Witch Winnie Part 12

Jim had pa.s.sed the crisis of the fever, and recovered rapidly. Neither of the other Hettermans was taken ill. The house was thoroughly cleansed and disinfected, and after a few weeks we took up our interrupted botany lessons. But Jim's illness had made more than a transient impression, and Adelaide's suggestion that we should broaden and deepen our work was talked over amongst us.

"There is a society," said Emma Jane, "which I have heard of somewhere, which is called 'The King's Daughters.' I think they have much the same idea that Miss Prillwitz has expressed. It is formed of separate links of ten members, bound together by the common purpose of doing good. Now, I think, we might form such a link, with Miss Prillwitz for our president. There are five of us, but we need five more. Whom shall we ask?"

"Girls," said Winnie, "I'm afraid you won't agree, but there is real good stuff in those Hornets."

"The Hornets! Oh, never!"

"What an idea!"

"Why, they hate us!"

"No, they simply think that we despise them."

"Well, so we do. I am sure, the way that Cynthia Vaughn behaves is simply despicable."

"Perhaps so," Winnie admitted, "but the other three girls are not so bad. Little Breeze"--that was our nickname for Tina Gale--"is a real good-natured girl, and a perfect genius for getting up things. When I roomed in the Nest she was devoted to me; so they all were, for that matter. I could make them do whatever I pleased, and Rosaria Ricos, the Cuban heiress, is just as generous as she can be. 'Trude Middleton is a great Sunday-school worker when she is at home, and Puss Seligman's mother has a longer calling-list than Milly's, I do believe. Don't you remember what a lot of tickets she sold for the theatricals? If we are going to get up a charitable society we must use some brains to make it succeed, and those girls are a power. You know very well that it is the Hornets' Nest and the Amen Corner which support the literary society, and when we unite on any ticket-selling or other enterprise it is sure to succeed."

"Yes," replied Emma Jane Anton, "that is because we appeal to entirely different sets of girls--between us we carry the entire school."

"I will take all in," said Adelaide, "except Cynthia. She has been too hateful to Tib and Milly for anything!"

"Oh, don't mind me," murmured Milly; "I dare say she could not help laughing when I made that mistake about Paul and Virginia."

"I don't believe she will join us," I said, doubtfully; "but I am sure I would a great deal rather have her for a friend than an enemy."

"She will be so surprised and flattered that she will be as sweet as jam," said Winnie, confidently. "You have no idea what a lofty reputation you girls have. I used to reverence and envy you until it amounted to positive hatred. That is what made me behave so badly. I knew we couldn't approach you in good behavior, and I determined to take the lead in something. That's just the way with Cynthia. She imagines that you would not touch her with a ten-foot pole, and she wants you to think that she doesn't care, but she does."

Milly promptly furnished the wherewithal for a spread, and the Hornets were invited. Adelaide said that they acted as if a sense of gratification were struggling with a sneaking consciousness of unworthiness, and it was all that she could do not to display the scorn which she was afraid she felt. But Milly was as sweetly gracious as only Milly knew how to be, and Winnie put them all at their ease with her rollicking good-fellowship. I was sure that Cynthia at first suspected some trick, but even she succ.u.mbed at last to our praise of her banjo-playing, which was really admirable. They melted completely with the ice-cream--little ducks with strawberry heads and pistache wings; and when Winnie told them the entire story of the little prince they were greatly interested.

"Now," said Winnie, "I have been talking with Jim, and he says that the tenement house in which he lived swarms with children who ought not to pa.s.s the summer there, who will die if they do; and what I want to propose is, that we club together and have some sort of entertainment, to send them to the country, or do something else for them."

The proposition met with favor, as did the plan for the King's Daughters society, which was organized at once, and officered as follows, the "spoils" being divided equally between the Amen Corner and the Hornets:

President--Miss Prillwitz.

Vice-Presidents--Adelaide Armstrong and Gertrude Middleton.

Secretary--Cynthia Vaughn.

Treasurer--Emma Jane Anton.

Executive Committee--The foregoing officers and the rest of the society.

"Little Breeze" then made a practical suggestion: "You know," said she, "that the literary society is always allowed to give an entertainment the week before the graduating exercises, to put the treasury in funds, or, rather, to pay old debts. We have no debts this year, and I am sure that the society will let us have the occasion. Whatever we ten favor is sure to be carried in the literary society."

"That is what I said," remarked Winnie.

"So if Miss Anton will get Madame's permission for the change, I have no doubt we can make at least three hundred dollars."

"Nonsense! we will make twice that," said Puss Hastings.

"But what shall we have?"

"I know the sweetest thing," said Little Breeze. "A Venetian Fete! It is really a fair, but the booths are all made to represent gondolas. They are painted black, and have their prows turned toward the centre of the room. We can have it in the gymnasium. The gondolas are canopied in different colors and hung with bright lanterns. We must all be dressed in Venetian costume, and have music and some pretty dances. It will be lovely!"

The fair was planned out: each girl had a gondola a.s.signed her, with permission to work other girls in, and enthusiasm had reached a high pitch, when the retiring-bell clanged and the Hornets took their departure, the utmost good feeling prevailing between what had been until this evening rival factions of the school.

After our next botany lesson we lingered to inform Miss Prillwitz of what we had done, and to ask her to accept the Presidency of our ten.

She listened with much interest.

"My tears," she said, "I sink perhaps you s'all do much good. I have justly been sinking, sinking; but ze need is great. I know not how we s'all come at ze money which we do need."

Then Miss Prillwitz explained that she had visited Rickett's Court, and had found so many little children in those vile surroundings; some of them, whose mothers were servants in families, and received good wages, were "boarding" with Mrs. Grogan, the baby-farmer. She had met one such mother in the court--a waitress on Fifth Avenue, who had three children with Mrs. Grogan.

"I pay her fifteen dollars a month," she said; "it is cheaper than I can board them elsewhere, and all that I can pay; but it makes my heart sick to see them sleeping and playing beside sewers and sinks, and to have them exposed to language of infinitely worse foulness. I know that if they do not die in childhood, of which there is every likelihood, they will grow up bad; and I don't know which I would choose for them. I wouldn't mind slaving for them, if there was any hope, if I could see them in decent surroundings, with some prospect of their turning out well in the end; but now, when I ask myself what all my toil amounts to, it seems to me that the best thing which could happen to us all would be to die."

The waitress knew of other servants who could have no home of their own for their children, but who could pay something for their support, and whose maternal love and feeling of independence kept them from giving their children up to inst.i.tutions; who had entrusted their little ones to bad people, who hired them to beggars, beat and half starved them.

And now the summer was approaching, and it was dreadful to think of those closely packed tenement houses under the stifling heat.

Miss Prillwitz said that it had seemed to her positively wrong for her to go away to the seash.o.r.e for the summer while so many must remain and suffer.

"I don't see that," said Adelaide, "unless by staying you can make their condition better."

"Perhaps I can so," replied Miss Prillwitz, "if ze King's Daughters will help me." And then she developed a plan of Jim's. He had noticed the vacant floors in her house, which had remained unlet all the winter. "If you could rent them for the summer, Miss Prillwitz," he had suggested, "we wouldn't need much furniture, but could just invite a lot of the children in and let them camp down. The rooms are so clean, and there is such lovely fresh air and no smells, and such beautiful bath-tubs, and the park for the little ones to play in, and Mary Hetterman could watch them."

"You forget," Miss Prillwitz had replied, "zat zose children are use probably to eat somet'ings."

No, Jim had not forgotten that, but Mrs. Hetterman would be out of a place for the summer vacation, and would cook for them, and the children's mothers would pay something, and he would do the marketing.

After the public school closed the older children could earn something, he thought. He was all on fire with the idea, and his enthusiasm had communicated itself to our princess. "I haf even vent to see my landlord," she confessed; "he is von very rich man. I sought maybe he let me use ze rooms for ze summer, since he cannot else rent them. But no, he did not so make his wealths. We can have them von hundred dollar ze months; six months, five hundred. We cannot else. Now do you sink you make five hundred dollar from your fair?"

"Oh, I think so; indeed, I am sure of it!" Adelaide exclaimed; "dear little Jim, what an angel he is! We will go right to work and see what we can do."

Of course the fair was a success, as fairs go. I have since thought that a fair is a poor way for Christian people to give money to any charitable purpose. So much goes astray from the goal, so much is swallowed up in the expenses, that if people would only put their hands in their pockets and give at the outset what they do give in the aggregate, more would be realized, and much time, vexation, and labor saved. But people do not yet recognize this, and we knew no better than to follow in the old way. I had charge of the Art gondola, with Miss Sartoris and all the Studio girls to help me. We decided that, as it was a Venetian fete, we would make a specialty of Italian art. Miss Sartoris suggested etchings, and one of the leading art dealers allowed us to make our choice from his entire collection, giving them to us at wholesale, as he would to any other retail dealer, we to sell them at the regular retail price, thereby taking no unfair advantage over our purchasers, and yet making a handsome profit on each etching sold, while we ran no risk, as all unsold stock was to be returned.

We were surprised to find how many Venetian subjects had been etched. There were half a dozen different views of St. Mark's Cathedral--exteriors and interiors; San Giorgios and La Salutes; there were Rainy Nights in Venice, and Sunny Days in Venice, ca.n.a.ls and bridges, shipping and palaces, piazzas and archways and cloisters.

Then we obtained a quant.i.ty of photographs of the Italian master-pieces, chiefly from the works of t.i.tian and the Venetian school, though we included also the Madonnas of Raphael. Miss Sartoris found an Italian curiosity-shop, which was a perfect treasure-trove, for here we secured, on commission, a quant.i.ty of Venetian gla.s.s beads, the beautiful blossomed variety, with tiny smelling-bottles of the same material, together with sleeve-b.u.t.tons of Florentine mosaic, ornaments of pink Neapolitan coral, and broken pieces of antique Roman marbles, all of which we sold at immense profit. We had not thought of having any statuary, until Jim came to us, one afternoon, saying that Miss Prillwitz had told him that we intended to have an Italian fete, and as several of the families whom he wished benefited were Italians, who lived in Rickett's Court, he thought they might help us.

"What do they do?" I asked.

"The older Stavini boys peddle plaster-of-paris images, and some of them are very pretty. Pietro will bring you a basket of them, I am sure, and take back all you don't sell."

The plaster casts proved to be artistic and new. There was a set of five singing cherubs which we had seen on sale in the stores at twenty-five dollars a set, which Pietro offered us at fifty cents each, and others in like proportion. We sold his entire basketful at advanced prices, and received several orders for duplicates.

Winnie had charge of the refreshment department, and had a troop of the "preparatories" dressed as contadinas, who were to serve Neapolitan ices in colored gla.s.ses. Jim enabled her to introduce a very taking novelty by telling her of Vincenzo Amati, a cook in an Italian restaurant, who had three motherless little girls who were candidates for the summer home. Vincenzo agreed to come and cook for us while the fair lasted, Mrs. Hetterman kindly giving him place in the kitchen, so that we were able to add to our other attractions that of a real Italian supper, served on little tables in an adjoining recitation-room. Vincenzo brought us several dozen Chianti wine flasks, the empty bottles at the restaurant having been one of his perquisites. They were of graceful shapes, with slender necks, and wound in wicker, which Miss Sartoris gilded and further ornamented with a bow of bright satin ribbon. These flasks, empty, decorated each of the little tables, and one was given to each guest as a souvenir.

The menu consisted of--

Riso con piselli, } (Soup).