CHAPTER IX
Leaving Mabel to recover as best she could from Frank's astoundingannouncement, we will look in on Rosanna listening, round eyed andbreathless, to her Uncle Bob talking rapidly to his mother, his wife,and his little niece.
"Oh, do you _really_ mean it?" Rosanna exclaimed at last.
"Cross my heart, sweetness!" Uncle Bob assured her. "Cross my heart andblack my eye, _hope_ to live and _haf_ to die!"
Rosanna leaned back with a sigh of absolute delight. "I never dreamedanything so perfectly splendiferous," she murmured. "Wait until I tellthe girls about it!"
"That is the only disagreeable part, dear," said her uncle. "What I havetold you is a great secret. In fact, no one but just our four selvesmust know a single thing about our plans until a week before we sail. Iam sorry, because I know what fun it would be to talk over a trip aroundthe world, but there are very important business reasons why it must bekept absolutely quiet."
"All right, uncle, but that means we will have to talk it over twice asmuch ourselves. So tell it all over, please!"
"Well," said Uncle Bob, not at all unwilling to talk, "John Culver'sinvention makes it possible to arrange our machinery in such a way thatit is possible to use it under almost any and all conditions. It ischanging the whole course of big institutions and vast enterprises willbe affected by it. It is such a big thing that it must be laid beforethe heads of governments, and it has fallen to my lot to attend to thispart of the business. So for the first trip I am going to start acrossthe Atlantic, cut nearly straight across the continent, come home byJapan and Honolulu, _and_ you are all going with me!"
"But how about school?" wailed Rosanna.
"Oh, bother school!" said Uncle Bob, with an uncomfortable glance atRosanna's grandmother. "What's school to us? We are going a-jauntingwhether school keeps or not!" He laughed. "We will be off and away assoon as ever we can."
"Hurray!" cried Rosanna, hopping up and down. "Oh, grandmother, will youreally let us?"
Her grandmother looked at her son, then at his wife. They both sparkled.
"I think I shall have to," she said. "But, Rosanna, I don't know what isgoing to become of your education if these people keep on taking us withthem wherever they go."
"Oh, but grandmother dear, think of all the wonderful things I will see,and the languages I will hear, and the people, the queer dear people!"
"I should say so!" said Mrs. Horton dryly. "And the _algebra_ you willmiss! How wonderful it will be!"
The next few days were so exciting that Rosanna could scarcely bear it.She was glad when Claire Maslin telephoned over to see if she would comeand spend the week-end with her in the house her father had just taken.Both Mrs. Horton and Cita were glad to have Rosanna go, for she was soexcited over the coming journey that she went wandering about the houselike a restless spirit and could neither read, practice nor study.
Claire was drifting into one of her black moods. The Colonel had learnedthat his wife had taken a turn for the worse, and had felt that he musttell Claire. She had heard it in stony silence, with dry eyes andcompressed lips, her only comment being, "It is coming soon, isn't it,dad?"
Then after a sleepless night and a bad day she asked Rosanna to come andstay with her, hoping that she could forget her horrors for awhile. Butafter a few hours spent with the gentle loving little Scout, she wasconscious of quite a new sensation. For the first time in her life shewanted to confide all her troubles to someone; someone who wouldsympathize with her. She thought almost tenderly of her new friend.Rosanna's low and pleasant voice, soft friendly eyes, so deep andloving, her air of truth, all made poor Claire who had been sofriendless and so cold feel that here at last was one whom she couldtrust; one to whom she could tell all her worries and troubles. But thecaution which usually held her steady kept her from saying anything toRosanna, even when a telegram was handed to her father at the dinnertable; a telegram that deepened the lines in his face and caused him toglance apprehensively at Claire with a slight shake of the head.
Claire felt the black cloud of horror closing down on her. She managedto finish the meal, letting her father and Rosanna do most of thetalking. Then she excused herself and went to her room.
She expected that her father would follow her and give her the news.Claire felt that it was something bad: but Rosanna came bounding up,calling cheerily as she came, "Hurry up, Claire! Get into your uniform;it is Scout night!"
"I don't believe I will go to the meeting tonight," said Claire, butRosanna exclaimed, "Oh, Claire dear, we don't want to miss it, do we?Besides, your father said specially that you were to go, and we aregoing to be late if we don't hurry, so he is going to drive us over inthe car. Won't it be fun to go back to my own home from somewhere elseto attend a meeting?" She slipped out of her little net dinner dress asshe talked and into her crisp, clean uniform, and Claire found herselffollowing Rosanna's example. When she stepped into the waiting car, herfather murmured in her ear, "No change!" and she sighed with relief.
It was a specially good meeting. Only one girl was absent, MabelBrewster, and the Captain was careful to explain that that was at _her_suggestion. After the business meeting and the usual reports and thegiving of several badges of merit, the Captain said with a smile:
"I have been in Washington nearly all the week, girls, as some of youknow, and while there I had a very interesting Scout experience. Iwanted to consult with one of the most prominent Scout Captains there, alady named Mrs. Pain, the wife of a Washington artist. Well, I madearrangements to call at her house and as luck would have it, it was thenight of a Scout meeting. Of course I was very glad to see how theyconducted their meetings and all that. I found Mrs. Pain most charming,and her apartment quite delightful.
"A blond angel of a baby about three years old was skipping around hereand there. She was dressed in a complete Scout uniform and, girls, shelooked _exactly_ like a big doll! I thought of course she was Mrs.Pain's child, and she is, but with a very interesting history. When Ispoke to Mrs. Pain about the pretty little thing, Mrs. Pain smiled andgave me this paper. It is a copy of the Washington _Times_, and this iswhat it says:
"MABEL, FIRST CIRCULATING BABY IN WORLD, IS ONLY THREE, BUT SHE'S SOME GIRL."
"This little story will introduce Miss Mabel Pain, three years old, the youngest and tiniest Girl Scout in the world. Mabel lives right here in Washington, at the Graystone Apartments, and she is the mascot of Girl Scout Troop No. 3, composed of Graystone girls.
"Although only three years of age, Mabel has had a varied and romantic career, and if the remainder of her life holds for her as much excitement as she has experienced during her baby years, she will be quite a wonder long before she grows gray-headed. Indeed, Mabel already is a little wonder, for she can swim, hike three miles without getting tired, say grace as solemnly as a bishop, recite her A B C's backward, repeat the Girl Scout oath of allegiance to the flag, say all of the ten Girl Scout laws, salute with the snap of a West Point cadet, and do many other things the average child of six or seven would have great difficulty in doing.
"And all this is the more interesting because Mabel was once a little waif, without parents and without a home. Her origin remains a mystery, and little Mabel herself has no recollection of her mamma and papa. Mabel was discovered when the girls of Troop 3 decided that they wanted to adopt a baby, a real _live_ baby that would coo and cry and kick and laugh, and all that. It was a big job for a group of girls to adopt a baby as a substitute for their dollies--and their troop leader probably would have vetoed the whole fine plan had the little girls not pleaded with their mothers and fathers and persuaded them to approve the project.
"So a search was made for a baby to adopt, and little Mabel eventually was found. All the little girls clapped their hands, and danced in glee. They had a baby, and they were so pleased. But the question arose: Now that the girls had the baby, what in the world were they going to
do with it? And thus it was that Mabel became the world's first 'circulating baby,' for the girls decided that they would keep the baby successively for a couple of weeks at a time at their various homes, the mothers first giving their approval, of course.
"So Mabel lived one week with Harriet's parents, another week at Pauline's home, and still another week at Mary's residence. She shifted from home to home just like a book in a circulating library.
"Everywhere she went she was looked upon as a sort of toy or pet, to be played with and humored, and then passed on to someone else.
"So it went until Mabel landed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Pain of the Graystone Apartments. Mrs. Pain is Captain of Troop 3 and from the start she had taken a keen interest in the baby. Mr. Pain also fell in love with Mabel, and thus it came about that Mabel ceased to be a 'circulating baby,' for the Pains decided that they would like to keep her for good and all, and little Mabel was formally adopted.
"The Pains are English people of culture and refinement, and as a result the little waif now has a wonderful home. Mr. Pain is an artist, and Mrs. Pain is a trained instructor of children and between the two, fate has made it possible for Mabel to develop into a very fine girl.
"A girl cannot become a full-fledged member of the Scouts until she is ten years old and the girls under ten are formed into an organization known as the Brownies. But it wouldn't be safe for anyone to accuse Mabel of being a Brownie, for in her grown-up way she would immediately announce: 'I am not a Brownie at _all_! I am a regular Girl Scout!'
"Mabel would be quite right in saying so. For although technically she is not a Scout, she attends all of the Scout meetings, goes on all the Scout hikes and does _whatever_ the rest of the Scouts do. She gets around the ten year age limit because of the fact that she is the mascot of the Troop. Mascots, you know, are always admitted, for most of them are cats and dogs and rabbits and birds--and they aren't supposed to know what's going on. But Mabel, you may be sure, knows everything that is taking place."
As Captain Horton finished, the girls all laughed and clapped theirhands.
"Is it really true?" "Did you see her?" "Was she cunning?" "Tell us moreabout it!" were some of the clamored questions.
"Yes, it is quite true, although it does sound like a fairy story. AndI not only saw but heard her. Girls, I wish you could have heard thatdarling baby voice reciting our promise! She was so sweetly solemn aboutit. 'On my honor I will _twy_,' she said, and all the rest of it. Mrs.Pain says she does everything as nearly right as she can, because she isso proud of being a Girl Scout. And cunning? Indeed she was! Justimagine a funny, dimply, blonde Kewpie dressed in Scout uniform, andthere you will have little Mabel Pain. I wish some of you could haveseen her salute; it would have been a lesson to you.
"I can't help thinking, girls, that the case of little Mabel is just aninstance of the far-reaching effects of a kindly act. I don't know whichgirl first thought of that circulating baby, but that doesn't matter.Little Mabel, just one of dozens of tiny tots in the asylum, wasdestined to grow up merely one of many in the cold white dormitories,tended by faithful attendants and nurses too busy and full of care tolove or mother their charges. Now, through the action of the Scouts, shehas a tender mother and a proud and loving father, and will no doubtgrow up to be a fine woman.
"I wish we could all do something as fine to help carry on. I want youto be on the look-out every day of your lives for a chance. And when anopportunity presents itself to you, seize it as a positive gift fromheaven. A gift not to the person whom you are about to benefit, but agift to _you_."
"Well, shall we have a circulating baby?" asked Jane.
"Not necessarily," laughed the Captain. "There are countless ways inwhich you can help the old world on."
"But a baby must be such fun!"
There was a groan from two or three girls as they heard Jane speak, andone black-eyed gypsy remarked bitterly that _she_ had a baby sister thatthey could circulate at any time, as far as she cared. Jane laughed.
"That is the way she talks, Captain," she said, "but when that baby wassick last winter Letty nearly went crazy."
Letty blushed. "_That_ is different!" she said.
"Of course!" answered the Captain. "Well, it is time for each of you tothink up some plan of kindness for vacation time."
"What would you advise?" asked Estella, wriggling.
"I do not advise at all," said the Captain. "I want you to do your ownplanning because I want the credit to be all yours. I am sure everyoneof you knows some invalid, some poor child, some old person, or somevery poor sad or troubled neighbor who needs you. Keep your eyes open,my dears, and listen carefully. There will be a hand beckoning or avoice calling sooner or later. And if you should miss the summons, youwould always be sorry."
"When is Mabel Brewster going to bring you her report?" asked Jane.
"She is simply seeing how selfish she can be, isn't she, Captain?" askedEstella.
"Not quite that," said the Captain, a sober look stealing over herpretty face. "Mabel was dissatisfied with her life and had ambitionsthat did not seem to be just what a girl should strive for, so hermother and I thought it would be a good thing for Mabel, as well as forall of us, to allow her to try her theories out and tell us the result."
"Well, _I_ think she is _perfectly miserable_," announced Jane bluntly."I don't think she likes it a _bit_! How she stands it at all I don'tsee. And do you know, Captain, my brother says Frank sleeps every nighton that little hard settee outside her door because he is afraid someonemight try to get in; and as soon as school is out, he hangs around the_Times-Leader_ office to walk home with her. She doesn't know it, ofcourse, and I suppose if she did she would be mad, but if I thought _my_brother was a perfect angel like that I would feel so proud!"
"Why, what a dear he is!" said the Captain, the tears starting to hereyes.
"_She_ doesn't deserve him!" said Jane.