Betty's Happy Year

Betty, who was sitting on the floor, looked up to see a stalwart young man of a college type staring down at her. His costume of summer outing clothes was informal, but at once betokened he was no marauder. Also, his handsome, sunburnt face and frank blue eyes showed a kindly though surprised expression.

Betty was reassured at once, and, truly glad to see a human being of her own walk in life, her face broke into smiles and merry dimples, as she said:

“Hello, Man Friday!”

“Who are you?” was his bewildered response, and then remembering himself, he added: “I beg your pardon; may I assist you to rise?”

He took Betty’s hand, and in a moment she had jumped up from her crouching position, and stood facing him.

“I’m Betty Crusoe,” she said; “I’m stranded on a desert island, and if you’re Man Friday, I hope you’ll protect me from cannibals or bears or whatever wild beasts abound here.”

“Oh, I know you,” said the young man, smiling. “You’re Miss Betty McGuire.”

“I am. I’m a guest of the Careys – only – the Careys don’t seem to be here!”

“No, they’re not. I’m Hal Pennington, at your service. I’m called Pen or Penny for short, – sometimes Bad Penny.”

“I’m sure that’s a libel,” said Betty, smiling at his kind, honest face.

“It is, I assure you, for I’m good as gold. Well, I, too, am a guest of the Careys, and, as you so cleverly observe, they don’t seem to be here!”

“Where are they?”

“Well, you see it was this way. All the servants took it into their foolish heads to leave at once. They decamped last night. So this morning the Careys started off in the motor-car to bring home a lot of new ones.”

“But why didn’t they come to the station for me, as they arranged?”

“Oh, they telegraphed you last night not to come till next week.”

“And I didn’t get the telegram!”

“Thus that explains all! How did you get here?”

“In a rumbly old wagon of a kind farmer. The front door wasn’t locked, so I walked in and made myself at home. Are you staying here?”

“Yes, for a week. I’m sketching some bits of woodland, and I stayed at home to-day rather than go with them to stalk servants. Now, let me see, – this is rather a complicated situation. Shall I, by virtue of prior residence, be host and welcome you as my visitor, or would you rather appropriate the house as your own, and let me be your guest?”

His jolly, boyish face seemed to show that he thought the whole affair a great joke, and Betty fell into the spirit of it.

“When do the Careys return?” she asked.

“Mrs. Carey said they’d surely be home by three o’clock, and I could forage in the pantry to keep myself from starving.”

“All right,” said Betty; “I’ll be hostess, then, until she comes. You’ve heard Lena speak of me?”

“Gracious, yes! I’ve heard you so highly lauded that I doubt if you can live up to the angelic reputation she gives you!”

“Oh, yes, I can,” said Betty, laughing. “Now I’ll be Betty Crusoe, and this house is my desert island. You’re Man Friday, and you must do exactly as I say.”

“I live but to obey your decrees,” said young Pennington, with a deep bow.

“Good! Now, first of all, I’m starving. Are you?”

“I even starve at your command. I am famished.”

“I believe you are, really. Let’s see what we can find.”

Together they went to the pantry, and found cold chicken and peach-pie, a bowl of custard, and various odds and ends of tempting-looking dishes.

“Let’s set the table first,” cried Betty, gleefully. “Do you know where the dishes are?”

“I’ve never really set the table,” Pennington said, “but I’m quite sure the dishes are in the sideboard or the glass cupboard.”

“How clever you are!” said Betty, laughingly; “I do believe you’re right!”

They easily found linen, silver, and glass, and Betty set the table daintily for two.

“Now,” she said, “I’ll get the luncheon. A man’s only a bother in the kitchen. You go and do your sketching until I call you.”

But Hal Pennington was not so easily disposed of.

“No,” he said; “I’ll gather some flowers, and then I’ll arrange them as a decoration for our feast.”

“Do,” said Betty, “that will be lovely!”

Hal went out to the garden, and returned with gay blossoms, which he arranged deftly and with good taste on the table.

“What are you doing?” he said a little later, as he drifted into the kitchen, where Betty, with her sleeves rolled back, was whisking away at something in a bowl.

“Making a salad; don’t you like it?”

“Love it! Let me help.”

“You can’t help, I tell you. Go away, Man Friday, until I call you.”

“No, please let me help,” coaxed Hal. “I just love to cook. Pooh, maybe you think I don’t know how! See here, I’ll make an omelet!”

Before Betty knew what he was about he had broken several eggs into a bowl.

“Oh, don’t!” she cried, laughing at his misdirected energy. “We don’t want an omelet! We’ve bushels of things to eat already!”

“Then I’ll make coffee,” said Hal, quite unabashed. “These eggs will do for coffee just as well.”

“Not six of them, goose!” cried Betty.

“Why, yes, you always put eggs in coffee.”

“Oh, just one, or part of one, to clear it!”

“Well, if one’s good, more’s better; anyway, I’m going to make coffee.”

Taking a white apron from a nail, Hal tied it round himself, and proceeded to make what turned out to be really good coffee, though he used only a small portion of the eggs in it.

“You are a good cook,” said Betty, as she watched his experienced movements.

“Sure! I learned how in camp. All our fellows know how to cook.”

The luncheon was daintily served. Betty had garnished the salad with nasturtium leaves and red blossoms, and edged the platter of cold chicken with a wreath of parsley.

They had taken out the Careys’ best china and cut glass, and the table looked lovely indeed.

“My! What a spread!” said Hal, looking admiringly at it. “I didn’t suppose you could do things like that.”

“Why not?” said Betty, turning wondering eyes on him. “What made you think I couldn’t?”

Hal reddened a little, but said honestly:

“’Cause Lena said you’re such a fearfully rich girl, and I sort of thought you’d be – oh, you know – above fussing in the kitchen.”

Betty laughed merrily.

“I love fussing in the kitchen,” she said, “and I think every girl ought to know how to cook. At least she ought to have sense enough to get together a cold luncheon like this when everything’s provided.”

“Yes, I know; but you’ve made everything look so pretty. I want to eat dishes and all!”

Betty dimpled with pleasure at his praise, and they sat down to the pretty feast, to which they did full justice.

“I wonder when the Careys will come,” Betty remarked, as they lingered over the coffee.

“I wish they’d never come,” said Hal. “I think it would be fine if we were really castaways, and nobody ever came to rescue us. Just like Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday.”

“But we haven’t any goat,” said Betty, laughing. “The goat was one of the principal characters, you know.”

“Well, likely a goat would wander in some day. I say, can you sing?”

“Yes,” said Betty, smiling as she thought of how she had sung when she first entered the house; “I sing some songs pretty well.”

“I wager you do. Let’s go in by the piano and sing duets.”

“Didn’t you hear me singing this morning? I sat down at the piano when I first arrived.”

“No; I was out sketching. I only came in the house a few minutes before I found you.”

“Let me see your pictures, won’t you?”

“Sometime, yes. Let’s go and sing now.”

“No, we must clear the table first. It’s so untidy to leave it. But you needn’t do it; I hate to see a boy doing girl’s work.”

“Oh, pshaw, it isn’t girl’s work exactly, if you play you’re camping or picnicking or something like that. I’m going to help, and you can’t stop me!”

Hal had begun already to take out the dishes, and Betty gave him a mock sigh, as she said:

“I don’t think my Man Friday obeys me as well as he promised to.”

“’Cause I only obey when I want to,” he responded, and in a short time the table was cleared and the food put away.

“We won’t wash the dishes,” said Betty, as she piled them neatly on the kitchen table. “If Mrs. Carey’s going to bring a lot of servants at three o’clock, they’ll want something to do.”

So they went to the piano, and soon discovered that they knew a number of the same songs.

Hal had a good voice, and they sang away with all their youthful enthusiasm, making such a volume of sound that it could be heard above the chug-chugging of the approaching motor-car.

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Lena, as they whizzed up to the house. “That’s surely Betty McGuire’s voice! No one else sings like that.”

“And that’s Hal singing with her,” said Mrs. Carey, as a masculine voice blended with Betty’s soprano.

Then Lena sprang from the car, and rushed to greet Betty, and all sorts of apologies and explanations followed.

“I’m not a bit sorry!” said Hal, as Mrs. Carey reiterated her regret at the misunderstanding; “I’ve had a jolly time, and now Lena’s come I don’t suppose I’ll be able to get a word in edgewise with Betty Crusoe, all the evening!”

“You will, if I have anything to say about it,” said Betty, flashing one of her brightest smiles at her Man Friday.

XI

A LABOR DAY LUNCHEON

Labor Day was, of course, on Monday, and the Saturday before Betty received this letter:

Boston, Friday.

Dearest Betty: The loveliest thing has happened! Aunt Evelyn has asked me to make her a little visit in New York (she lives at the Waldorf, you know), and she says I may ask you to go with us on a Labor Day excursion on Monday. So don’t fail me; I’m crazy to see you! I’m so excited over it all, I can scarcely write. But this is the plan. I’m going to New York to-morrow. You’re to come on Monday morning, and we’ll meet you at the ferry – on the New York side, you know. And then, the boat – oh, I forgot to tell you, we’re going to West Point – sails from somewhere near there. But never mind that; we’ll meet you and show you the way. We’re going to carry our luncheon, for Aunt Evelyn says you can’t get anything fit to eat on an excursion-boat. So you can bring a contribution to the feast, or not, according to your convenience. But be sure to come. I’ve never been up the Hudson River, and we’ll have loads of fun. Take that early train from Greenborough, and wait for us “under the clock.”

Lovingly,Dorothy.

“Isn’t it fine, Mother?” said Betty, as she read the letter aloud. “I’ve never been up the Hudson either, and it will be such fun to go with Dorothy.”

“Yes, it will, deary. I’m sure you’ll have a lovely trip. You’ll have to scurry out early, though, if you’re to take that seven-thirty train. You’ll want to take some luncheon, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes; I think I ought to. Ellen will cook some of her lovely fried chicken for me. And I might take some stuffed eggs or some jelly tarts. I’ll talk it over with Ellen.”

Now, Ellen was by nature what is called “a good provider.” And so it happened that when Betty came down-stairs at half-past six on Monday morning Ellen was already packing into a big box the good things which she had risen before daylight to prepare.

“For mercy’s sake, Ellen!” cried Betty, “do you think I’m going to feed the whole excursion?”

“Arrah, Miss Betty,” returned Ellen, placidly, “it’s a fine appetite ye’ll get on the water, and yer city folks’ll be glad to eat yer country fixin’s.”

Ellen was wrapping delicious-looking bits of golden-brown fried chicken daintily in oiled paper, and tucking them into place in the big box.

Then in one corner she placed a smaller box of stuffed eggs, which, in their individual frills of fringed white paper, formed a pretty picture.

Another partition held jelly tarts, with flaky crusts and quivering red centers, and somehow Ellen found room for a few sandwiches, through whose thin bread showed the yellow of mayonnaise.

Everything was carefully protected with white paper napkins, and the whole box was a most appetizing display of skilled culinary art.

“But it’s so big, Ellen,” repeated Betty, laughing. “I simply can’t carry so much stuff.”

“Niver you mind, Miss Betty,” said the imperturbable cook, going on with her work of wrapping the big box in neat brown paper and tying it with stout twine. “You’ve not to walk at all, at all, and ye can get a porther to lift it off the thrain. An’ sure Pat’ll put it on safely fer ye.”

So Betty submitted to the inevitable, realizing that she wouldn’t have to carry the box at all, and proceeded to eat her breakfast.

“It is an awfully big box,” said Mrs. McGuire, as the carriage came to the door; “but if your party can’t eat all the things, you can give them to some children on the boat.”

“Oh, it’ll be all right,” said Betty, and kissing her mother good-by, she jumped into the carriage, and Pat drove her to the train.

There were few passengers at that early hour, and so there was ample room for the box on the seat beside her. Though Betty went often to New York, she rarely went alone, but as Dorothy and her aunt’s family were to meet her, she felt no responsibility as to traveling.

In Jersey City the conductor lifted the box out for her, and a convenient porter carried it to the ferry-boat.

“Hold it level,” Betty admonished him, and he touched his red cap and said “Yes’m,” and then carried the box with greatest care. Betty went by the Twenty-third Street Ferry, and in the ferry-house on the New York side she was to meet Dorothy, “under the clock.”

This tryst was a well-known one, for it made a definite place to meet in the crowded room.

Betty always enjoyed the long ferry, and she sat outside, with her precious box reposing on the seat beside her.

The morning was delightful, but it was growing warm and bade fair to be a very warm day.

Betty watched with interest the great steamer piers, and the traffic on the river, rejoicing to think that soon she would be sailing farther up the stream, where the banks were green and wooded, and the expanse of water unmarred by freight-boats and such unpicturesque craft.

The ferry-boat bumped into its dock at Twenty-third, Street, and Betty picked up her box and started off with it. A porter met her at the gangplank, and she gave it to him with an injunction to hold it quite level. For it would be a pity to tumble the neat arrangement of Ellen’s goodies into an unappetizing mass.

Down-stairs they went, and into the waiting-room, where Betty paused “under the clock.”

Dorothy hadn’t arrived, but Betty remembered, with a smile, that she was nearly always late, so, remunerating the porter, she sat down to wait, with her box beside her.

She had on a suit of embroidered blue linen, and a broad-brimmed straw hat trimmed with brown roses.

The big hat suited Betty’s round face and curly hair, and, all unconsciously, she made a pretty picture as she sat there waiting. Before she had time to feel anxious about Dorothy’s non-appearance, a messenger-boy in uniform came toward her.

“Is this Miss McGuire?” he said, touching his cap respectfully.

“Yes,” said Betty, wondering how he knew her.

“Then this is for you. The lady told me how you looked, and said I’d find you right here. No answer.”

The boy turned away, and in a moment was lost in the crowd, leaving Betty in possession of a note addressed in Dorothy’s handwriting.

She tore it open and read:

Waldorf-Astoria.

Dear Betty: What do you think! Aunt Evelyn has a fearful sick headache, and can’t raise her head from the pillow. So, of course, we can’t go up the Hudson to-day, and she says for you to come right up here, and have luncheon here, and afterward Uncle Roger will take us to a matinée. She said this was the surest way to reach you, and for you not to be afraid, but just take a taxicab and come straight here. I told her I knew you wouldn’t be afraid, but she said for you to telephone us as soon as you get this note, so she’ll know it’s all right. She’s sort of nervous about you. So call us up right away, and I’ll answer you.

In haste,

Dorothy.

P. S. I told the messenger he’d know you because you were very pretty, except for your turn-up nose.

Betty smiled at Dorothy’s postscript, and then she read the note over again. On the whole, she didn’t much care that the plans were changed, for a luncheon at a fine hotel and a matinée afterward seemed quite as attractive on a hot day as a sail on a crowded excursion-boat.

Also, she was not at all afraid! She laughed at the idea. She would telephone Dorothy, and then she would really enjoy taking a taxicab and driving up to the hotel all alone. It made her feel decidedly grown-up.

So she went to the telephone booth and called up Dorothy.

“Indeed, I don’t mind the change of plans a bit,” she said, in answer to her friend’s query. “I’m awfully sorry for your aunt, but I think we’ll have a better time on land than on the water to-day. It’s getting very warm.”

“Is it?” said Dorothy. “It seems cool here.”

“Well, it’s hot out in the sun all right. I’ll take a taxi, and I’ll be with you in less than half an hour.”

“Yes, come right here, and we’ll be waiting for you. My cousins Fred and Tom want to see you, and Aunt Evelyn says perhaps we can go for a drive in the Park before luncheon.”

“Oh, that reminds me, Dorothy. I’ve a big box of luncheon with me. What shall I do with it? I can’t walk into the Waldorf with that!”

“Gracious, Betty, I should say not! But it’s a shame to throw it away. Just give it to some poor person, can’t you?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea; I will. Well, good-by, till I see you.”

“Good-by. Hurry up here,” said Dorothy, and Betty hung up the receiver.

As she picked up her box to start toward the taxicab rank, the thought occurred to her that it might be well to dispose of the box before she took the cab. Acting on this idea, she stepped out of the ferry-house and looked about her.

It was rapidly growing much warmer, and the glare on the hot paving-stones was unpleasant, but Betty determined to bestow the wholesome food on some grateful poor person before she started up-town.

“I want to find some one really worthy,” she said to herself; “it would be too bad to waste all these good things on an ungrateful wretch.”

She looked at the newsboys who were crying their papers, but it seemed impracticable to expect them to carry a large, heavy box in addition to their burden of papers. She wandered along the street until she saw a poor-looking old woman in a news-booth.

The papers and magazines were piled up tidily and the old news-vender herself sat comfortably knitting, now and then looking out over her spectacles for a possible customer.

She was certainly thrifty, Betty thought, and would be greatly pleased with a present of good food.

“I’d like to give you this,” said Betty, resting the box on a pile of morning papers; “it’s some food – nice bits of cold chicken and eggs.”

The old woman glared at her.

“Bits of food, is it?” she exclaimed. “Broken bits ye’re offerin’ to me! Well, ye may be takin’ ’em back! Nobody need dole out food to Bridget Molloy! I takes nobody’s charity! I earns me honest livin’! More shame to them as doesn’t!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you,” cried Betty, greatly distressed at having hurt the old woman’s feelings. “It’s a very nice luncheon that I brought for myself and some friends.”

But Mrs. Molloy would not listen.

“Take it away,” she said; “take yer cold victuals to some one as is too lazy to work for a honest livin’! I asks no charity fer me or mine!”

Greatly chagrined and a little angry, Betty picked up her box and walked away.

It had been an unfortunate occurrence, but surely it would be easy enough to find some one more reasonable than the old newswoman. Before she had gone a block Betty saw a ragged urchin who was, she decided, a worthy case. He was not selling papers; indeed, he was doing nothing, but leaning against a high board fence, digging his bare toes into the dust.

“Poor little thing,” thought Betty; “I’ve no doubt he’s hungry.” Then she said:

“Good morning, little boy. Are you one of a large family?”

The boy looked suspiciously at Betty, then, in a whining voice, replied:

“Ten brudders an’ ten sisters ma’am; an’ me fadder is sick, an’ me mudder is out o’ work.”

“Oh, you poor child!” exclaimed Betty, and as he held out a grimy little paw, as if for coin, she offered him the box.

“You’re just the boy I’m looking for. Here is a quantity of nice food for you and your brothers and sisters.”

Quickly the grimy little paw was withdrawn, and with both hands behind him, the boy winked rudely at Betty and said:

“Aw, g’wan! Quit yer kiddin’.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Betty, who couldn’t help laughing at the impudent little fellow. “I’m offering you some good food.”

“Good food nothin’!” said the strange child. “Take yer box away, lady; I wouldn’t swap yer me college pin fer it!”

Betty had to laugh at this, but since the boy was so indifferent, she didn’t care to give him the lunch anyhow; so she went on to find some one else.

“It does seem queer,” she thought, “that there’s nobody about who is just the right one to give this to. There are men working at the road, but I don’t like to offer it to them, they look so – so untidy.”

But at last she spied a little girl. Though somewhat gaudily dressed, the child was evidently poor, for her frock was faded and torn. She wore a string of bright beads round her neck, and a big bow on her black hair, and she walked with a mincing step.

But she was thin and looked ill nourished, so Betty thought that at last she had found just the right beneficiary.

“Where do you live?” she said, by way of opening the conversation, as she paused in front of the little girl.

“You ain’t a settlement teacher,” said the child. “Comes a settlement teacher, and I tell my name. But you ain’t one.”

“No,” said Betty, smiling kindly, “I’m not a settlement teacher, but I want to give you something – something very nice.”

“What is it nice you wants fer to give me?”

The child did not look receptively inclined, but Betty held out the big box toward her and said:

“It’s this box of lovely luncheon, fried chicken and little pies! Take it home to your mama.”

The girl turned on Betty like a little fury. Her black eyes snapped, and her whole little body shook with indignation as she cried:

“Think shame how you says! My mama wouldn’t let me to take whole bunches of lunch from a lady! It ain’t for ladies to give lunches off on the street!” With a flirt of her shabby little skirts, the child turned her back on Betty and walked haughtily away.

It was Betty’s first experience with that peculiar type of dignity and self-respect, and she was bewildered at the sudden fury of the indignant child.

But the box was still to be disposed of, and Betty looked around for another opportunity. She was tempted to throw it away, but the thought of Ellen’s dainty morsels being wasted was so disappointing that she resolved to try once more anyhow.

“I didn’t think it was so hard to give food away in town,” she reflected, smiling grimly at her predicament. “Oh, I do believe it’s going to rain!”

The sky had suddenly clouded over, and there were portents of a coming shower. Betty looked at the clouds, and resolved to make one more attempt to bestow her charity, and if that failed she concluded she must throw away the box. As Dorothy had said, she couldn’t very well walk into a large hotel carrying a box of luncheon. It would look ridiculous. And even if she did have to throw it away, she had the satisfaction of knowing she had tried to utilize it. The drops began to fall, but they were large and scattered, so Betty thought she had time for one more attempt at her good work before she ran for shelter.

A poor-looking man came toward her, and Betty stopped him. She had become timid about the box by this time, so, unconsciously, she spoke as if asking a favor.

“Wouldn’t you like a box of nice food to take home?” she said, as she hesitatingly held the box out to him.

“Do you mean to give it to me?” he asked, in such a threatening tone that Betty recoiled a little. She thought quickly. Here was another who would take offense at being looked upon as an object of charity. It flashed through her mind that if she asked him to pay a small price he would keep his self-respect and get far more than the value of his money.