Sisters

  CHAPTER IV. A PITIFUL PLIGHT

  "There ain't much to tell," Etta said bitterly, "but I haven't alwaysbeen miserable. I was happy up to the time I was ten. I lived with mygrandfolks over in Belgium. My mother left me there while she came toAmerica. She'd heard how money was easy to get, and, after my father diedin the war and the soldiers had robbed my grandfolks of all they had onthe farm, we had to get money somewheres. That's why she came, takin' allthat she'd saved for her passage. How my mother got away out here toCaliforny, I don't know, but anyway she did. She was a cook up in Frisco.Every month she sent money to my grandfolks. My mother kept writing howlonesome she was for me and how she was savin' to send for me. The nextyear I came over with a priest takin' charge of me, but when I got herethey told me my mother had died and they put me in an orphanage. Mygrandfolks tried to save money to send for me to go back to Belgium, butwhat with sickness and they bein' too old to work the farm, it's sevenyears now, an' the money ain't saved. Last year, me bein' sixteen, I gotturned out o' the orphanage and sent here to work parin' vegetables. Idon't get but three dollars a week and board, and I've been savin' all Ican of it. But 'tain't no use. That's why I walked to the railway stationover to Santa Barbara to ask how much money I'd have to save to take mehome to my grandfolks." The girl paused as though too discouraged to goon.

  Jenny had been so interested that she had not even noticed that Dobbinhad stopped to rest at one side of the steep road.

  "Oh, you poor girl, I'm so sorry for you!" she said with a break in hervoice. "I suppose it takes a lot of money for the ticket to New York andthen the passage across the Atlantic in one of those big steamers."

  The tone in which her companion answered was dull and hopeless. "'Tain'tno use tryin'. I never can make it. Never! It'd take two hundred dollars.An' I've only got a hundred with what my grandfolks have sent dribble bydribble." The dull, despairing expression had again settled in theputty-pale face. "'Tain't no use," she went on apathetically. "I can'tsave the whole three dollars a week. I've got to get shoes an' things.Cook said yesterday how she'd have to turn me out if I didn't get somedecent work dresses; a fashionable seminary like that couldn't have noslatterns in the kitchen." Then, after a hard, dry sob that cut deep intothe heart of the listener. Etta ended with "I don't know what I'm goin'to do, but it's got to be done soon, whatever 'tis."

  Jenny felt alarmed, she hardly knew why. "Oh, Etta, you don't mean youmight take----" She could not finish her sentence. Her active imaginationpictured the unhappy girl going alone to the coast at night and endingher life in the surf, but to her surprise Etta looked around as thoughshe feared she might be overheard; then she said, "Yes, I am. I'm goingto take one hundred dollars out of the school safe, and after I've gotover to Belgium I'm going to work my fingers to the bone and send itback. That's what I'm goin' to do. I've told 'em at the station to keepme a ticket for the train that goes out tomorrow morning." Then, when shefelt, rather than saw, that her companion was shocked, she said bitterly,"I was a fool to tell you. Of course you'll go and blab on me." To theunhappy girl's surprise she heard her companion protesting, "Oh, no, no!I won't tell, Etta. Never, never! But you _mustn't_ steal. They'd put youin prison. But, most of all, it would be very, very wrong. You can't gainhappiness by doing something wicked. I just _know_ that you can't."

  Then, after a thoughtful moment, Jenny amazed her companion by saying, "Ihave some money that is all my very own. If Granny and Granddad will letme, I'll loan you a hundred dollars, because I _know_ you'll pay itback."

  Radiant joy made Etta's plain face beautiful, but it lasted only a momentand was replaced by the usual dull apathy. "They won't let you, an' theyshouldn't. I just told you as how I was plannin' to steal, and if I'd dothat, how do you know I'd ever send back your hundred dollars?"

  "I know that you would," was the confident reply. Jenny then urged Dobbinto his topmost speed, and since he had rested quite a while, he did spurtahead and around a bend to the very crest of the low foothill where stoodthe beautiful buildings of the seminary in a grove of tall pine trees.The majestic view of the encircling mountain range usually caused Jennyto pause and catch her breath, amazed anew each time at the grandeur ofthe scene, but her thoughts were so busy planning what she could do tohelp this poor girl that she was unconscious of aught else.

  They turned into the drive, which, after circling among well-kept gardensand lawns, led back of the main building to the kitchen door.

  "I'm awful late and I'll get a good tongue lashin' from the cook but whatdo I care. This'll be the last night she'll ever see me." Jenny glancingat her companion, saw again the hard expression in the face that had beenso radiant with joy a few moments before.

  "She doesn't believe that I'm going to loan her my money," Jenny thought."And maybe she's right. Maybe Granny and Granddad will think I oughtnot." But what she said aloud was: "Etta, let me go in ahead and I'll fixthings up if you're late and going to be scolded." And so, when theyclimbed from the wagon, it was the girl from Rocky Point Farm who firstentered the kitchen. "Good afternoon, Miss O'Hara," she called cheerilyto the middle-aged Irish woman who was taking a roast from the huge ovenof the built-in range.

  "Huh," was the ungracious reply, "so _you_ had that lazy good-for-nothingout ridin', did you?" The roast having been replaced, the cook turned andglared at Etta, her arms akimbo. "Here 'tis, five o'clock to the minuteand not a potato pared. How do you suppose I'm going to serve a dinnerfor the young ladies at six-thirty and all that pan of peas to shellbesides."

  Etta was about to reply sullenly when Jenny, who had placed her basket ofeggs on one end of a long white table, turned to say: "Miss O'Hara, Iwant to ask you a favor. If I stay and help Etta get the vegetablesready, will you let her come over to my house to supper? Won't youplease, Miss O'Hara?"

  Jenny smiled wheedlingly at the middle-aged Irish woman who had alwayshad a soft spot in her heart for "the honey girl," and so she saidreluctantly, "Wall, if it's what you're wishin', though the Saints aloneknow what _you_ see in Etta Heldt to be wantin' of her company."

  Ignoring the uncomplimentary part of the speech, Jenny cried joyfully:"Oh, thank you, thank you, Miss O'Hara! Now give me a big allover apron,please, for I mustn't soil my fresh yellow muslin."

  Miss O'Hara's anger had died away, confident that the peas would beshelled and the potatoes pared on time. She went about her work hummingone of the Irish tunes that always fascinated Jenny.

  Etta, without having spoken a word, took her customary place and began topare potatoes, jabbing out the spots as though she were venting upon themthe wrath which she felt toward the world in general, but even in herheart there was dawning a faint hope that somehow, some way, she had cometo a gate on the other side of which, if only she could pass through, anew life awaited her.

  She looked up and out of the window by which they were seated, whenJenny, pausing a moment in the pea-shelling, exclaimed: "Oh, Etta, do seethose pretty girls. Aren't they the loveliest? Just like a flock ofbutterflies dancing out there on the lawn. There are eight, ten, twelve!Oh, my, more than I can count! How many girls are there now at theseminary, Miss O'Hara?"

  "With the three that came in today, there's thirty-one," the cookanswered as she broke a dozen eggs into a pudding which she was stirring.

  "Did three new pupils come today? Isn't it late in the year to start inschool? Only two months more and the long vacation will begin," Jennyturned to inquire.

  "It is late," Miss O'Hara replied, then suddenly she stopped stirring thebatter and stared at Jenny with a puzzled expression in her Irish blueeyes. "When I saw one of 'em, a haughty, silly minx, I thought to myselfas I'd seen her before somewhere's though I knew I hadn't. Now I know whyI thought that. There's something about you, Jenny Warner, as looks likeher. Folks do look sort of like other folks once in a while, and be noway related."

  Jenny agreed brightly. "Yes, Miss O'Hara, that's absolutely true. Myteacher has often said that the reason she h
as kept on tutoring me isbecause I look like a sister she once had. That makes two folks Iresemble, and I suppose likely there are lots more. What is the newpupil's name. Miss O'Hara?"

  Then it was that the cook recalled something. "Begorrah, and maybe youknow her being as her ma owns the farm you're living on."

  Jenny looked up with eager interest. "Oh, no, I didn't even know Mrs.Poindexter-Jones had a daughter. But I do know the son Harold. That is, Imet him for a few moments once two years ago, and now I do recall that hementioned having a sister." Then, returning to the shelling of the peas,she concluded with: "You know they have not lived in Santa Barbaralately. I never saw the mother, that is, only once."

  "Well, you're not likely to do more than see the daughter. She wouldn'tspeak civil to a farmer's granddaughter." Jenny's bright smile seemed toreply that it troubled her not at all.

  For another ten minutes the girls worked silently, swiftly; then Jennysprang up, removed her apron and, as she donned her hat, she exclaimed:"Miss O'Hara, you just don't know how grateful I am to you for havingsaid that Etta might go home to supper with me."

  Although the cook regretted having given the permission, she merelymumbled a rather ungracious reply.

  Etta went up to her room to put on her "'tother dress," as she toldJenny, but on reaching there she bundled all her belongings into anancient carpet bag, stole out of a side door and was waiting in the buggywhen Jenny reached it.

  "Well, I sure certain don't see how 'twas the ol' dragon let me go alongwith you," Etta Heldt declared, seeming to breathe for the first timewhen, high on the buckboard seat at Jenny's side, old Dobbin was actuallyturning out of the seminary gates that had for many months been as theiron-barred doors of a prison to the poor motherless, fatherless andhomeless girl. And yet not really homeless, for, far across the sea on asmall farm in Belgium there was a home awaiting her, and a dear oldcouple (Jenny was sure that they were as dear and loving and lovable aswere her own grandparents) yearning for the return of their onlygrandchild.

  Jenny, who always pictured in detail anything and everything of which shehad but the meagerest real knowledge, was seeing the old couple goingabout, day by day, planning and striving to save enough to send for theirgirl, but failing because of the privation that had been left blightinglyin the trail of the cruel world war. Then her fancy leaped ahead to theday when Etta would arrive at that far-away farm.

  Jenny's musings were interrupted by a querulous voice at her side.

  "Don't you hear nothing I am saying? What do you see out there betweenyour horse's ears that you're starin' at so steady?"

  Jenny turned a pretty face bright with laughter. "I didn't see the ears,"she confessed, "and do forgive me for not listening to what you weresaying. Oh, yes, I recall now. You wondered what the old dragon would saywhen she found you were really gone."

  Then, more seriously: "Truly, Etta, Miss O'Hara isn't dragony; not theleast mite. I have sold eggs and honey to her for two years, long beforeyou came to be her helper, and she always seemed as glad to see me as thedry old earth is to see the first rains."

  Then, hesitating and slowly thinking ahead that her words might not hurther companion, she continued: "Maybe you didn't always try to please MissO'Hara. Weren't you sometimes so unhappy that you let it show in yourmanner? Don't you think perhaps that may have been it, Etta?"

  "Oh, I s'posen like's not. How could I help showin' it when I was somiserable?"

  Then, before Jenny could reply, Etta continued cynically:

  "Well, I'm not goin' to let myself to be any too cheerful even now.'Tisn't likely your grandfolks'll let you loan me a hundred dollars.How'll they know but maybe I'd never return it. How do you know?"

  Jenny turned and looked full into the china blue eyes of her companion.The gaze was unflinchingly returned. Impulsively Jenny reached out aslender white hand and placed it on the rough red one near her.

  "Etta Heldt," she said solemnly, "I know you will return my money if itlies within your power to do it. I also know that when it came to it, youwould not have stolen money from the Granger place safe. There'ssomething in your eyes makes me know it, though I can't put it intowords."

  As the other girl did not reply, Jenny continued: "I'm _not_ sure certainthat I _can_ loan you my money, of course. I have been saving and savingit for two years so that I could add it to the money grandpa had if weneeded it to buy Rocky Point Farm, but the farm hasn't been put on themarket, granddad says, and so I guess we can spare it for awhile."

  Suddenly and most unexpectedly the girl at her side burst into tears."Oh, oh, how sweet and good you are to me. Nobody, nowhere has ever beenso kind, not since I came to this country looking for mother. When theytold me she was dead and had been buried two days before I got here, andall her belongings sold to pay for the funeral, nobody was kind. Theyjust tagged me with a number and sent me with a crowd of other childrenout to an orphan asylum. And there it was just the same: no one knew mefrom any of the rest of the crowd."

  There were also tears in her listener's eyes.

  "Poor, poor Etta, and here I've been brought up on love. It doesn't seemfair, someway." Then slipping an arm comfortingly about her companion,Jenny said brightly: "Let's keep hoping that you can borrow my money.Look, Etta, we're coming to the highway now, and that long, long lanebeyond the barred gate leads right up to my home. Don't cry any more,dearie. I just _know_ that my grandfolks will help you, somehow. You'llsee that they will."

  Thus encouraged, the forlorn Etta took heart and, after wiping away thetears which had brought infinite relief to her long pent-up emotions, sheturned a wavering smile toward Jenny.

  "I'll never forget what all you're trying to do for me. Never. Never,"she ended vehemently. "And I'm hoping I'll have the chance some day tomake up for it."

  "All the reward that I want is to have you get home to your grandfolksand be as happy with them as I am with mine," Jenny called brightly asshe leaped out of the wagon to open up the barred gate.