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- thought,
- ets already.
‘ to give. this. to.”
_ then and she put the tickets back on the
Copyright, 1997, by David C.
Cook Publishing Company.
ER a Se
ey) e
CD
Vou. ‘VI. No, 43. 4 Fosursuep
DAVID C. COOK PUBLISHING CO., Exern,
ILLINOIS, AND 36 WaAsuINcToN Sr.,
CuIcago.
October 26, 1907.
be lonesome?
now while mamma is gone.” Ilarriet Wil-
son locked the suit-case that she had just
‘ finished packing, and turned to look re-
flectively at her younger sister.
Fern laughed at her serious face. “ You
“don’t need to worry about me,” she de-
“T shall be all right. Mamma is
coming home Thursday, and I surely ought
to be able to keep house for papa for two
days!”
“Yes, I suppose you are; and as long
as Aunt Ilarriet’s letter said expressly for
me to come to-day, I suppose I had better
go.” Harriet opened the suit-case to put
in a roll of music. ‘ Aunt Harriet always
wants me to sing for her, so I am going
to take some music along this time; I didn’t
have a thing with me the last time I was
there.”
“Oh, you.won’t be here for the concert
to- night? Fern suddenly exclaimed. “ And
you have your ticket, too! They say the
soloist is
Ilarriet velocked the suit-case. “ Oh, yes,
-I had forgotten about that ticket. You can
give it to someone else.’
Two hours after that Harriet was gone,
-her father had been home to eat his lunch
and had gone back to his work, and Fern
was alone. The house seemed dreadfully
quiet; she wandered from room to room,
finding it hard to settle down to anything.
She picked up the concert tickets and won-
dered what.she should do with the extra
one. “It seems a shame to waste it,” she
“but the girls all have their tick-
I really don’t know. of anyone
The doorbell rang just
shelf and went to answer it.
Miss Deane, a quaint little old-fashioned
lady who lived a couple of doors down the
street, stood on the steps. Fern was sur-
prised to see her, for it was very seldom
that she went anywhere,
“Somehow I felt kind of lonesome this
afternoon, and I thought maybe you would
be Ionesome too. I knew your mother was
away and I saw Harriet go this morning,
so I thought I’d come over and sit a little
‘while,’ she explained, when Tern had
ushered her into the sitting-room and seated
her in the most comfortable chair by the
window.
“TI brought. over pieces enough for two
blocks,” she went on, opening her work-
bag and taking out a handful of tiny bits
of ealico. “ This quilt will be done then;
it’s the tenth one I’ve made of this pattern,
and there are sixty-four pieces in each
block and it takes fifty-six blocks to make
a quilt. I have pieced seventy-three quilts
in. all.”
“Seventy-three quilts!” Fern drew a
long breath. “ Why, I never would have
patience to finish one, to say nothing of sev-
enty-three! Don’t you ever get tired of it?”
she asked wonderingly, a vision of innumer-
able bits of calico rising before her mind
with appalling vividness.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Miss Deane said
slowly, as she tried the effect of fitting a
bit of blue calico to a bit of pink; “I’ve
got-in the habit of it I suppose.’ There
were twenty years when mother wasn’t
well,. Of course I was home all the time
then, and piecing quilts kind of passed the|
ce J OW, Fern, are you sure you won't | time
I don’t feel as if} at it together.
I ought to go away and leave you! have kept at it just the same.
away for her; we used to work
And since mother died I
I wouldn’t
know what to do without my patchwork
now; it kind of keeps me from getting lone-
some.”
“But I shouldn’t think you could ever
use so many,” Fern said.
Miss Deane smiled. “ Oh, I never used
but a few of them,” she said. “I gave-one
to my Cousin Sarah, and one to my Aunt
Martha, then once I sold three—I
got three dollars apiece for them, All
the others I packed away upstairs.
small west room is almost full of them.”
Fern had no answer to make to this;
she could only watch Miss Deane’s needle
with fascinated eyes as it crept in and out
through the scraps with a slow, methodical
movement that left a row of fine, even
prim stitches behind it, while all the time
there kept running through her mind: dis-
tractingly, “Sixty-four times fifty-six
times seventy-three. It must be as much
as a quarter of a million anyway,” she reck-
oned, with a little shiver at the thought.
wonder if you would play. a piece
for me on your piano,” Miss Deane asked
presently. “Id love to hear you. When
I was a girl I used to think that I would
have an organ some day; but I never got
it. There wasn’t many of them then, but
one of our neighbors had one; they sent
to the city and brought it.. I used to go
over sometimes to hear them play on it,
and I learned to play ‘Ilome, Sweet
Home’ myself.” The faded eyes lighted
with a little of the pleasure of that far-off
achievement.
Fern smiled a little at first, but one look
her fingers wandered over the keys she
found herself watching the patient, wistful
face by the window. Miss Deane had
dropped the patchwork into her lap, though
her hand still held the needle, Over her
thin features there stole a rapt expression.
Suddenly Fern thought of that extra
ticket. “IH give it to Miss Deane,” she
decided. ‘And I'll call for her and take
her with me, for she is so timid I don’t be-
lieve she would dare go alone.” For Fern
to think was to act; she whirled around on
the piano stool. ‘‘ Oh, Miss Deane, I want
you to do something for me,” she said im-
pulsively. “You know mamma _ and
Harriet are both gone, so I want you to go
to the concert with me to-night. I have
two tickets, because Ilarriet couldn’t use
hers, you see; and I'll call for you at a
quarter to eight. You'll go, won’t you?”
““Me!- Do you really want me, deary?”
The tone was incredulous, but the plain,
thin face was transformed by a joy greater
than even the thought of having a chance
to bear music could bring. Fern wanted
her! Not since the invalid mother died,
years ago, had anyone really wanted Miss
Jeane. People had always, been kind to
her, but it was different to be wanted. “ Of
course [’ll go, deary, if you want me. I'll
love to. T’ll go right home now and see if
I can freshen up my bonnet a bit. Good-by,
deary. I'll be ready when you come.” The
biucrve#ed hands trembied a little as-she
gathered up the scattered bits of calico and
crammed them into her black bag, probably
for the first time in her life putting them
away in any but a precise and methodical
manner. Even her bonnet went on just
the least trifle awry in her haste.
Miss Deane had not been gone long when
“the girls” came trooping in. “Oh, we
can’t’ stay; don’t bother about chairs,”
Gladys Mayne declared... “* We just came
to tell you that we are going to meet at
Pearl’s at seven o’clock, and all go to the
concert together. Be sure and be there.
Pearl has been making chocolate creams.”’
“ME! DO YOU REALLY WANT ME, DEaRY?”
at the gentle face bent once again over the
patchwork, took away all her desire to laugh.
What a drab-colored life it must have been,
when the learning to play ‘Ifome, Sweet
Ilome’ on an organ was a pleasure to be
remembered. all, these years! .. She crossed
| over to the piano and began’ to play. As
. “Of course I'll be there; you never knew
me to fail to be on hand when—“ Just
then Fern remembered Miss Deane. “ Oh,
T can’t go!” she exclaimed, a good deal of
disappointment in her tone. “ I asked Miss
Deane to go with me.” ¢ .
There was a chorus of surprise.
“we'll have to hurry!
».!to have“ them,
Fern’s sympathy had gone out «
Fern’s cheeks flushed. She was the
youngest of the girls and was in the habit
of following where they led, and was quite
apt to look at things through their ey
Now she had a mental picture of herself
going into the hall with Miss Deane wear-
queer shaped bonnet, and that picture sud-
denly looked very grotesque. ‘ Why, I had
Ilarriet’s ticket, you know, and I didn’t
want to waste it, and there didn’t seem to be
anybody to give it to. Miss Deane was
over here this afternoon, and I happened to
think perhaps she: would enjoy it, so I
asked her to £0,” she explained.
“That was nice of you; no doubt it
will be a treat to her,” Gladys assented, a
little patronizingly. “‘ But you don’t need
to go with her. Just stop in and leave the
ticket for her when you start down to
Pearl’s, and explain to her that you are
going with us girls.’
Fern looked doubtful.
I don’t believe she would dare go alone,
she objected.
“Til tell you what we can do,” Kather-
ine Bell interrupted. “I’l] have mamma
and Louise stop for her; they go right by
there, you know, and they can stop as well
“She is so timid;
”
“Gladys nodded approval. “ There, that
fixes it all right,” she declared. “ You can
stop and tell her on your way. Come, girls,
Now, remember, we'll
expect you, Iern. ‘You know Mabel goes
away to-morrow and this is our last chance
o be all together. ”
The girls flocked out and Fern was left
alone again. She hummed a merry little
tune as she flew about getting supper for
her father. Fern was devoted to “the
girls”’ and could never bear to miss a
chance of being with them
Suddenly in the midst of cutting the
bread she paused, the bread knife in her
hand poised in the air. She had just re-
membered Miss Deane’s face when she had
asked the little woman to go with her, and
the delight that shone through it reproached
her. She remembered too that she herself,
never felt quite at ease with the elegant
Mrs. Bell, and her still more elegant daugh-
ter Louise, and she felt sure that timid
little Miss Deane would be decidedly un-
comfortable in their company. The bread
knife still hung suspended in_ indecision.
Suddenly it clattered down on the kitchen
table,
Pearl and explained to her that she could
not meet with the girls.
“Bring Miss Deane with you,”
answered back promptly.
Fern hesitated a moment, then said slow-
ly, “Oh, I don’t believe I better, I am
afraid she would feel out of place among all
the girls.”
“s Oh, she wouldn’t; we won't let her;
we'll make her think she is a girl, too! Say,
Fern, do you suppose Miss Deane ever was
a girl? I don’t; I can’t imagine her ever
being young, and, really, I’d like to give
her one little taste of what being a girl
is like. I would truly! Do ‘bring her,
Fern, T’ll tell you, I'll send a note down by
Johnnie asking her to come, -I’m really get-
ting quite enthusiastic over it! You tell
her I won’t take no for an answer,” Pearl
rattled on.
“Well,
fully.
She was a little troubled when she went
to call for Miss Deane. “
wit be nice to her,” she told herself, “ for
they. are all too true ladies to hurt her feel-
ings, but I am a little afraid they will take
her as a joke, and someway I can’t bear
They musto’t! © 1. won’t
Pearl
I'll see,” Fern answered doubt-
have it!”
Fern ran to the telephone, called up_
I know the girls ©
1 Speco eke SO RS
