The Camp Fire Girls on the Open Road Part 11

"Ethel," said Mrs. Harper, as soon as she could get the floor, "this is Miss Brewster, my stenographer. Miss Brewster, my daughter Ethel."

I acknowledged the introduction pleasantly; Miss Ethel favored me with another stare, murmured something in an indistinct tone and then immediately turned her back on me and went on talking to her mother.

Right then and there my admiration for the "first families" got a setback; I didn't admire Ethel Harper's manners, not a little bit. She had "sn.o.b" written all over her features. I could see that she cla.s.sed me with the servants and as such she didn't trouble herself to be polite to me.

"A lot there is to be gained by a.s.sociating with _her_," I said to myself. "I'll be just as cool and dignified as possible when _she's_ around. She won't get another chance to snub me."

But in spite of her I was enthusiastic about the position and could hardly wait until I got there the next day. Mrs. Harper went out shortly after I arrived and I worked alone. Ethel Harper came home from school at noon and went through the room on the way to her mother's, but I rattled away on the typewriter and never looked up. She came out soon and went into her own room, which was on the other side. In about fifteen minutes I heard her call me.

"Miss Brewster!" I stopped typing.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Come here," she called, and her voice sounded impatient.

I stepped across the hall into her room. She was standing in front of the mirror putting on a ruffled taffeta dress, which she was struggling to adjust.

"Hook me up!" she commanded, without the formality of saying "Please."

I had it on the end of my tongue to tell her that I was a stenographer, not a lady's maid, but I remembered "Give Service" in time, and hooked her up without a word. She never even said "Thank you!" She just sat down at her dressing table and began pencilling her eyebrows. Evidently it must have been the maid's day out, for she called me in again later to pin her collar.

"Have I got too much color on my face?" she asked languidly, dabbing away at her cheeks with some red stuff out of a box in front of her. Then she put carmine on her lips, a sort of whitewash on her nose and forehead and finished it with some pencilled shadows under her eyes. All I could think of was Eeny-Meeny, the time we gave her that coat of war paint.

"What's that?" asked milady while I was fastening her collar, poking her finger at my Torch Bearer's pin.

"It's a Camp Fire pin," I replied.

"What's Camp Fire?" she demanded idly.

I explained briefly what Camp Fire was.

"Gee," said Ethel elegantly, "none of that for mine!" And she picked up her eyebrow pencil again and did a little more frescoing.

I went back to my work in disgust. I was so disappointed in Ethel Harper.

I had expected that the daughter of such a fine family would be a real lady in every sense of the word--cultured, genuine, thoroughbred; and she had turned out to be nothing but a cheap imitation--slangy, ill-bred, sn.o.bbish, overdressed and made up like an actress. Beyond her pretty, baby doll face there was nothing to her. There wasn't an ounce of brains in her poor flat head.

And yet, she was tremendously popular in her own sn.o.bbish set, as I could gather from conversations around me, and by the invitations she was constantly receiving to festivities. Although she was not formally out in society, I knew that she went out to dances with men very often, when her mother thought that she was spending the night with girl friends. I found that out from telephone conversations Ethel carried on when her mother was out of the way. It was plain to be seen that Ethel had only one ambition in the world, and that was to have a good time, regardless of how she got it.

It wasn't any of my business, of course, but I couldn't help wondering what Mrs. Harper would do if she knew about some of Ethel's little excursions. Mrs. Harper had a flinty sort of nature and you only had to look into those cold eyes of hers to know that it would go hard with anyone who had displeased her. One morning I had a good chance to see her when she was roused. A Cloisonne locket belonging to Mrs. Harper had disappeared from her jewel box and she had accused her maid, Clarice, of taking it. Clarice, frightened out of her wits, was tearfully protesting her innocence, but Mrs. Harper towered over her like a fury, threatening to hand her over to the police. Ethel, sitting in a rocking chair polishing her finger nails, listened indifferently. I felt embarra.s.sed to witness this painful scene and stood irresolute, unable to decide whether to go out or stay, when Mrs. Harper turned to me and said, "Make out a check for Clarice's wages for the month and deduct twenty-five dollars from it, the value of the locket she stole. Then insert an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the papers for a new maid."

Clarice, with a fresh burst of grief, declared again that she knew nothing about the locket, and begged not to be sent away with a black character, because she had a paralyzed sister to support, but Mrs. Harper was unmoved. Out went Clarice, bag and baggage, crying as she went and still declaring her innocence.

"These maids will steal you blind, if you give them a chance," said Mrs.

Harper, still bristling with anger.

"I never did like Clarice," remarked Ethel with a yawn.

The next day Mrs. Harper went out during the morning and Ethel called me to help her pack her visiting bag. She was going to spend the week-end with a girl friend. No new maid had come to take Clarice's place as yet, so Ethel took advantage of my not having much work to do for her mother that morning to press me into service.

"I can't find my wrist watch," she said as I came in. "I don't know whether I put it in the bag or not, and I haven't time to look. Will you look through the bag while I finish dressing?"

I pawed carefully through the bag, and brought to light, not the wrist watch, but the Cloisonne locket, which Mrs. Harper had accused Clarice of taking.

"Why, Ethel," I said delightedly, "here is your mother's locket! Clarice didn't steal it after all. It was down in your bag."

"I know it was," said Ethel coolly. "I put it there."

"_You_ put it there?" I echoed. "Did you find it, then?"

Ethel laughed disagreeably. "I had it all the while," she said. "I'm going to a dance to-night that mamma doesn't know anything about, and I've set my heart on wearing that locket. Mamma will never let me wear it; it was brought to her from Paris by an old friend that's dead now, and she's afraid I'll lose it. So I just took it out of her jewel box the other day and made her believe Clarice took it."

"Ethel!" I exclaimed in horror. "How could you? How could you sit there and hear your mother accuse poor Clarice of taking it?"

Ethel shrugged her shoulders. "I never did like Clarice," she said. "She was an impertinent piece. It served her right. Put the locket back in the bag. I've got to start in a minute."

But I didn't budge. I stood looking at her until she looked the other way. With all her millions and all her fine connections, I despised Ethel Harper as if she had been a crawling worm. I didn't want to get mixed up in anything that wasn't my business, but I had no intention of letting poor Clarice remain under a cloud.

"I'm not going to put it back in the bag," I replied firmly. "I'm going to take it right back to your mother when she comes home. She must know that it isn't stolen so she can make things right with Clarice."

"Don't you dare tell mamma," said Ethel furiously. "She'll kill me if she knows I've got it. Give it to me, I say." She tried to s.n.a.t.c.h it out of my hand, but I kept hold of it. "Give it to me, you impertinent little stenographer, you!" she shrieked.

It was getting disgraceful. I tried to save a shred of dignity. I laid the locket on the dresser and faced Ethel steadily. I still had a vivid memory of Clarice's distressed face as she went out that day.

"You have done Clarice a wrong," I said firmly, "and it must be righted.

I'll give you your choice. Either you take the locket back to your mother or I'll tell her where it is."

Ethel changed her tactics and tried to bribe me. "I'll give you a dozen pairs of silk stockings if you don't say anything to mamma about it and let her go on thinking it's stolen, so I can wear it whenever I please,"

she offered.

I longed to choke her. "Don't you try to bribe me, Ethel Harper," I said severely. "I've got a code of honor, even if I am a poor stenographer, which is more than you have, with all your millions."

"Some more of your Campfire stuff," she said sneeringly.

"You bet it is 'Campfire stuff,'" I replied hotly. "You see that little pin? One of things it says is 'Be trustworthy.' If I let Clarice be unjustly accused I wouldn't be worthy of that pin. Remember! Either you tell your mother or I do." And I started for the door.

Ethel changed her tune again and began to cry. "Everybody is so horrid to me," she sobbed. "Mamma will never let me go anywhere I want to go or wear what I want to wear, and the servants won't do what I tell them.

Even my mother's stenographer bosses me around! I wish I was dead!"

But I was firm in my championship of Clarice. "You'll have to tell," I repeated. "I see your mother coming in now."

Ethel began to look frightened. "I'll not tell her I took it, she'd kill me," she whined. "I'll tell her I just found it and she can take back what she said to Clarice."

I looked her steadily in the eyes. She flushed and looked down.

"I suppose you'll go and tell anyway, you old tattletale," she said savagely. "I'll get even with you for this, see if I don't!" She ran out of the room and I didn't see her again for several days.

However, I knew the locket had gone back where it belonged, because Mrs.

Harper had me send Clarice a check for twenty-five dollars, with the brief statement that the locket had been found. Right there was where I lost some of my regard for Mrs. Harper. She never apologized to Clarice for accusing her wrongfully; never offered to do anything to make it up to her. She just sent that cold little note and the check. A real thoroughbred would have acknowledged herself to be in the wrong, but Mrs.

Harper couldn't bring herself to apologize to a servant. The affair blew over and I never heard Clarice mentioned again.