CHAPTER VIII
The following morning, however, Mabel was once more filled with herusual self-esteem. Before going to sleep she had written a poem whichwould have sounded more original if it had not been so very like severalwell-known bits of verse she had often read. But to Mabel it seemed tospring from her soul, and after reading it with tears of appreciation inher eyes, she decided to let the _Times-Leader_ have the privilege ofprinting it.
That was to be a strange, terrible and eventful Monday. The Day ofOverheard Conversations Mabel might have named it.
There was nothing to warn her of the day's disagreeable outcome. It wasone of Louisville's loveliest mornings, and there was enough left fromher Sunday dinner to give her a good breakfast. She was up early enoughto go over her lessons, and the apartment as she left it after Sunday'sviolent cleaning had a look of righteous order and dustlessness. Also,having read the poem a number of times, Mabel saw herself as the comingpoetess and preened herself accordingly.
One of the nicest girls in high school overtook Mabel and they walked toschool together. It was in the cloak-room that Mabel received her firststab. The other stepped around the end of a cloak rack where she was metby a third girl whom Mabel knew but slightly.
"Hello, Grace," she heard her say. "I stopped at your house but you hadgone."
"Yes, I walked to school with Mabel Brewster," replied Grace.
"Well, how you can stand her _I_ don't know," said the other girl with asniff. "Of all the stupid prigs she is the worst!"
"Oh, I wouldn't say _that_," said Grace gently.
"Well, _I_ would!" declared the other girl stubbornly. "She thinks sheis a wonder and knows everything, when in fact she is stupid andconceited, and _no_ one likes her."
Grace was a Girl Scout and this talk shocked her. She shook her head. "Idon't think you are really right, Mary, and besides I don't think youought to speak so."
"It is true, just the same," said the girl stubbornly. "You knowyourself what her marks are--just as low as she can stand and pass. Andthat way she has of smiling in such a superior way when anyone elsemisses. And when _she_ misses she always has such a good excuse! I dowonder why the teachers stand for it!"
A group of laughing and chattering girls came into the cloak-room andMabel seized the opportunity to slip into the hall and into theclass-room. Her face burned. Of course she told herself that the girlwas jealous, but Mabel was one of those persons who require the approvaland admiration of those about her in order to be happy.
She did such poor work that morning that she was obliged to stay afterschool, although she knew that she ought to be at the office. She tookher books to a desk in the reference library where she was soon lost inher work.
Presently she heard the low voices of a couple of teachers. They cameand seated themselves on the other side of a big blackboard just behindMabel.
"Oh, dear," sighed one of them, "this weather makes me long forvacation."
"The last weeks of school are always a drag," answered the other. "And Ithink the children feel it as much as we teachers. Even my brightestpupils are letting down, and the marks have all fallen off."
"Even Mabel Brewster's marks?" queried Miss Jones with a sniff.
"What a goose that girl is!" said Miss Hannibal. "I don't know what doesail her."
"An inflated ego," said Miss Jones.
"Novels and the New Woman Movement, I think," said Miss Hannibal. "It isa perfect shame. I feel _so_ sorry for her mother. Here this girl, assoon as she gets where she would naturally be of some service andcomfort to her mother, steps gaily out of all her responsibilities andhome duties and sets up a home of her own and goes around talking abouta career. _Career_, indeed! Why, the child has nothing to career _on_!She did not inherit her mother's cleverness. If she was _my_ child, Iwould send her to her room and keep her there on bread and water untilshe came to her senses."
"So would I," said Miss Jones, "but it is really none of our business,of course."
"Well, in a way it is," answered Miss Hannibal testily. "You see she isdoing very poor school work, and the Principal told me yesterday that hewould probably have to drop her from her class at the end of the schoolyear. And she _won't_ work, because she is so crazy over that sillynewspaper job that she simply neglects everything else. I just _don't_see what ails her mother!"
"Does her mother know what poor work she is doing in school?" asked MissJones.
"I don't know," said Miss Hannibal. "And I don't know what good it woulddo if she did. A girl who thinks as little of her mother as Mabel doeswould not care what she thought and would not listen to her advice. Youmay be sure that she has cost her mother many bitter tears already. _I_shan't worry about her. She spoils my thoughts. I have wanted to ask youhow the Morrisson boys are doing."
Miss Jones proceeded to enthuse over the Morrissons, but for once theirachievements did not interest Mabel at all. She was stunned and angry.Yet as she sat huddled motionless in her corner, waiting for theteachers to go, she soon recovered her balance, and reflected that theytoo were probably jealous. She thought fondly of her position on thenewspaper and proudly dreamed her dream of the day when she would driftinto the magic circle of the Chief Editor's desk as his best reporter.
When Miss Hannibal and Miss Jones sauntered away, Mabel lost no time inmaking good her own escape. She crossed over to Third Street where thebeautiful houses with their look of reserve and wealth always catered toher love of luxury. Ahead were three girls in Girl Scout uniforms. Sherecognized them at once: Rosanna Horton with her black docked hair,Claire Maslin's long swinging red braid and Elise Hargrave's bobbingcurls. At first Mabel decided to walk slowly and avoid them but shechanged her mind and caught up with them.
"Do you still like the work you are doing?" asked Claire in her softdrawl.
"I suppose so," said Mabel, and then as though forced into honesty, sheadded, "The trouble is, I miss mother and Frank so that I don't seem todo all the work I planned after all. It doesn't seem to be working outright. Of course I shall go on with it, because I really owe it tomyself, but it isn't half the fun I thought it was going to be."
"I knew it," said Elise Hargrave gently. "It is a most dreadful thing tobe _torn_ from the home nest, and when one hops out by one's self andwaves that not so strong wing one must of a necessity wish to be back."
"Why don't you give up and go home?" said Rosanna. "You would be doingthe wise thing."
"No, I can't," said Mabel. "I suppose some day when I am famous, I willperhaps take mother and Frank to live with me." She laughed and noddedas she left the girls and hurried on to the _Times-Leader_ office.
"She means it; she actually _means_ it!" said Rosanna in a hushed voice.
"Of course she means it!" laughed Claire. "Isn't she funny? I never sawa girl so conceited in my life. And really she _isn't_ bright at all.She is just an ordinary girl with ordinary gifts. I think she is usuallyquite stupid when she talks, but perhaps that is because she is soawfully conceited that it bores you."
"I hate to hear you say such things about her," said the tender-heartedRosanna.
When Mabel reached the office she went directly to the big shabbydictionary open on its stand, and looked up two words, _Inflated_, and_ego_. The result was not pleasing! She sat before the book, gloomingover the unflattering result of her quest. So she had an "inflatedego," had she? As she sat there, the office boy, seeing her close to hisletter-press and feeling himself capable of starting an acquaintancewith any girl his own size, pulled his purple and gold necktie intoplace, seized a few sheets of paper, and sauntered up. Mabel continuedto stare at the open page of the dictionary.
"Kiddin' me," thought the boy to himself. He put the papers in place,and commenced to whistle, one careful eye on Mabel. He whistled so faroff the key that she looked up. Instantly he grinned.
"Great job, this!" he said cheerfully, twisting the lever with a vastshow of effort. "I bet I work harder than any fellow in this office. Ibet I work harder than the Chief himself
." Mabel continued to look athim, but did not speak, and he continued, "Your name is Brewster; MabelBrewster, isn't it? I saw it on some of the papers Miss Gere and theChief threw in the waste basket. Say, what do you write such gobs ofstuff for? They don't use it. Aren't you on to that yet? My name's JesseHart. Ain't that a peach of a name to give a fellow? Sounds like asure-nuff girl's name--Jesse. And Hart means a deer. Fellows used tocall me Jessie dear when I was a kid, but I knocked a couple of 'em outand they quit it." He grinned at Mabel more cheerfully than before."Say, you don't wear yourself out talkin', do you, sis?"
Mabel flushed with anger. A couple of the reporters saw the two andsmiled playfully. "Jessie dear" winked back and Mabel flushed.
"I don't want to talk to you," she said distinctly. "I wish you would goaway."
"Suits me!" said Jesse. "Suits me all right, Miss High-Mighty." He gavea short laugh with a close imitation of the manner of Dalton Duplex, hismovie star villain, and strutted off. Mabel noted that the rims of hisears were very red. She dismissed him angrily from her thoughts and wentover to Miss Gere's desk.
The thin man pounded furiously on the next typewriter as usual, but helooked up as she passed him. "A new crush, Miss Mabel?" he askedmischievously.
Mabel was too angry to answer; she rudely flounced into the chair andturned her burning face away.
Surely, she thought, there _never_ was another girl who had so manythings to annoy her. That silly boy! As though she would bother to lookat him. The two immaculate Morrissons flashed through her mind. Suchboys and their friends were well worth while. Then her mind turned tothe remark about the waste basket. She wondered if her work was beingthrown away. She knew that it was always rewritten, but she thought thatwas the rule of the office. Mabel had a lot to think of.
The next morning Jesse proceeded to prove that he was a youth of gritand determination. He wore another necktie, and when he saw Mabelsitting at Miss Gere's desk he went over and grinned a cheerfulgood-morning. Mabel returned it glumly with a stony stare that wouldhave quelled a less determined boy.
"Say, how about a picnic Sunday afternoon?" he asked without noting thedrop in temperature. "I thought we could ask your mother to chaperoneus, and get your brother Frank, and a couple of other fellows and havesupper at Jacobs' park. The chaps have a car and they know two dandygirls."
"No," said Mabel decidedly. "It isn't possible for me to go. I am suremother wouldn't go, nor Frank." She spoke so sneeringly that Jesseflushed.
"That's where you guess again, Miss Highty-Mighty!" he said. "I sawFrank last night and he asked his mother, and she said _sure_, so Iguess I just get another girl for little me, and you needn't think Idon't know where to get off. I won't trouble you again, so don't youworry." He stalked off, leaving Mabel furious to think that Frank andher mother were going to go with that dreadful boy and his dreadfulfriends. She could just _see_ the sort they must be: the girls like alot of the girls she knew in high school, giggly, silly, gum-chewinggirls, with untidy ruffed-up hair pulled over their ears, and boys likeJesse. She sent a cautious glance after Jesse. After all there wasnothing really the matter with him, except she just didn't like hisneckties, and oh well, he wasn't a bit like the Morrissons, forinstance, who always looked as though they had come out of a bandbox,and were so polite, and _such_ fun.
That night going home. Mabel met Frank. He seemed to be always hangingaround the corner nearest the _Times-Leader_ office when she came out atnight and always walked home with her.
"Jesse says you won't go on our picnic," Frank commenced at once.
"Why, of course not!" said Mabel. "I am perfectly surprised to thinkthat you and mother would mix with such people!"
"Such people?" repeated Frank. "_What_ people?"
"Why, the sort that Jesse boy must go around with. Of course I know howmother is. She would chaperone anyone who wanted her, but I should think_you_ would know enough to keep her out of it."
"Well, I don't see how you figure it," said Frank sulkily. "I am goingto take Helen Culver. She is all right, isn't she? And Jesse was goingto take you, and I bet you think _you_ are all right, and Rosanna Hortonand that Maslin girl are going with Jesse's cousins. Pretty good crowd,I take it."
"Who are his cousins, for mercy sake?" demanded Mabel.
"Don't you know?" asked Frank. "The Morrissons, of course! You knowtheir father owns the _Times-Leader_."