Cherry Ames Boxed Set 5-8

by Helen Wells

  Miss Culver herself was always dainty as a miniature and bore herself like a princess. Cherry respectfully regarded her as a triumphant soldier.

  “Well, let’s see how you are today.” Cherry smiled. Miss Culver was convalescing from an attack of bronchitis. Her real trouble was need of a long rest.

  “My throat is almost healed, thank you. But I still feel so weak and tired. However, I’m sure this is only temporary. I will get back my strength. I will return to my position again.”

  “I know you will,” Cherry encouraged her. “Just don’t try it prematurely, Miss Culver. Be patient and rest.”

  She wished Miss Culver could afford to go away on a vacation. Her only recreation was to take short walks. It must be lonely, sitting in this room without much to occupy her. Cherry recalled Mrs. Crump’s saying how it irked her to do nothing, and Uncle Gustave’s unhappiness at being idle. Miss Culver, too, needed something interesting and satisfying to do, while her strength slowly returned.

  Out on the street, Cherry was thinking so hard about Miss Culver that she walked beyond the bus stop. And Uncle Gustave, too … she still had not solved his problem. Then Cherry realized where her feet were leading her: to a place she had intended for weeks to visit, but had always been too busy to get to—the settlement house.

  “I really ought to get my people taken care of, before the Thanksgiving holiday,” she thought. Cherry was looking forward to Thanksgiving and some rest and fun.

  Cherry approached the new, four-story, concrete building with interest. It was big, since it served an enormous area. Gwen had said it encompassed her nursing district too, and Bertha and Josie’s districts as well.

  As Cherry went up the steps, crowds of children and young people streamed out, on their way home to supper. They were talking animatedly, making dates to meet here tomorrow. Cherry went into the entrance hall and found the receptionist.

  “I’m Nurse Ames, visiting nurse for District Four. I’d like to talk with someone here about two of my patients.” Her uniform was her badge.

  “Certainly, nurse. I’ll ask one of our social workers to see you.”

  While the receptionist telephoned upstairs, Cherry looked in at one of the rooms. It was a studio, littered with colored dishes still wet from the pottery wheel, a half-finished portrait in clay, vases in the making. A woman in a smock was helping two young girls put away their tools. The clay and pigments smelled cool and pungent.

  “Interesting?” laughed a voice at Cherry’s shoulder.

  She turned to find a pleasant young woman in a pretty, red sports dress. “It certainly is interesting! Wish I had time to join that class. Is there a fee?”

  “There is no fee for any activity in a community house. Everyone is welcome. We are supported by contributions. Oh, I might tell you my name, mightn’t I? I’m Evelyn Stanley and you’re Miss Ames, aren’t you? We’re always glad to have visitors, and especially the visiting nurses.”

  “How do you do, Miss Stanley. I’ve been wanting for a long time to get here. I’ve never been through a settlement house.”

  “Then I shall take you on a tour! The entire community is proud of Laurel House—”

  Starting here on the semibasement floor, the social worker showed Cherry various rooms: the clay-working studio, the art studio with its easels and drawing boards and charcoal dust, a weaving room full of looms and bright yarns, a jewelry-making shop, a leather work-room, a sewing room with machines, a big metal and carpentry shop.

  “This is our Craft School,” Miss Stanley said. “I think a community house would be welcome in any neighborhood, but it’s a necessity here where families can’t afford to give their children normal outlets. Without Laurel House, our boys and girls would be loafing on street corners and getting into trouble. Some of the so-called ‘bad ones’ have turned into our very best and most enthusiastic members.”

  Beyond, on this street-level floor, Cherry saw a small auditorium with a generous stage, orchestra pit, and balconies.

  “We give plays and concerts here, with neighborhood talent. We put on good shows, too! One of our girls is now a featured player in the movies, two of our boys now have their own dance bands, and—you’d better stop me, Miss Ames! We have a big gymnasium, besides, for sports and dances and parties. Always something going on.”

  They went upstairs. Here they paused at pleasant sitting rooms for neighbors’ gatherings—“or for lectures and informal classes,” said Miss Stanley. “We have over two thousand adults coming here faithfully at night to improve their English, and study American history and civics. Many of them have been well educated in other languages.”

  Up another flight, the social worker led Cherry into a room crowded helter-skelter with everything from dressers, tools, books, to egg beaters, overalls, and even a spinning wheel.

  “This is our Swap Shop,” Evelyn Stanley explained. “If a family hasn’t the money to buy something they need or want, they can come here and trade in something they do have. Every article is priced by an impartial appraiser, but no money is exchanged.”

  Cherry thought this an eminently practical and direct system. Her eye fell on a sewing basket which Bertha Larsen would certainly like to own.

  “How would I buy that, Miss Stanley?”

  “You’d have to bring in some article in exchange.”

  “Suppose my article was valued at—oh, a dollar more than this sewing kit?”

  “Then you’d get a dollar’s credit.”

  On the third floor were still more cheerful rooms. “For group work and recreation, Miss Ames. Across the hall we run our Nursery School.” The social worker held open a door and Cherry saw playpens, shelves of toys, charts on the wall describing a child’s growth, diets, medical and dental care. “On the top floor is our Health Department. We’re hoping to open a Music School too, someday, if we can build around the corner.”

  Cherry was impressed. Her civic consciousness was having a lively awakening. She thanked Evelyn Stanley for the tour.

  As they went down the stairs again, Cherry talked to the social worker about Miss Culver and Gustave Persson, describing their problems.

  “Indeed we can help them,” Miss Stanley said. “We’re obliged to you for letting us know of people who need help. For Mr. Persson, give him this—” She took from her pocket a card marked: Laurel House, wrote in Uncle Gustave’s name, and under it, Carpentry and Construction. This meant, she said, that he was invited to come here to the Craft Shop and build to his heart’s content with Laurel House tools and materials.

  “Thank you! He’ll probably want to build you that new Music School,” Cherry laughed.

  Miss Stanley’s eyes sparkled. “Maybe we’ll let him! Practically every person who comes here ends up giving Laurel House more than it gave him.”

  “And about Miss Culver? She’s not well enough to walk this far and I think, too, that being among so many—well, noisy children would wear her out. She’s still convalescent.”

  The social worker nodded. “We could send her something to do at home. Have you any idea what she’d enjoy?”

  Cherry thought of those windows looking down on the street, and what Miss Culver had said about the silvery light. That mended upholstery too, like a fine piece of embroidery—Miss Culver’s hands must be as deft as her eyes were responsive. Then Cherry thought of the art room with its easels.

  “What about paints and drawing paper, Miss Stanley? Maybe Miss Culver would like to try painting what she sees from her window. Or does she need instruction?”

  “Some of the finest artists never had instruction. If your Miss Culver has a smidgeon of talent, it will come out by itself. If not—well, almost everyone enjoys messing around with colors.”

  So it was arranged that Cherry would return in a few days and pick up paints, brushes, a big pad of water-color paper, folding easel—everything Miss Culver would need. She again thanked the social worker and left Laurel House.

  On the sidewalk Cherry paused to sha
ke her curly head at its hospitably open door. “There may not be a Santa Claus, but there certainly are some goodhearted, generous people in this world!”

  It was night now, six-thirty—as usual, Cherry was hopelessly late in leaving her district. She ran for the bus. Hopping on, she was appalled to see that she would have to ride with that awful driver, Smith. Gingerly she handed him a dime and shrank back while he gave her change.

  “Step back inna bus, back inna bus,” he growled at her.

  Cherry stepped back, decidedly not wanting an argument. Just as the traffic lights started to change, a hurrying woman hopped on the bus step. It was Ingrid Persson. The driver all but slammed the door on her hand.

  “In or out, lady—make up yer mind!”

  Mrs. Persson was so startled that she could not move for a second. Then she fumbled for her fare.

  “Ya made me miss the light! Now aintcha gonna pay yer fare?”

  The whole bus was listening. Mrs. Persson flushed with humiliation. Her hands trembled as she futilely searched her purse. Cherry felt almost as badly as Mrs. Persson did. She was angry, besides, with the bullying driver. With a hello to Mrs. Persson, she put a nickel in the box for her, and hoped that would smooth the incident over.

  But the driver sneered. Mrs. Persson looked about to cry. Cherry did something she would never have done had she not been in uniform and in her own district. She turned to the bus driver and said quietly:

  “Now look, driver, that’s enough.”

  He roared. “Smart nurse, huh? Mind yer own business!

  “This neighborhood is my official business. Even you are my business.” Cherry did not raise her voice, but she knew it carried all over the bus. “Smith, what makes you so nasty that everybody hates you?”

  “Let ’em hate me! Who cares?” But he did care. He had turned red.

  “Don’t you know you’re making yourself a laughingstock?” That hit home, too. “Why don’t you try being—not pleasant—just silent, Driver Smith?”

  Then Cherry turned away and sat down, shaking and surprised at this unaccustomed thing she had done. Mrs. Persson had taken a seat away out of sight in the back of the bus.

  There was not another word out of the driver. Even when a fat lady puffed up the bus step and made him miss a green light, Driver Smith did not yell. He still glared, but his new-found silence was remarkable.

  Cherry, with the rest of the inquisitive passengers, was so astonished that she rode along with her eyes glued on Driver Smith. Barely in time did she notice the bus stopping where she could distantly see the Gregory mansion.

  Cherry pressed her face close to the window and peered down the shadowy blocks, straining to see the outlines of the house. A single, faint light glimmered there. Dark, bare trees rose in a protective thicket around the mansion and concealed an eighteen-year-old mystery.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Parties and Clues

  JOSIE FRANKLIN HAD A BEAU. HE WAS A YOUNG DOCTOR she had met through her work and his name was John Brent. Young as the girls themselves, he was easygoing enough to be amused rather than ruffled by Josie’s rattlebrained remarks. In fact, not even a houseful of girls could ruffle Dr. Johnny. He would sit peacefully on their living-room sofa, chuckling at Josie’s non sequiturs, and ducking the scramble of six nurses with no more protest than a grin. Or if Dr. Johnny took Josie to the movies, he comfortably invited the whole Spencer Club too. Dr. John Brent was showing up at the apartment more and more frequently.

  “Josie has a beau, Josie has a beau,” Gwen chanted. It was Sunday noon, and the girls were loafing over a combination breakfast-lunch. “Well, it’s about time one of us had a nice new romance.”

  “It isn’t a romance and Johnny isn’t a beau.” Josie blinked behind her glasses. “He just likes me. Some. That’s all.”

  “Oh,” said Vivian. “I suppose Dr. Johnny sits on our sofa because he can’t think of anything better to do? He comes around to call on the entire Spencer Club?”

  “He likes our peppermints and our pretty wallpaper.” Cherry grinned. “He doesn’t like Josie, oh, no.”

  Josie wrinkled her forehead and turned to quiet little Mai Lee for help.

  “Is he really a beau, Mai Lee?”

  Mai Lee smiled. “I think Johnny likes you better than you realize.”

  Josie wonderingly set down her cup. “Well, what do you know! But honestly, I think he has fun with the whole gang of us.”

  Bertha returned with a fresh pot of coffee. “I miss my John. He keeps writing that I should come back to the farm and marry him, that we’ve been waiting long enough.” Bertha’s china-blue eyes had a faraway look. It was one of the rare times that Bertha spoke of her fiancé, with whom she had grown up.

  Cherry, winding one black curl around her finger, wondered about her own romance department. It was conspicuous by its absence. Wade Cooper was a highly satisfactory young man, but he was out of the Air Forces now and back home in Tucson, hard at work starting a business. And there simply was no one else at the moment.

  Cherry looked around speculatively at the other girls. Gwen knew someone she liked but he was in St. Louis. Mai Lee and Vivian were as lacking in dates, here in New York, as Cherry was.

  “Hey, kids. You know what?” Cherry said slowly. “I just thought about this for the first time—We’ve all been so busy with our work that I guess we haven’t done any thinking at all.”

  “Thinking about what?” Cherry’s serious tone caught their attention.

  “Just this. That except for Josie, we haven’t any beaux or callers or friends. That—darn it!—we’re all wrapped up in ourselves and our work. We never see anyone socially but one another.” She shook back her dark curls. “I’ve just waked up to the awful truth. We’re getting—uh—”

  “Narrow,” Mai Lee supplied. “Insular.”

  Vivian nodded. “Yes, we are. Here we have the apartment fixed up, and we haven’t given a single party.”

  Gwen snapped her fingers. “I knew there was something I meant to do. Look up the Taylor family. They used to live in our town and last year they moved to New York. I went all through school with Ben Taylor.”

  Cherry suddenly remembered a Hilton family, the Coreys, living now in New York.

  “Why, we know lots of people if we’d only come out of our shells!”

  Bertha Larsen, like Vivian, had no contacts in New York. But she suggested it was easy to get acquainted through the various States’ clubs, or the Ys, or the Spencer Nursing School Alumni Association.

  “We could invite ’em all to come see our blue furniture!” Josie piped up. “Johnny thinks it’s quite a sight,” she added ambiguously.

  “All right,” the Spencer Club voted, “we’ll look up these people and we will invite ’em.”

  Cherry’s Corey family turned out to consist of an aged couple, plus a nephew aged fifty. The younger members of the Corey family, whom Cherry remembered, had gone to live in California. Cherry called on these elderly people with some disappointment, but politely asked them to come to tea. To her amazement, the old couple amiably traveled all the way down to the Village one Sunday afternoon, for the tea party. The girls invited Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins from upstairs, too, and asked Dr. Johnny to bring another young man with him. With six guests and six girls, the afternoon was a more pleasant one than Cherry had hoped for. Old Mr. and Mrs. Corey’s enjoyment was a reward in itself. And as Vivian said afterwards, “I don’t see why all our friends must be our own age. It’s comfortable to know older people!”

  Gwen’s Taylor family, she announced delightedly after a long telephone conversation, was intact. Mrs. Taylor had asked Gwen to dinner, and Ben, the youngest son, would be coming down to see them some evening soon.

  “I couldn’t ever think of Ben Taylor as a romance,” Gwen told the others. “Not after he dipped my pigtails in desk inkwells at school, for years and years. Yep, I wore pigtails in my youth. But Ben’s an awfully nice fellow. You’ll see.”

  Ben came by on
e Friday evening. He was a lanky, sandy-haired, nice-looking young man, easy to talk to. He got along famously with the Spencer Club and with quiet Dr. Johnny who came in, too—Josie’s beau was “practically a fixture by now,” Cherry said. Ben was intrigued by the blue furniture and its history, devoured large amounts of refreshments, and asked if he could come back with some of his pals—to see the blue furniture. Like Johnny Brent, Ben doubted that such furniture actually existed.

  “Yes, I see it with my own eyes,” he admitted, “but, of course, it’s just a mirage. It’s not bad-looking,” Ben added courteously. “Just amazing.”

  They set a date and a few evenings later Ben showed up with three more young men. They all carried assorted paper boxes and bags.

  “Refreshments,” Ben said gallantly. “Also, Dan, Tiny (because he isn’t), and George, in that order. George’s real name is Clarence, but we never tell anyone that.”

  George indignantly denied the whole thing and grinned at Vivian in particular. Tiny was a very big, outdoor fellow who laughed heartily when he looked out on what they called their “garden.” Danny had an infectious smile and feet that kept breaking into tap steps. Like lanky, loose-jointed Ben, Danny was eager to turn on the radio and dance. Dr. Johnny just sat relaxed on the couch looking amused, as usual.

  “But first we have to inspect the blue furniture,” Ben announced. They all trooped down the hall. “Gentlemen, I submit that these blue objects are distinctive, unique, the only ones of their kind in the world.”

  Tiny sat down on one of the blue chairs, trying it. It creaked under his weight. Mai Lee hastily asked him if he wouldn’t help her unpack the refreshments, for which the surprised hostesses offered thanks. Tiny then made the mistake of trying to squeeze into the kitchenette, and they heard pots and pans clattering down.