A Dear Little Girl at School

“Oh, yes, I am sure she will be perfectly delighted. She is so pleased about the club, anyhow.”

“Then in the meantime we can be making up our minds about your house, Jennie,” said Agnes.

“I wish we had some little song or a sentence to close with,” said Celia.

“We can have. We can do all those things later. I think we have done a great deal for one day, don’t you all think so?”

“Oh, my, yes,” was the hearty response. “It has been perfectly lovely.”

“We might sing, ‘Little Drops of Water,’ for this time,” proposed Edna, “as long as we haven’t any special song yet.”

“That will do nicely, especially that part about ‘little deeds of kindness.’ We’re going to sing. All rise.” And the meeting was closed, the members groping their way down the attic stairs which by now were quite dark. But the effect of the club was to be far-reaching as was afterward shown, though it was little suspected at the time of its formation.

CHAPTER IV

A THANKSGIVING DINNER

The first direct effect of the club was far from pleasant to Edna, for she forgot all about studying a certain lesson, and did not remember about it till she and Dorothy met at school on Monday morning, and then she was overcome with fear lest she should be called upon to recite something of which she knew scarcely anything. However, by dint of peeps at the book between whiles, after devoting to it all the time she had before school was called to order, she managed to get through the recitation, yet not without many misgivings and a rapid beating of the heart when Miss Ashurst called upon her. Edna was always such a conscientious child about her lessons that Miss Ashurst rather overlooked the fact that upon this occasion she was not quite as glib as usual, and she took her seat with a feeling of great relief, determining that she would not forget her lessons another Saturday.

There was more than one opportunity that day to exercise the rule of the G. R. Club, and the girls of the Neighborhood Club, as they called theirs, were a little surprised at the appearance of good-will shown by the others.

“Oh, I know just what they are up to,” Clara Adams told her friends; “they want to get in with us and are being extra sweet. I know that is exactly their trick. Don’t you girls pay any attention to them. Of course we could let Jennie Ramsey in, because she lives on our street, but the others, we couldn’t any more than we could Betty Lowndes or Jessie Hill.”

“Well, it seems to me if they are good enough for Jennie Ramsey to go with they are good enough for us,” returned Nellie Haskell.

“No, I’m not going to have them,” replied Clara, “and if you choose to go over to them, Nellie Haskell, you can just make up your mind that I’ll have no more to do with you.” So Nellie succumbed although she did smile upon Dorothy when the two met and was most pleasant when Edna offered to show her about one of the lessons.

Agnes advised that the girls make no secret of their club. “It is nothing to be ashamed of, I am sure,” she said, “and if any of the girls want to join it I am sure they are quite welcome to.” And indeed it did appeal so strongly to some of the older girls that before the week was out several new members were enrolled, and it was decided to change the time of meeting to Friday afternoon so that those in the city might have their convenience considered while the girls living in the country could easily stay in till a later hour.

The little girls felt themselves rather overpowered by the coming into their ranks of so many older members, but on the other hand they felt not a little flattered at being important enough to belong to the same club, so as the rule worked both ways it made it all right, especially as Betty Lowndes and others were admitted and were no older than themselves.

“They may have more in number,” said Clara when she was told of how the club was increasing, “but we are more exclusive, my mother says.”

This remark made its impression as Clara intended it should, though Nellie looked wistfully across at where half a dozen little girls were joyously eating their lunch and discussing the good times the elder girls were planning. “You know,” Agnes had told them, “if you want to become a junior branch of the same club it will be perfectly easy for you to do it. At the end of a month you can decide, though Helen Darby and Florence Gittings agree with me that there is no reason why we shouldn’t all hang together. It will be more convenient for one thing and we can take turns in arranging the entertainment part. I don’t see why we all shouldn’t enjoy some of the same kind of things.”

“Oh, we’d much rather stay in,” replied Edna. “At least I would.”

“I would! I would!” came from all the others.

Although there is a high and marked difference between fifteen and eight or nine, in most matters, in this of the club there appeared to be a harmony which put them all on the same footing. The older sisters were more ready to help the younger ones with their lessons while the younger ones were more eager to run on errands or to wait on the older ones, in consequence there was a benefit all around.

Of course Miss Ashurst and Mr. Horner were by no means unaware of what was going on and they smiled to see how pleasant an atmosphere prevailed in the school all except in the unfortunate Neighborhood Club which they would have gladly disbanded. “It will probably die of its own discontent,” said Miss Ashurst to the principal, “I give it just three months to exist for the girls are dropping out one by one.”

Mr. Homer smiled and nodded his head. He was a man of few words yet very little escaped his keen eyes.

The next meeting of the G. R.’s was even more successful than the first. A number of things were discussed and the little girls learned many things that they had not known before.

“Suppose Clara Adams did want to come into the club or wanted to be friends I suppose we’d have to be kind to her,” said Dorothy, a little regretfully.

“Of course you’d have to be kind to her,” said Helen Darby, “but you wouldn’t have to clasp her around the neck and hang on her words, nor even visit her. One can be kind without being intimate.”

This was putting it in rather a new light and the little girls looked at one another. They had not easily distinguished the difference before this.

“The same way about Mr. Horner,” Helen went on, “you don’t have to get down and tie his shoes, but if you do have a chance to do something to make things pleasanter for him, why just trot along and do it.” And Helen nodded her head emphatically.

“Dear oh, me,” sighed Florence, “we are getting our standards way up. I should probably fall all over myself if I attempted to do anything for him. I am almost scared to death at the mere thought.”

“He won’t bite you,” replied Helen, “and you don’t have to get close enough to him to comb his eyebrows. What I mean is that we can ‘be diligent and studious’ as the old copy-books used to have it, speak well of his school, and not carry tales home that will make our families think we are martyrs and that he is an ogre, or someone to be feared constantly.”

“Helen Darby! I’d like to know who has been giving you all these new ideas,” said Florence.

“Why, I think Mrs. Conway started them by the way she talked to Agnes, and I have a modest claim to some brains of my own, so I thought out the rest and talked it over with father who put things very clearly before me, and showed me that school-girls are half the time silly geese who seem to think their teachers are created for the mere purpose of making their lives miserable. Father said that the shoe was usually on the other foot, and that the girls were much more liable to make the teachers’ lives miserable. That set me a-thinking. Let me remark in passing that father says he thinks our club is great, and he wants to have a hand in furnishing the entertaining some time.”

This announcement made quite a ripple of excitement, for Mr. Darby did nothing by halves and it was expected that there would be a good time for the G. R.’s when they met at Helen’s house.

Edna kept in mind what had been said about Uncle Justus and before very long came an opportunity to prove her powers of doing him a kindness. It was just before Thanksgiving that Mrs. Conway came in one Thursday afternoon to see Aunt Elizabeth and of course her own two little daughters as well. Edna sat very close to her mother on the sofa, her hand stroking the smooth kid glove she wore.

It was a queer thing to have her mother for company, but it was very delightful, too.

“I hope you and Uncle Justus can come out to take Thanksgiving dinner with us,” said Mrs. Conway to her aunt.

“Thank you, my dear, but I am afraid it is impossible,” was the response. “I long ago promised to go to sister Julia’s, and hoped Justus would go, too, but he insists that he cannot possibly take the time, for it is something of a trip. He says he has some school papers he must attend to, and moreover, has promised to address a meeting in the afternoon, so that it will be impossible.”

“I am very sorry,” returned Mrs. Conway, “for we had quite counted on you both. Perhaps Uncle Justus can take the time to come to us even if he cannot go so far as Aunt Julia’s.”

Mrs. Homer shook her head. “I am afraid not, but you can ask him. Julia will be greatly disappointed, but you know Justus is nothing if not conscientious and if he has made up his mind he ought not to go, nothing will alter his decision.”

“What time is his meeting?” asked Mrs. Conway.

“At half past two, I believe.”

“Oh, dear, then I am afraid it will be difficult for him to get to us, or rather to get away. We are to have dinner at two rather than in the evening, partly on account of the children and partly on account of the maids, to whom I have promised the time after they have finished the necessary work. There is a train at two-forty-five, but that would be too late, and it takes nearly an hour by the trolley cars.”

“Then I am afraid he will have to dine alone,” said Mrs. Horner, “I don’t suppose he has ever done such a thing in his life as that, but it cannot be helped. Julia has few opportunities of seeing her family and he insists that I must not think of disappointing her on his account.”

Edna listened very soberly to all this, and when it was learned later that nothing could alter Uncle Justus’s decision, she felt very sorry for him. She took occasion to open up the subject herself that afternoon. “Uncle Justus,” she asked, “did you ever eat Thanksgiving dinner alone?”

Uncle Justus looked at her over his spectacles. “Well, no, I cannot say that I ever did.”

“Shall you like to do it?”

“No, I do not believe I shall particularly enjoy it, but duty must come before pleasure, you know.”

“I wish you were going to have dinner with us.”

“That would be very agreeable to me, but I fear I cannot think of it upon this occasion.”

Edna sighed. She had hoped he might reconsider it. When he had left the room she went out into the kitchen to see Ellen of whom she was very fond. “Ellen,” she said “are you going to stay in and cook Uncle Justus’s Thanksgiving dinner for him?”