The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross Part 26

She went shopping with her mother to several stores on Market Street one afternoon, skipping the rehearsal of "The Rose Garden" for this purpose.

The Christmas crowds were greater than she had ever seen them before. But the enthusiasm for the Red Cross drive had by no means faltered in spite of the season.

Ember Night had gathered nearly five thousand dollars for the cause. Laura treasured a very nicely worded letter of appreciation from the mayor's secretary, thanking the Central High girl for her suggestion, which had proved so efficacious in money-raising. Laura was not exhibiting this letter to very many people, but she was secretly proud of it.

In every store she entered Laura saw a Red Cross booth, while collectors with padlocked boxes were weaving in and out among the shoppers.

"Give Again! Warranted Not to Hurt You!" was the slogan. Wearing a Red Cross b.u.t.ton did not absolve one from being solicited.

And she saw that the people were giving with a smile. Centerport was still enthusiastic over the drive. Laura seriously considered what she and her Central High girl friends were trying to do for the fund. Would the play be a success? If they only gave one performance and the audience was not enthusiastic enough to warrant a second, and then a third, she would consider that they had failed.

All of a sudden, while she was thinking of this very serious fact, Laura came face to face with Janet Steele.

"You are just the girl I wished most to see, Janet!" cried the Central High girl.

"I always want to see you, Laura Belding," declared the Red Cross girl, who was evidently off duty and homeward bound.

"Thank you, dear," Laura said. "You must prove that. I want you to do me a favor."

"What can I possibly do for you?" laughed Janet. "Hurry and tell me."

"You may not be so willing after you hear what it is."

"You doubt my willingness to prove my friendship?" demanded Janet soberly.

"Not a bit of it! But, listen here." She told Janet swiftly what she desired, and from the sparkle in her eyes and the rising flush in her face it was easily seen that Laura had not asked a favor that Janet would not willingly give.

"Oh, but my dear!" she cried, "I shall have to ask mother."

"I presume you will," said Laura, smiling. "Shall I go along with you and see what she says?"

"Can you?"

"I have done all my mother's errands--look at these bundles," said Laura.

"We might as well have this matter settled at once. Your mother won't mind my coming in this way, will she?"

"You may come in any way you wish, and any time you wish, my dear," said Janet warmly. "Mother very much approves of you."

"It is sweet of you to say so," returned the girl of Central High. "I shall be quite sure she approves of me if she lets you do what I want in this case, Janet," and she laughed again as they turned off the busy main street into a quieter one.

The invalid was at the long window, and beckoned to Laura to come in before she saw that that was the visitor's intention.

"I cannot begin to tell you how delighted we are to have you girls call,"

Mrs. Steele said, when she had greeted both her daughter and Laura with a kiss. "It would be so nice if Janet could go to school; then she might bring home a crowd of young folks every afternoon," and the invalid laughed.

"But, you see, Miss Belding, I am so trying in the morning. It does seem that it is all Aunt Jinny and Janet can do to get me out of my bed, and dressed, and fed, and seated here on my throne for the day."

"It seems too bad that the weather is not so you can go out," Laura said.

"Oh, I almost never go out," Mrs. Steele replied. "Though I tell Janet that when spring comes, if we can only get the agent to repair that porch, she can wheel me back and forth on it in my chair."

"Better than that, dear Mrs. Steele," Laura promised, "we will come with our car and take you for a ride all over Centerport, and along the Lakeside Drive. It is beautiful in the spring."

"How nice of you!" cried the invalid. "But that, of course, depends upon whether we are in Centerport when the pleasant weather comes," said Mrs.

Steele sadly.

"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Laura, "do you mean that you think of going away?"

"Now, Mother!" murmured Janet, as though the thought was repugnant to her, too.

"How can we tell?" cried the invalid, just a little excitedly. "You know, Janet, if we should hear of your uncle----"

"Oh, Mother!" sighed the girl, "I do wish you would give up hope of Uncle Jack's ever turning up again."

"Don't talk that way," said her mother sharply. "You do not know Jack as I do. He was only my half brother, but the very nicest boy who ever lived.

Why, he gave up all his share of the income from my father's estate to me, and went off to the wilds to seek his own fortune.

"How was he to know that some of the investments poor father made would turn out badly, and that our income would be reduced to a mere pittance?

For I tell you, Miss Belding," added the invalid less vehemently, "that we have almost nothing, divided by three, to live on. That is, an income for one must support us three. Aunt Jinny is one of us, you know."

"Now, Mother!" begged Janet "Sha'n't I get tea for us?"

"Of course! What am I thinking of?" returned her mother. "Tell Aunt Jinny to make it in the flowered teapot I fancy the flowered teapot to-day--and the blue-striped cups and saucers.

"Do you know, Miss Belding, what the complete delight of wealth is? It is an ability to see variety about one in the home. You need not use the same old cups and saucers every day! If I were rich I would have the furniture changed in my room every few days. Sameness is my _bete noire_."

"It must be very hard for you, shut in so much," said Laura quietly.

"And poor Janet is shut in a good deal of the time with me, and suffers because of my crotchets. Ah, if we could only find Jack Weld--my half brother, you know, Miss Belding. He went away to make his fortune, and I believe he made it. He has probably settled down somewhere, in good health and with plenty, and without an idea as to our situation. He never was a letter writer. And he had every reason to suppose that we were well fixed for life. Then, we have moved about so much----"

Janet came back with the tea things. Mrs. Steele left the subject of her brother, and Laura found opportunity of broaching the matter on which she had come. What she wished Janet to do pleased the latter's mother immensely. She was, in fact, delighted.

"How nice of you to suggest it, Miss Belding," said Mrs. Steele. "I know Janet will be glad to do it. Will you not, Janet?"

"I--I'll try," said her daughter, flushed and excited at the prospect Laura's suggestion opened before her.

CHAPTER XX

TWO THINGS ABOUT HESTER

Scarcely was Bobby Hargrew of a happier disposition and of more volatile temperament than the Lockwood twins. Dora and Dorothy, while still chubby denizens of the nursery, saw that the world was bound to be full of fun for them if they attacked it in the right spirit.

Dora and Dorothy's mother had died when they were very small, and the twins had been left to the mercy of relatives and servants, some of whom did not understand the needs of the growing girls as their mother would have done.

Much of this is told in "The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna."

Almost as soon as the twins could stagger about in infant explorations of the house and grounds, they were wont to exchange the red and blue ribbons tied on their dimpled wrists by their nurse to tell them apart. For never were two creatures so entirely alike as Dora and Dorothy Lockwood.