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The Wide Awake Girls Series

THE WIDE AWAKE GIRLS IN WINSTED

by

KATHARINE RUTH ELLIS

Author of "The Wide Awake Girls"

Illustrated from drawings by Sears Gallagher







[Illustration: "'Here is a little souvenir for you, Judge Arthur.'"
Frontispiece. See page 266.]



Boston
Little, Brown, and Company

Copyright, 1909,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved

Printers
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A.




To

GLADYS GODDARD

who has been the friend of many boys and girls
this book is affectionately inscribed.




PREFACE


The author wishes to acknowledge gratefully the kindness of Messrs.
Houghton, Mifflin and Company in allowing her to use the poem
_Vantage_, by Josephine Preston Peabody in this book. She also
thanks Miss Margaret Sherwood for consenting to a similar use of her
poem, _Indian Summer_.

Books for girls are frankly suggestive, their value lying in their
kindling power. Among the girls of all sorts who may read this story,
there will be, here and there, one who loves right words. It is for the
sake of such an occasional reader that the poems mentioned have been
included. The schools sometimes lead their pupils to believe that
English literature, like Latin, belongs to the past. But there are, here
and now, "musicians of the word" who, partly because they are living,
can touch our hearts as none of the dead-and-gone ones can. If through
these pages some girl finds her way to the little green volume of
_Singing Leaves_, or the sweet stories of _Daphne_ and _King
Sylvaine and Queen Aimee_, Catherine Smith and her friends will have
done the world of girls a service worth the doing.




CONTENTS

 CHAPTER                                              PAGE

       I.  CATHERINE'S INSPIRATION                       3
      II.  GETTING STARTED                              15
     III.  ORGANIZATION                                 28
      IV.  WITH PAIL AND BROOM                          46
       V.  A DAY OFF                                    58
      VI.  THE OPENING                                  71
     VII.  A PARTY AT POLLY'S                           86
    VIII.  A FORTUNATE MEETING                         101
      IX.  LANDING                                     109
       X.  THE MAKING OF A COMPACT                     120
      XI.  BROOKMEADOW                                 133
     XII.  ARRIVAL AT WINSTED                          151
    XIII.  CAUGHT IN A SHOWER                          164
     XIV.  AN INTERLUDE                                176
      XV.  SUNDAY SCHOOL                               186
     XVI.  ALICE ON THE WAY                            203
    XVII.  FINDING A VOCATION                          212
   XVIII.  DOCTOR'S ORDERS                             221
     XIX.  JOURNALISM                                  246
      XX.  THE THREE R's                               254
     XXI.  THE LAST PARTY                              271
    XXII.  AUF WIEDERSEHEN                             284




ILLUSTRATIONS

  "Here is a little souvenir for you, Judge Arthur"  Frontispiece

                                                             Page

  "We must find a good place for it"                           17
  "How much for your tickets?"                                 77
  "Sure I am not too heavy, Karl?"                            112
  Frieda was telling a story and the others were
  listening attentively                                       184




PART ONE

STARTING A LIBRARY




THE WIDE AWAKE GIRLS IN WINSTED




CHAPTER ONE

CATHERINE'S INSPIRATION


"Alma Mater, Dexter darling, do re mi--O dear! It's much harder to write
than I supposed. I wonder why! When your heart is full of love, why
should it be hard to express it?"

Catherine Smith, sitting on the top step of the porch of her home, Three
Gables, bent her red-gold head over the pad of paper on her knee and
wrote painfully, her forehead puckered earnestly. She had been a year at
college and was just beginning her summer vacation. All through the busy
year, full of delightful new experiences, she had looked forward to the
leisure of summer, in which she might adequately declare her devotion to
the college which had been her mother's and was now her own. From the
day, the June before, when she had gone there to visit her friend,
Hannah Eldred, she had felt a keen sense of "belonging," especially
pleasant because her frail health had compelled her to lead a somewhat
secluded life at home, and she had not felt really acquainted with the
young people in the little town of Winsted, where she had always lived.

Now all that was changing. At college she had been forced to conquer her
shyness, and, to her delight, she soon found that the boys and girls at
home were more than glad to receive her into their circle upon equal
terms. Her physician parents were everybody's friends, and Catherine,
who adored her father and mother, was eager to show herself worthy to be
their daughter. In order to do so, she reasoned, she must be of real
service to the town and to her college. The only way she had thought of
so far was to write an Alma Mater song, expressive not only of the
rapturous loyalty of undergraduates, but of the graver love of alumnae
like her mother.

"It is very hard," she sighed. "It must be stately and yet not heavy. O
me! And here comes Algernon."

With a resigned air she folded her scribbled papers and thrust her
pencil into the coil of red braids encircling her head. Algernon
Swinburne, ever since his foolish mother had christened him for the
poet, had, by turns, amused and wearied his fellow-citizens. While
Catherine had lived apart, she had been spared his lengthy visits, but
with the pleasures of social life had come its penalties and she was now
on Algernon's list and obliged to spend frequent hours in his really
trying society. He came up the long walk now with a curious springing
gait, and Catherine tried to summon a hospitable smile to her lips.

Algernon refused a chair. He always appeared to be just going, "and
yet," as Polly Osgood said with a groan, "he almost never goes!" He
perched uncomfortably upon the railing and opened fire at once.

"Have you seen the last _North American Review_?"

Catherine confessed that she had not.

"There was a corking article in it on municipal corruption, comparing
San Francisco, New York and Pittsburg as to graft, police efficiency and
so on. They say Pittsburg spends two million dollars a year--"

"My upper legs is going barefoot."

Catherine lifted her eyes with a flash of pleasure. Elsmere Swinburne
was the occasional relief from his big brother's monotony. Catherine
loved little folk, and though Elsmere was known to be a rascal who would
have tried the patience of Job, she somehow always found forgiveness for
his enormities, and a delighted appreciation for his funny sayings. Just
now he stood proudly before her, his hands in his pockets, his eyes
fixed upon his fashionably clad little legs, with bruised brown knees
showing above new half-hose.

"My mamma buyed 'em for me. Her buys me everything."

Catherine smiled, but shook her head a little. Mrs. Swinburne was a
source of grief to all her neighbors, because of her persistent refusal
to allow Algernon the chance at college that he desired, and even more
because of her unwise indulgence of her younger son's lightest wishes.

Algernon cleared his throat and took up the thread of his narrative.
"Pittsburg, this fellow Chapman in the _Review_ says, spends two
million dollars a year on--"

"Talking, talking, all the time Algy talking," Elsmere broke in.
"_I_ want to talk. Tell Caffrin 'bout my cat-pussy. Her awful sick.
Her--"

Catherine sprang up. Elsmere's conversation often needed to be
suppressed.

"Let's play tennis. Algernon, will you get the balls and rackets? You
know where they are,--just inside the hall there. And Elsmere may run
after balls for us. He can, so nicely!"

Algernon obeyed the unexpected request patiently, and when he was gone,
Catherine averted her face for the space of a minute. What she had hoped
for came to pass, and when Algernon returned, his small brother had
quietly vanished. "The older one may be monotonous, but the younger one
is positively dangerous," Catherine thought to herself, as she took the
balls from Algernon, saying:

"Let's not play, after all. It's so very warm and Elsmere thought he
didn't want to run after balls. You don't mind, do you?"

"Why, no, I wasn't keen about playing," and Algernon, unconscious of the
maneuver he had helped to execute, dropped back upon the railing and
continued his _resume_ of the _North American_ article.

Catherine, meanwhile, having slipped the balls one by one into the
pocket of her steamer chair, rested her long white hands upon the chair
arms and sat quietly, hearing nothing of Mr. Chapman's statistics, her
brown eyes dreamily fixed upon the sloping lawn, but seeing instead the
Dexter campus, across which girls were moving, as she loved best to see
them, in pretty light gowns on the way to evening chapel. Among them all
her thought rested most lovingly upon a little girl with a plain face
and big round glasses. "You dear old Alice!" she murmured, almost aloud,
and roused herself guiltily to hear Algernon saying:

"There are a lot of wide-awake men in Pittsburg."

"Wide-awake girls in Winsted!"

This time Catherine really did speak aloud, and Algernon looked up in
surprised inquiry.

"I beg your pardon," she said contritely. "It was very rude of me, but
you set me off, yourself. The Wide Awake Girls are really going to be in
Winsted this summer. Don't you know about them?" as Algernon still
looked puzzled.

"Why, no. All the Winsted girls seem wide-awake enough, I should say."

"But I'm the only one who has a right to be called so in capital
letters. I'll tell you all about it, but it has been such an important
part of my life for the last year and more, that I forget every one who
knows me doesn't know about it all.

"You see, about two years ago, when I was fifteen and Hannah Eldred, who
lives in Massachusetts, was not quite fourteen, she wrote a letter to
_Wide-Awake_, the magazine, you know, asking for correspondents.
And I answered it. Several other girls did, too. One was Alice Prescott,
who lives out in Washington, and another was Frieda Lange, of Berlin,
whose mother had known Mrs. Eldred in Germany years ago. Hannah kept on
writing to the three of us, and before the end of the year she had met
us all and really lived with each of us in turn. It doesn't sound
probable, but it came about naturally enough. The Eldreds went to Berlin
for a few months and boarded at the Langes'. Then Mrs. Eldred's mother
was taken ill, and they had to come back to this country. The
grandmother lived over here at Delmar, and Father was called in
consultation and brought Hannah back to stay with me a little while; and
then, as her mother couldn't leave, they sent Hannah to Dexter, to the
preparatory department, and there she found Alice, whom she had lost
sight of for a long time. Then when I went to Dexter, I learned to know
Alice, and this year Frieda Lange is coming to America to school and she
is going to Dexter, too. Hannah is coming out for a few weeks' visit
here before college opens, and I'm going to try to get Alice at the same
time, for we've never all four been together. I am so eager about it
that I can't keep my mind on anything else very long, so that's why I
said 'Wide Awake Girls in Winsted' aloud. Isn't it an interesting
story?"

"Coincidences are always interesting," said Algernon. "And I think a
great many things that go by the name of telepathy are nothing more. I'm
keeping a record of peculiar coincidences that come under my notice.
I'll put these down, about the two happening to go to the same college,
and about the German and American girls finding their mothers were
acquainted." He produced a note-book to make an entry.

"You can't include the last one," Catherine protested. "It was because
Mrs. Lange recognized Hannah from the letter that Frieda wrote. But the
meeting between Alice and Hannah was mere chance."

Algernon closed his note-book and went placidly on as if Catherine's
story had not interrupted him:

"As I was saying, those men in Pittsburg--"

The telephone bell rang and Catherine went into the house to answer it.

"I'll have to be excused, Algernon," she said, coming back a minute
later. "Father wants something of me. You can tell me the rest another
time."

Then, as Algernon slowly got off the porch, she added impulsively:

"I marvel just to see you walk, Algernon. You know so very much! You
seem to me to be a veritable walking library."

Algernon twisted his body uncomfortably and flushed.

"I'd be more use to Winsted if I were a real one," he said, with a
wistful sound in his voice that made Catherine look at him sharply. She
waved him a smiling good-by as he went down the walk, and then turned to
her father's desk to look up some papers he wanted. Her mind, however,
still dwelt on that unexpected shade in Algernon's tone.

"I've thought of him as a mere talking machine instead of a human
being," she said to herself reproachfully. "I must make a salmon scallop
for Father's supper. Inga doesn't know how to do anything but scramble
eggs and boil potatoes, and Father's tired, I know by his voice. It
sounded tired, but Algernon's was lonely. I wonder--"

Dr. Harlow Smith and his wife, Dr. Helen, drove up to their pretty
gabled house on the hill <DW72> a few minutes later, their faces lighting
with pleasure as the tall girl in a blue apron came out to meet them.
The stable-boy came to take the horse, and Catherine escorted her
parents to the house. While they made themselves ready for supper, she
put the last orderly touches to the table in the panelled dining-room,
and was ready for them with kisses when they arrived.

The silent grace over, Catherine spoke:

"Eat and be filled, dearly beloved, because I have a new project and I
need you to be enthusiastic."

"What is it this time?" asked Dr. Harlow, serving the golden scallop
generously. "You have shown diplomacy in your choice of a dish, if I am
the one you wish to wheedle."

Dr. Helen, pouring yellow cream from a fat silver jug into thin
hexagonal cups, sent an interested glance across the table at her
daughter.

"Tell us," she said.

"It's quite new," said Catherine, hesitating a little. "In fact it's not
a half-hour old, but I do believe it is a good plan. You know Algernon
Swinburne?"

"We have met him," agreed Dr. Harlow cautiously.

"So had I!" said Catherine with sudden spirit, "and this afternoon it
came to me that I didn't know him at all. All any of us ever do to
Algernon is to avoid him,--those of us who don't laugh at him. And he's
lonely, Father! Lonely!"

"Did he tell you so?"

"No. But I suddenly knew. I've seen homesick girls at college,
and--and--well, there was a little while, just a little while, when I
was getting strong enough to do things, and before Hannah came to visit,
that I felt that way myself, so I know."

Dr. Helen's look was like a pressure of the hand, and she answered
gently:

"I think you are very likely right, Catherine. And this plan of yours is
to make Algernon less lonely?"

"Do you think he knows he's lonely?" asked Dr. Harlow. "I've thought the
boy had good stuff in him, and if he should ever wake up to the fact
that he's a bore, he might amount to something worth while. You don't
think he has, do you?"

"Not exactly," Catherine confessed, remembering the note-book's
appearance at the end of her little story. "But I think he has an
inkling that he might be of more use. I told him he was a walking
library. He does know such an amazing amount, you know! And he said
Winsted would be better off if it had a real library instead of his
kind; and then it flashed into my mind how he would love living among
books, and how fine it would be for the town if all that knowledge of
his could be used--"

"Like wasted water power?" suggested her father.

"Yes. That's just it. He has read more than any one in this town, except
you, Father dear, and you are very old-fashioned in your reading. You
never heard of some of the modern books that Algernon knows all about.
Why couldn't we start a library and have Algernon run it? It would make
people appreciate him."

"It would keep him occupied at certain hours, and assure you