Glory and the Other Girl

The quiet voice was unsteady with intense wistfulness. The Other Girl's eyes were gazing out of the car window as if they saw lost opportunities and yearned over them. Glory could not see the longing in them until they turned suddenly toward her and she caught a wondering glimpse of it.

“We had never had much, you see, but after father was killed – after that there was only mother and me, and mother is sick. So of course I had to stop going to school. I should like to have had enough so I could teach instead of working in a factory – ”

This much said, the Other Girl shrank into herself as if into a little shabby shell. The distance between the two girls seemed abruptly to have widened. All at once Glory's hands were delicately gloved and the Other Girl's bare and red; Glory's dress trim and beautiful, and the Other Girl's faded and worn; Glory's jacket buttons rich and handsome, the Other Girl's top button split. It seemed all to have happened in a moment when the Other Girl woke up. How could she have forgotten herself so and talked like that!

“I wish – if you'd just as lief – you'd go back to your seat now,” she said. “I – I never talked like that before to a stranger, and I ain't like you, you know. I've explained about the books. I studied them last night, but I don't think I hurt them any.”

“I guess you did them good,” laughed Glory, brightly. “I expect to find an inspiration between the pages – why, actually, I feel a little bit (oh, a very little) of interest already in history. How delighted Aunt Hope would feel if she knew! – No, I'm not going back to my seat. Why, here's Centre Town! Did you ever see such a short ride! I've got to get off here, and I wish I hadn't – oh, dear! Good-by.”

Out on the platform Glory waved her books at the girlish face in the car window. The friendly little act sent the Other Girl on to the East Centre Town rubber factory with a warm spot in her heart.

“She's splendid, Diantha Leavitt, but don't you go to presuming on that wave!” she said to herself, severely. “This minute I believe you're presuming! You're looking ahead to seeing her again to-night when you go home, and getting another wave – it's just like you. I know you! A little thing like that turns your head round on your shoulders!”

A little thing! Was it a little thing to have beautiful, breezy Glory wave her books at you? To have her nod and smile up at your window?

All day long the Other Girl smiled over her petty, distasteful work, and Glory's face crept in between her tasks and nodded at her in friendly fashion. She watched for it breathlessly at night, when the train stopped at Centre Town. And it was there on the platform; it came smiling into the car and stopped at her seat! By the time Little Douglas was reached the two girls were friends.

“Auntie,” Glory cried, dropping down by her aunt, “would you believe you could get to love anybody in two three-quarters of an hour? Well, I did to-day.” And then she told her aunt of the girl in the sailor hat. “Her clothes were shabby – oh, terribly shabby. I thought her dreadful at first, till I found out – now I love her. You would, too.”

“And who is she really? What is her name?”

“I don't know her name! Think of it, auntie, I love her and may be her name's Martha Jane! I don't know. But I don't care – I shall keep right on liking her. And so will you, because she studies history because she likes it. Likes it! Says she'd rather study it than not! It's a fact.”

“I love her!” exclaimed Aunt Hope, fervently, and then they both laughed. And Glory told all that she knew about the Other Girl. Aunt Hope smoothed Glory's hair. It was the way she did when she approved of things.

“I like your new friend. I'm glad you left the books in the car,” she said. “But there's more to the sad little story. It's to be continued, Glory. You must find out the other chapters. There will be plenty of time if you go back and forth together. And, dear, if you sit beside her in the car perhaps you will learn to love books, too.”

“Never!” Glory laughed. “It isn't the age for miracles, auntie. The most you can hope for is that I'll learn to study. That's bad enough!”

“Well, kiss me, Little Disappointment, and run away. I wrote your father to-day, and what do you think I told him?”

“That I was a very good girl and he was to send on that ring right off; that you were actually worried about me, I was studying so hard; that – ”

“That you were a dear girl,” Aunt Hope laughed softly. “Now off with you!”

In the middle of the night Glory woke out of a dream that she was at the tip-top head of the geometry class, and in Latin the wonder of Centre Town Seminary for Young Ladies. The moonlight was streaming in on her face and found it laughing at the absurdity of the dream.

“The dream belongs to the Other Girl, not me. She's the one that ought to have the chances, too. I wish I could help her – why!” Glory sat up in bed, wide awake. Something had occurred to her.

“Why, of course. Why didn't I think of it before!” she said aloud. “I'll ask Aunt Hope – no, I'll do it.” And then she tumbled back into the pillows to think out her plan. If the Other Girl could have known!

Chapter IV

Two things prevented the immediate divulging of Glory's plan. She chafed at them both impatiently. On the way to the train the next morning Judy Wells waylaid her. That was one.

“I'm going, too,” Judy announced cheerfully. “Of course you're delighted – I knew you would be! You see, I was taken violently homesick for the old Seminary, so I thought I'd run along with you and spend the day. I tried to work up a little enthusiasm in the other girls, but it was no use.”

At any other time Glory would have been delighted enough at Judy's lively company, but to-day she wanted to propose her new plan to the Other Girl in the threadbare clothes. Judy would be dreadfully in her way about doing that. She would have to put it off a day. Glory never liked to put things off.

The other thing that interfered was the tiny boy she found sitting beside the Other Girl when she got on the train. He was almost too small to interfere with anything! Such a bit of a creature, in trousers almost too short to deserve the name! And beside him was tilted a tiny crutch that instantly suggested Tiny Tim to Dickens-loving Glory. Then she remembered that the Other Girl had spoken of a “Tiny Tim” the day before. So the Other Girl must have read Dickens, too.

“Here's a good seat,” Judy said, dropping into the one just ahead of the two shabby figures.

Glory nodded cordially as she passed them, but how could she do any more? She could not introduce Judy when she didn't know the Other Girl's name herself! And, besides – well, Judy was not the – the kind to introduce to her. Instinctively Glory recognized that.

In between Judy's gay chatter, bits of child-talk crept to Glory's ears from behind, with now and then a quiet word from the Other Girl. She found herself listening to that with distinctly more interest than to Judy.

“No let's play it, Di,” the child-voice piped eagerly, and there was a little clatter of the tiny crutch as it was tucked away out of sight under the seat.

“Can't see it now, can you?”

“Not a splinter of it, Timmie.”

“I guess not! An' you wouldn't ever s'pose anybody was lame, would you? Not me!”

“You! The idea, Timmie!”

The child-voice broke into delighted laughter.

“Well, then let's begin. Play I'm very big, Di – oh, 'normous! You playin' that? An' play both my legs are twins – of course you must play that. An' that I could run down this car if I wanted to, faster'n – oh, faster'n ever was! Just lickety-split, you know! You playin' it?”

Glory could not hear the low reply, but the child-voice was clear enough.

“Now s'posin' that man 'cross the car got up an' came back here – play he did – an' said up real loud, ‘See here, boy, you 'mind me of when I was young. I was big an' straight an' had twin legs, too!’ Oh, my! s'posin' that, Di! Play it! You playin' it?”

The Other Girl's voice rang out, sharp with wistfulness.

Glory's eyes filled suddenly with tears. It must be such a hard play to play with Tiny Tim!

“Play I wear ve-ry big boots an' my mother has a dreadful time keepin' my pants up with my legs. ‘Oh, how that boy does grow!’ she keeps a-sighin' an' a-sighin', while she's lettin' 'em down. Play once she cried, he grew so fast! – Diantha Leavitt, you're lookin' right straight out the window! I don't believe you're playin' at all, one speck. I'm goin' to get my crutch an' be lame again, so there!”

“Mercy! what are we sitting here in the sun for!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “I say we go over there on the shady side. It'll burn us all up.”

“Let it,” said Glory. “I like it. But go over there, dear. I'll stay here and get a nice pinky-brown! Good-by till Centre Town.”

She was glad when Judy was gone. In an instant she had wheeled about toward the two behind her, nodding at the tiny boy in a friendly way.

“Is that your little brother?” she asked of the Other Girl.

Tiny Tim answered for himself.

“I'm her little brother now, but I was big a little speck of a while ago. Di went an' stopped playin',” he said in an aggrieved tone. The Other Girl laughed tenderly.

“He's the greatest boy for ‘playin' things,’ aren't you, Timmie? Yes, he's my brother. I bring him with me once in a great while for a change. He likes the ride on the cars and he takes care of himself beautifully while I'm at work. Then at nooning we play picnic, don't we, Timmie?”

There was no time for further talk then.

When the return trip came, Judy filled all the home ride with her lively spirits. So it was not until the next morning that Glory found her opportunity to broach her new idea to the Other Girl. She came breezily into the car and sat down beside the quiet figure with a sigh of relief.

“I'm glad my friend Judy isn't homesick for the Seminary to-day, as she was yesterday,” she laughed. “And I'm a little glad you didn't bring your brother. You see, there's something I want to talk about, and, if you don't mind, I'll begin this minute.”

Mind! – the Other Girl mind how soon this dainty, beautiful girl “began”! She stole an admiring look at the natty costume and upward into the bright, sweet face. But what was this that her companion was saying? A gasp of astonishment came to her as she sensed the words that were being spoken rapidly.

“I thought it all out in bed, night before last. Oh, I hope you'll like it! I think it's a lovely plan. You see, we'll have two three-quarters – an hour and a half a day. We can study together going down, and coming back I'll tell you all I learned in my classes – don't you see? You don't speak. I'm afraid you don't like it.”

“Like it? – oh, if it's what I think! If it's —that! But I'm afraid I don't quite understand. I don't dare to understand!”

Glory clapped her hands gayly.

“It's plain as a b c,” she said. “You long to go to school and can't – I don't long to and can! Now here's my idea that I evolved with my thinking-cap – I mean night-cap – on! Let's go to school together. We can pore over the horrid old books on the train, mornings and nights, and I can try and remember all the teachers tell me at the Seminary during the day. Aunt Hope will be overjoyed to have me try to remember anything! And, don't you see, anybody who worships history and can't let a Latin book alone, could keep up easy enough with a dull thing like me.”

Glory paused for breath. She was still laughing with her eyes. But at sight of the radiance in the lean, brown face of the Other Girl, she sobered in sudden awe. To be as glad as that for a chance to learn!

“You understand all right now, don't you?” Glory said gently, and her gloved fingers stole across to the Other Girl's uncovered ones and rested on them reassuringly.

“Yes, now I dare to – but oh, it takes my breath away!” the Other Girl cried. “It's such a beautiful, beautiful thing for you to do! Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I won't do my very best? Why, I can study in the rubber factory, too! I mean I can carry the geometry propositions in my head – I know I should remember every line and every letter – and work them out noontimes and in all the betweens.”

“You needn't do that,” Glory said, “you could copy the lesson off on a piece of paper – no, I'll tell you! I'll get Judy's books for you. Oh, there are plenty of ways to manage. Now let's begin. There's time left to make a start, anyway.”

“Wait,” the Other Girl said quickly, “I hate to waste a minute, but I've got to say something. I want you to know what it may mean if you do this for me. It may mean luxuries for my sick mother and – a chance for my little ‘Tiny Tim.’ Do you know, my teachers said if I could only keep on I might get a place to teach. Think of it! Do you know, some doctors told mother once that there was a little chance of straightening Timmie's bad leg, if we had the money. Oh, do you know this may mean things like that! Do you think I'm not thankful to you?”

The impetuous words flowed out in a hurried stream, and the eyes of the Other Girl, as they looked into Glory's, shone through a dazzle of happy tears. For a moment after the eager voice ceased neither girl made a sound. Then it was Glory who spoke.

“Why!” she cried with a long breath, “Why, I didn't know it could mean anything like that! I thought it would just mean getting a little learning. I didn't know there were things like that at the other end of it.”

Glory had lived a little less than sixteen years, but they had been “different” from the years the Other Girl had lived. Aunt Hope had been all the suffering she had ever seen – Aunt Hope, smiling and brave, on her silken pillows. Until that sad little story the other night, she had scarcely connected anything sorrowful or hard to bear with Aunt Hope.

The beautiful autumn weeks multiplied to months, and Glory's plan prospered thriftily. The lessons went on steadily through the morning and afternoon rides. The Other Girl's face was set toward a possible, splendid time to come; Glory's was set toward patience and gentleness. For it was not always easy to give up the hour and a half each day to the distasteful work that she so cordially hated. At first, I mean; strangely enough, after a while things changed. Glory woke up one day to find herself keenly interested in a knotty problem. She could hardly wait to get her head beside the Other Girl's, to see if together they could not solve it.

“Think of it, auntie! Is it me, or am I somebody else?” she laughed, hurrying in to kiss Aunt Hope good-by. “Think of me in a hurry to get an answer to a problem!”

“Yes, it's you, dear. It's Glory Glorified!” laughed back the sweet voice. Then she drew the girl's bright head down beside her. “It's gone, dear. The Ambition out of my heart. It's passed to somebody else – to you, I think, Glory – yes, I'm confident! You've got it this minute!”

And Glory understood. She went away wondering if it could be true that she, Gloria Wetherell, had a real ambition in life.

“Auntie hasn't called me Disappointment for a long time,” she mused happily, as she sped down the frosty street with the nip of keen air on her cheeks and the tonic of it in her lungs. Her mind hurried back to the knotty problem. She and the Other Girl were still at work on it that night, coming home. It happened that it had not been taken up in the recitation that day.

“It looks so easy and it isn't,” sighed Glory.

“But we're bound to solve it,” the Other Girl cried. The two heads were close together, and the Crosspatch Conductor smiled as he passed them. He had been watching them with a good deal of interest for a long time. This time he turned and came back.

“Tough one, eh?” he said.

“Awfully!” laughed Glory.

“But we're going to get it,” smiled the Other Girl, going back to the front. The Crosspatch Conductor stood regarding Glory gravely.

“Helping her along, eh?”

“No,” answered Glory, “she's helping me.”

Another wrestle with the problem, and still another – then an exciting moment when victory seemed in sight. Closer drew the brown heads – more earnest grew the eager voices. “We've got it!”

“Goody!” cried Glory. “Just in time, too, for here we are at – ”

Her face sobered. She got to her feet in a sudden panic. What was this strange little place they were drawing into? Those woods, the houses and the trees – they were not Little Douglas.

“I've been carried by!” gasped Glory. “I wasn't noticing. There isn't any other train back to-night – I tell you I've been carried by. This isn't my home!”

Chapter V

As Glory stood on the desolate little platform, realizing that she had been carried by her own station, she presented a picture of dismay. For an instant the Other Girl stood regarding her with indecision. Then with a slight flush she stepped to Glory's side, and, placing her hand on her arm, said:

“You have been carried by your home, but you have not been taken by mine. Come with me; you will not mind much.” There was a shy pleading in the Other Girl's tone. On the instant of offering hospitality to this dainty new friend, and acute perception of the barrenness of it overswept and dismayed her. In a flash she saw the patch on the seat of Tim's trousers, and instantly an array of mismatched cups, nicked plates and cracked pitchers, passed before her vision. Had the dainty Glory in all her life eaten from a nicked plate?

But instantly she rallied and was her own sweet self.

“It is only a little way. We will try to make you comfortable,” the Other Girl said hurriedly. Her thoughts seemed to have occupied a long time, and she feared her invitation might have seemed lacking in cordiality. Glory scanned her face, then said:

“There isn't any train back to-night – not one. I can't go back. If you are sure it will not be a trouble – But what will Aunt Hope do? She will be so worried!”

The train was wriggling into motion, and Glory caught sight of the Crosspatch Conductor on one end of the platform. She ran toward him wrathfully.

“Goodness! You here?” he cried.

“You carried me by!” Glory cried. “I don't think it was very nice in you!” Then she laughed at the honest dismay in his grim face. The train was under way and she had to raise her voice to call after him. “Never mind! I'm going with my friend. I'll – forgive – you!”

“Oh, I'm glad you said that!” the Other Girl exclaimed earnestly. “I'm glad you said ‘my friend.’ Come, it's this way, just around one corner.”

But Glory hesitated. “Is there any chance anywhere to telephone?” she asked. “I've got to send word to auntie. She would worry all night long, I know she would. I never stayed away from her but once before, and that time I telephoned. There's a wire in our house, you know.”

The Other Girl reflected. “There's one at the store,” she said, “but it's quite a walk. I don't mind it myself. I love to walk. But you – ”

“But I do, too!” Glory laughed, tucking her hand through the shabby jacket sleeve in the friendliest way. “And if I didn't, do you suppose it would matter? I'd walk to a telephone that had Aunt Hope at the other end of it, if I had to go on one foot!”

“Like Tiny Tim,” the Other Girl smiled gently. “But Timmy can walk as fast as anybody. He makes that little crutch of his do almost anything but skip.”

“Skip! Oh, how I used to skip when I was little! I can remember it as plain!”

“I don't believe I ever was young. At any rate, I never skipped,” added the Other Girl thoughtfully.

“Never skipped! Then it's time you did. It's never to late to – skip. Come on, I'll show you how.”

Gayly they went skipping down the stretch of snowy roadway, with their arms around each other. The crisp air reddened the tips of their ears and patted their backs approvingly. For once, at any rate, the Other Girl was young.

At the “store,” Glory telephoned to Aunt Hope. It was quite a while before she could make connections with the private wire, but she waited patiently.

“Hello!” she called, her voice unnecessarily high-pitched. “I'm Glory. Is this you, James? Well, tell auntie I got carried by —carried by! What? Yes, I'm all safe. I'm with my fr – Why, auntie, that's you! I hear your voice! You ought not to have walked out into the hall! Yes, I'm just as ‘all right’ as I can be. I'm going home with Diantha. What? Oh, yes, I knew you'd feel safe about me, then. I sha'n't tell Diantha. It would puff her up! Yes, I wore my rubbers. Yes, I've got my muffler. No, my cold's better. Take care of yourself, auntie; good-by. Oh, no, wait! You still there, auntie? Well, the reason I got carried by was because I was so buried up in a problem. Isn't that funny for Glory? Good-by.”

Tiny Tim met them at the door of a little brown house near the station. His eyes widened with astonishment at sight of Glory. Then his glance traveled to his sister in evident uneasiness.

“My!” he ejaculated slowly, “I've e't up the last cooky!”

Glory laughed out merrily. “Oh, I'm so glad!” she said, “for I don't like cookies unless there's a hole in them.”

“These had holes. I've e't up the last hole, too.”

“Oh, dreadful! But I'll tell you what, Timmie – if you'll let me come in and stay all night, I'll promise not to eat anything but a slice of bread and butter. We could cut a hole in that and play it was a cook – ”

“The bread's gone, too. I've e't up – ”

“Timothy Leavitt, are you going to let us in?” laughed his sister, though there were two red spots blooming in her cheeks. What would Timmie say next! She led the way through the tiny hall into a big, bright room whose centerpiece was a frail, smiling little woman with a lapful of calico bits. She held out both her hands to Glory.

“Don't tell me who she is, Diantha. As if I didn't know! My dear, my dear, I am very glad you have come. I have hoped you would, ever since your path crossed Di's, and – ”

“Glorified it, mamma.”

“Yes, glorified it – that is it. Take off your things, dear, and just feel snug and at home.”

And thus the little home opened its arms to dainty Glory. The welcome extended was as gracious and as perfect a hospitality as could have been found in the grandest home in the land. There was no luxury or even plenty. But Glory saw instantly there was the happiness that goes with love. It was her awakening. A new wonder filled the girl's heart that poverty and happiness could live together like this. While Di was busy she mused.

“I thought poor people fretted and grumbled. I know I should. I shouldn't be sunshiny and nice like this. And they open their doors into their poor, bare, empty rooms and bid me welcome just as beautifully as Aunt Hope would do to our house. It is beautiful. Just beautiful! It's a bit of heaven right down here in this little unpainted house.”

Diantha put on a big apron and rolled up her sleeves. “I'm going out and make some muffins,” she smiled. “Timmie, you stay here.”

“Yes,” said Glory, “Timmie'll stay with me. Can't we play something – we two?”

“Uncrutchit!” demanded Tiny Tim eagerly.

“Un – what? I don't believe I ever played that.”

“No, 'course not. You ain't got any old crutch to un.”

Glory looked helplessly at the gentle mother, who smiled back at her quietly. But in the sweet voice, when it spoke, there was depthless wistfulness.

“Timmie means play he hasn't any crutch – that he doesn't need one, you know,” explained the sweet voice. “‘Un-crutch-it’ is his favorite play. He puts the crutch out of sight – ”

“This way,” cried Timmie, clattering the little crutch under the sofa in hot haste. “That's uncrutching, don't you see? Now I'm uncrutched. You play I'm very big an' tall an' my legs match. Every little while you must look up an' say, ‘Mercy me! how that child grows!’”

The little play went on until supper was ready. Then the little crutch came out again and was put into active service.

It was a strange meal to Glory. She told Aunt Hope afterward all about it.

“It was just as quiet and nice-behaved and beautiful as any supper, only there wasn't anything to eat! Oh, auntie, you know what I mean! You know I mean there were the muffins (they were splendid) and the tea and dried apple sauce. I had more than I could eat. But you don't know how I wanted to fill that pale little lady's plate with some of our chicken and gravy and set by her plate a salad, after she'd worked all day. And pile Tiny Timmie's plate tumble-high with goodies! It made me ashamed to think of all the beautiful suppers of my life that I've taken without even a ‘Thank you, God.’”