Chapter IX: Tissue-Paper Hats

Blame it all on those tissue-paper hats; the surprise and horror of good Mrs. Ramsey when she beheld Alene Dawson among that madcap crowd, skipping along gaily intent on her play, unobserving the pained expression of the portly lady who was coming up the other side of the street. Mrs. Ramsey had stopped suddenly, "so flustrated by the sight," as she said later, that she had not the strength to hail Alene and when her breath came it was too late, the happy crowd had passed from sight around the corner leading to the fields, and her feeble, "Why, Alene Dawson, I'll tell your Uncle about this!" sounded no farther than her own ears.

Panting with indignation and the heat of the day, she resumed her way up the steep street and in due time reached her home, a showy, buff brick house with fancy turrets and pointed roofs and tiny windows with wooden ornamentations, that gave warning of the interior, where none of the rooms was of good size or well proportioned. Most of the space on the first floor was taken by the reception hall which was not often used and the whole gave the impression of being built to show off the hall, of which its owner was very proud.

She was also very proud of her two daughters, Hermione and Vera, whom she found on this occasion sitting in the study, a tiny alcove on the second story, which overlooked the garden. They were apparently deep in the mysteries of a French grammar which Vera had seized on hearing the click of the gate announcing Mrs. Ramsey's return, while Hermione busied herself in hiding under the cushion of her chair two borrowed books of fairy tales which their mother had denounced and forbidden and banned and would have burned with a zeal like to that which animated the burners of the witches.

"When I was your age I never cared for reading. I knew most books were lies from beginning to end. You couldn't hire me to read about goblins and witches," she often declared.

"What a dull, tiresome girl mamma must have been," said Vera in a low aside.

"But she didn't have to play exercises on the piano!" returned Hermione.

"No, nor try to _parlez vous_ with a gibbering foreigner."

"I don't see any use for foreign babbling. As the nurse in the French tale says to the little girl who is studying English, 'Since the _bon dieu_ wrote the Bible in French, it shows that he thought it good enough for anybody,'" said Hermione, laughing, and Vera continued,

"Grandpa was too poor to pay for extras, I guess."

"I almost wish we could say the same of Pa Ramsey, only I'd hate to be poor--I don't see how poor people can stand it!"

"Oh, they are used to it. They don't mind it," returned Vera with a yawn.

"Tissue-paper hats!" they cried when their fond parent, sinking on a lounge, had recovered sufficient breath to relate her adventure; "Tissue-paper hats!"

Hermione's thoughts flew to her own room where, reposing in a box, was her best hat, a huge affair of fine white straw, with ribbons and flowers galore, whose glories made Alene's headgear appear the more offensive. She was wishing she had been along with Alene, wearing her own hat, of course, until her mother went on to say:

"That wasn't the worst of it! What can Frederick Dawson mean to allow Alene to associate with the town children!"

"Town children, mamma! Do you mean from the poorhouse?"

"No, Miss Density, mamma means that Lee girl and Ivy Bonner and--"

"Oh, them! They go to our room! That Bonner girl is awfully bright but so sarcastic, and Laura Lee is all right!"

Mrs. Ramsey shook her head.

"This comes of the public schools, where the president's child is made to rub shoulders with the miner's!"

"And the miner's child often beats him in his lessons and the rest of the scholars are apt to remark and remember it," said Hermione. "Only for that, the rich boys could pose as being extra smart!"

"I should have got you girls a governess only papa said he couldn't possibly afford it, as times are dull; when the children are grown it's embarrassing to know how to meet their former schoolmates!"

"Nothing easier! Just turn your shoulder or look straight ahead!" Vera stood up, and, using a chair to represent the offending party, illustrated her remarks with appropriate gestures.

"Yes, but the girls aren't like that chair. They wouldn't be sat upon so easily!" exclaimed Hermione.

"They would understand the next time unless they were unusually dense," retorted Vera.

Hermione laughed.

"I can imagine I see you trying to cut Ivy Bonner that way! She would toss up her head and give you the 'icy stare'. As for Laura, she wouldn't understand; she'd only think it a pity you were so near-sighted!"

"Well, girls, don't get to quarreling," interrupted their mother. "I'll make it a point to warn Alene's uncle. I'm sure her mother would have collapsed had she been in my place to-day! I'm afraid the Dawsons will be vexed because I've not had her over here to get better acquainted with you girls!"

"You have asked her often enough, dear knows, and she never came, yet she seems very intimate with those other girls!" commented Hermione.

"I admire her taste," said Vera. "It's all because her mother's not here to look after her. Some men are queer. Very likely her uncle never sees the difference between those town girls and others!"

"Well, what difference is there, except that Ivy and Laura are more clever than the average?"

"Hermione, you talk like a--a socialist! The barriers between the classes must be preserved, especially in these times when education is trying to sweep them away! Else where would we land?"

"We, the royal family," muttered Hermione in an aside to Vera. "Don't you remember Grandpa Green's prize pigs?"

Vera pretended not to hear, and their mother, taking breath, continued, "There's no use talking, girls, those children are not in the Dawson set! The idea of wearing tissue-paper hats on the street in broad daylight!" So saying, she sailed from the room and the hidden books were promptly brought forth and the interrupted reading resumed.