Rosemary
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Josephine Lawrence >> Rosemary
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Rosemary watched. So did all the high and half the grammar school,
for word of the dispute, variously colored to suit different
informants, had been noised around and the only persons in actual
ignorance of the state of affairs were the high school faculty. The
Student Council was desperately anxious that they should remain in
that state, for there had been one or two previous clashes over the
relative importance of the dramatic fund, and the members of the
council had no wish to be accused of "forcing" any unfair demands.
So, as Jack had foreseen, his nominations were allowed to stand and
the next afternoon, forty-eight laughing, shouting boys reported to
Bill McCormack, bluff and kindly member of the Eastshore Common
Council who would, in a larger municipality, have been called
"Streets and Highways Commissioner" or by similar sonorous title.
But before the boys met "Bill" in front of the town hall, the
president of the Student Council, Frank Fenton, and Will Mears,
president of the Junior class, had held a conference with Mr.
Edmonds, the most influential member, some said, next to the
president, Cameron Jordan, a cousin of the old and respected
physician. The result of this conference was that Bill McCormack
held in his fat, red hands a sheaf of papers which allotted the
streets to the four classes and took the decision quite away from
him.
"I was told to give these papers to the heads of the gangs," said
Mr. McCormack, smiling expansively. "Here ye are--Senior, Junior,
Sophomore, Freshman--them's your working papers, me lads, and now
off with ye; the shovels ye'll be finding in the basement of the
hall."
Jack Welles glanced at the slip of paper handed him, folded it up
and stuffed it in his pocket. As soon as his "gang" was fitted out
with snow shovels, he marched them away in the wake of one of the
lumbering wagons that was to carry the snow off to a vacant field on
the outskirts of the town.
"What did we draw, Jack?" asked Norman Cox curiously.
"Plummers Lane," said Jack laconically.
Plummers Lane, was the nearest approach to a "slumming section" that
Eastshore possessed. The idle, the shiftless and the vicious
congregated there, living in tumbled down shacks in the winter and
the middle of the streets, in summer. There were two factories, one
a novelty works, the other a canning and candy factory and the "dump
lot" bounded the Lane on the north and the jail on the south.
Altogether it was not the choicest portion which could fall to the
lot of the young snow cleaners.
"It's enough to make you want to resign from the dramatic club!"
exclaimed Kenneth Vail, who, in common with the other boys, labored
under no delusion that chance fortune had sent them to Plummers
Lane.
"If you had only put some one else in my place--" began Eustice Gray
uncomfortably, but seven voices immediately shouted to him, in
friendly chorus to "dry up."
"We'll make Plummers Lane look sick," declared Jack. "From the looks
of it, I don't think there's been a shovel down here since the first
snow. If the S. C. thinks they have marked more off for us than we
can clean up, we'll show them! Here goes for the first shovel--out
of the way, Mike!"
The grinning driver reined in his team and dodged as Jack hurled a
heavy shovelful over the side of the cart. The other boys followed
suit and twelve strong, sturdy backs bent to their task. The
population of Plummers Lane, that part of it visible by day, draped
itself along the curb to watch operations and hand out advice, but
any more practical help was not offered or expected.
CHAPTER XX
DRESSMAKER ROSEMARY
"I'm an old man," announced Jack Welles that night, dropping into a
chair in Doctor Hugh's office, while he waited for the latter to
prepare a bottle of medicine for his father's cough.
"Back broken, I suppose?" suggested the doctor cheerfully. "The
first ten years are always the hardest, my boy."
Jack groaned and Rosemary, patiently holding a bleary-eyed cat for
Sarah, looked at him anxiously.
"Ten years!" complained Jack. "Another afternoon like this and I
won't live to see ten years. Ye gods, who would have thought a
little snow shoveling could break me up like this!"
"You're out of practice," replied the doctor, busily writing a
label. "Don't try to clean all the streets in one day, Jack; I came
through Main street to-night and I must say the boys have made a
good job of it, though, of course, it was fairly well tramped down.
It's the side streets that are blocked. Where are you working?"
"Plummers Lane," said Jack dryly. "The Juniors have uptown and Main
street. We're providing a side show for the unemployed and if we
don't get any fun out of our job, they at least can laugh their
heads off."
"I told Hugh about the Student Council and the way they acted," said
Rosemary hotly. "Don't you think they are too hateful for anything,
Hugh?"
The doctor looked at Jack who managed a grin.
"Jack isn't hurt yet," said Doctor Hugh, smiling, "and I don't know
but digging out Plummers Lane is a man-sized job and one to be proud
of. Certainly if you get the streets in passable condition so that
we don't have to carry a sick woman through snow drifts to get her
to the ambulance--which happened last week--you'll have the thanks
of the doctors if not of the Student Council."
"We're going to stick," declared Jack, taking the bottle the doctor
held out to him. "If there should ever be a fire down there, with
the snow piled over the hydrants and kerosene oil cans mixed up with
packing boxes and kindling wood in the front yards, after the
happy-go-lucky housekeeping methods followed by Plummers Lane
housekeepers, I should say three blocks would go like tinder. Bill
McCormack was down to see us, just as we were knocking off, and he
was pleased as Punch at what we'd done."
"I'm coming down to see you," announced Rosemary.
"So 'm I," cried Sarah. "I can shovel snow, too."
"Come on, if you want to," said Jack, "but don't expect us to have
much time to talk to you. We're being paid by the hour and business
is business."
He went off whistling, leaving Rosemary with an odd expression on
her face. It was the first time Jack had ever hinted he could
possibly be too busy to talk to her.
"Hugh," she said seriously, when the doctor had prescribed for
Sarah's sick pussy cat and the anxious mistress had gone off to tuck
the patient in bed down cellar. "Hugh, couldn't I take hot coffee
and doughnuts to the boys while they are working in the snow
afternoons? I know they must get hungry and it is so cold and windy
down Plummers Lane--the wind comes across the marsh."
"Go ahead," her brother encouraged her. "Get Sarah to help you. I
imagine Jack is having a tough time and he'll appreciate a little
unspoken sympathy. I'll give you a testimonial for your coffee,
Rosemary, if you think you need one; where are the doughnuts coming
from?"
"They're all made, a stone crock full," dimpled Rosemary. "That was
what made me think of doing it. We'll come home from school and get
the big tin pail with the lid and a pan of doughnuts. But I can't
carry twelve cups."
"Paper ones will do," the doctor assured her. "The boys will gulp
the coffee before it can possibly seep through. Make Sarah do her
share, and don't stay late, either one of you."
The next afternoon, as Jack straightened his aching back to answer
the questions of Frank Fenton, who was serving as time-keeper for
the four squads, he looked across the street and saw two little
figures who waved gloved hands at him and beckoned in a mysterious
manner.
"Isn't that Rosemary Willis?" asked Frank, "stunning kid, isn't
she?"
Rosemary, rosy from the cold and with her eyes dark and starry, left
Sarah on the curb and crossed over.
"Oh, Jack," she began before she reached him, "Sarah and I have
brought you some hot coffee and doughnuts. There's enough for
everyone."
Frank had his data, but he still lingered, and the other boys at
Jack's shout, crowded around. Rosemary knew most of them and Jack
hurriedly performed the few necessary introductions leaving Frank
till the last. Norman Cox and Eustice Gray had hastened across the
street and returned with Sarah and the supplies just as Jack said,
"Rosemary, this is Frank Fenton."
"He can't have any," said Sarah with blunt distinctness.
Rosemary flushed scarlet and then, with the quickness characteristic
of her, jerked the lid from the coffee can and filled one of the
paper cups with the steamy, fragrant, liquid.
"Please," she said gravely, holding it out to the astonished
president of the Student Council. "The sugar and cream are already
in. And these are fresh doughnuts."
Mechanically Frank drank the hot coffee and ate a doughnut, while
Rosemary poured out the remainder of the coffee and Jack passed the
cups around, Sarah serving the doughnuts.
"That is the best coffee I ever drank," declared Frank, when he had
finished. "And now, couldn't I take you home? I have my car down
the street a ways and I go right past your house."
Jack choked over his coffee, but Rosemary thanked the senior
politely and said that she and Sarah had planned to stay and watch
the shovelers a while.
"This isn't a very nice neighborhood, especially after dark you
know," said Frank.
"We're not going to stay long," Rosemary was beginning, but Jack cut
her short.
"I live next door to Rosemary, and I'll see that she and Sarah get
home all right," he said brusquely. "I know all about Plummers Lane,
too, Frank."
The Student Council president lifted his cap and went back to his
car.
"I don't like him," said Sarah decidedly.
"I shouldn't wonder if he was faintly aware of your dislike,"
grinned Jack. "Any more coffee left, Rosemary? You certainly had a
bright idea when you thought of this."
Rosemary and Sarah were more than repaid for their long, cold walk,
by the evident pleasure the boys took in their warm drink and the
two fat doughnuts apiece they had brought them. They knocked off
work fifteen or twenty minutes earlier in order to see the girls
home before dark, but the next afternoon the doctor's car came and
picked up the sisters and the empty coffee can so that the workers
lost no time.
For nearly a week, the boys shoveled steadily after school hours,
sticking to the job long after the first novelty had worn away. Bill
McCormack declared that they were the best "gang" he had ever hired
and the Plummers Lane residents ceased to regard them as a joke and
began to exchange sociable comments and quips with them, though
never descending to the plane of familiarity that included a shovel.
Rosemary and Sarah, and now and then Shirley, carried coffee and
doughnuts, or hot cocoa and cakes, each afternoon and Doctor Hugh
willingly stopped for them in his car. Even the weather ceased to
consent to co-operate for after one heavy snow, it cleared and the
streets made passable, remained that way till after Christmas.
The most important subject of discussion in the Willis household,
along the lines of Christmas preparations, was the box to be sent
the little mother in the sanatorium.
"I think we ought to make her something!" announced Rosemary.
"Well, what?" asked Sarah. "I most know she'd love to have one of
Tootles' kittens, but I don't suppose we could mail that, could
we?"
"Praise be, you can't," said Winnie who had overheard. "Those
kittens will be the death of me yet, and what they'd do to sick
folks in a sanatorium, I'm sure I don't know and don't want to."
"What'll we make Mother?" urged Shirley, pulling Rosemary's belt.
"I know--a kimona," said Rosemary triumphantly. "That won't be hard,
because we'll have only two seams. Mother will love to have
something we made her, instead of a gift we just went down town and
bought. What color do you think would be pretty, Sarah?"
"Red," said Sarah promptly.
"Pink," begged Shirley. "Make it pink, Rosemary."
"I like blue," said Rosemary wistfully.
"Let's ask Aunt Trudy," suggested Sarah.
"I think you're awfully foolish to try to make anything," pronounced
Aunt Trudy when they consulted her. "But I suppose, if you have set
your hearts on it, why nothing will dissuade you. Why don't you make
your mother a white kimona, and bind it with pink ribbon? White was
always her favorite."
So it was decided the kimona should be white eiderdown and bound
with pink satin ribbon and Rosemary and Sarah and Shirley went
shopping one afternoon after school and bought the materials. Their
purchase included a pattern, the first in their joint experience and
when they had spread it out on Rosemary's bed the three girls looked
at it helplessly.
"We'll put it on paper, till we learn how to cut it," said Rosemary,
secretly wondering how anyone ever learned to understand such
complicated directions as were printed on the pattern envelope.
They had decided that neither Aunt Trudy nor Winnie could be allowed
to help them and since Rosemary had a working knowledge of the
sewing machine's mysteries and could sew neatly by hand, they had
not anticipated any trouble.
"But how could we know a pattern was such a silly thing?" wailed
Rosemary, tired and cross when the dinner gong sounded and they had
made no progress. The floor of the room was littered with paper and
the top of the bed resembled a pincushion for Shirley had amused
herself by sticking the contents of the entire paper of pins in
orderly rows on the counterpane.
"Aren't you coming down to dinner?" asked Sarah, moving toward the
door.
"No, I'm not," retorted Rosemary. "I'm not hungry and I don't want
anything to eat. Don't let Winnie come up here making a fuss; you
tell Aunt Trudy I don't want any dinner to-night. I'm not going to
do a thing till I get this kimona cut out."
"Hugh will be mad," said Sarah, half way down the hall.
"Let him," called Rosemary recklessly, shutting the door of her room
with a bang.
She was deep in the pattern directions for the tenth time, when
someone rapped on her door.
"I'm not hungry--don't bother me," she called, frowning.
The door knob turned and Doctor Hugh smiled in at her.
"Heard you were having trouble with the dressmaking," he announced.
"Can't I help? I'm not Winnie or Aunt Trudy, you know. I'd like to
have a finger in this, if I could."
Rosemary drew a long breath.
"You do understand, don't you?" she said, standing on the foot that
had not gone to sleep and trying to rouse the circulation in the
other one. "We didn't want anyone to touch our present for Mother,
except us; but you're us, too, aren't you?"
"Surest thing," agreed the doctor, approaching the terrible pattern
with grave interest. "What's the matter with this--aren't you sure
how it should be cut?"
Rosemary shook her head hopelessly.
"I'm afraid to cut it before I know and I've tried it every way I
can think of," she confessed.
"Well, if this is wrong, I'll buy you some more goods to-morrow,"
promised the doctor, twitching the pattern to his liking.
He took up the scissors and cut around the outline with what seemed
to Rosemary, reckless abandon. But when he had finished and she took
up the two pieces, they fitted together like parts of a picture
puzzle.
"It's right!" she cried in delight. "Hugh, you darling, it's all
right! And I can baste it to-night and sew it on the machine
to-morrow and put the ribbon on by hand. Won't Mother love it!"
"No more sewing to-night," said her brother firmly. "Dressmakers
always make mistakes when they're tired. Come down and eat your
dinner now, and then put this truck away till after school to-morrow
afternoon."
Rosemary followed him downstairs meekly, though her fingers itched
to get at the basting. Sarah looked up at them in surprise as they
entered the dining-room.
"I thought Rosemary was going to be cross!" she said frankly.
"You were mistaken," retorted Doctor Hugh, smiling so infectiously
at Rosemary that she could do no less than twinkle back at him.
CHAPTER XXI
MR. JORDAN LEARNS SOMETHING
The kimona was finished without further mishap and packed away in
the Christmas box.
"And no one was more surprised than I when the thing proved to be
cut right," Doctor Hugh confided to Winnie. "I never looked at a
pattern before, but I took a chance. I could see Rosemary was just
on the edge of 'nerves' and I figured out that if I did make a mess
of it, she might not find it out till the next day, and by that time
she might be able to see the humor in the situation."
"You're a wise lad, Hughie, and I'm proud of you," said Winnie
fondly. She had guessed something of the cost of the fur lined coat
that the doctor had proudly displayed as his Christmas gift for the
little mother, now well enough to take short tramps through the pine
woods daily. Winnie did not know that a set of sorely needed medical
books had gone into the coat, but she suspected something of the
kind.
The box was packed and sent and the Willis family settled down to
the first Christmas they had known without the gentle spirit who had
tirelessly planned for every holiday. But they had the dear
knowledge that she was coming home again to them, well and strong,
and they hung the wreaths in the windows and wound greens about the
lights and trimmed a tree for Shirley with thankful and merry
hearts. Doctor Hugh had missed so many home Christmas Days that he
in particular, enjoyed the preparations and his attempts at secrets
and his insistence on tasting all of Winnie's dishes drove the girls
into fits of laughter. A pile of packages surrounded every place on
Christmas morning and there was something pretty and practical and
purely nonsensical for each one from the doctor. He, in turn,
declared that for once in his life he had everything he wanted. Aunt
Trudy's gift to her nephew and each of her nieces was a cheque and
the announcements that followed were characteristic.
"What are you going to get, Hugh?" asked Sarah curiously, when the
nature of her slip of paper had been explained to her.
"Books," said Doctor Hugh, promptly, smiling at his aunt.
"Music and a new music case, a leather one," declared Rosemary, her
eyes shining.
"I'd like to buy a dog," said Sarah, and grinned good-naturedly at
the groan which greeted her modest wish.
"You'd better buy an electric heater for the cats," suggested
Winnie. "I'm forever taking 'em out of the oven; some day I'll
forget to look, and there will be baked cats when you come down."
Shirley was distressed at this dismal prediction, but Sarah did not
take it to heart.
"I think, after all," she said meditatively, "I'll buy a hen and
keep chickens."
"What are you going to buy with your money, Shirley lamb?" asked
Rosemary, as Sarah fell to planning a chicken yard.
"A doll I guess," said Shirley who had had three that morning.
When Sarah reminded her of that fact, Aunt Trudy protested.
"No one is to attempt to dictate in any way," she said with
unaccustomed firmness. "When I was a child I was never allowed to
spend a cent as I wanted to and I gave you each this money to do
with exactly as you please. If you spend it foolishly, all right, I
don't care. But I want each one of you to get what you want,
whether or not it pleases some one else. I could have bought you
what I thought you ought to have, but that's the kind of presents I
had as a child and the only kind. And my goodness, didn't I hate
'em!"
The girls stared a little at this outburst and then the doctor
laughed.
"Well all I can say," he remarked drolly as he pushed back his chair
in answer to the summons of the telephone, "is that it is lucky
Christmas comes only once a year. Otherwise, Aunt Trudy, you'd have
us completely demoralized."
Spending their Christmas money gave the three girls a good deal of
pleasure during holiday week and a letter from their mother was
another pleasant incident. Mrs. Willis wrote that the fur coat and
the kimona had made her the envy of the whole sanatorium and she was
so proud of them both that she cried whenever she looked at them!
"--But, of course, I know you don't want me to do that, so I have
stopped, really I have," ran one paragraph of her letter. "I am so
proud of you all, my darlings and it seems such a short time ago
that you were all babies. How could I look ahead and see that my son
would grow up so soon and buy his mother a fur-lined coat, or that
my three girl babies for whom I sewed so happily would make me a
kimona and such a beautiful garment? I am wearing it now...."
The clear cold weather came to an end during holiday week and a
heavy storm set in a few days before New Year's. For two days and a
night it snowed steadily and Sarah was almost beside herself to
think that now she could play in the snow as long as she liked with
no school to interfere. Shirley suffered from cold and did not like
to play out long at a time, but Rosemary was not too old to enjoy
snow ball fights and coasting and she joined Sarah on the hill as
often as she felt she could leave her beloved practising. Nina
Edmonds did not care for coasting, but Fannie Mears and several of
the girls in the grade above the seventh liked to coast on Fred
Mears' bob-sled.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, when the snow had almost
stopped, except for a few large flakes, Rosemary set out to find
Sarah and bring her in in time for dinner. She was ploughing along
through the snow when Jack Welles hailed her.
"'Lo, Rosemary!" he called. "Where you going--home?"
"I'm going to the hill to get Sarah," Rosemary explained. "Hugh says
she'd coast till breakfast time if no one stopped her and I believe
she would. Where's your sled? Haven't you been out to-day? They say
the coasting is fine."
"I know it is, but I haven't had time to try it, worse luck!"
growled Jack, falling into step beside Rosemary as they walked on.
"The Common Council has sent out a call for the snow cleaning gangs
again and I've been trying to round the fellows up."
"Yes, I suppose the streets are piled up," agreed Rosemary. "When
are you expected to start work--not to-night?"
"To-morrow morning," the boy replied. "But there won't be more than
six of us."
"Six!" repeated Rosemary in astonishment. "Why I thought there were
twelve in each gang."
"There were," said Jack briefly. "But, you see, it is holiday week,
and no one wants to work. The only five I can get are Norman Cox,
Eustice Gray, Jerry and Fred Gordon and Ben Kelsey. I'm the sixth.
Two of the others are away and the rest are going on a sleighing
trip up to the woods."
"Where's Frank Fenton?" demanded Rosemary. "Can't he make 'em work?"
"Oh, he's going on the ride, too," explained Jack. "A bunch are
going, girls and boys and three of the teachers will chaperone. They
go up to a camp, you know, and build a big fire and dance and have a
good time. Frank says it won't hurt to wait a day or two. I think
he's hoping the snow will melt."
"What about the dramatic fund?" inquired, Rosemary, not
intentionally sarcastic. "I thought they wanted the money."
"Too soon after Christmas," grinned Jack. "No, I guess the six of us
will have to represent the school. Is that Sarah over there with the
red hat?"
"Yes, it is," answered Rosemary, beckoning to her sister. "Didn't
you want to go on the ride, Jack? Or the other boys?"
"Well I don't care so much," replied Jack slowly. "Of course I'd
have a good time, but I can live without a sleigh ride. I'm sorry on
the fellows' account though--they wanted to go with some girls and
they don't have much fun. I hated like time to ask them to come and
shovel snow to-morrow morning. As Eustice says most of the school
fun costs too much for him, but this wasn't going to be expensive."
"Couldn't you wait just one day?" suggested Rosemary.
Jack shook his head.
"It's understood that we stand ready to help the Council out," he
said in a business-like manner. "They depend on us, and it isn't
their fault the snow came during the holidays. We were glad enough
to get the chance before and I think it looks mighty cheap to try to
beg off now just because it isn't convenient to work. I'm going to
be on deck to-morrow morning if I'm the only one who turns up."
Six boys, however, reported the next morning to Bill McCormack and
at their own suggestion, were set to work clearing the Plummers Lane
section of the accumulated snow.
"My father is always talking about the fire risk down here," said
Jack to Jerry Gordon as they shoveled side by side. "Eastshore has a
nifty little fire department I'm ready to admit, but it can't climb
a snow bank even with the new chemical engine."
The boys found the day unexpectedly long. Hitherto they had worked
three or four hours after school and the one Saturday they had
shoveled had been at the end of their task so that they had been
able to quit at noon. But, although they were genuinely tired long
before night--and the noon rest had never been so appreciated!--not
one of them suggested giving in or knocking off an hour or two
earlier. They worked so steadily and to such good purpose that by
half-past four, when Rosemary and Sarah appeared with hot coffee and
sandwiches, the most congested area in Plummers Lane was
comparatively clear.
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