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                  BOBBIE, GENERAL MANAGER




                          BOBBIE
                      GENERAL MANAGER

                         _A NOVEL_

                             BY
                     OLIVE HIGGINS PROUTY

                        [Illustration]

                       GROSSET & DUNLAP
                PUBLISHERS      ::      NEW YORK


                    _Copyright, 1913, by_
                 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

  _All rights reserved including that of translation into foreign
             languages, including the Scandinavian._

                       _TENTH PRINTING_

                  [Illustration: _March, 1913_]




                               TO
                         THE MEMORY OF
                            MY FATHER




Bobbie, General Manager




CHAPTER I


I am a junior in the H.C.H.S., which stands for Hilton Classical High
School, and am sixteen years old. I live in a big brown house at number
240 Main Street, and my father is a state senator in Boston. I am a
member of the First Congregational Church, which I joined when I was
thirteen, and am captain of the basket-ball team at the high school. I
have travelled as far east as Revere Beach, as far west as the Hoosac
Tunnel, on my way to Aunt Ella's funeral in Adams, and as far south as
New London, Connecticut, where I watched my oldest brother Tom row in
a perfectly stunning eight-oared boat-race on the Thames. I haven't
been north at all. I have had six diseases, including scarlet fever and
typhoid, with which I almost died last year, and as a result of which
am now wearing my hair as short as a child with a Dutch-cut.

I am not pretty, nor a bit popular with the boys. I can't play the
piano, and I never went to dancing-school in my life. Most of my
clothes are as ugly as mud, for I haven't any mother; and my hair has
always been as straight as a stick. They say that the kink that has
appeared in it since the typhoid won't last but a little while, so it
isn't much comfort. In fact, the only real consolation that I have
is a secret conviction which I keep well concealed in the innermost
compartment of my heart. No one knows of its existence except myself,
and I wouldn't be the one to tell of it for anything in the world. It
is on account of it, however, that I am writing the experiences of my
early life. I often think how valuable it would have been if William
Shakespeare had told us about his school-days or Julius Caesar had
described his family and what they used to do when he was a boy of
fifteen. Of course I may not be a genius; but facts point that way.
I hate mathematics, my imagination is vivid, my life is difficult
and full of obstacles, and my handwriting illegible. My Themes are
generally read out loud in English, and my quarterly deportment mark
is frightfully low. Moreover, if I am not a genius I shall be awfully
disappointed. Why, I think I should rather be a genius than to go
to a College Prom. It makes everything so bearable, from a flunk in
geometry, to not being invited to Bessie Jaynes' birthday-party last
week.

My life has not been an easy one. Ever since I can remember I have been
the mother of five children--two of them older and three younger than
myself. They all call me Bobbie for short, but my real name is Lucy
Chenery Vars.

Our house is a big ugly brown affair which Father built when we were
all babies and the business was prosperous. The house has twenty rooms
in it, and on the top an octagon cupola, which I have fixed up with
a fish-net and some old tennis rackets, and call my study. I have a
plaster cast of a skull up here, and a "No Trespassing" sign which
Juliet Adams and I stole out of old Silas Morton's blueberry-pasture.
It looks exactly like a college man's room now and I intend to do all
my writing up here. It is a perfectly lovely place for inspirations!
From my eight little windows I can see all over New England, and at
night every star that shines. It is simply glorious up here in a
thunder-storm, and when I have the trap-door once closed behind me,
with all my cares and troubles shut safely away down below, I feel as
if I could fly with the birds. I ought to write something wonderful.

In the first place I had better state that I haven't anything
distinguishing about me except my experience. I am middling tall--five
feet five inches, to be precise; middling heavy--112 pounds; and am
one of six children--four boys and two girls--without the honour of
being either the oldest or youngest. With Father there are seven of us;
with Nellie and the cook (when we have one) and poor little Dixie, the
horse, there are ten.

Father is a big, quiet, solemn man and is sixty-eight years old. He
is president of the Vars & Company Woollen Mills, has perfectly white
hair, and wears grey and white seersucker coats in the summer. Tom is
the oldest and is in business out West. We're all awfully proud of
Tom. He was a perfect star in college, and is making money hand over
f