The S. W. F. Club Part 23

s.e.xtoness Jane came down the steps. "Me, I ain't never wore a badge!

Not once in all my life! Oncet, when I was a little youngster, 'most like Patience, teacher, she got up some sort of May doings. We was all to wear white dresses and red, white and blue ribbons--very night before, I come down with the mumps. Looks like I always come down when I ought to've stayed up!"

"But you won't come down with anything this time," Pauline pinned the blue badge on the waist of Jane's black and white calico. "Now you're an honorary member of 'The S. W. F. Club.'"

Jane pa.s.sed a hand over it softly. "My Land!" was all she could say.

She was still stroking it softly as she walked slowly away towards home. My, wouldn't Tobias be interested!

CHAPTER IX

AT THE MANOR

"'All the names I know from nurse: Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse, Bachelor's b.u.t.tons, Lady's smock, And the Lady Hollyhock,'"

Patience chanted, moving slowly about the parsonage garden, hands full of flowers, and the big basket, lying on the gra.s.s beyond, almost full.

Behind her, now running at full speed, now stopping suddenly, back lifted, tail erect, came Lucky, the black kitten from The Maples.

Lucky had been an inmate of the parsonage for some weeks now and was thriving famously in her adopted home. Towser tolerated her with the indifference due such a small, insignificant creature, and she alternately bullied and patronized Towser.

"We haven't shepherd's purse, nor lady's smock, that I know of, Lucky,"

Patience said, glancing back at the kitten, at that moment threatening battle at a polite nodding Sweet William, "but you can see for yourself that we have hollyhocks, while as for bachelor's b.u.t.tons! Just look at that big, blue bunch in one corner of the basket."

It was the morning of the day of Shirley's turn and Pauline was hurrying to get ready to go over and help decorate the manor. She was singing, too; from the open windows of the "new room" came the words--

"'A cheerful world?--It surely is And if you understand your biz You'll taboo the worry worm, And cultivate the happy germ.'"

To which piece of good advice, Patience promptly whistled back the gay refrain.

On the back porch, s.e.xtoness Jane--called in for an extra half-day--was ironing the white dresses to be worn that afternoon. And presently, Patience, her basket quite full and stowed away in the trap waiting before the side door, strolled around to interview her.

"I suppose you're going this afternoon?" she asked.

Jane looked up from waxing her iron. "Well, I was sort of calculating on going over for a bit; Miss Shirley having laid particular stress on my coming and this being the first reg'lar doings since I joined the club. I told her and Pauline they mustn't look for me to go junketing 'round with them all the while, seeing I'm in office--so to speak--and my time pretty well taken up with my work. I reckon you're going?"

"I--" Patience edged nearer the porch. Behind Jane stood the tall clothes-horse, with its burden of freshly ironed white things. At sight of a short, white frock, very crisp and immaculate, the blood rushed to the child's face, then as quickly receded.--After all, it would have had to be ironed for Sunday and--well, mother certainly had been very non-committal the past few days--ever since that escapade with Bedelia, in fact--regarding her youngest daughter's hopes and fears for this all-important afternoon. And Patience had been wise enough not to press the matter.

"But, oh, I do wonder if Hilary has--" Patience went back to the side porch. Hilary was there talking to Bedelia. "You--you have fixed it up?" the child inquired anxiously.

Hilary looked gravely unconscious. "Fixed it up?" she repeated.

"About this afternoon--with mother?"

"Oh, yes! Mother's going; so is father."

Patience repressed a sudden desire to stamp her foot, and Hilary, seeing the real doubt and longing in her face, relented. "Mother wants to see you, Patty. I rather think there are to be conditions."

Patience darted off. From the doorway, she looked back--"I just knew you wouldn't go back on me, Hilary! I'll love you forever'n' ever."

Pauline came out a moment later, drawing on her driving gloves. "I feel like a story-book girl, going driving this time in the morning, in a trap like this. I wish you were coming, too, Hilary."

"Oh, I'm like the delicate story-book girl, who has to rest, so as to be ready for the dissipations that are to come later. I look the part, don't I?"

Pauline looked down into the laughing, sun-browned face. "If Uncle Paul were to see you now, he might find it hard to believe I hadn't--exaggerated that time."

"Well, it's your fault--and his, or was, in the beginning. You've a fine basket of flowers to take; Patience has done herself proud this morning."

"It's wonderful how well that young lady can behave--at times."

"Oh, she's young yet! When I hear mother tell how like her you used to be, I don't feel too discouraged about Patty."

"That strikes me as rather a double-edged sort of speech," Pauline gathered up the reins. "Good-by, and don't get too tired."

Shirley's turn was to be a combination studio tea and lawn-party, to which all club members, both regular and honorary, not to mention their relatives and friends, had been bidden. Following this, was to be a high tea for the regular members.

"That's Senior's share," Shirley had explained to Pauline. "He insists that it's up to him to do something."

Mr. Dayre was on very good terms with the "S. W. F. Club." As for Shirley, after the first, no one had ever thought of her as an outsider.

It was hard now, Pauline thought, as she drove briskly along, the lake breeze in her face, and the sound of Bedelia's quick trotting forming a pleasant accompaniment to her, thoughts, very hard, to realize how soon the summer would be over. But perhaps--as Hilary said--next summer would mean the taking up again of this year's good times and interests,--Shirley talked of coming back. As for the winter--Pauline had in mind several plans for the winter. Those of the club members to stay behind must get together some day and talk them over. One thing was certain, the club motto must be lived up to bravely. If not in one way, why in another. There must be no slipping back into the old dreary rut and routine. It lay with themselves as to what their winter should be.

"And there's fine sleighing here, Bedelia," she said. "We'll get the old cutter out and give it a coat of paint."

Bedelia tossed her head, as if she heard in imagination the gay jingling of the sleighbells.

"But, in the meantime, here is the manor," Pauline laughed, "and it's the prettiest August day that ever was, and lawn-parties and such festivities are afoot, not sleighing parties."

The manor stood facing the lake with its back to the road, a broad sloping lawn surrounded it on three sides, with the garden at the back.

For so many seasons, it had stood lonely and neglected, that Pauline never came near it now, without rejoicing afresh in its altered aspect.

Even the sight of Betsy Todd's dish towels, drying on the currant bushes at one side of the back door, added their touch to the sense of pleasant, homely life that seemed to envelop the old house nowadays.

Shirley came to the gate, as Pauline drew up, Phil, Pat and Pudgey in close attention. "I have to keep an eye on them," she told Pauline.

"They've just had their baths, and they're simply wild to get out in the middle of the road and roll. I've told them no self-respecting dog would wish to come to a lawn-party in anything but the freshest of white coats, but I'm afraid they're not very self-respecting."

"Patience is sure Towser's heart is heavy because he is not to come; she has promised him a lawn-party on his own account, and that no grown-ups shall be invited. She's sent you the promised flowers, and hinted--more or less plainly--that she would have been quite willing to deliver them in person."

"Why didn't you bring her? Oh, but I'm afraid you've robbed yourself!"

"Oh, no, we haven't. Mother says, flowers grow with picking."

"Come on around front," Shirley suggested. "The boys have been putting the awning up."

"The boys" were three of Mr. Dayre's fellow artists, who had come up a day or two before, on a visit to the manor. One of them, at any rate, deserved Shirley's t.i.tle. He came forward now. "Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?" he said, with a wave of the hand towards the red and white striped awning, placed at the further edge of the lawn.

Shirley smiled her approval, and introduced him to Pauline, adding that Miss Shaw was the real founder of their club.