CHAPTER 3
The Tenants Take Possession
"Our own house--think of it!" cried Bettie, turning the key. "Push,somebody; the door sticks. There! It's open."
"Ugh!" said Mabel, drawing back hastily. "It's awfully dark and stuffyin there. I guess I won't go in just yet--it smells so dead-ratty."
"It's been shut up so long," explained Jean. "Wait. I'll pull some ofthe vines back from this window. There! Can you see better?"
"Lots," said Bettie. "This is the parlor, girls--but, oh, what raggedypaper. We'll need lots of pictures to cover all the holes and spots."
"We'd better clean it all first," advised sensible Jean. "The windowsare covered with dust and the floor is just black."
"This," said Marjory, opening a door, "must be the dining-room. Oh! Whata cunning little corner cupboard--just the place for our dishes."
"You mean it would be if we had any," said Mabel. "Mine are allsmashed."
"Pooh!" said Jean. "We don't mean doll things--we want real, grown-upones. Why, what a cunning little bedroom!"
"There's one off the parlor, too," said Marjory, "and it's evencunninger than this."
"My! what a horrid place!" exclaimed Mabel, poking an inquisitive noseinto another unexplored room, and as hastily withdrawing that offendedfeature. "Mercy, I'm all over spider webs."
"That's the kitchen," explained Bettie. "Most of the plaster has fallendown and it's rained in a good deal. But here's a good stovepipe hole,and such a cunning cupboard built into the wall. What have _you_ found,Jean?"
"Just a pantry," said Jean, holding up a pair of black hands, "and lotsof dust. There isn't a clean spot in the house."
"So much the better," said Bettie, whose clouds always had a silverlining. "We'll have just that much more fun cleaning up. I'll tell youwhat let's do--and we've all day tomorrow to do it in. We'll justregularly clean house--I've _always_ wanted to clean house."
"Me too," cried Mabel, enthusiastically. "We'll bring just oceans ofwater--"
"There's water here," interrupted Jean, turning a faucet. "Water and apretty good sink. The water runs out all right."
"That's good," said Bettie. "We must each bring a broom, and soap--"
"And rags," suggested Jean.
"And papers for the shelves," added Marjory.
"And wear our oldest clothes," said Bettie.
"Oo-ow, wow!" squealed Mabel.
"What's the matter?" asked the girls, rushing into the pantry.
"Spiders and mice," said Mabel. "I just poked my head into the cupboardand a mouse jumped out. I'm all spider-webby again, too."
"Well, there won't be any spiders by tomorrow night," said Bettie,consolingly, "or any mice either, if somebody will bring a cat. Nowlet's go home to supper--I'm hungry as a bear."
"Everybody remember to wear her oldest clothes," admonished Jean, "andto bring a broom."
"I'll tie the key to a string and wear it around my neck night and day,"said Bettie, locking the door carefully when the girls were outside."Aren't we going to have a perfectly glorious summer?"
When Mr. Black, on the way to his office the next morning, met his fourlittle friends, he did not recognize them. Jean, who was fourteen, andtall for her age, wore one of her mother's calico wrappers tied in atthe waist by the strings of the cook's biggest apron. Marjory, in themuch shrunken gown of a previous summer, had her golden curls tuckedaway under the housemaid's sweeping cap. Bettie appeared in her veryoldest skirt surmounted by an exceedingly ragged jacket and capdiscarded by one of her brothers; while Mabel, with her usualenthusiasm, looked like a veritable rag-bag. When Bettie had unlockedthe door--she had slept all night with the key in her hand to makecertain that it would not escape--the girls filed in.
"I know how to handle a broom as well as anybody," said Mabel, giving amighty sweep and raising such a cloud of dust that the fourhousecleaners were obliged to flee out of doors to keep fromstrangling.
"Phew!" said Jean, when she had stopped coughing. "I guess we'll have totake it out with a shovel. The dust must be an inch thick."
"Wait," cried Marjory, darting off, "I'll get Aunty's sprinkling can;then the stuff won't fly so."
After that the sweeping certainly went better. Then came the dusting.
"It really looks very well," said Bettie, surveying the result with herhead on one side and an air of housewifely wisdom that would have beenmore impressive if her nose hadn't been perfectly black with soot. "Itcertainly does look better, but I'm afraid you girls have most of thedust on your faces. I don't see how you managed to do it. Just look atMabel."
"Just look at yourself!" retorted Mabel, indignantly. "You've got thedirtiest face I _ever_ saw."
"Never mind," said Jean, gently. "I guess we're all about alike. I'vewiped all the dust off the walls of this parlor. Now I'm going to washthe windows and the woodwork, and after that I'm going to scrub thefloor."
"Do you know how to scrub?" asked Marjory.
"No, but I guess I can learn. There! Doesn't that pane look as if areally-truly housemaid had washed it?"
"Oh, Mabel! Do look out!" cried Marjory.
But the warning came too late. Mabel stepped on the slippery bar ofsoap and sat down hard in a pan of water, splashing it in everydirection. For a moment Mabel looked decidedly cross, but when she gotup and looked at the tin basin, she began to laugh.
"That's a funny way to empty a basin, isn't it?" she said. "There isn'ta drop of water left in it."
"Well, don't try it again," said Jean. "That's Mrs. Tucker's basin andyou've smashed it flat. You should learn to sit down less suddenly."
"And," said Marjory, "to be more careful in your choice of seats--we'llhave to take up a collection and buy Mrs. Tucker a new basin, or she'llbe afraid to lend us anything more."
The girls ran home at noon for a hasty luncheon. Rested and refreshed,they all returned promptly to their housecleaning.
Nobody wanted to brush out the kitchen cupboard. It was not only dusty,but full of spider webs, and worst of all, the spiders themselves seemedvery much at home. The girls left the back door open, hoping that thespiders would run out of their own accord. Apparently, however, thespiders felt no need of fresh air. Bettie, without a word to anyone, ranhome, returning a moment later with her brother Bob's old tame crowblinking solemnly from her shoulder. She placed the great, black bird onthe cupboard shelf and in a very few moments every spider had vanisheddown his greedy throat.
"He just loves them," said Bettie.
"How funny!" said Mabel. "Who ever heard of getting a crow to help cleanhouse? I wish he could scrub floors as well as he clears out cupboards."
The scrubbing, indeed, looked anything but an inviting task. Jeansucceeded fairly well with the parlor floor, though she declared whenthat was finished that her wrists were so tired that she couldn't holdthe scrubbing-brush another moment. Marjory and Bettie together scrubbedthe floor of the tiny dining-room. Mabel made a brilliant success of oneof the little bedrooms, but only, the other girls said, by accidentallytipping over a pail of clean water upon it, thereby rinsing off a thicklayer of soap. Then Jean, having rested for a little while, finished theremaining bedroom and Marjory scoured the pantry shelves.
The kitchen floor was rough and very dirty. Nobody wanted the task ofscrubbing it. The tired girls leaned against the wall and looked at thefloor and then at one another.
"Let's leave it until Monday," said Mabel, who looked very much as ifthe others had scrubbed the floor with her. "I've had all thehousecleaning I want for _one_ day."
"Oh, no," pleaded Bettie. "Everything else is done. Just think howlovely it would be to go home tonight with all the disagreeable partfinished! We could begin to move in Monday if we only had the house allclean."
"Couldn't we cover the dirtiest places with pieces of old carpet?"demanded Mabel.
"Oh, what dreadful housekeeping that would be!" said Marjory.
"Yes," said Jean, "we must have every bit of it nice. Perhaps if we siton the doorstep a
nd rest for a few moments we'll feel more likescrubbing."
The tired girls sat in a row on the edge of the low porch. They were allrather glad that the next day would be Sunday, for between thedandelions and the dust they had had a very busy week.
"Why!" said Bettie, suddenly brightening. "We're going to have avisitor, I do believe."
"Hi there!" said Mr. Black, turning in at the gate. "I smell soap.Housecleaning all done?"
"All," said Bettie, wearily, "except the kitchen floor, and, oh! we're_so_ tired. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it until Monday, but we justhate to."
"Too tired to eat peanuts?" asked Mr. Black, handing Bettie a huge paperbag. "Stay right here on the doorstep, all of you, and eat every one ofthese nuts. I'll look around and see what you've been doing--I'm surethere _can't_ be much dirt left inside when there's so much on yourfaces."
It seemed a pity that Mr. Black, who liked little girls so well, shouldhave no children of his own. A great many years before Bettie's peoplehad moved to Lakeville, he had had one sister; and at another almostequally remote period he had possessed one little daughter, a slender,narrow-chested little maid, with great, pathetic brown eyes, so likeBettie's that Mr. Black was startled when Dr. Tucker's little daughterhad first smiled at him from the Tucker doorway, for the senior warden'slittle girl had lived to be only six years old. This, of course, was thesecret of Mr. Black's affection for Bettie.
Mr. Black, who was a moderately stout, gray-haired man of fifty-five,with kind, dark eyes and a strong, rugged, smooth-shaven countenance,had a great deal of money, a beautiful home perched on the brow of agreen hill overlooking the lake, and a silk hat. This last made a greatimpression on the children, for silk hats were seldom worn in Lakeville.Mr. Black looked very nice indeed in his, when he wore it to churchSunday morning, but Bettie felt more at home with him when he satbareheaded on the rectory porch, with his short, crisp, thick gray hairtossed by the south wind.
Besides these possessions, Mr. Black owned a garden on the shelteredhillside where wonderful roses grew as they would grow nowhere else inLakeville. This was fortunate because Mr. Black loved roses, and spentmuch time poking about among them with trowel and pruning shears. Then,there were shelves upon shelves of books in the big, dingy library,which was the one room that the owner of the large house really livedin. A public-spirited man, Mr. Black had a wide circle of acquaintancesand a few warm friends; but with all his possessions, and in spite of ajovial, cheerful manner in company, his dark, rather stern face, asBettie had very quickly discovered, was sad when he sat alone in his pewin church. He had really nothing in the world to love but his books andhis roses. It was evident, to anyone who had time to think about it,that kind Mr. Black, whose wife had died so many years before that onlythe oldest townspeople could remember that he had had a wife, was, inspite of his comfortable circumstances, a very lonely man, and that, ashe grew older, he felt his loneliness more keenly. There were othersbesides Bettie who realized this, but it was not an easy matter to offersympathy to Mr. Black--there was a dignity about him that repelledanything that looked like pity. Bettie was the one person who succeeded,without giving offense, in doing this difficult thing, but Bettie did itunconsciously, without in the least knowing that she _had_ accomplishedit, and this, of course, was another reason for the strong friendshipbetween Mr. Black and her.
The girls found the peanuts decidedly refreshing; their unusual exercisehad given them astonishing appetites.
"I wonder," said Bettie, some ten minutes later, when the paper bag wasalmost empty, "what Mr. Black is doing in there."
"I think, from the swishing, swushing sounds I hear," said Jean, "thatMr. Black must be scrubbing the kitchen."
"What!" gasped the girls.
"Come and see," said Jean, stealing in on tiptoe.
There, sure enough, was stout Mr. Black dipping a broom every now andthen into a pail of soapy water and vigorously sweeping the floor withit.
"I _think_," whispered Mabel, ruefully, "that that's Mother's bestbroom."
"Never mind," consoled Jean. "You can take mine home if you think she'llcare. It's really mine because I bought it when we had that broom drillin the sixth grade. It's been hanging on my wall ever since."
"Hi there!" exclaimed Mr. Black, who, looking up suddenly, haddiscovered the smiling girls in the doorway. "You didn't know I couldscrub, did you?"
Mr. Black, quite regardless of his spotless cuffs and his polishedshoes, drew a bucket of fresh water and dashed it over the floor,sweeping the flood out of doors and down the back steps.
"There," said Mr. Black, standing the broom in the corner, "if there's acleaner house in town than this, I don't know where you'll find it. Inreturn for scrubbing this kitchen, of course, I shall expect you toinvite me to dinner when you get to housekeeping."
"We will! We do!" shouted the girls. "And we'll cook every single thingourselves."
"I don't know that I'll insist on _that_," returned Mr. Black,teasingly, "but I shan't let you forget about the dinner."