Chapter IV: Katherine as a Financier

NEEDLESS to say, Mrs. Wentworth Ward disapproved absolutely of her nieces’ projects. The mere fact of their defiance of her authority was unheard of, and that they should dream of such impossible plans for their self-support she considered at first beneath her notice. The children could not be in earnest, she said, and she thought it was scarcely the time for jesting.

When she was finally made to understand that the children were very much in earnest, she cancelled all her engagements for that afternoon and hurried to the Boston and Albany station. She must lose no time in informing them that they should never have her consent, and that they must at once give up any such absurd ideas as these undoubtedly were.

Long were the arguments and futile were the discussions which ensued upon her arrival. She found that her brother’s children had inherited no small amount of the Starr determination, not to say obstinacy, and when they parted she was forced to acknowledge herself vanquished, for the time being at least. Mrs. Wentworth Ward comforted herself with the reflection, which she did not hesitate to put into words, that the time would come when they would grow weary of their efforts and be glad to yield and come to her for help.

“And my home is still open to you,” she said as she took her departure. “Though you defy my authority and persist in your headstrong course, I shall never forget that you are my brother’s children. The time will come when you will remember this. Mark my words!”

“Wouldn’t it be too dreadful if we did have to go to her for help, after all?” said Honor, as the train moved away. The three older girls had accompanied their aunt to the little station. “Wouldn’t she simply shriek at us, ‘I told you so!’”

“She will never have the chance if I can prevent it,” returned Katherine. “Rather than go to Aunt Sophia for help after all that has been said this afternoon I would rather—I would rather scrub floors.”

Which was Katherine’s favorite simile for the extreme of hard work, although the wildest flights of the imagination could scarcely picture her in such an employment.

“I shall never give Aunt Sophia any such satisfaction as that,” she added, with decision.

“I am perfectly astonished that she gave in at last,” remarked Victoria, as the three walked arm in arm across the lawn. “I really thought she would stick it out to the very end, and perhaps refuse to have anything more to do with us.”

“I didn’t,” said Katherine. “Do you know I think it is almost a relief to Aunt Sophia that she isn’t obliged to have us there, after all. We should interfere dreadfully with her regular ways, even if she did turn us to account, with her writing and her dusting, and I also think she is very curious to see what we do, and how we come out. She is already looking forward, I plainly see, to the time, when she can prove that she knows more than anybody else, and that we are all dismal failures. For that reason, girls, if for nothing else, we must prove that we are not. We _must_ succeed!”

“Do you think we were at all disrespectful to her?” said Honor.

“No, not a bit. We had to be emphatic. It was the only way to make her understand that we were in earnest.”

“I know, but she is father’s sister and our only near relative, even if she is aggravating, and I think she is fond of us in her own way. It was very good and generous of her to offer to do so much for us.”

“It is certainly in ‘her own way’ that she loves us, if she loves us at all,” said Katherine. “Honor, it must be a terrible bore to have such a conscience as you are burdened with. I’m glad it’s yours, and not mine, and I’m glad, too, that we came out victorious in the scrimmage with our beloved aunt, fond of us though she may be.”

By the end of the week, their plans were made, and they were ready to put them at once into action. The idea of a boarding-school was abandoned. That was absolutely impracticable, as they soon saw for themselves. They had no experience upon which to go to work, and no influence upon which they could depend to bring them pupils.

Honor, however, opened a day school for small children. There happened to be none already in Fordham, and among the friends of the Starrs there were a number who were glad, not only to help the girls in their efforts for self-support, but also to have a class formed for the children whom it was not desirable, because of their extreme youth, to send to the larger schools.

Katherine had already secured several music scholars and hoped for more, while she also intended to help Honor with the school, in which Sophy was to be a pupil. Victoria and Peter left the private schools which they had attended and were transferred to public ones, although Victoria secretly determined that this should be her last winter of study. She felt that she must unite with the others in working for the support of the family. Had not she been the one who had first suggested the idea? In the meantime she planted her violet bed and proceeded to investigate the cultivation of mushrooms.

The house servants were all informed that they must go, and a new “maid of all work” was engaged, who was expected to perform wonders in the kitchen and elsewhere. The gardener and the coachman were also dismissed, and the horses and cows were sold. The girls had concluded that it would be unwise at present to attempt to make butter, for with their many other duties it would be impossible to attend to it. A man who lived near could be called upon to come occasionally if one were needed upon the place, and when spring approached they could engage some one regularly, if they decided to raise vegetables for sale.

At present their chief thought was the school. A room on the second floor was to be used for the purpose, the bedstead and bureau removed, and some desks, which Katherine went to Boston to buy, were to be placed there in readiness for the pupils. There had been some discussion about the purchase of these desks, Victoria suggesting that tables would do for the present, until they should have a little more ready money, and should also be able to see whether the number of scholars would warrant such an outlay.

But Katherine was strongly of the opinion that desks would add greatly to the professional appearance of the room, and would have, in consequence, a beneficial effect upon the children, and as Honor agreed with her in this, she went off triumphantly to Boston with the money in her pocket with which she was to pay for them. Neither Honor nor Victoria was able to go with her, but she professed herself quite equal to the task of choosing the necessary articles without her sisters’ help.

When she returned she announced to them that she had bought not only six small desks with chairs to match, but also a larger desk for Honor, a map of the world to hang upon the wall, and a blackboard.

“You know it is really important to have all these things,” said she. “A schoolroom without a map would be like bread without butter, and this is the cheapest and the most complete thing you ever saw. The United States on one side, and the whole world on the other, and only a dollar. And you needn’t shake your head over the desk for Honor, Victoria! Of course she ought to have a desk.”

“I’m afraid our bread will soon be without butter if you go on in this way,” remarked Victoria. “Honor could have used a table with a drawer.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t do at all!” said Katherine, impatiently. “You have such scrimpy ideas, Vic; I don’t see where you get them. And besides, I did a stroke of business. They allowed me a discount of ten per cent at the furniture store because I was a professional, so it really paid to get all those things. It is great fun to be a professional. I get music cheaper at the music stores, just because I give lessons.”

“But did you have enough money for so many things?” asked the practical younger sister.

“Oh, I haven’t paid for them yet,” rejoined Katherine, easily. “They asked me if I would have them charged, and I said yes. I really thought it would be better to have a bill for them, and there may be more ready money when it comes in, and besides, I needed that money for something else—something that is to be a grand surprise for you all and is to help us make our fortunes. It is coming out by express this afternoon.”

“Katherine, what have you been getting?” exclaimed Honor and Victoria together.

“Oh, just wait!” cried Katherine, gaily, as she left them and went to her room to take off her hat and coat. “I tell you, it is to be a grand surprise. It is coming with the desks and chairs.”

“What do you suppose it is?” asked Honor.

“I am afraid to think,” returned Victoria, “and I think it was a great pity she had those things charged. Perhaps we shan’t have any money at all when the bill comes in.”

“Oh, don’t be afraid, child! Katherine is extravagant, I must confess, but we have six pupils promised, you know, for the school, and she has eight music scholars. We shall be all right, I hope.”

But in spite of these reassuring words Honor felt as uneasy as did Victoria about Katherine’s “surprise.”

“What do you think of the new maid?” asked Victoria, presently. The sisters were in Honor’s room, darning the family stockings by the waning light of the short November day.

“I don’t know what to think,” replied Honor, running her long needle in and out as she crossed and re-crossed a large hole. “I suppose Peter wears out his stockings so quickly because he is such a tramper, but this one is discouraging. Do you think it is worth while to spend our precious time over such a hole as this, Vic?”

“I think the stocking would stand a little more wear,” said Vic, laying down her own work and examining critically that of her sister. “I like a good big hole if I am going to darn at all. Running over thin places bores me to death. It is just like life. A big hole is like a big calamity; you can rise above it. But the little botherations are like the thin places. You have got to go over them and patch them up, or else they will go altogether, and yet there is really nothing to show for it in the end, and the doing it tires you out. With a big hole or a big trouble you know just where you are and how you stand. But tell me what you think of the new maid.”

“I am afraid she is like the thin places in the stockings,” said Honor, laughing as she made the comparison. “She requires a great deal of attention, and I don’t know where she is going to burst out next.”

“What is her name?”

“That is the queerest part of her. She told me it was ‘B.’ Lafferty.”

“Bee?” repeated Victoria. “What a curious name! Do you suppose it is short for Beatrice?”

“Not at all. It is the letter B, and it really stands for Bridget, but she told me she never liked the name of Bridget and didn’t wish to be called that. I told her I thought I should, upon which she said she should take the next train back to Boston if we did. Her friends called her ‘B.,’ and we must call her ‘B.,’ or if not ‘B.’ it could be ‘Blanch.’ On the whole, she preferred Blanch, so I suppose it has got to be that, though I can’t imagine anything more inappropriate.”

“You may be thankful she didn’t request us to call her ‘Miss Lafferty,’” laughed Victoria. “I think she is going to be amusing.”

“I hope so,” said Honor, somewhat grimly. “To me at present it seems more tragic than amusing. She won’t have late dinner, for one thing. We have got to dine in the middle of the day after to-night. It really seems as if she meant to rule us, but I shan’t let her.”

The family were engaged in eating the last dinner which they were to be allowed to enjoy in the evening when the Fordham and Boston express wagon was heard coming down the Glen Arden avenue, and shortly afterwards the door which led into the front hall from the kitchen department was flung open by B. Lafferty, who announced as she did so that “a whole lot of furniters had come, and what was she to be afther doin’ wid ’em?”

“Bring them right in here, please,” said Honor. “Peter, won’t you go and help? We shall have to do a good deal ourselves, I suppose, now that we have only one girl,” she added, as Blanch’s heavy tread echoed in the distance, and Peter, who had heard of Katherine’s shopping expedition and was possessed of a lively curiosity, went willingly enough to investigate the result.

The chairs, desks, blackboard, and map had all been brought in, also a globe and a package containing chalk, pencils, copy-books, blank-books, and school stationery of all kinds, which Katherine had forgotten to mention, and then Peter appeared, staggering beneath the weight of a square box. It seemed to be heavy, and he set it down with a sigh of relief.

“There!” said he. “I suppose that is your surprise, Katherine. It weighs a ton, whatever it is.”

“Yes, that is it!” cried Katherine. “Oh, girls, I wonder what you will say when you see it! But look at the desks before we open it. Aren’t they too sweet for anything? And so cheap, too. I forgot to tell you I got a globe. You know a schoolroom is nothing without a globe.”

“But the surprise,” interposed Sophy. “Do show it to us quick, Kathie.”

“I’ve a good mind to make you all guess,” said Katherine, mischievously. She glanced from one to the other as she spoke. It almost seemed as if she were afraid to let them see it, Victoria thought, though she had assumed this air of triumph.

“Oh no, we can’t stop to guess,” said they, and Peter had already begun to remove the lid of the box.

“My eye!” exclaimed he. “Oh, my two eyes, what do I see? Katherine’s been and gone and done it this time!” And he burst into shouts of derisive laughter.

“What _is_ it?” cried the others, as they crowded about and pushed the desks and chairs out of the way, in their haste to see the contents of the mysterious box.

“It is a typewriter,” announced Katherine.

“_A typewriter_!” repeated her sisters. “What—what for? Why did you buy a typewriter?”

“Why, you stupid children, to typewrite with, of course!”

“But do you know how?”

“No; certainly not. How should I? But I am going to learn. It was a tremendous bargain, and I have been thinking of them for some time without saying anything about it. You know the magazines are full of advertisements of them, and they have made me simply wild to have one. I thought it would be so useful for us to have one in the house, and we can make a lot of money with it.”

“How?” asked Honor.

Something in her voice made Katherine glance at her sister’s face; but Honor was standing in the shadow cast by the staircase, which went up from the centre of the hall.

“Doing typewriting for people, of course. You hear all the time of girls who are typewriters. How dull of comprehension you are to-night, Honor!”

“How much did you give for it?”

“My dear, it was awfully cheap! The man assured me it was a wonderful bargain!”

“They usually do,” remarked Honor, “but you haven’t yet named the price. How much was it, Katherine?”

“It is really a hundred-dollar machine, but they call it second-hand, though it has only been used a little, and so I got it for forty.”

“Forty dollars!” cried Victoria, while Honor’s feelings prevented her for the moment from finding words, and Peter gave utterance to a prolonged whistle of astonishment. “You don’t mean, Katherine, that you have actually spent forty dollars on _that_?”

“I do,” said Katherine, with an assumption of boldness that she was far from feeling. “Only forty dollars. I assure you it is the cheapest thing I ever saw. I never dreamed of being able to get a decent one for less than fifty at the lowest—and when we are making money with it, you will thank me.”

“But _how_ are we to make money with it?” asked Victoria, while Peter laughed with malicious glee. He had been so often remonstrated with himself for various misdemeanors that he was glad to see his chief critic undergoing the same unpleasant experience. “Do you know how to use it?”

“No, not yet; but that is easily learned. The man offered to give me a lesson, but I was in a hurry, and so he said I could come in any time. He showed me some books on the subject, which I bought, and I can easily puzzle it out myself, I think. It will be something to do in the evening.”

“Have you paid for it, or did you have it charged, too?”

It was Honor who asked the question. She had not spoken for some time, and her voice had the same note which Katherine, who was susceptible to voices, had remarked upon before.

“I paid for it,” she replied. “That is what I wanted the ready money for. I saw it in the window of a typewriter place as I was on my way to the furniture store. I knew I should have to pay ‘cash down’ for it, as they didn’t know me there, while they did at the furniture place. I hope you think I did right, girls. I hope you agree with me.”

“I think,” said Honor, turning slowly and looking at her sister,—“I think you are the most foolish and the most extravagant person I ever saw or heard of. The idea of your spending forty dollars on a typewriter, when we are so poor we can scarcely buy our food, and it was just as much as we could do to scrape the forty dollars together for you to take to Boston to buy the schoolroom furniture with. Oh, that we had never let you go! Can the thing be taken back?”

“No,” said Katherine, shortly.

“Why not?”

“Why of course it can’t, Honor, unless in exchange for another typewriter! Of course the man isn’t going to give me back the money. How foolish you are!”

“Foolishness must run in the family,” said Honor. “I think Aunt Sophia was quite right when she said we were nothing but children and not fit to take care of ourselves. If you go on in this way, we shall soon have to take refuge in Beacon Street, after all. I think you might at least have consulted us before you bought it. I suppose you were afraid to. That is the reason you were so anxious to go yourself to buy the desks. You had made up your mind before you went, to get this thing.”

“I hadn’t at all, Honor,” cried Katherine, stung by this accusation. “I hadn’t the least idea of doing it until I saw them in the window. If I had happened to go through any other street, I should never have dreamed of getting it. It was evidently intended that we should own a typewriter, for I was led right up to the window.”

“An easy sort of philosophy,” remarked Honor.

“Oh well,” interposed Victoria, “it is done, so there is no use in lamenting. We may as well make the best of it, though the next time you go to Boston, Katherine, I think Honor and I had better be on each side of you to keep you from being ‘led up’ to windows. If you had been ‘led’ to Toppan’s window, would you have bought all that you saw there? Or to Shreve’s, or Bigelow’s? Oh, Katherine!”

And then Victoria, who had been undecided for some time as to whether she should laugh or cry, began to laugh.

“I think it is too funny!” she exclaimed. “I feel as if we had a white elephant in the house. In addition to everything else that we have to do we have all got to learn typewriting, so as to make it pay! Oh, Katherine, Katherine!”

Honor hesitated a moment. The situation was amusing, and Victoria’s mirth was contagious, but she felt very angry. Then seeing that Katherine was looking troubled, she decided that she too had better try to laugh it off. After all, it was very funny. And presently they were all laughing so uproariously, that B. Lafferty again opened the door and peeped in at them, wondering what amusing article had come by express.

Suddenly, however, Katherine became sober.

[Picture: “The girls and Peter could see Katherine, who sat in the hall
below”]

“You will see,” she said, “that after all I was wise to get it. When the money begins to pour in from it, you will see what a brilliant idea it was.”

“I can’t imagine how it is going to pour in, unless you are going to manufacture bank notes with it,” remarked Honor; “but we will see.”

They went back to their forgotten dinner, and after it was finished, they proceeded to arrange the schoolroom. It was again Saturday, and school was to open the following Monday.

Katherine slipped away before long, her absence being at first unnoticed by the others. Presently Peter also disappeared from the room, but he soon returned.

“If you want to see something rich,” said he, “come look over the banisters.”

As has been said, the stairway ascended from the centre of the large square hall. It was very broad, and a gallery ran around the second story, upon which opened the doors of the bedrooms. By leaning over the railing which guarded this gallery, the girls and Peter could see Katherine, who sat in the hall below. She was at work upon the typewriter, the “clickety-click” of the keys coming at long intervals, while she studied the book of instructions.

“The lightning writer!” whispered Peter. “Don’t you wish you could write with a pen as fast as that?”

“Hush!” said Victoria; “don’t let her hear you. But, oh, Honor, we shall have to work extra hard to make up for Katherine’s extravagance! What _shall_ we do with her?”