Rosemary
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Josephine Lawrence >> Rosemary
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"They think I'm earning money for Christmas," she said, "I didn't
say that, honestly I didn't, Jack. But whenever I told any one I
wanted to earn some money and did they want me to take care of their
baby for fifteen cents an hour, they always said, 'Oh, I suppose you
want to earn some money for Christmas, before school opens'!"
"Bet you'll give it up after the first day," prophesied Jack.
"Taking care of cranky babies isn't what it is cracked up to be."
There were many afternoons when Rosemary recalled his words. She
would have liked to give up, often. The babies were as good and
sweet-tempered as babies usually are, but no child is angelic and
the hot weather and their teeth troubles fretted the small people
sadly. Rosemary was sometimes at her wits' end to keep her charges
amused and there were days when she longed to fly home and rest her
tired head on the cool pillow on her own little bed. She had never
been forced to do anything steadily for long after she tired of it,
and to be obliged to smile and play with a wailing, discontented
baby on a hot, muggy afternoon did seem more than she could stand.
But she had plenty of perseverance, had Rosemary, and when she once
made up her mind to do a thing she stuck it out. Sarah and Shirley
had ceased to worry about the ring. Rosemary would make it all right
again for them--of that they had no doubt.
But if Aunt Trudy slept long hours and did not interfere with the
goings and comings of her young nieces, she was not quite so
unobservant as they sometimes thought.
"It seems to me that Rosemary is out of the house a good deal," she
remarked one morning to Winnie. "She ought to take more of an
interest in things here at the house."
"Well, I suppose it's only natural she should find a good deal to do
outside," answered Winnie, who had not been blind to Rosemary's
frequent absences, cautiously. "She's young, you know, and doing
your duty gets tiresome after a bit."
But to herself, Winnie admitted that Rosemary seemed to have
absolved herself from any responsibility toward her sisters. "Left
them to shift for themselves," was the way Winnie put it. She was
puzzled and also disappointed in her favorite, for indifference of
any kind had never been a Rosemary trait.
"She ought to be looking after Sarah and Shirley some of the time,"
grumbled Winnie. "Those young ones are under my feet continually.
The least Rosemary can do is to read to 'em now and then to keep
them quiet."
That very afternoon Miss Mason, Rosemary's music teacher called to
see Aunt Trudy. Rosemary's music was falling below its usual
standard and that was a pity. Was she practising as faithfully as
usual?
"I think it is a shame to waste all that money on music lessons, if
you won't practise, Rosemary," announced her aunt at the dinner
table that night.
CHAPTER XII
ONE DISASTROUS AFTERNOON
"I do practise," said Rosemary desperately.
"Well not enough, or Miss Mason wouldn't say your work was falling
below your usual standard," Aunt Trudy insisted. "She was here this
afternoon, Hugh, and she asked me whether Rosemary was giving as
much time as usual to the piano."
"Oh, let her slow up this kind of weather, if she wants to,"
responded the doctor lazily. "I think she's stuck pretty faithfully
to the scales and finger exercises myself."
Rosemary flashed him a grateful look.
"Of course I don't want to find fault," said Aunt Trudy to this,
"but you know I feel responsible. And Winnie was saying this morning
that Sarah and Shirley are left too much to themselves."
"Oh, that's all right," declared Sarah hastily and Shirley echoed,
"Yes, that's all right."
Doctor Hugh laughed and even Rosemary smiled faintly. How could she
explain that she had no time left from the babies in the afternoon
to spend with the little sisters, or that the reason her music was
showing neglect was because her morning practise hours were given
over to the odds and ends of duties she dared not leave undone for
fear of comment and question and now had no other time to do?
"I imagine Sarah and Shirley amuse themselves," said the doctor,
smiling, "but Rosemary dear, I don't want you to get in the habit of
being out of the house too much. Three afternoons I've called you up
and you weren't home."
Doctor Hugh wondered if Nina Edmonds was absorbing Rosemary's
attention again, but he thought it wiser not to ask. As a matter of
fact, had he but known it, the voluble Nina had been away at the
seashore for several weeks.
"Well, all I can say," remarked Aunt Trudy after a pause, "is that I
hope, Rosemary, your sense of duty will be strong enough to cause
you to pay a little attention to the children while I am away. I am
going to-morrow morning to spend two days with my cousin, you know,
Hugh. She is sailing for London, Wednesday."
"Yes, you told me," acknowledged the doctor. "We'll manage all
right, Aunt Trudy. Rosemary will keep us all in order."
But in spite of his cheerful faith, Aunt Trudy departed the next
morning "worried to death" as she confided to Winnie.
"I have a feeling that Sarah and Shirley will get into some
mischief, the minute my back is turned," declared the good lady.
"And Rosemary will be mooning around and not catch them until it is
too late."
Aunt Trudy's doleful prediction proved only too true. That very
afternoon, when Rosemary left to take care of the Simmons baby while
his proud mother attended the fortnightly meeting of her card club,
Sarah and Shirley decided to sail boats in the bath-tub.
Unfortunately, when the tub was half filled, Ray Anderson called
them to come and see his new kiddie car and when that was duly
inspected, Sarah pressed Shirley into service to help her feed the
rabbits.
"Let's go up to the store and buy 'em some fresh carrots," Sarah
suggested. "I'll get the money out of the tin bank--Rosemary won't
mind, 'cause I'll pay her back soon as I can."
Rosemary was putting the money she earned into the little tin
chimney bank which stood on the mantel shelf in her room. She
called it the "ring fund" and to Sarah it seemed that there must be
money enough already in it to buy several rings. But Rosemary was
positive she still needed a great deal more.
Sarah and Shirley, by dint of much shaking and banging the bank
against the shelf edge, succeeded in extracting ten cents and with
this they purchased fresh young carrots, a delicacy much beloved by
the pampered rabbits. They had fed the rabbits and were swinging in
the porch swing, when they heard a cry from Winnie.
"For mercy's sake, where is the water coming from!" she shrieked.
"Look at it, leaking down through the ceiling and dripping on my
clean tablecloth--have the pipes sprung a leak?"
She dashed madly upstairs, Sarah and Shirley at her heels. The
bath-tub was overflowing and the floor was a lake.
"Don't ever let me hear of you sailing boats again, as long as I
live in this house!" Winnie scolded, as she rolled up her sleeves
and pulled out the plug. "Sarah, go down and get me the mop--quick!
It'll be a wonder if the plaster doesn't fall in the dining-room,
it's that soaked!"
Dinner was delayed because of the catastrophe and when Doctor Hugh
came in, hungry and tired, it was to find Winnie spreading a fresh
cloth on the table and scolding Rosemary vigorously.
"The time to be helping me is before such a thing happens,"
announced Winnie, twitching the linen angrily. "Is that you, Hughie?
Heaven alone knows when dinner will be ready to-night--I've been
made to set the table twice over and the potatoes boiled dry while I
was mopping up the bathroom."
In a few words she sketched the incident.
"Rosemary, can't you look after the children a little better, just
till your aunt gets back?" asked the doctor wearily. "Where were you
when they were letting the water run?"
"I was--out," said Rosemary lamely. "Just around," she added
hastily, seeing a question forming on his lips.
"Well you'll have to stay in to-morrow," he said decisively. "Aunt
Trudy will be home to-morrow night, and I want you to be with Sarah
and Shirley till then. That isn't asking too much--one day. And
we'll see if we can get along without any more accidents. No eclairs
to-night, Winnie, for Shirley and Sarah."
The two culprits, deprived of dessert, were excused early, but
Rosemary left alone with Hugh was too busy with her own thoughts to
talk much though ordinarily she loved an opportunity for a chat with
him.
"I simply have to go to Mrs. Hepburn's to-morrow," she thought
panic-stricken. "I promised faithfully to come, rain or shine. She
is going somewhere with her husband and that's the only day he has
off. I'll have to go--that is all there is about it. If Hugh finds
it out, he will be furious, but perhaps he won't know. Anyway, I'm
going! I promised."
Sarah and Shirley playing their favorite game of dominoes on the
porch after dinner, were startled by a sudden rush from Rosemary.
She whirled through the doorway and demanded of her sister, "Sarah,
have you been meddling with my tin bank?"
Sarah got up from the floor slowly.
"I borrowed ten cents," she admitted, trying to back away and
backing into a rocking chair.
"You 'borrowed' ten cents!" cried Rosemary, advancing upon her. "And
you know I want to save every cent! Of all the selfish, mean girls I
ever knew, you're the worst!"
She clutched the unhappy Sarah by her broad sailor collar and
proceeded to shake her fiercely. Sarah retaliated by kicking
viciously and they were in eminent danger of upsetting the wicker
table and porch lamp when Doctor Hugh strode out and separated them.
"Rosemary!" he said in surprise. "What do you call it you are doing?
And Sarah, too--kicking and fighting like two small boys! What ails
you, anyway?"
"She took ten cents out of my bank--it's just the same as stealing,
because she never pays back anything she borrows," panted Rosemary,
almost crying. "I found a penny on the floor where she dropped it.
And she knows how hard I'm trying to save every cent, too."
"Well, Sarah, I think robbing a bank is a pretty mean trick,"
pronounced Doctor Hugh judiciously. "Where is this bank, Rosemary?
I've never seen it. Seems to me you're beginning to get ready for
Christmas rather far in advance."
Rosemary looked at Sarah who gazed at her imploringly. Both girls
had forgotten for the moment the ring fund and its object.
"I'll pay you back to-morrow Rosemary, honestly I will," said Sarah
hurriedly. "Aunt Trudy owes me ten cents for not melting her letter
sealing wax. She will pay me to-morrow night and I'll give it to
you."
"Sarah, Sarah," groaned her brother, half in amusement, half in
despair, "I'm afraid your ethics are pretty wobbly. So Aunt Trudy
has to bribe you, does she, to let her desk alone? Well, see that
you turn the bribe over to Rosemary, though I should call it robbing
Peter to pay Paul, with a vengeance."
"Goodness, suppose he had made you tell why you were saving the
money!" whispered Sarah, when the doctor had gone back to his
office. "I was just shaking in my shoes."
"Sarah, wouldn't you rather tell, anyway?" said Rosemary suddenly.
"I don't believe Hugh would be so very cross, because you didn't
mean to lose the ring. And I am afraid it will take me a perfect age
to earn enough money to buy another."
"I won't tell, ever!" declared Sarah, shaking her dark head
obstinately. "And if you tell, Rosemary Willis, I'll never speak to
you as long as I live! You don't have to buy another ring--that's
silly. Aunt Trudy doesn't even know this one is lost."
"I don't care if she doesn't," insisted Rosemary. "You lost it, and
we have to get another one for her; that's all there is to it."
The next afternoon Doctor Hugh repeated his request that Rosemary
should stay with Sarah and Shirley till Aunt Trudy came home on the
5:46 train. Then he left on a long round of calls and Rosemary, not
without many regrets and a thrill of fear when she thought what her
brother would say if he found her out, sped up the street to the
pleasant house where Mrs. Hepburn, hatted and gloved eagerly waited
her coming.
"I was so afraid you wouldn't come," she greeted the little girl.
"Baby is asleep, and I want to get away before he wakes up and sees
me go. I'll be back at half-past five, sharp, but of course you
won't go till I come. You mustn't leave Baby alone in the house."
As luck would have it, Aunt Trudy decided to come home on an earlier
train and found herself in the midst of bundle-laden Eastshore
shoppers who had spent the day in the city and were returning with
their spoils. Motherly Mrs. Dunning occupied a seat with Aunt Trudy
and what more natural than that she should speak of how much help
Rosemary had been to her that summer? The wonder was that Aunt Trudy
had so long escaped hearing but she went about very little in the
town and had met comparatively few of the neighbors even those
living on her own street.
"Yes indeed I've been able to go away an afternoon or two a week,"
babbled Mrs. Dunning, "something I haven't done since Baby came.
Your niece is such a nice child and so reliable. I wanted her this
afternoon, but Mrs. Hepburn had engaged her first."
"My niece? Mrs. Hepburn engaged her?" repeated Aunt Trudy faintly.
Mrs. Dunning explained and Aunt Trudy managed to keep from fainting
though as she told Doctor Hugh afterward, she would never know how
the strength was given her. She looked nearer to apoplexy than
fainting when she walked into the house a half hour later and,
purple-faced and choking, demanded to be told the instant the doctor
came in.
Doctor Hugh and his car rolled up a few moments later and Aunt Trudy
sobbed out the "miserable story" as she characterized it.
"To think of Rosemary, acting as a nurse-maid, and we never knew
it!" she wailed. "What would her mother say? What must the neighbors
think?"
"Bother the neighbors!" said Doctor Hugh testily. "When Rosemary
comes home tell her I want to see her."
Though his aunt did not suspect it, he had seldom been as angry in
his life. Not only had Rosemary deliberately defied him and gone off
that afternoon, but she had most certainly furnished topic for
gossip in Eastshore for it was not possible in so small a town that
her occupation had been unnoticed. And Doctor Hugh was very proud of
his pretty sister. What could have possessed the child to do such a
wild thing?
He had himself in hand by the time Rosemary came running in, late,
for Mrs. Hepburn had been delayed and nothing could have induced the
young worker to desert her charge.
"Your brother wants you--he's in the office," said Aunt Trudy
stiffly.
And as soon as she saw Hugh the most awful sinking sensation went
through Rosemary. He had found out, how, she could not guess, but
somehow, that was plain.
CHAPTER XIII
JACK STRAIGHTENS THINGS OUT
"You--you wanted to see me Hugh?" Rosemary faltered.
"Please come in and close the door," he said quietly. Then as she
obeyed, "Now what is this Mrs. Dunning has been telling Aunt Trudy,
Rosemary? Have you been taking care of babies in the neighborhood
for fifteen cents an hour?"
Rosemary nodded.
"How long has this been going on?" asked her brother.
"A--a couple of weeks," answered Rosemary faintly.
"What was the idea?"
Rosemary said nothing.
"I asked you a question, Rosemary. Please answer me. What made you
do a thing like this without consulting some one? Did Winnie know?"
"No," said Rosemary reluctantly, "Winnie didn't know. No one did. I
wanted to earn some money, Hugh."
Then came the question she had been dreading.
"What for?"
Rosemary nervously knotted and unknotted her handkerchief. Her blue
eyes roved around the familiar room and came back to the grim face
and the dark eyes which watched her relentlessly.
"Oh, Hugh!" she cried desperately, "PLEASE!"
Her brother picked up a paper weight and studied it intently.
"Look here, Rosemary," he began more gently, "you deliberately
disobeyed this afternoon when I asked you to stay in the house--"
"Because I had absolutely promised Mrs. Hepburn, Hugh," Rosemary
broke in eagerly. "I'd _promised_! She was depending on me and I had
to go."
"Very well, a promise is a promise," admitted the doctor, "though
when wrongly given sometimes they must be broken. We'll set aside
the fact that you disobeyed and consider only this wild scheme
apparently undertaken because you wanted to earn money. I want you
to tell me why you thought you needed money and why you couldn't
come to me and ask for it."
"Because," whispered Rosemary unhappily, "Because."
"That's no reason," said the doctor brusquely. "Come, 'fess up,
Rosemary, and I'll help you out of the scrape, whatever it is. My
dear little girl, you can't go around among the neighbors like
this--families help each other and stand by each other. I don't care
a hoot what other people may think--as Aunt Trudy seems to believe I
should--but I care a great deal that my little sister should go to
outsiders instead of coming to me."
Rosemary touched his sleeve timidly. She longed to throw herself in
his arms, cry that she was tired of taking care of silly,
uninteresting babies (though as a matter of fact when she wasn't
tired she loved them all, the cross as well as the good-natured
ones), and tell him the whole story about the lost ring. But there
was her promise to Sarah. A promise was a promise--Hugh himself had
said so. And families were to stand by each other, and she must
stand by Sarah and Shirley.
"I can't tell you, Hugh," said Rosemary earnestly. "I just can't."
"You mean you won't," said the doctor sternly. "Well, go up and
bring me down this bank--I suppose that was the one you and Sarah
were quarreling over the other night? And you put the money you
earned in that? I thought so; bring it down to me."
Wondering what he meant to do, Rosemary went up to her room and
returned with the bank. Doctor Hugh dropped it into one of the lower
drawers of his desk and turned the key.
"I want you to bring me a list of the women for whom you have taken
care of children," he said, pushing a block of paper and a pencil
toward Rosemary, "and, as nearly as you can remember, the number of
hours you worked for each. Then we'll count out this money and you
will have to return it. I want that list by to-morrow night."
Winnie sounded the dinner gong just then and Rosemary went silently
to the table. Aunt Trudy's eyes were red from crying and Sarah and
Shirley looked frightened. Their aunt had told them the "awful
thing" Rosemary had been doing and Sarah was in terror lest Hugh
already knew her part in it. But dinner, uncomfortable meal as it
was, reassured Sarah. Hugh would not have allowed her to leave the
table without a word if he had known about the ring.
Rosemary went to her room directly after dinner and Sarah and
Shirley followed.
"Was he mad?" asked Shirley, her eyes round with excitement.
"Aunt Trudy was crying and wringing her hands," volunteered Sarah.
"She says the family is disgraced and Hugh will be ashamed to show
his face in Eastshore."
"What a silly thing to say!" cried Rosemary. "Thank goodness, Hugh
is no snob. But he is furious because I can't tell him why I wanted
the money. And, oh, girls, I have to take it all back. How can I
ever buy the ring now, and what will the people say when I bring
back the money they paid me?"
She hurriedly outlined what Doctor Hugh had said, and Sarah
immediately suggested that they get hold of the bank and bury it.
"Hugh would only punish us again," said Rosemary practically. "Let's
tell him about the ring, Sarah. He said he'd help me out of the
scrape, no matter what it was, if I'd tell him."
But Sarah set her chin obstinately and refused to go to her brother.
She reminded Rosemary of her promise and Shirley, too, began to cry
and say that she was afraid of Hugh. So it ended by Rosemary
renewing her promise not to tell and then crying herself to sleep
because she remembered how patient Hugh had been and she knew she
had both hurt and disappointed him.
"And I can't go around and give the money back," she wept, tossing
about on her wet pillow, "What will people think? But Hugh will make
me, if he goes along to see me do it. Oh, dear, the Willis will
makes all the trouble in this family!"
But in the morning the Willis will helped Rosemary to remain
unshaken in her determination not to tell any more than she had
told. Doctor Hugh called her into the office before breakfast--he
had had his early and was ready to leave when the girls came down
stairs--and asked her again why she wanted the money, patiently at
first and then, as Rosemary stubbornly refused to give a reason, he
lost his temper and began to storm. Rosemary finally flew out of the
office and banged the door and the morning was unhappily begun.
Winnie, who had heard the story from Aunt Trudy, thought it her duty
to lecture Rosemary during breakfast--at which Aunt Trudy did not
appear--and Rosemary, whose nerves were already strained to the
breaking point, answered snappishly.
"I should think you'd be ashamed to speak to me like that before
your little sisters," said Winnie indignantly. "Shirley wouldn't
talk to Winnie like that, would you dear?"
"Oh, my no," said Shirley angelically.
This was too much for Rosemary. She fled from the table to indulge
in a good cry up in her mother's room. Doctor Hugh had trusted the
key to her, after he had locked the room and Rosemary sometimes went
there when she wanted to be quiet and think. The room was in perfect
order, sweet and clean and well-aired and the things on the dresser
and shelves were exactly as her mother usually kept them. Rosemary
had arranged them so because she thought her mother would like to
find them ready for her when she came home.
After the tears had stopped, Rosemary sat quietly for a few minutes
in the little low white rocker. Something of the peace and stillness
of the room stole into her troubled mind. Presently she rose and
went out, locking the door carefully behind her.
"Anything the matter, Rosemary--you look a little woozy," said Jack
Welles with neighborly frankness, seeing her across the hedge later
that morning as she was spreading out handkerchiefs to bleach for
Winnie.
In a rush of words, Rosemary told him the "matter."
"Well, you do have a merry time," Jack commented when she had
finished. "But the solution is simple after all."
"I can't take back that money," said Rosemary miserably. "But what
can I do? Hugh will never give in."
"Do? There's nothing for you to do," answered Jack vigorously.
"Sarah and Shirley have the next act on the program and it's up to
me to see that they realize it, if you can't show them their duty.
Where's Sarah now?"
"Teaching the cat to sit up," said Rosemary without interest. "It
won't do you any good to argue with her, Jack. She's afraid of Hugh
and she won't ever tell him. Besides, you know, I only told you if
you would promise not to tell."
"Oh, I haven't forgotten that you nailed me firmly before you would
say a word," Jack replied grimly. "But I still think I can persuade
Sarah to confess her share and if she will, Shirley will admit that
she also was present. I'll go begin my good work now."
He was gone half an hour and when he came back he was smiling.
"Everything's all fixed," he announced. "Sarah and Shirley are going
to march up to the guns like good soldiers to-night, and I'm going
to do the talking for them. Sarah, sensibly enough, wants to get it
over before dinner, so I've promised to come over right after lunch
and sit on your porch so I'll be here no matter how early Hugh gets
home. You and I have to bolster up the weak spots in their courage."
"I don't see how you ever persuaded Sarah," marveled Rosemary. "I
argued and argued, and she wouldn't listen to me."
Jack looked very wise.
"I used moral suasion," he declared. "Told her if she didn't own up
to-night, I'd go to Doctor Hugh and tell him everything myself."
"Is that moral suasion?" asked Rosemary doubtfully.
"Of course it is," said Jack with confidence. "If it isn't it ought
to be. I've never broken a promise yet and I'm mighty glad Sarah
didn't make me, but I'll be jiggered if I don't think there are
times when it is worse to keep a promise than to break it."
A promise "wrongly given"--Doctor Hugh's words came back to
Rosemary. Had she given her promise wrongly?
Doctor Hugh did not come home till nearly five o'clock and the four
solemn young people on the front porch were getting decidedly
fidgety before his roadster appeared at the curb and he jumped out
and hurried up the walk. He said "Hello" to the four as he passed
them and he was surprised, therefore, when he turned from his desk
to see them enter the office and advance toward him.
"Hugh," said Jack clearly, "I've something to tell you. Sarah really
ought to, but she asked me to do it."
"Suppose you sit down," said the doctor gravely.
Sarah sat down gingerly on a chair near the door, ready for instant
flight, and the others ranged themselves near the desk. Jack began
with the loss of the ring and told everything that had happened
since. He spoke rapidly, but without excitement, and he was not
interrupted once.
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