Chapter III: A Declaration of Independence

IT was evening, and Mr. Abbott had returned to Boston. He had declined staying to dinner, but had promised to come again early in the week. By that time the Starrs would have more fully realized the situation, and would be able to talk more rationally, he thought. He must give them time to accustom themselves to the great change in their prospects. At present they seemed to be stunned, and no wonder.

“It is terrible, terrible!” said Mr. Abbott as he left Glen Arden. “Poor children! I am sorry for them. I am only thankful that my old friend was spared the knowledge of it all. Peter never was a business man, and if he had taken my advice, his money would never have gone into such a worthless concern as that railroad has proved to be. Poor children, I am sorry enough!”

Mr. Abbott had no children of his own, but he had a father’s heart, and it ached as he thought of the sad-faced group which he had just left. They knew so little of life, and it seemed to be beginning badly for them.

Dinner was eaten almost in silence, but afterwards, when the family had returned to the parlor and the lamps were lighted, and the room looked just as they had always known it since they could remember,—except that the dear father was no longer there,—Honor’s self-control, which she had bravely kept until now, deserted her for an instant. She covered her face with her handkerchief and gave a little sob. Then she quickly dried her eyes.

“I _will not_ give way!” she said. “If I once do, it will be the end of everything; and we must keep calm and try to think clearly. I see no way out of it, girls. It really seems as if we must give up, and go live-with Aunt Sophia.”

Katherine started from her chair and began to walk rapidly up and down the room. Katherine was tall and very slender, and her eyes and hair were the darkest of the family. She was an excitable person, and this remark of Honor’s, although it entirely coincided with what she feared, had a most exasperating effect upon her.

“Never!” she said. “Honor, how can you say such a thing? Are you going to meekly give in and do just what Aunt Sophia says, after all? I should think you would have more spirit. I—I would rather do anything than that. Scrubbing floors would be better than dusting Aunt Sophia’s ugly china, and writing her endless notes about stupid meetings. Really, Honor, I am surprised that you can sit there and calmly say you are willing to do it!”

“I didn’t say that I was willing,” said Honor; “and, Katherine, you know I am not. And, as for being calm—but what is the use of discussing that? We have got to live, and we have no money; therefore, if some one offers us homes and educations, I suppose there is nothing for us to do but say, ‘thank you,’ and meekly take them.”

“You may, but I never will.”

“What will you do?”

“Give music lessons.”

“But where will you live?”

“Board somewhere alone, I suppose. Lots of women do that who have to support themselves.”

“But not women that are as young as you are, and who have been brought up as you have been.”

“I can’t help my bringing up, and I shall rapidly grow older, and I _will not_ go to Aunt Sophia’s.”

“I have an idea,” said Victoria. “I have been thinking about it since before dinner, and what Katherine says about supporting herself just fits in with it.”

“What is it?” asked Honor and Katherine together. They had a great respect for Victoria’s “ideas.”

“Why shouldn’t we all do something to support ourselves? Lots of girls do.”

“Of course they do!” cried Katherine. “Vic, you’re a girl after my own heart. _You’re_ not going to sit quietly down on Beacon Street and be ordered about by Aunt Sophia!” This with a glance at Honor, who was too much interested in Victoria’s proposition, however, to notice it.

“Do you really think we could?” she asked. “What could we do? Katherine has her music, I know, but there is no particular talent that I have, and you haven’t finished school, and there are Peter and Sophy. They couldn’t do anything. And I suppose we should have to leave the place just the same.”

“That is just what I am coming to,” replied Victoria. “It popped into my head before Mr. Abbott went, and I have been thinking about it ever since, and Peter could help a lot if we carry it out, and Sophy too. Why can’t we stay on here, and turn the place to some account?”

“Child, what do you mean?” cried Honor; and even Peter, who had been sitting moodily by a distant table, taking no apparent interest in the conversation, but absorbed in his own gloomy reflections, dropped the paper-cutter which he had been handling and drew nearer.

“What do you mean, Vic?” he asked; “and what can I do to help? It has been bothering me that I can’t do anything as long as I am the only boy in the family.”

Victoria looked at him lovingly. She wished that she might venture to give him a hug for that speech, but she knew that Peter would not like it, so she refrained.

“I mean,” said she, “that we might live on here and make the place pay. We could sell the farm produce, sell the milk—you know we have all those cows. Surely we can’t use all the milk and cream they must give, and there must be horrible waste. Then we could raise other things. I have a thousand ideas. Or hens! We might keep hens and sell the eggs. Or violets! Or mushrooms! I heard of some one not long ago who made a fortune and went abroad on mushrooms and violets.”

Victoria’s voice rose with her rapidly increasing enthusiasm. She could see that she had made a point. Her sisters were distinctly impressed.

“And we shouldn’t have to give up the place, after all!” cried Honor. “Victoria, you are brilliant! Come here, child, and let me kiss you.”

“Or we could have a school,” continued Victoria. “Katherine could teach the music, and I the small children, while you, Honor, would be the principal. It might even be a boarding-school. We have lots of room. Indeed, girls, there are ever so many things we can do if we only put our minds to it. The farming project seems really the best plan, though, for Peter could be of such use there. He loves out-of-door things so much.”

“But about the children’s schooling?” suggested Honor. “If we had a school here, we could teach Sophy.”

“I know,” said Victoria, “I thought of that. We have got to talk the whole thing over and consult with Mr. Abbott. It requires a lot of thought. But I am glad you see some good in the idea. I was almost afraid to suggest it for fear you would frown it down.”

“Frown down anything that would save us from a life at No.—Beacon Street?” cried Katherine. “Never! Victoria, my child, you have preserved my reason. I verily believe I should have become quite insane if we had been made to go to Aunt Sophia’s, after all. I must give vent to my feelings.”

And she seated herself at the piano and played so madly and yet so brilliantly that the others were forced to listen to her, partly because they wanted to and partly because they could not hear one another’s voices above the din of the crashing chords. When she had finished, she twirled around on the piano stool.

“There!” she exclaimed. “Now I feel better and can discuss it calmly. I already see myself sailing for Germany to study under foreign masters, my pockets stuffed with the proceeds of music lessons and violets. How shall we sell them? Shall we send Sophy in to stand at the corner of Tremont Street and Temple Place with little bunches?”

“Kathie!” cried Sophy, reproachfully. “Must I really, Honor?”

“No, of course not,” said Honor, reassuringly. “Katherine is only teasing you. The idea of our letting our baby do that!” While Katherine laughed immoderately at Sophy’s startled face. “Now we must talk it over calmly and get our ideas into shape before we see Mr. Abbott again, so that we can convince him at once,” continued Honor. “Suppose we discuss it to-night, and then think it over to ourselves to-morrow, and to-morrow night, at this time, we will each say what we think we had better do. Then we can see which will be the best plan. Oh, Vicky dear, you are a perfect treasure!”

“My sister Vic is a perfect brick!” cried Katherine, hugging her as she spoke.

Peter said nothing, but walked slowly out of the room, with his hands in his pockets.

“Peter has gone up to the workshop to think about it,” remarked Sophy, sagely.

“Yes; he reminds me of father in that,” said Honor. “He always went there after he had had a disagreeable business letter, or something troublesome. Dearest father! I am glad he never knew that we were going to be poor, he would have felt so badly. But do you know, girls, I really don’t mind it a bit, now. I feel as if it were going to be interesting. Just think of the satisfaction it will be to support ourselves!”

“I am going to see about my Symphony concert tickets right away,” said Katherine. “I didn’t know whether I had better go this winter when I heard that we had no money, but now that we are going to make so much I shall be able to, and I really ought to do everything to improve my music if I am going to give lessons.”

“Yes,” said Honor, though somewhat doubtfully, Katherine thought. “I—I think, though, that we shall have to be very economical even though we are going to make so much. I won’t order the jacket at Hollander’s I was thinking of. I’ll try at some cheaper place. If you think it will be very extravagant to have one made to order, I will try to find one ready made. What do you think?”

She looked at Victoria as she spoke. Victoria hesitated.

“I hate to say it, Honor,” she said at last, “for you are so generous and good, but it really seems as if we ought to get on with as few clothes as possible if we are so very poor. Do you—don’t you think—at least, is your last winter’s coat really hopeless? Wouldn’t it do this year?”

“Why of course it would _do_,” said Honor. “It isn’t much worn, and it is plain black, but it is frightfully old-fashioned. It has immense sleeves, and they have gone down so this year; but I could have them altered at a cheap tailor’s. You are right, Vic. I won’t get a new one.”

“And there are other things we might be economical in besides clothes,” continued Victoria, staring pensively at the fire. “The table, for instance.”

“My dear child!” cried Honor and Katherine with one voice. “Surely you don’t think we ought to starve ourselves?”

“No, of course not, but we really needn’t have quite so many things. Salad every day at dinner, for instance, and olives. And we don’t need preserves always for lunch, nor such a lot of cake made, and—oh, a great many things. When I was staying at the Carsons’ last year I noticed that they didn’t have nearly so many things as we do, and yet there was always enough, and everything was very good.”

“I hate the idea of a skimpy table,” said Honor. “You know father always liked everything to be very nice. Oh no, my dear! Most of your ideas are good ones, but I really don’t think we ought to starve ourselves.”

“Nor I either,” said Katherine. “I think Honor is right there. Nothing is more horrible than the idea of not having enough food on the table.”

“But I don’t mean that,” persisted Victoria. “I only mean that we don’t need olives and salad and preserves to keep us from being hungry.”

“The preserves don’t cost us a cent but the sugar,” said Honor. “We raise the currants and the pears and the cherries on the place, and even some of the strawberries, so there is no extravagance in turning them into preserves and eating them.”

“That suggests another idea!” exclaimed Victoria. “We might sell preserves at the Woman’s Exchange or somewhere. To be sure, we have always paid a woman to do ours, but we might learn to do them ourselves, and make some money that way.”

The girls discussed long and earnestly the new aspect of affairs, and their many plans for bettering their fortune, and Sophy sat up unnoticed until past her usual bedtime, so absorbed were they all in the unlooked-for problem which had been presented to them that afternoon.

Peter did not appear again, but they heard him whistling in the workshop when they at last went upstairs to bed. Victoria went to the door and found him idly sharpening some tools, apparently giving little thought to the work. She wanted him to go to bed, but she knew that if she told him so, he would probably prolong his labors until far into the night.

“We have been talking it all over, Peter,” said she gaily, “and we are going to think it out by ourselves over Sunday; and then Monday night we are going to tell each other how we want most to set about it,—making our fortunes, I mean. I am going to bed, for I can think better in the dark. I don’t suppose I shall go to sleep for ages. You needn’t hurry, but please put out the light in the back hall when you do come.”

And the mere assurance that he need not hurry sent Peter to his room within five minutes.

The next day was Sunday. When the Starr family awoke, the clouds were still thick, and the air was heavy with dampness; but by nine o’clock the sun was out, and at service time the day was clear. Peter and his four sisters went to church, as usual, and took their places in the family pew,—Peter at the end where his father had always sat, even on the very Sunday before he died. If the minds of the little group in black were occupied with other thoughts than those suggested by the service, they gave no outward sign of it. In the afternoon they all went to Sunday school as usual,—Honor and Katherine to teach, and the others to be taught; and after it was over Katherine and Victoria stayed to the afternoon service. Honor’s cold forced her to go home, and Peter and Sophy accompanied her.

No one mentioned the subject in which they were all so vitally interested, until the next evening, when they were once more gathered about the parlor fire.

“Now,” said Honor, drawing up a chair, and settling herself as if for the evening, “the time has at last come! I have scarcely been able to wait for night, for every one of you have looked as if you were bristling with ideas all day; but I thought I had better not begin the subject by asking for anything. Suppose we all take turns, beginning with the youngest, and each say what we think will be the quickest and the surest way of making our fortunes.”

But Sophy felt shy at being called upon, and they all insisted that Honor should state her own views first, as she was the eldest. Her idea was to open a boarding-school during the winter, and to take boarders in summer.

“When the place looks so lovely,” said she, “and there would be no necessity if we did that for us to alter our way of living, as regards the table. We should be obliged to have everything very nice if people were boarding here, and that would be such a comfort.”

Katherine approved of a school, though perhaps not a boarding-school, and she thought it would be well for them to have a little time to themselves in summer.

“We shall want to go away for a while to get rested,” she remarked; “to the seashore or the mountains, you know, so we had better not have a houseful of boarders. The school would be better, and I can teach other things in it besides music.”

Victoria inclined towards working the farm in some way, in which Peter agreed with her. She pointed out that boarders in summer would perhaps be hard to procure, and also that it would be impossible to go to the mountains or the sea, as Katherine suggested, and leave the place to take care of itself, even if there were no boarders, and even if they had made enough money to warrant such an expense. On the other hand, the working of the farm presented endless possibilities. There was much good sense in what she said, as Honor and Katherine were forced to admit. They determined to wait, however, before actually deciding upon their future course, until they should see Mr. Abbott; and Honor wrote to him that night, begging him to come to Glen Arden again as soon as it should be convenient, as they wished his advice.

“We have some new ideas,” she wrote, “and we cannot rest until we hear you say they are good ones.”

Mr. Abbott replied in person to the note; for he was sincerely anxious about the welfare of his wards, and was also curious to know what they had thought of as a means of escape from the grasp of their Aunt Sophia. He came, therefore, on Tuesday afternoon.

At first he was sceptical. The mere idea that five young persons, all under twenty-two, and four of them girls, should set out to support themselves, with no experience to call upon, and in absolute ignorance of the magnitude of that which they were about to undertake, seemed to him preposterous, and he did not hesitate to tell them so.

But in spite of himself, he was soon impressed by their earnestness. Their enthusiasm was contagious, and there was certainly a fair amount of common sense in their remarks. Mr. Abbott allowed himself to be persuaded to stay to dinner, and before the evening was over, he was discussing as eagerly as any one of them the possibilities of selling butter and of teaching children their alphabet; while the idea of raising violets appealed strongly to his flower-loving soul.

He promised, when he bade his wards good night, to call upon their aunt the next day, and place the subject before her; and he would do his best to win her approval, difficult as he knew that would be. In the meantime, they might be sure of his consent and support. He only wished to impress upon them, however, that they should decide upon a course which would necessitate as little outlay as possible.

“Saving money counts for as much as making it, in the long run,” said he. “Don’t forget that. And I am glad that you live in a place which has good public schools. Peter’s education must not be forgotten, nor should Victoria’s and Sophy’s. I shall not approve at all of any scheme which would interfere with their schooling. Don’t forget that, either.”