  When Roberta reached home that day, she began to sniff, for the house seemed to be pervaded with a most delicious aroma. “Ohee, fried chicken, if I guess aright!” she thought. The front room being vacant, she skipped down the long, wide hall and pounced into the sunny combination kitchen and dining-room. Lena May smiled over her shoulder to greet the newcomer. She was busy at the stove preparing the noon meal. Gwendolyn, made comfortable on a pillowed reclining chair, was lying in the sunshine near the blossoming window-box. She also smiled, though she was too weak and weary to speak. Bobs kissed her tenderly and then inquired: “Say, Lena May, why all this festiveness? It isn’t anyone’s birthday, is it?” “You know it isn’t,” their youngest replied as she stopped to open the oven door, revealing a tin of biscuits that were browning within. Then, rising, she added: “But, nevertheless, we are celebrating. You see, Nurse Kathryn ordered chicken broth for Gwen and, having made that, I decided to fry the remaining pieces because we are going to have company for lunch.” “Who, pray?” Bobs was removing her hat and coat as she spoke. Just then Gloria came in from the Settlement House and she inquired as she glanced about: “Hasn’t the company come?” “Not yet.” Lena May looked at the old grandfather clock. “It lacks two minutes of being noon. They will be here promptly at twelve.” “I do believe that you are all trying to arouse my curiosity,” Bobs said. “Well, the deed is done, so fire ahead and tell me who is to be the victim?” “Victim, indeed.” Lena May tossed her curly head with pretended indignation. “I have nine minds not to give you a single piece of this delicious fried chicken because of that—that——” Bobs helped her out. “Slam on, your cooking is what you really mean, but of course you can’t use slang, not even in a pinch. But, I say, is our honored guest fine or superfine?” Gloria and Lena May exchanged amused glances. It was the former who replied: “The guest of honor is to be a young gentleman, and, as to his identity, you may have three guesses.” This had always been their method of telling each other interesting news. “Dick De Laney isn’t in town, is he?” Roberta inquired in so matter-of-fact and little interested a manner that again Gloria realized that her sister did not greatly care for the lad who had loved her since the pinafore days. “Not that I’ve heard of,” Lena May said. “Now you may guess again.” But before this could be done, the heavy knocker on the front door was announcing the arrival of someone, and Gloria went to answer its summons. Bobs skipped over to the stove as she said hurriedly, “Tell me quickly who is coming, so that I may be prepared.” “Nell Wiggin and her brother Dean,” was the whispered reply. “He came in on the eleven-ten train. Nell went to meet him and I told her to bring him over here to lunch. I thought it would be pleasant for both of them.” “You’re a trump,” Bobs began, but paused, for Gloria was opening the door, saying, “Sisters, here are Nell and her brother Dean.” Then to the tall, pale lad with the dreamy eyes she added: “This sister is Gwendolyn, who has been ill, and this is Lena May, fork in hand, symbolizing the fact that she is also our housekeeper. Roberta we call Bobs, for every family has need of a boy and Bobsy has always done her best to fill the requirements.” The lad, unused to girls, acknowledged these introductions rather shyly. Bobs, knowing that he was conscious of his muscle-bound left arm, which he could not move, said at once in her merry, nonsensical manner: “If so many sisters won’t frighten you, Dean, I’ll retire from the role of brother and let you fill it.” Then she added, “I’m not going to call you Mr Wiggin. It is too formal.” The lad flushed in his effort to reply, but Lena May saved him from further embarrassment by saying, “Nell, you and your brother may sit on either side of Gloria. Bobsy, will you serve the chicken? Gwen had her broth at eleven, so she isn’t hungry just now.” Realizing that the lad who had lived only on remote New England farms would rather listen than talk, Bobs monopolized the conversation in her usual breezy manner, and often when she glanced his way she noted that the soft brown eyes of the lad were smiling as though he were much amused. But after lunch she spoke to him directly. “Dean,” she said, “your sister tells me that you love books.” “Indeed I do,” the boy replied, “but I have seen very few and have owned only one.” “My goodness!” Bobs exclaimed. “Come with me and I will show you several hundred.” “Several hundred books,” the lad gasped, quite forgetting his self-consciousness in his astonishment at this amazing remark. Bobs nodded mysteriously as she led the way to the room overhead, where in the dim light Dean beheld old books in dusty piles everywhere about. There was a sudden glow of pleasure in the eyes of the boy which told Bobs that he was indeed a booklover. “What a treat this will be,” he exclaimed, “if I may browse up here when I wish.” Then he added as a new thought presented itself: “But, Miss Roberta, I must not spend my time in idle reading. I want to find some way to earn money.” Eagerly, anxiously, his eyes turned toward her. “Can you suggest anything that I might be able to do?” For one panicky moment Bobs’ thoughts groped wildly for some profession that a one-armed lad might follow, then she had what she believed was a wonderful inspiration, and she said with her usual head-long impulsiveness: “I do, indeed, know just the very thing. You and I will start an old book shop and you may be manager.” The lad’s pale face flushed with pleasure. “Do you really mean it, Miss Vandergrift?” he asked eagerly. “How I would like that.” In her characteristic manner Bobs wanted to settle the matter at once, and so she tripped downstairs with Dean following. She found that Gwendolyn had gone back to bed and that the kitchen having been tidied, the three girls were sitting about the fireplace talking softly together. When they heard Bobs’ inspiration, they all thought it a splendid plan, and Nell said that there was a vacant room adjoining the office of the model tenement that she had been told she might use in any way that she wished. As there was a door opening upon the street, she believed it would be an ideal place for an old book shop. Rising, Nell continued: “I will telephone Mrs. Doran-Ashley at once to be sure that she is still willing that I use the room as I desire.” This was done, and that most kindly woman in her beautiful home on Riverside Drive listened with interest to the plan and gave the permission that was requested. Moreover, upon leaving the telephone she made a note in her engagement book: “At the next board meeting suggest that a visit be made to the old book shop in the model tenement.” When Nell returned with the information that they might do as they wished with the room, Bobs and Dean went at once to a lumber yard near the docks and ordered the shelves they would need. An hour later Antovich and several of his boy companions had carried the old books from the Pensinger mansion and had heaped them upon the floor of the pleasant vacant room, which opened directly upon the sidewalk on Seventy-eighth Street. When Bobs left, Dean was busy with hammer and nails and happier, perhaps, than he had been in the twenty years of his life. |
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