Chapter 7 THE BAZAR

The next ten days were busy ones for the girls of the Terrace. It is true the Bazar had been more or less on their minds throughout the year, and many of them had devoted a generous share of their summer's leisure to preparation, but now industry had become epidemic. The girls met at one another's homes after school, and, busy as their tongues were, those nimble organs failed to outstrip the industrious fingers.

Elaine was not invited to any of these gatherings, for the girls all felt that she had done her full share, and that she would probably consider herself imposed on, if asked for further assistance. Dorothy, on the other hand, was an important figure at almost every meeting. To see Dorothy sewing together pieces of bright-colored calico, with stitches an inch long, was a constant incentive to industry, while her habit of waiting till an article was completed before deciding on the use to which it should be put, enlivened the dullest hours. Dorothy scorned to ask advice; she simply put her small head on one side, studied the work of her hands thoughtfully, and, after wavering for five minutes between a doll's sunbonnet and a penwiper, would perhaps surprise the company by announcing that the nondescript article was a necktie for Aunt Peggy.

The Bazar was usually held at Ruth's home, as in the Wylie cottage two rooms, separated by folding-doors, could be thrown into one, while the front hall was of more generous proportions than in most of the houses of the Terrace. On the memorable Saturday designated on the calendar as the tenth, the Wylie establishment was a scene of activity suggesting a hive of bees at swarming time. Girls made their appearance laden with baskets and mysterious parcels. Graham Wylie, Ruth's tall brother, with Dick Raymond, and other boys of the neighborhood, made themselves useful bringing small tables and ferns, borrowed indiscriminately from anyone who would lend them.

Elaine, who had come over to help, had a more pleasant sense of "belonging" than had been hers at any time since the mud-splashed hack had deposited her at the door of the only vacant cottage on the Terrace. She had been assigned to assist with the decorations, and being a girl of excellent taste and original ideas, she gradually found herself taking charge, and directing the others. This was pleasant in itself, and the approving comments called forth by the arrangement of flags over the mantel, and the bunching of the palms and ferns in the front hall, brought an unwonted color to Elaine's cheeks and brightness to her eyes. Peggy, who was accomplishing as much as any other half-dozen of the workers, paused in her labors long enough to admire the decorative effects, including the remarkable transformation wrought in Elaine's case by a bright color and a cheery smile.

"To think she could be so pretty," Peggy said wonderingly, and then finding Graham at her elbow she started and colored high.

"That Marshall girl, you mean?" queried Graham, seemingly unaware of her confusion. "Yes, it does make a difference. Most of the time she looks a mixture of starch and vinegar that isn't particularly attractive. What ails her, anyway?"

"I don't know." It struck Peggy, as she replied, that all she knew of Elaine's affairs was singularly inadequate to account for the weary, disillusioned look which was the other girl's habitual expression. "You know they used to be quite well off," Peggy explained, as Graham helped her move a table which was taking up more than its share of the room. "I guess it's more comfortable never to have much, than to have it and lose it."

It was not till after one o'clock that everything was ready. The fancy work tables were in the front room, and the display proved that the loyalty of the Terrace girls to a good cause was not of the flash-in-the-pan variety. Many days of hard work were represented on those crowded tables, and, though the skill of the workers varied, the average was commendable. Elaine's collar had the place of honor, with a background of black velvet to set off its delicately intricate pattern. In the back parlor were the candy and ice-cream tables, as well as the little tea-table, over which Priscilla was to preside, the latter being a concession to the old ladies who no longer possessed a "sweet tooth," and who shivered at the suggestion of ice cream in November.

The girls flew home to swallow a hasty dinner, without any very definite idea as to what they were eating, and then hurried themselves into their best clothes, and were back again a good half-hour before the advertised time for opening the Bazar. "From three to ten" the announcements had read, and when the grandfather's clock in the hall struck the first-named hour there was a general craning of necks, as if with the expectation of seeing a procession of patrons ascending the front steps. Nobody was in sight, however, and some faces assumed an expression of anxiety.

"Three o'clock and not a soul here," Ruth said tragically. "O, dear! I hope that somebody'll come after we've all worked so hard."

"There's a splendid concert at the Lyric this afternoon. I shouldn't wonder if that took a great many people who might have come here," observed Priscilla, with an air of being prepared for the worst.

"I thought all the time, that we should have some hand-bills," Amy exclaimed. "You tell people, and you put up notices in the drugstore, but that isn't enough. There ought to be hand-bills distributed the night before."

The spirits of the company were rapidly approaching the zero point when Peggy came to the rescue with one of her sunny suggestions, which appreciably raised the temperature. "Why, it's only three o'clock. People never come exactly on time to things of this sort." Then she recounted Dorothy's latest escapade and set them all to laughing.

But when the hands of the clock pointed to twenty minutes past three, Peggy's utmost efforts were unequal to the task of keeping up the spirits of the little crowd. Various explanations were advanced for the failure of the Bazar. Peggy's opinion was asked as to whether or not Murvin would take back the ice cream. And then the atmosphere of gloom was dissipated by the sound of the door-bell.

It was an old lady whom Dick Raymond, acting door-keeper, admitted to the Bazar, a rather shabby old lady, who walked with a limp, and had a market basket on her arm. It is doubtful whether her arrival would have been regarded as an important event anywhere outside of Mrs. Wylie's parlors. But at the sight of her rusty black bonnet the creases suddenly vanished from anxious faces and dimples appeared in their stead. She was the first arrival, and possessed all the mysterious charm that attaches itself to the first blue-bird or the first violet.

She was an appreciative old lady, too. She referred to the hand-painted paper-dolls, which formed the major part of Priscilla's contribution, as "pretty little images," and admired some crocheted wash-cloths, with pink edges, under the impression that they were a substantial sort of doily. Only when her attention was called to a drawnwork handkerchief did she become critical.

"Mine gets holes in 'em fast enough without beginnin' that way," said the old lady, laughing heartily at her own wit, and everybody laughed in sympathy. She wound up her exhaustive examination of all the articles displayed by the purchase of a holder and five cents' worth of peanut brittle. As she limped down the steps she met three or four ladies coming up, but not one of them elicited the enthusiasm which had been the spontaneous tribute to the first arrival.

By quarter after four the rooms were buzzing, and busy as Elaine was, she found opportunity to admire the resourcefulness of Peggy. It was Peggy who soothed the feelings of the girl who thought that they should have charged more for her bureau scarf, and who propitiated the patron who felt that she had paid more than was right for a hem-stitched towel. It was Peggy who came to the assistance of a perplexed "saleslady" who could not think how much change was due her customer, and who took charge of wrapping some peculiarly obstinate article, and it was also Peggy who found, for the lady who was aggrieved over discovering that something she wanted had been sold to another purchaser, a similar article which suited her just as well. Peggy seemed to have the faculty of being every where at once. She was equal to all the little crises of the occasion.

"I don't see how you manage it," Elaine said to her during a temporary lull in the proceedings, late in the afternoon. Compliments were rare on Elaine's lips, and Peggy, looking up, had no idea that she was being complimented. "Manage what?" she asked.

"O, helping everybody out, and smoothing everybody down, and the queer part is that you keep so cheerful about it."

Peggy smiled a little.

"The queer part, as you call it, is really the secret, if I've got any secret. If you keep cheerful and are polite, and don't lose your head, it's easy enough to get other folks to see things the way you do."

By six o'clock the girls were tired but triumphant. Peggy's cheery prophesies had been more than realized, and from eight to ten they were sure of another period of activity, which would, in all probability, empty their tables and fill their treasury. The workers hurried home for a supper, even more of a form than dinner had been, and were back on duty before there was any chance of new arrivals.

On the cheerful group, comparing notes as to the day's experiences and calculating the probable gains, by methods which brought startlingly diverse results, Ruth descended like a whirlwind. "Girls, the ice cream's gone."

"Gone!" echoed a blank chorus, and Peggy, as usual the first to rally, exclaimed, "Why, I don't see how that can be. We didn't have--"

"No, no, you don't understand," cried poor Ruth, wringing her hands. "We only used one freezer of ice cream this afternoon. But the other one, the big one, has disappeared."

"Stolen!" Priscilla gasped. "Well, anybody who's mean enough to steal from empty-stocking children!"

"That'll cut down our profits dreadfully," groaned Amy.

Peggy roused herself. "Maybe there's some mistake," she cried. "It almost seems as if there must be some mistake. Let's look outside."

There was a rush for the back door, despite Graham Wylie's philosophical suggestion that a ten-quart ice cream freezer was a difficult thing to mislay. The November night was starless and chilly, and most of the girls, after taking a disconsolate view of the landscape, withdrew shivering to the warmth within, to bemoan their misfortune. Perhaps Peggy found it harder to give up than most people do. She went down the walk to the alley, Graham following.

"It's such a big thing," observed Peggy over her shoulder, "that you wouldn't think it could get very far without attracting attention. You don't suppose--"

"Sh!" warned Graham suddenly, and both went forward on tiptoe. Further up the alley sounded a curious bumping noise. A murmur of voices broke the hush of the night.

Graham felt for the bolt of the back gate, found it already drawn, and smiled, well pleased. The voices outside were audible by now.

"Say, that's far enough."

"'Tain't far enough till it's inside, kid. You don't s'pose they's goin' to look fer ice cream in no alley, do you?"

Something bumped against the gate. Slowly it opened, and a capped head appeared. Then Graham pounced; there was a thud and a wild scampering, and Peggy flew to the rescue of the overturned freezer.

The two small boys who had walked into the trap were no match for the young collegian, who was training for the hundred yard dash next field day. If the boys had run in the same direction he would have had them both, but as one went east and the other west, he was obliged to make a choice. He came back holding at arm's length an urchin whose squirmings were the most extraordinary display of agility that Peggy could remember to have witnessed.

"Don't try to carry that freezer," exclaimed Graham, as he returned with his struggling captive. "We'll send some of the boys out for it. And now let's come inside and see what we've got here."

Graham's captive proved to be a small boy with carroty hair, innumerable freckles, and a square chin, which, at this moment, seemed possessed of sufficient stubbornness to equip a regiment. His coat had at one time been too large for him, but had been fitted to his diminutive person by cutting the sleeves off at the elbows and pinning the surplus of the back over into a large plait by means of safety pins. His shoes were so large that Peggy no longer wondered at the peculiar flapping echo of the footsteps heard in the alley.

"Well, you young scamp!" Graham held his captive under the chandelier and scowled down upon him impressively. "You're making a nice early start, you are. Do you know where you're likely to end up, if you keep on this way?"

If the boy knew, he had no intention of telling. To all appearances he was both deaf and dumb. His mouth had become a straight, rather bluish line, above his defiant little chin.

"No tongue, eh? Well, I guess we can find a way to make you talk. Just step to the 'phone, one of you," added Graham over his shoulder, "and call up the police station."

There was a chorus of protests.

"O, no, Graham. He's so little."

"And we've got the ice cream back, Graham, so no harm's done."

Peggy flung herself into the discussion. "Why, Graham, he was bringing it back."

"Bringing it back," sneered Graham. "Why should he steal it, and then bring it back?" The logic was irresistible, but Peggy was a girl who never allowed logic to stand in the way of her facts.

"I don't know. But I know he was bringing it back. They were way up the alley when we heard them first, and they'd got to the gate and had it open, when you jumped at them."

The lids of the small prisoner fluttered, lifted, and dropped again, but in that instant a glance had sped straight as an arrow to Peggy. The eyes had uttered an appeal which the stubborn lips would not speak.

"You were bringing it back, weren't you?" Peggy exclaimed. "Tell us about it."

The boy squirmed, cast another furtive glance at Peggy, and seemed to find encouragement in her air of sympathetic attention. His mouth opened; and a hoarse voice exploded two words, as if they had been cannon crackers.

"Skinny said--" Then, apparently overcome by the effect of his beginning, he came to a full stop.

"That's right," Peggy encouraged him. "What was it Skinny said?"

Another period of squirming, as if the small figure were a corkscrew set to remove some obstruction to the free flow of speech, and as if a cork had really popped out, the explanation bubbled forth at last.

"Skinny said you was gettin' money for the empty stockin' kids, an' so--"

"And so you brought it back," exclaimed Peggy, including the entire company in her triumphant glance.

"Yes, Miss. I uster go to them shows myself," said the boy with an air suggesting that his youth was at least a score of years behind him. "They's all right, they is."

There was a certain honesty about the boy's manner, in spite of the transgression in which he had been detected, and this, coupled with the undeniable fact that he was returning the ice cream freezer when captured, resulted in a reversal of public sentiment. Little kindly murmurs passed from one to another, and even Graham did not have the heart to make further references to the police. "Well, youngster," he said gruffly, "guess you'd better skip. And just remember that you won't get off so easy the next time."

The boy's instantaneous acceptance of the permission had carried him as far as the next room when he was checked by Peggy. "Wait a minute," she cried, "I've got something for you." She met Graham's air of disapproving inquiry with a suggestion of defiance. "I'm going to give him a little ice cream," she explained.

"Well, I like that!" Graham was plainly indignant. "He's lucky not to be in the lock-up, and here you are petting and pampering him. That's just like a girl. You know perfectly," he scolded, as Peggy dished out the ice cream with a liberal hand, "that people who do things of that sort ought to be made to smart for it."

"I don't know," said Peggy over her shoulder. "Nobody made you smart when you Sophomores stole the ice cream at the Freshman banquet."

"O, that!" exclaimed Graham, reddening. "That was different."

"Yes," Peggy acknowledged generously, "It was different. As far as I know, you never took it back." And with this parting shot she carried the well-filled saucer to the boy waiting at the kitchen door.

The rapidity with which the ice cream disappeared was startling, to say the least. As a half-starved dog bolts his rations of raw meat so Peggy's protégé gulped down pink wedges of the unyielding dainty in a manner suggesting that his digestive apparatus must be of a peculiar and improved pattern. When the saucer was scraped clean he rolled his eyes in Peggy's direction in a manner which might have been intended to indicate gratitude, or which might be preliminary to a seizure of some kind.

"THE RAPIDITY WITH WHICH THE ICE CREAM DISAPPEARED WAS STARTLING, TO SAY THE LEAST.

"Do you feel all right?" asked Peggy in alarm.

"You bet," the hoarse voice assured her, adding, as an afterthought, "That stuff's out of sight."

Peggy forebore to explain that the rapidity with which the delicacy in question had been put out of sight was the ground of her uneasiness. "What is your name?" she inquired.

"Jimmy Dunn." The gray eyes met her own squarely and she was confirmed in her opinion that they were honest eyes.

"Well, Jimmy, it wasn't right for you to take our ice cream, but it was very--" Peggy searched for a word in the boy's vocabulary--"It was very white of you to bring it back. I like you and I hope I'll see you again. Good night."

The door swung ajar and the queer, ungainly little figure slipped through the opening. Then it turned. "Same to you," said the hoarse voice, and Peggy heard the big shoes clatter on the walk, as the wearer raced to the gate. And though that was the most successful Bazar the girls of the Terrace had ever held, and the spirit of self-congratulation ran high, perhaps the pleasantest memory that Peggy carried home with her was that exchange of compliments on the back doorsteps.