A Flock of Girls and Boys - Nora Perry
"So was North Bennet Street, and all the rest of the North End; and now
it's turned over to the rag-tag of creation,--Russian Jews, and every
other kind of a foreigner,--and look here!" suddenly interrupting
herself, as a new idea struck her, "I'll bet you anything that this
Esther Bodn is a foreigner,--an emigrant herself of some sort."
"Kitty!"
"Yes, I'll bet you a pair of gloves,--eight-buttoned ones,--and I don't
believe her name is spelled at all like our Bowdoin Street. I believe
they--her mother and she--spell it that way _to suit themselves_. I
believe it's just Bodn; and that is an outlandish foreign name, if I--"
"Kitty, I think it's positively wicked for you to talk like this,--it's
slander."
Kitty laughed, and, wagging her head to and fro, sang in a merry little
undertone,--
"Taffy is a Welshman, Taffy is a thief
Flaunting as a Yankee man; that's my belief."
Laura couldn't help joining in this laugh, Kitty was so droll; but the
laugh died out in the next breath, as she said,--
"Now, Kitty, don't go and talk like this to the other girls; don't--"
"Laura, how _did_ it ever come about that the Bodn invited you to tea?"
interrupted Kitty.
"It came about as naturally as this: One day I was going along Boylston
Street, and just as I got to the public library I met Esther coming out
with her arms full of books. I joined her, and insisted upon carrying
some of the books for her; and after a little hesitation she accepted my
offer, and led the way across the Common to the opposite gateway upon
Charles Street. Here she stopped, and held out one hand for the books,
and said, 'It was so kind of you to help me. Thank you very much.'
"'But I'm not going to leave you here,' I said; 'I'll walk home with
you.' 'But it's a long walk to where I live,' she answered. I told her I
didn't think anything of a long walk, and insisted on going further with
her. I felt sorry, however, a minute after, for I saw that I had made a
mistake,--that she didn't want me to go with her; but I didn't know how
to turn back at once then, as she had started up briskly at my
insistence with another 'Thank you.' But when we turned into Cambridge
Street, I began to understand why she didn't want me,--she felt
sensitive and afraid of my criticism; and I don't wonder--"
"Nor I, either," struck in Kitty, in a flippant tone.
"I should have felt sensitive," went on Laura, pityingly, "and I was so
sorry for her; but I was determined to keep on then, and seem to take
no notice, and somehow make her understand that it made no difference to
me where she lived. I felt sorrier and sorrier for her, though, as she
went on down Cambridge Street, past all those liquor and provision and
second-hand furniture shops, with the tenements over them, and I was so
thankful for her when she turned out of all this, and we crossed over
and went into a quiet old street, and came out upon the pretty grounds
of the Massachusetts Hospital; and as soon as I saw these grounds, I
said, 'Oh, how pretty!' and then we turned again, and it was into the
street opposite the hospital. It was almost as quiet as the country
there. There were no shops at all, and the houses, though they looked
old, were in very good repair, and some of them had been freshly
painted, and had little grass plots beside them; and it was before one
of these that Esther stopped, and then she said, 'If we had come over
the hill, the way would have been pleasanter,' and I said just what I
felt,--that I thought it was very pleasant, anyway, when you got there,
and that the sunset must be beautiful from the windows. She was taking
the books from me as I said this, and she looked up at me for a second,
as if she were studying me, and then she asked me if I would like to
come in some bright day, and see her and the sunsets,--that they were
very beautiful from the upper windows. I told her I would like to come
very much, and thanked her for asking me; and then I kissed her, for--"
"And struck up an intimate friendship at once," burst in Kitty,
laughing.
"No, for this was some weeks ago, and she's only just asked me to set
the day when I could come. Oh, Kitty, you may make fun all you like; but
she is a very interesting girl,--my mother thinks she is too."
"Oh, you've introduced her to your mother, have you?"
"I have told mamma about her, and I brought her in one afternoon to see
the pictures,--she's very fond of pictures,--and mamma asked her to stay
to luncheon, but she couldn't."
"And now it is you who are going to make the first visit, going to
sunsets and tea on McVane Street!"
"Laura! Laura!" called a voice here; and Laura looked up, to see her
brother Jack in his T-cart pulling up at the curbstone. The next minute
she was whirling off with him, bowing good-by to Kitty; and Kitty was
calling after her mischievously,--
"Laura, Laura, tell your brother you are going to take tea with a girl
who lives on McVane Street!"
CHAPTER II.
The spirited horse that young Jack Brooks drove held his attention so
completely at that moment that he had no time to bestow upon anything
else; but when he was well out on the broad, clear roadway of the
"Neck," he turned to his sister, and asked, "What did Kitty Grant; mean
by your going to take tea with a girl who lives on McVane Street?"
"It is one of the girls at Miss Milwood's school,--Esther Bodn."
"How does a girl who lives on McVane Street come to go to Miss Milwood's
school?"
"She assists Miss Milwood." And Laura told what she knew of Esther's
assistance in the way of the French and German.
"Oh!" and the young man gave a satisfied sort of nod as he uttered this,
as much as to say, "That explains it;" and then, dismissing the subject
from his mind, turned his whole attention again to his horse, while
Laura drew a deep breath of relief. She had begun to think that if her
brother were to take up Kitty's cry against McVane Street, she might
find her anticipated visit set about with thorns. "But I shall go, I
shall go!" she said to herself, "whatever Jack may say, when mamma says
that I may."
But Jack said no more on that occasion, nor when his mother, the next
day at luncheon, asked Laura what time Miss Bodn expected her, did the
young gentleman make any remark. He had evidently forgotten the matter
altogether; and Laura, without further anxiety, set out upon her little
journey to McVane Street.
Kitty Grant had laughed that morning when Laura had told her that she
was to go to Esther's at four o'clock and leave at six, that she might
be in time for her own dinner hour,--had laughed and said, "Oh, a
regular 'four-to-six,'--a sunset tea! The little Bodn is 'up' on
'sassiety' matters, isn't she? Dear me, I wish _I_ could go with you,--I
never went to a sunset tea. Couldn't you take me along?"
"No, I'm sure I couldn't," Laura had answered, laughing a little, but a
little irritated, nevertheless, at Kitty's tone; and when Kitty had gone
on and declared that nobody could be more appreciative than herself,
Laura had retorted,--
"Yes; but you make great mistakes in your appreciations. You wouldn't
appreciate Esther's own sweetness and refinement at their real worth, if
the carpets and curtains and chairs and things in the house on McVane
Street didn't happen to please your taste."
These words of hers returned to Laura with great force as the door of
the house on McVane Street was opened to her, and she found herself in a
chilly hall, darkly papered and darkly and shabbily carpeted; and when
she followed Esther up the stairs,--for it was Esther who had answered
her ring,--and noted the general dreariness of the whole, she thought
pityingly, "Poor Esther, to be obliged to live in such a dismal
fashion."
It was in this depressed state of mind that she came to the top of the
stairs. Here Esther was waiting for her; and as she pushed wide open a
door in front of her, she said brightly, "Here we are," and Laura,
turning, stood for a moment dumb with surprise, as she saw a room that
by contrast with the dinginess of the halls looked almost luxurious, for
it was all lightness and brightness and warmth and sweet odors, with
the sunshine streaming in upon a window full of plants, and touching up
a quantity of woodcuts, photographs, and water-colors, with a few oils,
and two or three fine etchings,--all of which pretty nearly hid the ugly
dark wallpaper. A little coal fire in a low grate made things still
brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples
and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in
the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness
stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fashioned
tea-service of china. The sunshine seemed actually to fill up the cups
and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a
'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could
see how pretty and refined were the simple arrangements, she wouldn't
mix Esther up with any horrid common emigrants, if she _does_ live on
McVane Street. Esther a foreigner of any kind! Nothing could be more
absurd. Esther was a New England girl, if ever there was one,--a little
New England girl, who had come up with her mother to Boston from the
Cape perhaps to learn to be a teacher. Yes, that must be the explanation
of McVane Street. The Bodns were people who had come up from the
country, and country people of small means wouldn't be likely to know
where to choose a home."
Laura had all this settled satisfactorily in her mind after she had
chatted awhile with Esther in the sunny room, and taken in more
completely its various details, such as the fishnet drapery by the
windows, the group of shells on the plant-stand, and several photographs
of a sea-coast. And when shown other sea-country treasures,--bits of
coral and ivory and mosses,--things grew plainer than ever, and she
began to have a very clear notion of Esther's past surroundings, and
pictured her mother as one of those neat, trim, anxious-faced little
women she had often seen in her sea or mountain summerings. It was just
when she had got this fancy picture sharply defined that she heard
Esther say, as a door leading from the next room opened,--
[Illustration: A tall, handsome woman smiled a greeting]
"Mother dear, this is my friend Laura Brooks, I've told you about;" and
Laura, rising hastily, turned to see no trim, anxious-faced little
person, but a tall, handsome, dark-eyed woman smiling a greeting to her
daughter's guest over the pot of tea and plate of bread and butter that
she carried. Not in the least like the fancy picture; but who--who was
it she suggested?
All through the little meal this question kept recurring to Laura. Where
_had_ she seen that dark, handsome face before? It recurred to her
again, as she followed the mother and daughter up to the little
third-story room, to see the beautiful sunset effects. Where _had_ she
seen just that profile against such a sunset light? Then all at once, as
the declining beams sent a redder ray across the nose and chin, the
question was answered. The red ray had also illumined Laura's own face,
and Mrs. Bodn, turning suddenly, caught the girl's curiously animated
expression, and asked inquiringly, "What is it, my dear?" and Laura
answered eagerly,--
"Oh, do you know that picture of Walter Scott's 'Rebecca,' painted by
some great English artist, I think? My uncle has a copy of it in his
library, and it is so like you, _so_ like you, Mrs. Bodn. The moment I
saw you I was sure that I had met you before; but just now, when the
sunset lit up your face, I knew at once what made it so familiar. It was
its great resemblance to the 'Rebecca.' Oh, _do_ you know the picture,
Mrs. Bodn?"
"Yes, perfectly well," answered Mrs. Bodn, quietly; "but it was not
painted by an English artist, it was the work of a young German who is
now dead. He was very little known, though he did some fine work."
"And did you know that the picture was so like you, Mrs. Bodn?"
"Well, yes, I knew that it was thought to be like me when it was
painted; and it ought to be, you know, for I sat for it,--I was the
model."
"You were a--a--the model," gasped Laura, in astonishment.
"Yes, I was a--a--the model," answered Mrs. Bodn, repeating Laura's own
halting syllables, with an accent half of amusement, half of sarcasm.
Then, more seriously, she added, "It was years ago, when I was living in
Munich."
"Esther, where are you?" a voice from the floor below here called out.
"We are up in your room looking at the sunset; it's lovely; come up and
see it," Esther called back. And the next moment Laura was being
introduced to "My cousin, David Wybern,"--a tall, good-looking boy of
fifteen or sixteen, with beautiful dark eyes like Mrs. Bodn's. The next
moment after that, when this tall, good-looking boy, in addressing Mrs.
Bodn, called her "Aunt Rebecca," like a flash these thoughts went flying
through Laura's mind,--
"A model for Rebecca the Jewess, and her own name Rebecca, and her
daughter's and her nephew's names,--Esther, David,--these also Hebrew
names!" What did it signify? Kitty--Kitty would say that it proved _she_
was right,--that they _were_ the very people she had said they were.
But, oh, they were not; they were not of that common kind that Kitty had
classed so scornfully! No matter if her mother _had_ been a model years
ago, it was through poverty, of course, and she was very brave not to be
ashamed of it; and Esther,--Esther was lovely, a girl to be good to, to
be true to, and she, Laura Brooks, would be good to her and true to her,
no matter what happened. Poor Laura, she little knew how this resolve
would be put to the test within the next few hours, for she could not
foresee that the fact of the coachman's forgetfulness to call for her,
as he had been ordered to do, and her consequent acceptance of David
Wybern's attendance, was to bring such a storm about her. It had seemed
the simplest thing in the world, when half-past six struck, and no
carriage came for her, to accept David's attendance, and just as simple,
when the street cars rushed by, without an inch of standing-room, to
walk on and up over the hill to Beacon Street. But in this walk it
happened that her brother had passed her as he drove by with one of his
friends, and he had gone straight home and into the dining-room with the
words, "What does this mean?" and then he proceeded to tell how he had
passed his sister accompanied by a young man or boy who looked to him
like one of the clerks in Weyman & Co.'s importing-house.
What did it mean, indeed? Her father and mother also wondered and
exclaimed; and when Laura appeared, and told them what it meant, there
was a general outcry of disapproval and criticism, led on by her
brother, who told her she should have waited and sent a message to them
by this boy, instead of permitting him to walk home with her. In vain
Laura spoke of the boy's good manners, of the refined aspect of the
little home which she had just visited, and the intelligence and dignity
of Mrs. Bodn and her daughter. Nothing she said seemed to ameliorate the
disapproval or criticism; and at last, stung by a sore sense of
injustice, the girl turned upon her father and said, "Papa, I've always
heard you say that everybody should be judged by their worth, and you've
often and often quoted from that poem of Robert Burns that you are so
fond of, about honest poverty, and I remember two lines particularly,
that you seemed to like most of all,--
"'That sense and worth o'er a' the earth
May bear the prize and a' that;'
"and yet now, now--"
"But, my dear child," as Laura here broke down with a little sob,--"my
dear child, it isn't that these people are poor,--it is because we don't
know anything about them."
"I--I think it is because you _do_ know that--that they live on McVane
Street," faltered Laura.
"Well, that _is_ to know nothing about them, in the sense that father
means," broke in her brother, sharply. "Their living there shows that
they are the kind of people that are out of our class entirely,--people
that we don't _want_ to know. I didn't think it mattered much the other
day, when you told me you were going down there to take tea with your
teacher; but when I find you are to make friends with the young clerks
who are the relations of your teacher, I think it matters a good deal."
"But this clerk, as you call him, has a great deal better manners than
Charley Aplin. He behaves a great deal more like a gentleman."
"And he has a much longer nose," retorted her brother, with a sneering
little laugh. "The fellow's a Jew, I'm certain; he has a regular Jewish
face."
"He has _not_," began Laura, indignantly, and then stopped suddenly. It
was the low trader-type of Jewish face reflected from her brother's mind
that she saw as she spoke; then Mrs. Bodn's beautiful profile and that
of her nephew rose before her! If they--if they--her brother, her
father, could see these faces,--these faces so fine and intelligent, and
saw, too, the likeness that she had seen to the portrait in her uncle's
library,--would they feel differently,--would they do justice to Esther
and her relations, though they _were_ Jews,--would they admit that they
were of the higher type, that they were fit friends for her? No, no, no,
she answered herself, as soon as these questions started up in her mind,
and, stung through all her generous young heart by these instinctive
answers, she burst forth: "You talk about Jews as if there were but one
class,--the lowest class. What if all Americans were judged by the
lowest class? Would you call that fair? And you think the Bodns are the
lowest kind just because they are poor and live on McVane Street! That
great novelist who lived in England and who was prime minister there,
Lord Beaconsfield, was a Jew, and he was proud of it; and the
Mendelssohns were Jews; and there are those wonderful musical novels
Uncle George gave me to read last summer, 'Charles Auchester' and
'Counterparts,' they are full of Jews and their genius--"
"Laura, Laura, there is no need of your talking like this," interrupted
her father; "we are not going to deny the worth or respectability of
your new acquaintances, but it is entirely unnecessary for you to rush
into any intimacy with such strangers."
There was a look in her father's face, as he spoke, that told Laura very
plainly that all she had said had done more harm than good, and that
henceforth there would be no more "sunset teas" with Esther Bodn. All
her little plans, too, for making Esther's life brighter, by welcoming
her into her own home, and bringing her into a better acquaintance with
the other girls, were rendered impossible now. But if she could not be
good to her in this way, she would be more than ever kind and cordial to
her at school, and she would try to enlist Kitty Grant's interest. She
would tell Kitty about that pretty refined home, and ask her to be kind
and cordial too; and she was sure that Kitty would not refuse, for, in
spite of her fun and her worldliness, Kitty had really a kind heart.
Yes, she would enlist Kitty, and Kitty was all powerful. If she once got
interested in a person, she could make everybody else interested. But,
alas, for this scheme!
CHAPTER III.
Alas! because Kitty had already taken her stand on the other side. She
had already told the girls that Esther Bodn lived on McVane Street, in
near neighborhood to a lot of rum-shops and foreigners, and had then
"made fun," in the same rattling way that she had used with Laura,
airing all her little suspicions and suggestions about the name of Bodn,
in the half-frolic fashion that always had such effect upon the
listeners. It had such effect on this occasion, that Laura found that
every girl had passed from indifference to an active prejudice against
Esther. Kitty herself had not meant to produce this result. Indeed,
Kitty had had no meaning whatever but that of amusing herself,--"making
fun;" and when the girls, relishing this "fun," laughed and applauded,
she did not realize that she had done a mischievous thing. Poor Laura,
however, realized everything as the days went by, and she saw Esther
subjected to a certain critical observation. Her only hope was that the
person most interested did not notice this; but one day she came upon
Esther at recess, bending over a pile of exercises, at which she was
apparently hard at work.
"What's the rush, Esther, that you've got to work at recess?" she asked.
Esther murmured an unintelligible reply, and bent her head still lower;
and then it was that Laura, to her dismay, saw a tear drop to the
exercises upon the desk.
"Esther, Esther, what is the matter? Tell me!"
"I--I don't know," faltered Esther, "but things seem different. I always
knew that the girls didn't care very much for me, but they were not
unkind. Now--they--seem unkind some way. Perhaps it's only my fancy,
but--but they seem to look down on me as they didn't before, and--and
sometimes they seem to avoid me, and--I'm just the same as ever,
except--except I'm a good deal shabbier this spring. I've always been
rather shabby, but this spring it's worse, because we've lost some
money,--not much, but it was a good deal to us, and I couldn't have
anything new; and--and there's another thing--one morning I overheard
one of the girls say to Kitty Grant, 'McVane Street, that is enough!'
They must have been talking about me and where I live. Nobody else here
lives on McVane Street, and we--mother and I--wouldn't live there if we
could afford to live where we liked; but we came here strangers, and
this was much the most comfortable place we could find for what we could
pay. I know it's in a disagreeable part of the city; but it _isn't_ bad,
it _isn't_ low, where we are, it's only run down and shabby. But I
thought Boston people were above judging others by such things. I'd
always heard that Boston girls--"
"Boston girls! oh, don't talk to me of Boston girls, don't talk to me of
any girls anywhere," burst in Laura. "I'm sick--sick of girls. Girls
will do things and say things--little, mean, petty things--that boys
would be ashamed to do or say."
"Then you _do_ think it's because of my shabbiness and where I live
that--that has made them--these girls so--so different; but why should
they--all at once? I can't understand."
"Don't try to understand! Don't bother your head about them--they don't
mean--they don't know--they are not worth your notice. You are a long,
long way above them!"
"Mother didn't want to come to Boston to live; but when my uncle John
Wybern, mother's brother, died three years ago,--he died in Munich; he
was an artist, like my father, and we'd all lived together, since my
father's death,--we came on here, as uncle had advised, because he knew
some one here in an importing-house who would get David a situation. He
didn't want David to be an artist. He said it was such an anxious,
hand-to-mouth life, if one didn't make a quick success of it; and _he
knew_, for _he_ hadn't made a success any more than my father
had,--and--and this is why we came here, and are here now on McVane
Street, though my mother didn't want to come. But _I_ wanted to come
from the first. I'd heard and read so much about Boston, I thought I was
sure to be happy here, for I thought the people were so noble and
high-minded, and--" There was a pathetic little faltering break again at
this, which was resolutely repressed, and the sentence resumed with,
"and then I knew my father's people had once--" But at this point,
"Esther," called out Miss Milwood from the doorway, "bring the exercises
into my room, and we'll finish them together."
Almost at that very moment Kitty Grant came running down the aisle,
calling out, "Laura, Laura, are you going this afternoon to the Art
Club?"
"To hear Monsieur Baudouin? Yes."
"Well, we'll go together, then."
"Very well."
"Very well," mimicking Laura's cool tones; then with a change of voice,
"Laura, what _is_ the matter? You are enough to freeze anybody. What
have I done?"
"You've done a very cruel thing."
"Laura!"
"Yes, I sha'n't take back my words,--you have done a very cruel thing."
"For pity's sake, what do you mean?"
"You may well say 'for _pity's_ sake;'" and then Laura burst forth and
repeated, word for word, the conversation that had transpired between
Esther and herself, concluding with, "And you--_you_, Kitty, are to
blame for this, for it is you who have prejudiced the girls against
Esther with your talk about McVane Street and the foreigners in that
neighborhood."
"I? Just my little fun about McVane Street and your sunset tea there?"
"Yes, just your little fun! I know what your fun is! Oh, Kitty, Kitty,
I _did_ think you had a kind heart! But to be the means of hurting
anybody, as you have hurt Esther,--it is--it is--"
"Laura, Laura, don't," as Laura here broke down in a little fit of
sobbing. "Of course I didn't know--I didn't think. Oh, dear, I'll tell
the girls I didn't mean a word I said,--that I'm the biggest liar in
town; that Esther is an heiress; that--that--oh, I'll do or say
anything, if you'll only stop crying, Laura. There, there," as Laura
tried to stifle a fresh sob, "that's right, take my handkerchief,--yours
is sopping wet, and--My goodness, there comes Maud Aplin--she _must_ not
see us sniffing and sobbing like this, she'll say we've had a quarrel.
Here, let us go into the little recitation-room, quick now, before she
sees us."