Brenda's Bargain: A Story for Girls

by Oliver Optic

  XVIII

  WHERE HONOR CALLS

  In all his life Philip Blair had hardly learned a harder lesson thanthat teaching him that it was his duty to stay at home with his fatherat a time when so many of his friends and classmates were setting offfor the war. "They also serve who only stand and wait," echoedconstantly in his ear, though unluckily almost as imperative was anotherrefrain, "He that lives and fights and runs away, may live to fightanother day." It seemed to him not unlikely that those who did not knowhim very well might put him in the latter class,--of those who avoided apresent danger for an unlikely and distant good.

  He could not deny the fact that his father was evidently ill, and asevidently needed him. This in itself was reason enough for his stayingin Boston. He had so thoroughly mastered the details of the business,that it would have been false modesty to deny that his departure wouldmake no difference. Even had his father been in perfect health, Philip'sdeparture would have thrown a certain amount of care upon him; but inhis present rather weak condition the young man felt that he had noright to add to his burden. He envied Tom Hearst his commission ascaptain in a regiment of regular troops, and he felt that his years onthe ranch had especially fitted him for a place with the Rough Riders.What an opportunity this war might offer a young man for realdistinction! and yet the chance was that he could have no part in it.Poor Philip! If some of his critics could have read his heart, theywould have had less to say about his staying at home. Certaincomplications in his father's business had led him to give up his plansfor studying law. He was now a business man, pure and simple, and almostany one would admit that he was devoting himself to his father'sinterests.

  In one of his downcast moods one evening he strolled over to the Mansionto take a message from Edith to Julia. His family had already gone downto Beverly, but Edith, with her usual conscientiousness, let hardly aweek pass without sending some special message to Gretchen.

  The evening was one of the close and sultry evenings of early spring,and as Philip drew near he was pleased to hear the voices of Brenda andJulia. The two were seated on a rattan settle that had been drawn outinto the vestibule, and upon greeting them Philip discovered Pamela andMiss South near by. After delivering Edith's message the conversationdrifted to the ever-engrossing subject.

  "I hardly expected to find so many of you here," said Philip. "Surelysome of you intend to go as nurses to help your suffering countrymen."

  "Angelina," responded Miss South, "is the only one of us who isdesperately in earnest about becoming a nurse."

  "So far as I can remember she has all the qualities that a nurse oughtnot to have."

  "Oh, you are rather severe; she is not quite so bad, yet I doubt thatshe would make a good nurse. But she really is interested, and I haveknown her to make many sacrifices this spring to help the soldiers."

  "She thinks that the Red Cross costume would be very becoming, and thatis the secret of her interest," said Brenda, with a slight tinge ofbitterness.

  "What do you hear from the seat of war?" asked Philip, turning toBrenda, as if to change the subject.

  "Oh, I never hear anything. Agnes and Ralph have letters, but I have toomuch to do to bother about the war."

  Brenda's tone belied her words, and Philip wisely attempted norejoinder. A moment later she made an excuse for leaving the party ingroup.

  "Ralph," explained Julia, "expects to go abroad in a few days; his uncleis very ill in Paris, and it is necessary that he should see him. Ibelieve that Agnes is not sorry that he has decided to go. Otherwise, Iam sure that he would soon be starting for Cuba."

  "It's hard for any one to stay behind," said Philip; and then as Inezand Nellie came out from the house with a message for Miss South andJulia, the duty of entertaining Philip fell on Pamela. He never knewjust how it happened, but soon he was opening his heart to her morefreely than he had ever opened it to any one else; and when their littletalk was over he felt that at least one person realized that in stayingNorth at a time when men were needed in the South he was truly trying todo his best. Undoubtedly Julia understood this, and Miss South, and allsensible people who saw that Mr. Blair's health was now so precarious;but Pamela made it so clear to Philip that his duty to his father wasreally the higher duty, that he left the Mansion in a much more cheerfulframe of mind than that in which he had approached it.

  "It is just as she says," he thought, as he walked homeward. "If mycountry were attacked, or if our flag were in danger, then it would bethe duty of every man to rush to the front. But now--why, when it comesto fighting on land, we'll just have another walkover like the battle ofManila Bay."

  He stepped briskly down the hill toward his home.

  "What a bright girl Miss Northcote is, and how thankful she must be thather teaching is almost over for the year. Though she never admits it,she must find teaching very tiresome."

  Pamela was glad, indeed, that her school tasks were over in season togive her a week or two for special study, as she was anxious to do hervery best in the work that she had chosen at Radcliffe this year. Thetwo courses would count toward her post-graduate degree. Strangelyenough, a few days before the examination she had a chance to put herown theories of duty into practice.

  A telegram from Vermont told her that her aunt had been thrown from acarriage and seriously injured, and that in her moments of delirium shewas constantly calling for her. It took Pamela but a few moments todecide, and packing a small trunk she was ready for the evening trainNorth.

  "My examinations can wait until next year," she replied to Julia'sexpostulations; "and even if they could not, this is really the onlything for me to do."

  Though for many years her relatives had been far from sympathetic,Pamela recalled the days of her childhood, when they offered her a home,and when in a clumsy way they had tried to make her happy. Knowing howher uncle had depended on his wife, she could not bear to think of hishelplessness, and to help him became at once her nearest duty.

  Thus it happened that when Philip a few days later came again to theMansion for counsel, he found Pamela gone. Julia, too, happened to beout, and Brenda, with whom he talked, was so downcast that he wasobliged to put himself in the most cheerful frame of mind to assure herthat there was not the least danger of actual fighting.

  "Why, before you know it, they'll all come marching home, and there'llbe processions and speeches and all the things that conquering heroesexpect--"

  "They won't be conquering heroes if they haven't done any fighting."

  "Don't interrupt; and you can throw a wreath at Arthur's feet."

  "I wasn't thinking of Arthur."

  "Excuse me, but I think that you were; and then, well--and then theywill live happy ever after."

  "Philip Blair, you are too absurd. Conquering heroes and wreaths,indeed!"

  But Philip's nonsense had made Brenda smile, and for the time she wasdecidedly more cheerful.

  When Mr. and Mrs. Barlow went down to Rockley, Brenda had simply refusedto go. When they told her that she would suffer in town from the heat,she replied that she did not care, she hoped, indeed, that she wouldsuffer, and concluded by saying emphatically that she was tired of beinga mere idler.

  "But since you are so unused to hard work, and to the city in hotweather, you must not overdo now. I do wish, Brenda," and Mrs. Barlow'stone was unusually serious, "that you could do things in moderation. Ifyou had taken a little more interest in the work at the Mansion lastwinter, perhaps you would not feel it necessary to go to extremes now."

  "It isn't extremes now, only I have more time to give to Julia, and Idon't feel like going to Rockley; and why should any one care,especially as you have Agnes and Lettice with you."

  Mrs. Barlow for the time said no more. She managed, however, to persuadeBrenda to spend a day or two each week at Rockley, usually Saturday andSunday; and every Wednesday a large box of flowers was sent up to theschool with a card marked, "With love, from little Lettice."

  Concetta was now more than ever devoted to Brenda,
and the latter foundher conversation more entertaining than that of any of theothers,--possibly because she heard more of it. Often during the hourbefore bedtime she sat on the old rattan settle in the vestibule, whilethe tongue of the little Italian girl rattled on over a great variety oftopics. Maggie, passing in or out sometimes after watering the plants inthe little garden, often felt like sitting down beside Brenda, but shewas never asked to join the two, and, unasked, she would not venture.Then to console herself she would put her hand on the crumpled letter atthe bottom of her pocket. There was one person who cared for her, andTim, knowing that his letters would not be intercepted by Mrs. McSorley,wrote to her often. His description of his life with the troops seemedto her most wonderful, and oh! how she longed to show to the others thatpicture that he had had taken of himself in uniform and broad campaignhat.

  Angelina's interest in the war turned chiefly on her belief that she wasdestined to be a nurse. A large red cross cut from flannel she had sewedto her sleeve, and she told the younger girls that as soon as her mothershould give her permission she was going to Cuba. "As soon, at least, asthere's been a perfectly dreadful battle; of course I don't want to gountil I can be of real use."

  As a matter of fact Angelina had little prospect of entering upon thiscareer of nurse, though she cherished the hope that her mother and MissJulia might some time give their consent.

  From Tampa in June Arthur wrote home much about the condition of thevolunteers who had gone to the war without suitable equipment, and thefingers of the young girls at the Mansion flew more swiftly, that theymight the more surely increase their quota of comfort bags.

  "Just think of Toby's having to work like a laborer," said Nora, two ofwhose brothers had already found their way to the army in the front atthe South. "He says that if it were not for the hammock that he sleepsin at night he never could stand the heat; but oh, dear! I do hope thatthere won't be any real fighting. Where do you suppose that theSpaniards are now?"

  "Off this coast, probably," said Edith; "they say there's a big pile ofcoal at Salem, and that the Spanish ships will be sure to try to get it.I wish we were going to Europe this summer, for I'm afraid that I shouldnot enjoy seeing a battle."

  "Well, I'd sooner see one than feel one, as might be the case if thereshould be fighting off this coast; but I am sure that this will not bethe case, and we must feel that our part in the war is simply to keep upour own courage, and that of our friends and relations, especially ofthose who have gone to the war marching toward Cuba."

  This was the sensible view to take, and Nora was only one of many girlswhose chief work those long spring days consisted in cutting outgarments, in hemming and sewing, in knitting bandages, and in followingthe directions of those older women who had organized themselves to carefor the needs of the soldiers in the field.

  Some of them, I am afraid (but we will whisper this), were a littleimpatient that nothing happened; that is, that there had been nofighting. But they were those who had no relatives and no friends in thearmy.

  Brenda waited eagerly for each letter from Arthur, for he wrotefrequently from Tampa to Agnes. Ralph had already reached Paris, and thehouse at Rockley seemed strangely quiet; for Lettice was a demure littlegirl, playing very quietly in her corner of the garden or thedrawing-room.

  Two letters of Arthur's had lain unanswered, and now Brenda wasunwilling to make up for her neglect. "Arthur should write to me," shesaid to herself, although she really knew that she could hardly expectsuch a concession from even a young man far less proud than ArthurWeston. Yet Brenda for a time tried to nurse a grievance, rather vainly,it must be admitted, essaying to persuade herself that Arthur was in thewrong.

  In the mean time, at the Mansion, she was really very helpful. She wasespecially zealous in taking the girls to some of the factories thatJulia and Miss South thought it well for the girls to visit in littlegroups. Thus the process of biscuit-making, and spice-making, and half adozen other processes had been made clear to them in the course of thespring, and Brenda said that in accompanying Miss South and the girls onthese expeditions she gained much more than she ever had from theoccasional historic pilgrimages that she had sometimes made with hercousins.

  The girls of the Mansion made one or two historic pilgrimages, too. InBrenda there was not a deep poetic vein, and something akin to this isneeded to make one thoroughly appreciate historic surroundings. In thebustling factories she found something with which her spirit was more insympathy.

  The questions asked by the girls with her diverted her; the explanationsgiven by their guides in these places took her out of herself.

  During the summer the girls were to be invited to New Hampshire; forJulia had been able to arrange with a farmer living not far from thehome of Eliza, her former maid, to have half a dozen of the girls boardwith him for two months, while two were to be under the care of Eliza.Julia or Miss South was to be at the farmer's during all the stay ofthese girls, but on the whole the summer was to be considered a time ofrecreation rather than work, and what the girls should learn in thecountry was to be gained rather by observation than by direct teaching.

  As the choice had been given them, three or four had preferred to returnto their own families for the summer rather than to go to the country,and thus the number to be looked after was not too large for thesuccessful carrying out of Julia's vacation plans. Her first intentionhad been to take a house and equip it for summer work, carried on uponthe same plan as that of the Mansion in the winter, but her uncle andaunt and others had pointed out so clearly the disadvantages of thisscheme that she had quickly given it up. The girls were likely toreturn to their duties in the autumn much fresher, and much readier toset to work, than if they had had the same kind of household tasks thatfell to them in winter.

  Mr. and Mrs. Barlow wished that Julia had planned to close the Mansionon the first of June instead of July, for they saw that Brenda had nointention of coming down to Rockley permanently until July.

  "Surely you are not so very much needed at this season. Julia and MissSouth could undoubtedly get some one else to take your place," hermother remonstrated; and Brenda merely replied:

  "Oh, I am needed; I like to feel that I am needed, and besides it is myown choice; I am staying in town because I want to."

  It was evidently useless to argue, and Mrs. Barlow made no furthereffort to persuade her to change her mind. Naturally, however, she wassomewhat concerned to notice that Brenda was growing paler and thinner.She felt that no good could come from Brenda's staying so late in town.