“Just for a lark,” Barbara told herself, “I’ll take the old cap and gown. We are sure to dress up after we undress, and I really haven’t a decent robe.”
A robe! If she only could have known how this particular item had bothered the other girls, especially Ruth Harrison. The cap and gown which Barbara had decided to take, “just for a lark,” were sent her last winter by Marjorie Ellis who achieved them in a brief stay at college and wanted to forget she had ever heard the word. Marjorie hated college now, she had been so homesick while away in Connecticut, that she absolutely refused to return at mid-years, and because she knew Barbara would love even to play at being a collegian, Marjorie sent her the mortar-board hat and the big black cape, they poetically call a gown.
Often had Barbara dressed up in the college clothes, especially at night when she would parade around in the enfolding comfort of that soft, black robe. It was this habit, no doubt, that gave her the idea of fetching the costume to Cara’s party. This and the necessity of having something to throw on over her pajamas—how lucky that she had the pajamas!
Packed at last and her misgivings quieted, Barbara ventured a look at herself in the old-fashioned mirror that hung between her room and the sitting-room.
“I guess I’ll do,” she told the reflection. It showed a tall, finely formed girl, with a head held high—Barbara’s head couldn’t get enough of sky gazing—and wearing a sport suit that Dora, the maid of all work, had helped her make.
“Good material and not a bad fit,” the girl secretly commented, for the natty little jacket was made of bright green flannel, and the skirt of white flannel had a matching stripe of green. Her blouse was white, bought ready made, and a little white felt hat had been picked up at Asbury Park; not picked up on the beach, however, but at a bargain counter very late last fall. So that the costume was quite complete and decidedly effective.
Of course Barbara’s hair was bobbed, and because of a little ripple that huddled around her ears the bronzed, glossy tresses framed her face in a most attractive way. Barbara seemed dark and her blue eyes were often taken for brown. Her brown hair might be called brunette, if one didn’t see the bronze tones that came in certain lights.
And she wore her clothes well. That was why her own amateur efforts, supplemented by the not unwilling but always protesting Dora, usually turned out well. So she had no fear for the effect of her sport dress upon her arrival at Cara’s party; it was the robe and the party dress and other accessories that bothered her somewhat.
“Cara’s car is coming out this way, Dads,” she told her father as she picked up her bag, “so they’re going to stop for me.”
“That’s fine,” her father replied. “Cara’s a nice girl——”
“There’s a knock; I’ll answer,” Barbara interrupted, hurrying to the side door. “Oh, it’s Nicky and his sister Vicky,” she presently explained, for she could see the two Italian children through the glass door; Nickolas and Victoria.
“Don’t bother with them,” her father ordered irritably. “I wish those children would stop coming around here.”
“They’ve got some eggs to sell——”
“We don’t need any eggs——”
“Oh, Dads, the poor youngsters have only three eggs to sell and we’ve got to buy them from them,” insisted Barbara, opening her purse with its precious party money in it to give Nicky twenty cents in return for three eggs “just laid.”
“And how’s granny?” Barbara asked the black-eyed children.
“Fine,” said Nicky.
“She ain’t either, she’s sick,” declared Vicky.
“Well, run along,” ordered the smiling Barbara, “I’m going out——”
“Say,” Nicky squeezed in, “do you want an ole candlestick? I’ve got one fer half a dollar.”
“No, I guess not.” Barbara was becoming impatient. “Run along; here’s my car,” for the toot from Cara’s car was sounding along the drive.
“It’s a swell candlestick,” Nicky argued. “I could get a dollar fer it in Asbury.”
“Better go in there and sell it then,” almost thundered Dr. Hale, if ever he did speak in a thunderous tone, which he didn’t, quite, “and don’t fetch any more eggs here——”
“Dads!” pleaded Barbara. “Let them come. Poor little things——”
But Nicky and Vicky were off, scampering as if Dr. Hale had threatened them with a shot-gun.
“Good-bye, Dads,” called back Barbara. “Be sure to phone me——”
“I shall—not,” replied her father, sending the first two words after Barbara, and blowing the last one against the hall mantel. He would not phone Barbara, not unless there was very urgent need to do so, and there appeared to be no prospect of the latter contingency, just then.
Dora came forth from the pantry, two eggs in one hand and one in the other. Her long face was longer than usual, and her faded eyes seemed about to lose their jell and melt into a little puddle of colorless mucilage.
“There’s the eggs,” she intoned, as if any one could have mistaken them for tomatoes.
“Yes,” echoed Dr. Hale, “I see. But I wish those youngsters would peddle eggs some place else. They’re a nuisance.”
“Sure are,” agreed Dora, “and I don’t think Barbara ought to have them trap’sin’ around here at all.”
Dr. Hale eyed Dora sharply. It was surprising how much audacity a few months’ overdue wages could incite. But he had no idea of telling this to Dora.
“Yes, sir,” she went on, putting one of the twin eggs in the hand with the singleton, “they’re a thieving gang, them Eytalians.”
“But those children aren’t thieves, Dora,” the doctor found courage to say, “and their folks are poor but deserving, I understand.”
“You understand that from Barbara,” Dora retorted adding “sir” when she realized how impertinent the answer really was. “She’s too good hearted. I’ve told her time and again, and there was a report that them Eytalians put a bomb in the hotel——”
“Tut—tut!” checked up the doctor, smiling in a way, but not in a cheerful way. “That old hotel burned itself down when it swallowed a big spark from the trains it must have been very weary listening to. The old Mansion House wasn’t bombed by any one, Italian nor others. It just got tired standing there useless and deserted. It was once a merry place, Dora. Many a happy time I had at the Mansion House—before I got to studying bugs, you know,” he explained, moving off towards his study.
Dora too moved off, she towards the kitchen.
“Well,” she called as she went, “what I’m saying is that Barbara is too fond of trashy folks. And now that she’s going out in society she ought to know better!”
If Barbara could only have heard that.
“Going out in society!”
And her reputation endangered by taking up with trashy folks, especially Nicky and Vicky who sold junk candlesticks and new-laid eggs!
In his study Dr. Hale did not at once turn to the unfinished experiment that lay in the tubes before him. He was thinking that Dora was right, in spite of her brusque way of stating the case. There had been very unpleasant rumors current all over Sea Cosset upon more than one occasion, when suspicious fires brought out the volunteer fireman and when daring thefts called for action from the limited police force.
The “Eytalians”, as Dora and others called all the foreigners who were huddled in a few old barracks over by the tracks, were not only suspected but openly blamed, and the Marcusi family, to which Nickolas and Victoria belonged, were doubly charged with the crimes, because their father was known to be in prison. He had belonged to a gang, it was said, and he couldn’t get away because he was almost a cripple. For years he had tended the railroad gates, and one day he dashed under the gates to let a horse out before the train hit him. That was what happened to Nick’s father’s leg.
But at his shanty alongside the track some men plotted one night, and whether he was to blame or not, when the midnight train jumped the track because it couldn’t escape the ties that had been piled up to derail it, Nickolas Marcusi was found guilty of aiding the plotters. He had protested his innocence, of course, but to have the railroad’s property damaged and many lives endangered by a plot actually planned on the railroad itself, seemed too daring to countenance. So Nick Marcusi went to prison and was still there when little Nick and his smaller sister sold Barbara Hale three fresh eggs for her father’s dinner.
Dr. Hale was pondering all of this now. He had been sorry for the one-legged gateman; had even tried to intervene for him at court, but people about the sea-coast town were bitter. They despised foreigners, although none of their own class would have tended a railroad gate and risked a life to save a fractious horse.
It was this daring deed that had so enthused Barbara, and she was determined never to turn from her door little Nicky and Vicky—not for Dora nor for a dozen like her! She would buy every egg they brought; she couldn’t often buy the junk the children uncovered at the dump, but she had given them fifty cents once for an old pewter mug.
“Heigh-o!” sighed Dr. Hale, turning finally to his test tubes. “It’s a hard road for the poor to travel, but harder still for the more unfortunate.”
He was seeing little Victoria’s face “all eyes” as he spoke harshly about the eggs. He was remembering little Nicky’s flying feet as the children scurried off, and he was not blaming Barbara for her interest in the picturesque youngsters.
“There’s something fascinating about the genuine,” the doctor pursued secretly, “and even a genuine ragamuffin has charm.”
The clock in the lower hall chimed four. Barbara would be at the party now, and he was so glad she had gone. Twice Dora had called up the back stairs to ask if he wanted dinner earlier as Barbara would not be home, once she had asked if he would like the eggs “cuddled”, she meant coddled, of course, and he said he would. And he even conceded a half-hour in favor of Dora’s earlier meal so that she could go to the beach to see the fish boats come in.
Also, there had been two telephone calls to jerk him out of his reverie, and already he was missing Barbara.
And now the door-bell!
“Might as well put work aside for today!” the doctor told himself, for while Dora was preparing a meal she never deigned to answer the door.
“Hey there!” came a shout through the hall. “May I come up?”
“Yes, come along. Glad you are nobody else,” called back Doctor Hale, while Glenn Gaynor was already dashing up the stairs.
“Barbara gone?” he asked sharply, as if hoping she wasn’t and knowing she was.
“Yes, went long ago,” answered the doctor. “You’re going to the dance, I hear.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” The boy, who was so big and good-looking that he might well have been called a young man, tossed his cap down impatiently, and folded his brown arms to keep them out of mischief. “I hate these affairs——”
“Now, see here, Glenn,” said the doctor, in that unmistakable voice that starts a lecture, “all work and no play, you know——”
“Yes sir, I know,” Glenn cut in. “But when a fellow starts they run him to death, and I just can’t see these house parties.”
“Why go then?” complacently asked the older man.
“Promised Babs, promised Dud and promised his sister, Cara,” admitted the complaining youth. “A silly little party, with giggling girls just out of grammar school——”
“Oh, really now, Glenn,” laughed Dr. Hale, “they’re better than that. They are, I believe high school sophs. And besides—look who is giving this party!”
“Oh, yes I know,” Glenn almost sneered, “the rich de Burkes,” this was a pure mockery, “at Billows, seaside residence of—oh, darn!” he broke off suddenly. “I came over to buy Babs off. I’ve got tickets for the Music Festival tomorrow night and—I’m due at a—dance!”
Glenn’s discomfiture was so boyish it was positively laughable, and Dr. Hale was enjoying it.
“Look out, boy,” he warned. “That’s just the way a colt acts when he sees a lasso!”
“Lasso! What do you mean, sir?”
“That you may have a better time at the dance than you anticipate,” replied Dr. Hale slowly but not solemnly.