Chapter VII: Victoria Goes in Search of Funds

HONOR thought over the subject during the day and decided that they must hold a council of war. Some means must be decided upon for paying the bills. It was precisely one month since they had undertaken to support themselves, and already they were in difficulty. It would be humiliating to be forced to appeal so soon to Mr. Abbott for help, and yet they would far rather ask him than their Aunt Sophia. But perhaps there was some other way.

The school bills had been sent out,—they were issued in advance,—but as yet there had been no response, and even when there was, the amount would help very little. Six children at twenty dollars each for the term, one hundred and twenty dollars. The household bills for the month of November amounted to what seemed a large sum in these straitened times,—and they did not include the one for the school furniture,—and the money which they should receive from the pupils would be for the next four months.

There were the music scholars, to be sure, but they were but five, and Katherine received only fifty cents an hour. Mushrooms and violets, though a paying industry in theory, had not yet begun to show practical results. Six hundred dollars a year came to them, as they supposed, from their father’s estate, and there were five persons to be clothed and fed. Had they been foolish, after all, not to accept their aunt’s offer? Honor, sitting in the western window of the parlor that afternoon in December, while she waited for her sisters to join her there, wondered if they had made a mistake.

There had been a light fall of snow that day, just enough to whiten the ground and to rest lightly upon the branches of the cedar trees. The sun was shining now, shortly before setting, and the world looked very beautiful. But Honor was in no mood to enjoy the prospect. She felt an overburdening sense of responsibility. She was the eldest, the family were practically left in her care, and she missed her father more than words could express. Was she doing right to refuse the help which her father’s sister had offered?

Presently the front door opened, and Victoria walked in. She was singing, to a tune of her own invention, her favorite quotation from Shakespeare:

“Jog on, jog on the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile—a.
A merry heart goes all the way,
Your sad tires in a mile—a.”

She was about to begin it for the second time, when she saw Honor sitting on the sofa in the bay-window. Her very attitude appeared depressed, for she was leaning her head on her hand, as her elbow rested on the back of the sofa, and she idly swung one foot to and fro.

“It is just perfect out,” said Victoria, coming into the room. A bright color glowed in her cheeks, and her voice was gay and exhilarated from her walk in the fresh air. “It is growing colder, and there is a snap about everything. Have you been out, Honor?”

“No.”

“Not all day? Oh, put on your things and come out for a walk! It is just the afternoon for it.”

“No,” said Honor, “I am waiting for you and Katherine. I don’t know where she can be.”

“What do you want us for?” asked Victoria, feeling a pang of something like depression, her sister’s tone was so dreary.

“I want to talk things over, and here comes Katherine at last. I thought you were never coming. Where have you been, Katherine? Indeed, somebody must suggest some way of getting money at once. Those bills are weighing upon me.”

“There is a way,” said Victoria, taking the other corner of the sofa, while Katherine threw herself into an arm-chair. “There is a way, but I suppose you will both be perfectly horrified if I even suggest it.”

“What is it?” asked her sisters.

“Will you promise not to exclaim?”

“It couldn’t possibly surprise us after your other suggestions,” remarked Katherine, gloomily. “I shall be quite resigned, even if you tell us we are to live on bread and water and wear ready-made clothes at five dollars a suit.”

“We might do worse,” said Victoria, “but this is quite different. We have so many things” (she looked about the room as she spoke), “why—indeed, girls, I scarcely dare say it—why can’t we sell something?”

There was a moment of silence. Honor was the first to find her voice.

“Sell something!” she exclaimed. “Sell what?”

“Oh, a picture or two, or some books, or a piece of silver. Or isn’t there any jewelry?”

“Why, Victoria, you can’t really mean it?” cried Katherine, in an incredulous voice. “I can’t think that you really mean it.”

“Sell our family heirlooms?” exclaimed Honor, starting to her feet and gazing at her younger sister with the air of a tragedy queen. “Sell the books and the pictures that father collected with so much pride? Sell the silver which belonged to our great-great-grandmother? Victoria, are you perfectly crazy?”

“No,” said Victoria, stoutly, “not at all so, but I knew you would take it in that way. Of course, I don’t mean the family things, but I mean some of the books, or those etchings that are in the portfolio. I know well enough how dearly father loved them, but he certainly loved us more, and if he were here now and knew how poor we are, he would be the first to say that we must do something to get money, and that we had better sell such useless things as those etchings are. They don’t do us any good, for we never look at them, and he would far rather have us sell them than owe money. You know father had a perfect horror of unpaid bills.”

Victoria spoke rapidly, for she had become excited. The opposition manifested by her sisters only served to strengthen her belief in the common sense of her suggestion, and she felt confident that her plan was a good one.

“I was wondering if Aunt Sophia wouldn’t buy something of us.”

“Victoria!!”

“Well, you needn’t be so shocked. Aunt Sophia with all her aggravatingness is very kind-hearted, and she is fond of us in a way. She might buy something of us, and when we grow rich we could buy it back again.”

“When we do!” said Katherine, with fine sarcasm. “All I can say is that if Aunt Sophia is to be applied to, I shall have nothing to do with it. Victoria can run the affair herself.”

“Very well,” returned Victoria, “if Honor is willing, I will. I will go to town to-morrow, and see Aunt Sophia. I only wish Mr. Abbott were at home, but he said his business would keep him away two weeks. Shall I go, Honor?”

“I suppose so,” said Honor, drearily. “I have nothing more to say.”

“To-night we can talk over what we had better offer for sale,” continued Victoria. “I think it will be quite good fun, girls.”

“It is not my idea of fun,” said Honor, “but I am willing to do almost anything for a little money. How little we supposed this time last year that we should ever be in such need! It just shows that we can’t be sure of anything.”

“By the way,” said Victoria, abruptly changing the subject, “did you know that the house on the hill has been taken?”

“One of my scholars said something about it to-day,” said Katherine. “She said their name was Madison, and there are a girl and a boy, I believe. I wonder if they are nice.”

“I hope so, as they are to be such near neighbors.”

“That won’t make any difference,” remarked Honor, “for we shall see nothing of them. We have no time to make new acquaintances and we are too poor. If they have taken the house on the hill, they must be very well off, and that is all the more reason for us to avoid them. We are nothing but paupers, working for our living.”

“Honor, how morbid you are getting on that subject!” cried Victoria, while Katherine laughed somewhat bitterly. “If they are nice, I shall be glad to know them, and so will you. Do cheer up a bit,” she added, rising as she spoke. “I am going to find Peter now and see how they are progressing with the mushroom bed. Don’t worry, Honor. It will all come right some day.

“Jog on, jog on the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile—a.’”

The sisters heard the fresh young voice as Victoria, having put on her jacket again, departed in search of Peter. Katherine seated herself at the piano, as she was apt to do when under any stress of emotion, and Honor went to her own room. She was determined that no one should see her cry if she could help it, but life was at present very disheartening, let Victoria suggest and sing as she would.

Vic on her way to the barn met Sophy, and together they sought their brother. They found him sitting with Dave Carney in the harness-room.

“Oh, come along in,” said he with unexpected cordiality, while Carney rose from the box upon which he was seated, and Sirius rapped a welcome on the floor with his long tail. The oddest part of Sirius’s somewhat grotesque appearance was the great length of his tail.

“We were just talking about the mushroom bed, and we can’t decide whether to have it in the cellar, or in the shed, or in the barn, or out of doors. Of course you don’t really know any more about it, Vic, than I do, but what do you think?”

“Did you send for the books?” asked his sister, as she seated herself.

“Yes, and they came by the noon mail. A lot about edible mushrooms, and here it tells how to raise them,” said Peter, giving her two or three pamphlets which he had been studying.

He had, upon the suggestion of the florist at Fordham, sent to Washington for these pamphlets, which were printed and published by the Department of Agriculture.

“I really believe it is going to be a good thing, Vic. They seem easy to raise, and I shouldn’t wonder if there was money in them. We might live on them ourselves, and save butcher’s bills. You know the Chinese eat them a lot.”

“Yes, I know,” responded Victoria, although somewhat doubtfully; “but then it always seems as if the Chinese ate such queer things—mice, for instance. I don’t think I should like to copy the Chinese.”

“Pooh! You don’t really believe that they eat mice, do you?” said Peter, with lofty scorn. “A lot is made up about the Chinese, because we don’t really know much about them. But they do a large business in mushrooms, or ‘edible fungi,’ as they are called. They import them from Japan and Tahiti, and even from Australia and New Zealand. They make soup out of fungus in China; and do you know in New Zealand they eat a fungus that grows out of the body of a big caterpillar.”

“Oh, horrible!” cried Victoria. “Sophy’s eyes look as big as saucers. Don’t tell any more such dreadful tales, Peter. We won’t raise that kind, at any rate. Have you decided where to have the beds?”

“That’s just what we were talking about before you came out. I was thinking of the shed at the back of the barn, and Carney thinks that would be a good place. I don’t believe out of doors will do in our climate; and Smith, the man at Fordham, said the shed was the best. I wish we could make a regular mushroom house, like the ones they show pictures of in these pamphlets, but I suppose it would cost a good deal.”

“We had better wait until next year for that,” said the practical Victoria. “Then we can tell whether they are going to pay or not.”

They discussed the matter for some time, until the gathering darkness warned Victoria that it was time for her and Sophy to go back to the house; and they left the boys still absorbed in the subject.

The next day was Saturday, and it was decided to make use of the holiday by arranging the mushroom bed. The boys followed closely the directions for doing this, which were given in their pamphlets; but after making the bed, they were forced to wait for a few days before introducing the seed, or spawn, until the temperature of the bed should have reached the proper degree. This they were to discover by means of the ground thermometer which Peter had purchased.

The day being Saturday, Victoria was free to go to Boston to call upon her aunt. The girls had further discussed the matter the evening before, and had decided that Victoria’s plan must be followed, if they wished to avert the ruin which seemed to be staring them in the face. If Aunt Sophia declined to buy the pictures which they had determined to sell, they must be disposed of in some other way. Victoria had a private plan of her own for raising some ready money, but of this she had said nothing to her sisters.

She went to Boston in one of the early trains with a large flat package under her arm, and a small but heavy one in her pocket. The day was a fine one, and the streets were filled with Christmas shoppers, the stores being already crowded, early in the morning though it was.

Victoria walked quickly from the station to her aunt’s house. The world seemed very bright this morning, even though bills were unpaid and prospects dreary. As the young girl hurried along, one might easily have imagined from her happy face and her well-dressed figure that she was in the most comfortable circumstances possible, and that her package was a Christmas present which she had purchased, instead of being four of her father’s precious etchings with which the sisters, after much hesitation and disinclination, had decided to part.

“I wonder what kind of a person I am,” thought Victoria as she walked. “I wonder what sort of a character I really have. I don’t seem to get as gloomy as Honor or as furious as Katherine over being poor. Does it mean that I don’t realize as they do how very bad things are? It always seems as if there must be some way out, no matter how gloomy and awful things may look. Perhaps I’m rather shallow and can’t grasp the situation. Some day when I have time I am going to sit down and study my own nature, but there are ever so many things that must be done first. And after all, it doesn’t seem worth while to waste time over that. I might find out that I was absolutely worthless, and that would be so discouraging. I suppose a great many people would say that I ought to examine myself more, and correct my faults, and all that, and I suppose I ought; but if I did I know I should get depressed, and it really seems as if one of us should try to keep bright and cheerful, and I seem to be the one that it comes easiest to. I wish I had some one to ask about such things—a mother, for instance. Holloa, here I am at Aunt Sophia’s already. I hope she is at home.”

But inquiry proved that already Mrs. Wentworth Ward had gone out. She would not return until five o’clock that afternoon, the maid said. She had gone to Providence to attend a meeting. Would not Miss Victoria come in and rest a bit?

But Victoria declined the invitation. She had quickly determined to put her other plans into action, and no time should be lost.

It did not take long to reach a certain silversmith’s of whom she had heard, and whom she knew to be honest, although his shop was neither large nor fashionable. Fortunately no customers were in the store, and the proprietor could attend to her himself. She produced the small heavy package from her pocket, and proceeded to untie it. In it were a pair of old-fashioned gold earrings, a watch and chain, and one or two chased rings. These articles had been left to Victoria by the will of her grandmother. The watch, which was very old, and had long since ceased to go, was of no great value as a timepiece, she supposed.

“I want to sell these things,” said she, bravely. “Will you buy them?”

The old man, who had kind eyes, Victoria thought, looked at them critically. Then he glanced benignly at the owner of the trinkets.

“Do you really want to sell them?” said he.

“Yes, I really do,” returned Victoria. “I need the money. How much will you give me for them?”

“I can’t tell that until I’ve taken them apart and weighed the gold. Come back next week, and I’ll tell you.”

“Next week!” cried Victoria. “Oh, can’t you do it now? I do want to take the money home to-day.”

“And ain’t you going to buy Christmas presents with it?” asked the old man.

“No indeed, I’m not. We really need the money. Couldn’t you tell me if I were to come back this afternoon? At three o’clock, for instance?”

“Very well. Come in at three, and I’ll try to have them weighed before that. These earrings are hollow, I guess, and there ain’t so very much gold in this open-faced watch. Here’s a receipt.”

He scrawled something on a bit of paper which he gave to Victoria, and she thanked him and left the shop. She then took her way to a picture store. It was a large one that was much frequented, and it required some determination on her part to go in and display her wares. The clerks were such fashionably dressed young men that she felt somewhat in awe of them, and they all appeared to be so busy that it was long before she was noticed at all.

At last, however, one of them stepped up to her and asked her what she wished. For a moment Victoria could not find her voice, and when she finally spoke it was so low and trembling that the clerk could not understand her.

“You wish to look at etchings?” said he. “Right over here, please. Summers, show this young lady some etchings. I have another customer.” And he turned to a gentleman who was looking at some pictures with the air of intending to buy one if not more.

“Oh, no,” said Victoria. “You have made a mistake. I don’t want to look at etchings. I want to sell those I have here. I thought that—that perhaps—you would buy them.”

Her voice was now perfectly audible. In her effort to make herself understood it reached farther than she intended. The two clerks and the gentleman who stood there all turned and looked at Victoria, and she with her package under her arm felt as though she should like to sink through the floor and disappear forever from their sight.