Helen Grant's Schooldays Part 6

"Perhaps you would like to go to market with me," suggested Mrs. Dayton.

"It would be well for you to learn your way about in case I wanted to send you out of an errand."

"Oh! it would be splendid! But Mrs. Van Dorn----"

Mrs. Dayton laughed. "There comes Miss Gray, and the fussing will take a good hour. Though I think it pays, even at a dollar an hour."

Helen was silent from amazement.

"Oh, she has patients at three dollars an hour, real invalids. And she could get more in the city. Joanna knows about the breakfast. Mrs. Van Dorn is wise enough not to gorge her stomach with useless and injurious food. I never saw a person take better care of herself."

It was a very pleasant walk under maples and elms, with here and there an old-fashioned Lombardy poplar; lindens with their fringy ta.s.sels, and horse-chestnuts with their dense, spreading leaves. There was but one real market in Hope, but numerous smaller attempts. Mrs. Dayton gave her orders for the day's provision.

"Now, we will go around the longest way," smilingly. "There's the High School. It calls in quite a number of winter boarders, and sometimes the large boys prove very troublesome. And here is the Free Library, though there is quite a tax to support it, and numerous contributions. There is a fine reference-room for the scholars. Education seems to be made easy now-a-days. Let us go in."

The lower floor was devoted to the library. A large room was shelved around in alcoves, reserved for some particular kind of books. History, biography, science, music, discoveries and travels, as well as novels.

The reading-room was at one end, the reference department at the other.

Just now it was very quiet, being rather dull times.

Up on the next floor was a fine auditorium for amus.e.m.e.nts and lectures.

In the wings were small rooms used for lodge meetings and such purposes.

Helen was very much interested. Oh, what a happy time! And yet she felt a little conscience-smitten, as if she wasn't doing her whole duty.

The papers had come, and presently Mrs. Van Dorn took her accustomed seat. Mrs. Pratt was at the corner of the piazza doing needlework. Miss Lessing was sketching from nature. The younger girl was out hunting wild flowers.

Helen read the home news, then the foreign news. It seemed queer to know what they were doing in London, and Paris, and Rome, that hitherto had been merely places on the map to her. And then what financiers in New York were talking of, which really was an unknown language to her, but not to Mrs. Van Dorn, who for years had held the key.

Perhaps the charm in Helen was her interest in what she was doing.

Sometimes she made quite a fanciful thing of her work at home, though she was not what you would call a romantic girl. And now most of the time she was reading, she put life into her tones. Mrs. Van Dorn had been here and there, and she wanted the descriptions of things to seem real to her.

"You're a very good reader," she said approvingly. "You must not let anyone cultivate you on different lines with their elocutionary ideas, or you will be spoiled. Who taught you?"

"Mr. Warfield. He was princ.i.p.al of the school. I was in his cla.s.s last year."

"He has some common sense. When you go to an opera you expect to hear ranting and sighing, and sobbing, but sensible people do not talk that way about the every-day things of life."

"I don't know what an opera is like," said Helen with a kind of bright mirthfulness at her own ignorance.

"I suppose not. Men and women singing the love, and sorrow, and woe, and trials of other men and women, long ago dead, or perhaps never alive anywhere but in the composer's brain. It is the exquisite singing that thrills you. But you wouldn't want it for steady diet."

Miss Lessing spoke of two famous singers who had been in New York during the winter. And she had heard the Wagner Trilogy, which she thought magnificent.

"Yes. I've heard it at Beyreuth." Mrs. Van Dorn nodded, as if it might be an ordinary entertainment.

"Oh, it has been my dream to go abroad some time," and Miss Lessing sighed.

And there was a girl in the world who loved her own folks quite as well as a journey abroad. There was pure affection for you! Miss Lessing would jump at the offer she had made Clara Gage.

They were summoned in to luncheon. Mr. Conway was the only man of the party, not much of a talker, but the ladies loved to sit and talk over their morning's adventures, or their afternoon's intentions. Mrs. Dayton never hurried them. They all considered it the most home-y place at which they had ever boarded.

Mrs. Van Dorn went off for her nap. So did several of the others. Mrs.

Dayton took Helen up-stairs. She had exhumed two of her old lawns, and thought they could modernize them into summer frocks. They were very fine and pretty, and Helen was delighted.

It was four o'clock when the coupe came, and Mrs. Van Dorn rang for Helen to come up to her room, and carry her shawl, and her dainty case with the opera gla.s.s in it for far sights, and a bottle of lavender salts. And then the driver helped them in, and away they started.

"One could almost envy that girl!" said Daisy Lessing. "I don't see why some of us couldn't be as good company."

They paused at the Public Library.

"Will you go in, Helen, and ask for 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' Macaulay's,"

said Mrs. Van Dorn. "I hope it won't be out."

Helen came back with the book, and sparkling eyes.

CHAPTER IV

PLANTING OF SMALL SEEDS

But it was not all smooth sailing for Helen, although it had begun so fair. The very next week was trying to everybody. It was warm and close and rainy, not a heartsome downpour that sweeps everything clean, and clears up with laughing skies, but drizzles and mists and general sogginess, not a breath of clear air anywhere. No one could sit on the porch, for the vines and eaves dripped, the parlor had a rather dismal aspect, and everybody seemed dispirited.

Mrs. Van Dorn was not well. She lost her appet.i.te. It seemed as if she had a little fever. And she was dreadfully afraid of being ill. So many people had dropped down in the midst of apparent health, had paralysis or apoplexy, or developed an unsuspected heart-weakness. She would make a vigorous effort to keep from dying, she had no organic disease, but something _might_ happen. Young people died, but that did not comfort her for she was not young. Helen fanned her on the sofa, in the chair.

The cushions and pillows grew hot, she fanned them cool. She ran out to the well, and brought in a pitcher of fresh cold water.

"It tastes queer. I do wonder if there is any drainage about that could get into it."

Then it was, "Helen, don't read so loud. Your voice goes through my head!" and when Helen lowered her tone, she said, "Don't mumble so! I can't half hear what you are saying. How stupid the papers are! There's really nothing in them!"

If Helen had not been used to fault-finding, it would have gone hard with her. As it was she was rather dazed at first at the change.

"She'll get over it," comforted Mrs. Dayton. "And if this weather ever lets up we shall all feel better."

The Disbrowe baby was ill, too, and two or three times Helen went to relieve the poor mother. Miss Gage came and stayed one night with Mrs.

Van Dorn.

Friday noon the sun shone gayly out, a fresh wind blew much cooler from the west, and everybody cheered up.

"Railly," said Uncle Jason, when he came in Sat.u.r.day with b.u.t.ter and eggs, "you're a big stranger! Mother, she feels kinder hurt an' put out, an' wishes she hadn't let you come. You do ridin' round every day an'

never come near us, as if you felt yourself too grand."

"Oh, Uncle Jason, it isn't that at all," cried Helen in protest. "We were out just a little while on Monday, and the mist came up. Mrs. Van Dorn took a cold, and has been poorly, and the weather has been just horrid until to-day. Then I have been helping Joanna with the jelly and canning, and Mrs. Disbrowe with her baby. I couldn't walk over, could I?" glancing up laughingly.

"Well, I s'pose you might--on a pinch----"

"Oh, no; it would have to be on my own two feet. And see what a mess the roads have been! Good going for ducks, but bad for your best shoes."