Dorothy Dale in the City Part 17

"Talent was waiting until I got up. Then I was to pull him up. He has the kites."

"As long as I didn't kill you, Raffle," said Tavia, "I guess we won't have to have you arrested for false entering."

"Dorothy caught the rope just in time," Ned explained, in answer to his mother's look of inquiry. "Tavia was so scared she was going to let it drop."

"We had ordered things," Tavia explained further, "and thought they were coming up. I was just crazy to have something to do with all the machines in the place, so went to get the things. Imagine me seeing something squirm in the dark!"

"But you weren't afraid," said Raffle to Dorothy. "You just hauled me out."

"Your coat got torn," Dorothy remarked to divert attention. "What will your mother say?"

"She will never see it," declared the little fellow. "She goes to rehearsal all day and sings all night. Tillie-she's the girl-she likes me. She won't mind mending it," and he bunched together in his small hand the hole in the short coat.

"I'll tell you," interposed Ned, "they say dark haired people fetch good luck, and you are our first caller. Suppose we get Talent, and bring him up properly, kites and all. Then perhaps, when I get something to eat, you may show me how to fly a kite over the Hudson."

"Bully!" exclaimed Raffle. "I'll get him right away. If John-the janitor-catches him waiting with the kites-"

But he was gone with the rest of the sentence.

Ned slapped his knees in glee. Tavia stretched out full length, shoes and all, on the rose-colored divan, Dorothy shook with merry laughter, but Martha, the maid with the ruffled-up ap.r.o.n, turned to the kitchenette to hide her emotion.

"New York is certainly a busy place," said Ned, finally. "We may get a wireless from home on the clothes line. Tavia, I warn you not to hang handkerchiefs on the roof. It's tabooed, for-country girls."

Tavia groaned in disagreement. The fact was she had made her way to the roof before she had explored her own and Dorothy's rooms, and even Ned did not relish the idea of her sight-seeing from that dangerous height.

But New York was actually fascinating Tavia. She would likely be looking for "bulls and bears" on Wall Street next, thought Ned.

"Aunty, we are going to have the nicest lunch," interrupted Dorothy. "We all helped Martha; it was hard to find things, and get the right dishes, you know. I guess the last folks who had this apartment must have had a Chinese cook, for everything is put away backwards."

"Yes, the pans were on the top shelves and the cups on the bottom," Tavia agreed. "I took to the pans-I love to climb on those queer ladders that roll along!"

"Like silvery moonlight," Ned helped out, "only the clouds won't develop."

"Wouldn't I give a lot to have had all the boys share this fun," said Dorothy. Then, realizing the looks that followed the word "boys," she blushed peach-blow.

A j.a.panese gong sounded gently in the place called hall.

"There's the lunch bell," declared Dorothy. "And isn't that little Aeolian harp on the sitting room door too sweet!"

"The sitting room is a private room in an apartment," explained Ned, mischievously, "and it's a great idea to have an alarm clock on the door."

"There comes the boy with the kite," Tavia exclaimed. "I don't believe I care for lunch."

"Oh, yes you do, my dear," objected Mrs. White. "There are two boys and we will have to trust them on the balcony with their kites. The rail is quite high, and they look rather well able to take care of themselves."

Tavia looked longingly at the boys, who now were making their way to what Dorothy had termed the Dove Cote. Ned insisted upon postponing his lunch until they got their strings both untied and tied again-first from the stick then to the rail. Martha said things would be cold, but Ned was obdurate.

At last Mrs. White and her guests were seated at the polished table in the green and white room. She glanced about approvingly, while Martha brought in the dishes.

"I made the pudding," Dorothy confessed. "I remember our old housekeeper used to make that Brown Betty out of stale cake, and as Martha could get no other kind of cake handy I thought it would do."

"A cross between pudding, cake and pie," remarked Tavia, "but mostly sweet gravy. It smells good, however. And I-cleaned the lettuce. If you get any little black bugs-lizards or snails-"

"Oh, Tavia, don't!" protested Dorothy, who at that moment was in the act of putting a lettuce leaf between her lips.

"But I was only going to say that these reptiles had been properly bathed and are perfectly wholesome. In fact they have been sterilized," Tavia said, calmly.

"At any rate," put in Mrs. White, "you all have succeeded in getting a very nice luncheon together. I had no idea you and Dorothy could be so useful. We might have gotten along with one more maid to help Martha.

Then we would have had more house room."

"I should think you could get the janitor to do odd jobs," suggested Tavia, over a mouthful of broiled steak.

"Janitor!" exclaimed Mrs. White. "My dear, you do not know New York janitors! They are a set of aristocrats all by themselves. We will have to look out that we please the janitor, or we may go without service a day or two just for punishment."

"Then I will have to be awfully nice to ours," went on Tavia, in the way she had of always inviting trouble of one kind if not exactly the kind under discussion. "I saw him. He has the loveliest red cheeks. Looks like a Baldwin apple left over from last year."

A rush through the apartment revealed Ned and the two kite boys.

"Anything left?" asked Ned. "These two youngsters have to wait until two o'clock for a bite to eat, and I thought-"

"Of course," interrupted his mother, pleasantly, as she touched the bell for Martha. "We will set plates for them at once. Glad to have our neighbors so friendly."

The little fellows did not look one bit abashed-another sign of New York, Dorothy noted mentally. Talent, or Tal, as they called him, managed to get on the same chair with Raffle, as they waited for the extra places to be made at the table.

Tavia gazed at them with eyes that showed no wonder. She expected so many things of New York that each surprise seemed to have its own niche in her delighted sentiments.

"You see," said Raffle, "Tillie goes out for a walk about noon time, then mother gets in sometimes at two, and sometimes later. A feller always has to wait for someone."

"Does Tillie take-a baby out?" ventured Dorothy.

"Baby!" repeated the boy. "I'm the baby. She never takes me out," at which a.s.sertion the two boys laughed merrily.

"She just takes a complexion walk," Ned helped out.

Martha did not smile very sweetly when told to make two more places at the table, but she did not frown either. In a short time Ned, Raffle and Talent, with Tavia for company, and Dorothy a.s.sisting Martha, were left by Mrs. White to their own pleasure, while she excused herself and went off to write some notes. She remembered even then what Ned had said about boys liking to have things to themselves, and was not sorry of the excuse.

But Tavia held to her chair. She knew the strangers would say something interesting, and her "b.u.mp" of curiosity was not yet reduced.

"My big brother goes to the university," Raffle said. "But he eats at the Grill. He never has to wait."

"Your brother?" repeated Tavia, as if that was the very remark she had been waiting for.

"Now Tavia," cautioned Ned.

"Now Ned," said Tavia, in a tone of defiance.

"I only wanted to say," continued Ned, "that this big brother is probably studying law, and he may know a lot about-well, the number of persons in whom one person may be legitimately interested."

The small boys were too much absorbed in their meal to pay attention to such a technical discussion. Tavia only turned her eyes up, then rolled them down quickly, in a sort of scorn, for answer to Ned.