“DADDY, please fasten me up,” said Barbara.

The doctor thrust two large hands inside of her gown, in the man’s way, using them as fulcrums over which to pull the fragile fabric with all the force of two strong thumbs. “Pretty snug, isn’t it?” he said. “Where are you going in your Sunday best?—mill or meeting?”

Barbara shook out the folds of her violet gown. “Meeting,” she responded. “The Woman’s Club has asked me to give them a paper to-day.”

“The Woman’s Club! What has become of the A. L. L. A.?”

“The Auburn Ladies’ Literary Association is still in existence, unfortunately. But it isn’t going to be long.”

“Why not?” asked her father.

“It’s going to have its name changed, if I have any influence with its members,” said Barbara. “Isn’t it absurd for it to go on calling itself ‘Ladies’ Literary Association,’ just because it has been used to the title for thirty years, when every other women’s organization in the country is ‘Woman’s Club’? And ‘Literary’! Did you ever hear of anything so pretentious! Nobody is literary nowadays, but Tolstoi and Maeterlinck. Besides, the name debars the members from philanthropic and civic work, which are the moving factors in all club life. I shall certainly make an effort to have the other members change the name, this very day.”

“You’d better keep your hands off,” laughed the doctor. “The A. L. L. A. is Auburn’s Holy of Holies. What are you going to ‘stand and deliver’ before it?”

“One of my college papers. I haven’t had time to write anything new since the Duchess left. It’s on the ‘Psychology of the Child in Relation to Club Work.’ I had to piece on half the title to make it appropriate.”

The suspicion of a twinkle lurked about the doctor’s eyes. “Well, good luck to you,” he said; “the Literary Association may not approve of your paper, but it can’t find fault with your dress.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jack. “That garb is like all the rest of Barbara,—it’s too irritatingly new to pass unscathed in Auburn. Is that churn effect the Umpire Style, Barb?”

“It can’t rouse any more criticism than it has already had,” said his sister. “I shan’t care what they say about the gown, if they only hear my message.”

With subdued swish of black silk skirts, and a decorous silencing of whispers, the Auburn Ladies’ Literary Association came to order. Barbara, with veiled amusement, looked about the familiar “parlors” of the Presbyterian church. The standard and banner, with the legend “Honor Class,” had been moved into a corner, the melodeon, stripped of its green cover, stood in walnut nakedness on the platform, and a sprawling bunch of carnations and a gavel ornamented the superintendent’s desk. The map of Palestine, done in colored chalk, had been partially erased from the blackboard at the head of the room, and beneath it was written the following

Program

“It’s to be hoped that Abbie’s and Angie’s are not so long as mine,” thought Barbara, irreverently, “or there’ll be no one to put the Grafton mackerel to soak to-night; to say nothing of all the winds and waves that must be passed through before they come to me.”

It was the “wind and wave” part of the program that appealed to the audience. The papers were accorded polite attention, as befitted Auburn manners, but the musical numbers and readings were followed by the subdued hum that is an expression of club delight. For Barbara, the entire entertainment of the day was not furnished by the program. Between the swaying fans she caught glimpses of Mrs. Enderby’s placid face, relaxed in sleep; from the church kitchen came the rattle of paper napkins and the clink of Miss Pettibone’s tray, and from the rear of the room sounded, at intervals, the cough of Mrs. Crampton, a genteel warning to speakers that their voices did not “carry.”

“Was there ever a human being more frightfully out of her element than I am here!” thought Barbara. “If the House-Plant could only see Mrs. Enderby! But she’s no more asleep than all the rest of them. What am I going to do to wake them up!”

This thought was uppermost in her mind as the afternoon was tinkled and applauded away. It was more than ever prominent as the precise, ladylike voice of Mrs. Bankson was raised a half-tone higher in her closing paragraph:—

“But, however, after all is said and done, it is the literary atmosphere that makes our club what it is. The dearly-loved paths that we have followed for many years have led us to lofty summits and ever-widening vistas, but never away from our original goal. The Ever-Womanly has always been our aim, and, while less substantial ambitions have fluttered by on airy wing, and the thunder of the new woman has rolled even upon our peaceful horizon, we have never faltered in our footsteps.

“On, on we go in our devotion to literature. And, as one of the most notable of our lady poets has so aptly expressed it,—

A ladylike patter of applause, and a more active flutter of fans, greeted the end of the speech. The back door creaked violently, and Miss Pettibone’s round face appeared in the opening to see if time for refreshment had come. It disappeared suddenly as Miss Coleman mounted the platform to impersonate, first a bloody Macbeth, and then a swaying field daisy. And, finally, Barbara Prentice Grafton and the Empire gown faced the Literary Association.

Later, when she recalled the afternoon, Barbara was surprised to remember how little of her original paper she had used. The triviality of the program had supplied her with text enough, and the “Psychology of the Child” was partially diverted into a sermon upon the aimlessness of a purely literary club. In her earnestness she was carried beyond caution.

“I call you to new things,” rang out her resolute voice, in conclusion. “Literary effort in club life is outworn. You can read your Homer alone, but it takes concentrated, combined interest to accomplish the vital things of living. You have read too long. It is philanthropy we need in Auburn,—civic improvement, educational effort that shall be for the masses rather than our selfish selves. I call you to this. I ask you to work with me for the good of our town and our people.”

The effect of Barbara’s personal magnetism was never more strongly evidenced than by the genuine applause that greeted her effort. The Literary Association might disapprove her theories and her violet gown, but her sincerity was inspiring. The Auburn mothers caught the contagion in her voice, and were interested, if not convinced.

There was a momentary pause as the applause subsided. Then Barbara said earnestly: “I’m afraid I may have been too abstract in my statements. But I have very definite ideas of what might be done in Auburn that would be most beneficial to our children and ourselves. The crÊche that I spoke of is one of them. If any of you care to ask any questions, I shall be glad to answer them. If I can,” she added more modestly.

Mrs. Enderby, who had been aroused from her nap just in time to hear Barbara’s ringing close, rose to the occasion. To her a question was a question. “Miss Barbara,” she inquired, an interested expression on her rested face, “do you believe in children going barefoot this hot weather?”

Barbara looked surprised. “W-why, n-no,” she said.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Enderby, conversationally, “I was wondering.”

There was another pause. Then Mrs. Bellows rose in her place. “Did I understand you to say Kreysh?”

“Yes,” said Barbara. “A day-nursery would be the first form of philanthropy I should advise for Auburn.”

“What need, if I may ask,” inquired Mrs. Bellows, impressively, “has Auburn for a day-nursery?”

Barbara explained the relief to the mother and the good to the child.

“It seems to me,” remarked Mrs. Bellows, “that a Kretch is about as necessary here as two tails to a cat. If there’s a death or sickness in the family, I send the children over to Lib’s. Otherwise, I’d rather have them at home. They gad enough as it is.”

“Do you mean that the mothers are to take turns in taking care of all the children in town?” asked Mrs. Penfold.

“My goodness!” murmured Mrs. Enderby.

“It saves the children from the moving-picture shows and the cheap theatres that are among the most pernicious of evil influences,” said Barbara. “It keeps them off the street and out of bad company”—

“Not if she lets that Charles attend,” whispered Mrs. Bellows to the woman in the next chair. “I’ve forbidden Sydney to play with him.”

“And gives the mothers a vacation. Instead of the care of their little ones every day, they have charge of them possibly two afternoons a summer.”

“I’d hate to trust my boys to Bertha Enderby,” whispered Mrs. Bellows again.

In the discussion that followed, Barbara offered her most convincing inducement. “I’m not a mother,” she said, “but I am willing to do my part toward furthering the work. If I can have coÖperation in the establishment of the nursery, I’ll give my time, in turn, to it. And I think—I’m not certain about it, but I think I may be able to furnish the room for the purpose.”

The novelty of the idea carried the day with the younger members of the club, and when Barbara took her place again, the seed of the enterprise had been planted. But her second mission to the Association met with less favorable result. The suggestion for the change of name met with decided opposition.

“It doesn’t seem ladylike to call it Woman’s Club,” objected Mrs. Angie Bankson.

“The name has been good enough for us for thirty years,” said Mrs. Bellows, with acerbity.

“A. L. L. A. makes such a good monogram,” sighed Miss Lillie Beckett, who designed the programs for the club on state occasions.

Mrs. Enderby’s sleep had filled her with good-will toward the world, and she amiably proposed a compromise. “Why not keep our old initials,” she said, “and take another name, each word beginning with the same letter as the old one?”

“What, for instance?” demanded Mrs. Bellows. “Do you happen to think of any?”

The sarcasm of the speech was lost on Mrs. Enderby.

“Well, Auburn for the first word,” she suggested mildly.

But when put to vote, the motion was lost. The Auburn Ladies’ Literary Association triumphed, and the “Woman’s Club” died before it was born.

“That snip of a Barbara Grafton!” said Mrs. Bellows to her neighbor, as the pink sherbet and the paper napkins went around. “The idea of her being invited to address us, and then giving that fool advice to women that knew her when she should have been spanked! I’d never send a child of mine to college, if I had all the money in the world. Normal school can do enough harm. I didn’t know she could be such a fool! Kretch!”

Susan leaned over from the next chair. “Barbara isn’t a fool, Mrs. Bellows,” she said warmly; “she’s the cleverest girl I ever knew.”

“In books, maybe,” sniffed Mrs. Bellows.

“No, in everything,” said Susan. “It is in books that she’s had the most training, but she is just as clever in other things. She’s had an awful time this summer with sickness, and poor help, and housework, and no experience in any of them. Any one else would have been discouraged long ago. But she has stuck it out, and been big and brave and cheerful about it, to give her mother a chance to get well. I can’t let any one say anything against Barbara.”

The two women looked their surprise at the warm defense from quiet Susan.

“It’s her theories I object to, not her,” said Mrs. Bellows.

“She won’t keep them all,” said Susan. “She’ll always be loyal to her own convictions, just as she is now; but she’ll find out later that some of them are not so worth while as she is herself. Then she’ll sift them out.”

“I wish she’d hurry up with her sifting, then,” said Mrs. Bellows.

Barbara, in the meantime, had not waited for her sherbet but had hurried home to prepare the meal. In the evening she laid the matter of the nursery before her father, and was surprised to be met with some of the same objections that had been advanced at the woman’s club.

“But mayn’t I try?” she pleaded finally.

“I see your heart is set on it,” said the doctor. “I’m not going to refuse you the carriage-house for the use of your children, though I do think you won’t need it more than once. Auburn has no real poor, you know. Only, Barbara, don’t take any more upon yourself this hot weather! The Kid is a whole day-nursery, himself.”

It took all Barbara’s leisure time from Monday until Thursday, which was the appointed day for the opening, to get the deserted, dusty carriage-house in order; to coax sulky Sam, the stable-boy, to move the accumulation of broken-down sleighs and phaetons into a corner; to hire two women to sweep, scrub, and dust floors, windows, and walls, in order to make the carriage-house fit for an afternoon’s habitation by the many clean, starched children whom she hoped to see. But it was worth it,—oh, yes, it was worth it!—and Barbara’s heart glowed with enthusiasm at the idea of driving the entering wedge of civic improvement into the flinty heart of staid Auburn.

Meanwhile the house suffered. Dr. Grafton was called away at meal-times with conspicuous frequency. Gassy, David, and the Kid did not object greatly, for their imaginations were fired by the elaborate preparations for the “party,” which the Kid firmly believed to be held in honor of his birthday, three months past. But Jack protested bitterly.

“Another ‘walk-around’!” he ejaculated, coming in at six o’clock Wednesday evening, and gazing blankly at the bare dining-room. “Say, Barb, a fellow that’s been canoeing all afternoon has an appetite that reaches from Dan to Beersheba. I don’t want to make you mad, but I feel mighty like Mother Hubbard’s dog.”

Barbara looked up nervously. “Now, Jack, what difference does it make to you whether you sit at table with the others and use up hundreds of dishes, or eat in the kitchen and save my time? The bread is in the pantry with butter and raspberries, and there is some cold meat in the ice-box. Cut all you want. Besides, I have sent Charles over to Miss Pettibone’s for a blueberry pie.”

Jack looked unwontedly cross. “Sometimes I think you are the camel that edged himself into the tent and crowded out his master,” he said. “These walk-arounds on Sunday nights were pleasant enough at first with everything piled on the kitchen table, so that we walked around with a sandwich in each hand; but it comes so often now that it seems as if ‘every day’ll be Sunday by and by.’”

Barbara’s reply was checked by the sudden appearance of the Kid, bearing a disk in both hands. The paper covering was torn and spotted with blue patches, and a broad stain extended the full length of his blouse. He put his burden carefully on the table, and turned apologetically to Barbara.

“I may have dropped that pie; I don’t remember,” he said.

“N. P., no pie for me!” declared Jack. “Au revoir, Miss Grafton. Peter asked me over to supper, and there’s still time to overtake him.”

Away went Jack, lustily chanting “The Roast Beef of Old England.” Barbara fed the Kid to the brim, feeling somewhat guilty when she met his clear young eyes full of affectionate trust in his big sister. It was too bad to offer up the family on the altar of philanthropy. The Infant’s cruel prediction as to a Jellyby future came back to her, but the ends justified the means in this case.

The next morning was so clear, warm, and bright, that Barbara’s spirits rose to fever heat. This was the day of her opportunity to loosen the bondage of Auburn mothers, and to take the first step toward raising them to higher standards of ease and culture. Her face beamed as she sped downstairs to do the daily tasks which awaited her. Breakfast was ready long before any one appeared to partake of it; dishes were washed in haste, beds made in a trice,—just this once!—and dusting passed over entirely.

All Barbara’s morning was spent in planning games, in decorating the carriage-house with flags, in going to Miss Pettibone’s for the dozens of cookies which she had ordered, and in finding cool space in the refrigerator for twelve bottles of milk. The children were to come at two; and at half-past one Barbara sat on the porch, dressed in a simple white gown, waiting for the first arrival and for her assistant, Mrs. Enderby.

At five minutes after two, there were no children. At ten minutes past, still no children. At fifteen minutes after two, Mrs. Enderby’s fat, placid self waddled up to the doctor’s gate.

“My children are coming along,” she said. “It’s awful warm. I’ve brought a palm-leaf fan. I can fan the children, if you want me to. Any come yet?”

“No, not yet,” replied Barbara. She had been awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Enderby with that desire for moral support which a new undertaking always brings upon its authors. Mrs. Enderby, as the mother of six children, might well be expected to furnish any amount of support derived from experience; but somehow, as Barbara looked at her, she felt that she had made a great mistake. A cushion cannot serve as a propelling-board; and poor Mrs. Enderby looked very cushiony.

She sat rocking slowly and evenly on the porch. “If no one comes by three o’clock,” she said, “I think I’ll leave and go over to Main Street to see the new moving pictures. I forgot about them when I promised to help.”

“Oh, I am sure some children will come,” Barbara replied hastily. “It is such a fine chance for the mothers to rest.”

At quarter of three, it seemed to the confused girl that all Auburn was invading her lawn in a body. Streams of small children, dragged along by elder brothers, sisters, nurses, and mothers, descended upon the house like a flood. The air resounded with the shrieks of suddenly deserted youngsters, with the threats and warnings of their departing guardians, with the consolations of Barbara, Mrs. Enderby, and Gassy herself. Just as suddenly as they had come, all the natural protectors left, with singular unanimity, Barbara thought. It was not at all as she had planned. There had been no grateful approach of a mother at a time to meet the white-robed, calm hostess; no pleasant chat, no graceful reassurance of a child’s safety. But an enormous wave had broken upon the Grafton house and as quickly retreated, leaving thirty-nine pebbles of assorted sizes on the shore. Thirty-nine! Barbara gasped.

Her first step was to sweep the children to the carriage-house in a body. Mrs. Enderby led the procession, waddling along like a very fat hen, with innumerable little chickens running after. Barbara brought up the rear, anxiously counting thirty-nine over and over to herself. Loyal little Gassy kept her eyes upon the children as if she had been transformed into a faithful watch-dog. And the Kid himself seemed to exercise a remarkable amount of oversight; he was waiting for the presents which were, of course, the object of a birthday party.

Barbara’s whole subsequent recollection of the afternoon lay in a picture,—the one which greeted her as she stepped into the carriage-house, gently pushing the last of the flock before her. The large room seemed to her bewildered eyes fairly decorated with children. Every broken-down buggy and sleigh was filled with more than its quota, and prancing steeds were tugging at the ancient shafts in vain. In a corner of the room, ten boys were fighting for possession of a dilapidated harness. Shrieks of delight were rising from the hay-mow above her head, and thin little legs were running up and down the upright ladder with spider-like agility.

Barbara gasped. “Mrs. Enderby!” she exclaimed. “How shall we ever get them together again!”

Mrs. Enderby did not answer. She stood in the middle of the room with her fan idle in her hand and her head turned backward as far as it would go. Involuntarily following her gaze, Barbara looked up and saw a sight which haunted her in dreams forever after.

Fifteen feet above the floor, a long, narrow beam extended horizontally from one edge of the hay-mow to the opposite wall. Sitting on the beam, with legs dangling down, sat seventeen children, one behind another, so tightly wedged that there would not have been space for even half a child more. Wriggling, twisting, turning upon one another,—and at any instant the slender beam might break!

It was little Gassy who saw the look of frozen horror on Barbara’s face, and took action first. Without a word she sprang up the ladder and out to the edge of the hay-mow. There she called out:—

“Each kid that comes back now, slowly and carefully, gets a cookie!”

No one moved. Mrs. Enderby down below dropped her fan and began walking up and down beneath the beam, with her ample skirts outspread to catch any child overcome by dizziness.

“A raisin cookie!” cried Gassy.

No one stirred.

“With nuts in it!”

The child nearest the hay-loft began to wriggle backwards. “I get first choice!” she said.

“Second!”

“Third!”

The line took up the slow wriggle, and Barbara below watched, with her skirts also extended. She could think of nothing else to do.

“Slowly!” shouted Gassy militantly. “Keep below there, Mrs. Enderby. Each kid has to go down the ladder to Barbara for the cookie, an’ stay down. Then we’ll play down there.”

Children respond quickly to an appeal to the stomach. In less than five minutes, seventeen children were munching seventeen cookies, and a rousing game of “Drop the Handkerchief” had been started by a now thoroughly alert Barbara. Most of the children joined in with gusto. Mrs. Enderby picked up her palm-leaf, and tapped Gassy with it approvingly.

“Now you can just keep on helping by counting thirty-nine over and over again,” she said.

Game succeeded game. London Bridge fell down in weary repetition for Barbara. The players assured themselves unto seventy times seven times that “King Willyum was King George’s Son.” A trousers button had to be pressed into each child’s hand as a hiding-place. Six children at different times were hurt, and cried. Mrs. Enderby, now that the danger was over, took her chair into a corner and went to sleep behind her fan. But faithful Gassy remained at the front, singing with rare abandon and helping to lead each game.

Barbara herself was so engrossed in wiping away youthful tears, and in singing, that she did not notice the gradual diminution of her forces until Gassy suddenly took her aside.

“Barbara,” she said anxiously, “there are only twenty-seven kids in this room; where are the others?”

Barbara counted hastily; looked up in the hay-mow; gave a wild glance into the abandoned vehicles. It was true; the Kid himself was missing. Then she crossed over to Mrs. Enderby and touched her shoulder.

“Mrs. Enderby,” she said, “I am afraid you will have to take ‘King William’ with Gassy, while I look for twelve children who seem to be missing.”

She flung open the door, and looked around. No children. Some odd instinct led her towards her own house. As she approached, the dining-room door facing the carriage-house suddenly opened, and a swarm of little boys issued forth. Little boys they were, but little goblins they looked to be, so impish were their faces, so bedraggled their appearance. Each boy held in one hand a milk-bottle, which he was applying to his lips in infant fashion; each blouse was bulging with rapidly disappearing cookies. Barbara’s refreshments were almost a thing of the past.

As she rushed over to the group, it disintegrated, and in the centre, deserted by all his fellows in crime, stood the guilty Kid.

There were no words suitable for the occasion, and therefore Barbara said nothing. Under her stern gaze, the Kid visibly shrunk. His milk-bottle dropped from his hand and splashed them both. He began to weep most violently.

“Oh, I don’t like birthday parties,” he sobbed. “They didn’t bring any presents this time; I asked ’em. An’ we got tired o’ games, so we went wading in the creek an’ got all wet. An’ nen we were hungry an’ I thought you did forget the supper—”

Wading! Barbara glanced around at the little boys, and at the rest of the troop which had filtered from the carriage-house. Were these the children that had come to her house several hours before—these unrecognizable gamins? The boys were the most torn; but even the girls seemed lost in dirt and disorder.

Mrs. Enderby made her leisurely way up to Barbara, and began to fan her placidly. “They’re all here,” she said; “I’ve just counted the thirty-nine of ’em. And here comes the mothers again, so our labors are over.”

Again the strange influx of parents and guardians, which had so puzzled Barbara before. Again the receding wave, carrying the pebbles back this time.

Barbara was vaguely conscious of choruses of remarks singularly alike in character. “James Greenleaf, where is your hat?”—“Robbie, you dirty boy, come here”—“Martha, how did you tear your apron so?” She realized that she was not being thanked as much as was her proper due. But all she wished to do on earth was to get to her own room to rest—not to think.

It was not until next morning, however, that the final blow fell. A very relaxed Barbara sat at the head of the breakfast-table, and around its corner Jack was looking at her quizzically.

“What beats me,” he said, “is why you should have been willing to do all that work in order that the mothers of the enlightened A. L. L. A. should be enabled to go almost in a body to see the opening of the new moving-picture theatre. Do you believe so heartily in the ‘culchah’ of those things?”

“Jack!” cried Barbara, starting from her seat. “Jack, they didn’t do that, did they?”

“They sure did,” responded her cruel brother. “Nineteen maternal parents of the thirty-nine were visible to me from my seat in the back row. They had the time of their lives.”

Barbara’s eyes filled with tears at this disappointment of her hopes. As she struggled hard to keep them back, she caught the glance of her father,—so apprehensive, so tender, and yet so amused, that, although the tears came from her eyes, laughter also sounded from her lips.

“‘Here endeth the first lesson,’” she said.