CHAPTER II
When Mabel Brewster left the Horton residence, she found her brotherFrank waiting for her. He was bursting with curiosity.
"Say, Mabe," he exclaimed, "who is the nifty red-head with the Chinesefootman? Some style, I say. Who is she?"
"A new Girl Scout," said Mabel absently. Even the mysterious strangerwas crowded out of her thoughts by the new orders she was about tofollow.
"Well, don't you know her name, or where she lives, or anything abouther?" demanded Frank.
"What ails you?" retorted Mabel testily. "I thought you had no use forgirls."
"Don't usually," said the lad, "but this one is different. Comes sailingout with that Chink at her shoulder, and she was talking thirteen to thedozen in Chinese or something."
"Talking?" interrupted Mabel. "You don't mean she spoke, do you?"
"Not exactly," grinned Frank. "She simply rattled it off by the yard,and the Chinaman just went along nodding like one of those little chinafigures with wiggly heads you see in the Japanese shops."
"Did she take the Chinaman along in the car?" asked Mabel curiously.
"Yep! It was a big limousine, and the Chinaman hopped up in front withthe driver. Miss Red-head sat alone like a queen. Say, she has wads ofthat red hair, hasn't she?"
"I didn't notice," said Mabel. "What have you been doing? Playingbasketball?"
"Yes, we had a hot game, and I tore my suit all to pieces. I wish youwould mend it, please, before Monday night. We are going to havepractice games all next week."
"All right," said Mabel absently. Then as she remembered her task shesaid firmly, "I forgot; I can't mend your suit. Mend it yourself."
"Why, what ails you anyhow?" asked Frank wonderingly. "I can't sew, andI hate to ask mamma, she is always so busy. Why can't you mend it forme, Mabe?"
"Something else I want to do," said Mabel coolly.
"Well, I say you are a selfish pig!" retorted Frank.
"Don't you let mamma hear you talk to me like that!" said Mabel. "Youknow what you would get."
"It's what you are anyhow, and I will get even with you if you don'tcome across."
Frank flung this threat at his sister as they entered their modest home.Mabel, flushed and rather uncomfortable, went into the sitting-roomwhere her mother greeted her with a smile. She asked about the meeting,but made no comment when she heard Mabel telling Frank that she did notintend to go to church.
"What are you going to do?" he demanded. "Stay in bed and have yourbreakfast brought up and loaf all day?"
"I may," replied Mabel boldly.
"If you do, you are a pill!" said Frank hotly.
"Mamma, don't you let him talk to me like that," appealed Mabel.
"Fight your own battles, my dear," said Mrs. Brewster. "If you are notable to compel politeness from your brother and others I feel sure thatit is your own fault, and there is no use in someone else demanding itfor you. Besides," said Mrs. Brewster, yawning rather openly, "I amtired fussing over you children. I have about decided to go intobusiness."
"Mummy!" cried Frank in a horrified tone.
"_Mam_-ma!" wailed Mabel.
"Exactly! I am thinking of going into interior decorating now that youchildren are old enough to look out for yourselves. I have spent a goodshare of my life looking after you, and now I think I will do somethingthat I have always wanted to do."
There was a long silence. Coming on the heels of her own plan, Mabellistened in amazement. Frank, however, went to his mother and sat downon the arm of her chair. There was a break in his boyish voice when hespoke.
"Mummy, I don't like it," he said. "Are we out of money, or anythinglike that?"
"Oh, no, not at all!" said Mrs. Brewster easily. "I just thought itwould be fun."
"I don't like it," repeated Frank in a hurt tone and, kissing hismother, he left the room and went whistling upstairs. Mrs. Brewsterchuckled.
"Frank always whistles when he is cross," she said, looking at herdaughter as though she would appreciate the joke. But Mabel did notsmile.
"I don't blame him at all," she said stiffly.
"Dear me! What a tempest in a tea-pot!" said Mrs. Brewster. "Here are alot of stockings belonging to you that need mending. I am going upstairsto read," and she too left the room, calling back, "Be sure to put outthe lights."
Mabel, quite stupefied with surprise, sat thinking awhile, then shesnapped off the lights, thinking as she did so that it was her mother'susual custom to put the room in order before she left it for the night.But Mabel did not intend to do it. So she left the chairs standing everywhich way with papers and magazines scattered over the table and hermother's sewing trailing on the floor.
Reaching her own pretty room, she put on a comfortable kimono, arrangedthe light so she could read in bed, and from under a box divan dug out apaper-covered novel. She read the title with satisfaction, _LadyErmintrude's Lover_, or _The Phantom of Marston's Marsh_. She curled upagainst the pillows, laying a copy of _Longfellow's Complete Poems_close beside her as a quick, safe substitute in case of interruption.Then before opening her book, she gave herself up to her thoughts,planning a luxurious and detailed campaign of self-indulgence. Shesmiled as she thought of the little Captain. It was a good joke on her,because Mabel was shrewd enough to realize that Mrs. Horton was tryingto show her that happiness, true happiness, lay in doing for others.Mabel, with the Captain's authority behind her, prepared to fulfill allher dreams. How this was going to strike her mother Mabel could notguess, but her mother was showing a strange, new and unforeseen side.She was glad, and hoped her mother would be so busy with her own plansthat she would fail to notice her daughter's actions. Presently Mabelburied herself in the trashy novel and with many thrills over thefoolish and impossible adventures of the Lady Ermintrude forgoteverything but her book.
While she was thus employed, Mrs. Brewster, sitting on the foot of herson's bed, her feet curled under her, was deep in a whisperedconversation which made both of them giggle like a pair of mischievouschildren rather than mother and son.
"All right, mummy," agreed Frank finally. "I am game, but I know Mabewill be awfully mad at me."
"Just go ahead and do as I tell you," said Mrs. Brewster, planting akiss on her son's rumpled hair. "It will all come out right and I willhelp you when things get too deep."
She went off to bed, and Frank, grinning with pleased anticipation, wasalmost asleep before the door closed.
In the morning force of habit woke Mabel, and remembering the breakfasttable to be set, she hopped out of bed and started for her morning bath.Then she quickly hopped again, this time back into bed.
Presently her mother looked in.
"Time to get up, Mabel dear," she said cheerily. "You will be late."
"I don't believe I want to get up this morning," answered Mabeluncertainly, and waited for her mother to retort, "Oh, yes, you do! Comeand help with the breakfast!" but instead she said:
"All right, my dear; suit yourself," and went off to call Frank.
Somehow Mabel did not care to sleep after that, and lay listening to thesounds and smells from below. She did not guess that the lower doors hadbeen purposely left open in order to let the odors from her favoritedishes ascend. But on the rare occasions when her mother had let hersleep over, there had always been a dainty meal left in the warmingoven, so Mabel snuggled down and fixed her already strained and tiredeyes on the poor print in _Lady Ermintrude_.
Her mother and Frank went off to church without disturbing her, and asthe front door closed with the click that told her that the latch wasdown, Mabel closed her book, hurried out of bed, and wrapping her kimonoaround her, went downstairs to explore.
She found nothing!
The warming oven was empty; the tables in the kitchen and dining-roomwere so empty that they looked lonesome. She looked in the ice-chest.There was nothing cooked. In the sink there was a pan of potatoes peeledand in cold water; on top of the warming oven a pan of bread pudding,looking very queer and doughy,
was ready for baking. There were somechops. Nothing more.
Mabel commenced to feel abused. She went back to her room, and once morefollowed along on the trail of Lady Ermintrude. After a long while thetelephone rang. Mabel went down and heard her mother's voice.
"We decided to have a little spree, dear," she said. "We are going totake dinner down town at Sherr's. Hop on the car and join us; we willwait for you."
"Where are you now?" asked Mabel joyfully. She loved an occasional mealat the bright pleasant restaurant where everything was always sodeliciously cooked and carefully served.
"Here at Sherr's, and you must hurry; it is past one o'clock now."
"Why, I am not even dressed yet," wailed Mabel.
"Oh, I am sorry," said Mrs. Brewster. "I don't believe we had betterwait. You know it always takes you an hour to dress. Better luck nexttime, dearie! There are chops in the ice-box, and the potatoes andpudding are ready to cook, and there are some canned peas. You can fix agood dinner, and we will be home before long. Perhaps if you have timeyou had better pick up the sitting-room. I didn't feel in the mood forit this morning. It is an awful mess. Don't bother if you don't want to,however. Good-bye!"
Mabel hung up the receiver with an angry frown. Nothing was going right;nothing was starting as she had intended it. She dressed slowly, and atebread and butter and sugar for dinner. The milkman had forgotten toleave the milk. She drank water. And she did _not_ pick up thesitting-room.
Later, her mother and brother failing to appear, she went out for awalk. When she returned at half past five, she met her truant familydescending from a big touring car. Some friends had picked them up andhad taken them for a long ride.
Mrs. Brewster noted the bread crumbs on the kitchen table and the opensugar bowl. She smiled. Later they all sat down to a delicious hotsupper, and Mabel cheered up enough to listen politely at least to theaccounts of their dinner and ride that had followed.
But when according to her orders, Mabel went to writing the account ofthe day in her notebook, it did not sound interesting at all!
The next afternoon when Mabel came from school, having been detainedhalf an hour on account of inattention, she found Frank busy mending thetears in his basketball suit by the simple method of drawing them up ina tight pucker.
"Where is mother?" demanded Mabel.
"Dunno," said Frank, squinting at his work.
"Well, I wonder where she is," said Mabel. "Rosanna Horton asked me tocome over to supper tonight, and I want to wear that new dress mother ismaking for me. She said she would have it done today." She went into hermother's little sewing-room, and came back looking disappointed.
"It isn't finished at all!" she said. "I don't see where mother can be!"
"Fix it yourself," suggested Frank, stabbing his needle into the jersey.
"I can't," said Mabel. "Mother always does it. Besides," she added as anafterthought, "I hate sewing."
As she spoke, her mother came in with a cheery greeting for herchildren. Before Mabel had a chance to ask her mother about the dress,Mrs. Brewster said,
"Mabel, I want you to get supper for Frank tonight, and be here whenthe laundress comes for her pay. I have been asked to take dinner with awoman from New York City who is an interior decorator of note."
"I can't, mamma, Rosanna Horton has asked me over there, and I told herI would come," said Mabel peevishly.
"Well, tell her you won't be among those present," said Frank, chewingoff his thread.
"But I told her I would come, and I am going," said Mabel, stubbornly.
"I bet you won't if mamma says not," retorted Frank.
His mother caught his eye and shook her head.
"Someone will have to stay home and see the laundress, and Frank has hisbasketball practice. It is a great chance for me, so I wish you wouldstay, Mabel," she said.
"I don't see how I can!" objected Mabel. "I told Rosanna I would comeand I reckon I had better go. You can go some other time, can't you,mamma?"
"I suppose I can," said Mrs. Brewster, and left the room.
Mabel glanced at her brother and noting his scowl, commenced to read amagazine.
She was perfectly miserable. When it came time to dress, she donned herold frock, wondering why her mother had laid the new one, stillunfinished, across her bed. Mabel loved to go to the Hortons. But foronce the dinner was not a success. All the conversation seemed to hingeon anecdotes of unselfishness and generosity. Mabel thought of Frankworking on his gym suit because she wouldn't mend it for him, but shethought most of her mother giving up her dinner to sit at home and waitfor the laundress. Her mother was too kind to make the poor coloredwoman come again for her money. Mrs. Brewster knew that she needed it.
Mabel, sitting with unwonted primness and silence at the Horton table,thought harder and harder and could not enjoy herself. And Mrs. Horton,the little Scout Captain, saw and smiled to herself a sly, quiet smilethat scarcely disturbed her dimples. She wondered curiously what sort ofa report Mabel would bring her.
The Girl Scout's Triumph; or, Rosanna's Sacrifice Page 2
