Helen Grant's Schooldays Part 4

But there was the money, and any kind of work that made actual money was a great thing in Mrs. Mulford's estimation. Nine or ten weeks.

Twenty-seven or thirty dollars!

"You see, I'd counted on giving Helen a good training in housework this vacation. When girls go to school they aint good for much that way. And 'long in October she's going in the shop, and then she won't have much chance to learn. An' I d' know as it'll be a good thing for her to spend her time readin' novels an' settin' 'round dreamin' and moonin'."

"She'll read a good deal beside novels. Mrs. Van Dorn is a very intelligent woman, and keeps up to the times. She has all the magazines, and the fine weekly papers, and she knows more of what is going on in the big world than most of the men. Then Helen would a.s.sist me in many things. Oh! I would see that she'd learn something useful every day,"

Mrs. Dayton declared, with a bright smile.

"Then she aint fixed up. She's outgrown most of her clothes, an' I'd 'lotted on having her sew some. She can run the machine, and I don't believe in girls who can't do any sewing. I'd be ashamed to bring up one so helpless. Here's my Jenny making most of her weddin' things. We don't count on having a dressmaker till the last, to put on the finishing touches."

"About the clothes," began Mrs. Dayton in a persuasive tone, "I have two or three lawn dresses that would make over nicely for Helen. And you know I did quite a bit of dressmaking through Mr. Dayton's long illness.

And there's my machine. She would have some time to sew. Oh, you could depend on me not to let her waste her time."

Mrs. Dayton had certainly been a thrifty woman, if it was on higher lines than anything Mrs. Jason aspired to. She had money in the bank, beside getting her house clear.

Aunt Jane's arguments seemed over-ruled in such a pleasant yet decisive manner that she began to feel out-generaled. Uncle Jason had said yesterday, "You'd better let her go. If they wanted her in the shop right away you'd send her. So what's the difference!"

"There's a great deal of difference," she answered sharply, but she couldn't quite explain it. For Helen the three dollars a week really won the day. Aunt Jane tried to stand out for the rest of the week, but Mrs.

Dayton said she would come over on Wednesday, and she knew she could fix Helen up, without a bit of trouble.

"Don't let her fool away her money," said Aunt Jane. "You'd better keep it until the end of the month."

Mrs. Dayton nodded and rose. The carriage was coming slowly up the road.

Aunt Jane did not go out in the kitchen, but upstairs, and looked over Helen's wardrobe. A white frock, a cambric, blue, with white dots, and a seersucker, trimmed with bands of blue. Then, there was the striped white skirt of Jenny's she meant to make over. They could do that to-morrow. She could conjure some of it out before supper-time, and put in the shirts and collars, though at fourteen Helen ought to know how to iron them. She would forget all she had learned. It really wasn't the thing to let her go.

Helen went on ironing. 'Reely's white frock fell to her share; indeed, it seemed as if 'most everything did to-day. She was hot and tired, and, oh! if she could not go!

"I don't see why those young ones don't come back. 'Reely hasn't a bit more sense than Fan. She needs a good trouncing, and she'll get it, too.

You leave off, Helen, and sh.e.l.l them beans; they ought to have been on half an hour ago. And lay the two slices of ham in cold water to draw out some of the salt; then the potatoes. I'll iron."

She did not ask, and Aunt Jane did not proffer her decision. Helen feared it was adverse, then she recalled the fact that Aunt Jane always told the unpleasant things at once. Ill tidings with her never lagged.

So she took heart of hope again. Then there were raspberries to pick.

And supper, and children scolded and threatened.

"Well?" said Uncle Jason inquiringly.

"She was here, but I haven't just made up my mind. She'll be here Wednesday."

"Whew!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Uncle Jason.

She went down the garden path to meet Jenny, who took the shortest way across lots.

"I'm goin' to sleep on it," she said, after she had told Jenny.

"But you'll let her go! Why, it would be foolish!"

"I s'pose I shall. But I'll keep her on tenter hooks to-night. Right down to the bottom I don't approve of it. She'll be planning all summer to get to that High School. Three years is too much to throw away when you're dependent on other folks."

So Helen had to go to bed unsatisfied, for Uncle Jason wouldn't be waylaid.

"I've cut you a frock out of that striped muslin of Jenny's," Aunt Jane announced, the next morning. "Sew up the seams, and put in the hem, and then I'll fix the waist."

Aunt Jane was "handy," as many country women have to be.

"You were mighty close about that business of Sat'day afternoon," Aunt Jane flung out when she could no longer contain herself. "I s'pose it don't make much difference whether you go or not?"

"Oh, I should like to go." Helen's voice was unsteady. "But Mrs. Dayton told Uncle Jason to talk it over with you, and then she would come and see you, and he said--that it would be as--as--and it seemed as if I hadn't much to do with it until----"

"Well, I've decided to let you go and try. They may not like you. Rich old women are generally queer and finicky, and don't keep one mind hardly a week at a time. So it's doubtful if you stay. Then it is a good deal like being a servant, and none of the Mulfords ever lived out, as far as I've heard."

Helen colored. She had not thought of that aspect. Neither had she considered that her dream might come to an untimely end.

"And it seems a shame to waste the whole summer when there's so much to do."

"But if they had wanted me in the shop you would have let me go, wouldn't you?" Helen said in a tone that she tried hard to keep from being pert.

"That would have been different. A steady job for years, and getting higher wages all the time. I've told Jenny to engage the chance."

Years in a shop, doing one thing over and over! She recalled a sentence she had heard Mr. Warfield quote several times from an English writer, "But that one man should die ignorant who had a capacity for knowledge, this I call tragedy!" She was not very clear in her own mind as to what tragedy really was, but if one had a capacity for wider knowledge, would it not be tragedy to spend years doing what one loathed? She hated the smells of the shoe shop, the common air that seemed to envelop everyone, the loud voices and boisterous laughs. And she wouldn't mind helping someone for her board, and going to the High School. Why, she did a great deal of work here, but it seemed nothing to Aunt Jane.

The frock was finished, and she washed it out, starched it, and would iron it to-morrow morning. Then there were stockings to mend, although the two younger boys went barefoot around the farm. And she worked up to the very moment the carriage turned up the bend in the road, when she ran and dressed herself while Aunt Jane packed the old valise. The children stood around.

"Oh, Mis' Dayton, can't I come some day?" cried f.a.n.n.y. "How long are you going to keep Helen?"

"Till she gets tired and homesick," was the reply.

A smile crossed Helen's lips and stayed there, softening her face wonderfully.

They shouted out their good-bys, and asked their mother a dozen questions, receiving about as many slaps in return. For the remainder of the day, Mrs. Jason was undeniably cross.

"That girl'll turn out just like her father," she said to Jenny. "She hasn't a bit of grat.i.tude."

"And I hope the old woman will be as queer as they make them," returned Jenny with a laugh.

In the few years of her life, Helen had never been visiting, to stay away over night. This was like some of the stories she had read and envied the heroine. There was a small alcove off Mrs. Dayton's room, with a curtain stretched across. For now the house was really full, except one guest chamber. There was a closet for her clothes just off the end of the short hall, that led to the back stairs, which ran down to the kitchen, a s.p.a.cious orderly kitchen, good enough to live in altogether, Helen thought.

She helped to take the dishes out to Joanna, and begged to wipe them for her.

"If you're not heavy handed," said Joanna, a little doubtful.

"Or b.u.t.ter-fingered," laughed Helen. "That's what we say at home. But these dishes are so lovely that it is like--well it's like reading verses after some heavy prose."

"I'm not much on verses," replied Joanna, watching her new help warily.

She did work with a dainty kind of touch.

Mrs. Dayton came, and stood looking at them with a humorous sort of smile.

"She knows how to wipe dishes," said Joanna, nodding approvingly.