CHAPTER X
Changes In The Neighbourhood
WHEN the little dining-room was finished it was quite the prettiest room in the house, for the friendly Blossoms had painted the battered woodwork a delicate green to match the leaves in the paper; and by mixing what was left of the green paint with the remaining colour left from the sideboard, clever Miss Blossom obtained a shade that was exactly right for as much of the floor as the rug did not cover. Of course all the neighbours and all the girls' relatives had to come in afterwards to see what Bettie called "The very dandelioniest room in Dandelion Cottage."
It seemed to the girls that the time fairly galloped from Monday to Thursday. They were heartily sorry when the moment came for them to lose their pleasant lodger. They went to the train to see the last of her and to assure her for the thousandth time that they should never forget her. Mabel sobbed audibly at the moment of parting, and large tears were rolling down silent Bettie's cheeks. Even the seven dollars and fifty cents that the girls had handled with such delight that morning paled into insignificance beside the fact that the train was actually whisking their beloved Miss Blossom away from them. When she had paid for her lodging she advised her four landladies to deposit the money in the bank until time for the dinner party and the girls did so, but even the importance of owning a bank account failed to console them for their loss. The train out of sight, the sober little procession wended its way to Dandelion Cottage but the cosey little house seemed strangely silent and deserted when Bettie unlocked the door. Mabel, who had wept stormily all the way home, sat down heavily on the doorstep, and wept afresh.
Pinned to a pillow on the parlour couch, Jean discovered a little folded square of paper addressed to Bettie, who was drumming a sad little tune on the window pane.
"Why Bettie!" cried Jean, "this looks like a note for you from Miss Blossom. Do read it and tell us what she says."
"It says," read Bettie: "'My dearest of Betties: Thank you for being so nice to me. There's a telephone message for you.'"
"I wonder what it means," said Marjory.
Bettie ran to the talkless telephone, slipped her hand inside the little door at the top, and found a small square parcel wrapped in tissue paper, tied with a pink ribbon and addressed to Miss Bettie Tucker, Dandelion Cottage. Bettie hastily undid the wrappings and squealed with delight when she saw the lovely little handkerchief, bordered delicately with lace, that Miss Blossom herself had made for her. There was a daintily embroidered "B" in the corner to make it Bettie's very own.
Marjory happened upon Jean's note peeping out from under a book on the parlour table. It said: "Dear Jean: Don't you think it's time for you to look at the kitchen clock?"
Of course everybody rushed to the kitchen to see Jean take from inside the case of the tickless clock a lovely handkerchief just like Bettie's except that it was marked with "J."
Marjory's note, which she presently found growing on the crimson petunia sent her flying to the grindless coffee-mill where she, too, found a similar gift.
"Well," said Mabel, who was now fairly cheerful, "I wonder if she forgot all about me."
For several anxious moments the girls searched eagerly in Mabel's behalf but no note was visible.
"I can't think where it could be," said housewifely Jean, stooping to pick up a bit of string from the dining-room rug, and winding it into a little ball. "I've looked in every room and—Why! what a long string! I wonder where it's all coming from."
"Under the rug," said Marjory, making a dive for the bit of paper that dangled from the end of the string. "Here's your note, Mabel."
"I think," wrote Miss Blossom, "that there must be a mouse in the pantry mouse-trap by this time."
"Yes," shouted Mabel, a moment later, "a lovely lace-edged mouse with an 'M' on it—no, it's 'M B'—a really truly monogram, the very first monogram I ever had."
"Why, so it is," said Marjory. "I suppose she did that so we could tell them apart because if she'd put M on both of them we wouldn't have known which was which."
"Why," cried Jean, "it's nearly an hour since the train left. Wasn't it sweet of her to think of keeping us interested so we shouldn't be quite so lonesome."
"Yes," said Bettie, "it was even nicer than our lovely presents but it was just like her."
"Oh dear," said Mabel, again on the verge of tears, "I wish she might have stayed forever. What's the use of getting lovely new friends if you have to go and lose them the very next minute? She was just the nicest grown-up little girl there ever was and I'll never see—see her any"
"Look out, Mabel," warned Marjory, "if you cry on that handkerchief you'll spoil that monogram. Miss Blossom didn't intend these for crying-handkerchiefs—one good-sized tear would soak them."
Miss Blossom was not the only friend the girls were fated to lose that week. Grandma Pike, as everybody called the pleasant little old lady, was their next-door neighbour on the west side and the cottagers were very fond of her. No one dreamed that Mrs. Pike would ever think of going to another town to live; but about ten days before Miss Blossom departed, the cheery old lady had quite taken everybody's breath away by announcing that she was going West, just as soon as she could get her things packed, to live with her married daughter.
When the girls heard that Grandma Pike was going away they were very much surprised and not at all pleased at the idea of losing one of their most delightful neighbours. At Miss Blossom's suggestion, they had spent several evenings working on a parting gift for their elderly friend. The gift, a wonderful linen traveling case with places in it to carry everything a traveller would be likely to need, was finished at last—with so many persons working on it, it was hard to keep all the pieces together—and the girls carried it to Grandma Pike, who seemed very much pleased.
"Well, well," said the delighted old lady, unrolling the parcel, "if you haven't gone and made me a grand slipper-bag—I'll think of you, now, every time I put on my slippers."
"No, no," protested Jean. "It's a travelling case with places in it for 'most everything but slippers."
"We all sewed on it," explained Mabel. "Those little bits of stitches that you can't see at all are Bettie's. Jean did all this feather-stitching and Marjory hemmed all the binding. Miss Blossom basted it together so it wouldn't be crooked."
"What did you do, Mabel?" asked Grandma Pike, smiling over her spectacles.
"I took out the basting threads and embroidered these letters on the pockets."
"What does this 'P' stand for?"
"Pins," said Mabel. "You see it was sort of an accident. I started to embroider the word soap on this little pocket, but when I got the S O A done, there wasn't any room left for the P, so I just put it on the next pocket. I knew that if I explained that it was the end of 'Soap' and the beginning of 'Pins' that you'd remember not to get your pins and soap mixed up."