ermelinda entered high school in september. then, too, she contributed to the high school magazine. going to and from school she hunted for themes to use in school compositions. she meant to write a story some day! that was ermelinda’s ambition.
as she looked over magazines at home, she imagined how her name would look printed. once when she was looking over a big fashion paper, she turned to a department page and found that there was a chance to correspond with an editor lady. so she at once wrote and between the two there grew up a friendly intercourse upon paper. ermelinda confided her desire to write stories, and though none were awarded prizes in the department, yet ermelinda regarded the editor lady as a friend. and once she told her how the school had solicited liberty bond subscriptions.
[pg 174]the boys and girls had volunteered for the work, going together from house to house. ermelinda enjoyed the luck of selling nine bonds on subscription and one fifty dollar one outright. it was all very interesting indeed. ermelinda grew more and more enthusiastic and her patriotism flamed hot. she went over the territory assigned and then, on her own hook, took up new territory. it was in rather a shabby quarter of the town but one of the girls was with her. so they entered a doorway and went into a tenement. she was surprised to see it so gray and destitute.
they knocked at the first landing, but though they met with a fair reception, they sold nothing. at the second landing it was the same. ermelinda caught glimpses of bare poverty in the rooms as the door opened at her knock. she had always known that such things were, but the vivid picture of them had never been presented. so she mounted to the top floor and knocked. the door opened. it was a thin little ragged boy who opened the door and there were more thin little ragged boys inside—yes, and little girls and a baby and a mother and a father. all of them were[pg 175] so poor and so unhappy! ermelinda explained her errand but, of course, it was hardly any use! ermelinda wrote to her editor about it that evening. the editor answered, “well, wouldn’t it be rather jolly to surprise that family with a basket of good things for thanksgiving day?”
oh, indeed it would! she could get the girls at high school to help! she began to plan what to put into the basket. on the way to school the next day she told everybody she met. ermelinda had a most engaging way of putting facts in story form. but though some contributed five or ten or twenty-five cents, there were others who drifted off as soon as money was mentioned. then stella wilkins came by and ermelinda grabbed her.
“say, stella,” she began, “don’t you want to help, too? i’m getting up a basket for thanksgiving for a poor family i found in a tenement, they are—” but right here she stopped short. stella’s expression was almost frightened. for the first time, ermelinda noticed that stella might be classed as “poor.” ermelinda had never thought much about poverty before or noticed whether the boys[pg 176] and girls who came to classes showed signs of need. she had always liked stella. “there are some children,” went on ermelinda. “the little things look sick and hungry. we’re planning to give them a perfectly splendid thanksgiving—i haven’t a cent to my name but i’m nabbing everybody i see—”
stella smiled. “guess you know, erm, i really can’t, though i’d like to,” she said. “but father lost his work this fall and we’ve all had to do without things. i’m trying ever so hard to get my little sister a winter coat. she hasn’t any and she can’t go to school till she has one—it’s awfully hard, erm. i’m glad you’re helping them!”
ermelinda put an arm around stella. “i’d like to work, too, to get that coat,” she said. “i’ve been lucky all my life and had things done for me but i’d be mighty proud if i could buy my little sister a coat if she needed one!”
they walked toward the class together. somehow, they had become real friends.
she rushed home the next afternoon early in order to go buy the basket with one of the girls. oh, ermelinda’s family was to have[pg 177] the dandiest thanksgiving that there ever had been!
she put a gay crêpe tissue paper table-set into the basket. it had a tablecloth and napkins with bright colored fruits upon it. then all the other things were packed tight and the basket was very heavy and very tempting when ermelinda’s busy fingers had finished. it was put away in the pantry closet to stand there safely till the time should come.
next day ermelinda found kitty fowler, who volunteered to help. “you see, kitty, i can’t carry that big basket all alone myself,” she explained. “i do need somebody ever so much.”
“then i’ll help and i’ll be at the corner waiting for you at four o’clock.”
when she reached the corner with tired arms, kitty was not there. ermelinda waited. it was frightfully windy and cold. it seemed as if it might snow for there was penetrating dampness and chill in the air. she thought of stella trying to buy the coat for a little sister—she wondered if, by now, the little sister had it. she hoped so. she wondered how stella[pg 178] had earned the money—still kitty did not come. it was growing dusk.
ermelinda decided that kitty must have forgotten. she was that kind—always ready to help but not responsible. it was too late to go home and get mother—beside that, mother was tired. the boys were out skating. there was no reason why she, ermelinda, should not go alone. so she tugged the big basket and the bundle onward. her arms ached and she had to stop more than once to turn ’round about, taking the basket in the other hand and changing the bundle. somehow she reached the right street and the door that led to her family up there on the top floor. somehow she reached the landing. she put the basket down and knocked. she had planned how nice it would be just to hand the basket in and say, “santa claus came for thanksgiving and brought you this.” then she would run away and they would call, “thank you! thank you!”
maybe they had not heard; ermelinda knocked loudly again. no answer! she knocked again. all was silent! then a woman in a blue apron came out upon the[pg 179] second floor landing and screamed up at her, “they’ve moved away. what d’you want anyhow? that family went off last week—nobody’s there!”
at last, ermelinda understood! but the woman did not know where they had gone. she suggested that ermelinda ask the janitor on the first floor.
it crossed ermelinda’s mind that she might give the basket to the woman on the second landing, but as she came down the wide-open door showed a table with food upon it. the janitor didn’t know where that family had gone—he said the man had work and they had gone away. yes, they had been in hard straits for a while—didn’t pay rent at all, he said. but now there was nothing for ermelinda to do about it. the bitter disappointment of the expedition made a lump in ermelinda’s throat—why, if the fairy godmother had come to help cinderella and had not found her, that is about how the fairy godmother would have felt!
little lady bountiful almost cried but she took up the packages and walked home. she told mother all the story and then she wept.[pg 180] there were all those good things for somebody’s happy thanksgiving and where should they go?
at last, mother suggested that she herself would buy the things in the basket and that ermelinda might give the money to some public charity. she wrote her editor and asked what to do. the editor wrote back and said she thought ermelinda was right: that the boys and girls might be told, perhaps, but that since they had given the money without sacrifice, it ought to be used to help some need. ermelinda received the letter from the postman just as she started for school. she opened it in the cloak-room and there she met stella, who was just hanging her tam upon a neighboring hook.
they went into class. suddenly in the midst of her conjugating of a latin verb, a thought came to ermelinda—oh, how about the coat for stella’s little sister? she would find out! at noon, she found stella, eating lunch upon a bench. “say, stella,” she began, “we’re friends. tell me, did you get it—that coat for your little sister?”
then stella told her. no! there was no[pg 181] coat. she couldn’t get that work. the little sister had colds and stella was worried. as they talked, stella told ermelinda just how bitterly blue everything was. they parted as the bell rang for classes.
after school, ermelinda labored over a letter that it was rather fun to write. she worked hard because of the fact that she was trying to disguise her handwriting. the letter was from cinderella’s fairy godmother to stella and inside the envelope, sealed with a blue bird seal, ermelinda put the money! then she sent the letter inside another to her editor in the city and asked her to mail it there. she told her cinderella’s fairy had asked her to send this letter to somebody who mustn’t know where the fairy godmother lived. and the editor mailed the letter in the city. so the deed was done.
it was about three or four days afterwards that stella came upon ermelinda studying hard, her head in a book. “i want to tell you, you were so interested,” she beamed. “my little sister’s got the coat, only i didn’t really give it to her myself. the money came in a letter that was mailed in the city. it was ever[pg 182] such a dear letter and signed by cinderella’s fairy godmother. i think it must have been from a real fairy, somehow, but i don’t know who could have known about the coat—i don’t know anybody else who might have sent it, unless it was a real fairy!”
“i’m glad your little sister has the coat,” ermelinda chuckled.
the directory santa claus
the first december surprise
when dotty had made the surprise book upon that memorable day when she had not been able to go to school, she had calculated wrongly, so marjorie’s surprise book had more than the usual number of leaves and it lasted till the following christmas. the first surprise of that december which closed marjorie’s surprise book seemed very thick and fat indeed. it proved to be two stories in place of one and with them was a christmas card. “i’m sorry that the surprise book must end,” sighed marjorie. “aren’t you, dot?” and of course, dotty held out hopes that santa claus might bring another! i shouldn’t wonder if he did, for santa claus likes to make surprises. maybe it was he, himself, who had told mother how to make the first surprise book, long ago. they each chose one of the surprise book’s christmas surprise stories for mother to read aloud on christmas afternoon when the stories were opened. dotty’s came first. it was “the directory santa claus.”
