Molly Brown's Orchard Home Part 12

The result was that Sir Toby Belch was unanimously elected and Mrs.

Brown's duties were lightened. The plan was that every week the four members of the Co-operative Housekeepers' a.s.sociation should put into Sir Toby a certain amount of money which would be drawn out for expenses as the occasion arose. If Sir Toby should get hungry and empty before the week was up, an a.s.sessment was to be made on all of the members and he was to be fed, even if it did happen to be between meals for him. If any member should be out of funds at the time, she could give an I. O.

T. (I Owe Toby) which could be cashed when convenient.

"Dear lady, you shall not be worried," said Elise affectionately. "I believe this arrangement with Sir Toby will work beautifully."

And so it did. Sometimes Toby would get very lean and hungry and the few stray sous left in him would clink dismally against his ribs; and again he would be bursting with silver, paper and copper. Sometimes he would have to suspend payment until he could negotiate his I. O. T.'s., and sometimes when the week was up and all outstanding bills settled, he would be so affluent that he would treat the whole crowd to the theater or give a party to the friends in the Latin Quarter. Many a jest was made at his expense and sometimes Mrs. Brown and Judy, both of them able to quote Shakespeare at any point, would give whole pages of "Twelfth Night," impersonating the immortal Sir Toby and Sir Andrew Ague-cheek and the naughty Maria.

Our friends went to many studio teas during their stay in Paris, but the first one with their erratic neighbor, Miss Jo Bill, they never forgot.

Her studio was the size of their own but had no apartment attached. The hostess slept in a balcony, similar to the one Judy and Molly occupied, and her housekeeping and sleeping arrangements were much in evidence.

Molly, going over ahead of the others to take the three tea cups requested, found Miss Williams washing her own five cups with their varied a.s.sortment of saucers and clearing off a table littered with papers and magazines, preparatory to placing the alcohol lamp, kettle and teapot thereon.

"Do let me help you," begged Molly. "Where is your tea towel? I can wipe the cups."

"Tea towel!" exclaimed Miss Williams. "Why, I don't possess such a thing! If the water is good and hot and clean, you don't need a towel.

Just let the dishes drain. It is much more sanitary. Towels are awful germ harborers. But if you want to help, you might straighten up this table. Don't ask for a cloth or you will embarra.s.s me."

Molly accordingly went to work and got order out of chaos in a short while. She piled the papers and magazines neatly on a shelf; emptied the teapot of its former drawing of leaves; washed and rinsed it; filled the kettle with fresh water; and replenished the alcohol lamp from a bottle of wood alcohol she found on the shelf.

"Well, if you aren't a peach, Miss Brown!" said the admiring Jo Bill. "I bet you are dying to go up on my roost and clear it out some. I was going to let it alone hoping to make it so interesting _en bas_ that no one would glance up; but if you feel a calling to go up there and stir around a little, you are welcome."

Molly was itching to get her hands on the balcony, which reminded her of Mrs. Jellyby's closet, full to overflowing with every conceivable and inconceivable thing. The floor was strewn with coats, dresses and hats while the shoes were neatly hung on a row of hooks. Very pretty, well-shaped shoes they were, too, as it seemed Jo's feet were her one vanity.

"I never make up my bed, but just kick the covers over the dash board and let it air all day. Much more sanitary than tucking the germs in, giving them chance to multiply. You can make it up if you want to, though, since we are by the way of giving a party. Yes, hang up the dresses if you think it will improve the looks of things. I keep my shoes on the hooks so they can dry well and not be losing themselves all the time. I don't often need the dresses as I usually wear these painting togs. By Jove, speaking of dresses, I fancy I ought to put on one this afternoon! I wonder if your mother would think I was not showing her proper respect if I just put on a clean blouse and didn't try to get into one of those pesky dresses."

"Oh, don't dress up for mother, please! She would feel bad if she thought her coming would make any trouble for you, and besides, you hardly have time to do much; it is after five now," laughed Molly.

So Jo pulled off her workman's blouse and donned a clean one.

"Please tell me what makes you wipe your paint brushes on your back and how you manage it," asked Molly.

"What a question!" roared the amused Jo. "I wipe the brushes on the front of my blouses until it gets too gummy, and then I turn it hind part before. You and your mother must have thought I was some contortionist yesterday," and she extracted a hair brush from one of the shoes hanging on a hook and gave her tousled hair a vigorous punishment.

"Shall I put this tub out of sight?" asked Molly, picking up a great English hat tub.

"No, indeed, leave it there. I always put it where Polly Perkins can see it to shame him. You see he is as tidy as I am careless, but he leads an unhealthy, uncleanly life in spite of all of his pernickity ways, and I am really very sanitary and healthy in spite of all of my untidiness. In the first place, I take a cold bath every morning of my life and sleep in a hurricane of fresh air; and if my bed is in a mess, you notice my sheets are clean; while Polly is one of these once-a-weekers as to baths, and he is afraid of opening windows and letting in dust, and he makes up his bed the minute he gets out of it, animal heat, germs and all."

Molly was vastly amused and interested in her neighbor and her evident rivalry with the long-haired cubist, whom she now saw daintily picking his way across the court, in velveteen jacket and Byronic collar with the loose flowing tie common in the Latin Quarter. In his hand he held a stiff bouquet of red and yellow chrysanthemums, which, bowing low, he presented to Jo as she jerked the door open at his knock.

"The flower which you most resemble, I bring as an offering of----"

"Stuff and nonsense! That's a nice thing to tell a girl: that she looks like a ragged chrysanthemum! I have brushed my hair, too, so your 'comparison is odious.' I have a great mind not to introduce you to Miss Brown just to pay you back for being so saucy."

But Mr. Perkins did not wait for the formal introduction. He came into the studio, his pasty face beaming, and gave Molly's hand a cordial shake. Then the others began to arrive: Mrs. Brown, Judy and Elise, Mr.

Kinsella and Pierce.

"Polly, put the kettle on and we'll all have tea," sang Jo, and the obedient Mr. Perkins did her bidding. In a short while the water was boiling and the tea put to draw, and Jo produced from her cupboard a plate of Napoleons (that delicious pastry of Paris) and a _brioche_.

"Now, Jo Bill, that is mean to go have my kind of cake, too," exclaimed Polly Perkins fretfully. "You know I never have Napoleons at my teas because you call them yours, but _brioche_ has always been mine; and when I have our neighbors in to my studio, what can I give them? I did not know you could be so sneaky."

Strange to tell, Jo took the repulse quite meekly and confessed that it was low, but there were not enough Napoleons at the _patisserie_ and she had to fill out with something else.

"Please don't be cross, Polly. I got _brioche_ because I know you like it so much. I like macaroons myself," and she helped the indignant cubist to a generous slice of his favorite cake and he was mollified.

The party was very gay. Jo proved to be a singularly tactful hostess and put them at their ease immediately. The tea was perfect.

"Where on earth do you get it?" asked Mrs. Brown as she accepted a second cup.

"Smuggle it," responded Jo. "Every time I go to California I bring enough back to run me for a year; enough for Polly, too. The custom house officials never hunt through my luggage for tea. They often remark that I am 'not the tea drinking type', but Polly, here, can't bring in a leaf of it without getting found out. He is a regular tea drinking type."

"Are you from California, too?" asked Molly, smiling at Polly and wondering if Jo's frankness hurt his feelings. But if it did he concealed his wounds remarkably well.

"Yes, indeed, Jo and I are from the same town. I have known her ever since she was a little boy. She is an awful clever sort and as kind and good as can be. I never mind her blague. We are the best friends in the world and she likes me as much as I do her. Have you seen her painting?

She does the best and highest paid miniature work among the American artists in Paris. She has a very interesting way of working: paints everything big first and then in miniature. She says it keeps her from getting a sissy manner."

"I can't fancy Miss Williams with a sissy manner in anything," laughed Elise, who joined Molly and Mr. Perkins. "I want to see her things so much; and I do hope you will show us some of your work, Mr. Perkins. I hear you are of the new movement in art."

"Yes," said poor Polly sadly. "Jo hates me for it and refuses to think I am sincere or that there is any good in the movement, but I declare that she is the insincere one in not trying to see the good in the cubist movement. Jo is very hard-headed and conventional at heart, in spite of her pants."

The girls burst out laughing at this. The idea of Jo's being conventional was certainly absurd. Hard-headed she no doubt was.

"This will show you how stubborn she is: she pretends she does not remember my name. I don't mind her calling me Polly, but I do think she should address my letters to Mr. Peter Perkins and not Polly. I have known her ever since we were both of us babies and she must remember what my parents call me, even though she never did call me Peter herself," said the poor cubist who looked ready to weep.

Just then there was a diversion caused by a great knocking on a door in the court. It proved to be none other than Mrs. Pace.

"She has come to spy out the nakedness of the land," whispered Judy to Mr. Kinsella, who had been having a long talk with her. Pierce had had so much to say of this delightful young lady that his uncle was determined to make her acquaintance and find out if she were the kind of girl to be a help to his beloved nephew, or if there could be a chance of Judy's being the type that he had unfortunately come in contact with in his youth, causing so much disaster to his happiness. Judy was in her gayest mood and was enjoying herself hugely, and Mr. Kinsella seemed to find her quite as delightful as Pierce had led him to believe her to be.

That young man was looking rather disconsolate since his uncle was occupying the place he coveted. He wandered over to where Elise was examining some of Jo's miniatures. Elise, too, was a little wistful. She had looked forward with so much eagerness to meeting Mr. Kinsella again, and now on the first occasion when they might have had a real conversation, here he was spending the whole time laughing and talking with Julia Kean. She was glad of the diversion of Mrs. Pace's entrance, as it necessarily caused some cessation of what looked to her like a flirtation between Mr. Kinsella and Judy.

Enter, Mrs. Pace did, with a scornful sniff. After rapping sharply on the Browns' door and receiving no answer, she had made her way to the studio where the tea was being held. When Jo Bill opened the door, without waiting to tell her whom she was seeking, she swept into the room, "not like a ship in full sail," declared Judy to her companion, "but like a great coal barge in her shiny black satin and her huge jet bonnet."

Mrs. Brown introduced her to the members of the party with whom she was not already acquainted, but she acknowledged the honor only with a slight quiver of the stiff jet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of her headgear.

"Well, Mrs. Brown! Is this what you left my house for?"

Mrs. Brown made no answer but Molly noticed that her nose was what Aunt Mary called "a-wucken'"; and she was wondering what would be the outcome of Mrs. Pace's rudeness, when Polly Perkins saved the day. He was taking tea to the uninvited guests at Jo's bidding. That young woman was totally oblivious and indifferent to Mrs. Pace's scornful att.i.tude. She was Mrs. Brown's friend and she, Jo Bill, knew how to behave in her own house. Mrs. Pace was seated so that the last rays of the setting sun slanted through the window on her bonnet and the lighted lamp on the other hand shone full on her capacious chest, making the large square high lights of which Judy had made such merry jests. Polly handed her the cup of tea and slice of _brioche_ and then backed away from her, standing with his eyes half closed and his hands clasped in adoration.

"Well, young man, what are you looking at me that way for?" snapped the irate Henny.

"Oh, Madame, you are so beautiful! You must pardon my raptures, but I am a cubist and you are exactly the type I am looking for to make myself famous withal. As I stand and gaze at you with my eyes half-closed, you present the most wonderful spectacle. I see a series of beautiful cubes, one on top of the other: black and gray, black and gray, and now and then where the light strikes, a brilliant white one. And oh, your _chapeau_! I can hardly wait to get to work on your portrait! You will sit to me, won't you?"

During this effusion, Mrs. Pace sat with a pleased smirk on her face. It had been many a long day since any one had called her beautiful, and no one had ever called her beautiful with such enthusiasm or wanted to paint her portrait. To be sure it was nothing but a small, pasty-faced, long-haired artist, but he was a man for all that, and his eyes were kind and earnest and his voice most appealing.

"I am a very busy woman," she answered gently, "but I will pose for you with pleasure, if it will help you in any way."

Her shiny ornaments trembled with emotion and she gave a sentimental sigh that broke the beautiful square high-light, so admired by Polly, into a dozen little ripples.

Mrs. Brown arose to make her adieux, taking Mrs. Pace with her to show the new quarters to the much softened lady. Mrs. Brown knew by the look in Judy's eyes that she would explode with laughter in a moment. Molly and Elise were bending over Jo's miniatures, their shoulders shaking.

Pierce was standing in the middle of the floor with an alert expression as though he were in readiness to seize the lunatic, poor Polly, if he should become dangerous. Mr. Kinsella's composure was ominous of an outbreak. Jo Bill stood with arms akimbo and gazed at her former playmate, anger gradually gaining the ascendency over the amus.e.m.e.nt caused by his outspoken admiration of the ponderous and impolite Mrs.

Pace.