.
"You kin be in our class," she coaxed persuasively. "We hev a new
teacher. She's a real swell and wears a diamon' ring and her hair is
more yaller than the wig what the play lady wears. She bed us up to her
house to a supper last week, and thar was velvit carpits and ice-cream
and lots of cake but no pie."
Amarilly's curiosity was aroused, and her red, roughened hand firmly
grasped the confiding one of her little companion as she permitted
herself to be led to the Guild school.
CHAPTER II
The teacher at the Guild was even more beautiful than Amarilly's fancy,
fed by the little girl's vivid description, had pictured.
"Her hair ain't boughten," decided the keen-eyed critic as she gazed
adoringly at the golden braids crowning the small head. The color of her
eyes was open to speculation; when they had changed from gray to green,
from green to hazel, and from hazel to purple, Amarilly gave up the
enigma. The color of her complexion changed, too, in the varying tints
of peaches.
"I do b'lieve she ain't got no make-up on," declared Amarilly
wonderingly.
The little daughter of the stage-hand had not overappraised the diamond.
It shone resplendent on a slender, shapely hand.
"Miss King, I've brung a new scholar," introduced the little girl
importantly. "She's Amarilly."
As she glanced at her new pupil, the young teacher's eyes brightened
with spontaneous interest, and a welcoming smile parted her lips.
"I'm glad to see you, Amarilly. Here's a nice little pile of blue carpet
rags to sew and make into a ball. When you have made a lot of balls I'll
have them woven into a pretty blue rug for you to take home and keep."
"For the Boarder's room!" thought Amarilly joyously, as she went at her
work with the avidity that marked all her undertakings.
Presently a small seamstress asked for instruction as to the proper
method of putting the strips together. The fair face of the young
teacher became clouded for a moment, and she was unmistakably confused.
Her wavering, dubious glance fell upon Amarilly sitting tense and
upright as she made quick, forceful, and effective stabs with her
needle, biting her thread vigorously and resonantly. The stitches were
microscopic and even; the strips symmetrically and neatly joined.
The teacher's face cleared as she saw and seized her avenue of escape.
"You may all," she directed, "look at Amarilly's work and sew the strips
just as she does. Hers are perfect."
[Illustration: "You may all," she directed, "look at Amarilly's work."]
Amarilly's wan little face brightened, and she proceeded to show the
children how to sew, bringing the same ease and effectiveness into her
tutoring that she displayed when instructing her brothers and Cory.
The sewing lesson continued for an hour. Then the children sang songs to
a piano accompaniment, and there followed a lesson in cooking and the
proper setting of a table. All this instruction was succeeded by an
informal chat.
"I want you all to tell me what you are going to do when you grow to be
women," said Miss King.
In most cases the occupations of their parents were chosen, and the
number of washerwomen, scrubbers, and seamstresses in embryo was
appalling.
"And you, Amarilly?" she asked, addressing the new pupil last of all.
Amarilly's mien was lofty, her voice consequential, as she replied in
dramatic denouement:
"I'm goin' on the stage!"
The young teacher evinced a most eager interest in this declaration.
"Oh, Amarilly! We all have a stage-longing period. When did you first
think of such a career?"
"I'm in the perfesshun now," replied Amarilly pompously.
"Really! Tell me what you do, Amarilly."
"I scrub at the Barlow Theatre, and I went to the matinee day afore
yisterday. I hed a pass give to me."
These statements made such a visible impression on her audience that
Amarilly waxed eloquent and proceeded to describe the play, warming to
her work as she gained confidence. The gestures of Lord Algernon and the
leading lady were reproduced freely, fearlessly, and faithfully.
With a glimmer of mischief dancing in her eyes, the young teacher
listened appreciatively but apprehensively as she noted the amazed
expression on the faces of the teachers of adjacent classes when
Amarilly's treble tones were wafted toward them. Fortunately, the
realistic rendering of Lord Algernon's declaration of love was
interrupted by the accompaniment to a song, which was followed by the
dismissal of the school.
"Kin I take my strips home to sew on?" asked Amarilly.
"Oh, no!" replied Miss King. "That is not permitted."
Seeing the look of disappointment in the child's eyes, she asked in
kindly tone:
"Why are you in such a hurry to finish the work, Amarilly?"
"We've took a Boarder," explained Amarilly, "and I want the rug fer his
room. It'll take an orful long time to git it done if I only work on it
an hour onct a week. He's so good to me, I want to do something to make
his room look neat, so he'll feel to hum."
The young teacher reflected a moment.
"I'll tell you what we'll do, Amarilly. I will buy one of the rugs that
are to be on sale at the church fair this week. They have some very nice
large ones. I will give it to you, and when yours is finished you may
give it to me in return."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Amarilly, her countenance brightening, "But won't
you need it afore I kin git this one done?"
"No; I am sure I shall not," replied the young lady gravely.
When they left the building the teacher paused as she was about to step
into her electric brougham. "Where do you live, Amarilly?"
Amarilly gave her street and number.
"You must live farther away than any of the other children. Get in,
dear; I will take you home."
She had opened the door as she spoke, and the little scrubber's eyes
were dazzled by the elegance of the appointments--a silver vase filled
with violets, a silver card-case, and--but Amarilly resolutely shut her
eyes upon this proffered grandeur and turned to the lean but longing
little daughter of the stage-hand.
"You see, I come with her," she explained simply and loyally.
"There is room for you both. Myrtie can sit on this little seat."
Overawed by the splendor of her environment, Amarilly held her breath as
they glided swiftly through the streets. There was other glory, it
seemed, than that of the footlights. When the happy little Myrtle had
been left at her humble home the young teacher turned with eager
anticipation to Amarilly.
"Tell me more about yourself, Amarilly. First of all, who is the
Boarder?"
Amarilly explained their affairs, even to the "double-decker diner," as
the Boarder had called the table arrangement.
"And what has he done for you, Amarilly, that you are so anxious he
should have a rug?"
"He's larnin' me readin', writin', spellin', and figgers."
"Don't you go to school?"
"No; I hev to bring in wages and help ma with the washin's."
"I'll teach you, Amarilly," she said impulsively. "I'm sure I'm more
proficient in those branches than the Boarder."
"He sez," admitted Amarilly, "that it won't take him long to larn me all
he knows; but you see--" She spoke with delicate hesitancy and evident
embarrassment. "It's orful good in you to want to larn me--but he might
feel hurt-like if I was to quit him."
"You are right, Amarilly. You are a loyal little girl. But I tell you
what we will do about it. When you have learned all that the Boarder
feels he can teach you, you shall go to night-school. There is one in
connection with St. Mark's. I will see that you enter there."
"I didn't know thar was one fer girls," said Amarilly. "I'm glad thar's
a way fer me to git eddicated, fer I must hev larnin' afore I kin go on
the stage. Mr. Vedder, the ticket-seller to Barlow's, told me so."
"Amarilly,"--and an earnest note crept into the gay, young voice--"you
may find things that you will like to do more than to go on the stage."
"No!" asserted the youthful aspirant, "Thar ain't nuthin' else I'd like
so well."
"Amarilly, I am going to tell you something. Once, not long ago, I had
the stage fever, but I think I know now there is something--something I
should like better."
"What?" queried Amarilly skeptically.
"I can't tell you now, but you have a long time yet in which to decide
your future. Tell me what I can do to help your mother."
"If you could git us more washin's," exclaimed Amarilly eagerly, "it
would help heaps. We could take in lots more than we do now."
"Let me think. You see we keep a laundress; but--does your mother do up
very fine things--like laces--carefully?"
"She does," replied Amarilly glibly. "She kin do 'em orful keerful, and
we dry the colored stuffs in the shade. And our clo'es come out snow-
white allers, and we never tears laces nor git in too much bluin' or
starch the way some folks does."
"Then I'll give you my address and you can come for my fine waists; and
let me see, I am sure I can get St. Mark's laundry work for you, too."
"You're orful good, Miss King. This is where we hev to turn down this
'ere court."
The "court" appeared to Miss King more like an alley. The advent of the
brougham in the little narrow right-of-way filled every window with
hawk-eyed observers. About the Jenkins's doorstep was grouped the entire
household from the Boarder to the baby, and the light, musical voices of
children floating through the soft spring air fell pleasantly upon the
ears of the young settlement worker.
"So this is where you live, Amarilly?" she asked, her eyes sparkling as
she focussed them on the family. "You needn't come for the washing the
first time. I will bring it myself so I can see all your little
brothers. Be sure to come to the Guild next Saturday, and then I'll have
the rug for you to take home. Goodbye, dear."
Knowing that she was observed by myriad eyes, Amarilly stepped loftily
from the brougham and made a sweeping stage courtesy to her departing
benefactress.
"Are you on the stage now, Amarilly?" asked Co eagerly as she came to
meet her sister.
"No; but she," with a wave of her hand toward the swiftly gliding
electric, "is agoin to help me git eddicated, and she has give me a
beautiful rug fer the Boarder, and we're agoin' to hev her waists to
wash, and Mr. St. Mark's clo'es, and she told all the scholars to sew
like me 'cause' I sewed the best, and I've larned how to set our table.
We mustn't stack up the knife and fork and spoon on ends any more. The
knife goes to the right, the fork to the left of the plate, and the
spoon goes back of it and the tumbler and the napkin, when you has 'em,
to the right."
"I do declare, Amarilly, if it ain't jest like a fairy story!" cried
Mrs. Jenkins enthusiastically. "You allers did strike luck."
"You bet!" cried Bobby admiringly. "Things go some where Amarilly is."
Amarilly was happier even than she had been on the night of the eventful
matinee day. The electric brougham had seemed a veritable fairy
godmother's coach to her. But it was not the ride that stood uppermost
in her memory as she lay awake far into the night; it was the little
word of endearment uttered in caressing cadence.
"No one ain't ever called me that afore," she murmured wistfully. "I
s'pose ma ain't hed time, and thar was no one else to keer."
Impulsively and tenderly her thin little arm encircled the baby sleeping
beside her.
"Dear!" she whispered in an awed tone. "Dear!"
Iry answered with a sleepy, cooing note.
CHAPTER III
Colette King was not one whom the voice of the people of St. Mark's
would proclaim as the personification of their ideal of a pastor's wife,
yet John Meredith loved her with the love that passeth all
understanding. Perhaps the secret of her charm for him lay in the fact
that she treated him as she did other men--men who did not wear a
surplice. And yet his surplice and all that pertained thereto were
matters of great moment to the rector of St. Mark's. Little traces of
his individuality were evident in the fashioning of this clerical
garment. A pocket for his handkerchief was stitched on the left side.
The flowers, the baptismal font, the altar cloth, and the robes of the
vested choir he insisted should be immaculate in whiteness. White, the
color of the lily, he declared, was the emblem of purity. There were
members of his flock so worldly minded as to whisper insinuatingly that
white was extremely becoming to Colette King. Many washerwomen had
applied for the task of laundering the ecclesiastical linen; many had
been tried and found wanting. So after her interview with Amarilly,
Colette asked the rector of St. Mark's to call at her house "on
important business."
From the time he was ten years old until he became rector of St. Mark's,
John Meredith had been a member of the household of his guardian, Henry
King, and had ever cheerfully and gladly borne with the caprices of the
little Colette.
He answered the present summons promptly and palpitatingly. It had been
two weeks since he had remonstrated with Colette for the surprisingly
sudden announcement, made in seeming seriousness, that she was going to
study opera with a view to going on the stage. The fact that she had a
light, sweet soprano adapted only to the rendition of drawing-room
ballads did not lessen in his eyes the probability of her carrying out
this resolve.
She had met his reproving expostulations in a spirit of bantering
raillery and replied with a defiance of his opinion that had pierced his
heart with arrow-like swiftness. Since then she had studiously avoided
meeting him, and he was not sure whether he was now recalled to listen
to a reiteration of her intentions or to receive an anodyne for the
bitterness of her remarks at their last interview.
"I sent for you, John," she said demurely and without preamble, "to see
if you have found a satisfactory laundress yet for the surplices."
"Colette!" he exclaimed in rebuking tone, his face reddening at her
question which he supposed to be made in mere mockery.
"I am not speaking to you as Colette King," she replied with a look half
cajoling, half flippant, "but as a teacher in the Young Woman's
Auxiliary Guild to the rector of St. Mark's. You see I no longer lead a
foolish, futile life. Here is the evidence in the case," holding up a
slender pink forefinger. "See how it is pricked! For three Saturday
afternoons I have shown little girls that smelled of fried potatoes how
to sew. I shall really learn something myself about the feminine art of
needlework if I continue in my present straight, domestic path."
"Colette, you cannot know how glad I am to hear this. Why did you try to
make me think the laundry work was--"
"But the laundry work _is_ the main issue. Yesterday I had quite decided
to give up this uninteresting work."
Watching him warily, she let the shadow in his eyes linger a moment
before she continued:
"And then there came into my class a new pupil, poorly clad and
ignorant, but so redolent of soapsuds and with such a freshly laundered
look that I renewed my inclinations to charity. I took her home in my
electric, and she lived at a distance that gave me ample time to listen
to the complete chronicles of her young life. Her father is dead. Her
mother was left with eight children whom she supports by taking in
washing. They have a boarder and they go around the dining-room table
twice. My new pupil's name is Amarilly Jenkins, and she has educational
longings which cannot be satisfied because she has to work, so I am
going to enter her in St. Mark's night-school when she has finished a
special course with the private tutor she now has."
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