II
A MISTAKE
Brenda had been out on her wheel for nearly an hour. She had had a pleasant ride, first, along the road skirting the ocean, and later, over the main highway. She had now turned into the “back road” so-called, although it was not perfectly clear why the name had been given. It was used more or less by teamsters who wished to avoid the main thoroughfare, along which the electric cars passed. The back road was only a little farther from the beach than the ridge of land on which Mr. Barlow and other summer residents had built their houses.
But the little cottages located here and there along the back road had no view of the water, they had few trees about them, and they were of a rather unattractive style of architecture. Brenda had noticed these little houses the first summer of her stay at Rockley. But she had never been at all curious about the people who lived in them. She knew that a dressmaker whom her mother sometimes employed lived in one of them, and she had heard that a son of Mrs. Blair’s gardener—a rather superior machinist—lived in another. He had an important position in a factory that was not so very far away.
Brenda rode slowly along the narrow foot-path at the side of the road. The middle was too sandy for comfort, but, to her surprise, she found that she was making little progress on the path. In spite of her effort to go rapidly, she found herself proceeding slowly. She felt her tire flattening, she heard the wooden rim rubbing on the ground,—and then she jumped off.
The glance which she gave that treacherous hind wheel was not necessary to assure her that the air had escaped from the valve.
“It’s a new tire; it ought n’t to act this way,” she thought as she bent over it. “Thomas pumped it up for me just before I started.” Then, with a smile, “But I screwed the cap on, and that’s where the trouble is. If I had my pump with me, I could fix it in a minute. Well, it won’t hurt me to walk home,” and she stood the wheel against a fence while she paused to consider the situation. At this moment a girl near her own age crossed from the opposite side, walking from the direction of the village,
“I can get a foot-pump,” she said politely; “we have one in the house, and I see that your tire is flat.”
Now just at this moment Brenda’s eye happened to light on the garden before which she stood, and she saw two or three lines hung with spotlessly clean clothes. Among the garments was a white skirt and waist, and Brenda noticed that they were embroidered, and belonged evidently to some young girl. This reminded her of her mother’s need of a laundress, and immediately, without replying to the suggestion about the bicycle pump, she turned to the young girl.
“Do you know who washed those clothes?” she asked rather abruptly.
“Yes, I do,” replied the girl.
“Then I wish you would tell me,” continued Brenda, “it would oblige me very much. She must be a good laundress.”
The other girl looked intently at Brenda, as if to make out her purpose in asking the question. Then, after a second of hesitation, she answered without any circumlocution: “My mother washed those things. She ought to be a good laundress.”
Her tone might have meant either, “Whatever my mother does, she does well,” or, “My mother has had so much experience that she can’t help being a good laundress.”
Brenda interpreted it in the latter way.
“Then I wonder,” she said, with some animation, “if she would do some washing for us. You see it is so very hard to get any one who is regular, and my mother has had so much trouble with Mrs. Slattery, and—”
The other girl interrupted her.
“You misunderstood me. My mother is n’t a laundress. She just happened to wash those clothes because we are without a girl at present, and we can’t find a washwoman,—at least not at reasonable prices,” she concluded in an undertone. “They all want to work by the day for the summer people.”
“Oh, I’m very sorry,” Brenda stood there in considerable confusion, she was often thoughtless, but it seemed to her that she had been worse than thoughtless in asking so pointed a question of a stranger. She looked a second time at the girl, and decided that, although she wore an inexpensive, and rather dowdy cotton gown, she had an air of unmistakable refinement. Her hair was parted very carefully, and plaited in a long braid that reached nearly to her waist. It was fastened with a pale pink ribbon, as Brenda noticed when she turned to look at her wheel, and the ribbon in color and style matched the ribbon that was tied in a bow beneath her narrow linen collar.
“Why should you be sorry?” asked the girl, in rather a matter-of-fact tone.
“Why, I ought n’t to have—”
“Why, there was n’t the least harm in your asking the question,” she interrupted. “If I could have chosen, perhaps I would rather not have told you who washed the clothes. But of course you can understand that my mother is n’t a professional laundress. I was obliged to answer the question that you asked truthfully, and so I think that I ought to prevent your having any further misunderstanding.”
“If I had been you,” said Brenda, “I don’t believe that I would have answered the question.”
“Why not?” said the girl.
“It was really no concern of mine. You must think me very rude.”
“Oh, no, I am not so foolish. You meant well in asking, or at least you meant no harm.”
The young girl spoke in a serious, or almost solemn fashion. Moreover, there was a little air of patronage in her tone that was novel to Brenda. In spite of the girl’s words, Brenda felt that she did consider the question a rudeness, and she found herself in the unusual position of wishing to apologize still further.
“I will get the pump for you,” said the other girl, “if you will excuse me for a minute.”
Had she been the hostess at a party, her manner could hardly have been more polite and formal. Left alone for a moment, Brenda looked with considerable interest at the house into which the other girl had just gone. It was of the same homely style as several other houses along the road. They had evidently been built at about the same time. They stood with an end to the street, with no bay windows or piazzas to soften their plain outlines. They were all painted a rather dingy brown, and in passing, Brenda had noticed that one or two of them seemed rather the worse for wear, with an outside window-blind missing here and there, or a pane of glass broken, or with a few palings broken from the fence. But the house where the strange girl lived was different from the others in several respects. Although it was of the same dingy brown as the others, the front door had evidently had a recent coat of paint of dark-green. This, with a brass knocker, made it look quite like a city door. The window-blinds, too, had been freshly painted dark-green, and so had the narrow strip of fence running across the front. Moreover, the little bit of lawn about the house was closely cut, and at one side there was a small circular bed, filled with scarlet geraniums and nasturtiums. There were strips of muslin over the narrow glass windows at each side of the front door, and muslin blinds at the other front windows. Brenda might not herself have been able to give quite so accurate a description of the house as I have given. But she received a very definite impression that the people who lived in it must be rather superior to their neighbors from the fact that they had taken so much trouble to make their dwelling neat and attractive.
“Here is the pump, Miss—” the strange girl had returned.
“Oh, Brenda; every one calls me Brenda.”
“Well, my name is Amy,” said the other girl; “let me pump that tire for you.”
“Oh, thank you,” and Brenda held the cap of the valve in her hand, while the other girl stooped over, and attaching the pump, worked it with considerable force.
The operation was not a long one, and the wheel was soon ready for use.
“I hope that we shall meet again,” said Brenda politely, before mounting to the saddle.
“Why, yes,” said Amy, without much cordiality, “I hope so.”
“I live just over there on the hill,” continued Brenda, “I should be glad to have you come to see me some time.”
“We have nothing to do with the summer residents,” said Amy.
Brenda felt snubbed. It was unusual for any one to slight an invitation of hers.
“Well, I’m very much obliged to you for helping me out of my trouble,” she added. “It ’s really pleasanter to ride home than to walk.”
“I am sure you were very welcome,” said the other girl, then, as Brenda started off, waving her hand in good-bye.
“I’m very sorry,” she cried, “that I could n’t help you about a laundress.”
Was there a shade of mischief in this speech, or did Brenda only imagine it?
At dinner that evening Brenda had a long account to give of her adventure.
“Really,” said Mrs. Barlow, “from what you say of this girl, I should think that you could have told at once that she was not the daughter of a laundress. You are altogether too heedless.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Barlow, “you should look before you leap.”
“But I did n’t leap, papa, I just slid off my wheel when I found that that old tire had given out.”
“It was rather a leap in the dark, I think, when you asked a strange girl of whom you knew nothing if her mother would take in washing.”
“Yes, that is so, papa, for if I had looked first at the house, I should have known that the people who lived there were not exactly ordinary people. Really, it was so neat that it looked like—well, no, not like a city house. But it certainly was much better looking than the other houses along the road.”
“Well, I only hope that you did n’t hurt the young girl’s feelings.”
“Oh, I hope not, mamma, although she had the most stand-off kind of a manner. I really can’t describe it. But then, mamma, you ought not to say anything, for if I had n’t been thinking of what you said about looking for a laundress on the back road, I probably would n’t have spoken as I did. Just as soon as I saw those clothes, I thought of what you said.”
“I must say,” replied Mrs. Barlow, “that most of the people who live up in that neighborhood are working people. I hardly see why any one should live there who was not employed by the summer residents. I wonder why the family of your interesting girl should live there. There’s no view, and it’s not near the water.”
“I wonder, too,” said Brenda, “and I should like to know when I am likely to see her again.”
“According to your own account, she did not seem particularly anxious to renew the acquaintance,” remarked Mr. Barlow. Brenda had not spared herself in telling the story.
“Oh, I ’ll be sure to see her somewhere before the summer is over. If she does n’t come my way, I ’ll look her up, even though it will be somewhat like bearding the lion in his den.”
“A case of love at first sight,” said Julia.
“Almost, but not exactly. I simply want to know more about her.”
“You generally get what you want, Brenda, and we shall expect soon to hear a full account of this—what did you say her name was?”
“Amy, papa.”
Nevertheless, more than a week of June days passed before Brenda saw Amy again, and then it was only a passing glimpse, as she rode along the road in front of the house. As she looked, she was quite sure that it was Amy whom she saw tying up a vine in the back yard.
“It would n’t have hurt her to come forward to speak to me. I don’t suppose a great many persons pass this way,” said Brenda under her breath, and she increased her speed, as she turned off into the main road.
But the next week or two brought so many things to Brenda that she had little time to think about the unresponsive Amy. In the first place, there came the seventeenth, and with it a small house-party of older people whom Mr. and Mrs. Barlow had invited. Nobody needs to be reminded that the seventeenth of June is the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and although it is only in the neighborhood of Boston that it is celebrated, still it is a holiday that is highly appreciated by people in offices or business, because it affords a day of recreation in the first hot weather. As the small yachts and catboats at Marblehead generally go first into commission on the seventeenth, Mr. Barlow’s cousin Edward, who was one of the guests at Rockley, invited not only the older people, but the girls, to take a sail on his yacht.
“It will be great fun, won’t it?” cried Brenda, as she and Julia sat in their favorite corner of the piazza.
“Ye-es,” said Julia, with some hesitation, “I suppose so.”
“Well, I must say that you are not very enthusiastic. It’s a perfectly beautiful yacht; it takes two men to run it, besides cousin Edward. Of course it is n’t one of the largest. It’s meant for racing, but I can tell you that it flies like—like lightning when there’s a stiff breeze.” (In summer Brenda prided herself on her nautical terms.)
“It’s very kind, of course, in cousin Edward to ask me, but I ’ve just been telling him that I think that I won’t go.”
“Why, Julia, what an idea! Why not?”
“For one thing I should n’t be any addition to the party. I’m sure to be sea-sick.”
“Oh, it won’t be rough, and besides we ’ll not go out very far.”
“That would n’t make any difference to me. I should be uncomfortable myself, and probably make the rest of you uncomfortable.”
“The sooner you get used to sailing, the better, Julia. We ’re always going somewhere on a boat.”
Julia sighed an audible sigh.
“Besides, I ought to study to-day. In the next ten days I must review all my Cæsar and Virgil, and work out any number of test problems in algebra, and—”
“There, that’s what I ’ve always said. It’s simply wicked to have any work to do after school is over. It’s bad enough for boys to take college examinations, but girls,—just think how much more fun you could have, Julia, if you hadn’t made up your mind to go to College.”
Julia laughed at Brenda’s plaintive expression. “The fun, to-day, begging the pardon of cousin Edward and his guests, is something that I can miss without feeling that I am losing much. I ’ll work up to it perhaps in the course of the summer. But really I would rather begin with a row-boat on a mill-pond, if we can find one about here.”
“You are certainly silly,” responded Brenda. “Do come to-day, we may not have the chance soon again. Generally when cousin Edward goes he won’t take girls. He prefers men who can look after themselves.”
But Julia was firm, and in spite of the urging of her aunt and cousin Edward himself, she saw them set off in the carriages that were to take them all to Marblehead, while she herself turned back contentedly to her work.
In little more than ten days she was to go to Cambridge to take her first examinations for College—the preliminaries—which are held before so many boys and girls as a goal which they must not fail to reach successfully. A year later would come the “finals,” and then in the autumn following Julia hoped to register as a student of Radcliffe College. But everything depended on the examinations, and she knew that she must not relax her efforts until the last day. In preparing at a private school she was under certain disadvantages. Some time intervened between the closing of school and the examination, and Julia felt that the daily study by herself was barely enough to keep the subjects fresh in her mind. Until the end of June she must adhere to regular hours of daily study. After the examination, her real vacation would begin.
Thus Julia sat down very contentedly, re-reading carefully, and as quickly as she could, the story of unhappy Dido, the work that she had accomplished, and her melancholy fate. The two hours passed quickly away, and after she had practised for an hour, she heard with surprise the voices of the returning yachting-party.
“Still at it?” called Brenda, as the carriage drove up. “You must be wonderfully wise.”
“Oh, I’m not studying now,” responded her cousin. “That was over long ago.”
“Well, you would have been perfectly safe if you had gone with us to-day. There was n’t a ripple on the water. It was just the kind of mill-pond you would like. Papa and cousin Edward have stayed down there to see if they can whistle up a breeze. But the rest of us thought that we had better come home. I saw Philip at the Club-house, and he said that Edith intended to drive over this afternoon, and I want to see her to talk over some plans.”
“I did n’t really think that you would return for luncheon, although Aunt Anna said that you might, but I believe that it is ready.”
The dining-room was delightfully cool in contrast with the warmer outside piazzas, and as they all sat around the long table, Mrs. Barlow gave a sigh of relief.
“After all, there’s no place like home.”
“Why, mamma, that sounds as if you had n’t a good time to-day.”
“Well, Brenda, I am not as young as you are, and the drive over and the drive back were rather warm. Besides I’m not over-fond of going out in little boats, and climbing up the sides of yachts, are you?” and she turned to one of her guests for an answer.
“On the whole it was very pleasant, Mrs. Barlow.”
“Well, yes, perhaps on the whole. But still—”
“Oh, but, mamma, I always enjoy every minute at Marblehead. We would n’t have minded the sun to-day, if only there had been a chance for a sail. I don’t see why the breeze died down.”
“Persons addicted to yachting often ask that question,” replied her mother, “and very seldom are they able to answer it.”