Chapter 8 THE LONGEST WEEK ON RECORD

It was a Thursday when the four Friendly Terrace girls entered on their remarkable contract with Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back, and Friday began the longest week recorded in the experiences of any of the four. According to the calendar, it contained only the usual seven days. According to the clock, each of these days consisted of the customary twenty-four hours. But the four chums knew better. It was at least a month long. They had spent Thursday evening explaining the situation to their friends and relatives and saying good-by as if for a week's absence.

It was not to be expected that their news would meet the same reception in all quarters. Fathers and mothers, while not exactly approving, were on the whole rather amused, and inclined to take the attitude that girls will be girls. Among their friends outside, their announcement was received with a surprise that was sometimes suggestive of enjoyment, and again of indignation.

Peggy found Graham particularly obdurate. "Not to speak to me for a week? Well, I like that!"

"I can write you letters, dear."

"Letters!" Graham's repetition of the word was anything but flattering to Peggy's epistolary efforts. "Of course," he went on in a milder tone, "I love your letters when I'm away from you. But to read letters instead of talking to you is like-like eating dried apple pie in October."

"It's only a week," said Peggy, but she sighed. And her sigh would have been much more vehement had she dreamed how long that week would prove.

Priscilla writing a little note to Horace Hitchcock did not sigh over the prospect that she could exchange no words with him for seven days. Indeed she was conscious of a profound relief. Recently Horace had taken up the philosophical style in conversation, and Priscilla, as she listened, frequently found herself unable to understand a word he was saying. At first she assumed that this was due to her not having given him sufficiently close attention, and she had chided herself for her wandering thoughts. But things were no better when she listened her hardest. Priscilla knew that she was not a fool. She had finished her junior year in college, and her class standing in all philosophical subjects had been excellent. If she could not understand what Horace was talking about, she felt reasonably sure that the explanation was not in her own intellectual lack but because Horace was talking nonsense. The polysyllables he used so glibly and the epigrammatic phrases which to the unthinking might have seemed indicative of erudition and originality, when Priscilla came to analyze them seemed to have no more relation to one another than glittering beads strung on a wire. Priscilla was driven to the conclusion that Horace had been reading literature considerably over his head, and that he was reproducing for her benefit a sort of pot-pourri of recollections, blended without much regard to their original connection.

But this was not the only reason why Priscilla had a sense of relief in writing to ask Horace not to call for a week. As the days went on, the thought of her silver wedding had been increasingly painful. Horace's affectations, to which for a time she had deliberately closed her eyes, were continually more glaringly in evidence. Once, when they were alone, Priscilla had tremulously hinted that perhaps they had been mistaken in supposing themselves fitted for each other, and Horace's reception of the suggestion had terrified her unutterably. He had addressed himself to the stars and asked if it were true that there was neither faith nor constancy in womankind. Then he had looked at Priscilla, with an expression of agony, and said, "I thought it was you who was to heal my tortured heart, and now you have failed me." But when he began to put his hand to his forehead and mutter that life was only a series of disappointments and that the sooner it was over the better, Priscilla, white to the lips, had assured him that he had misunderstood her. Her efforts to restore his serenity were not altogether successful and she did not feel at ease about him until, a day or two later, she saw his name among the guests at a dinner dance, at Mrs. Sidney Vanderpool's country house. But the interview had confirmed her certainty that there was no escaping the snare into which she had walked with eyes wide open. And for that reason a week free from Horace's society was more than welcome.

The silent week starting Friday morning had seemed rather a joke to begin with. At four breakfast tables, four girls who contributed not a syllable to the conversation, contributed largely, nevertheless, to the family gaiety. But by noon the humorous phase of the situation had passed, at least for the four chiefly concerned. All of them went about with an expression of Spartan-like resolve, blended with not a little anxiety. For when people have been chattering animatedly every day for fifteen or twenty years, it is very easy for an exclamation to escape their lips in spite of resolutions to the contrary.

Peggy probably had the hardest time of any one. For her brother, Dick, although fond of calling attention to a fuzzy excrescence which he denominated his mustache, was as fond of mischief as he had ever been. And while undoubtedly he would have been sorry to have Peggy break her vow of silence, and lose the hundred dollars which meant another year in school for little Myrtle Burns, he nevertheless subjected his sister to any number of nerve-racking tests. A crash as of a falling body in an upstairs room, a cry of anguish from the cellar, a loud knocking on the ceiling of her room apparently by ghostly fingers, were among the devices Dick used for the testing of his sister. On each occasion Peggy started convulsively, but somehow or other choked back the cry that rose to her lips, "Oh, what is it? What is the matter?"

Though Dick was the only one of the Raymond family who made deliberate attempts to betray his sister into unguarded speech, Mrs. Raymond, innocent as were her intentions, was almost as much of a stumbling-block. "Now what do you think, Peggy," she would begin, "had we better try Turners again or-" And then catching sight of the Joan-of-Arc expression on Peggy's face, she would break off her question in the middle, and cry, "Oh, dear, I entirely forgot! I shall certainly be glad when this ridiculous week is over."

There was one advantage in a week of silence. The girls were allowed to write letters, and they took full advantage of that permission. They wrote to aunts and uncles and cousins and all sorts of neglected relatives. They wrote to old friends, who had moved to other cities. They wrote to the girls they had come to know in their work as farmerettes. They wrote-all four of them-to Lucy Haines, a country girl they had helped one summer vacation, now a successful teacher. If all weeks had been like this one, the postman who collected the mail from the Friendly Terrace letter-box would have needed an assistant. Peggy also wrote to Graham every day, and she tried to make her letters as sprightly and entertaining as possible, so that he should not miss their daily talks so much. But under the circumstances there was not a great deal to tell, and if it had not been for Dick's machinations, which Peggy repeated in much detail, she feared that her missives would have proved dull reading.

Every afternoon the four girls met at the home of one or the other of the quartette, bringing sewing or fancy work. They usually sat indoors, for if a neighbor conversationally inclined had happened to come along while they were occupying the porch the situation might have been embarrassing. Amy made a valiant effort to revive a finger alphabet they had used in school to carry on extended conversations across a school room. But though it had not taken long for the girls to refresh their memories of the letters, they found it much harder work to converse after the fashion of the deaf and dumb than it had seemed when they were younger, and for the most part conversation languished. They sat and sewed, each vaguely cheered by the proximity of her fellow sufferers, though all the time conscious that this was an abnormally long week.

But long as the days were, each came to an end in time. Amy had fallen in the way of apprising Aunt Phoebe by post-card that another day had been passed in silence. "Tell Mr. Frost he might as well make out his check now," she wrote at the conclusion of the third day. "We haven't spoken yet, and now we've learned the secret, there isn't the least danger that any one will speak before the week is up."

As the days went by, the vigilance of the girls increased instead of relaxing. Each realized that a single inadvertent exclamation from the lips of one would render vain the effort and sacrifice of all. This realization got rather on their nerves, and Ruth particularly, showed it.

"It's the most absurd thing I ever heard of," declared Mr. Wylie at breakfast one morning, as Ruth came downstairs heavy-eyed. "You girls call yourselves college women, don't you? This affair is worthy of a bunch of high-school Freshmen."

"I think Ruth wants me to remind you," said Mrs. Wylie, as her daughter looked at her appealingly, "that they mean to use the hundred dollars in sending a little girl to school."

"But no man in his senses is going to pay good money for anything like this. Who is he, anyway?"

"A sort of Uncle of Amy's, didn't you say, Ruth?"

As Amy's relationship to Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back was too complicated to explain without the assistance of language, Ruth contented herself with nodding.

"Probably he was only joking. A hundred dollars is a hundred dollars, especially these days. You oughtn't to have taken him seriously, Ruth."

"I think Peggy is really responsible," remarked Mrs. Wylie, with a rather mischievous smile, for Mr. Wylie's admiration for his son's fiancée was as outspoken as Graham's own.

"Is that so, Ruth?"

Ruth nodded.

"Then all I can say," declared Mr. Wylie, pushing back his chair from the table, "is that in this matter my future daughter-in-law showed less than her usual good horse-sense."

"I'm beginning to understand something that always puzzled me," Peggy wrote Graham, that same evening. "You know in mathematics they talk about an asymptote, something that something else is always approaching, but never reaches. That always seemed so foolish to me, to approach a thing continually and never get there. But now I understand. Thursday is an asymptote."

But though Thursday loitered on the way, it arrived at last, and four girls woke to the realization that it was supremely important-the day that either made void or confirmed the success of the previous six. They spent the morning characteristically. Ruth, who had felt under the weather for a day or two, decided to stay in bed, this being a safe refuge. Priscilla took a basket of mending and retired to her room. Peggy spent her time at her writing desk and tried to collect some fugitive ideas into a theme for her college English work in the fall. Amy devoted herself to making a cake with a very thick chocolate frosting.

It happened that this morning Amy had received a postcard from Aunt Phoebe, the first reply to her daily bulletins. "Glad to hear you are getting on so well," wrote the old lady. "P-- quite nervous." After the cake was finished and the frosting hardening, Amy resolved to take Aunt Phoebe's card over to Peggy. While they could not talk it over, they could exchange smiles, and probably a few ideas as well, through the medium of a lead pencil. The luckless Amy picked up the post card and started off in high spirits.

It happened that one of the houses on the Terrace had been built with a slate roof, which at the present time was undergoing repairs. Amy, swinging lightly along the familiar way, gained rapidly on an old man ahead who walked very deliberately, apparently examining the numbers of the houses. Amy noticed that, although the sky was clear, he carried a massive cotton umbrella.

The old gentleman was just opposite the house which was being repaired, when one of the workmen pulled out a broken slate and without even looking behind him, flung it to the street below. Amy saw the workman before the slate left his hand, and some intuition warned her of danger. "Look out!" she cried shrilly, "Look out!"

The old man ahead dodged back. He was none too quick, for the piece of slate, flying through the air with the sharp edge down, dropped where he had stood an instant before. The old man took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Amy saw it was Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back.

The discovery, interesting in itself, meant nothing to Amy at the moment. She uttered a heart-broken wail. She had spoken before the week was up. By her impulsive exclamation she had forfeited the hundred dollars. Though she knew acknowledgment must be made to her partners in the undertaking, since as she had broken the spell the others were automatically released from the obligation of silence, to face any of them at that moment seemed impossible. Without a word to Mr. Frost, Amy wheeled about and started for home, the tears running down her cheeks.

Breathing hard, Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back trotted after her. What he meant to say does not matter, since the discovery that Amy was in tears resulted in the inquiry, "What are you crying for, hey?"

"I lost it," Amy sobbed. "I spoke."

Her companion seemed to be deliberating. "I s'pose you mean the hundred dollars."

"Of course I mean the hundred dollars. But I don't see how I could have helped it. I couldn't walk on deliberately and see a sharp piece of slate drop on a man's head."

"'A HUNDRED DOLLARS AIN'T ANY TOO MUCH TO PAY FOR HAVING YOUR LIFE SAVED'"

"I came in to-day thinking I'd have a talk with that friend of yours," said Mr. Frost, "seeing she seemed to be the head one in this thing. I was going to tell her that now I'd thought it over, my conscience wasn't quite easy about this agreement of ourn. I'm afraid it is too much like placing a bet."

Amy's jaw dropped as she looked at him. Her tears dried instantly, the moisture evaporated by the fires of her wrath. But either because her usually ready tongue was out of practise after six days of idleness, or because the realization of the perfidy of the old man produced a momentary paralysis of her vocal chords, not a word escaped her parted lips.

"Yes, it didn't look right to me," Mr. Frost continued. "It was the same as betting that you four girls couldn't keep from talking for a week. My conscience wouldn't let me be a party to anything of that sort. But-"

The pause after the "but" was prolonged. Amy searched her vocabulary for words that would do justice to the occasion, but Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back was continuing before she knew what she wanted to say.

"Having your life saved is a different thing. That slate had an edge on it like a meat ax, and coming through the air the way it was, it would have cleft my head open like it had been an egg shell. My widow could have got damages all right, but that wouldn't have helped me out."

They had reached Amy's door by now. "Got pen and ink handy?" asked Mr. Frost, with a marked change of manner.

"Yes," said Amy tonelessly, and opened the door for him. She led the way to the writing desk, and pointed out the articles he required. Mr. Philander Frost, seating himself, wrote out a check for a hundred dollars, payable to Amy Lassell or order.

"There," he said as he reached for the blotter. "Can't nobody no matter how sensitive their consciences are, find any fault with that. A hundred dollars ain't any too much to pay for having your life saved."

And then the ink had a narrow escape from being overturned, for Amy flung her arms around the old gentleman's neck and hugged him. "Uncle Philander!" she screamed, "You're a prince."

And that is how little Myrtle Burns was assured of her year in high school, and Uncle Philander-Behind-His-Back was adopted, unreservedly, by four unusually attractive nieces.

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