CHAPTER II
BETTY WALES, “M. A.”
THINGS did look different in the morning. Betty sighed a little as she considered her last winter’s suit, which she had relegated to the position of a rainy day stand-by, in the light of a “general utility,”—K.’s delightful name for her one street costume. K. and Rachel had managed very well with a new suit once in two or three years. Well, then, so could she, Betty told herself sternly. Just then Mary Hooper telephoned to know about the Saturday rides.
“I’m afraid you can’t count on me,” Betty explained to her. “No, I’m not too busy, Mary, but riding horses are very expensive, and I don’t believe I can afford it.”
Mary’s curt, “Oh, very well, I didn’t suppose you had to consider that. Good-bye, then,” stung a hot blush into Betty’s cheeks. She didn’t care what Mary Hooper thought of her—yes, she did—well, she wouldn’t any more.
That night at dinner mother looked worried, in her turn.
“My new cook has given notice,” she told the assembled family the first time the waitress went out of the room, “and I thought she was going to be such a treasure!”
“What’s her trouble?” demanded Will gaily.
“She doesn’t like living where they keep only two maids. Of course it is difficult to manage, especially with such a big house. Maggie is too busy sweeping and dusting and answering the bell to help at all in the kitchen. Yesterday the cook absolutely refused to clean the silver, and to-night she grumbled about wiping the dishes.”
“Then have the third maid back, Alice. It was only to be an experiment, this cutting down household expenses. I simply won’t have you worried.” Father’s voice sounded impatient, because he felt so very unhappy.
“I don’t know how I can help worrying when everything goes wrong, and I understood that it was absolutely necessary to cut down expenses.” Mother’s voice sounded stiff and unsympathetic, because father didn’t realize how glad she had been to do her part.
Then in a flash everything came out. “If it wasn’t absolutely necessary to retrench when we talked things over, it certainly is now,” father began abruptly; “my New York broker has disappeared. It seems he’s been on the wrong side of the market lately, and to help himself out he’s been borrowing the securities that his customers had left on deposit with him. That means that a good many thousands of my money have gone, with practically no hope of recovery. I’d been holding that stock as a last reserve. I’m afraid this spells ruin.” Father pushed back his plate, and got up from the table.
“Please don’t go, father,” begged little Dorothy solemnly, catching at his coat tails. “Are we going to be really and truly poor? Because if we aren’t going to have enough to eat by and by, we ought not to waste to-night’s dinner, that’s all cooked.”
Mr. Wales laughed in spite of himself; and then, because Maggie was coming back with the salad, he sat down again, and somehow, between silence and conversation about the weather, dinner was finished.
Afterward Betty got Will and Dorothy down in the furthest corner of the lawn with the gray kitten, so that mother and father, up on the piazza, could talk things over and come to an understanding.
“Tell me, Betty, are we going to be really and truly poor?” little Dorothy demanded. But when Betty kissed her and said no, not really hungry and ragged, she was quite ready to forget all about it and devote herself to teaching the gray kitten to climb trees. That left Will and Betty free to discuss the family crisis.
“I shall take that job Cousin Joe West offered me out at his shops,” Will declared. “He’s awfully fussy, and father says he works his men to death. That’s why I didn’t go last June. Father thought he could certainly get me something better by fall, but nothing has turned up yet, and if I go with Joe that will be one thing off father’s mind.”
Betty sighed. “It’s so easy to be poor if you’re a boy. You’ll be earning your own living——”
“I suppose a fellow can live on what I’ll earn, if he has to,” interrupted Will, making a wry face.
“And I shall have to spend father’s money just as usual, only not so much of it. Oh, dear, I wish I was bright enough to teach, like Nan!”
“A penny saved is a penny earned,” quoted Will sagely. “Nan will never save a penny, that’s one thing sure. I say, didn’t we promise the Benson girls that we’d be over to-night?”
When the Benson girls accused Betty of being quiet and absent-minded she laughed at them and asked if she generally monopolized the entire conversation. But on the way home she confided to Will that she hadn’t heard a word Sallie Benson had said about the plans for her coming-out cotillion. For almost the first time in her life, except the night after her famous runaway in senior year, Betty did not fall asleep the minute her head touched the pillow. She had promised father to help and she meant to, as much as ever she could. The hard question was how to keep her word.
Next morning she put her plans into action. After breakfast she hunted up Mrs. Wales, who was in the sewing-room with a huge pile of mending on the table beside her. Betty heroically helped herself to one of Will’s stockings, and led up to her errand.
“When does the cook leave, mother?”
“This evening, I believe. She’s packing now. I haven’t dared ask her what she means to do about the breakfast dishes.” Mother laughed happily. “We had such a nice talk last night, your father and I. I feel as if I were back in the days when we were first married, and had to count all the pennies we spent. After all, being poor isn’t so bad as long as we have each other.”
Betty nodded sagely. She didn’t want mother to find out that any one else had been confided in first. “I knew you’d feel so—I mean I think it’s a lot nicer to know the worst. But are you going to get another cook?”
Mrs. Wales nodded. “I told your father that we could get on beautifully with a general maid, but he insists upon two. He thinks we must keep up appearances as far as possible, as a sort of business asset.”
“But a cook doesn’t appear,” Betty suggested. “She’s behind the scenes.”
“Exactly, and that gives the second maid a chance to be in front of them. A good many business acquaintances of your father’s come through the city, and he wants to be able to bring them up to dinner without worrying about its being properly served.”
“It would have to be properly cooked too, wouldn’t it?” Betty reflected solemnly. “Well, anyhow, there’s no harm in telling you what I want. I want to do the cooking. I hate sweeping and dusting and mending, and the things I mend are frights. But I love to mess in the kitchen, and I’ve always wanted a chance to do it without a fussy old cook to glare at me and make remarks about its being her kitchen, and a lot too full of people. I don’t know how to make very many things, except salads and chafing-dish ‘eats,’ but I’m wild to learn. Please let me, mother. How much does a cook cost?”
“Eight dollars a week, unless she’s a particularly good cook and gets ten,” laughed Mrs. Wales. “But you’re absurd, Betty. You don’t realize how much work it is to cook for a big family like ours. Besides, how would you manage when we had guests? It would be very awkward.”
“Oh, I’ve thought that all out,” began Betty eagerly. “I’d wait till the last minute and then just turn things over to the waitress,—we’d have to find a very accommodating waitress, of course,—whisk off my laboratory apron, and appear in the bosom of my family arrayed in my best dress.”
Mrs. Wales shook her head. “That sounds very simple, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. You’d be red in the face from bending over the fire, and your hands would be spoiled. I’m sorry, dear,” as she noticed Betty’s expression of disappointment, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to think of some other more practical ways of saving money.”
Betty stabbed viciously at the biggest hole in her second stocking. “All right, mother,” she said at last. “But please don’t say no to my being cook just until you can find one. You haven’t found one yet, have you?”
Mrs. Wales shook her head. “A friend of Maggie’s is coming to see me this afternoon, but I don’t imagine she’ll do.”
“Don’t engage her unless she sounds perfectly splendid,” urged Betty, folding up Will’s stockings and tossing them on top of the pile of finished mending.
A few minutes later she danced back, enveloped in a long, checked gingham apron. “The new cook, mem,” she announced, curtseying gravely. “And the ould wan is gone, mem, so wad yuz plaze be so kind as to lave me have the ordhers for the dinner.”
Betty’s first dinner was a great success. It was agreed not to tell father and Will who cooked it; and when father praised the roast, and Will loudly lamented the imminent departure of a cook who could make such “dandy” lemon ice, Betty blushed pink with pride and pleasure. Next morning it was only fun to get up early and dress in a hurry. But the first relay of toast burned up, and the eggs were done too hard, because the coffee wouldn’t boil at all and then boiled over. Will grumbled, father read his paper in gloomy silence, and though mother tried to smooth things over, she wore an “I-told-you-so” expression, and Betty felt sure she would be on hand to help with the next breakfast.
But before that there was luncheon, and Will, who was going out to see about his new position, announced that he would come home for it. Just as Betty was putting on her big apron to begin operations, Mary Hooper rang the bell. Betty discovered that Maggie had said she was at home, so she slipped off the big apron, and went down. Mary was chairman of the play committee, and she wanted to get Betty’s ideas about the cast and the costumes before she called the rest of her committee together.
“College girls are so clever at plays,” she explained. “I thought you and I could save a lot of time if we got everything decided beforehand.”
This wasn’t exactly Betty’s idea of good committee work, but Mary hadn’t asked her advice on that point, so they set to work. At half-past twelve Mary discovered that it was raining.
“How jolly!” she exclaimed. “That lets me out of a tennis match with the Bensons and Ted Farnum, and we can have the afternoon clear for this.”
“Then will you excuse me for a few minutes, Mary?” Betty asked anxiously. “Our cook has gone, and I’m taking her place. I want to be sure that you’ll have some luncheon.”
Mary lifted haughty eyebrows. “Can’t one of the second maids see to that?” she asked, getting up and going over to the window. “Oh, well, if it’s going to put you out, I won’t stay. Besides, it looks clearer already, so we may play tennis after all. Oh, no, thank you, I shouldn’t think of staying if you’re going to make company of me, as they say in the country. I remember at my aunt’s in New Hampshire, they never could have any one for Monday dinner, because it was wash-day. Well, we’ve got a good deal done. I’ll drop in at Milly’s, perhaps, on my way home, and see what she thinks about our cast.”
Without waiting to find her apron, Betty rushed to the kitchen, fully expecting to find Mrs. Wales and Maggie there, and lunch well under way,—which would have been rather a disgrace to the young lady who had begged to be allowed to act as cook, but on the whole a comfortable arrangement. Instead, however, the kitchen was deserted.
“Oh, dear!” soliloquized Betty sadly. “I wonder what mother meant to have. I remember now that she went out. I wonder what there is to have. Maggie might know—but she probably wouldn’t. I’ll ask her, though, if she’s down setting the table.”
Maggie was laying the table, but she had no ideas on the subject of possible luncheon dishes. So Betty found some eggs, got a chafing-dish ready, and had all her preparations made for a delicious omelette, when Will came in, exasperated at Cousin Joe’s fussiness, and very hungry, and reminded her that he hated eggs.
“Oh, Will! I’m so sorry! Well, anyhow you love strawberry jam.”
“Bread and jam aren’t specially filling,” grumbled Will.
“Couldn’t you begin on that?” suggested Betty bravely. “And in the meantime I’ll find you something else that is filling.”
“When are we going to have a cook, anyhow?” demanded Will, when Betty had taken her seat again, having instructed Maggie to slice some cold roast beef.
“When are we going to have an experienced cook, you mean, monsieur,” Betty corrected him gaily. In the pantry she had decided that she should probably be cross herself in Will’s place, and had therefore resolved to take all his faultfinding in good part. “Because at present you’ve got me, such as I am. Suppose you give me a list of all your favorite dishes, Will, and I’ll make them, if they aren’t too hard. And just to relieve your mind I’ll confide to you that mother is hunting cooks this very morning.”
That afternoon Betty got a note from Roberta Lewis.
“I’m considering working for an M. A. at Bryn Mawr,” she wrote. “Father is away all day, and I don’t know enough people here in Philadelphia to keep me from getting lonely. Of course in some ways I should lots prefer going to Harding, but father wouldn’t consent to that. He wants me here whenever he is at home. We’re getting to be regular chums. We go to the theatre together, and he always takes me for supper afterward, because he’s heard that debutantes prefer theatre-suppers to almost anything. He wanted to have Aunt Nell come down from New York to help him give a big party for me; but I made him see how absurd it would be for a staid old lawyer like him and a quiet, stay-at-home, ’fraid-of-a-man like me, to bother about big fussy parties. So we just have nice little dinners for father’s old friends, and next summer he is going to teach me to ride horseback—I shudder whenever I think of it!—and to play golf, so that we can enjoy more things together. Write me what you think about the M. A.
“ROBERTA.”
Betty scribbled her answer at once.
“I’m doing an M. A. myself, Roberta dearest. It surprises you to hear that, doesn’t it? Well, in my case M. A. stands for Mother’s Assistant, and so far it’s the hardest course I ever took. But if mother ever finds a good cook—I’m the cook at present, and I should love it if everything didn’t go wrong—why, perhaps it will be easier. The other topics in my M. A. are mending and dusting and housekeeping odds and ends.
“If I am ever married and have any children, I shall bring them up to eat whatever there is on the table. Will hates eggs, and loves apple-pie. Dorothy hates pie and adores ice-cream. Father never eats ice-cream and likes his steak rare. Mother wants her steak actually burned, and nothing but crackers and cheese and coffee for desert; and father loves coffee, but mustn’t drink it. I am just as fussy as any of them, but I never shall be again. I must stop and get dinner. Pity the poor cook of this hard-to-suit family!
“I think it would be grand to be able to write M. A. after your name, but if you want to really and truly learn something take my kind.
“Yours, with her sleeves rolled up,
“BETTY.”