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“Oh, I think it is delightful for a while. Of course I have been on shipboard so long that I really am longing for some society. Did you hear me tell Douglas what my plan is for her and me? I should like to include you, too, but perhaps it would be best for you to wait a year.”
“No, I did not hear; you see the car is such a noisy one that one never can hear. What is your plan?”
“I want to take Douglas to the White for several weeks preparatory to her making her debut this winter.”
“Debut!” gasped Helen. “White Sulphur!”
“Certainly, why not?”
“But, mother, we haven’t money for clothes and things.”
“Nonsense! Our credit is perfectly good. I fancy there is not a man in Richmond who has paid his bills so regularly as Robert Carter, and now that he is not able to work for a few months I feel sure there is not a single tradesman with whom we have always dealt who would not be more than pleased to have us on his books for any amount.”
“I wanted to charge a lot of things I thought we needed, but Douglas just wouldn’t have it. She never does realize the importance of clothes. I don’t mean to criticize Douglas, she is wonderful, but she is careless about clothes.”
“Well, I shall put a stop to that, now that I am back with my children. Your father is so much better I can give my time to other things now. How exciting it will be to have a daughter in society! I never did want Douglas to go to college. What made her give it up? She never did say what her reason was. Letters are very unsatisfactory things when one is on shipboard.”
“It was money, of course,” said Helen. “There was no money for college.”
“Oh, to be sure! I forgot that college takes cash. Well, I am heartily glad she has given it up. I think college girls get too independent. I am dying to show you my purchases in New York.”
“I am dying to see them, too, but, mumsy, I shall have to leave you now and run and do a million things. We have a great crowd of week-enders coming up on the late train.”
“Can’t Susan attend to the things?”
“Oh, Susan does a lot, but I am the chief cook and Douglas is the brains of the concern and looks after all the money and does the buying. Nan attends to all the letter writing, and you would be astonished to see how much she has to do because we have showers of mail about board. Lucy sees to the setting of the tables, and all of us do everything that turns up to be done. Even Bobby helps.”
“How ridiculous! Well, take care of your hands, darling. I hate to see a girl with roughened hands. There is simply no excuse for it.”
Helen was dazed by her mother’s attitude.
“She is just presenting a duck-back to trouble,” thought the girl, looking rather ruefully at her shapely hands which were showing the inevitable signs of work.
She found Douglas sitting in a forlorn heap in their tent. Her countenance was the picture of woe.
“Helen! Helen! What are we to do?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be so bad to take a trip to the White, and you certainly deserve a change. Poor mumsy, too, is bored to death with such a long sea trip and she needs some society.”
“But, honey, the money!”
“Oh, I don’t see that we need worry so about that. Mother says that there is not a tradesman in Richmond who would not be pleased to have us on his books for any amount. I, for one, am longing for some new clothes. I don’t mind a bit working and cooking, but I do think I need some new things – and as for you – why, Douglas, you are a perfect rag bag.”
Douglas looked at her sister in amazement. The lesson, then, was not learned yet! She had thought that Helen understood about the necessity of making no bills as the bills were what had helped to reduce their father to this state of invalidism, but here she was falling into the mother’s way of thinking – willing to plunge into debt to any amount.
“But Dr. Wright – ”
“Oh, always Dr. Wright!”
“But, Helen, you know you like Dr. Wright now and you must trust him.”
“So I do. I like him better and trust him entirely and he himself told me at the station that father was getting well fast. He said it would take a little more time but that he would be perfectly well again – at least that is what I gathered. I know father would be the last man in the world to want his girls to go around looking like ash cats and you know it would make him ill indeed to think that mother wanted to go to White Sulphur for a while and could not go because of lack of money.”
“Of course it would, but surely neither you nor mother would tell him that she wanted to go if you know there is no money to pay for such a trip.”
“But there is money!” exclaimed Helen with some asperity. “You told me yourself that the camp was paying well enough for us to begin to have quite a bank account.”
“Yes – but – ”
“Well now, if we have some money you must think that I have helped to earn it!”
“Why, Helen dear, you have done more than any of us. You are so capable – ”
“I don’t say I have done more, no one could have worked harder than you have – in fact, everybody has worked, but if I have done my share of the work, then I am certainly entitled to my share of the money and I intend to take my share and send mother to White Sulphur for a change. Of course you will simply have to go with her as she has set her heart on it.”
“I will not,” announced Douglas, her girlish face taking on stern determination.
A shout from Bobby heralded the arrival of Josephus with the luggage. The discussion ended for the time being as Douglas and Helen were both needed to prepare for the inroad of week-enders that were to arrive in a few minutes. Mr. Carter alighted from the cart, already looking better. He was most enthusiastic over the camp and all of its arrangements.
“I am going to be your handy man,” he said, putting his arm around Douglas. “Are you well, honey? You look bothered.”
“Oh yes, I am as well as can be,” said Douglas, trying to smooth her wrinkled brow. How she did want to talk all the troubles over with her father, but he of all persons must not be bothered. The old habit of going to him with every worry was so strong that it was difficult to keep from doing it now, but she bit her lips and held it in.
“I’ll tell Lewis,” she thought. “He will at least sympathize.”
What was she to do about her mother and Helen? They seemed to have no more gumption about money than the birds. Even then parcels were being carried into the cabin from the cart that must have meant much money spent in New York. Where did mother get it? The rent from the house in town had been sent to Mrs. Carter for running expenses on shipboard and hotels at the many places where they had stopped, but that must have gone for the trip. Could she have charged the purchases in New York? Poor Douglas! She had felt that the problem of making her sisters see the necessity of economizing had been a great one, but she realized that it was nothing to what she must face now. She felt that all her former arguments had been in vain since Helen was dropping into her mother’s habit of thought and upholding that charming butterfly-like person in all her schemes of extravagance. Lucy was sure to follow Helen’s lead and begin to demand clothes, treats, trips and what-not. Nan, dear sensible, unselfish Nan, would be the only one who would sympathize with her older sister in regard to the necessity of continuing the strict economy they had practiced since early in May, when Dr. Wright had declared that the only thing that would save their father’s reason was an immediate change, a long rest and complete cessation of all business worries.
Nan’s tastes were simple, but she had a passion for color and beautiful textiles and sometimes indulged that taste in adorning her dainty little person. As a rule, however, she was quite satisfied to behold the color in a Persian rug or the wings of a butterfly. Beauty was to the girl the most important thing in life whether it was of line, color, sound or idea. She was perfectly happy with a good book and a comfortable place in which to curl up. Her fault was laziness, a certain physical inertia which her indulgent mother always attributed to her delicate constitution; but the summer in the mountains with the enforced activity had proven that the delicate constitution was due to the inertia and not the inertia to the delicate constitution. Up to that time in her life there had been no especial reason for exerting herself, but Nan was very unselfish and when she realized that her sisters were one and all busying themselves, she threw off her lazy habits as she would an ugly robe, and many tasks at Week-End Camp fell to her share.
Douglas, in this trouble that had arisen, felt that she could go to Nan for comfort and advice. Nan’s mind was as normally active as her graceful little body was inactive and she had a faculty of seeing her way through difficulties that the conscientious but more slowly thinking Douglas much envied her.
“Nan, it’s fifteen minutes before train time when the week-enders will come piling in – I’m dying to have a talk with you.”
“Well, don’t die – just talk,” drawled Nan, looking up from her book but never stopping turning the crank of the mayonnaise mixer. This was a job Nan loved, making mayonnaise. She had gotten it down to a fine art since she could mix and read at the same time. She declared it was a plain waste of time to use your hands without using your head and since turning a mayonnaise mixer crank required no intelligence beyond that of seeing that the funnel was filled with olive oil, she was able to indulge in her passion for poetry while she was making the quarts of mayonnaise that the young housekeepers dealt out so generously to their week-enders.
“Listen to this!” and Nan turned the crank slowly while she read:
“‘Alas for all high hopes and all desires!
Like leaves in yellow autumn-time they fall —
Alas for prayers and psalms and love’s pure fires —
One silence and one darkness ends them all!’”
The crank stopped and all of the oil flowed through the funnel while Nan softly turned the leaves of Marston’s “Last Harvest.”
“Yes, honey, it is beautiful, but you had better read a livelier form of verse or your salad dressing will go back on you.”
“Heavens, you are right! I’ve got ‘Barrack Room Ballads’ here ready in case I get to dawdling,” laughed Nan.
“I want to talk about something very important, Nan. Can you turn your crank and listen?”
“Yes, indeed, but you’ll have to talk fast or else I’ll get to poking again. You see, I have to keep time.”
So Douglas rapidly repeated the conversations she had had with her mother and later with Helen.
“What are we to do? Must I tell Dr. Wright? I am afraid to get them started for fear father will be mixed up in it. He must not know mother wants to go to White Sulphur – he would be sure to say let her go and then he would try to work again before he is fit for it, and he would certainly get back into the same state he was in last spring.”
“Poor little mumsy! I was sure she would not understand,” and once more the mixer played a sad measure.
“I was afraid she wouldn’t,” sighed Douglas, “but I did think Helen had been taught a lesson and realized the importance of our keeping within our earnings and saving something, too, for winter.”
“Helen – why, she is too young for the lesson she learned to stick. She is nothing but a child.”
“Is that so, grandmother?” laughed Douglas, amused in spite of her trouble at Nan’s ancient wisdom (Nan being some two years younger than Helen).
“Why, Douglas, Helen has just been play-acting at being poor. She has no idea of its being a permanency,” and Nan filled the funnel again with oil and began to turn her crank with vigor.
“But what are we to do? I am not going to White Sulphur and I am not going to make my debut – that’s sure. I have never disobeyed mother that I can remember, but this time I shall have to. I don’t know what I am to say about the trip to the White. Helen is saying she has helped to earn the money and she means to spend her share giving poor mumsy a little fun after her tiresome long journey on the water. I wish we had never told her we were able to put something in the bank last month. It was precious little and Helen’s share would not keep them at White Sulphur more than two or three days. Helen thinks I am stingy and mother thinks I am stubborn and ugly and sunburned – and there’s the train with all the week-enders – ” and poor Douglas gave a little sob.
“And I have turned my wheel until this old mayonnaise is done – just look how beautiful it is! And you, poor old Doug, must just leave it to me, and I’ll think up something to keep them here if I have to break out with smallpox and get them quarantined on the mountain.”
“Oh, Nan! Is there some way out of it without letting father know that mother wants something and cannot have it for lack of money?”
“Sure there is! You go powder your nose and put on a blue linen blouse and give a few licks to your pretty hair while I hand over the mayonnaise to Gwen and see that Lucy has counted noses for the supper tables. I’ve almost got a good reason already for mumsy’s staying here aside from the lack of tin, but I must get it off to her with great finesse.”
“I knew you would help!” and Douglas gave her little sister and the mayonnaise bowl an impartial hug, and then hastened to make herself more presentable, hoping to find favor in the eyes of her fastidious mother.
CHAPTER IV
ROBERT CARTER’S ASTONISHING GIRLS
August, the month for holidays, was bringing much business to the proprietresses of Week-End Camp. Such a crowd came swarming up the mountain now that Lucy, who had set the tables with the assistance of her chum, Lil Tate, and the two sworn knights, Skeeter Halsey and Frank Maury, and had carefully counted noses according to the calculations Nan had made from the applications she had received, had to do it all over to make room for the unexpected guests.
“Just kilt-plait the places,” suggested Lil.
“If they keep on coming we’ll have to accordeon-plait ’em,” laughed Lucy.
“Gee, I’m glad your eats don’t land in your elbows!” from Skeeter.
“Me, too!” exclaimed Frank. “Miss Helen tipped me a wink that there’s Brunswick stew made out of the squirrels we got yesterday. And there is sho’ no elbow room at these tables.”
“Look at ’em swarming up the mountain. Where do you reckon they’ll sleep?” asked Lil.
“Have to roost in the trees.”
“I bet more than half of them didn’t bring their blankets,” hazarded Lucy.
“Yes, that’s the way they do, these town fellows,” said Skeeter, forgetting that he too had been a town fellow only a few weeks before that time.
The summer in the mountains was doing wonders for these youngsters. Sleeping in the open had broadened their chests. They were wiry and tanned and every day brought some new delightful duty that was never called a duty and so was looked upon by all of them as a great game. Theirs was the task of foraging for the camp, and no small job was it to find chickens and vegetables and fruit for the hungry hordes that sought the Week-End Camp for holiday and recreation.
They had found their way to many a remote mountain cabin and engaged all chickens hatched and unhatched. They had spread the good news among the natives that blackberries, huckleberries, peaches, apples, pears and plums were in demand at their camp. Eggs were always needed. Little wild-eyed, tangled-haired children would come creeping from the bushes, like so many timid rabbits, bringing their wares; sometimes a bucket of dewberries or some wild plums; sometimes honey from the wild bees, dark and strong and very sweet, “bumblebee honey,” Skeeter called it. All was grist that came to the mill of the week-enders. No matter how much was provided, there was never anything to speak of left over.
“These hyar white folks is same as chickens,” grumbled old Oscar. “They’s got no notion of quittin’ s’long as they’s any corn lef’ on the groun’.”
“They sho’ kin eat,” agreed Susan, “but Miss Douglas an’ Miss Helen done said we mus’ fill ’em up and that’s what we is hyar fur.”
The above is a conversation that, with variations, occurred during almost every meal at the camp. Oscar and Susan, the faithful servants the Carters had brought from Richmond, were proving more and more efficient now that the first sting of the country was removed and camp life had become a habit with them. They were creatures of habit and imbued with the notion that what was good enough for white folks was good enough for them. Their young mistresses were contented with the life in the camp, so they were, too. Their young mistresses were not above doing any work that came to hand, so they, too, must be willing to do what fell to their lot. Susan forgot the vows she had so solemnly sworn when she became a member of the housemaids’ league, to do housework and nothing else. She argued that a camp wasn’t a house and she could do what she chose. Oscar had, while in town, held himself above any form of labor not conducive to the dignity of a butler serving for many years in the best families. But if Mr. Lewis Somerville and Mr. Bill Tinsley, both of them belonging to fust famblies, could skin squirrels, why then, he, Oscar, must be a sport and skin them, too.
These week-ends in August were hard work for all concerned and now there was talk of some of the guests staying over for much longer and spending two weeks with them. That meant no cessation of fillin’ ’em up. Previous to this time, Monday had been a blessed day for all the camp, boarders gone and time to take stock and rest, but now there was to be no let up in the filling process.
Susan, for the time completely demoralized by the return of her beloved mistress, had left her work to whomsoever it might concern and had constituted herself lady’s maid for Mrs. Carter. She unpacked boxes and parcels, hovering over the pretty things purchased in New York; she fetched and carried for that dainty lady, ignoring completely the steady stream of week-enders climbing up the mountain or being carried up by the faithful and sturdy mountain goat, with the silent Bill as chauffeur.
Helen had reluctantly torn herself from the delectable boxes and parcels and was busily engaged in concocting a wonderful potato salad, something she always attended to herself. Gwen was making batter bread after having put to rise pan after pan of rolls. Oscar had begun to fry the apples, a dish ever in demand at camp. The Brunswick stew had been safely deposited in the fireless cooker early in the day and all was going well.
“There!” exclaimed Helen, putting the finishing touch to the last huge bowl of salad and stepping back to admire her handiwork. “That substantial salad unites beauty and utility.”
“It sho’ do, Miss Helen, it sho’ do!” declared Oscar, adroitly turning his apples just as they reached the proper stage of almost and not quite being candied. “They’s nothin’ like tater salid fer contitutioning a foumdation stone on which to build fillin’ victuals. It’s mo’ satisfying to my min’ than the staft of life itself. All I is a-hopin’ is that they won’t lick the platter befo’ I gits to it.”
“You are safe there, Oscar, as I made this extra dishful to be kept back so you and Susan will be sure to get some.”
“Susan, indeed!” sniffed her fellow-servant. “She ain’t called on to expect no favors at yo’ han’. To be foun’ by the wayside, a fallin’ down wantin’ jes’ at this crucible moment!”
“I think she is helping mother.”
“Then I’s got nothin’ to say – but I ’low she helpin’ yo’ maw with one han’ an’ Susan Jourdan with yudder.”
Mr. Carter and Dr. Wright looked into the kitchen a moment. Dr. Wright had been showing his patient over the camp, as all of the daughters were occupied. Mr. Carter was delighted with the arrangements and amazed at the scope of the undertaking. Could this be his Helen, the queen of the kitchen, attending to the preparation of this great quantity of food? He never remembered before seeing Helen do any more strenuous work than play a corking good game of tennis, and here she was handling a frying pan with the same skill with which she had formerly handled a racquet, looking after the apples while Oscar cracked ice and carried up into the pavilion the great pitchers of cold tea destined to quench the thirst of the week-enders.
Helen was looking wholly lovely in her becoming bungalow apron, with her flushed cheeks and hair a bit dishevelled from the hurry of getting things done without the assistance of the capable Susan. Robert Carter looked in amazement at the great bowls of potato salad and the pans of rolls, being taken from the oven to make room for other pans.
“In heaven’s name, what is all this food for?” he asked, laughing.
“Have you seen the week-enders swarming up the mountain?”
“Why yes, but they couldn’t eat all this.”
“Don’t you fool yourself!” and Helen gave her dear father a fried apple hug. She was very happy. The beloved parents were back with them. Dr. Wright assured her that her father was improving. The camp had been her very own idea and it was successful. They were making money and she was going to take her share of the profits and give her mother a trip. She, Helen Carter, only eighteen, could do all of this! She had no idea what the profits amounted to, but Nan and Douglas had only the week before congratulated themselves that they were putting more money in the bank than they were drawing out. She cared nothing for money in the bank except as a means of gratifying the ones she loved. The poor little mumsy had been shut up on shipboard for months and surely she deserved some recreation. She was astonished at Douglas for being so stingy. It was plain stinginess that would make her think more of having some paltry savings than of wanting to give to their charming, beautiful little mother her heart’s desire, so Helen thought.
Dr. Wright was smiling on her, too. He seemed to think she was a very remarkable girl, at least that was what one might gather from his expression as he stood by the kitchen and gazed in through the screening at the bright-eyed, eager young cook.
“Where are the other girls?” asked Mr. Carter.
“Oh, they have a million things to do! We always divide up and spread ourselves over the whole camp when the train gets in. Lucy has just finished setting the tables, and that is some job, I can tell you, but Lil Tate and Frank Skeeter always help. Nan has been making mayonnaise enough to run us over Sunday, and now she has gone with Douglas to receive the week-enders and show them their tents and cots. Douglas is the great chief – she does all the buying and supervising, looks after the comfort of the week-enders and sees that everything is kept clean and sanitary. Nan writes all the letters, and believe me, that is no little task. She also makes the mayonnaise and helps me here in the kitchen when I need her, but Gwen is my right hand man. But what am I thinking of? You haven’t even met Gwen!”
The young English girl was looking shyly at the big man and thinking what she would give to have her own father back again. Dr. Wright had told Mr. Carter of Gwen and her romantic history, how Helen had found the wallet in the scrub oak tree containing all of the dead Englishman’s papers, of old Abner Dean’s perfidy in taking the land from Gwen when the receipt had not been found, although the child was sure her father had paid for the side of the mountain before he had built his cabin there. Mr. Carter had been greatly interested in the recital and now his kind friendliness brought a mist to the eyes of the girl.
“I am very glad to know you, my dear. Dr. Wright has told me of you and now I hope to be numbered among your friends.”
