XV
THE HEADING CLASS
Brenda’s Fourth of July photographs turned out much better than many others that she had taken under equally favorable circumstances. On one of the afternoons when she sat with the other girls on the rocks, she displayed with considerable pride the prints that had been sent her from town. “I consider it the most fortunate thing in the world,” she said, “that I should have these prints to give to that delightful, interesting foreigner. I can’t tell what he is; but he must be an Italian with those big black eyes.”
“Or a Portuguese,” suggested Nora.
But Brenda did not take this suggestion kindly. The only foreign family with which she had ever had much to do was the Rosa family, and as the Rosas were Portuguese, she wanted novelty in this new acquaintance, and so she preferred to consider him Italian.
“I’m going to send them to him right away,” she said, as the others admired the prints of the pictures she had taken at Tucker’s wharf.
“How will you send them?” asked Julia.
“Why, by mail, I suppose; unless we go over to Salem soon.”
“Why, Brenda!” cried Nora, after a moment, as she looked at the pictures one by one. “Do you realize that you have n’t that man’s name, nor his address, even?”
“Why, yes, I have,—Derby Street.”
“But Derby Street may be two miles long. Anyway, you cannot send them by mail. You certainly do not know his name. He did n’t give it to you after all.”
Brenda looked crestfallen at this reminder. She had been picturing to herself the joy of the man when he should open the large envelope which she intended sending with the photographs of himself and the little boy. But naturally she must give up that plan, as she did not know where to send them.
“Oh, well, we ’ll go over to Salem and call on him.”
“Shall you knock at every door in Derby Street, and say, ‘I wish to find the man whose photograph I took on the Fourth of July’?
“Or, you might show the photograph to the Chief of Police; he may be able to identify him.”
“Oh, Nora, he didn’t look like a man that the police would know anything about. He seemed so sad; why, there was a tear in his eye when he spoke about his little boy.”
“Oh, of course I did n’t mean that he was bad, when I spoke about the police, only that’s one of the ways to try to find lost people—to go to the police about them.”
“Perhaps he ’ll come over here,” said Brenda; “you know that I gave him papa’s address. I think that he ought to have some kind of a reward.”
Now Brenda had tried, without much success, on her return from that bicycle trip, to make her father realize that she had been in great danger. For some reason or other, he had not seemed to her sufficiently sympathetic, although Nora had confirmed her story.
“I dare say that you were in more or less danger, and I hope that this will be a lesson to you. No one can afford to take risks when on a wheel in an unfamiliar locality. You say yourself that you had never been down that hill before. Then I can only say that you were almost criminally careless in starting to ride down it.”
“But I did n’t know that it was so steep.”
“That is the very thing that I should like to impress on you. ‘Did n’t know’ is probably responsible for more accidents than any other single phrase used by careless young persons like yourself. Your mother and I have given you considerable liberty in the matter of bicycling, because we have always thought that you had sufficient common sense to avoid such risks as you have just described. There is n’t likely to be a courageous foreigner waiting to rescue you on every road, and so perhaps we shall have to forbid your riding about the country unless accompanied by an older person.”
“Oh, papa!”
“Remember, that if such a rule is made, it will be your own fault.”
Although Mr. Barlow had spoken thus severely to Brenda, he was not really unappreciative of what the foreigner had done. He told Mrs. Barlow that he should be glad to know more about the man, and that if she learned his name, he would look him up and do something for him.
But the fact remained, as Nora had reminded Brenda, that the man had not given his name to the girls, and his address was so vaguely stated, that there was very little chance of their finding him. But on this bright afternoon, as the friends sat by the sea, Brenda, who never looked wholly on the dark side of things, decided that there was every chance that the man would call at her house. “He certainly had my name and address, and he seemed very anxious to have one of the photographs.”
“They are very good,” said Julia, “and I am surprised that your camera could make such a good portrait as that of the man and his child. Any one who knew them would recognize them in a minute, and that’s more than can be said of most amateur portraits. Not yours, of course, Brenda,” she concluded, for she knew that her cousin was a little sensitive on the subject of her work in photography.
The reading class was progressing, for the girls had really followed the chance suggestion made that day at Marblehead, and had begun a course of regular reading. They met regularly twice a week, and in fact there had been hardly a day since their pilgrimage on which they had not been able to find an hour or two which could be given to reading, either on Brenda’s piazza, or in the shadow of the rocks. Their first book had been “Mosses from an Old Manse,” which, strangely enough, not one of them had read before. After this had come Theodore Winthrop’s “John Brent,” which contained enough romance to satisfy even the exacting Brenda. One afternoon Amy had read some of her favorite passages from “The Faery Queen.” But it is no breach of confidence, perhaps, to say that Brenda felt just a little bored, and not altogether pleased with the musical lines. “I can’t pretend that I am able to appreciate all this poetry. It must be fine, or sensible people like you would n’t think so. Sometime I’m going to cultivate a taste for it, I really am; so don’t look as if I were the most imbecile person in the world. Many people don’t like poetry any better than I do,” she concluded. “But ‘Cranford,’—I ’ve begun ‘Cranford’ and I think that it is just too funny for anything. I never read anything half so funny. I wish that we could have something else like that.”
Now in so short a time the four friends could not have read so many books, had they tried to do all their work in the hours of their meeting. So they established their reading club on a rather novel plan. On the recommendation of Mrs. Barlow and Mrs. Redmond, they were making out a list of entertaining and wholesome books with which it was desirable that they should be acquainted. Each girl was to report once a week that she had read two of these books, and at each of their meetings, each girl in turn was to have the privilege of choosing the book from which she wished to have a chapter or two read.
Now, even girls who are not book-worms will read in the summer. What else is there to do in the long hours of the middle of the day, when it is too hot to wheel or walk, or even to bathe? With a good book in her hand, a reader forgets to grumble about the weather, and two books a week is a small allowance for the average bright girl. The plan of the reading class pleased Brenda when she found that fiction was to have so large a place in the programme; and so, starting without any prejudice against the plan, she soon found herself enjoying the books that the others were reading. Moreover, one day when she took down one of her “Countess” novels to re-peruse it, she was surprised to find it seem rather flat and trivial. At first she could not understand this change of view, but, on talking it over with Nora, the latter said heartily, “Why, of course, that’s the very thing that would happen after you had begun to read standard books. You may not realize that you are doing it, but all the time you are comparing the other books you read with those of the great authors. There,” as if she had made a discovery, “I suppose that that is why they are called ‘standard.’ They are used to measure other books by.”
“Well, I'm not sure,” said Brenda, “that I really compared ‘Mollie’s Eyes’ with ‘John Brent.’ Of course they ’re not a bit alike, and still, when I was looking over ‘Mollie’s Eyes’ yesterday, I could not help thinking that it was very silly, and not a bit like life, and it did not even seem as exciting as it used to.”
Nora gave Brenda’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ve been going through something like that myself,” she said; “I had a novel in my bag that I bought on the news-stand coming down here, and do you know I positively could not read the last two chapters, when I tried to yesterday. I found that I did n’t care whether they died or got married, or, indeed, what happened to them.”
“If we don’t take care,” said Brenda, “we ’ll be models, like Julia and Amy, in our reading. I don’t suppose that either one of them has ever read a book that she ought n’t to in her life.”
“We ’re not exactly in the same class with them now,” responded Nora; “but we might try to do all we can now, to make up for ‘wasted opportunities,’ as they say in sermons.”
Although the girls might jest a little about their taste in reading, it was certainly true that the row of paper novels disappeared from the shelves in Brenda’s room. They were sent upstairs to a large unused room where the magazines and other summer literature found a resting place, until Mrs. Barlow had time to sort it all over to send to various institutions where reading-matter was desired. She smiled when she found the half-dozen “Countess” books there, and she put them in the pile that was intended for kindling.
“I do not really suppose,” she said to herself, “that they would do great harm to any one, if packed in one of my hospital boxes, and yet, on the whole, they would do so little good, that I shall be glad to tell Brenda that when I saw them, I availed myself of the opportunity to burn them. She ought never to have owned them; but when I found that she had read them, I was perfectly willing to wait a little until she herself gave them up. I knew she would see how silly they were. Thanks to Julia and Amy, the time has come a little sooner even than I hoped, and the burial of ‘The Countess’ will be observed without any tears on Brenda’s part.”
It would be far from the truth to say that Brenda never again cared to read a trashy novel, or that her taste for the best reading was completely established by the reading club. But it is true that she never again read one of these trivial books with great pleasure, and she never went out of her way to get one of them. Moreover, she had begun to see the value of the better books that are real literature, and with her eyes opened in this way, it was plain enough that in the future she would be able to use her powers of discrimination. She was surprised herself that she took such delight in such books as “The Caxtons,” and “A Chance Acquaintance,” and some of the more serious things that came in her way,—an occasional volume of essays, or a biography. She found herself even ready to comply with a request that the principal of her school had made a week or two before the vacation began.
“I wish that every girl would bring me an account, written on four large pages of letter-size, describing the best book that she has read this summer. I am not going to ask simply for what would be called improving books. Fiction will answer as well, only, if you choose fiction, I hope that it will be something of real value, by an author whose work is literature.”
When Miss Crawdon had made this request, Brenda had paid little attention to it. It was not her custom to read serious books in the summer, and she objected strongly to having suggestions made for summer work.
What Miss Crawdon said, therefore, had gone in one ear, and out the other. But now, when Nora reminded her of it, it appeared to her a more attractive suggestion, and she agreed with Nora that it would be altogether worth while to keep a list of the books she was reading, and to select before October the one that seemed best worth giving an account of.
But the reading class, pleasant though it was, by no means absorbed the girls during these pleasant July days. There were no more bicycle trips, to be sure, as the weather was too sultry for that kind of thing. Yet many a long drive did the four friends have with Thomas and the quiet horses. It had become a fixed habit for Brenda to call for Amy to go with them on these excursion drives, and she and Nora thought it no discomfort to share the back seat of the carryall with their new friend, while Julia occupied the front seat with Thomas. The North Shore was always revealing new beauties to Julia, for it was her first summer there, and she could never get over her surprise that so near the sea there should be woods that were so beautiful, and roads along which the loveliest wild flowers were to be found. When they could do no better, they would come home laden with ox-eye daisies, with which to fill the vases in the dining-room, or with yellow tiger lilies, or with other blossoms whose hiding-place was known to Amy.
Sometimes they lingered on the way to gratify Julia’s desire for a more beautiful view of the sea from some point which she had not before visited, and sometimes their drive had no definite object. Occasionally they stopped to pay a call on some girl whom they knew. For the summer residents were all now at their places, and Brenda had many friends in the handsome houses scattered along the shore. It was all very charming to Amy, and all very new, this comfortable, care-free life of which she thus had an occasional glimpse. It is true that she could not always join in the conversation, because she was not thoroughly well-informed in its little personalities, and girls of sixteen have little to say to another that is not in the nature of a personality. But Amy kept her ears and her eyes open, and she learned many things that in the future were likely to be of service to her. She learned, for one thing, to be a little frivolous; and she learned that while it is not necessary to pretend to opinions that do not belong to one, it is no more necessary in a general conversation to say all that one thinks. Self-restraint becomes a very important quality when five or six eager girls begin to discuss excitedly some subject in which they are very much interested.
In fact, it is the girl with the most self-restraint who is apt to come out with flying colors in the end. Self-restraint was a natural quality which Amy had always possessed. Yet, with it, she had also had the habit of holding rather firmly to her own opinion, when once it had been expressed. She really stood in need of some influence by which the angles of her disposition could be rounded off. If any one had told her that she stood greatly in need of this kind of discipline, she would probably have taken offence at the suggestion. But this was what was happening under the intercourse with Brenda and her friends. They all expressed themselves strongly on most points on which they had any opinion whatever,—“in italics,” Amy had said to her mother. But their views so often seemed absurd to the more logical Amy, that she at once perceived the folly of any one’s going to an extreme in expressing herself; and thus she became aware that her own way of looking at things had sometimes been a little too narrow.
When, therefore, the others plunged into a subject on which she had no very definite prejudices, she would usually take part in the discussion. She liked the sensation of finding herself moved, first by this argument, then by that. Then, for the very reason that she allowed herself to consider the question—whether it related to golf, or dress, or even some thing with a literary tinge—in a perfectly unbiassed way, she was often called upon for a final judgment in a fashion that was often very flattering. “Now, what do you think, Amy?” Brenda, or perhaps Nora would say, and Amy would give her opinion in a judicial manner that, if it did not settle the matter, at least had considerable effect on the speakers. But when the subject was one on which she had strong views, in spite of her resolution, she sometimes found it hard to keep still, or to give her opinion without occasioning offence. The isolated life which Amy had led, isolated at least as far as other girls were concerned, until she met Brenda, had given her great independence.
Julia did not always accompany the other three on their drives and jaunts. She had a certain amount of definite work to do, as her preparation in modern languages had not been as thorough as the Radcliffe requirements prescribed. Then there was her music—no matter how hot the day, she spent a fixed amount of time practising, and it seemed to her that the very fact that she was occupied prevented her feeling the heat as her cousin and Nora did. But though she might not always go with Nora and Brenda, she knew that if she had gone, she would have been welcome. There was none of that feeling of being left out which the winter before had given her some uneasy moments.
Though Amy did not miss Fritz as much as she would have missed him a year before, had anything happened to interrupt their friendship, she still felt sore on the subject. In her inmost heart she felt that she ought to try to do something to bring about a reconciliation.
“Although we have n’t quarrelled, still I suppose that it comes almost to the same thing; but then I’m not to blame, and so I don’t see why I ought to take the first step.”
On further reflection, Amy decided that she would not take the first step. No, she really would not. If Fritz enjoyed the society of his new friends so much, why she would be contented with her new friends, and yet—
Ah! that was just it. Amy felt the need of the appreciation that Fritz had always given her when she read a new poem to him. She would not venture to read anything she had written to Brenda or Nora; and as for Julia, why she would never dare talk on the subject of her poetry with a girl who had just taken examinations for college.