THE HONOR GIRL Read online

  So she drifted off to sleep, thinking of the light in their eyes when she came downstairs in her butterfly garments.

  Chapter 13

  In the gray dawn of Saturday morning Elsie stole downstairs softly. Her brother and father had to leave for their work at half past six. They had insisted she not wake up so early; they were quite used to getting a bite for themselves, but Elsie had no intention of letting them do so. She meant to begin right. Of course when the maid came she would prepare breakfast for them all, but this was Saturday morning with no school; so the girl enjoyed the thought of having breakfast ready.

  To be sure, there was not much material in the house to work with for a substantial breakfast for three men, but one could always do something. It would be fun to surprise them. There was no chance to get anything at the store so early; so she must do what she could.

  The milk had come, and she took the bottles in with satisfaction. She could make some milk toast, for there had been more than half a loaf of bread left the night before. Then she could fry the potatoes that were left, and make coffee.

  A careful search of the rather bare cupboard discovered a small end of a ham, and this she seized upon gratefully. Then she remembered that up in her bag were two big oranges. These she could cut in halves, and set around at the places; and really her menu was not so bad, after all.

  She carefully arranged the table, with the orange halves at each plate before she began her cooking; and then she closed the kitchen and pantry doors to keep the smell of ham and coffee from going upstairs and spoiling her surprise; but long before the three men were ready to come down, the coffee and toasting bread and frying ham had stolen through the cracks and crannies and penetrated with their festive odors.

  “Gee! She’s downstairs getting breakfast!” murmured Jack as he searched for his collar-button. “Say! That’s great!” and he hustled down to help.

  But Elsie had it all on the table ready for them, curtains drawn back, and the room bright with the morning sunlight.

  “It looks almost too good to leave,” said her father, sitting down at the table and looking around. “Seems as if we ought to stay and enjoy it, or it might be gone.”

  “It will not be gone, Father. I intend to make it better than this as fast as I can. Now, what directions have you for me? I’m going to hire a servant this morning, and get her started in the routine of the house so she can carry things on later when school begins. Have you any choice which of the grocery stores I patronize, and can I have things charged?”

  There was pleasant, eager converse about ways and means during the meal, and when the bus came the car was heard in the distance, Elsie bade them all good-bye quite cheerfully, and hurried up to her room for her hat. She meant to have that servant before she did another thing, if it were a possible thing to get her.

  A pretty girl with determination can do good many things, and before another hour was up Elsie had found an oldish black woman who was willing to come at once.

  Elsie went back to the house immediately, stopping only to give an order at the store. In another hour the new maid presented herself really weary, but very eager and glad to see them.

  The general sense of comfort and cleanliness that pervaded the place had its very visible effect on father and brothers. It seemed to stimulate them to be more careful about themselves. The boys refused to eat till they had made elaborate toilets; and, when Elsie saw how nice they looked when they came down, she was glad she had taken time to change from her work dress into a bright little house dress.

  After supper the man came about the fireplace, and after he left Elsie began to order the furniture changed all around.

  “Everything must be set with the fireplace as the center now, you know,” she declared, and in no time the brothers whirled the piano into the place she selected for it. It almost seemed that since she had spoken the fireplace was really there in shadowy form, with a phantom fire all laid ready for lighting.

  “This room needs papering,” said the father, walking about and looking at the walls critically. “It hasn’t been papered for seven years or more, I guess. You go over and see what Harlin’s got, Elsie, and have him do this room up as soon as the fireplace is finished.”

  “Father, dear, I’m afraid I’m putting you to an awful lot of expense!” cried Elsie in mingled delight and apology.

  “It’s time the old house was fixed up,” said the father. “Now you’re here there’s some reason for doing it. The boys and I didn’t seem to care what became of us. We didn’t stay around except to sleep. But now it’s different. I can stand the expense, I guess. There’s a little money in the bank I haven’t touched yet—your mother saved. I guess she’d like some of it used this way. She said it was for schooling, but somehow there wasn’t any call for that. The boys didn’t seem to care for any more education, and you were looked out for. Besides, I’m making a good salary, and it ought to go farther than I’ve made it. It’s just sifted through my fingers somehow.”

  The boys looked at each other significantly; and Elsie caught the glance, and thought she knew what it meant. It was good, perhaps, to give her father legitimate expenses that he had to meet so that he would not spend his money in drink. This drink question was such a dark, mysterious unknown force for her to fight against. She must go slowly and carefully, and try to understand.

  “Well, that will be delightful,” she said happily. “There are a few things we need to get. This room ought to have a new rug, and this one should go into the dining room. That carpet is all worn out. Some one will trip in that hole by the door, I am afraid. There are a couple of chairs that ought to be re-covered, too. I think we could manage that ourselves if we got the stuff. I don’t want to spend much of that money mother saved, because really it ought to go for the object she saved it for, you know. The boys aren’t either of them very ancient yet, and they ought to go to college.”

  She exploded this bomb in the room very quietly, as if she had said, “It is time to go to bed,” and the two young men suddenly sat down in the two chairs that were nearest to them, and looked at her in astonishment. Then Jack gave a great shout of derision.

  “College!” he yelled. “Some chance! Gene’s twenty-three. He’d make a fine show in college, wouldn’t he? As for me, I’d be an old man before I got ready to enter! Gee! That’s a good one! Us in college!”

  “Why not?” asked Elsie quietly. “Men have gone to college even older than twenty-three. Better late than never. How far did you go in high school, Gene?”

  “Graduated,” growled Eugene darkly, kicking his toes angrily against the table leg. He was angry with himself for having been fool enough not to get an education when he might. He surmised that his sister was discovering that they were not her equals intellectually.

  “How about you, Jack?” went on the calm voice of the sister.

  “Quit-uated!” answered Jack sullenly.

  “When?” asked Elsie quickly. “How much more of high school had you still?”

  “Two years!”

  “You could make that up this winter, and be ready to enter college next fall. I could help you get ready for your examinations.”

  “No chance!” said Jack dryly and decidedly.

  “Why not? Wouldn’t you like to go to college?”

  “Sure! Like it well enough.” Jack’s tone was most indifferent. “But I couldn’t ever get back to study. I never did study, anyhow. I just fooled. And it’s too late now. I couldn’t ever take examinations.”

  “Of course you could,” said Elsie decidedly. “We’ll get at it next week and look up how far you’ve gone. You ought to begin at once to get ready. You’ll need English and mathematics and Latin. I’m not just sure what else, but I’ll find out Monday. A friend of mine has a brother who just entered the university by examination, and she knows all about the requirements.”

  Jack looked at her with a sort of stunned admiration. He wasn’t going to take those examinations, of course! No sir! Not
study, either! Not much! But it was nice to have a sister who cared.

  “You’re like your mother, Elsie,” said her father with one of his deep sighs that was almost a groan. “She never would give up an idea once she got it started, and she was very ambitious. If she’d lived, I expect they both would have gone to college. Gene would have been through by this time.”

  Then Elsie spoke.

  “Gene, why can’t you enter the university this fall? You could, you know, if you have your credits from the high school.”

  Gene sat back and stared at her in astonishment.

  “Me go to the university,” he echoed stupidly. “Fat chance!”

  “Why not?” asked Elsie insistently. “The tuition isn’t much, and you could board at home. Father said there was money laid up for it. You ought to get your education at once. It isn’t right for you to settle down to being just a laboring man. You have brains, and ought to be using them. Besides, if you are to be a laboring man even, you ought to be the best kind of one you can, and an education will make you better able to rise in whatever you are going to do in life.”

  They talked long that night, Elsie eagerly, persuasively, both boys as stubbornly set against her suggestions as could be, yet looking in the face for the first time in their lives, earnestly and squarely, the question of an education. They began to see it was possible, as their sister said; but it looked like a task to which neither felt himself equal. If studying had been something heavy to lift, or a hard battle to fight, or a race to be run, either of them would have undertaken it for her sake; but education was an unknown land into which they hesitated to enter, feeling themselves unqualified to star among its inhabitants. Therefore they stubbornly adhered to that one answer to all her eagerness, “No chance!”

  Nevertheless, when Elsie finally went up to her little rose chamber, she had a memory of deep looks of thoughtfulness in the eyes of both of her brothers; and she had by no means given up the effort. The last thought she had left with them as she mounted the stairs to her room had been the suggestion that her brothers would make splendid athletes, and as for herself she would be proud to have them on the varsity football team or playing basketball. She could see that the suggestion interested both of them, for each began to tell of his experiences in playing and what he might have done if he had had the chance.

  Perhaps it was a low motive to hold out for an enticement to an education; but, if it proved to be a lure, merely because it gave some common ground on which they could put themselves in a good light in the eyes of the university, it might lead to higher, better things.

  When Elsie knelt beside her bed that night, she prayed earnestly for her two brothers, and that they might be led to want to make the best of themselves.

  Chapter 14

  It was at the Sunday morning breakfast-table that Elsie exploded her second bomb in the form of a simple question, “What time do you go to church?”

  Now, the men of the Hathaway household had not been accustomed to rise on Sabbath mornings before eleven or twelve o’clock; and it had been their habit to sit around in their shirt-sleeves, collarless, unshaven, until such times as they individually saw fit to fix up and saunter out in search of something interesting to pass away the time. To go to church had not been even remotely within their scheme of life. The boys had stopped attending Sunday school when their mother died, and they had all drifted away from any connection with any church whatever. It had not occurred to them until this minute that Elsie’s coming would need to make any difference in their Sabbaths except to make them more cheerful.

  True, they were seated about the breakfast table arrayed in clean shirts and collars, with shaven faces and hair immaculate, and that at the unearthly hour of nine o’clock on this Sabbath morning; but there had been noises of stirring in the kitchen for nearly two hours, and savory odors stealing upstairs to lure them down; and there sat Elsie at the foot of the table, pouring coffee, adorable in the little pink silk negligee and silver, rose-trimmed cap. How could mortal man resist coming down early on Sunday morning under circumstances like that? But church! Now, that was asking too much.

  Jack laid down his knife and fork, and turned his attention for the moment from his hot muffin to burst out in a loud guffaw of amusement; but, his eyes met those of his brother, and the laugh was squelched in the beginning. Silenced, he sat staring thoughtfully at Gene, the fun gradually fading from his eyes and instead came a look of surprise and a dawning understanding.

  Gene had given him the “high sign.” Church! Of course Elsie had been accustomed to going to church; and, if she was to be happy at Morningside, she must miss nothing she enjoyed from the old life, if they could possibly help it. Of course she must go to church if she really wanted to—it was inconceivable that she could; but, if she did, why, perhaps someone would have to go with her. Gene was the proper one, of course; he was the older; though it wouldn’t be so bad to walk beside such a trim, pretty girl as Elsie and let the highbrows at church see what kind of sister one had. Jack stared at his brother, and gradually subsided into his buttered muffin again, and said nothing.

  Gene was frowning thoughtfully. There was nothing about his countenance to indicate that he had not attended divine service every Sabbath of his life.

  “Why, I’m not just sure but they’ve changed the hour. Is it ten or eleven, Dad? Seems to me somebody said something about changing the hour.’

  “It’s likely eleven, then,” said Elsie not seeming to notice. “Most of the city churches have it at eleven now, though ours was quarter of. You’re all going with me, of course. I couldn’t think of going the first time into a strange church, you know, without a full bodyguard. I hope you don’t sit away up front. I’d hate to have to go up front the first Sunday.”

  “Well, I haven’t been going to church much lately,” began the father. “Gene, here’ll take you, or Jack.”

  “Why, of course they will, both of them; but I want you to go, too,” declared Elsie. “We’re all going together this first Sunday, no matter what happens. I don’t want to feel homesick on Sunday, and it will take you all to keep me from it in church. There is no place where one feels homesick, you know, like a strange church!”

  They looked at her in astonishment and dismay. They searched in their minds for their feeble arguments against this sudden family invasion of the staid old Morningside church that had paid no attention to them for the last five years; but in the end Elsie had her way. Somehow, when it came right down to it, they couldn’t bear to let that sweet girl know that they had utterly given up religion. Girls ought to have religion, of course. They needed it for some vague reason, and it wouldn’t do to shock her. So they went, every man of them, dressed up in the finest they had, with many a mental resolve to have better things on hand for another such unexpected excursion into the fashionable world.

  At a quarter of eleven they issued forth from the house, father, daughter, and two sons, walking proudly together. The boys walked behind, with many admiring glances at the slender girl in her pretty suit and hat. If they had to go to church, at least no one else had a better-looking sister than they had. They made a show of picking a thread from her shoulder and jumping to pick up her handkerchief when she dropped it, and anyone could see they were almost ready to burst with pride over her looks.

  The minister noticed the newcomers, and came down after the service to speak to them. It had perhaps never occurred to him before to go in search of this hopeless-looking man and his wild sons. They seemed far more impossible to win than the heathen on some distant shore. But now that they had come of their own accord he was glad to see them, and made them feel it. The father accepted his hearty handshake with a dumb wonder, and said little. This coming back into a world which had known him and his wife long years ago was a terribly shaking experience. He could think of little to say. He stood back, respectfully quiet, while Elsie said pleasant things to the minister, and told him where she had been attending church and that she had come no
w to live in her father’s house. Somehow it gave him a great sense of comfort to hear her make that statement in the presence of others. Before it had seemed like a wonderful dream that might slip away at any time and leave the blank, dull loneliness again.

  The brothers looked like wild things at bay when the minister came down the aisle toward them, and Jack would have bolted then and there if it hadn’t been too late.

  They shook hands a trifle stiffly, as if they were not sure of the minister, whether he were enemy or friend. They stood with alert, glittering gaze fixed steadily on him to see whether he gave Elsie the deference due her, or whether he let the fact that she belonged to them affect in the slightest his treatment of her. They had the attitude of being there to protect her and of barely tolerating his presence. Elsie, glancing at them lovingly, was proud of their gentlemanly bearing. She wondered whether the minister’s genial smile would not win them. She liked him at once herself.

  She did not say much about the church service on the way home. She had the feeling that she must go slowly with regard to church, and let them praise it if they would. And presently she was rewarded. Jack, walking behind with his brother, remarked: “He seems to be a pretty good sort of guy,” referring to the minister; and the father assented with unusual interest: “Yes, that was a good sermon he gave us. It was all true what he said, too. Seemed as if he was preaching right to me.”

  “I guess he’s a pretty good sort,” added Gene. “I hear folks around town talk that way. You know he hasn’t been here but a couple of months or so.”

  On the whole, Elsie was well satisfied with her morning’s experiment, and sat down to dinner feeling that matters were doing well.

  I wonder, is it true that whenever we congratulate ourselves that things are moving well there always comes along something to upset and spoil them? Is it a part of the work of the devil to watch for our complacency, and bring us face to face with something unpleasant right then and there?