CHAPTER IV.
“‘So let the wide world wag as it will, I’ll be gay and happy still, Gay and happy, Gay and hap——’”
“No doubt of it, Nan!” called Bert from the foot of the Ferrises’ stairs, early next morning.
Nan suddenly ceased expressing her intentions in song, and appeared leaning over the balustrade, with a blue veil tied over her head, waving a dust-cloth. When she saw that it was Bert, who had interrupted her strain of melody, she proceeded to finish the verse, ignoring the break, and singing:
“‘——py, I’ll be gay and happy still!’”
Then she cried: “Why, Bert! what brought you over at such an unearthly hour in the morning?” But, without waiting for an explanation of so startling an event, she went on, “Oh, come up-stairs—I’ve changed my room all about, and it is very much prettier.”
Bert looked fresh and alert as she took out her watch and said laughing:
“I can’t, thank you; haven’t time; besides, I’m afraid my enthusiasm wouldn’t come up to your expectations, as I think I’ve missed one or two of your Friday revolutions, and probably all your things are back again where I last saw them.”
“Oh, no!” Nan retorted; “this combination has never before been offered to an American public!”
“What! Have you turned your mirror to the wall and your bed up-side-down?”
“Bert, you’re saucy!” cried Nan. “But why are you in such a hurry?”
“Because,” Bert began sententiously, “a business woman can’t waste mornings at this rate. _My_ oysters and salad are earned by the labor of my hands, and depend upon a faithful discharge of my duties. Good-morning, idle worms! I am off; my employer will be expecting me,” and the lofty confidential clerk stalked tragically toward the door.
“Your _what_?” cried Nan, while Evelyn flew out of her room and demanded, “What under the sun are you talking about, Bert?”
Bert was now leaning against the newel-post in a paroxysm of laughter.
“Girls,” she said with great impressiveness, “I mean exactly what I say—I’m ahead of you all! Aha, my precious Nan! I am due this morning at the office of ‘N. F. Mitchell & Company, wholesale and retail seed house,’ in the capacity of private secretary!”
“Oh, Bert,” commented Evelyn with sympathetic pride in her friend. “Oh, you dear, brave Bert!”
Nan was silent for a moment, but her shining eyes were eloquent with surprise and delight; finally she said slowly, with returning incredulity:
“No, Bert—you don’t really mean it—you are jesting.”
“Jesting! Please come and see me perched on a stool six feet high, with an inky streak across my nose, and my fingers a sight to behold! Well,” glancing again with a business-like air at her watch, “call at the office, since you have nothing else to do, and look in, but don’t dare to speak to me. Good-bye!” she said as she opened the door; “good-bye!” she shouted from the front steps, and “good-bye!” again at the gate; while Nan and Evelyn gazed after her and then at each other.
“‘I’m struck spachless,’ as the Irishman said,” murmured Nan, sinking upon the top step.
“I think it’s grand news,” asserted Evelyn, with a deep sigh of gratification; “let’s hurry up with our work, and go to Cathy’s this afternoon! Wont she be astonished!”
And away they sped to their own rooms and their own plans.
Not that these two sisters led lives apart, for they were the best of friends, and had already discussed their respective hopes and fears. The fears were usually monopolized by Evelyn, who was of a timid, self-distrustful nature and hesitated to attempt many things where Nan rushed boldly in. But if she was not made to lead, she was well adapted to follow, if only she were encouraged by a more dauntless spirit. Nan was such a spirit; yet Evelyn, in her quiet way, often held her impulsive sister to a purpose when the dull reaction from high enthusiasms set in with Nan.
And so it came about that when Nan flattened her nose against the window-pane on that rainy day, she also flattened her spirits by a deliberate survey of her available accomplishments; and when, half an hour later, Evelyn came in, it was to find her younger sister, the stalwart ex-champion of independence and fun, with a shiny nose and moist-looking eyes!
“Why, my dear Nannie,” said Evelyn, tenderly, hastening to her sister’s side and putting her arms about her, “what troubles you?”
This sympathy caused a fresh sniffle, to be duly smothered in the damp handkerchief, while the meek sufferer moaned, “Oh, I’m _mad_!”
[Illustration: THE CHAMPION NEEDS ENCOURAGEMENT.]
Evelyn smiled, for she knew that when Nan thought how “mad” she was, she would stop crying.
“Yes,” she resumed brokenly, though her voice gained strength as she went on, “I am about as disgusted and angry as I can be!”
“For what reason?” asked her sister.
“Because,” replied Nan, with a catch in her breath, “because I’m not a _man_—if you must know! Here only yesterday I had enough courage and determination to start two boys in a good lucrative business, and now to-day I face the fact that nobody has expected me to do or to be anything in particular, and that all my expensive education hasn’t provided me with a single weapon to fight my way with, if I had to fight. Why, even if I were reduced to begging,” she added, with a sniff, “I shouldn’t know enough to warm over the cold pieces I received! Don’t you think it is just too bad to be a girl?”
“I used to think so,” Evelyn answered slowly, turning her head away to arrange the draping of a curtain. But in a moment she resumed her elderly-sister fashion of speech—she was three years Nan’s senior—“No, Nannie, if you really wish to be brave and self-reliant, you have full opportunity to be so, as you are.”
“But what can I _do_?” broke in Nan, stormily; “boys always have some occupation ready and waiting for them.”
“Oh, no, they haven’t!” answered Evelyn. “Just think how many college students we have known who haven’t decided on a profession until their senior year. They study the various branches and callings until they find in which line they have the most ability.”
“Oh, dear! there it is again!” sighed Nan hopelessly “they always do develop a taste for something, and then everything is all right. But I don’t long to do _anything_ except to be miserable about it,” she again sighed. “But, to return to the point at issue, my dear sister, will you have the kindness to mention _what_ I do well?”
“You are capable in many ways and at many tasks; whatever you do succeeds.”
“What?” wildly demanded Nan.
“Why, your hats are more Parisian than Paris; you draw well, paint well, and you are certainly very ingenious. Look at this room!”
They both looked and saw a very quaint and dainty room, made pretty, moreover, not by money, but by taste and skill. Even the owner’s troubled countenance relaxed as she contemplated the effect of some yellow cushions she had recently added to an old chair that she had reclaimed from the shades of the attic, and had thus adorned.
“Yes,” she assented reluctantly, “my room is rather satisfactory; but who is going to pay me for making oriental divans out of old piano-boxes, I’d like to know?”
As Evelyn didn’t immediately order one, Nan went on, dejectedly dropping her chin into her palm. “But I should like to be artistic—even for money’s sake, you know. I want to have a studio, with queer bits of drapery that you don’t have to mend or hem. I’d like to be a decorative artist, and go into people’s houses and sweep out all the hideous steamboat furniture one sees. And I wish to know artists, and to have them come to my studio and eat sardines and crackers, and play Spanish airs on a banjo while I paint things to astonish the world. No, on second thought, I’d rather design, and if I could play the banjo myself while I thought up new ideas—wouldn’t that be lovely!” she shouted gleefully.
She was quite cheerful now, with her little imaginary exploits.
“Then an artist is what you are fitted to be, Nan, dear,” announced her sister with conviction; “for what any one wishes to be, that he _may_ be.”
Nan received this scrap of philosophy with a shrug.
“Yes, if he is a long-headed old fellow and wishes within his limits!” she said.
“But I think some sort of artistic achievement is within your limits,” urged Evelyn.
Nan bestowed a grateful look at her sister, but immediately voiced another objection: “Where am I going to begin? People are always talking about the ‘avenues now freely opened to our emancipated sisters,’ but no one ever tells a poor girl exactly how to begin—what to do first. Men have chances and opportunities.”
“Yes,” Evelyn quickly rejoined; “and do you know how they happen to fill them? By being equal to their demands. If I were you, I should go to work and perfect some incomplete accomplishment. But I hear Mother calling. Come, cheer up, sister mine! ‘We miss the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt,’ you know.”
This saying was a truth that had often been urged by Nan upon Evelyn’s own attention during seasons of self-abasement; so there was a touch of sarcasm in the elder sister’s smile, as she glanced back from the door.
By that time, however, Nan’s nose was assuming its natural hue, and life began to look more hopeful, for she had a strong spirit that liked to conquer obstacles.
“Yes, Nan Ferris,” she thought, “it is about as that wise old Evelyn says; you have as good a chance as anybody without respect to sex, and you _shall_ be something worthy of existence! You shall do some one thing so well that somebody will be frantic to pay you a fabulous price for it. And what will you do with this wealth?” she went on, addressing herself. “Are you so base that you yearn for filthy lucre for its own sake? No, Nan Ferris, you are not. First you will pay your own little bills, and lighten your father’s cares instead of his pocket; and then, may be, you can go on lovely little sketching tours in the summer; and, perhaps—oh, Nan!—perhaps, if you are a great success, you can go to Europe some time and study art!”
This climax of prospective bliss was so top-heavy that the whole delightful pile came crashing down, laying bare to this architect of her own fortunes the uncertain foundation on which she had built.
(_To be continued._)
A DUEL WITH A STORK.
BY FREDERICK J. HIBBERT.
[Illustration: I.—THE INSULT.]
[Illustration: II.—THE CHALLENGE.]
[Illustration: III.—PREPARING.]
[Illustration: IV.—PRACTICING.]
[Illustration: V.—THE ENCOUNTER.]
[Illustration: VI.—OUTNUMBERED AND DISARMED.]
[Illustration: VII.—ALLOWED TO RECOVER ARMS.]
[Illustration: VIII.—IN FULL RETREAT.]
[Illustration: IX.—“YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HIM RUN! HA, HA!”]
[Illustration: X.—“YOU NOTICE THAT WE ARE NOT INSULTED ANY MORE.”]
[Illustration: XI.—“IT WAS TOO GOOD AN ADVENTURE TO BE LOST. I MUST WRITE AN ACCOUNT OF IT.”]
[Illustration: XII.—“JUST IMAGINE HIS FEELINGS WHEN HE READS THIS IN PRINT! THE PEN _is_ EVEN MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD!”]
BOPEEP.
BY SYDNEY DAYRE.
We have been playing bopeep to-day, Out on the sand-dunes along the bay. Who was our playmate, do you think? You couldn’t guess who gave us a wink And hid his face in the funniest place,— Behind a bit of a soft white cloud! And Polly and I we laughed aloud To see how the sun enjoyed the fun. And then he gave us another peep Before we could hide in the sedges deep.
Many a little cloud went by, Floating up in the blue, blue sky— Oh, it was jolly for me and Polly To watch the sun look slyly out To see what we were laughing about! We kept as quiet as mice, we two, While he was sailing along the blue, Till he hid behind a patch of white, And then we hurried with all our might To hide again for a little while, Before he came with his beaming smile And seemed to try whether Polly and I Or he could beat, as he went to find Another white cloud to hide behind.
At last he was tired, and hid his head In clouds of purple and gold and red; And we were tired, so in we came To tell what a merry, lively game We had in the meadow—just we three The good old sun with Polly and me.
[Illustration: “AT LAST HE WAS TIRED AND HID HIS HEAD.”]
AN ARMY.
BY A. C.
An army of children encamped by the sea! What a muster of warriors ’tis getting to be! They are coming in clans, with their mothers and maids; They come in battalions, with buckets and spades; They are coming to make a descent on our coast,— They will alter the shape of it, sure!—such a host! Intrenching and digging from morning till night! What foe would dare scale such redoubts in a fight?
Could any invader such parapets take As these forts that the sturdy young champions make? See them shoulder their shovels and march to the fray— See them merrily join the long battle array! Here’s a wave! On their works it begins its attacks! Oh! Alas!—Our brave soldiers are turning their backs! Ah, they rally,—they charge! No more flight, nor affright! They recapture the forts, and they’ll fight until night!
[Illustration: “HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE IMPROVE EACH SHINING HOUR”?
—(_Ask this little girl._)]
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
[_An Historical Biography._]
BY HORACE E. SCUDDER.