Six Girls and Bob: A Story of Patty-Pans and Green Fields

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER VIII

  GRETTA

  "HAPPIE is beginning to be indeed happy, and without effort," saidMiss Bradbury in high satisfaction as she watched her pretty namesakeblossoming into increasing brightness every day. It was quite true thatHappie was beginning to be happy without effort. The first symptomof her growing reconciliation with her new home was that the livelycorrespondence with the friends whom she had left behind was abating;she found the days too short for the delights that the farm had tooffer her, and she had less and less time for letter writing.

  Happie had found a new interest in life besides the many interests ofher first country spring-time, and her growing intimacy with the wildcreatures,--an interest not unlike the latter, but far more absorbing.And this is how it began.

  One day she was walking alone down the roadside. The sun lay on herhead as warm as if it were June, and the dust rose under her feet. Outof the tangled growth of the wayside came frequently the flutteringof wings, or a squirrel in vociferous haste, whisking his tail andscolding her.

  She came up at last to the furthest boundary of the Ark farm, fardown on the margin of the brook, and to the house nearest to the Ark.It interested her, because she had heard that in it lived a girl ofher own age, together with two women who had the reputation of beingdecidedly cross, and of leading this young girl a hard life. They wereher cousins, without whose dubious shelter the girl would have beenhomeless.

  As Happie came up she caught a glimpse of a brownish sunbonnet, andpaused to peer at her unknown neighbor, herself hidden by a friendlychestnut tree. She saw a pair of shoulders, unmistakably youthful,covered by a faded but scrupulously clean gingham, and a plump brownhand skilfully wielding a paint brush with which it was renewing thestorm-beaten red paint on the posts which upheld the wire fence formingthe farm boundary.

  The girl stopped her work, and, with an upward movement of her arm,threw off her sunbonnet with the back of her left hand, and drew herarm across her warm brow. She had dark brown eyes, darker hair, and herskin was as brown as a berry, but beautifully clear, and her cheekswore a flush as red as the tint of her red lips. She was so prettythat Happie caught her breath with the pleasure almost all girls feelin another girl's beauty, no matter what sarcasms are pronounced byboys to the contrary. There was a warmth, a charm about this girl thatwarm-hearted Happie was quick to feel, and with it a look of patiencethat went to her heart.

  "She needs a friend," thought Happie, and went forward without adoubt in her mind that she could fill the want, not because she wasconceited, but because her motives were too pure, and her impulse tookindly to allow a doubt of her reception.

  "I think you must be Gretta Engel," she said, her sunny face wreathedin smiles, as she came up to the painter.

  The girl started violently, and blushed to the dark hair lying in damprings on her forehead. She quickly pulled her brown sunbonnet intoplace, and stared at Happie without speaking, like a frightened rabbitcowering beside the fence.

  "I'm Happie Scollard, and I live--I'm living this summer--on the nextfarm, the one that used to be Bittenbenders'," Happie continued. "I'vebeen anxious to know you; we're so near the same age, and such closeneighbors."

  She paused for the reply which did not come, and then, for lack of it,took up the conversation again.

  "It's lovely here; those mountains are glorious. I was so lonely andhomesick at first I did not know how to bear it, but I'm gettinghappier every day. It's a beautiful place, Crestville, isn't it?"

  "Yes, it is," returned Gretta.

  "Have you always lived here?" asked Happie.

  "Yes, I have," replied Gretta.

  "And I used to live in a flat in New York; you can't imagine what achange this is!" said Happie cheerfully.

  "I guess," said Gretta, looking at the tip of her brush as if hoping itmight help her.

  "Don't you get lonely here? I do, though there are so many of us,"persisted Happie.

  "Oh, I don't know; I don't get much time," said Gretta desperately,looking about as if meditating flight from this determined girl withwhom she had not the slightest desire to make friends, and whose accentand little air of being accustomed to another world than that of thecountry girl embarrassed and annoyed her.

  To her dismay, Happie seated herself on the grass at her side. "I don'tbelieve there's any risk in sitting on the grass, if it is only May,"she said. "It's as warm as June, and it must be dry. I think you need afriend, Gretta, and I want you to look at me hard and see if you don'tthink I could be she. The girls in New York rather liked me."

  She thrust her head forward, inviting inspection as she applied for theposition, and Gretta looked into the laughing eyes, and into the sweet,dimpling face bent towards her. Her own dark eyes lighted with pleasurein what she saw, and in spite of her shyness, she laughed a little.

  "You don't want me for a friend; I'm different," she said.

  "You look nice," announced Happie emphatically, "and I'd like to haveyou try me. If you mean that I've lived in the city, and so had morechance than you to get at books, besides having a clever and learnedduck of a mother to teach me, while you have been all your lifemotherless, and far from libraries and good schools, besides being asbusy as a bee, I think that's more to your credit than mine. If weliked each other, I could give you what I got out of books, and youcould teach me how to be useful--wouldn't that be a good bargain for usboth?"

  Gretchen Engel turned to Happie with full appreciation of the kindlytact that so delicately, yet firmly grappled with her unspokensensitiveness, and put on a level with herself the sweet girl, whoseadvantages had been many, while hers had been none at all. Her eyesfilled with tears; she had a nature that was profoundly loving, andshe was starving for kindness. Something had set her apart from theother girls who gathered with her through the winter in the littleschoolhouse, and she was scolded all day long for doing her patientbest in her meagre and reluctant home. Happie had guessed right thatshe was desperately lonely; she had not begun to conjecture how lonely,nor how much despair was mingling in that loneliness, though Gretta wasbut a girl of fourteen. No one could have needed nor wanted a friendmore than pretty Gretta.

  Seeing the sincerity that shone upon her from Happie's face, feelingher lovableness as she felt the warmth of the May sunshine, Grettasuccumbed to her charm, forgetting to be shy.

  "You're good," she said decidedly. "I'd like to be friends with you,if you could stand me, but I don't know when we'd ever get to see eachother."

  Happie gave a little hitch to her chin that meant determination.

  "You must be outdoors a good deal to get that beautiful brown tint ofyours; it will be queer if we can't get together. I never saw a pair ofgirls yet that couldn't outwit a pair of old cousins if they set outto do it," she said. "They are your cousins with whom you live, aren'tthey? Rosie Gruber is living with us, and she told me about you."

  "I guess it didn't lose much in telling," said Gretta flushing. "Ihate to have folks pitying me, and saying what hard times I have. Notbut what it's true, though!" she added in a burst of self-pity and ofconfidence in the sympathy which she read in Happie's face. "I wouldn'tcare if I did work all the time, though girls that have mothers get alittle time to themselves, even when they're poor. But no matter what Ido, it's the wrong thing, and I get so sick of it that I 'most give up.Yes, they're my cousins that I live with, and they grudge me a living,though I earn one hard. I don't feel to owe them one thing; I guessthey'd have put me on the township, only they'd have had that muchbigger taxes, so they kept me. When I'm a year older I'm going off towork for strangers. I believe I'd have asked your mother to have tookme, only I heard them telling you had nice things, and had lived in NewYork, and I thought I wouldn't do for you."

  "You poor Gretta!" exclaimed Happie patting the brown hand nearer toher. "I don't see how you live! Here am I loved to death, the loveliestmother a girl ever had, the best brother in all the world--Bob's aperfect trump!--and M
argery's so pretty and sweet you couldn't helploving her--she's seventeen, and just bursting into young ladyhood.And Laura, well, Laura's all right, of course, and Polly's the mostdependable, good little creature, and Penny--Penelope, the baby--is thedearest little four-year-old you ever saw. To think I have all these,and you have no one! It doesn't seem fair!"

  "Yes, and you can go to school yet!" cried Gretta with a bitternessthat she had not shown before in speaking of her cousins. "They won'tlet me go much, and we don't have good schools here anyway. That's whyI hate to see folks; I don't know anything, and they'll laugh at my wayof talking."

  "Mercy, Gretta, that's nothing!" cried Happie energetically. "My mothersays if a person has brains, nothing can crush them; they'll provethemselves in spite of obstacles, and if they haven't, no amount ofschooling can give them. Now that we're friends--for we are friends andthat's settled--I can help you lots, so easily that neither you nor Iwill know it's done. You can speak just as well as any other girl, ifyou won't mind a hint now and then, and I have loads of books to lendyou. And you must teach me practical things, milking--Aunt Keren'sgoing to get two cows--and churning and everything I don't know. Isn'tthat a large order to fill? Why, I begin to see why I came here, overand above mother's health!" Happie had grown brighter-eyed and moreenthusiastic as she talked. "Mother says each soul has certain tasksset for it that no other soul can do, and that we are led along toplaces where our work is ready for us, and that we must be careful notto miss it when it comes to us. Maybe it was for your sake as well asmama's that dear Aunt Keren brought us all up here to her farm, whichshe had never seen, to spend this summer! Maybe it was because you wereso lonely and needed friends so much. You've such a strong, beautifulface that I'm sure you are too fine not to get some slight chance to behappy and clever."

  Gretta looked keenly and quickly at Happie, suspecting mockery in thesecompliments, for she mistrusted praise, having been carefully trainedto consider herself far below meriting it. She saw nothing but perfecttruth in the brown eyes gazing into her darker ones, eyes alight withoverflowing love and the joy of the thought that their owner might dogood to another who lacked so much.

  "'CAN'T YOU EVER COME TO SEE ME?'"]

  All the repressed riches of the country girl's nature leaped up tomeet the good offered her, caring less for the material good than forthe treasure of affection, inestimable to one to whom it had thus farbeen denied, and who had more than most the capacity for receiving andreturning it.

  Gretta struggled for adequate expression, and missed it; she could nothave voiced or understood what she felt at that moment.

  "You're good," was what she said.

  Happie understood. "So are you," she retorted. "And very lovable. Thatmakes us both good, so we will have good times. Now go on painting, oryou may get scolded. If I had a brush I think I could help you."

  Gretta shook her head. "I'm used to scolding," she said. "And you'd getred paint all over your dress."

  She dipped her brush in the pot, carefully scraped it on the edge, andmade a vigorous stroke down the side of the post next in order.

  "Can't you ever come to see me?" Happie asked as she watched her. "Youknow our place, the Bittenbender farm?"

  Gretta nodded. "Mrs. Bittenbender was my grandmother," she said.

  "Not really!" cried Happie. "Why, I've been wondering about thatfamily, and you must know all about them! It seemed so queer for themto go off and leave their furniture in the house. Of course thereisn't----" Happie stopped herself on the point of saying that therewas not much furniture, fearing that Gretta might mind it, and saidinstead: "There isn't any reason why they shouldn't leave theirfurniture, only most people take it with them, or sell it when theymove. And you are a Bittenbender!"

  "No, indeed, I'm not!" cried Gretta. "My grandmother married Mr.Bittenbender for her second husband. She was my father's mother, and soher name was Engel before that. I guess her second husband mortgagedthe place, furniture and all, so he had to leave the furniture. But hedidn't have to give up the place if he hadn't wanted to. He had plentymoney; he was an old miser. That's why he liked better to keep hismoney than to pay your aunt, so he gave up the place. My grandmotherdied when I was a baby. I guess that old Isaac Bittenbender wasn't toohonest. My grandmother was a good woman, and they say she had a hardlife after she married him. He got too old to farm towards the last, sohe left your aunt take the place."

  "He _let_ my aunt take the place," suggested Happie, fulfilling herpromise of hint-giving for Gretta's improvement. "They left an old,worn-off horsehair trunk in the attic. Some day when you can, you mustcome and open it. You are the nearest to being a representative ofthe family whom we have found here, and I'm dying to investigate thattrunk."

  "If there'd been anything in it worth seeing he wouldn't havelet--have left it," said Gretta. "They say he was the closest manin Madison County. I heard he made my grandmother----" She stoppedsuddenly to listen. "I hear Eunice calling; she's the crossest of mycousins, if there's a difference. I've got to go."

  She arose, and Happie was surprised to discover that her heightovertopped her own by a full head, for she had thought of her as shesat as being rather short.

  Gretta moved with a grace and dignity that also surprised her; therewas a freedom in every motion, and a splendor of poise won from herintimacy with the mountains, which made Happie wish that she could seeher clad in beautiful garments. But the faded reddish gingham gown,and the brown sunbonnet were far from unbecoming to the girl. Happiesaid to herself: "Why, I thought she was pretty, but I believe she is abeauty!"

  Gretta stood for a moment dipping her brush uncertainly in and outof her paint pot, not knowing how to take her leave, once moreself-conscious and embarrassed.

  Happie solved the difficulty. "You won't mind if this Eunice does scoldnow, will you, Gretta? And you won't feel lonely? Because we are goingto be friends forever and forever, amen." And she put her arm aroundthe faded gingham-clad waist.

  Gretta drew off and looked at her. "Oh, I guess you don't want me!" shesaid, But there was a ring of happiness in her voice, as if she weresure of contradiction.

  "You'll see!" laughed Happie, and kissed her new friend. "At any rate I_think_ I want you. Good-bye till next time. Can you come to see me?"

  "I don't know; I shall be painting this fence for the next few days,"said Gretta suggestively, as she returned the kiss.

  "All right," cried Happie triumphantly, and ran away waving her hand toGretta, who walked backwards looking after her, leaving a slight trailof paint in her wake which threatened trouble for her when it should bediscovered.

  "I have made friends with Gretta Engel," she announced, coming intothe dining-room where her family were busied with helping or waitingfor the dinner which Rosie Gruber was "dishing up."

  "She's so handsome I couldn't tell you how handsome she is, and thereis something about her that draws you to her like a magnet! I'm goingto lend her books and give her pleasure, and she's going to do lots forme. I shouldn't wonder if we came here for her sake--partly, at least."

  Rosie surveyed Happie with high approval; of all the young Scollards,Happie was her favorite.

  "Gretta's the prettiest and brightest girl in Crestville," shedeclared. "But she's awful shy. If you've got her to talk to you,you've done wonders. And if you make her friends with you, you'll bedoin' the best thing you've ever done in your short life. If you wasto know the whole of Gretta's story, you'd think she'd had pretty hardluck. I'm glad you hain't one of the sort of folks that can't seethrough a faded dress, nor yet under a sunbonnet, Happie."

  "If she's got Happie to take her up, she's had one piece of good luck,"said Bob, who never hesitated to show publicly his appreciation of hissister. "Happie makes every one else happy--that's a well-wearing,well-worn family joke, Ralph--and she's not the sort to let them slipback again into unhappiness because she gets tired of her bargain, areyou, Hapsie? Are you going to adopt your beauty?"

  Margery, Laura and their mother laughed. The fam
ily had never exhaustedthe fun of the story of Happie's adoption of a colored girl of twelvewhen the young woman herself was at the suitable age of four. She hadinsisted on bringing big Cora Jackson home with her, and on openingher bank to take out her pennies to buy ice cream for her sustenance.She had been much grieved when her protegee had been found to havedecamped, taking with her her little protector's gold shoulder pins, aswell as Margery's new parasol.

  Happie now joined in the laugh, but gave her decided little hitch ofthe chin.

  "And if I did," she said, "it wouldn't be a bad plan. At least Iwouldn't scold her all day and every day, as her cross old cousinsdo. And there's a great difference between the Cora Jackson of mychildhood, and this pretty Gretta of my old age! You wait till you seeher, Bob! She's far prettier than Allie Herford." Which was a homethrust, for Bob considered Allie Herford the prettiest girl of hisacquaintance.

  Ralph looked up quizzically. "Don't you mind 'em, Happie," he said. "Ibelieve in your four-leaf-clover-of-the-fields, and that you will findher good luck. Besides, you must not let your young mind get embitteredby these cynics. 'It's better to have loved and lost than never tohave loved at all.' So it's better to invest your trust, even thoughyour bubbles--bust. Pardon the inelegance, Laura; I did not realizethat 'burst' only rhymed with 'trust' when it was 'bust,' until I wastoo far embarked on my poem to tack--to carry on my metaphor with anunmixedness that I hope you appreciate. Never mind if your Grettadeceives you!"

  "I never knew any other boy so imbued with the poets!" said Margery inmock admiration of Ralph's outburst.

  But Rosie, flying in and out with steaming dishes, was impressed onlyby the matter, not the manner of his remarks.

  "Don't you talk silly, Ralph Gordon," she said spiritedly. "GrettaEngel never will deceive nobody. She will do Happie good too, and she'smade a good bargain yet. Your meat's fried most too much. Set up andeat awhile before it gits cold."