Read Ebook: Sweet P's by Lippmann Julie M Waugh Ida Illustrator

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Ebook has 789 lines and 43966 words, and 16 pages

"Stop right there, Cicely," interrupted Uncle Arthur. "No one in this family but your Aunt Laura has any right to remember when she was a little girl."

Pretty Cicely pretended to frown at him, but her merry eyes laughed in spite of themselves, though she went on at once: "I was the only child in the family then, just as Priscilla is now, and it was a very lonesome position, I assure you, so I can sympathize with her. I used to long and long for the chance to romp and play with other children of my own age, but I was always surrounded by a lot of servants whose business it was to see that I was very sedate and proper and who were made to feel that I was altogether too important and elegant a little personage to be allowed to associate with the rest of the world. So I saw from afar other children having jolly times and I had to be contented, myself, with my fine playthings and splendid clothes. They did not at all content me. I knew then, just as Priscilla does now, that such things cannot make one happy. Children are like grown-up people in this: that they are never really healthy or happy until they share their good things with some one else."

"Hear! Hear!" cried Uncle Arthur, clapping his hands approvingly.

Cicely's whole face was aglow with earnestness and hope as she concluded: "There! now, I have had my say and I am sorry it has been such a long one, but I simply had to speak out, you know."

"But think of the chances there are of Priscilla's catching chicken-pox and measles and influenza, if she plays with other children," suggested Aunt Louise anxiously.

"Children nowadays are so shamefully ill-behaved. They are regular little ruffians. Fancy how wretched it would be if Priscilla caught their horrid habits and became pert and forward and unmannerly," added Aunt Laura.

Cicely nodded brightly. "Yes, of course that is so," she admitted, "but on the other hand, fancy how splendid it would be if Priscilla played with other children and caught happiness and health from them, and generosity and kindness and sympathy. Good things are catching as well as bad, don't you think they are, Aunt Laura?"

This time Uncle Arthur did not cry "Hear! Hear!" but he came straight over to where Cicely sat and took her hand in his.

"Cissy, my dear," he said, quite seriously, "let me congratulate you. You are the wisest member of the family, by all odds and," with a twinkle in his eye, "for your sake I am glad I married your Aunt Laura. If Priscilla turns out as well as you have done the Duers will have no cause to be ashamed of their two representatives--even though they are 'only girls.'"

But just here Priscilla's mother spoke up:

"No, dear Aunt Edith, that is not at all what I mean," Cicely broke in quickly. "What I mean is, that Priscilla ought to have a playmate--a child--to live right here in the house with her; one who would rouse her up and keep her from growing moody and oversensitive. A little girl who would share her good things with her and to whom Priscilla would have to give up and give in once in a while. Each would learn from the other and I'm sure you would see that Priscilla would improve directly, in health and in every other way. Please, please, Aunt Edith, try my plan. I assure you it would work like a charm, if we got the right child and gave the experiment time."

"We will!"

It was Priscilla's father who spoke and, of course, his word settled the matter at once. But now the question arose where was "the right child" to be found? It came over Cicely with a sudden shock, that nothing less than a little cherub right out of the sky would suit all these extremely particular people, for no mere human child could possibly fulfil all their requirements.

Aunt Louise would insist upon her never, by any chance, being sick. Aunt Laura would demand that she always be perfectly quiet and faultlessly well-behaved. Aunt Edith would wish her to be older than Priscilla so Priscilla could rely upon her, and grandmamma desired her to be younger than Priscilla so Priscilla could learn to be self-reliant: and so it went on.

"As far as I can see, Cicely," spoke up Uncle Arthur, teasingly, "this scheme of yours is first-rate! Quite as good, for instance, as the well-known recipe for cooking a hare, which begins 'first catch your hare.' In this case it is: first catch your child. It is clearly your place to produce the prodigy. Now then, my dear, let's see what sort of a marvel you can discover. It will have to be a superfine article to be fit to associate with the great and only Hope of the Duer family."

"I tell you what it is," suggested Cicely. "Let's all try to find one. And the best, by common consent, shall be Priscilla's playmate. Is it a bargain?"

There was a great chorus of "Yesses"; a lot of hand-shaking and laughing and fun, and very shortly after the company went home, while up-stairs Priscilla slept peacefully on in her pretty brass bed, never dreaming of the curious birthday present she was to receive in the course of the next few days.

"CASH ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIVE"

The invitations were sent out promptly and the answers came in without delay. Not one member of the family sent a regret: every one was "Pleased to accept Miss Cicely Duer's kind invitation to Miss Priscilla Duer's unbirthday party," etc., etc.

"It is just like the Queen and Alice," laughed Miss Cicely merrily, but her face grew sober as she thought of the search she would probably have before she could get anything like the right sort of little girl "to set before the king," for the right sort of little girl doesn't grow on every bush and Miss Cicely knew it, and even if it did its parents would not be likely to want to give it away.

"I shall not insist on her being pretty, of course, but she mustn't be utterly hideous," the young lady thought. "I don't want her to be a goody-goody little prig but I can't possibly have a young demon. Oh, dear me! Suppose I cannot find a child at all and have to go to the party without my share of small girl! How they will poke fun at me! It would be another case of

"'Smarty, Smarty gave a party, Nobody came but Smarty, Smarty.'"

Her mind was so full of her mission, that one day while she was shopping she found herself replying to a salesman before whose counter she stood, "Yes, please. I want one between six and twelve. Truthful and not too mischievous," and she only realized her mistake when he paused in measuring off the yards of silk she had selected and looked at her as if he thought she was mildly insane and ought to be carefully guarded.

Miss Cicely blushed furiously and tried to hide her embarrassment with a laugh. The shopman laughed too and Miss Cicely, to explain her absurd blunder, confided to him that she was really looking for a little girl between six and twelve years of age who was truthful and not too mischievous, and did they keep any of the sort in stock?

The salesman laughed again.

"Why, yes, madam, we do," he replied. "Most of them are somewhat older than you want, to be sure, but we have one, at least right here now, that, come to think of it, ought to just fill the bill. Here! Cash! Cash one-hundred-and-five! Cash! Cash!"

As the salesman said no more Miss Cicely concluded he had merely replied to her joking question with a joking answer. He made out her bill-of-sale and placed it with her yards of silk and then again rapped upon his counter with the blunt end of his lead-pencil, repeating: "Cash! One-hundred-and five! Here, Cash!"

Miss Cicely felt vaguely disappointed. Of course she had known that, even in such a great department store as this, they did not have little girls on sale, but the shopman's manner and his reply to her laughing question had been so serious that, for a flash, she had really thought he was in earnest when he said he thought they had one that might "just fill the bill."

"It was very clever of him to carry out the joke so completely, any one would have thought him in earnest; but--well,--Miss Cicely was disappointed. She had searched and searched and not even the wee-est sample of a nice little girl had she been able so far to find. And Thursday was the day after to-morrow!

"Dear, dear!" she mused, "what in the world shall I do? The only place I haven't tried is 'The Home for Friendless Children' and I purposely avoided it because I knew grandmamma and the aunts would fly there the first thing, and I thought I'd be superior and discover something quite original. Well, I suppose it serves me right! and my pride ought to go before a fall. But there's nothing left but an institution evidently! Oh, me! I wonder if there would be a presentable little waif at the Orphan Asylum? Positively I must go there at once and see. How long one has to wait at these shops! Why doesn't that Cash come?"

"Cash! Cash! One hundred-and-five!" called the salesman a third time.

A very thin, small arm was thrust forward toward the counter from between Miss Cicely and the crowding shopper next to her and a very small breathless voice replied:

"Yes, sir! Here, sir! Cash one-hundred-and-five, sir!"

The salesman nodded.

"This is the one I was speaking about, madam," he said turning to Miss Cicely and indicating the arm and the voice just beside her.

Miss Cissy bent her head and looked down. There, at her elbow, almost crushed flat by the crowd, and breathless with running, stood a little errand-girl. She could not have been more than ten years old, but her great anxious eyes and the little grown-up furrow between her brows made her appear much older. Miss Cissy saw her small hand tremble as she handed the salesman her basket, and noticed, also in a flash, that it was a clean hand and that the shabby-sleeve through which it was thrust, was clean also. Miss Cicely moved to make room for the mite of a business-woman. The business-woman looked up--and the next moment Miss Cicely had put an arm about her.

"So you are Cash one-hundred-and-five?" she inquired, kindly drawing her to her side.

The child nodded, murmuring, "Yes'm," and shoved her basket toward the salesman who pretended to busy himself putting the silk and bill-of-sale into it.

"And how old are you, I wonder?" pursued Miss Cissy.

"Ten, 'm," answered Cash, feeling worried at these unbusinesslike interruptions, but trying not to let the fine lady see it.

"Ca--I mean Polly--Polly Carter please, 'm."

"Polly is one of our best cash-girls, madam," put in the salesman quietly. "I don't know what we'd do without Polly. She's so quick and ready, we all try to get her to carry to the desk for us, and that's why she didn't come at my first call. She wasn't loitering. She was just rushed with business. That's what comes of being reliable and popular. Polly can always be trusted and she's never cross."

"Why, that is a royal recommendation!" said Miss Cissy approvingly. "Now, I wonder how it happens that Polly is a cash-girl? Hasn't she anybody to take care of her? No father or mother?"

"They're dead, 'm," answered Polly promptly. "I have a big sister and she used to take care of me and send me to school. She worked here. She was behind a counter. And she did needlework besides, oh, beautiful needlework! but she got hurted last winter run over by a truck, and both her legs were under the wheels and--so now--I take care of her, and the s'ciety lets me 'cause I study when I'm through here, and sister, she teaches me and I'm never sick and it's nec'ary, 'cause sister can't do anything but her needlework now."

Miss Cissy's arm tightened about the waist of the little bread-winner.

"Where does your big sister live?" she asked quietly.

Polly gave the down-town east-side street and number and then reached out for her basket. She felt that she could not spare any more time to her personal affairs in business hours, even for such an elegant customer as this.

"Well, Polly, I'm very glad to have met you," said Miss Cicely, "and I hope we shall see each other again. Here is a bright, new fifty-cent piece for you. Won't you take it, please, and buy yourself something with it--whatever you like best."

It gave Miss Cissy a thrill to see Polly's face as she took the bit of shining silver; all in a flash it changed from the face of a little careworn woman to that of a dimpled child.

"I'll get sister a book," she cried happily. "I thank you ever so much!"

"Why, she's actually pretty," thought Miss Cissy and she pictured to herself Cash one-hundred-and-five clad in a neat white frock, with hair cut square round her neck and tied with crisp ribbon-bows over her temples. "She'll do. Most certainly she'll do. Now, if I can only get her!" she thought.

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