  It was early Sunday morning. “Since we are to have your little friend, Nell Wiggin, to dinner today,” Gloria remarked as the three sat at breakfast, “suppose we also invite Miss Selenski. It will be a nice change for her.” “Good!” Bobs agreed. “That’s a splendid suggestion. Now what is the program for the day?” “Lena May has consented to tell Bible stories to the very little children each Sunday morning at the Settlement House,” Gloria said, “and I have asked a group of the older girls who are in one of my clubs to come over here this afternoon for tea and a quiet hour around the fireplace. I thought it would be a pleasant change for them, and I want you girls to become acquainted with them so when I mention their names you will be able to picture them. They really are such bright, attractive girls! The Settlement House is giving them the only chance that life has to offer them.” Then, smiling lovingly at the youngest, Gloria concluded: “Lena May has consented to pour, and you, Bobs, I shall expect to provide much of the entertainment.” Roberta laughed. “Me?” she asked. “What am I to do?” “O, just be natural.” Gloria rose and began to clear the table as she added: “Now, Bobs, since you have to go after your friend, Miss Wiggin, Lena May and I will prepare the dinner. We have it planned, but we’re going to surprise you with our menu.” It was nine o’clock when Roberta left the Pensinger mansion. It was the first Sunday that the girls had spent on the East Side, and what a different sight met the eyes of Bobs when she started down the nearly deserted street, on one side of which were the wide docks. Derricks were silent and the men who lived on the barges were dressed in whatever holiday attire they possessed. They were seated, some on gunwales, others on rolls of tarred rope, smoking and talking, and save for an occasional steamer loaded with folk from the city who were sailing away for a day’s outing, peace reigned on the waterfront, for even the noise of the factory was stilled. Turning the corner at Seventy-eighth Street, Roberta was surprised to find that the boys’ playground was nearly deserted. She had supposed that at this hour it would be thronged. Just as she was puzzling about it, a lad with whom she had a speaking acquaintance emerged from a doorway and she hailed him: “You’re all dressed up, Antovich, aren’t you? Just like a regular little gentleman. Are you going to Sunday school?” “Oh, no, ma’am; that is, I donno as ’tis. Mr. Hardinian doesn’t go to call it that. He calls it a boys’ club by Treasure Seekers. There’s a clubhouse over to Seventy-fifth Street. I say, Miss Bobs, I wish for you to come and see it. I sure wish for you to.” Roberta assured the eager lad that she might look in a little later, then bidding him good-bye, she turned in to the model tenement house to ask Miss Selenski to a one o’clock dinner. “Oh, how lovely and sunny and sweet smelling your little home is,” Bobs said three minutes later when she had been admitted to the small apartment, the front windows of which overlooked the glistening blue river. “I like it,” was the bright reply of the slender dark-eyed girl who lived there. Bobs continued: “How I wish the rich folk who built this would influence others to do the same. Take that rookery across the street, for instance. It looks as though a clap of thunder would crash it to the ground, and it surely is a fire trap.” “It is indeed that,” Miss Selenski said, “and though I have reported it time and again, the very rich man who owns it finds it such excellent income property that he manages to evade an injunction to have the place torn down. Some day we’ll have a terrible tragedy of some kind over there, and then perhaps—” she paused and sighed. “But, since we can’t help, let’s talk of pleasanter things.” Bobs then informed Miss Selenski that she had come to invite her to dinner that day, and the little agent of the model apartments indeed was pleased, and replied: “Some time soon I shall invite you girls over here and give you just Hungarian dishes.” Then Bobs departed, and as she walked down Fourth Avenue she glanced with rather an amused expression up at the windows of the Detective Agency of which, for so brief a time, she had been an employee. She wondered what that good-looking young man, James Jewett, had thought of her, for, surely, her recent employer would have at once telephoned that as a detective she had been “no good.” Then she decided that she probably never would learn, as she most certainly would not again return to the agency. But little do we know what fate holds in store for us. Nell Wiggin was ready and waiting, and she looked very sweet indeed, with her corn yellow hair fluffed beneath her neat blue hat, her eyes eager, her cheeks, usually pale, flushed with this unusual excitement. Her suit was neat and trim, though made of cheap material. “You’re right on time to the very minute, aren’t you, Miss Dolittle?” she said happily, as she opened the door to admit her new friend. “I sure am,” was the bright reply. “I’m the original on the dot man, or young lady, I should say.” But while Bobs was speaking there was misgivings in her heart. She had forgotten to ask Gloria what she ought to do about her name. Should they all be Dolittles or Vandergrifts? She decided to take Nell into her confidence and tell her the story of the assumed name. The listener did not seem at all surprised. “Lots of girls who go out to work change their names,” she said. “It’s just as honest as writing stories under a different name, I should think.” “That’s so,” Roberta agreed, much relieved. “A nom-de-plume isn’t much different.” “And so you are a detective?” Nell looked at her friend with a little more awe, perhaps. “Heavens no! Not now!” Bobs was quick to protest. “I merely tried it, and failed.” “Well, as it turned out, a detective wasn’t needed on that particular case.” Nell was giving Bob the very information she was eager to receive, but for which she did not wish to ask. “The next day the stolen book came back by mail.” Roberta knew that she ought to register astonishment, but instead, she laughed. “What did Mr. Queerwitz say?” she inquired. “Oh, they all put it down to conscience. That does happen, you know. You read about conscience money being returned every now and then in the newspapers, but the strangest part was, that that very afternoon Mr. Van Loon came in and said that he had been able to obtain the first volume and wished to purchase the second. Mr. Queerwitz was out at the time, and so Miss Peerwinkle sold it to him for five hundred dollars.” Bobs wanted to laugh again. It amused her to think that she had driven the better bargain, but she thought it unwise to appear too interested in the transaction, and so she changed the subject, and together they walked up Third Avenue. “How different it all is on Sunday,” Nell Wiggin smiled happily at her new friend. She had indeed spoken truly. The vendors’ carts were conspicuous by their absence and the stores, if they were open, seemed to be more for the social gathering of foreign folk dressed in their gay best, than for active business. Even the elevated trains thundered overhead with much longer intervals in between, and sometimes, for as long as fifteen minutes, the peace of Sunday seemed to pervade that unlovely East Side. Bobs, noting a Seventy-fifth Street sign, stopped and gazed down toward the river, and sure enough she saw a long, low building labeled Boys’ Club House. “Let’s go through this way to Second,” Bobs suggested. In front of the clubhouse there was a group of boys with faces so clean that they shone, and one of these, leaving the others, raced up to the girls, and taking his friend by the hand, he said: “Oh, Miss Bobs, you did for to come, didn’t you? Please stop in by the clubhouse. It will to please Mr. Hardinian.” Roberta’s smile seemed to convey consent, and she found herself being rapidly led toward a wide-open door. Nell willingly followed. The sound of band practice came from within, but, when the lad appeared with the smiling guest, a young man, who had been playing upon a flute, arose and at once advanced toward them. What dark, beautiful eyes he had! “Why,” Roberta exclaimed in surprise. “We saw Mr. Hardinian the very first day we came in this neighborhood to live. He was helping a poor sick woman who had fallen, and—” But she could say no more, for the small boy was eagerly telling the clubmaster that this was his “lady friend” and that her name was Miss Bobs. The young man smiled and said that he was always glad to have visitors. “What a musical voice!” was Bobs’ thought. Then, turning to the girl who had remained by the open door, she held out a hand. “This is my friend, Nell Wiggin. I am sure that we will both be interested in knowing of your work, Mr. Hardinian, if you have time to spare.” “Indeed I have, always, for those who are interested.” Then the young man told them of his many clubs for boys. Roberta looked about with interest. “Why are there so many wide shelves all around the walls, Mr. Hardinian?” she asked at last. The young man smiled. “If you will come some night at ten o’clock you will find a little street urchin, some homeless little fellow, tucked up in blankets asleep on each of those shelves, as you call their bunks. Maybe you do not know, but even in the bitterest winter weather many small boys sleep out in the streets or creep into doorways and huddle together to keep warm. That is, they used to before I came. Now they are all welcome in here.” Roberta wished she might ask this wonderful young man where he came from, but that would not do on so slight an acquaintance, and so thanking him and bidding him good morning, with Nell and Antovich, she again started for home. Though Roberta little dreamed it, the wonderful young man had come into the drama of their lives, and was to play a very important part. |
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