CHAPTER 2
Paying the Rent
"This is a whopping big yard," said Mabel, looking disconsolately at twodandelions and one burdock in the bottom of a bushel basket. "Theredoesn't seem to be any place to begin."
"I'm going to weed out a place big enough to sit in," announced Bettie."Then I'll make it bigger and bigger all around me in every directionuntil it joins the clearing next to mine."
"I'm a soldier," said Marjory, brandishing a trowel, "vanquishing myenemies. You know in books the hero always battles single-handed withabout a million foes and always kills them all and everybody lives happyever after--zip! There goes one!"
"I'm a pioneer," said Jean, slashing away at a huge, tough burdock. "I'mchopping down the forest primeval to make a potato patch. The dandelionsare skulking Indians, and I'm capturing them to put in my bushel-basketprison."
"I'm just digging weeds," said prosaic Mabel, "and I don't like it."
"Neither does anybody else," said Marjory, "but I guess having thecottage will be worth it. Just pretend it's something else and then youwon't mind it so much. Play you're digging for diamonds."
"I can't," returned Mabel, hopelessly. "I haven't any imagination. Thisis just plain dirt and I can't make myself believe it's anything else."
By supper time the cottage yard presented a decidedly disreputableappearance. Before the weeds had been disturbed they stood upright,presenting an even surface of green with a light crest of dandeliongold. But now it was different. Although the number of weeds was notgreatly decreased, the yard looked as if, indeed, a battle had beenfought there. Mr. Black, passing by on his way to town, began to wonderif he had been quite wise in turning it over to the girls.
At four o'clock the following morning, sleepy Bettie tumbled out of bedand into her clothes. Then she slipped quietly downstairs, out of doors,through the convenient hole in the back fence, and into the cottageyard. She had been digging for more than an hour when Jean, rubbing apair of sleepy eyes, put in her appearance.
"Oh!" cried Jean, disappointedly. "I meant to have a huge bare field toshow you when you came, and here you are ahead of me. What a lot you'vedone!"
"Yes," assented Bettie, happily. "There's room for me and my basket,too, in my patch. I'll have to go home after a while to help dress thechildren."
Young though she was--she was only twelve--Bettie was a most helpfulyoung person. It is hard to imagine what Mrs. Tucker would have donewithout her cheerful little daughter. Bettie always spoke of the boys as"the children," and she helped her mother darn their stockings, sew ontheir buttons, and sort out their collars. The care of the family baby,too, fell to her lot.
The boys were good boys, but they were boys. They were willing to doerrands or pile wood or carry out ashes, but none of them ever thoughtof doing one of these things without first being told--sometimes theyhad to be told a great many times. It was different with Bettie. If Tomate crackers on the front porch, it was Bettie who ran for the broom tobrush up the crumbs. If the second-baby-but-one needed his facewashed--and it seemed to Bettie that there never was a time when he_didn't_ need it washed--it was Bettie who attended to it. If the catlooked hungry, it was Bettie who gave her a saucer of milk. Dick'srabbits and Rob's porcupine would have starved if Bettie had not fedthem, and Donald's dog knew that if no one else remembered his bone kindBettie would bear it in mind.
The boys' legs were round and sturdy, but Bettie's were very much likepipe stems.
"I don't have time to get fat," Bettie would say. "But you don't need toworry about me. I think I'm the healthiest person in the house. At leastI'm the only one that hasn't had to have breakfast in bed this week."
Neither Marjory nor Mabel appeared during the morning to dig their shareof the weeds, but when school was out that afternoon they were all onhand with their baskets.
"I had to stay," said Mabel, who was the last to arrive. "I missed twowords in spelling."
"What were they?" asked Marjory.
"'Parachute' and 'dandelion.' I hate dandelions, anyway. I don't knowwhat parachutes are, but if they're any sort of weeds I hate them, too."
The girls laughed. Mabel always looked on the gloomiest side of thingsand always grumbled. She seemed to thrive on it, however, for she wasbuilt very much like a barrel and her cheeks were like a pair of roundred apples. She was always honest, if a little too frank in expressingher opinions, and the girls liked her in spite of her blunt ways. Shewas the youngest of the quartet, being only eleven.
"There doesn't seem to be much grass left after the weeds are out," saidBettie, surveying the bare, sandy patch she had made.
"This has _always_ been a weedy old place," replied Jean. "I think thewhole neighborhood will feel obliged to us if we ever get the lotcleared. Perhaps our landlord will plant grass seed. It would be fine tohave a lawn."
"Perhaps," said Marjory, "he'll let us have some flower beds. Wouldn'tit be lovely to have nasturtiums running right up the sides of thehouse?"
"They'd be lovely among the vines," agreed Bettie. "I've some poppyseeds that we might plant in a long narrow bed by the fence."
"There are hundreds of little pansy plants coming up all over our yard,"said Jean. "We might make a little round bed of them right here whereI'm sitting. What are you going to plant in _your_ bed, Mabel?"
"Butter-beans," said that practical young person, promptly.
"Well," said Bettie, with a long sigh, "we'll have to work faster thanthis or summer will be over before we have a chance to plant _anything_.This is the biggest _little_ yard I ever did see."
For a time there was silence. Marjory, the soldier, fell upon her foeswith renewed vigor, and soon had an entire regiment in durance vile.Jean, the pioneer, fell upon the forest with so much energy that itsspeedy extermination was threatened. Mabel seized upon the biggest andtoughest burdock she could find and pulled with both hands and all hermight, until, with a sharp crack, the root suddenly parted and Mabel,very much to her own surprise, turned a back somersault and landed inBettie's basket.
"Hi there!" cried a voice from the road. "How are you youngsters gettingalong?"
The girls jumped to their feet--all but Mabel, who was still wedgedtightly in Bettie's basket. There was Mr. Black, with his elbows on thefence, and with him was the president of the Village ImprovementSociety; both were smiling broadly.
"Sick of your bargain?" asked Mr. Black.
The four girls shook their heads emphatically.
"Hard work?"
Four heads bobbed up and down.
"Well," said Mr. Black, encouragingly, "you've made considerable headwaytoday."
"Where are you putting the weeds?" asked the president of the VillageImprovement Society.
"On the back porch in a piano box," said Bettie. "We had a big pile ofthem last night, but they shrank like everything before morning. If theydo that _every_ time, it won't be necessary for Mabel to jump on them topress them down."
"Let me know when you have a wagon load," said Mr. Black. "I'll havethem hauled away for you."
For the rest of the week the girls worked early and late. They beganalmost at daylight, and the mosquitoes found them still digging at dusk.
By Thursday night, only scattered patches of weeds remained. The littlediggers could hardly tear themselves away when they could no longer findthe weeds because of the gathering darkness. Now that the task was sonearly completed it seemed such a waste of time to eat and sleep.
Bettie was up earlier than ever the next morning, and with one of theboys' spades had loosened the soil around some of the very worst patchesbefore any of the other girls appeared.
By five o'clock that night the last weed was dug. Conscientious Bettiewent around the yard a dozen times, but however hard she might search,not a single remaining weed could she discover.
"Good work," said Jean, balancing her empty basket on her head.
"It seems too good to be true," said Bettie, "but think of it,girls--the rent is paid! It's 'most time for Mr. Black
to go by. Let'swatch for him from the doorstep--our own precious doorstep."
"It needs scrubbing," said Mabel. "Besides, it isn't ours, yet. PerhapsMr. Black has changed his mind. Some grown-up folks have awfullychangeable minds."
"Oh!" gasped Marjory. "Wouldn't it be perfectly dreadful if he had!"
It seemed to the little girls, torn between doubt and expectation, thatMr. Black was strangely indifferent to the calls of hunger that night.Was he never going home to dinner? Was he _never_ coming?
"Perhaps," suggested Jean, "he has gone out of town."
"Or forgotten us," said Marjory.
"Or died," said Mabel, dolefully.
"No--no," cried Bettie. "There he is; he's coming around the cornernow--I can see him. Let's run to meet him."
The girls scampered down the street. Bettie seized one hand, Mabel theother, Marjory and Jean danced along ahead of him, and everybody talkedat once. Thus escorted, Mr. Black approached the cottage lot.
"Well, I declare," said Mr. Black. "You haven't left so much as a bladeof grass. Do you think you could sow some grass seed if I have theground made ready for it?"
The girls thought they could. Bettie timidly suggested nasturtiums.
"Flower beds too? Why, of course," said Mr. Black. "Vegetables as wellif you like. You can have a regular farm and grow fairy beanstalks andCinderella pumpkins if you want to. And now, since the rent seems to bepaid, I suppose there is nothing left for me to do but to hand over thekey. Here it is, Mistress Bettie, and I'm sure I couldn't have a nicerlot of tenants."