The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted — Text and Context

Frieda was telling a story and the others were listening attentively 184

THE WIDE AWAKE GIRLS IN WINSTED

CATHERINE'S INSPIRATION

"Alma Mater, Dexter darling, do re mi--O dear! It's much harder to write than I supposed. I wonder why! When your heart is full of love, why should it be hard to express it?"

Catherine Smith, sitting on the top step of the porch of her home, Three Gables, bent her red-gold head over the pad of paper on her knee and wrote painfully, her forehead puckered earnestly. She had been a year at college and was just beginning her summer vacation. All through the busy year, full of delightful new experiences, she had looked forward to the leisure of summer, in which she might adequately declare her devotion to the college which had been her mother's and was now her own. From the day, the June before, when she had gone there to visit her friend, Hannah Eldred, she had felt a keen sense of "belonging," especially pleasant because her frail health had compelled her to lead a somewhat secluded life at home, and she had not felt really acquainted with the young people in the little town of Winsted, where she had always lived.

Now all that was changing. At college she had been forced to conquer her shyness, and, to her delight, she soon found that the boys and girls at home were more than glad to receive her into their circle upon equal terms. Her physician parents were everybody's friends, and Catherine, who adored her father and mother, was eager to show herself worthy to be their daughter. In order to do so, she reasoned, she must be of real service to the town and to her college. The only way she had thought of so far was to write an Alma Mater song, expressive not only of the rapturous loyalty of undergraduates, but of the graver love of alumnae like her mother.

"It is very hard," she sighed. "It must be stately and yet not heavy. O me! And here comes Algernon."

With a resigned air she folded her scribbled papers and thrust her pencil into the coil of red braids encircling her head. Algernon Swinburne, ever since his foolish mother had christened him for the poet, had, by turns, amused and wearied his fellow-citizens. While Catherine had lived apart, she had been spared his lengthy visits, but with the pleasures of social life had come its penalties and she was now on Algernon's list and obliged to spend frequent hours in his really trying society. He came up the long walk now with a curious springing gait, and Catherine tried to summon a hospitable smile to her lips.

Algernon refused a chair. He always appeared to be just going, "and yet," as Polly Osgood said with a groan, "he almost never goes!" He perched uncomfortably upon the railing and opened fire at once.

"Have you seen the last _North American Review_?"

Catherine confessed that she had not.

"There was a corking article in it on municipal corruption, comparing San Francisco, New York and Pittsburg as to graft, police efficiency and so on. They say Pittsburg spends two million dollars a year--"

"My upper legs is going barefoot."

Catherine lifted her eyes with a flash of pleasure. Elsmere Swinburne was the occasional relief from his big brother's monotony. Catherine loved little folk, and though Elsmere was known to be a rascal who would have tried the patience of Job, she somehow always found forgiveness for his enormities, and a delighted appreciation for his funny sayings. Just now he stood proudly before her, his hands in his pockets, his eyes fixed upon his fashionably clad little legs, with bruised brown knees showing above new half-hose.

"My mamma buyed 'em for me. Her buys me everything."

Catherine smiled, but shook her head a little. Mrs. Swinburne was a source of grief to all her neighbors, because of her persistent refusal to allow Algernon the chance at college that he desired, and even more because of her unwise indulgence of her younger son's lightest wishes.

Algernon cleared his throat and took up the thread of his narrative. "Pittsburg, this fellow Chapman in the _Review_ says, spends two million dollars a year on--"

"Talking, talking, all the time Algy talking," Elsmere broke in. "_I_ want to talk. Tell Caffrin 'bout my cat-pussy. Her awful sick. Her--"

Catherine sprang up. Elsmere's conversation often needed to be suppressed.

"Let's play tennis. Algernon, will you get the balls and rackets? You know where they are,--just inside the hall there. And Elsmere may run after balls for us. He can, so nicely!"

Algernon obeyed the unexpected request patiently, and when he was gone, Catherine averted her face for the space of a minute. What she had hoped for came to pass, and when Algernon returned, his small brother had quietly vanished. "The older one may be monotonous, but the younger one is positively dangerous," Catherine thought to herself, as she took the balls from Algernon, saying:

"Let's not play, after all. It's so very warm and Elsmere thought he didn't want to run after balls. You don't mind, do you?"

"Why, no, I wasn't keen about playing," and Algernon, unconscious of the maneuver he had helped to execute, dropped back upon the railing and continued his _resume_ of the _North American_ article.

Catherine, meanwhile, having slipped the balls one by one into the pocket of her steamer chair, rested her long white hands upon the chair arms and sat quietly, hearing nothing of Mr. Chapman's statistics, her brown eyes dreamily fixed upon the sloping lawn, but seeing instead the Dexter campus, across which girls were moving, as she loved best to see them, in pretty light gowns on the way to evening chapel. Among them all her thought rested most lovingly upon a little girl with a plain face and big round glasses. "You dear old Alice!" she murmured, almost aloud, and roused herself guiltily to hear Algernon saying:

"There are a lot of wide-awake men in Pittsburg."

"Wide-awake girls in Winsted!"

This time Catherine really did speak aloud, and Algernon looked up in surprised inquiry.

"I beg your pardon," she said contritely. "It was very rude of me, but you set me off, yourself. The Wide Awake Girls are really going to be in Winsted this summer. Don't you know about them?" as Algernon still looked puzzled.

"Why, no. All the Winsted girls seem wide-awake enough, I should say."

"But I'm the only one who has a right to be called so in capital letters. I'll tell you all about it, but it has been such an important part of my life for the last year and more, that I forget every one who knows me doesn't know about it all.

"You see, about two years ago, when I was fifteen and Hannah Eldred, who lives in Massachusetts, was not quite fourteen, she wrote a letter to _Wide-Awake_, the magazine, you know, asking for correspondents. And I answered it. Several other girls did, too. One was Alice Prescott, who lives out in Washington, and another was Frieda Lange, of Berlin, whose mother had known Mrs. Eldred in Germany years ago. Hannah kept on writing to the three of us, and before the end of the year she had met us all and really lived with each of us in turn. It doesn't sound probable, but it came about naturally enough. The Eldreds went to Berlin for a few months and boarded at the Langes'. Then Mrs. Eldred's mother was taken ill, and they had to come back to this country. The grandmother lived over here at Delmar, and Father was called in consultation and brought Hannah back to stay with me a little while; and then, as her mother couldn't leave, they sent Hannah to Dexter, to the preparatory department, and there she found Alice, whom she had lost sight of for a long time. Then when I went to Dexter, I learned to know Alice, and this year Frieda Lange is coming to America to school and she is going to Dexter, too. Hannah is coming out for a few weeks' visit here before college opens, and I'm going to try to get Alice at the same time, for we've never all four been together. I am so eager about it that I can't keep my mind on anything else very long, so that's why I said 'Wide Awake Girls in Winsted' aloud. Isn't it an interesting story?"

"Coincidences are always interesting," said Algernon. "And I think a great many things that go by the name of telepathy are nothing more. I'm keeping a record of peculiar coincidences that come under my notice. I'll put these down, about the two happening to go to the same college, and about the German and American girls finding their mothers were acquainted." He produced a note-book to make an entry.

"You can't include the last one," Catherine protested. "It was because Mrs. Lange recognized Hannah from the letter that Frieda wrote. But the meeting between Alice and Hannah was mere chance."

Algernon closed his note-book and went placidly on as if Catherine's story had not interrupted him:

"As I was saying, those men in Pittsburg--"

The telephone bell rang and Catherine went into the house to answer it.

"I'll have to be excused, Algernon," she said, coming back a minute later. "Father wants something of me. You can tell me the rest another time."

Then, as Algernon slowly got off the porch, she added impulsively:

"I marvel just to see you walk, Algernon. You know so very much! You seem to me to be a veritable walking library."

Algernon twisted his body uncomfortably and flushed.

"I'd be more use to Winsted if I were a real one," he said, with a wistful sound in his voice that made Catherine look at him sharply. She waved him a smiling good-by as he went down the walk, and then turned to her father's desk to look up some papers he wanted. Her mind, however, still dwelt on that unexpected shade in Algernon's tone.

"I've thought of him as a mere talking machine instead of a human being," she said to herself reproachfully. "I must make a salmon scallop for Father's supper. Inga doesn't know how to do anything but scramble eggs and boil potatoes, and Father's tired, I know by his voice. It sounded tired, but Algernon's was lonely. I wonder--"

Dr. Harlow Smith and his wife, Dr. Helen, drove up to their pretty gabled house on the hill slope a few minutes later, their faces lighting with pleasure as the tall girl in a blue apron came out to meet them. The stable-boy came to take the horse, and Catherine escorted her parents to the house. While they made themselves ready for supper, she put the last orderly touches to the table in the panelled dining-room, and was ready for them with kisses when they arrived.

The silent grace over, Catherine spoke:

"Eat and be filled, dearly beloved, because I have a new project and I need you to be enthusiastic."

"What is it this time?" asked Dr. Harlow, serving the golden scallop generously. "You have shown diplomacy in your choice of a dish, if I am the one you wish to wheedle."

Dr. Helen, pouring yellow cream from a fat silver jug into thin hexagonal cups, sent an interested glance across the table at her daughter.

"It's quite new," said Catherine, hesitating a little. "In fact it's not a half-hour old, but I do believe it is a good plan. You know Algernon Swinburne?"

"We have met him," agreed Dr. Harlow cautiously.

"So had I!" said Catherine with sudden spirit, "and this afternoon it came to me that I didn't know him at all. All any of us ever do to Algernon is to avoid him,--those of us who don't laugh at him. And he's lonely, Father! Lonely!"

"Did he tell you so?"

"No. But I suddenly knew. I've seen homesick girls at college, and--and--well, there was a little while, just a little while, when I was getting strong enough to do things, and before Hannah came to visit, that I felt that way myself, so I know."

Dr. Helen's look was like a pressure of the hand, and she answered gently:

"I think you are very likely right, Catherine. And this plan of yours is to make Algernon less lonely?"

"Do you think he knows he's lonely?" asked Dr. Harlow. "I've thought the boy had good stuff in him, and if he should ever wake up to the fact that he's a bore, he might amount to something worth while. You don't think he has, do you?"

"Not exactly," Catherine confessed, remembering the note-book's appearance at the end of her little story. "But I think he has an inkling that he might be of more use. I told him he was a walking library. He does know such an amazing amount, you know! And he said Winsted would be better off if it had a real library instead of his kind; and then it flashed into my mind how he would love living among books, and how fine it would be for the town if all that knowledge of his could be used--"

"Like wasted water power?" suggested her father.

"Yes. That's just it. He has read more than any one in this town, except you, Father dear, and you are very old-fashioned in your reading. You never heard of some of the modern books that Algernon knows all about. Why couldn't we start a library and have Algernon run it? It would make people appreciate him."

"It would keep him occupied at certain hours, and assure you of freedom from his calls," said Dr. Harlow, but Catherine was in earnest and refused to be teased.

"Wouldn't it be practical, really, Mother? Algernon can't go away to school. His mother isn't willing, you know, and he needs to be here to look after Elsmere. But he could study there, and lots of towns as small as this do have libraries."

The doorbell rang and Dr. Harlow went to answer it.

"Some one to see you, Catherine," he said, returning.

Catherine found Algernon himself standing in the doorway, his big pale eyes full of distress.

"Excuse my coming just at supper time," he said, "but I've lost Elsmere. No one seems to have seen him since we did this afternoon, and I thought perhaps you would remember which direction he went in. It was while I was in the house he disappeared, you know. He almost always comes home for meals!"

Catherine meditated. "I didn't see him go. I was looking at some papers, and when I glanced up he wasn't there. Let's go out on the porch again, and think. You had been sitting on the railing and I was in the steamer chair--O Elsmere Swinburne, where have you been?"

Out from under the porch, rubbing eyes and yawning, came a rumpled little figure, bits of straw and dead leaves clinging to him, and a big red Irish setter following.

Algernon bent down and gathered the baby figure up with a tenderness that made Catherine's heart beat more quickly, as she picked the straws from the stylish shoes and socks, and the barefoot upper legs.

"Where were you?" she repeated.

"Hotspur's house, all cozy," sighed Elsmere. "Warm house. Did go to sleep. Bosquitoes bite me. Bite my legs. I want my supper," and drooping over his tall brother's shoulders he fell asleep again.

"Come around to-morrow afternoon early, Algernon," said Catherine, as he moved away with his burden. "I have a plan I want you to help me carry out. I know you'll like it. It's something nice for you and Winsted."

By fifteen minutes past three the next day, Algernon and Catherine had definitely decided that Winsted was to have a library, and that they were to devote their own energies to the cause and persuade as many as possible of their acquaintances to join them.

"The Boat Club will go in for it as a committee of the whole," said Algernon.

"The Three R's will be interested," said Catherine, "though it is not Rest, Recreation or Refreshment!"

"And all the churches."

"And the school teachers."

"And there are Miss Ainsworth's novels."

"Algernon, how perfectly splendid! Do you suppose she would let us have them?"

"I don't see why not. They simply stand there, never opened. She can't any more than refuse. I'll ask her."

"And I'll go with you. Let's do it right this minute."

As she spoke, Catherine sprang up, and Algernon, his usual inertia overcome, plunged down the walk beside her.

"We must find a good place for it, before we get many books collected. We could use Father's twenty-five dollars for rent, of course, but it would be so much nicer if some one would give us a room."

"Let me see. There's that little frame shop where the red-haired milliner used to be. We might get that. It's no good for business, away off up the street that way."

"Be careful what you say about red hair," warned Catherine. "Who owns the building?"

"Judge Arthur. He's a public-spirited man. He'll let us have it cheap anyway."

"Good! O, I am so happy and excited about it I feel like one of Hannah Eldred's squeals; I'm afraid if she were here I'd join her in one. Here we are at Miss Ainsworth's. Are you sure we dare ask her?"

Before the prim white house set back from the street, Catherine's buoyancy suffered a collapse. She had been inside that house, calling, with her mother, but to go there--or anywhere--on a begging errand! Here Algernon's long familiarity with rebuffs proved of value.

"Of course, we dare. Come on, or I'll go alone if you don't want to."

"No, no, I'll come," Catherine answered hastily. She had counted, without conceit, on her own popularity to offset Algernon's handicap. The daughter of the Doctors Smith could not be turned coldly away. And after all, Miss Ainsworth's novels might better be read than standing idle. Two years ago, a young bicyclist had sprained an ankle at Miss Ainsworth's door, and she had promptly taken him in and cared for him, scornfully refusing pay. Therefore the youth, upon returning to his home, had sent out to her a great box full of modern fiction, an article which he had deeply and vainly desired while under her roof. Miss Ainsworth had never been given to the reading of novels. Her life had been quite too busy for such frivolities, and now her eyes were making it impossible for her to read without using glasses, which, as a confession of frailty, she despised. So the books stood, new and unopened, in a fascinating row upon the "secretary" shelf. No one so far had ventured to ask for them. It had been reserved for these young adventurers to demand them in the name of public spirit.

"We will have your name put inside them, Miss Ainsworth, on a neat little card,--'Gift of Miss Anna Ainsworth,' you know. Just as they do in large libraries," Catherine explained persuasively, when Algernon had stated the object of their call, and Miss Ainsworth was regarding them in a silence which they took to be ominous.

"And your name will go down in the records with Dr. Smith's as one of the first contributors to the library. We intend to keep very full records and have them buried under the corner stone of the new building when we get it. We hope to get a Carnegie building, you know," Algernon went on calmly while Catherine caught her breath. "He always insists that the townspeople do their share."

"The young people will use the library if we have good novels," Catherine put in helpfully, when Algernon's imagination showed signs of exhaustion. "And then we can get them to reading more serious books by and by."

Then Catherine too, subsided, and the clock behind its painted glass door ticked obtrusively. Presently Miss Ainsworth opened her thin lips.

"I'm perfectly willin' 't you should have the books," she said grimly. "They ain't no manner o' use to me, and never was. I don't care to have my name wrote inside 'em, though. And I ain't perticular about havin' it buried under any corner stones. But I'll be much obliged if you'll take 'em away soon, for I've just subscribed to a set of me-mores of missionaries an agent was sellin' yesterday, and I'd like that top shelf to put 'em on."

The enthusiasts, feeling a trifle quenched, but yet pleased at having accomplished their purpose, rose and withdrew with what grace they could summon, mingling thanks with promises to remove the undesired literature as soon as possible.