CHAPTER V

THE DREAM OF A STAR

Mrs. Clayton was a Diller. She often stated this fact with pride.

“The Dillers, my dear, are among the very oldest and the very best families in the country; and when one has family as every sensible person recognizes, money is of secondary importance,” Ethel’s mother insisted over and over, in season and out.

“All very well, dear,” agreed the girl cheerfully. “But money is more essential to our daily comfort than blue blood. I presume I am glad I have Diller blood in my veins. I am much gladder I have Diller brains in my head; for they enable me to earn twenty dollars a week--more than any other girl earns, I do believe, in Mailsburg.”

Mrs. Clayton, with all her horror of things common, could not deny that Israel Diller had been the saviour of the family by his business ability. He went into trade and he made good in it. By grace of his doing so, and leaving her a few shares of the Hapwood-Diller Company--and Grandon Fuller’s wife a good many--both the Claytons and the Fullers were benefitted. Indeed, Mrs. Clayton and Ethel lived much more comfortably in the little cottage at the end of Burnaby Street by grace of the dividends from those shares than they had while Mr. Clayton was alive.

“But I sometimes wonder,” Mrs. Clayton sighed, “how it came about that Mehitable Fuller and I should have been so unevenly treated by Great-uncle Israel. Mehitable never did a hand’s turn for old Mr. Diller in her life. While you can remember yourself, Ethel, although you were but a tiny girl, that the old gentleman was brought here that time he had typhoid and he was a care on my hands for six months.”

“Oh, Mother!”

“I’m not begrudging the care,” her mother hastened to say. “And of course his lawyer afterward brought me the money for his board--six dollars a week for twenty-seven weeks. And I signed a paper saying it was all I could expect. Still--Well! if he had been alone in his own home and had had to hire a trained nurse and all that he’d have paid out a lot more money than he did.”

“Now, Mother, never mind all that,” Ethel urged.

“No, I realize it doesn’t sound nice,” Mrs. Clayton agreed. “But it seems funny. When I see those Fullers driving around so haughtily, and read about Mehitable, that I went to school with, and that pug-nosed girl of hers----”

“Mercy! don’t let anybody hear you speak of Helen Fuller’s nose in such terms,” laughed Ethel. “And Helen is pretty. You’ve got to acknowledge that.”

“Her nose _is_ a pug,” declared Mrs. Clayton. “That’s got nothing to do with those stocks. Great-uncle Israel’s will was peculiar. So they all say. No administrator mentioned. And he died with Gran Fuller right in the house----”

“Don’t!” begged Ethel. “You must not intimate any wrongdoing, when there can have been no wrongdoing.”

“What do you know about it? And you but a chit of a girl at the time!” demanded Mrs. Clayton. “Anyway, Gran Fuller was there, and he found the will. Mr. Mestinger, the lawyer, was dead then.”

“But the witnesses were alive if the lawyer wasn’t. Of course it was Mr. Diller’s honest will.”

“And he gave all that lump of money to Mehitable who never scarcely spoke to him, and only a little, meaching few stocks of the Hapwood-Diller Company to me. Oh, well, small favors thankfully received. The money’s very welcome every quarter.”

Of course, Ethel was the recipient of a fairly comfortable salary. But they could not have lived so nicely as they did upon her weekly stipend only. Moreover, it was but recently that the girl was able to earn the amount at present paid her.

“And there was a time,” pursued Mrs. Clayton on this particular evening, “when I came near selling the shares for a song.” She and Ethel were sitting, after the dinner dishes were cleared up, on the sheltered porch. “Grandon Fuller made me an offer for my stock. That was just before Mr. Barton was made manager, and people said the company was going to fail.”

“Mr. Barton has done wonders,” declared the girl with admiration.

“Oh, I don’t know,” responded her mother deprecatingly. “I suppose business just chanced to change. But it’s lucky we held on to our stock.”

“It was Mr. Barton who saved us and the rest of the small stockholders,” the girl said firmly.

“Well, I suppose you must say so. I presume you feel some gratitude to him for raising your pay. You never would have got it without his say-so.”

“I hope I earn it,” Ethel observed with some sharpness. “I believe I am worthy of my wages, just as Mr. Barton is worthy of the credit of having put the Hapwood-Diller Company on its feet.”

“Still talking shop?” asked the cheerful voice of Benway Chase. He had come up the walk without the widow and her daughter hearing him till he spoke.

“Oh, Ethel is singing the praises of that wonderful Mr. Barton, as usual,” her mother said.

“I’ll join in,” Ben Chase chuckled, and he sat down on the step of the porch to fill and light his pipe. “We’ve got to hand it to Mr. Barton, Mrs. Clayton. He did another good deed to-day. Promised to take me into the offices.”

“Oh, Ben!” exclaimed the girl in sheer delight. “Did you speak to him as I advised you?”

“Certainly did. I got tired of waiting on the pleasure of those other people who had promised me a job. I have spent every cent we can afford getting a business course and just because I am left-handed the business men I have seen hem and haw over hiring me--or even giving me a chance to show them I am as quick as a fellow with two hands.”

“Dear me, Bennie, don’t talk in that way,” murmured Mrs. Clayton.

“Nobody wants a fellow with one hand--not really!” exclaimed the young man with vigor. “They won’t take me in the army--though a fellow could work a machine gun very well with one paw,” and he laughed without managing to get much mirth into the sound.

“But your Mr. Barton is different,” he added, turning to Ethel. “I saw him to-day at lunch hour--while you were out, Ethel. He never said a word about my bum wing. By the way, did you know he was going away?”

“Who’s going away?” asked Mrs. Clayton, scenting gossip.

“Not Mr. Barton?” cried her daughter quickly.

“Spoke as though he expected to be absent from the offices in the near future. Said you and that Jim Mayberry would break me in all right. What did he mean if it wasn’t that he expected to be absent?”

The girl looked at him breathlessly and her face was actually pale. Mrs. Clayton drawled:

“I suppose he must mean to take a vacation.”

“That’s not it, is it?” Benway Chase asked Ethel, realizing that she was deeply moved.

“It’s the war!” gasped the girl.

“The war?” rejoined her mother. “What’s that to do with Mr. Barton? He’s exempt, isn’t he?”

“He will enlist. I knew he would!” The girl’s hands were clasped in real agony and her voice showed imminent tears. “Oh, I knew he would!”

“Not really?” exclaimed Benway, forgetting to keep his pipe alight. “Mr. Barton can’t be spared, can he?”

“I suspected all along how he felt about it,” moaned the girl. “Ever since April when war was declared--even before.”

“But, goodness! there are so many other men to go,” cried her mother. “And you were just saying that he was necessary to the well-being of the Hapwood-Diller Company, Ethel. Surely he will not desert us.”

“The business is in very good shape again--thanks to him,” Ethel answered, trying to recover her composure. “I suppose he feels that now, at least, he can go to the officers’ training camp. And if we get along all right I just know he will go to France.”

Benway whistled--low and thoughtfully. “He’s that kind of a chap, I guess,” he observed. “Goodness knows, this town is full of those who think differently. The boards had the hardest time getting their full quota for this first draft. There’s got to be a general awakening before the second call comes----”

“But war is dreadful!” cried Mrs. Clayton.

“It must be. But we haven’t come to a realization of it yet or we’d all be glad to try to help keep it in Europe, instead of letting it dribble over here after militarism has ruined the less prepared countries over there. This war is going to mean a good deal. The government is awfully particular about the men they take right now; but they won’t be so particular before it is all over.

“Why!” cried the young fellow with a break in his voice that showed a deeper emotion, “even the Red Cross or the Y. M. C. A. won’t accept for service a fellow with a single solitary thing the matter with him!”

Ethel, who had slipped down into a seat on the step beside him, suddenly patted his shoulder in a sisterly way. She knew that he had tried to serve his country under the banner of the Cross of Peace and had been refused because of his withered arm.

“Heigho!” added Benway, shrugging his shoulders and swallowing his emotion, “that’s neither here nor there. Mr. Barton spoke as though he expected to leave soon, anyway. I expect Ethel, here, will pretty near be boss of those offices while he is gone. How about it, Ethel? Going to be a hard taskmaster to yours truly?”

“I am afraid if Mr. Barton goes that my influence there will be curbed rather than increased,” the girl said with gravity.

“No!”

“Naturally Mr. Mayberry will be boss. Mr. Mayberry does not consider me as capable as does Mr. Barton.”

“Jim Mayberry!” exclaimed Ben. “He’s dead in love with you, they say.”

The girl’s head came up and she turned a haughty look upon her friend.

“Do you consider that complimentary to me?” she demanded.

“No. But complimentary to his good sense,” returned Benway. “I don’t know much about Mayberry; only that he hangs about the Bellevue too much.”

“You’ve said it all,” Ethel declared, with less sternness. “I do not like Mr. Mayberry.”

“All right. I shan’t like him, either, then,” said Benway cheerfully. “But, goodness, girl! you can’t blame men for falling in love with you. I wonder the whole town doesn’t tail along after you when you walk down the street.”

She laughed at him then--and with him.

“There is one thing about your compliments, Ben,” she said. “They may lack grace; but they are unmistakable. Ridiculous! There are hundreds of girls in Mailsburg better looking than I am.”

“Now, did I say anything about looks?” he asked her wickedly. “It’s your sweet disposition that makes you so many friends.”

“Like Jim Mayberry, I suppose?” she said in some disgust.

They continued to wrangle in a friendly way. Mrs. Clayton, frankly yawning, bade them good-night. The moment her mother withdrew Ethel’s manner changed. She removed herself a little from Benway’s vicinity and her witticisms ceased.

“I believe I shall retire early myself, Ben,” she said. “This has been a trying day. I--I shall be glad to have you in the offices with us.”

“Shall you?” There was something in his tone that increased her seriousness.

“If I can do anything there to help you, let me do it,” she said earnestly. “You know we have always been such chums, Ben.”

“Haven’t we?” Again the disturbing accent. She started to rise. He caught her hand. “Wait,” he said. “Let me say a little something to you, Ethel.”

“Ben! Ben! Had you better? You know----”

“I know--everything you can tell me,” he interrupted bitterly. “I know I am only half a man. A fellow shy a wing hasn’t much chance in this world. I ought to know it after all my experience. Especially as the folks have no money to back me. But I have a whole brain----”

“I’ve always told you that, Ben,” she hastened to say. “A perfectly good brain. I would not harp so much on that withered arm.”

“No, perhaps you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t unless the old arm happened to be hitched to your shoulder, as it is to mine. No, it is easy enough to say to a cripple, ‘Forget it.’ Wait till you try it yourself! Though, Heaven forbid! I hope you will never suffer such a handicap, Ethel.”

“Oh, Benway!”

“Now, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Ethel,” he returned, and patted her hand. “Fact is, I feel rather toppy to-night myself. I know that Mr. Barton is taking me on for just what he thinks is in me, and no more. He must think that a withered arm will not make me less useful around the offices of the Hapwood-Diller Company. Influence is not getting me this footing.

“And he was kind enough to say,” went on the boy, “that he saw no reason why I should not rise there as he had risen. He told me how he began in one of the shops and worked up. Of course, I am not beginning just in that way; but he says that a practical knowledge of the mechanical end of the business is not absolutely necessary to advancement.

“If I make good, Ethel--if I prove that the stuff is in me to get up in the business world, after all----”

“Of all your friends I shall be the one who will be the most delighted, Ben,” she interrupted, rising now with finality. “Don’t forget that I have always said it was in you to make something of yourself. Even if your parents could not afford to send you to college, I know--absolutely know--you will make your mark.”

“Well, yes,” he said, rather piqued that she had not let him finish. She stood above him now, looking down.

“Good-night, Benway. I suppose you will come to the offices on Monday?”

“Yes, I’ll see you then, Ethel, every day,” he said wistfully.

“Good-night,” she repeated and went quickly within. Once inside the screen door she watched his shadowy figure down the path. “‘No influence’?” she murmured. “He does not suspect how I fairly had to beg Mr. Barton to give him a chance! Poor Benway! Poor, poor boy!”

The girl went on to her bedroom. She stood a moment in the darkness.

“Frank Barton going--leaving--” she gasped. “Oh, why can’t he see? Why can’t he see?” she added, moaning.

Then she began her preparations for bed.

Benway Chase crossed the road and entered the field that divided his own home from the end of Burnaby Street. This was a surburban locality. There was the fine smell of new-mown hay in his nostrils. Half way across the field he stumbled upon a cock of hay that had been thrown up for the night, and he fell upon it, rolling upon his back luxuriously and gazing back.

There was a light in a certain window of the Clayton Cottage. He had watched it many a night, for he knew that it was the window of Ethel’s room. Above the rooftree hung a brilliant star. He had watched that, too, often and again. And when the light in Ethel’s room was snuffed out he fixed his eyes on the star and dreamed.

It was only a boy’s dream at best. It was a foolish dream, perhaps. But Benway Chase often dreamed it.

He was fully a year older than Ethel Clayton; but sometimes she made him feel very much younger than she. Dreamer by nature, he; and she one of those practical souls that chafe in the bodies of women. At least, they chafe where women’s growth is hampered. But Ethel was numbered of the emancipated. She was a business woman. Moreover, she was a successful business woman.

As she had said, no girl in Mailsburg in all probability earned a larger wage than she did. She had a grasp upon the details of the business of the Hapwood-Diller Company that fitted her without question for a position as important as that of Jim Mayberry for instance. Indeed, she was better informed and more capable than even Frank Barton realized.

The manager merely found her surprisingly helpful on occasion. He respected her; he admired her good business sense displayed at these times. Ethel Clayton did not wish to be admired by the manager for any such reason.

Perhaps hers, too, was a dream of a star.