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CHAPTER VIII

THE FRIENDLESS FRIENDS

Margaret came to school in great excitement one Monday morning. “I’m going to have a party,” she said to Edna. “I’ll tell you all about it at recess.”

The idea of Margaret’s really having a party was most interesting when Edna remembered that it had been just a year since she was adopted by Mrs. MacDonald. She had improved very much in this time, both in speech and manner, and no happier child could be found than she. To be sure she had everything to make her happy, as Dorothy often said, a beautiful home, a kind mother and friends who took pains to make her forget how forlorn she had once been. She was very grateful for all these things, and rarely asked for anything more than was offered to her, so that Mrs. MacDonald was all the more ready to give her pleasures which she did not ask for.

Jennie and Dorothy were admitted into the little group which gathered to hear about the party. “Tell us all about it, Margaret,” said Edna. “Just begin at the beginning.”

“Well,” said Margaret, “mother was saying to me on Saturday evening, ‘Margaret, do you know it is almost a year since you became my own little daughter? Now I think we ought to celebrate the day of your coming to your home. What would you like to do?’ So I thought and thought, and then I said, ‘I never had a party in all my life, would it be too much to celebrate by having one?’ and she said, ‘Not at all, though I should first like to know what girls you would like to invite,’ and I told her all the G. R. Club. ‘Anyone else?’ she asked, and I thought of Nettie Black. ‘I’d like to have Nettie,’ I said, and then I remembered how lonely I used to be even at the Friendless, and how glad I used to be when you came to see me, Edna, and I thought of two or three who were still there, girls who haven’t been adopted, and I said I’d like to have them. Then mother said, ‘Very well, only the others may not want to come if you have poor children like them, and you’d better ask the girls, and if they refuse you can make up your mind which you would rather have, the girls of the club or the Friendlessers.’”

“Oh, Margaret, you know we won’t care,” said Edna earnestly.

“I knew you wouldn’t, but I didn’t know about them all. I shall have to ask, you see, because it seems to me that of all the people I know, the Friendlessers are the very ones who ought to come when it is to celebrate my coming away from there, and then, too they don’t have good times like we do.”

The girls all called the Home of the Friendless “The Friendless” and the children there, “The Friendlessers” so they knew quite well whom Margaret meant.

“How soon is the party to be?” asked Jennie.

“Next Saturday afternoon. The Friendlessers can come then better than any other time, and besides we live out of town, and it will be easier for everyone to come in the afternoon.”

“I shall come,” said Dorothy decidedly, “and I think it is a beautiful idea for you to have the Friendlessers.”

“And of course I shall come,” put in Jennie.

“I know my sister will,” said Edna.

“And mine,” echoed Dorothy.

“There is one thing I hope you won’t mind my saying,” said Margaret; “mother says please not to wear party frocks, and not to dress up much, on account of the Friendlessers, you know, for of course they won’t have any.”

“Of course not,” agreed the girls.

“Mother says we can have just as good a time if we are not dressed up and as long as it is going to be in the daytime it won’t make so much difference.”

“Let’s go tell the other girls,” suggested Edna.

They hunted up Agnes, Celia and the rest of the club members and did not find one who objected to the presence of the “Friendlessers.”

However, when the news of Margaret’s party was noised abroad, there was much scorn on the part of the Neighborhood Club. “The idea,” said Clara, “of going to a party with orphan asylum children! I’d like to see my mother allowing me to associate with such creatures. I can’t think what Jennie Ramsey’s mother can be thinking of to allow her to go. Besides, Margaret is an orphan asylum girl herself and no better than the rest! I’m sure I wouldn’t be seen at her party.”

“And they’re not even going to wear party frocks, nor so much as white ones,” said Gertrude Crane. “I don’t see what fun it will be.”

“And I suppose there are to be no boys,” put in Clara.

“I haven’t heard whether there are to be or not,” returned Gertrude.

The question of boys did come up later when Mrs. MacDonald asked Margaret if she did not think it would be well to invite Frank and Charley Conway, as one of the “Friendlessers” was a boy. The two Porter boys who came out often to play with the Conway boys, were thought of and were invited, and when Edna returned home on Friday evening Cousin Ben informed her that he, too, was going.

“Why, Cousin Ben,” she said in pleased surprise, “how does that happen, when you are such a big boy, really a man, you know?”

“I must confess I fished for an invitation,” he told her. “Mrs. MacDonald was over here to ask if Charlie and Frank could come and I said, ‘What’s the matter with asking me, too?’ and so I got my invite. I wouldn’t miss it for a six-pence.” Cousin Ben and Mrs. MacDonald were great friends and he was quite intimate at the big gray house so it was no wonder that he wanted to be at Margaret’s first party.

It was as Ben said “a queer mix-up.” The first to arrive were the four children from the Home of the Friendless, three little girls and one little boy. One of the teachers brought them out and remained in order to take them back again. The big gray house looked cheerful and more attractive than usual, for flowers were Mrs. MacDonald’s great pleasure and they were everywhere, making up for the plainness of the furnishings, for Mrs. MacDonald did not believe in showiness. Her house was thoroughly comfortable but not elegant.

These first arrivals were very shy, quite awe-stricken and sat on the edges of their chairs scarce daring to move until Margaret took them out to see the greenhouses. After that they were a little more at their ease for each came back with a flower. By a little after three all had arrived, the Porter boys with their Punch and Judy show which they had promised to bring, and Ben with his banjo. All the girls wore plain frocks with no extra ornaments, Margaret herself being not much better dressed than her friends from the Home.

The Punch and Judy show was given first as a sort of prelude to the games which were to follow, and in these even the older girls joined with spirit. The main idea seemed to be that everyone should do his or her best to make the party a success and to give the poorer children as good a time as possible. Ben, be it said, was the life of the occasion. He kept everyone going, never allowed a dull moment, and if nothing else was planned, he would pick up his banjo and give a funny coon song, so that it was no wonder Mrs. MacDonald was glad to have invited him.

Probably in all their lives the Friendlessers never forgot the wonderful table to which they were led when refreshments were served, and which they talked of for weeks afterward. Here there was no stint and the decorations were made as beautiful as possible. There were pretty little favors for everyone, and such good things to eat as would have done credit to any entertainment. It was all over at six o’clock, but not one went away with a feeling of having had a stupid time, for even the older girls agreed among themselves that it had been great fun.

“Did you ever see anything like those children’s eyes when they saw that table,” said Agnes smiling at the recollection.

“It must have been like a fairy tale to them, poor little things,” replied Helen Darby. “I think it was a perfectly lovely thing for Mrs. MacDonald to do. Won’t I have fun telling father about it, and how interested he will be. He has been quizzing me all day about my orphan asylum party, but I know he liked my going.”

“I liked that little Nettie Black,” Florence remarked. “She has such a nice quaint little face, like an old-fashioned picture. Her name ought to be Prudence or Charity or some of those queer old names. Where did you pick her up, Edna?”

“Oh, she is the little girl that I kept house with at the time of the blizzard,” Edna told her. “She lives just a short way up the side road, and she is a very nice child.”

“I found that out,” returned Florence. “Why doesn’t she belong to our club?”

“Because she doesn’t go to our school.”

“To be sure, I forgot that. Well, she could be made an honorary member or something, couldn’t she Agnes?”

“Why, I should think so. We’ll have to bring that up at our next meeting. Would she like to belong to the club, do you think, Edna?”

“She would just love to, I know.”

“Then we’ll have to fix it some way. I’ll ask mother or Mrs. Conway what we can do.”

“I don’t know how we could all get into their parlor,” said Edna doubtfully; “it is so very tiny.”

“We don’t have to,” Agnes told her, “for you know the general club-room is up in our attic and I’m sure that is big enough for anyone. If Nettie comes into the club, when her turn comes for a meeting it can be held in the general club-room.”

This was very satisfactory, but it did not do away with another difficulty which came to Edna’s mind. She knew that Mrs. Black had barely enough means to get along on with the utmost economy and how Nettie could ever furnish even simple refreshments for a dozen or more girls she did not know. However, she would not worry about that till the time came. As yet Nettie was not even a member of the club.

Margaret’s party was talked about at school almost as much after as before it came off. Those who had been present discoursed upon the good time they had had, and those who were not there wished they had been. But to offset it, there came the report that Clara Adams was going to have a party and that it would be in the evening and was expected to be a gorgeous affair. Jennie Ramsey was invited but had not made up her mind whether she wanted to go or not. As most of those who would be invited were the children of Mrs. Adams’s friends and were not schoolmates of Clara’s it did not seem to Jennie that she would have a very good time.

“It will be all fuss and feathers,” she told Dorothy and Edna, “and I won’t know half the children there, besides I shall hear so much talk about what I shall wear and all that, I believe I’d rather stay at home.”

“Clara is going to wear a lace frock over pink silk, I heard her say,” Dorothy told them.

“I should think that would be very pretty,” declared Edna admiringly.

“I’d rather be dressed as we were at Margaret’s,” Jennie returned, “for then we could romp around and not care anything about what happened to our clothes.” Jennie hadn’t a spark of vanity and cared so little for dress as to be a surprise to the others.

“Of course that was nice, but I should like the pretty clothes, too,” rejoined Edna with honesty.

“They won’t do anything, either, but dance and sit around and look at each other,” continued Jennie. “I’d much rather play games like ‘Going to Jerusalem’ and ‘Forfeits’ and all those things we did at Margaret’s. I have all the dancing I want at dancing-school. No, I shall tell my mother I don’t want to go.” Jennie had made up her mind, and that was the end of the matter for her.

Therefore the others heard very little of what went on at Clara’s party. That it came off they knew, and there was much talk of what this one or that one wore, of how late they stayed and how many dances they had, but that was all, and the stay-at-homes decided that, after all they had not missed much, and if Clara’s intention was to rouse their envy she failed of her purpose.

At the next meeting of the club Nettie was voted in as an honorary member. “That seems to be about the only thing we can do,” Agnes announced, “and everyone seems to want her.” So the thing was done.

If there was one thing above another which Nettie did long for it was to become a member of the club whose wonderful doings she had heard so much of from Edna. The two had seen each other often, and now that the spring was nearing, rarely a Saturday came but that they met. It was Edna who took her the joyful news on Friday evening.

“I’ve something perfectly lovely to tell you,” she announced as soon as she was inside the door of the little house.

“What?” asked Nettie with a quick smile of interest.

“You’re going to be a member of our club.”

“Oh, Edna, how can I be? I don’t go to your school.”

“I know, and that is why we had to make you an honorary member,” Agnes said.

“Oh, I think you are all the dearest things I ever knew,” cried Nettie. Then her face fell, “But, oh, Edna, how can we get all of you girls in this little bit of a house?”

“Oh, you can meet in the general club-room at the Evanses,” Edna told her. “Agnes says so and it is in their attic, you know. When a girl can’t very well have the meeting at her house we have it there. Once it was to be at Betty Lowndes’s house and her little sister had the chicken-pox so we couldn’t meet there and we had it in the attic.”

Nettie’s face cleared, but presently a new difficulty presented itself, one which she hesitated to speak of but which was a very serious one. How should she tell Edna what was in her mind? But she remembered that Edna had seen the poverty of the family stores and that there was no need to make any pretence to her. “There’s another thing,” she began, “I haven’t any money, and I couldn’t ask mother for refreshments.”

“I thought of that,” answered Edna; “we might give them rice,” and then they both laughed. “If there were only some way you could earn some money and I could help you,” continued Edna with more seriousness. “Perhaps we could think of some way. If it were something we could both do, I could help you.”

“You are always so good that way,” replied Nettie gratefully.

“Well, anyhow,” said Edna, “it won’t be for some time yet that you have to have the meeting and perhaps we can think of something. If we can’t would you mind if I ask mother what we could do?”

“I’d rather not,” replied Nettie doubtfully, “not unless you have to.”

“Then I won’t unless I have to.”

“Perhaps my mother can think of a way, only I don’t want to say anything to her, for she will feel badly because she can’t let me have the money, and I know I ought not to ask her for it. I won’t ask, of course, but if I tell it will be the same as asking, and it will make her feel so unhappy if she must say no, she can’t.”

“Then we must try very hard to think of a way without telling anyone. You wouldn’t need so very much, you know, Nettie, for we can have real cheap things like peanuts and gingerbread, or something like that. I believe fifty cents would be enough to spend, and a dollar would be plenty.”

This seemed like a large amount to Nettie, though she did not say so, and the thought of earning that much weighed heavily upon her after Edna had gone home.

Edna’s thoughts, too, were busy all the evening, and she was so absorbed in Nettie’s dilemma that she sat with arms on the table and doing nothing but looking off into space so that at last her father said. “What’s the matter, little girl? You haven’t even asked for your favorite children’s page of my evening paper,” and he handed it over to her.

This was something that Edna always asked for and she took it now with some little interest, and roused herself to look down the columns. Presently she breathed softly. “Oh!” She had seen something which gave her an idea for Nettie, and she went to bed that night full of a hope which she meant her friend should know as soon as possible the next day.

CHAPTER IX

THE PUZZLE

When Edna awoke on Saturday morning her first thought was of Nettie and she scrambled out of bed that she might not lose a moment’s time in telling her of the discovery she had made the night before. She hurried through her breakfast and was off to the little house as soon as she had been given leave by her mother. She carried the page of her father’s paper safely folded in her hand, and ran nearly all the way, arriving breathless. She could scarcely wait for Nettie to open to her knock, and her words tumbled over each other as she replied to Nettie’s greeting of “How nice and early you are,” by saying, “Oh, I have something so nice to tell you.”

“You had something nice to tell me when you came last evening,” returned Nettie; “you don’t mean to say there is anything more.”

“Yes, I’ve found a way that maybe you can make some money, a dollar.”

This was exciting, “Oh, do tell me quick,” returned Nettie.

Edna hastily began to open the paper she carried, and then she thrust it before Nettie, pointing to a line and saying, “There, read that.”

Nettie did as she was told, her eyes eagerly running over the words. “Oh, Edna,” she said, “do you believe we could do it?”

“Why, of course, but you see the main thing is to get it done as quickly as possible, for the one who gets the answer to the puzzle the quickest and who has the clearest answer will get the first prize. Maybe we couldn’t get the very first, but we could get the second, and that’s a dollar. We must set to work right away. I thought we’d do the best we could and then we’d get Cousin Ben to fix it up for us.”

“Would that be right?”

“Oh, I think so, for it doesn’t say you mustn’t have any help; it just says the one who sends it in the soonest. I left a note for Cousin Ben to stop here if he had time this morning.”

“Do you think he will?”

“If he has time. I told him it was something very particular. You don’t mind his knowing, do you, Nettie? He won’t tell, I am sure. You don’t know how well he can keep a secret.”

“No, I don’t mind,” Nettie replied, “because he has been here and knows all about everything.”

“Then let’s go at it.”

“I must finish the dishes first.”

“Then would you rather I should help you with them or start on the puzzle?”

“I think you’d better start on the puzzle.”

“Very well. I’ve been thinking a little about it, and I believe I’ve guessed part. They are in the paper every week on Fridays, and I often do them, but this is the first time I’ve noticed that a prize has been offered.”

She took off her coat and hat, sat down at the table and spread out the paper before her. Nettie furnished paper and pencil and then went back to her work in the kitchen. The two were busying their brains over the puzzle when Ben appeared an hour later.

“Hallo,” he said, “what’s up, kiddies?”

“Why you see,” Edna began, “Nettie has been taken into the club, and when her time comes to have the club meeting she won’t have any way of getting the refreshments, so we thought and thought of what we could do to get some money, and last night I saw in the Children’s Corner of the Times that they would give prizes for guessing a puzzle, you know those puzzles, Cousin Ben.”

“Yes, my child, I knew them of yore.”

“Well, don’t you see if we can only guess this one quick and can send in the answer right away we might get a dollar, anyhow. We have guessed a lot of it, but I thought maybe you could help us a little and tell us how to fix it up very nicely. Have you very much to do to-day?”

“Not so much but that I can spare you a little time for such laudable ambition. Where’s your puzzle?”

Edna produced the paper and then showed him what they had already done. “Do you think it is right as far as we’ve gone?” she asked anxiously.

He looked over the page she offered him. “Pretty good so far. Let me see. I think that must be John B. J on B. you see.”

“Of course, it is, why didn’t we think of that? And this one, what do you think that can be?”

Ben looked at this thoughtfully, and presently declared he had it. So bit by bit the puzzle was completed and within an hour was in such shape as pleased the girls immensely.

“Now,” said Ben, “I’ll tell you what I can do. I want to take the noon train to town and I’ll get this right down to the newspaper office myself; I have to go near there, and so it will reach them much quicker than if it were sent by mail, you see.”

“Oh, Cousin Ben, you are a perfect dear!” cried Edna. “I think that is just lovely of you. We are so much obliged, aren’t we, Nettie?”

“I am very much obliged to both of you,” returned Nettie sedately. Edna’s interest was so great that she forgot she was not doing this for herself at all.

“Shall we tell your mother?” asked Edna when Ben had gone, promising that he would attend to the puzzle the very first thing.

“Why – ” Nettie hesitated, “I’d like to have her know and yet I would love dearly to have it for a surprise if we did win. When do you suppose we will know?”

“Not before next Friday, I suppose, but that will be soon enough, won’t it?”

“Yes, except that I can scarcely wait to know, and it is hard to keep a secret from your mother that long.”

“Why don’t you tell her that you have a secret and that you can’t tell her till Friday?”

“I might do that, but then suppose I shouldn’t win; we would both be disappointed.”

“What did you tell her just now that we were all doing?”

“I told her we were doing a puzzle, and she said as long as I had done my morning’s work I could stay with you. I have still my stockings to darn, but I can do those this afternoon. Mother always lets me do them when I choose; so long as I get them done before Sunday, that is all she asks.”

Edna looked very sympathetic. She did not have to do her stockings nowadays, though she remembered that it had been one of the week’s tasks when she was staying with Aunt Elizabeth, and it was one she much disliked. She stayed a little while longer and then returned home, for Dorothy was coming that afternoon and they were both going over to see Margaret to make what Dorothy said was their party call.

The weather was quite mild; already the buds were beginning to swell on the trees, and the crocuses were starting up in the little grass plot in front of Nettie’s home. Edna stopped to look at them as she passed out. She was full of Nettie’s secret but she had promised not to tell. She wished Cousin Ben would come back so she could talk it over with him, but he was not to return till late in the day and meantime she must occupy herself and not say a word of what was uppermost in her mind.

She found Celia and Agnes in the library talking earnestly. There was a pleasant aroma of gingerbread pervading the house, and the fire in the open grate looked very cheerful. What a dear place home was, and how glad she was always to get back to it. Agnes held out her hand as she came in. “Well, chickabiddy,” she said, “where have you been? You are as rosy as an apple.”

“I’ve been down to Nettie’s. I’m glad I don’t have to darn my stockings.”

“Does Nettie have to?”

“Yes, and she has to wash the dishes, too. I did darn my stockings last year, but Katie does them all this year, so I don’t even have to be sorry for mother and think of her doing them, for Katie is paid to do them.”

Agnes laughed. “But I have no doubt you would do them just as cheerfully as Nettie does, if you had to do them.”

“I don’t know about the cheerful part, but I wouldn’t yell and scream.”

“Let us hope you would not,” said Celia. “I should hope you knew better than to behave like that.”

“Of course,” said Edna. “What were you talking about, you two?”

“Shall we tell her, Agnes?” asked Celia.

“Why not? It will soon be talked over by all of us.”

“Well, we were talking of having something very special for the last meeting of the club, after school closes. You see most of the girls go away for the summer, and we shall have to give the club a holiday, too.”

“What nice special thing were you thinking of?”

“We thought if we could have some nice little fairy play and have it out of doors, it would be lovely. We would invite our parents and the teachers and have a real big affair.”

“How perfectly lovely. What is the play?”

“Oh, dear, we haven’t come to that yet. We did think some of having ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ but that has been done so often. We were wishing for something original.”

“Why don’t you get Cousin Ben to help you? He has so many funny things to say about the woodsy creatures.”

“The very one. Why didn’t we think of him before, Agnes? He may be silly about some things, but he would certainly have ideas about that. Where is he, Edna?”

“He has gone in town, and won’t be back till late in the afternoon.”

“Trust you for keeping track of his movements,” said Celia laughing. “I don’t believe Ben yawns but Edna knows it. Well, we will see what he says this evening.”

“Couldn’t you and he come to our house after supper?” asked Agnes.

“I’ll find out and ’phone you when he comes in. He doesn’t generally have anything special on hand Saturdays, unless something is going on at the Abercrombies’.”

This gave Edna a new theme to think of and in consequence she did not find it hard to keep from talking of Nettie’s secret when she and Dorothy met that afternoon.

They took the news of the probable play to Margaret who wanted at once to tell Mrs. MacDonald about it. She showed great interest and asked all sorts of questions. “Why couldn’t you have it here in my grounds?” she asked. “There is a good place just back of the house where the terrace is. I hope you will let it be Margaret’s meeting and let me furnish everything.”

“Oh, Mrs. Mac, there will be ever and ever so many people, for we are going to ask our families and the teachers and all those.” Edna was quite overpowered.

“Well, what of that? Haven’t I as much right to entertain them as any of the others have, and have I less room than my neighbors?”

“Why, no, you have more.”

“Very well, then. I put in my plea the first one and I hope you will lay it before your next meeting.” She spoke almost as if she were angry but there was a merry little twinkle in her eyes which the girls had come to know well. The next words were, “Go out, Margaret, and ask Lizzie to send in some of the day’s baking for your friends. There must be scones, or something of that kind.” The girls liked the Scotchy things, as they called them, that Mrs. MacDonald had for them, and the hot scones, with a “wee bittie” of honey or jam were generally as pleasant a treat as they found anywhere.

When Edna had returned from her visit she told Celia of what Mrs. MacDonald had offered and before they had finished talking of it, Cousin Ben came in, and was immediately set upon, though Edna ran out to meet him in the hall that she might whisper, “Did you leave it all right?”

“First thing,” he returned. “It couldn’t have been an hour from the time I left you before it was at the office.”

“Oh, goody, goody!” exclaimed Edna softly, patting her hands together. “Agnes has been here, Cousin Ben, and Celia wants to ask you something. Come into the library, please.”

He followed her in and the subject was opened to him of the little fairy play.

He shook his head. “Can’t promise. That’s a good deal to spring on a fellow unbeknownst. I’ll have to think about it.”

“But can’t you go over to Agnes’s this evening to talk it over?” asked Celia.

Now Ben admired Agnes very much, though he would not have it known for the world. “I was going to Abercrombies,” he said with apparent reluctance.

“Oh, but you see Will Abercrombie every day,” said Celia coaxingly, “and we do so want to have your help, Ben.”

“Well, perhaps I can ’phone to Will not to expect me,” said Ben giving in. “But if I take hold of this thing you girls will all have to do your part.”

“Oh, we will,” Celia promised earnestly. “We are none of us up to an original play, but you are.”

“Such flattery,” laughed Ben. “Well, if I am going to call on ladies I must go up and make myself look respectable.”

“He’ll do it,” said Celia, as soon as her cousin had left the room. “He has as good as promised.”

Whatever was said that evening was not reported, but it is enough to say that Ben had promised to see what he could do, and would let them know later when he had gone over the subject more thoroughly, so with this the girls had to be satisfied.

There was no more to be heard of either puzzle or play during the week while school was occupying them all, but on Friday Mrs. MacDonald’s offer was presented to the club and unanimously accepted with thanks.

There was no delay in Edna’s demand for the evening paper on that Friday, but to her great disappointment her father found that he had left it in the car, and there was no way to get another copy till the next day. Edna was almost in tears, for she had so counted on letting Nettie know the very first thing in the morning.

“I am so sorry,” said her father. “I forgot entirely that the Friday issue was the one in which you are always so interested. I will bring you out a copy to-morrow, daughter. I will try not to forget it, but I give you leave to call me up on the long distance, or rather the out-of-town line and get you to remind me. If you will call, say, at about ten o’clock, I will send one of the boys out for it from the office.”

This was certainly more than Edna had any right to expect, and she thanked him as heartily as she could, though deep down in her heart the disappointment still lingered and she felt that it would be harder still for Nettie to wait another day.

However, she went early to the little house as she had promised, and saw Nettie at the window on the watch for her. She looked so pleased when she saw her friend that Edna was all the more grieved at having to tell her she must wait till evening. “Oh, I am so glad you have come,” cried Nettie as she met her at the door. “I have been watching for you for ages.” And she drew her inside.