"everything looks like gray wadding, margery, but i believe we've over-slept," remarked happie on sunday morning to her bedfellow, whose reply was a moan of sleepy protest. but happie, who when she did wake up woke thoroughly and at once, tumbled out of bed and taking her small clock to the spot where the universal grayness was lightest, fell to shaking it energetically.
"it's stopped!" she announced. "it's wearing out. the only way it will go now is to lay it over on its face or tip it up on one side, somewhat upsidedownish. i set it up straight last night, and it has stopped. there's hardly any light in the airshaft here, but i think we've slept until near the day after to-morrow."
"but it still feels just like to-day," protested margery. "i can't wake up, hapsie, and we're not the only ones—the whole flat is still."
"i'm going to get dressed and find out what day it is. oh, margery! there's the whistle! the janitor has come for the ashes. it must be nine o'clock, at least. i'll pop on slippers and something above them, and go attend to him. i think it is storming," said happie, ready to leave the room almost as soon as she had spoken.
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it was not storming in the sense most people use the word, that is, neither snow nor rain was falling, but the wind was blowing a gale, as happie discovered when she got out into the kitchen where she could see the leaden sky which looked as though the whole world were under a great tank.
the rattling of the dumb waiter, happie calling to gretta in her tiny rear room and margery conscientiously bestirring herself after her sister had arisen, woke the rest of the family and it was not long before the entire eight scollards—counting gretta a scollard for the convenience of the census—were up and out of the various little patty-pan chambers tardily to begin the dark day.
it was a formidable day to begin. blinding dust clouds gathered and eddied down the wide avenue of this newer part of new york. people fought for foothold around corners, shrinking from the penetrating cold of a wind sharper in its chilling powers than any recording instrument could register.
"i'm glad that we are on the fourth floor to-day," remarked margery after breakfast, as she alternated face and back to the steam radiator. "heat ascends, and this is the sort of day when one wants all the heat there is."
"unless it comes in the shape of a conflagration," suggested bob, smoothing the ear and the ruffled feelings of jeunesse dorée tickled by the morning paper as he sat on the boy's lap. "wouldn't this be a great old day [163]for a fire, though?"
"oh, bob, don't suggest it!" begged his mother. "it's my abiding horror. i think the new janitor is careful."
"the newest janitor, mother," amended happie. "he's only this january's janitor. that was the new one who departed after the christmas harvest. don't you remember?"
bob groaned. "are we likely to forget it, happie?" he demanded. "when i denied myself ties and books i wanted in order to pay him tribute in a good-sized christmas gift? and i'm sure he scorned it, because he told me what fine, rich, generous people all the other tenants were. and then he went off, and as an investment to secure us comfort my rare five dollar bill yielded nothing."
mrs. scollard laughed. "janitors are sadly demoralizing to the spirit of generosity," she said. "margery and happie, you are letting gretta wash the breakfast dishes with only polly to help. laura, you agreed to make beds if you might be excused from dishwashing."
the girls scattered at this hint. even laura, the reluctant, never needed a second bidding from her mother.
after a little while the bell rang, somewhat to the consternation of the belated scollard family. but when penny opened the door her gurgle of laughter brought her seniors,[164] confident that no very formidable visitors had arrived. bob took by the coat collar one of the two who had come, crying, "come in here, you peary, you! what do you mean by ringing the bell and giving me nervous prostration?"
the callers were ralph and snigs, each in a heavy overcoat with the collar turned up, a hat pulled far over his face, a scarf wound time and again around his head, gloves on, boots with trousers tucked into them, and a thick veil protecting his complexion from the winds roaring outside of the narrow hall which the boys had to cross to reach the opposite flat. snigs bore whoop-la, their tiger cat, and ralph was the spokesman for this arctic-looking trio.
"please, kind ladies, our mother is gone to see a sick friend—we think she may come home sicker than the friend was, owing to the weather! we thought we would blow in on you for shelter—the wind's on our side, and we feel tremulous-spined. will you please let us sit by your gilt radiator, if you haven't a hearthstone?" he pleaded.
"you shall share the warmth of our gilt radiators and have a gilt-edged welcome, you raving lunatics!" bob replied for his family. "get out of these trappings of woe, and tell us if you ever saw a windier, grayer, meaner day in all your lives."
"i had thought so," returned ralph, letting bob hold his great-coat while he dropped out of it, "but now i am not sure." he bowed low to happie, just coming in, the dept[165]h of the bow increased by the sudden removal of the weighty coat. "across the hall we are not happie—we have not—we need to be happie—— say, what do you mean by having a name that leads a fellow into the dandiest kind of a compliment, and then goes back on him?" he demanded. "i thought that was coming out a regular top-notcher of a poetical speech, and look at it!"
happie laughed. "i didn't choose my name, ralph, and you can't blame me for its failing you. it was bright of you to come over here on this dreary day, even if you can't make bright and flattering speeches. when the wind blows like this i'm always frightened and lonesome feeling. look at dorée and whoop-la! for the first time they touched noses," cried happie.
"dorée always wanted to touch one nose—whoop-la's nose, but with his claw," observed snigs. "polly, please take out my veil pin; it's caught in my curls."
as snigs stooped, polly loosened his veil, quite convulsed over this remark, for snigs' hair was as short and straight as hair well could be. polly considered ralph and snigs the funniest boys in the world, and approaching to bob as the best boy.
"your mother has gone away, you said? for the day?" asked mrs. scollard. and as the gordon boys assented, she cried: "then we will have a long, cozy shut-in day! you are both to dine with us—roast beef, gretta's prize mashed potatoes, and any other vegetables you choose from our fertile garden of tins in the pantr[166]y. and salad—that is happie's specialty! i will make tomato soup since it is so cold and blustering, and perhaps, if you are all very, very good, a spicy, plummy steamed pudding, if we can coax margery to give us one of her foamy sauces! i think we can defy the weather, even the wind and the weather. i have a volume of stories that no one can resist for the afternoon. why, we shall have the best kind of a cozy, uneventful home day!"
"we always have the best kind of home days with you, dear mrs. scollard," said ralph, dropping his nonsense to beam gratefully at this dear woman.
"it's nice sometimes to know no one can come," remarked laura with her back to the others as she looked out of the window at the dreary street. and as she spoke the bell rang.
"who can it be! it's the lower bell. polly, go touch the button, like the duck you are!" cried happie. "i don't see how it can be company, on such a morning and sunday besides." she went towards the door to be ready to open it when the bold adventurer should have come up the three flights of stairs which intervened between the street and the patty-pans.
it was so long before the person appeared that the scollards began to think their bell had been rung by mistake, and happie went out to see if there were any one on the way up. she put her head in at the door again.
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"yes, some one is coming," she said. "a woman all wrapped up so that i can't tell whether or not it is some one we know. and she comes as slow as she can move."
it sounded mysterious, and the scollards within the flat listened eagerly for the first word from their representative at the door which should give them a clue to this arrival.
"why, auntie keren! it isn't you! i didn't know you the least bit in the world!" they heard happie cry at last.
happie came back with her hand slipped through miss bradbury's arm. mrs. scollard came swiftly forward to greet her guest, whose advent from the lower dwelling-part of the city in such severe weather was at least unexpected.
miss bradbury, always eccentric or indifferent in matters of dress, looked remarkable, even for her. a heavy coat, an automobiling coat as the scollards saw on a second glance, very much too large for her, enveloped her shapelessly. a small black hat—miss bradbury always wore a bonnet of obsolete elderly style—did not reveal its inappropriateness until the long veil enshrouding it was removed. beneath these miss bradbury presented the sober propriety of the plain black silk gown in which, in fair or foul weather, she invariably went to church.
she could not have been to church, for not only was it too early and she was enveloped in the automobiling coat, but she carried in her arms leather boxes which looked like [168]silver cases and seemed heavy, and in one hand was an open basket containing photographs, old fashioned daguerreotypes, and a small black book.
miss bradbury's face was very pale, she looked exhausted, and yielded up her burdens to the boys as though they had been burdens indeed.
"dear miss keren, it did not need proof that you were not a fair weather friend, but it is very good of you to brave the exposure of coming up town in such a wind as this," said mrs. scollard, gently divesting miss keren of her extraordinary garments. she felt instantly sure that something was seriously wrong with her.
"you don't look well, dear auntie keren," said margery. "have you been ill? happie and i thought you looked less strong than usual when you were here a week ago."
"i have had a cold. it had grippish characteristics, among others that of being uncommonly weakening," said miss keren. "charlotte, i shall have to ask you for a cup of hot tea at once."
"coffee would be better, and just as easily made," said mrs. scollard. "that's right, polly, you are going to ask gretta to attend to it." for polly had started towards the kitchen at the first hint of her aunt keren's desire, ready as usual to be helpful.
miss keren sank into the chair which happie pulled up to the radiator. she put her feet on the hot pipes with a grateful [169]sigh. happie stooped to them.
"let me take off your rubbers, auntie keren," she said.
"i haven't any," said miss keren briefly.
"oh, auntie keren! on such a day as this, and after being ill with a cold!" said happie reproachfully.
"i never thought to ask for them, child, and they forgot to lend me any," said miss keren.
margery, happie and their mother involuntarily glanced at one another. all three had the same thought: that miss keren was still ill and feverish, and that her mind was affected.
"i can go to a hotel," said miss keren, so irrelevantly that there seemed to be no doubt of the correctness of this surmise.
"a hotel, dear miss keren?" echoed mrs. scollard. bob and the gordon boys looked at her with an expression that plainly told her all three were ready to go for a doctor on the spot.
"to tell the truth i don't feel equal to it, neither in mind nor in body," said miss keren. "but i don't want to impose upon you. i know this tiny nest of patty-pans is hardly big enough for your large family, charlotte. i am sorry to say—sorry for your sake, because i know you will not have the heart to refuse me—that there isn't another place on the face of the earth where i feel that i could bear to be to-day, and i want you all. will you take me in, until i have time and strength to[170] face the situation?"
again the scollards exchanged glances, but this time with a different meaning. this did not sound like delirium. miss keren was not usually incoherent, but there was something other than mental derangement behind these remarks.
"miss keren, i don't quite understand," began mrs. scollard. "i think you mean that you want to stay here with us to-night? you know that we are always delighted to have you with us, at any time, anywhere, and the elastic patty-pans can always take in another. don't you remember how long you stayed here—so blessedly good to us when i was ill, not a year ago? and now there is only gretta added to our family. she uses that little room at the end of the flat which we used to keep for a storeroom—she preferred it to crowding margery and happie. bob can take that, gretta can come into the older girls' room, and you can take bob's room. you did mean that you didn't want to go home to-night, didn't you?"
"no, i meant nothing of the kind," said miss keren in her old manner. "i should be particularly glad to go home to-night. what i meant is that i have no home to go to. i was burned out early this morning."
the scollards drew a gasping breath and exclaimed, "oh!" in concert. gretta, coming in with miss keren's coffee just in time to hear her announcement, nearly dropped the tray, and polly, following behind her with the sugar-bowl, did drop that, and squares of cut sugar scatt[171]ered in all directions.
"aunt keren, how dreadful!" cried margery. "have you saved anything?"
"don't tell us about it yet. drink your coffee," said mrs. scollard.
"i saved what i have on, and what i brought with me in my arms," said miss keren. "the outer garments that i wore were loaned me by people i do not know. i have their address to return the clothing," she added with her whimsical twist of the lips. "ah! that is good coffee, gretta child. will you take me into the ark again? my furniture is there still. you and i might 'go back to our mountains,' as the gypsy azucena begs to do in trovatore, and spend the winter in that refuge."
"i will go with you, miss bradbury, certainly," said gretta gravely.
"oh, well, perhaps it won't be necessary. we shall all go there in the spring," said miss keren. "that hot coffee will enable me to face the calamity, charlotte. thank you, and gretta. now, dear annexed family, listen to my tale of woe! this morning, just after breakfast, i made myself ready for church as i always do, and then sat down to my paper for the interval between my preparations and time to start. i don't think i can tell you precisely what happened, but there arose a great hue and cry throughout the house that it was on fire. my children, it is incredible how rapidly the fire spread and burned! i could save nothing, except t[172]he smaller pieces of silver that had been in the family for several generations, a few likenesses, and my mother's little worn bible. i helped my maids get out their belongings first, of course, and then there was no time left. i came out into the street precisely as you see me now, with the boxes and the basket i carried when i came—and how i carried them i do not see, for they are heavy and what with the grippe and the shock my strength seemed melted away. people in the neighborhood were kind and muffled me in the extraordinary garment you saw—an automobile coat! i am sure the people in the subway thought me an uncertain number in the rogues' gallery, for they stared all the way up town at this singular old person in a sporting coat that did not fit her, burdened with unmistakable cases of silver. however, i was allowed to go unmolested! that is all my story, my dears. i am burned out. the dignified apartment house to which i clung, is a skeleton only—needless to say it was supposed to be fireproof!—and here am i, begging your hospitality."
happie flew at her with streaming eyes. "dearest auntie keren, it is perfectly, horribly awful!" she cried. "but nothing matters as long as you are safe."
"were you well insured, aunt keren?" inquired bob, just as his mother asked, "how did the fire originate?"
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"do hear the man of business!" cried miss keren. "i carried a good insurance, bob, but money can never compensate me for what is gone. the dear inanimate friends of my lifetime, that seemed so animated with good will to me, and with which i had been so long glad and sorry! my chairs, my couches, and above all my pictures, my books. most of my household goods were handed down to me by those who consecrated them to me—ah, no, money does not do anything for one in such a case except buy merely useful articles to replace the others; it gives one things with bodies only, where the old ones had heart and soul! i am quite ashamed to mind so much, i who am old enough to understand that transitory things cannot long affect me."
no one spoke. happie stroked miss keren's hand, bundled up at her feet, a figure of tearful and loving sympathy. bob, ralph and snigs avoided one another's eyes; each knew what he should see if he looked at the other two.
"you asked what caused the fire, charlotte," said miss keren, breaking the silence. "a tenant on a lower floor—the one below mine—was washing gloves in gasoline in her bath-room. the gas was lighted, but the door was open, so there was no danger. however, some one called her, and when she went out of the bath-room she closed the door behind her. the fumes of the gasoline ignited from the gas in the heated, close little room—and the whole house went. such a pity! i liked the house; it was more distinctive than newer ap[174]artments."
"words cannot say how sorry i am, dear miss keren," said mrs. scollard. "but i am sure you know how we all feel. it has been; there is no curing it, and we must do our best to help you in enduring it. i am so glad that you came straight here! it is a greater happiness to me than you can gauge, to know that my mother's beloved friend comes to me as if i were her daughter."
"yes, charlotte, you are my nearest of kin, although i have blood relatives," said miss keren. "happie, stop crying. tears won't put out a fire that has done its work, my dear. and i shall have to go to the hotel after all if you prove an unhappie. don't you know that after a nervous shock the patient must be cheered?"
"yes, and i think we'll have a jolly time, between the patty-pans and the next flat!" cried ralph, speaking for the first time since miss keren arrived. "now snigs and i can try to show you how gratefully we remember the good times we had, thanks to you, up in crestville last summer! we'll entertain you till you won't know there ever was a fire, and you'll lose your grippe! and, see here, mrs. scollard, please ma'am! bob is coming over to sleep in our camp. you know how much room we have, our flat being the same size as this one, and our family three, instead of eight. so let bob sleep over there, and miss bradbury can take his room and we'll all be as merry as a marriage bell[175]. i wonder why people say that? every wedding i ever saw was the dreariest thing i ever struck."
"thank you, ralph," smiled mrs. scollard. "i will accept that offer on the spot. come now, girls, let us begin to get dinner. we were going to have a particularly nice dinner, miss keren, so you came on precisely the right day. come, margery and gretta! and happie, you may attend to the dining-room."
"let laura look after the dining room, charlotte. i want happie. i am not sure that i feel quite well," said miss keren unexpectedly.
happie flushed with pleasure, and forgot her grief over auntie keren's losses in the joy of knowing that she was a comfort, knowledge that is a keen joy to almost any one, but was especially so to loving happie.
"oh, i am so glad that you like to have me by you!" she said, laying her cheek on miss keren's hand.
the fingers of the hand moved upward, trying to pat the cheek pressed too closely to allow them to do so, but miss keren did not speak.
ralph spoke for her. "queer, but happie is like some of those patent medicines—good for what ails you, and for what ails everybody, eh, bob?"
"right you are, neighbor mine!" said bob emphatically.
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