Eurania's Boys and How They Kept House

 

EURANIA'S BOYS AND HOW THEY KEPT HOUSE.

Margaret Sidney

A BOY from the Western Union office stumbled up the steps to 536 Poplar Avenue. "Tel'gram," he announced laconically to the maid who opened the door, extending a dingy yellow envelope.

"Hey?" Norah had recently said good-by to County Cork, to coin money in the New World. But she had been warned against pedlers, so she said pertly, "Go 'way; we don't want nothin'."

"Go along with you," said the boy, grinning at the stupid face under the cap. "Take it in; it's for Mrs. Eu—Eu—bother! something Stebbins. Hurry up now, give her this to sign."

Having disposed of his two papers, the district messenger was free to thrust both hands in his pockets and pound his heels on the vestibule floor.

Mrs. Eurania Stebbins was sitting down to cut out her spring stock of underclothing. The cloth had been sent up the day before, and ever since, she had been longing like a general sure of success, to rush into the fray. She was now clashing her freshly-sharpened shears, and only pausing to call out to her two boys bustling around in the next room, "Hurry, boys, you will be late for school," now seated herself at her work-table and began.

At the first exhilarating snip of the shears, in came Norah with the telegram. Mrs. Stebbins threw down her implements and tore open with trembling fingers, the yellow envelope.

"Come at once. Aunt Betty is sick."

The fateful paper fluttered into Mrs. Stebbins' lap.

"O dear, dear!" she cried like a woman, immediately in a spasm of sympathy with no thought of disobeying the summons, "if Charlotte were only home!"

"But Charlotte isn't," said Chris cheerfully. "I'm so glad." Both boys had immediately run out into the sewing-room on the exclamation that proclaimed the advent of the telegram, and now hung over the cutting-table, in various attitudes of interest, while they endeavored to possess themselves of the news.

"Aunt Betty sick!" cried Julian the younger who was the quickest this time, and waving the message high in the air. "Oh! take me, ma, do."

"He says sign it," interrupted Norah, in the babel, and holding out the other paper.

"Oh, so I must," said Mrs. Stebbins in a flurry. "Do stop, boys, I can't hear myself think. Here, I'll write an answer. Get my pocket-book out of the upper drawer, Chris. Fanny will be worried to death till she knows for a certainty that I'm coming."

"I'm going down to give the message to the boy and pay him," announced Chris marching back with the pocket-book, which he had opened, and spilling pennies all the way.

"No, you go straight to school," said his mother, with a flushed face. "You'll be late as 'tis now. There, each give me a kiss; good-by. I shall take the twelve o'clock train. Now be good boys and mind every single word your father says. I wish Charlotte was home," she repeated again anxiously as the two pairs of arms released her collar.

"It's gay that Aunt Betty wasn't sick till to-day," said Julian, flinging down the telegram, and rushing for his school-bag, "else Charlotte wouldn't have gone yesterday afternoon. Then we'd have been under her thumb."

"I shall go around first to your father's office, and give him special directions about you, on my way to the train," said their mother, rapidly writing and counting her words. "I will go to Portland on the noon train"—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine words—there! Mr. Stebbins says I never say anything in ten words. I'm sure I've done it now, and in nine."

"Ding—ding!" pealed up over the staircase.

"Sure and that bye'll break the bell!" cried Norah with a County-of-Cork jump.

"Dear me!" cried Mrs. Stebbins, fishing out a quarter of a dollar from the pocket-book, "those boys never can wait a minute. Hurry, Norah, before he rings again," thrusting into the girl's hand the message, the receipt and the money, the last of which jingled out of Norah's stiff fist at the top of the stairs. Mrs. Stebbins could hear it roll, thumping each step to drop on the hall floor below, so she ran out and called over the balustrade, "Never mind, Norah; do stop prowling around. Come get another quarter. You can find that afterward."

Chris and Julian nudged each other, and made a mental note of the incident.

"Good-by, mother," they shouted, cramming on their caps, and flying down-stairs. "We'll be good," and went off with the messenger boy with whom, as there was no one else to talk "base-ball," they engaged in a lively discussion till the corner was reached.

Mrs. Stebbins, giving Norah directions to put away the cotton cloth with the patterns and shears, beside packing her bag, had very little time to spare after an interview with the cook, and the hasty planning of meals for at least two days, especially as that presiding genius of the lower regions had one of her off-days as regarded temper.

"Going off, is it?" she cried, throwing the knives, handles and all, into the dish-pan.

Mrs. Stebbins pretended not to see this, and looked at the clock. "Yes, my aunt is very sick. I must catch the twelve o'clock train. Remember, Ann, to give them a good breakfast to-morrow morning. Make a ham omelette and let the boys have cocoa. And you'll have to look out for Norah, of course."

"Humph!" grunted Ann, determining to do just as she pleased about that, as well as the other things.

"And tell Peter to be careful about washing the windows, he must take more pains than yesterday, and ask Mr. Stebbins about everything. I'm going to stop at his office on my way to the train, so he will be home early this afternoon. Good-by. There's the car. I shall come back day after to-morrow probably."

The conductor when she asked him the time, told her twenty-five minutes to twelve, and as she pulled out her own watch triumphantly pointing with a, "It can't be—mine's quarter past eleven," said, "What did you ask me for, if you knew, then?" and she had the double satisfaction of seeing everybody in the car smile, while all hopes of stopping for a word at her husband's office, were at once demolished.

"If I hadn't sent the telegram I'd take this train," she lamented to herself, while nervously hunting a nickel to satisfy the irate conductor who stood before her, impatiently shaking his fingers. "I would wait till four o'clock, but Fanny 'll get into a nervous fit like as not if I'm not at the depot, and"—down fell the nickel in the straw.

The conductor pushed the mass with his big foot. "I'm not going to hunt for that; you'll have to give me another."

"I see it," volunteered a kind-hearted passenger who being very near-sighted, now squinted frightfully at the straw. Thereupon all the others not to be outdone in such disinterested benevolence bent over and peered industriously for the missing nickel, which with depravity usual in such a case, cunningly rolled deeper yet in the twisting straws.

The conductor pulled the strap, and flew to the plaform to help on a fat woman; when he returned, the poking-over process was at its height, intense sympathy depicted on each of the faces bent over the straw.

"Hurry up and hand over another nickel," he demanded crossly. "Gracious! if that ain't meanness for you!" he added with a gratuitous thrust at the passenger who had offended him.

"I'm sure I don't want to be mean," said Mrs. Stebbins, her face now of a lively red; "they said they just saw it. Here, I'll give you another," trying to find the back breadth of her dress for her pocket-book again.

"Just saw it!" repeated the conductor, ready to enjoy his privilege of conversation where no well-behaved person ought to answer back. "Yes, you might see it till doomsday, and never set your thumb on it. Come!"

His large red palm being the most prominent thing before Mrs. Stebbins' eyes, she sat thereon a fresh nickel, and clutching her bag, sat quite erect, her mind having nothing now to worry over, but fear that she would not catch her train.

But she did, after running down every one in her way, who heaved a sigh of relief when they saw her fairly aboard.

Just at this time Mr. Stebbins' office boy jumped up the steps of his residence and handed in a note to the lawyer's wife. It not being sealed, the two domestics were well acquainted with its contents, but showed great surprise when Chris read it out at luncheon—the cook listening in the butler's pantry.

"Dear Eurania:

Harkins has just come in, and says the case is on for the fifth. This necessitates my catching the one o'clock train for New York. You understand. Don't worry about me. I don't need a bag. I'll buy what I want. Take good care of yourself and the boys. I shall be home Saturday.

Your affectionate husband,
Ezra Stebbins."

"Here's a lark!" cried Chris, pounding the table with his brawny fist while Julian squealed in a transport. "Father catching the one o'clock train, mother running for the twelve, and best of all, Charlotte safe at Uncle Henry's. What can't we do?"

"I sha'n't eat this hash, I know. It's three days that Ann's made us swallow this. Tell her to cook me something else," commanded Julian, the first delightful shock over. "Hurry, Norah, I'm awfully hungry."

"You've eat it most up," said Norah, grinning at the empty plates.

"You're not to talk," retorted Julian, tipping back his chair and looking at her, "only to carry out my orders."

"Orders, is it?" said Norah, not so fresh from the Green Isle but that she had a few Boston ideas generously donated by her new housemaid friends. "I ain't hired by you, and I ain't a-going to take your jaw."

"Well, I'll dismiss you," said Julian, quite grandly arising from his chair, and swelling up. "My father and mother's away, and we're head now, and"—

"Oh, gracious!" cried Norah, her big red face tilted up scornfully. "Head? oh, gracious!"

"You needn't stay till your week's out, either," declared Chris quickly, anxious to do some of the ordering, and getting out of his chair to march up and down the room as he had seen his father do.

"Be still," cried Julian hotly; "I'm attending to her. You've no business to interfere."

"I'm the oldest," said Chris, determined to make a stand for his rights, "and of course I take father's place."

"Well, then, I take mother's," said Julian, accepting the situation quickly, "and she always turns off the girls—so!"

"Tm a-going any way," declared Norah. "I wouldn't stay for two days, nor for wan, in the house alone with yez imps, and Ann's a-laving too. He—ee!"

"Ann must not go," cried Chris, rushing off into the kitchen to meet the presiding functionary pulling in her head from the butler's window. "Whoever heard of such a thing! Who's going to cook breakfast, say?"

Ann airily wiped her hands on the first dish-towel that presented itself and winked at Norah, who now lent herself to the scene, leaning against the door. The housemaid burst out into a noisy laugh.

"Orders is it?" cried Norah shrilly. "Oh the likes of it! B'yes is it, yez are, or p'raps yez ud like to make us belave yez are min."

"We are the heads of this house anyway," cried Chris in a hot wrath, while Julian pranced up and down crying out pompously, "Who is if we aren't, say? Well, you sha'n't be paid any wages if you run off this way. Now we've got the best of you!"

"Stop your tongue, Norah," cried the cook in the midst, "and leave things to me. Your mother paid us up last night," she vouchsafed to the boys; then she tossed lazily away the dish-towel, surveyed her face in a small mirror hanging for that purpose under the clock-shelf, and hummed a bar of "Climbing up the Golden Stair."

"If I'm goin', catch me doin' up them dishes," exclaimed the housemaid, tearing herself away from the supporting door, to come conversationally near the cook.

Ann now deserted the mirror to lay her head close to Norah's, when a brisk and smothered conversation, interlarded with much laughter of a spasmodic character on the housemaid's part, ensued. Chris and Julian tired of waiting, for signs pointing toward a general conversation, left the field, rushed out to play, and in five minutes forgot all about it.

Six o'clock brought them in speedily to the delights of a hot supper. Peter the indoor-man was just departing through the back gate as the boys raced around the corner.

"Hulloa, Pete!" they sang out trying to tell him that father and mother were both away, but that individual having private reasons of his own for getting home early, preferred to show no intimation of hearing.

Chris and Julian therefore thrust back on their own resources of conversation, whooped over the steps and into the house, thanks to the latch-key by which Mrs. Eurania saved the steps of her housemaids.

"Plague on that Norah!" exclaimed Chris, opening the vestibule door. "I'll give it to her for forgetting to light the gas. Give us a light, Norah!" he screamed out, stumbling along to the top of the basement stairs.

All was silent below, in place of the high revelry that Norah's interminable cackle and good spirits set in motion.

"You can't get anything out of her," said Julian scornfully. "I'll light the gas myself," which was scarcely said before it was done. And running through the different rooms, the younger son of the Stebbins family speedily had the lower part of the house ablaze. "There," he said in satisfaction, "now we'll see what's what!" to turn full upon the astonished face of his brother, breathless after an exploration below stairs.

"They're gone!" gasped Chris, his pale blue eyes roving wildly, "and everything's dropped just after dinner; it's black as an old kettle down there, the fire's out in the stove, and"—

"They're up-stairs," said Julian, coolly enough, though his heart seemed to stand still in the face of such a declaration. "Come on, let's order 'em down."

But all the pounding on the door of the domestics' room, and screaming by both boys of "Ann—An-n, No-o-rah" failed to bring any reply, so in the boys marched to find indeed an empty apartment, as far as the presence of either servant was concerned.

"Here's a how-d'ye-do!" cried Julian who generally took refuge in the words of others on great occasions. "Well!"

Chris said nothing, but rushed over to the further side of the room, lighted the gas, and then set up a violent rummaging of the closet, to finally cast himself on the floor that he might peer under the bed.

Julian burst into a loud laugh at that. "Fancy Ann's two hundred pounds under there, Chris. Come on; they've struck, and gone. Who cares? we can have what we like for supper now."

And they did.

When they could eat no more of the varied assortment culled from Mother Stebbins' cake and preserve closets, Chris got out of his chair, and went slowly along the hall to the front door.

"Come on, Jule," he called, "find that quarter of a dollar, while I get the paper on the steps."

"I'll get the paper," said Julian, proceeding with difficulty to follow him, and feeling as if a hundred silver quarters would not tempt him to an all-fours hunt for the stray bit just then.

"No, you won't either," said Chris, throwing wide the door. "Oh, ah, what do you want?"

"Does Mr. Stebbins live here?" asked a man, certainly not favored with a prepossessing countenance or demeanor.

"Yes," said the oldest son, involuntarily bringing the door to, and peering through the crack.

"Is he in?" and it seemed to Chris that he winked with his left evil eye.

"No," said Chris; "not yet. What do you want of him anyway?"

"He's gone out of town," cried Julian, eager to have some part in the conversation, and rushing up as well as he could.

"Ah! He is?" the man gave an easy lounge up toward the door, which Chris immediately clapped to, at the risk of shutting in the visitor's nose, and turned the key.

"What did you tell him that for, you goose?" he demanded in a loud whisper of Julian. "He's a tramp, or a burglar, and I wanted him to think father was coming home."

"A burglar, good!" cried Julian. "I've never seen one. I'm going up-stairs to look out of the window."

"You better go down-stairs and see if the kitchen door is locked," said Chris. "He'll be there the first thing you know."

All Julian's desire of seeing a burglar now vanished, and he declared his willingness that his elder brother should have this privilege of locking up the kitchen, so that Chris was forced to descend the basement stairs in a very knock-kneed condition, while the younger brother hung over the banister and listened for a possible fray.

"There wasn't anything to be afraid of," said Chris, coming up magnificently. "You're so little though, of course you felt scared;" which sting Julian endured silently all the evening.

"I was going to look in the paper for the advertisements," said Chris, standing up like the man of the house as he was, "but now of course I can't get it. Never mind, I'll go to an intelligence office in the morning and bring home a cook."

"I shall go too," cried Julian, beginning to assert himself once more.

"Indeed you'll not. You'll go to school," cried Chris in an authoritative way.

"I sha'n't. I guess I ought to help engage the cook; I might not like her. You don't know everything. I'm going with you."

"TAKE IT THEN; NOW YOU'VE GOT TO PAY YOUR DEBTS."

Chris paid no heed to this, considering it the cheaper way to watch his chance and steal off when the time came, than to prolong a present discussion.

"All right. Now let's find that quarter. Norah never'd think to look for it again."

The brothers were on their knees investigating the carpet surface when the door-bell was pulled violently, bringing up the two heads suddenly to a listening position.

"There now, see what you've done," cried Chris, "you've brought that old burglar back. Now we'll be murdered, and the forks and spoons all taken."

"He can't murder us if we don't open the door," said Julian, shaking dreadfully under his blouse.

"But he'll hang round here all night, and break in and kill us in our beds," said Chris with cheerful determination.

"He won't. I sha'n't go to bed," said Julian.

"Well, he'll get in—they always do if they make up their minds," said Chris, "so we'll be killed and the forks and spoons taken just as I said," delighted to see that Julian was at last growing white around the mouth.

Meanwhile the bell was at intervals pealing violently. At last a peculiar whistle close to the door, brought the brothers to their feet.

"It's the boys!" declared Chris, springing to answer the call. "I was just going to say so."

"Of course," gasped Julian, rushing after, "so was I"—as Chris turned the key, flung wide the door, and five or six boys tumbled unceremoniously in.

"Goodness! I rang sixteen times" said one.

"What's the matter with your old bell?" cried another, "we were just going off if you hadn't come."

"We haven't got any cook or second girl," answered Chris calmly, "so there isn't any one to go to the door."

"Yes, and father and mother, and Charlotte are away," cried Julian in a burst with the best of the news.

"Are you sure Charlotte is gone?" cried one boy doubtfully.

"Hi—what a lark!" cried the others. "Do ask us to stay all night," begged one boy.

Chris and Julian started with delight. "Indeed we do. Oh, do stay!" Now if the burglar should come, all would be well, each brother reflected.

"I'll run home now and ask mother."

"Step in at my house, Jack, that's a good fellow, and tell my folks I'm going to stay over night at the Stebbinses."

"All right." Jack dispatched himself in a trice.

"No use to ask pa—I'm to be home at nine," said another boy dismally, "but I'll lark it till that time," he added, brightening up.

"That's my hour," said the other two boys. "Now, Chris, what are you going to do first?"

"First," said Chris, with the air of deep experience, "you want something to eat," and he led the way to the jam closet.

"We'll get the spread ready for Jack and Claude," cried the others, joyfully ransacking the jars and glasses of the sacred precincts.

"I've found a prize," announced Ted Jones, running in from the hall where he had gone for the handkerchief in his coat pocket. "Anybody lost a quarter?"

"Yes, it's ours; that is, it belongs to the house; we were just looking for it when you came," cried Julian, "give it here."

"It's mine; I'm the oldest," said Chris, dropping a pot of strawberry jam like a coal.

"'Tisn't my fault that I'm the youngest," growled Julian, "and I'm going to have some of the good things. If you don't hand that quarter over here, Ted Jones, I'll punch your head."

And Ted preferred to relinquish the twenty-five cents, which Julian immediately pocketed and swelled up and down the room like a millionaire.

"You've got to give it back just as soon as mother gets home, so what good will it do you?" said Chris with a provoking laugh.

"I'll keep it till then anyway," declared Julian, jingling it in his pocket against his knife, "and mother'll say 'Keep it, Julie,' I know she will."

Chris' face fell anxiously. He knew too. "It's mean of you, when you know I need a quarter awfully."

"So do I," said Julian with not a trace of pity. "I owe ten cents to Tom Hungerford, six cents to the taffy man, and five cents to that old show of Pete Hayes—he wouldn't let me in till I'd promised to pay as soon as I'd got any money—and ten cents to our D. Y. K. Society tax; and I'm going to spend the rest as I like.'^

A shout greeted this. "How much are you going to have left," cried Chris, "after you've paid up?"

"I haven't paid yet," said Julian with a red face, aghast as he realized the extent of his indebtedness, "keep still, you fellows, it's none of your affair."

"I shall tell Pete and Tom and the taffy man and the treasurer of D. Y. K. that you've got money coming to you, so they'll swoop on it," said Chris, his cheerfulness returning as he saw this pleasure in store, and he returned to his strawberry jam with renewed vigor.

"I'll spend it first," cried Julian savagely.

"Then you'll be arrested for debt," said another boy, "if you've got money and won't pay, and we'll all tell on you."

Thus stung, Julian ran his hand into his jacket pocket, and pulling out his lately-acquired treasure, flung it over the table at Chris. "Take it, then; now you've got to pay up your debts."

"I haven't got any," said Chris, seizing the money, "paid 'em up yesterday; Charlotte gave me fifteen cents just before she went, 'cause she shook me for telling Mr. Bacon that she said his brother Fowler danced like a giraffe."

"Charlotte didn't give me any fifteen cents," cried Julian with an envious howl.

"Well, she didn't shake you, did she?" demanded Chris, "that's the difference; I earned it. She was afraid she'd get killed on the railroad, I s'pose."

The other boys now returning with the announcement, "All right, we're going to stay all night," private discussions were dropped to give undivided attention to the feast.

About eleven o'clock four sleepy boys crept up stairs, Chris and Julian bearing the fire shovel and tongs, for what purpose, they did not say. But in the middle of the night the two visitors found out, for a terrible clattering awoke them from the uneasy slumbers into which the feast had plunged them.

"What is it?" they cried, sitting erect in the middle of Mrs. Stebbins' best bed, from which the spotless spread and stiff pillow-shams had slipped in a heap to the floor. "Chris—Ju-li-an!"

'YOU'VE CALLED ME LITTLE, TWICE. NOW COME ON!"

"I guess I'm big enough to take care of a burglar!" cried Julian strutting in, wearing his night-robes as pompously as a Roman ever sported his toga. "You couldn't have driven 'em off, Chris Stebbins, with all your bragging. There were three of 'em."

"What have you done?" cried Chris, who had jumped out of bed at the frightful noise, and running in from their room across the hall.

"Flung the tongs down stairs," said Julian promptly, with another flourish of the toga.

"Flung the tongs down stairs?" repeated Jack, while Chris gasped, "Did you really see him?"

Julian pretended not to hear this question; but after his brother had carefully locked the door, he proceeded to extort by means he knew very well how to employ, the information desired, so that at last it came. "No, but I heard 'em as plain as day, they were coming up stairs—I've scared 'em off."

"I don't believe a word of it," cried the two visitors, hopping out of bed. "I'm going to look over the banisters and see." Which they did, first lighting the gas at the top of the stairs.

"Mee-ew—mee-ew"—and then a soft purring, and a pat- pat over the hall matting—and a big maltese with the air of a pet, ran in between their feet, to the two brothers waiting within the guest-room.

"Phoh! it's the cat!" roared Claude doubling up—"Jule Stebbins, flung your tongs down stairs at the cat. Hoh hoh!"

It seemed to Julian as if they never would get through with their amusement. At last Jack peered again down stairs. "I see something white on the floor—it's all in little bits. You've smashed something, Jule Stebbins!"

At that all four boys ran down, while the cat jumped up to the middle of the deserted bed and rolled herself into a sleepy ball.

"It's mother's big royal Worcester vase," said Chris in tones of horror. "You've knocked it off from the bracket. Oh—oh!"

Julian's eyes were wild with fright, and he collapsed on the lowest stair.

"And all because you got so scared. If I were you, I wouldn't get up to fling tongs at a cat. But then you're so little," Christopher finished, straightening up his slim figure at least a head taller than his unfortunate younger brother.

The destruction of all the royal Worcester vases in the world could not quench the fury that now possessed Julian. He arose from his collapse, and advanced with hard little fists, and a desire for satisfaction in his eye, on his brother.

"You've called me little, twice," he said, with bated breath, "now come on and see if I can't whip you."

"I'm not going to fight in my night-gown," said Chris with a superb air of knowing the rules of an honorable encounter.

"And nonsense to you!" cried Claude and Jack, each seizing an arm of the would-be valiant, "we're all going back to bed. Here, give us a hand, Chris, and pitch this fellow up stairs."

So instead of exhibiting a splendid prowess to turn the spectators green with envy, Julian was hustled summarily up stairs, and amid much laughing, tumbled unceremoniously into his bed, to reflect on his woes, the chief of which was, to use his own words, "that he wasn't big enough to whip those three chaps out of sight."

"But I'll do it some day," he said savagely burrowing into his pillow.

The consequence was, the next morning he overslept. Chris, slipping out softly, his shoes in his hand, caught a hasty breakfast, with the two guests, left the kitchen door unlocked for Peter the indoor-man to get in, and the three departed. Jack and Claude turning off at the corner while he ran on in the direction of Tremont street.

"Say—where is the nearest intelligence office?" he asked a policeman down by the Common.

That city official pointed with his thumb up the thoroughfare. "There's a plenty, and on Washington street too. I don't know the numbers." And he hurried off to help an old woman over the crossing,

"I'll take Tremont street first," said Chris to himself, "and wherever it looks good, I'll go in," which resolution he carried out to find himself face to face with a frowsy girl raising a furious dust in sweeping out a long room.

"You're too early," said the girl leaning on her broom, to look at him when he preferred his request. "They hain't come in. But you can sit down and wait," indicating a settee against the windows.

"No, I can't wait," said Chris, feeling a qualm at the strange odors, and wondering if his mother ever enjoyed the delights of these mysterious regions that turned out ready-made cooks and maids. "You send up a cook, a good one, as soon as you can, to 536 Poplar Avenue"—and he buttoned up his coat quite like a man.

"I'll write that down," said the girl, dropping her broom—"Miss Higgins'll 'tend to it. What's the name?" and she went over to the table, and began laborious work with a stubby pen.

"Mr. Ezra Stebbins' house. 536 Poplar Avenue."

"All right," said the girl, wiping the pen on her thumb nail.

"Send her right up," said Chris with an important air as he went out. "Phew! I wish I'd eaten more breakfast."

As Julian was still asleep, Chris shut the bedroom door gently and went down stairs very much elated with his work, to wait for the cook. About nine o'clock a person as thin as Ann her predecessor had been fat, rang the front door bell, and presented a dingy paper on which Miss Higgins gave her all the possible and impossible virtues and graces of womankind.

"You can go down to the kitchen," said Chris ignoring the paper and pointing to the basement stairs.

"Where's the lady?" asked the person with a survey of as much of the interior as she could manage.

"What?" asked Chris.

"The lady—your mother—boy?" said the new cook, bringing her gaze to his countenance. "I'd like to see her."

"She's coming," said Chris quickly. "You go along down to the kitchen and begin work." And though astonished at herself, the thin woman felt her way over the stairs and entered the cook's domains, Chris wisely letting her have that pleasure alone.

"She can find out the work by herself," he said, "a woman always does, now I'll go to school."

Julian, in the midst of an exciting dream of knocking down three wild men of the desert with the table-caster, was at last rudely shaken to consciousness by a vigorous hand that was not satisfied with its work until the boy sat erect and stared at her.

"For the love of the Virgin, shpake," cried the figure, "and till me what does this mane?"

"I don't know," said Julian, as much in the dark as she was. "Leave your hands off me," he commanded crossly, and shaking himself free.

"Where is the bigger b'hoy?" asked the woman, "and the lady? I've been all over this house, and the ghost of a person," crossing herself, "can I find at all—at all. Is't crazy yees all are?"

"You'll find out," declared Julian, in a passion, "if you don't leave me alone and clear out," which seeing that it was all she was likely to get, the woman proceeded to do, and only pausing on her way down stairs, to pick up Mrs. Stebbins' gold thimble, probably as an amulet to preserve her from the general witchcraft into which she had unluckily fallen, she hastily got out of the house and as soon as possible into Miss Higgins' astonished precincts, where she related to the assembled domestics by this time gathered, her experience in the house 536 Poplar Avenue, all which strange account speedily went down in the annals as a warning to respectable females with unimpeachable testimonials as to character, against such a crazy locality.

"IS'T CRAZY YEES ALL ARE?"

Chris running home from school, delighted with his executive ability, rubbed his eyes to see a cab before the door, and a trunk marked C. R. S. on the rack. Yes, it surely was Charlotte's. There was the scraped place on the top where he had tried his new knife; he should know it among a thousand. What could it mean?

He soon found out, as Charlotte was just descending the cab-step.

"The children broke out with the measles," she said, not pausing in the act of paying the cabman. "Take the trunk up into the upper hall."

"Mother's gone to Portland," announced Chris, "Aunt Betty's sick."

"Is she?" said Charlotte coolly. She was a wholly composed young lady under all circumstances with which life confronted her. "Well, here she comes now."

Chris whirled, to see, emerging from the horse-car at the corner, his mother and her well-known bag. He gave a feeble gasp, and waited till she came up.

"So ends my preparations for a nice time," observed Charlotte after the first greetings were over, "all because those stupid children must needs have the measles now."

"O Charlotte!" cried her mother in dismay. "Well, I've been on a fool's errand too. Aunt Betty had only a fit of the nerves, and Fanny was scared to death, and pulled me off from my work." This last was said as the two women ascended the steps.

Charlotte stooped and picked up a letter. "From father," she said, passing it on to her mother. "I didn't know he'd gone to New York."

"He hasn't," said her mother carelessly taking the letter.

"Look at that," said Charlotte, who never made statements that could not be proved. So now she triumphantly pointed to a printed line in one corner—'Ezra Stebbins, Counselor at Law'—and it's postmarked 'New York'; see for yourself, ma."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Stebbins, setting down her bag on the upper step and tearing open her letter, "what does it mean?"

"I should like to know why Norah does not answer this bell," said Charlotte, with another pull.

"I'll let you in," said Chris, accomplishing the steps, and speedily putting his latch-key to use, and forgetting to enter himself.

"Hoffman House, 11.30 p.m.

"Dear Wife"—Mr. Stebbins letter ran—"Have seen Harkins. Shall get through sooner than I thought. Cousin Eliot and wife unexpectedly ran over in the Cephalonia; got in to-day, and are at this hotel. Shall bring them up with me to-morrow for a little visit. We will take the four-thirty train. {{right|Your aff. husband,

E. Stebbins."

Mrs. Eurania looked at Charlotte, and Charlotte calmly returned the attention. No words came, till a voice pealed over the staircase, "I'll tell you, I know all about it. Chris is the one to catch it, and there's been a crazy woman here; she's just gone out, and I don't want to keep house again."

Mrs. Eurania Stebbins found it impossible for some unexplained reason to get a domestic from any intelligence office to enter her service. As soon as they heard the address, 536 Poplar Avenue, they mildly shook their heads and declined the great privilege, and thus waiting till the smart girls from the country could be hired, she had the felicity of dividing with Charlotte, the housework and the entertainment of their English relatives.

"There ought to be, ma," said that young person one evening (the lawyer had just escorted the visitors to the Hotel Victoria to a dinner at which the two housekeepers were too tired to present themselves in proper hotel dress), "a place provided where a family suddenly called out of town, could lock up its boys for safe keeping, until the heads of the household got back. If I were rich, I'd start one, and open it formally by entering Chris and Julian."

Mrs. Eurania, with her heart on her household wrecks, looked up. "But it was hard for the poor things, and I can't blame them," she said stoutly.

"There—Charlotte—ar-r!" cried two voices triumphantly out in the hall.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.

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The longest-living author of this work died in 1924, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 99 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.