The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted Part 17

"It is there on the desk."

Hannah brought the brown paper, and she and Frieda bent over it together.

"L-a-e," spelled Hannah, but Frieda looked up, delighted.

"I know. _Laetus sorte mea!_ It means 'Happy in my lot!' It is in the book Tante Edith sent me for my birthday, about the little cripple."

"O, yes, _The Story of a Short Life_. I've read that, too," said Hannah, "but I didn't recognize it just at first. I should think, if it is to be your motto, you'd have to change the gender and make it '_laeta_,' Aunt Clara."

Miss Lyndesay laughed. "I'm glad you both know the story. I expected Hannah to, but hardly Frieda. Did you read it all by yourself, dear?"

"Yes," answered Frieda proudly. "I have read seven English books, and I like that best. Mother and I made a list of Poor Things the way Leonard did."

"O, how nice!" cried Hannah. "Did you put Bertha's lame sister on it?"

"Yes, and Onkel Heinrich's brother who can not see and is always cheerful, and the little woman who sells string and roses in the shop under us, and Edna Helm who had to stop school and go to work because her father couldn't afford to take care of her."

"Poor Edna!" said Hannah. "I liked her best of all your friends. I'm going to start a Poor Things book myself, when I get home."

"Have you ever heard of the Guild of Brave Poor Things in England?"

asked Miss Lyndesay, and as the girls showed their interest she went on to tell them of the organization which took its name and its motive from Mrs. Ewing's little story, and has grown into a large organization with industrial schools and shops.

"So all these people, boys and men and women and girls who cannot work in factories, because of some infirmity, are enabled to make beautiful things and to sell them. I bought some of their doll furniture when I was last in London. Let me see. Yes, it was in the box I unpacked yesterday."

"Let me get it," begged Frieda, and as soon as she had been told where to look she was off. She came quickly back again bringing a doll's white-wood bed, strong and well-made as the fine old furniture which had outlived Aunt Abigail and her parents.

"It is just right for Millicent's doll," cried Frieda, as she brought it in. "Couldn't we put her in it, Tante Clara, to make up for having torn the pretty dresses?"

"Indeed you may. I had no one in mind to give it to, but bought it because I had enjoyed visiting the school at Chailey."

"Can all the cripples make pretty things like this?" asked Hannah, wondering, as Frieda placed the bed in her hands.

"O, no, only a very few. But the Guild of Brave Poor Things does many other things, besides establishing the schools. All maimed persons may belong, and the guild makes investigations, finds out if they can be helped by surgery, and, if not, tries to make their lives happier in every possible way. Of course, those of them who can use their hands are happier doing so than they could be in any other way. Every Friday afternoon, from three to six, they meet in the settlement rooms and have music and games and reading, and hear talks on interesting subjects by ladies and gentlemen who are glad to tell them of their particular lines of work. Then they have a short service of prayer--"

"Do they sing the tug-of-war hymn?" asked Hannah eagerly. "I remember about that better than anything else in the book."

"Yes, they almost always sing that. I heard them, myself," and Miss Lyndesay's eyes grew sweeter at the thought. "I have never heard anything more affecting than that singing:

"'Who best can drink His cup of woe, Triumphant over pain, Who patient bears His cross below, He follows in His train.'"

Frieda and Hannah were still as she finished speaking, and all three sat looking at the fire for a few moments in silence. Presently Hannah said softly:

"And _they_ have _'Laetus sorte mea'_ for a motto? I can see how you could take it, Aunt Clara, for of course you have everything anybody could want. You are well and beautiful and good, and have money and talent and friends."

Miss Lyndesay was silent and Hannah, who had been studying the flames reflectively, looked up presently to see why she made no reply. There was a grave expression on her face, and Hannah's grew startled.

Miss Lyndesay, seeing the look of alarm in the child's eyes, smiled and took her hand.

"Would you give up your father and mother for any or all of those things, Hannah dear?" she said.

_"O!"_ cried Hannah in a hurt frightened tone, and Frieda suddenly choked back a sob.

Miss Lyndesay lifted her head quickly.

"Girls, do you realize the absurdity of us? Here we started out discussing: 'Happy in my lot' and in a few minutes we have grown sad with the burden of sorrow of half the world and our own individual troubles besides! That is anything but wise, isn't it? I didn't intend to preach to you when I invited you to Brookmeadow. But since we are on the subject, let's say a little more and then drop it. I do want you to remember that while the people who seem fortunate often have something to bear that offsets most of the pleasant circ.u.mstances of their lives, at the same time, many people who seem to have nothing to be glad about are persistently and genuinely joyful. The sad folk meet sadness everywhere, and the glad folk find gladness. Let me read you something, written by Sister Grace, who founded the order of Brave Poor Things about the time you girls were born, and then I refuse to say or hear another solemn word this evening!"

She took up a little pamphlet and read aloud:

"To bear pain cheerfully, to take defeat n.o.bly, to be constant and loyal, to be brave and happy with the odds dead against us, to be full of sympathy and tenderness--these are gifts which mark out the truly great."

"Now let's put Millicent's doll to bed," suggested Frieda, who disliked solemnity and saw that Hannah was still staring into the fire. Miss Lyndesay seconded the motion, and, taking candles, the three mounted into the garret, sought out the old trunk and brought the beautiful doll down stairs. There, by the fire, they laid her gently down on a soft blanket in the pretty bed which was exactly the right size.

Then Evangeline appeared with a corn-popper and a sack of corn, and the half-hour before bedtime pa.s.sed quickly and merrily away.

When Aunt Clara had tucked her guests into the big four-poster, they cuddled close to each other, forgetting the friction of the last few days in present comfort, sleepily grateful for the glimpse they had had that day of difficulties and griefs much greater than any of their own, and each resolving to be happy in her lot.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ARRIVAL AT WINSTED

Mr. and Mrs. Eldred turned away from the station, from which the through Chicago train had just pulled out, carrying with it two pa.s.sengers for Winsted, Wisconsin.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," said Mrs. Eldred aloud. "I always feel sorry for Hannah when she has to say good-by. She does suffer so over it, but she recovers quickly."

"She seems to be acquiring a comfortable philosophy," remarked Mr.

Eldred, as he looked at his watch and then up the street where his car was not in sight. "She told me that the world was fixed wrong, because it ought to be possible to be with all of one's beloveds at the same time. 'But,' she added sagely, 'that's probably Heaven.'"

"'Earth being so good, would Heaven seem best?'" quoted Hannah's mother, smiling. "We have all had to stay our hearts with that thought, I suppose. I am much more content about both girls, since Karl and Miss Lyndesay took them in hand. For a few days I really feared that the adjustment might be too much for them. But Karl worked some magic spell over Frieda, and Miss Lyndesay charmed Hannah. I must go over to Brookmeadow this very week, and pay my respects to that remarkable woman."

"Some mothers would be jealous of such an outside influence," suggested Mr. Eldred, glancing fondly at his pretty little wife.

"Then they are very unwise," declared that lady decisively. "I remember my own girlhood well enough to know that there were certain crises through which my mother could not help me as well as an outsider, simply because she was my mother. I'm not in the least afraid that any one could be dearer to Hannah than I am, and she is such a bundle of contradictions, of sweet impulses and rebelliousness, that I'm heartily glad of all the help I can get in bringing her up. There's my car. Do try to come home to luncheon. I'll be missing my lively children and their German-English patois!"

The two girls on the train had settled themselves cosily with the aid of a porter rendered over-zealous by Mr. Eldred's generosity, and were watching the flying scenery and the other pa.s.sengers with interest.

Frieda was not eager to arrive at her journey's end. She already missed Karl and the friendly Eldreds, who had seemed nearer her own parents than any one else in this strange country could. The prospect before her was not wholly pleasant. Hannah had spent so much energy in singing the praises of Dexter College, Alice Prescott and Catherine Smith, that Frieda's desire to see them was distinctly modified by a jealous feeling that such perfections must be somewhat tiresome. She was much more interested in watching a bride and groom across the aisle, and in making comments on American trains, some of which, according to her compact with Karl, she kept to herself, meaning to unburden her mind in the first letter she should write him. Others of a favorable sort she made aloud to Hannah, who received them graciously, on behalf of the nation.

The day wore away not unpleasantly, but when the gas was lighted and the bride frankly rested her head upon the bridegroom's shoulder, a mighty homesickness swept over Frieda. She could barely choke down her food in the dining-car, and hated a waiter for watching her with a white-toothed smile. The porter was making up berths when they returned and the proceeding scandalized her, accustomed as she was to the decency of compartment trains.

Forgetting her promise, she spoke her disgust:

"Ladies and gentlemen like pots of marmalade on shelves in a cupboard!"

Hannah only laughed and scrambled up to the top shelf with the agility of a squirrel, leaving Frieda to solitude and unsuspected misery.

The porter and the grinning waiter would not be forgotten. Their blackness combined with the close warm atmosphere to alarm her. She dared not undress, and when she tried to lie down, she felt as though she should choke. The darkness seemed to her sleepy but resisting mind to be taking on human shape. With her eyes closed she saw it develop pink fingernails and gleaming teeth and eyeb.a.l.l.s. Her real distrust of anything foreign was made keener by her homesickness. At last she fell into an uneasy sleep, clutching her purse and her gold beads tightly. At each station she woke with a jerk and a horrible conviction that the train had been wrecked and she was the sole survivor. Sometimes she put her hand up and felt of the wooden wall over her head for a.s.surance that the upper berth to which Hannah had blithely committed herself had not treacherously closed. There were subdued rustlings in the aisle now and then, and quick brushings past her curtains which made her sit up, gasping, her eyes staring into the dark and her heart thumping. Frieda Lange crawled out of her tumbled berth next morning, certain that life could have in store for her nothing more hideous than her first night in an American sleeping-car.