The Girl Scouts at Home; or, Rosanna's Beautiful Day

Little Rosanna Horton was a very poor little girl. When I tell you more about her, you will think that was a very odd thing to say.

She lived in one of the most beautiful homes in Louisville, a city full of beautiful homes. And Rosanna's was one of the loveliest. It was a great, rambling house of red brick with wide porches in the front and on either side. On the right of the house was a wonderful garden. It covered half a square, and was surrounded by a high stone wall. No one could look in to see what she was doing. That was rather nice, but of course no one could look out either to see what they were doing on the brick sidewalk, and that does not seem so nice.

At the back of the garden, facing on a clean bricked alley, was the garage, big enough to hold four automobiles. The garage was covered with vines. Otherwise, it would have been a queer looking building, with its one door opening into the garden, and on that side not another door or window either upstairs or down. The upstairs part was a really lovely little apartment for the chauffeur to live in, but all the windows had been put on the side or in front because old Mrs. Horton, Rosanna's grandmother, did not think that chauffeurs' families were ever the sort who ought to look down into the garden where Rosanna played and where she herself sat in state and had tea served of an afternoon.

At one side of the garden where the roses were wildest and the flowers grew thickest was a little cottage, built to fit Rosanna. Grown people had to stoop to get in and their heads almost scraped the ceilings. The furniture all fitted Rosanna too, even to the tiny piano. This was Rosanna's playhouse. She kept her dolls here, and there was a desk with all sorts of writing paper that a maid sorted and put in order every morning before Rosanna came out.

This doesn't sound as though Rosanna was such a poor little girl, does it? But just you wait.

A good ways back of this playhouse was another small building that looked like a little stable. It was a stable-a really truly stable built to fit Rosanna's tiny pony. He had a little box stall, and at one side there was space for the shiniest, prettiest cart.

Rosanna did not go to school. There was a schoolroom in the house, but I will tell you about that some other time. Rosanna disliked it very much: a schoolroom with just one little girl in it! You wouldn't like it yourself, would you?

Rosanna's clothes were the prettiest ever; much prettier then than they are now. And such stacks of them! There was a whole dresser full of ribbons and trinkets and jewelry besides. (Poor little Rosanna!)

She danced like a fairy, and every day she had a music lesson which was given her, like a bad pill, by a severe lady in spectacles who ought never to have tried to smile because it made her face look cracked all over and you felt so much better when the smile was over. Oh, poor, poor, poor little Rosanna!

Do you begin to guess why?

You have not heard me say a word about her dear loving mother and her big joky father, have you? They were both dead! This is such a pitiful thing to have come to any little girl that I can scarcely bear to tell you. Both were dead, and Rosanna lived with her grandmother, who was a very proud and important lady indeed. There was a young uncle who might have been good friends with Rosanna and made things easier but she scarcely knew him. He had been away to college and after that, three years in the army. Once a week she wrote to him, in France; but her grandmother corrected the letters and usually made her write them over, so they were not very long and certainly were not interesting.

Mrs. Horton was sure that her son's little daughter could never be worthy of her name and family if she was allowed to "mix," as she put it, with other children. So Rosanna was not allowed to have any other children for friends, and Mrs. Horton was too blind with all her foolish family pride to see that Rosanna was getting queer and vain and overbearing. Every day they took a drive together, usually through the parks or out the river road. Mrs. Horton did not like to drive down town. She did not like the people who filled the streets. She said they were "frightfully ordinary." It was a shameful thing to be ordinary in Mrs. Horton's opinion. She had not looked it up in the dictionary or she would have chosen some other word because being ordinary according to the dictionary is no crime at all. It is not even a disgrace.

Rosanna's books were always about flowers and fairies, or animals that talked, or music that romped up and down the bars spelling little words. There were never any people in them, and if any one sent her a book at Christmas about some poor little girl who wore a pinafore and helped her mother and lived in two rooms and was ever so happy, that book had a way of getting itself changed for some other book about bees or flowers the very night before Christmas.

"She will know about those things soon enough," said Rosanna's grandmother.

But every afternoon when they sat in the rose arbor in the middle of the beautiful garden, Rosanna would get tired reading and she would stare up at the clouds and see how many faces she could find.

One day she startled and of course shocked her grandmother by saying in a low voice, "Dean Harriman!"

"Where?" said Mrs. Horton, staring down the walk.

"In that littlest cloud," said Rosanna, unconscious of startling her grandmother. "It is very good of him, only his nose is even funnier than it is really. Sort of knobby, you know."

"Please do not say 'sort of,'" said Mrs. Horton. "And if you are looking at pictures in the clouds, I consider it a waste of time, Rosanna!"

She struck a little bell, and the house boy came hurrying across the lawn. Mrs. Horton turned to him.

"Find Minnie," she said, "and tell her to send Miss Rosanna a volume of Classical Pictures for Young Eyes."

So Rosanna looked at Classical Pictures, and for that afternoon at least kept her young eyes away from the clouds. And never again did she share her pictures with her grandmother.

Rosanna was not a spiritless child, but every day and all day her life slipped on in its dull groove and she did not know how to get out.

Poor little Rosanna! To the little girl behind it, a six-foot brick wall looks as high as the sky. And the garden, as I have told you before, was a very, very big garden indeed. Plenty large enough to be very lonesome in.

One morning Mrs. Horton was not ready to drive at the appointed time. Rosanna was ready, however, and was dancing around on the front porch when the automobile rolled up. She ran toward it but drew back at the sight of a strange chauffeur. He touched his cap and said "Good morning!" in a hearty, friendly way, very different to the stiff manner of the man who had been driving them. Rosanna went down to him.

"Where is Albert?" she asked.

"He does not work here now," said the man. "I have his place."

"What is your name?" said Rosanna.

"John Culver," said the new chauffeur. "What is your name?"

Rosanna frowned a little. She liked this new man with his crinkly, twinkly blue eyes and white teeth. A deep scar creased his jaw, but it did not spoil his friendly, keen face. But chauffeurs usually did not ask her name. There had been so many going and coming during the war. She decided to walk away but could not resist his friendly eyes.

"I am Miss Rosanna," she said proudly.

"Oh!" said the man, and Rosanna had a feeling that he was amused. So she went on speaking. "I will get in the car, if you please, and wait for my grandmother."

He opened the door of the limousine and before she could place her foot on the step, he swung her lightly off her feet and into the car.

"There you are, kiddie!" he said pleasantly, and Rosanna was too stunned to say more than "Thank you!" as the door opened and her grandmother appeared, the maid following, laden with the small dog.

Mrs. Horton nodded to the new man and gave an order as he closed the door.

"Our new man," said Mrs. Horton to Rosanna, then settled back in her corner and took out a list which she commenced to check off with a gold pencil. Rosanna, holding the dog, looked out the windows.

There were children all along the street: little girls playing dolls on front doorsteps and other little girls walking in happy groups or skipping rope. Boys on bicycles circled everywhere and shouted to each other. They made a short cut through one of the poor sections of the city. Here it was the same: children everywhere, all having the best sort of time. They were not so well dressed, that was all the difference. They had the same carefree look in their eyes. Rosanna gazed out wistfully, longingly.

And now you surely guess why Rosanna, with her beautiful home, her pony and her playhouse, her lovely garden, and her room full of pretty things, still was so very, very poor.

Rosanna did not have a single friend.

* * *

John Culver brought them home and as they left the car Mrs. Horton enquired, "Is your apartment comfortable, John?"

"Perfectly comfortable, thank you," said Culver.

"You are married?" Mrs. Horton continued.

"Yes," replied Culver.

"Any children?"

"One little girl," said Culver, glancing at Rosanna with a smile.

Mrs. Horton saw the look. She said nothing, but when Rosanna sat before her at the great round table, eating her luncheon, Mrs. Horton remarked, "Of course, Rosanna, you will make no effort whatever to meet the child living over the garage. Unless you make the opportunity, she will never see you, thanks to the arrangement of the windows. She is a child that it would be impossible for you to know."

Rosanna did not reply.

"Rosanna?" said her grandmother sharply.

"Yes, grandmother," sighed poor Rosanna.

After luncheon Mrs. Horton dressed and was driven away to a bridge party. Rosanna practiced scales for half an hour, talked French with her governess for another long half, and then wandered out into the garden and commenced to wonder about the child over the garage. How old was she? What was she like? Rosanna wished she could see her. There was a rustic seat near the garage and Rosanna went over and curled up on its rough lap. She stared and stared at the garage, but the blank brick walls with their curtains of vines gave her no hint.

It seemed as though she had been sitting there for hours when she fancied a small voice called, "Hello, Rosanna!"

Rosanna sat perfectly still, staring at the brick wall.

"Hello, Rosanna!" said the voice again softly. It was a strangely sweet, gentle voice and seemed to come from the air. Rosanna cast a startled glance above her.

There was a little laugh. "Look in the tree," said the pleasant voice.

Rosanna, mouth open, eyes popping, looked up.

A big tree growing in the alley, close outside the brick wall, leaned its biggest bough in a friendly fashion over Rosanna's garden. High up something blue fluttered among the thick leaves. Then the branches parted, and a face appeared. Rosanna continued to stare.

The little girl in the tree waved her hand.

"You don't know me, do you, Rosanna?" she teased. "But I know you. You are Rosanna Horton, and you live in that lovely, lovely house and this is your garden. Is that your playhouse over there? And oh, is there an honest-for-truly pony in that little barn? Dad says there really is. Is there?" She stopped for breath, and beamed down on Rosanna.

"How did you get up there?" said Rosanna. She was not allowed to climb trees.

"Father made a little ladder and fastened it to the trunk with wires so it won't hurt the wood. If Mrs. Horton doesn't mind, he is going to fix a little platform up here. There is a splendid place for it. Then I can study up here where it is all cool and breezy and whispery. Don't you like to hear the leaves whisper? He is going to put a rail around it so we won't fall off."

"Who is we?" asked Rosanna. "Have you brothers and sisters?"

"No, I haven't," said the little girl. "Mother says it is my greatest misfortune. She says that I shall have to make a great many friends to make up for it, and that if I don't I will grow selfish. Wouldn't you hate to be selfish? I 'spect you have dozens and dozens of little girls to play with. How happy you must make everybody with your lovely garden and things! My mother says that is what things are for: to share with people. She says it is just like having two big red apples. If you eat them both, why, you don't feel good in your tummy; but if you give one to some one, you feel good everywhere, and you have a good time while you are eating them and get better acquainted, and it just does you good. Do little girls come to see you every day?"

"No," said Rosanna, "I don't know any little girls. My grandmother won't let me."

"Won't let you?" said the girl in the tree in a shocked tone. "Why won't she let you?"

"She says I would learn to speak bad grammar and use slang, and grow up to be vulgar."

"Goodness me!" said the stranger. She sat rocking on her bough for a few minutes. Then: "Why would you have to learn bad things of other girls?" she demanded. "I wouldn't let anybody teach me anything I didn't want to know. I should think it would be nice to have you teach them good grammar if you know it, and not to use slang, and all that. She must think you are soft! My mother says if you are made of putty, you will get dented all over and never be more than an unshapely lump, but if you are made of good stone, you can be carved into something lovely and lasting. But that is just your grandmother," said the girl. "Where is your mother? Is she off visiting?"

"She is dead," said Rosanna. A wave of unspeakable longing for the lost young mother swept over her and her lip trembled as she spoke.

"Oh, poor, poor Rosanna!" said the little tree girl softly. "Oh, Rosanna, I feel so sorry! If you ever want to borrow mine, I wish you would. I wish you would! My mother says that when a woman has even just one child in her heart, it grows so big that it can hold and love all the children in the world. You borrow her any time you need her, Rosanna!" Then feeling that perhaps the conversation ought to take a livelier strain, she did not wait for Rosanna to answer, but continued, "I wish somebody hadn't built this apartment over your garage so that none of the windows look out on your garden. We are going to hate that, aren't we?"

"Grandmother had it built that way so we would not see the people living there," Rosanna explained.

"Oh!" said the tree girl. "Well, of course you know that I live there now. We came two days ago, and my name is Helen Culver. We would love to play together, wouldn't we?"

"Oh, indeed we would!" said Rosanna.

"Well, then we will," said Helen joyfully. "I must go now. I think it is practice time. I will see you after luncheon. Good-bye!" and she slid down the tree and disappeared.

Rosanna went skipping to the house. She was so happy. It was not her practice time, but she was going to practice because Helen was so engaged. Her mind was full of Helen as she sat doing finger exercises and scales. How lovely and clean and bright she looked with her big, blue eyes and blond docked hair! Her teeth were so white and pretty and her voice was so soft and low. And she had a dimple! It was Rosanna's dream to have a dimple in her thin little cheek.

Rosanna commenced to play scales. She took the C scale-it was so easy that she could think. She was so happy that she played it in a very prancy way, up and down, up and down. Then it commenced to stumble and go ve-ry, v-e-r-y slowly. Rosanna had had an awful thought. The same thought had really been there all the time, but her heart was making such a happy noise that she wouldn't let herself hear it. Now, however, it made such a racket she just had to listen. Over and over with the scales it said loudly and harshly, "Will your grandmother let you play with that little girl who lives over the garage? Will your grandmother even let you know that little girl who lives over the garage? Will she? Will she?"

Rosanna Horton knew the answer perfectly well.

* * *

The only thing to do, Rosanna decided, was to talk to her grandmother after luncheon when they usually sat in the rose arbor. Rosanna, playing scales, felt quite brave. She would explain everything: how Helen Culver used the best of grammar, and no slang, and climbed trees in rompers and did not scream. Then when she had assured her grandmother of all this, she would tell her quite firmly that she, Rosanna, needed a friend.

It seemed simple and easy, but when luncheon was announced, she decided not to speak until later and when finally they went out to the rose arbor, Rosanna commenced to feel quite shaky and instead of talking she fell into a deep silence.

And then, that minute, that very identical second, something happened that changed everything. A messenger boy came with a telegram. And if it hadn't been for that messenger boy this story would never have happened. If he had been a slow messenger boy, half an hour late ... but he just hurried along on his bicycle and arrived that second. Oh, a dozen things might have happened to delay the boy, but there he was just as Rosanna said, "Grandmother!" in a small but firm voice.

Rosanna said nothing more because her grandmother opened the telegram with fingers that shook a little in spite of her iron will. But as she read it a look of relief and joy lighted her proud face.

"Good news, Rosanna," she said. "The best of news! Your Uncle Robert has reached America!"

"Won't he have to fight any more, grandmother?"

"No; he will come home and be with us. But as I have told you, dear, he was slightly wounded over there in Germany, and I think if I can arrange everything for your comfort, I will go and meet him. He is in New York, and I shall see for myself if he needs any doctoring or care that he could not get here. Then perhaps we will stay at the seaside or in the mountains for a week or so. Would you mind being left with the maids for that long? Perhaps one of your little acquaintances would like to come and play with you once or twice a week."

This was a great privilege in her grandmother's eyes, as Rosanna knew, and she said, "Thank you, grandmother," and started to tell her then and there about Helen. But Mrs. Horton went right on talking.

"Come to my room with me while I pack," she said, rising.

Rosanna did not get a chance to say one word to her. She listened while her grandmother called up an intimate friend who lived near by and arranged for her to come in every day to see how Rosanna was getting on. She called John in and told him just where he could drive the car when Miss Rosanna took her daily ride. "If she wants to take a little girl friend with her, she is to do so, as I want her to have a good time," Mrs. Horton told him.

When she woke the next morning, Rosanna lay for a long while thinking.

So Uncle Robert had actually come home! And grandmother had gone to meet him! She might be away a week or more. Then her thoughts flew to Helen. Wasn't it too, too wonderful? Her grandmother had said quite clearly that one of her little acquaintances might come and play with her.

Usually Rosanna took forever to dress. She was really not at all nice about it. Big girl as she was, Minnie always dressed her, and she would scriggle her toes so her stockings wouldn't go on, and would hop up and down so the buttons wouldn't button. It was very exasperating and she should have been soundly spanked for it: but of course Minnie, who was paid generous wages, only said, "Now, Miss Rosanna, don't you bother poor Minnie that-a way!"

This morning, however, she was out of bed and into the cold plunge without being pushed and she actually helped with her stockings. She was ready for breakfast so soon that Minnie said, "Well, well, Miss Rosanna, looks like it does you good to have your grandmother go 'way!"

With one thing and another, she did not get a chance to go down to the overhanging tree until after luncheon.

She peered eagerly up.

Helen was there, curled up on a big bough, a book in her lap and a gray kitten playing around her.

"Here I am!" said Rosanna, smiling.

"And here am I," answered Helen, smiling back.

"Did you expect me sooner?" asked Rosanna.

"No; I was hoping you wouldn't come. I suppose you never have things to do, but I am a very busy little girl. I help mother, and practice my music, and she is teaching me to sew and cook. Of course we have cooking at school but no one can cook like mother, and I want to be just like her. I told her about you last night, and she said you could borrow her whenever you wanted to."

"I too have things to do," said Rosanna, who felt as though she ought to be of some use since Helen was so industrious. "When I get through with my bath mornings Minnie dresses me-"

"Dresses you?" exclaimed Helen in astonishment. "Why, Rosanna, can't you dress yourself?"

Rosanna felt a queer sort of shame. "I never tried," she confessed, "but I am sure I could."

"Of course you could," said Helen briskly. "The buttons and things in the back are hard, but my mother makes most of my things slip-on so I can manage everything. Why don't you try to dress yourself, Rosanna? You wouldn't want folks to know that you couldn't, would you? Of course you don't mind my knowing, because I am your friend and I will never tell; but you wouldn't want most people to know?"

Rosanna had never thought about it at all, but now it seemed a very babyish and helpless thing. She determined to dress herself in future. To change the subject she said, "Why don't you come down into the garden? I want to show you my playhouse and the pony."

"I'd love to," said Helen, and slid rapidly down the tree and out of sight behind the brick wall.

Rosanna heard her light footsteps running up the stairs leading to the apartment over the garage. She sat down on the rustic seat and waited as patiently as she could. It seemed a long time before Helen appeared at the little gate in the wall.

"Mother thinks that you ought to ask your grandmother if she would like to have me come and see you," she said, looking very grave.

"Oh, that's all right!" said Rosanna. "Grandmother has gone away, and she said the very last thing that I could have somebody come and see me whenever I wanted."

"But did she say me?" Helen persisted. "My father drives for your grandmother and perhaps she may think we are not rich and grand enough for you."

"Why, no, she didn't say you. She didn't say anybody. She said I might have anyone I like, and I like you. It is all right. You can ask Minnie; she heard her say I could have company. She doesn't know you, you see, so she couldn't say that you were the one to come. She told me 'some little girl.'"

"That sounds all right," said Helen. "I will go tell mother. She was not sure I ought to come." She disappeared once more through the little gate, and Rosanna waited. She was not happy. Her grandmother had certainly not named any little girl, but Rosanna knew that she did not mean or intend that Rosanna should entertain the little girl who lived over the garage. Her grandmother thought every one was all right if they belonged to an old family. The first thing she ever asked Rosanna about any little girl was "What is her family?" or "Who are her people?"

Rosanna, whose conscience was troubling her in a queer way, determined to ask Helen about her family, although it seemed that was one of the things that were not very nice to do. But perhaps Helen had a family. In that case she could settle everything happily.

The children joined hands and went skipping along the path toward the playhouse, Helen's bobbed yellow locks shining in the sun and Rosanna's long, heavy, dark hair swinging from side to side as she danced along.

She led the way through the little door into the little living-room of the playhouse and stood aside as Helen cried out with wonder and pleasure.

"Oh, oh, oh, Rosanna!" the little girl exclaimed. "Oh, it is too dear! May I please look at everything, just as though it was in a picture book?"

Helen moved from one place to another in a sort of daze. She tried the little wicker chairs one after another. She sat at the tiny desk and touched the pearl penholders and the pencils with Rosanna's name printed on them in gold letters. All the letter paper said Rosanna in gold letters at the top too; it was beautiful.

The little piano was real. It played delightfully little tinkly notes almost like hitting the rim of a glass with a lead pencil. Helen was charmed. She could scarcely drag herself away to see the other wonders of the playhouse. The little dining-room was built with a bay window, which had a window seat, and a hanging basket of ferns. The little round table, the sideboard and the chairs were all painted a soft cream color, and on each chair back, and the sideboard drawers and doors sprays of tinty, tiny flowers were painted.

Helen hurried from these splendors to the kitchen. And it was a real kitchen!

"If our domestic science teacher could only see this!" groaned Helen.

The room was larger than either of the others, and there was plenty of room for two or three persons, at least for a couple of children and one grown person if she was not so very large. There was a little gas stove complete in every way, a cabinet, and a porcelain top table, as well as a white sink and draining board. The floor was covered with blue and white linoleum, and the walls were papered with blue and white tiled paper with a border of fat little Dutch ships around the top. Little white Dutch curtains hung at the windows.

"Oh my! Oh my!" sighed Helen. "This is the best of all! The other rooms you can only sit in and enjoy, but here you can really do things and learn to be useful."

She opened a little cupboard door and discovered all sorts of pans and kettles made of white enamel with blue edges.

"I never come out here at all," said Rosanna.

"Perhaps they are afraid you will burn yourself," suggested Helen.

"No, the stove is a safe kind, made specially for children's playhouses, but I don't know how to cook, so I don't play in the kitchen at all. Make-believe dinners are no fun."

Helen gave a happy sigh.

"Well, I can cook," she said, "and I will teach you how."

"Won't that be fun!" said Rosanna. She suddenly threw her arms around Helen's neck and kissed her. "Oh, Helen, I am so happy," she said.

* * *