CHAPTER VIII
THE GREATEST TOY-SHOP ON EARTH
"No," said Betty, "I haven't found it, and now I'm almost sure I shan't,because Nita's lost hers."
"What has Nita lost?" asked Madeline from her nest of pillows. It wasthe evening after the play, and the Belden House felt justified intaking life easily. "She lost her head last night," chuckled Madeline,without waiting for Betty's answer. "Did you hear her imploring theorgan-man in her most classic English not to let me take the monkey outin front to show to the President? As if I really would!"
"You've done just as crazy things in your time, dear," retortedKatherine Kittredge, who had come over to borrow one of Betty'snotebooks and had found the atmosphere of elegant leisure that pervadedthe room irresistible.
"Do you really think so?" asked Madeline amiably. "Well, before we gointo that I want to know what else Nita has lost."
"Why, a pin," explained Betty,--"that lovely one with the amethyst inthe centre and the ring of little pearls in a quaint old setting. Itused to be her great-grandmother's. Mine wasn't much to lose, and I feltsure until to-day that it would turn up, but it hasn't, and now I'mafraid it was really stolen."
"Have you looked all through that?" asked Madeline, pointing to themiscellaneous assortment of books, papers, dance-cards and bric-a-bracthat littered Betty's small desk to the point of positive inundation.
Betty assented with dignity. "And I haven't had time since to put itback in the pigeon-holes. When Nita told me about her pin, I got worriedabout mine--mother gave it to me and I couldn't bear to lose it forgood--so I went through my desk and all my drawers and it wassweeping-day, so I asked Belden House Annie to look too. It's not here."
"Is Nita sure hers was stolen?" asked Katherine.
Betty nodded. "As sure as she can be without actually seeing it taken.She left it on her cushion yesterday when she came down to luncheon, andwhen she got back from physics lab, it was gone."
"What a shame!" said Madeline. "She ought to tell Mrs. Kent right away.I should strongly suspect the new table-girl."
"Oh, but she's a cousin of Belden House Annie's," explained Betty, "andI'm sure Annie would look after her. We all know that she's as honest asthe day herself, and all the other maids have been here for years andyears."
"It's queer," said Katherine, "if it was an outsider--a more or lessprofessional thief, I mean--that he or she should come to this housetwice, several weeks apart, and each time take so little. If it was acollege girl now----"
"Oh, don't, Katherine," begged Betty. "I can't bear to think that anyHarding girl would do such a thing. I'd ten times rather never know whoit was than to find it was that way."
Just then the B's appeared airily attired in kimonos concealed underrain-coats, and laden with a huge pan of marshmallow fudge, which theyhad made, they explained, in honor of Roberta's successful debut.
"What are you all looking so solemn about?" demanded Bob, when Babbiehad gone in search of Roberta.
Betty told her, and Babe and Bob exchanged glances.
"It's not necessarily any one in this house who's responsible, I guess,"said Babe. "Babbie's lost a valuable pin too, and Geraldine Burdett haslost a ring. Oh, about two weeks ago Gerry's was taken, and Babbie'sbefore that. They've been keeping dark and trying to get up a clue, butthey can't. They'll be all off when they hear about these otherrobberies."
"There was one awfully queer thing about Babbie's thief," put in Bob."Her little gold-linked purse was on the chiffonier right beside her pinand it wasn't touched, though it was just stuffed with bills. That makesthem afraid it was some girl who's awfully fond of jewelry and can'tafford any."
"It isn't right to leave our lovely things around so, is it?" said Bettyseriously. "It's just putting temptation in the way of poor girls."
"Exactly," agreed Madeline. "We go off for hours, never locking upanything, leaving our money and other valuables in plain sight, and ifwe do miss anything we can't be sure it's stolen and we don't have timeto investigate for weeks after. It's a positive invitation todishonesty."
"But it's such a nuisance to lock up," complained Babe, "and if I hidethings I can't ever find them again, so I might as well not bother."
"I haven't any golden baubles," said Bob, "but I'm going to keep mymoney in 'Love's Labor Lost.' You'll find it there if you ever want toborrow."
"'Much Ado about Nothing' would be the most appropriate place for mine,"laughed Katherine, "so I choose that. You probably won't find any if youwant to borrow."
"But seriously, girls, let's all be more careful," advised Betty, "andlet's ask other people to be. Think how perfectly awful it is to makechances for girls to forget themselves. But I shan't believe it's aHarding girl," she added decisively. "It would be perfectly easy forany dishonest young woman to go through the houses without beingquestioned. Perhaps she got frightened and didn't notice Babbie's moneyon that account or didn't have time to snatch up anything but the pin."
Just then Babbie appeared, bringing Roberta and Rachel Morrison who hadmet them in the hall, and in the general attack upon the fudge pan moreserious issues were forgotten.
It was now the busiest, gayest part of the long fall term. Flying faston the heels of the house play came Thanksgiving Day.
"And just to think of it!" wailed Bob. "Only two days vacation thisyear, and Miss Stuart and the president dropping the most awful hintsabout what will happen if you cut over. Nobody can go home. I hope thefaculty will all eat too much and have horrible attacks of indigestion."
"Well, we may as well have as much fun as we can out of it," said Babbiephilosophically. "I've written home for a spread; so we shan't die ofhunger."
"Mrs. Kent says she's going to give us the best Thanksgiving dinner weever ate," announced Betty cheerfully.
"I hope our matron will be seized with the same lofty ambition," saidKatherine. "If she is, and if the skating holds, I shan't mind stayinghere."
"Weren't you going to stay anyway?" asked Helen Adams.
"Being a resident of the remote village of Kankakee, Illinois, and nothaving been urged to visit any of my Eastern friends, I was," admittedKatherine, solemnly, "but that doesn't make it any the nicer to have towork all day Saturday."
The skating did last, and the man at the rink, being taken in hand bythe B's, sympathized heartily with their wrongs, and promised them athree days' ice carnival, which meant search-lights, bonfires and a bigband on the ice every evening. There is nothing in the world moreexhilarating than skating to good music. The rink was thronged withHarding girls and Winsted men, and the proprietor could not easilyregard himself as a bona fide philanthropist.
The paper-chase, to get up an appetite on Thanksgiving morning, wasKatherine Kittredge's idea and the basket-ball game in the afternoonbetween the Thanksgiving Dinners and the Training Tables was toofantastic to have originated with any one but Madeline Ayres.
Georgia Ames, dressed as a huge turkey gobbler, captained theThanksgiving Dinners, who were gotten up as bunches of celery and moundsof cranberry jelly. The captain of the Training Table simulated a bigbottle labeled "Pure Spring Water," and the members of her team weretastefully trimmed with slices of dry bread. Being somewhat lessspectacular than their rivals, they were a little more agile and theywon the game, which was so funny that it sent two of the faculty intohysterics.
"And that's almost as bad as indigestion," said Babe, who was a bunch ofcelery. At least she had been one until she came into collision with thewater bottle and lost most of her trimmings.
It was really the Thanksgiving game that precipitated the plans for thesenior entertainment for the library fund. The fire the year before hadnot only damaged the library considerably, but it had brought itsshortcomings and the absurdly small number of its volumes, compared withthe rapidly increasing number of the girls who used them, to theattention of the public. Somebody had offered fifty thousand dollars fora library fund provided the college raised an equal amount. The alumnaewere trying to get the money, and becau
se they had helped theundergraduates with their beloved Students' Building, they wanted theundergraduates to help them now.
On the very evening of the game Marie Howard, the senior president,caught Madeline on the way to Babbie's spread and laid the matter beforeher.
"The alums want us to subscribe to the fund," she explained, "and thenthey think each class ought to give an entertainment. Not a bit nervy,are they? Well, of course 19-- has got to take the lead, and I've fairlyracked my brains to think what we can do. Now it's no trouble to you tohave lovely, comical ideas, and if you'll only help me out with thisentertainment, I'll be your friend for life."
"Why don't you appoint a committee to take charge of it?" inquiredMadeline, serenely.
Marie gave her a mournful look. "I suppose you think I haven't tried.The girls are all willing to help, but they insist upon having the ideato start with. I know you hate committees, Madeline, and I'm not askingyou to be on one--"
"You'd better not," interpolated Madeline, darkly, remembering thedrudgery she had submitted to to make the Belden House play a success.
"Just think up the idea," Marie went on, persuasively, "and I'll make acommittee do the rest. I don't care what we have, so long as it's newand taking--the sort of thing that you always seem to have in your head.That's what we want. Plays and lectures are too commonplace."
"Marie," said Madeline, laughingly, "you talk as if ideas were cabbagesand my head was a large garden. I can't produce ideas to order any morethan the rest of you can. But if I should think of anything, I'll letyou know."
"Thank you," said Marie, sweetly, and went back to her room, where shegave vent to some forcible remarks about the "exasperatingness" ofclever people who won't let themselves be pinned down to anything.
It was Betty Wales who, dancing into Madeline's room the next afternoon,gave, not Madeline, but Eleanor Watson,--who had been having tea withMadeline and listening to her absurd version of Marie's request,--aninspiration.
"I wish it wasn't babyish to like toys," she sighed. "I've beendown-town with Bob, and they've opened a big toy-shop in the store nextCuyler's, just for the holidays, I suppose. Bob got a Teddy bear, and Ibought this box of fascinating little Japanese tops for my baby sister.They're all like different kinds of fruit and you spin them likepennies, without a string. I just love toy-stores."
"So do I. So does everybody," said Madeline, oracularly, clearing aplace on the polished tea-table and emptying out the miniature tops."They renew your youth. Let's get all these things to spinning at once,Betty."
"Why don't you have a toy-shop for your senior entertainment?" askedEleanor, watching the two absorbed faces.
"How do you mean?" asked Madeline, absently, trying to make the purpleplum she was manipulating stay upright longer than Betty's peach.
"Why, with live toys, something on the plan of the circus that you andMary got up away back in sophomore year," explained Eleanor. "I shouldthink you might work it up beautifully."
Madeline stared at her for a moment, her eyes half-closed. "Eleanor,"she declared at last, "you're a genius. We could. I can fairly see myfriends turning into toys. You and Betty and the rest of the classbeauties are French dolls of course. Helen Adams would make a perfectjumping-jack--she naturally jerks along just like one."
"And Bob can be a jack-in-the-box," cried Betty eagerly, gettingMadeline's idea.
"Or a monkey that climbs a rope," suggested Eleanor. "Don't you thinkBabe would pop out of a box better?"
"And that fat Miss Austin will be just the thing for a top," put inMadeline. "We can ask five cents for a turn at making her spin." AndMadeline twirled the purple plum vigorously, in joyous anticipation oftaking a turn at Miss Austin.
"Then there could be a counter of stuffed animals," suggested Eleanor,"with Emily Davis to show them off."
"Easily," agreed Madeline, "and a Noah's ark, if we want it, and a Punchand Judy show. Oh, there's no end to the things we can have! Let's goover and tell Marie about it before dinner."
"You and Betty go," objected Eleanor. "I really haven't time."
"Nonsense," said Madeline firmly. "It's long after five now,and--Eleanor Watson, are you trying to crawl out of yourresponsibilities? It was you that thought of this affair, remember."
"Please don't try to drag me in," begged Eleanor. "I'll be a doll, ifyou like, or anything else that you can see me turning into. But Mariedidn't ask me to suggest, and she might feel embarrassed and obliged toask me to be on the committee, and--please don't try to drag me in,Madeline."
Madeline looked at her keenly, for a moment. "Eleanor Watson," she begansternly, "you're thinking about last fall. Don't you know that thatstupid girl didn't stand for anybody but her own stupid self?"
"She was in the right," said Eleanor simply.
"Not wholly," objected Madeline, "and if she was this isn't a parallelcase. In making you toastmistress 19-- was supposed to be doing you anhonor. You're doing her a favor now, and a good big one."
"And if we tell Marie about the toy-shop, we shall tell her that youthought of it," put in Betty firmly.
"And we shall also say that you hate committee meetings as much as Ido," put in Madeline artfully, "but that we are both willing to help inany way that we can with ideas and costumes."
Eleanor looked pleadingly from one to the other.
"We won't give in," declared Betty, "so it's no use to make eyes at uslike that."
"Either we suppress the whole idea and 19-- goes begging for another, orit stands as yours," said Madeline in adamant tones.
"Well, then, of course," began Eleanor slowly at last.
"Of course," laughed Betty, jumping up to hug her. "I knew you'd see itsensibly in a minute. Come on, Madeline. We haven't any time to lose."
"Do you remember what she was like two years ago, Betty?" asked Madelinethoughtfully when Eleanor had left them, persisting that she really hadan engagement before dinner.
"I even remember what she was like three years ago," laughed Bettyhappily.
"Fancy her giving up a chance like this then!" mused Madeline. "Fancyher contributing ideas to the public good and trying to escape takingthe credit for them. Why, Betty, she's a different person."
"I'm so glad you're friends now," said Betty, squeezing Madeline's armlovingly.
"That's so," Madeline reflected. "We weren't two years ago. I used tohate her wire-pulling so. And now I suppose I'm pulling wires for hermyself. Well, I'm going to be careful not to pull any of them down onher head this time. I say, Betty, wouldn't the Blunderbuss make a superbjack-in-the-box? I'm sure everybody would appreciate the symbolic effectwhen she popped, and perhaps we could manage to smother her by mistakebetween times."
The toy-shop took "like hot-cakes," to borrow Bob's pet comparison.Everybody told Madeline that it was just like her, and Madeline assuredeverybody gaily that she had always known she was misunderstood and thatanyhow Eleanor Watson was responsible for the toy-shop. Having spent thebetter part of a day in spreading this information Madeline rushed offto New York on a vague and mysterious errand that had something to dowith sub-letting the apartment on Washington Square.
* * * * *
"I remembered after I got down here," she wrote Betty a week later,"that I couldn't eat my solitary Christmas dinner in the flat if I letit. Besides my prospective tenants are bores, and bores never appreciateold furniture enough not to scratch it. But I'm staying on to overseethe fall cleaning, and we haven't had one for a good while, so it willtake another week. I'm sorry not to be on hand for the toy-shop doings(don't you let them put it off, Betty, or I can never make up my work),but I send a dialogue--no, it's for four persons--on local issues forthe Punch and Judy puppets. If they can't read it, tell them tocultivate their imaginations. I'll print the title, 'The Battle of theClasses,' to give them a starter.
"Miss me a little, "MADELINE.
"P. S. How are th
e wires working?"
If Eleanor suspected any hidden motive behind Madeline's suddendeparture she had no way of confirming her theory, and when Bettyescorted the entertainment committee, all of whom happened to besplendid workers but without a spark of originality among them, toEleanor's room, and declaring sadly that she couldn't remember half thefeatures of the toy-shop that they had discussed together, claimedEleanor's half-promise of help, why there was nothing for Eleanor to dobut redeem it. Nothing at least that the new Eleanor Watson cared to do.It was plain enough that the committee wanted her suggestions, and whatother people might think of her motive for helping them really matteredvery little in comparison with the success of 19--'s entertainment. Thusthe new Eleanor Watson argued, and then she went to work.
"The wires are all right so far," Betty wrote Madeline. "The girls areall lovely, and they'd better be. Eleanor has arranged the dearest playfor the dolls, all about a mad old German doll-maker who has a shop fullof automatons and practices magic to try to bring them to life. Somevillage girls come in and one changes clothes with a doll and he thinkshe's succeeded. Eleanor saw it somewhere, but she had to change it allaround.
"Alice Waite wanted the dolls to give Ibsen's 'Doll's House.' She didn'tknow what it was about of course, or who wrote it. She just went by thename. The other classes have got hold of the joke and guy us to death.
"You'd better come back and have some of the fun. Besides, nobody canthink how to make a costume for the mock-turtle. It's Roberta, and it'sgoing to dance with the gryphon for the animal counter's side-show.Eleanor thought of that too."
But Madeline telegraphed Roberta laconically: "Gray carpet paper shell,mark scales shoe-blacking, lace together sides," and continued tosojourn in Washington Square.
Late in the afternoon of the toy-shop's grand opening she appeared inthe door of the gymnasium and stood there a moment staring at thecurious spectacle within.
The curtain was just going down on the dolls' pantomime, and theaudience was applauding and hurrying off to make the rounds of the otherattractions before dinner time. In clarion tones that made themselvesheard above the din Emily Davis was advertising an auction of heranimals, beginning with "one perfectly good baa-lamb."
"Hear him baa," cried Emily, "and you'll forget that his legs arewobbly."
"This way to the Punch and Judy," shouted Barbara Gordon hoarselythrough a megaphone. "Give the children a season of refined andeducating amusement. Libretto by our most talented satirist. Don't missit."
"Hello, Madeline," cried Lucile Merrifield, spying the new arrival."When did you get back? Come and see the puppets with me. They say yourshow is great."
"It all looks good to me," said Madeline, "but--is there a top to spin?"
Lucile laughed and nodded. "That fat Miss Austin has taken in twodollars already at five cents a spin. She says she used to love makingcheeses, and that she hasn't had such a good time since she grew up."
"That's where I want to go first," said Madeline decisively; but on herway to the tops the doll counter beguiled her.
"Betty Wales," she declared, "when you curl in your lips and starestraight ahead you look just like the only doll I ever wanted. I saw herin a window on Fifth Avenue, and the one time in my life that I evercried was when daddy wouldn't buy her for me. Where's Eleanor?"
"I don't know," said Betty happily. "She was here a minute ago playingfor the dolls' pantomime. But she's all right. Everybody has beenthanking her and praising the pantomime, and she's so pleased about itall. She told me that she had felt all this year as if everybody waspointing her out as a disgrace to the class and the college, and thatshe was beginning to think that her whole life was spoiled. And now--"
"Why, Madeline Ayres," cried Katherine Kittredge hurrying up to them,her hair disheveled and her hands very black indeed. "I'm awfully gladyou've come. There's a class meeting to-morrow to decide on the seniorplay and I want--"
"You want tidying up," laughed Madeline. "What in the world have youbeen doing?"
"Being half of a woolly lamb," explained Katherine. "The other halfcouldn't come back this evening, so Emily has been selling us--or it,whichever you please--at auction. Now listen, Madeline. You don't knowanything about this play business."
Madeline had heard Katherine's argument, spun Miss Austin, and seen the"Alice in Wonderland" animals dance before she found Eleanor, and bythat time an interview with Jean Eastman had prepared her for the hurtlook in Eleanor's eyes and the little quiver in her voice, as shewelcomed Madeline back to Harding.
Jean was one of the few seniors who had had no active part in thetoy-shop. "So I'm patronizing everything regardless," she exclaimed,sauntering up to Madeline and holding out a bag of fudge. "It's adecided hit, isn't it? Polly says the other classes are in despair atthe idea of getting up anything that will take half as well."
"It's certainly a lovely show," said Madeline, trying the fudge.
"And a big feather in Eleanor Watson's cap," added Jean carelessly. "Shealways was the cleverest thing. I'd a lot rather be chairman of the playcommittee, or even a member of it, for that matter, than toastmistress.I suppose you know that there's a class-meeting to-morrow."
"Have you said that to Eleanor?" asked Madeline coldly.
"Oh, I gave her my congratulations on her prospects," said Jean with ashrug. "We're old friends, you know. We understand each otherperfectly."
Madeline's eyes flashed. "It won't be the least use to tell you so," shesaid, "but lobbying for office is not the chief occupation of humanityas you seem to think. Neither Eleanor Watson nor any of her friends hasthought anything about her being put on the play committee. I made themistake once of supposing that our class as a whole was capable ofappreciating the stand she's taken, and I shan't be likely to forgetthat I was wrong. But this affair was entirely her idea, and shedeserves the credit for it."
"Oh, indeed," said Jean quickly. "I suppose you didn't send telegrams--"
But Madeline, her face white with anger was half way across the bighall.
Jean watched her tumultuous progress with a meaning smile. "Well, I'vefixed that little game," she reflected. "If they did intend to put herup, they won't dare to now. They'll be afraid of seeing me do theBlunderbuss's act with variations. She'd have been elected fast enough,after this, and there isn't a girl in the class who could do half aswell on that committee. But as for having her and that insufferablelittle Betty Wales on, when I shall be left off, I simply couldn't standit."
Madeline found Betty taking off her doll's dress by dim candle-light,which she hoped would escape the eagle eye of the night-watchman. "I'vecome to tell you that the wires are all down again," she began, and wenton to tell the story of Jean's carefully timed insinuations.
"I almost believe that the Blunderbuss was the tool of the Hill crowd,"she said angrily. "At any rate they used her while she served, and nowthey're ready to take a hand themselves."
Betty stared at her in solemn silence. "What an awful lot it costs tolose your reputation," she said sadly.
"And it costs a good deal to be everybody's guardian angel, doesn't it,dearie?" Madeline said affectionately. "I oughtn't to have bothered you,but I seem to have made a dreadful mess of things so far."
"Oh, no, you haven't," Betty assured her. "Eleanor knows how queer Jeanis, and what horrid things she says about people who won't follow herlead. None of that crowd would help about the toy-shop except KateDenise, but every one else has been fine. And I know they haven'tthought that Eleanor was trying to get anything out of them."
Madeline sighed mournfully. "In Bohemia people don't think that sort ofthing," she said. "It complicates life so to have to consider it always.Good-night, Betty."
"Good-night," returned Betty cheerfully. "Don't forget that the senior'Merry Hearts' have a tea-drinking to-morrow."
"I'm not likely to," laughed Madeline. "Every one of them that I've seenhas mentioned it. They're all agog with curiosity."
"They'll be more so with joy, when I've told them t
he news," declaredBetty, holding her candle high above her head to light Madeline throughthe hall.
"Dear me! I wish there could be a class without officers and committeesand editors and commencement plays," she told the green lizard a littlelater. "Those things make such a lot of worry and hard feeling. But thenI suppose it wouldn't be much of a class, if it wasn't worth worryingabout. And anyway it's almost vacation."