The S. W. F. Club by Caroline E. Jacobs

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THE S. W. F. CLUB

by

CAROLINE E. JACOBS

Author of _Joan of Jupiter Inn_, _Joan's Jolly Vacation_,
_Patricia_, etc.

The Goldsmith Publishing Co.
Cleveland, Ohio
George W. Jacobs & Company

1912

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I PAULINE'S FLAG
II THE MAPLES
III UNCLE PAUL'S ANSWER
IV BEGINNINGS
V BEDELIA
VI PERSONALLY CONDUCTED
VII HILARY'S TURN
VIII SNAP-SHOTS
IX AT THE MANOR
X THE END OF SUMMER

CHAPTER I

PAULINE'S FLAG

Pauline dropped the napkin she was hemming and, leaning back in her
chair, stared soberly down into the rain-swept garden.

Overhead, Patience was having a "clarin' up scrape" in her particular
corner of the big garret, to the tune of "There's a Good Time Coming."

Pauline drew a quick breath; probably, there was a good time
coming--any number of them--only they were not coming her way; they
would go right by on the main road, they always did.

"'There's a good time coming,'" Patience insisted shrilly, "'Help it
on! Help it on!'"

Pauline drew another quick breath. She would help them on! If they
would none of them stop on their own account, they must be flagged.
And--yes, she would do it--right now.

Getting up, she brought her writing-portfolio from the closet, clearing
a place for it on the little table before the window. Then her eyes
went back to the dreary, rain-soaked garden. How did one begin a
letter to an uncle one had never seen; and of whom one meant to ask a
great favor?

But at last, after more than one false start, the letter got itself
written, after a fashion.

Pauline read it over to herself, a little dissatisfied pucker between
her brows:--

_Mr. Paul Almy Shaw,
New York City, New York_.

MY DEAR UNCLE PAUL: First, I should like you to understand that
neither father nor mother know that I am writing this letter to you;
and that if they did, I think they would forbid it; and I should like
you to believe, too, that if it were not for Hilary I should not dream
of writing it. You know so little about us, that perhaps you do not
remember which of us Hilary is. She comes next to me, and is just
thirteen. She hasn't been well for a long time, not since she had to
leave school last winter, and the doctor says that what she needs is a
thorough change. Mother and I have talked it over and over, but we
simply can't manage it. I would try to earn some money, but I haven't
a single accomplishment; besides I don't see how I could leave home,
and anyway it would take so long, and Hilary needs a change now. And
so I am writing to ask you to please help us out a little. I do hope
you won't be angry at my asking; and I hope very, very much, that you
will answer favorably.

I remain,
Very respectfully,
PAULINE ALMY SHAW.
WINTON, VT., May Sixteenth.

Pauline laughed rather nervously as she slipped her letter into an
envelope and addressed it. It wasn't a very big flag, but perhaps it
would serve her purpose.

Tucking the letter into her blouse, Pauline ran down-stairs to the
sitting-room, where her mother and Hilary were. "I'm going down to the
post-office, mother," she said; "any errands?"

"My dear, in this rain?"

"There won't be any mail for us, Paul," Hilary said, glancing
listlessly up from the book she was trying to read; "you'll only get
all wet and uncomfortable for nothing."

Pauline's gray eyes were dancing; "No," she agreed, "I don't suppose
there will be any mail for us--to-day; but I want a walk. It won't
hurt me, mother. I love to be out in the rain."

And all the way down the slippery village street the girl's eyes
continued to dance with excitement. It was so much to have actually
started her ball rolling; and, at the moment, it seemed that Uncle Paul
must send it bounding back in the promptest and most delightful of
letters. He had never married, and somewhere down at the bottom of his
apparently crusty, old heart he must have kept a soft spot for the
children of his only brother.

Thus Pauline's imagination ran on, until near the post-office she met
her father. The whole family had just finished a tour of the West in
Mr. Paul Shaw's private car--of course, he must have a private car,
wasn't he a big railroad man?--and Pauline had come back to Winton long
enough to gather up her skirts a little more firmly when she saw Mr.
Shaw struggling up the hill against the wind.

"Pauline!" he stopped, straightening his tall, scholarly figure. "What
brought you out in such a storm?"

With a sudden feeling of uneasiness, Pauline wondered what he would say
if she were to explain exactly what it was that had brought her out.
With an impulse towards at least a half-confession, she said hurriedly,
"I wanted to post a letter I'd just written; I'll be home almost as
soon as you are, father."

Then she ran on down the street. All at once she felt her courage
weakening; unless she got her letter posted immediately she felt she
should end by tearing it up.

When it had slipped from her sight through the narrow slit labeled
"LETTERS," she stood a moment, almost wishing it were possible to get
it back again.

She went home rather slowly. Should she confess at once, or wait until
Uncle Paul's answer came? It should be here inside of a week, surely;
and if it were favorable--and, oh, it must be favorable--would not that
in itself seem to justify her in what she had done?

On the front piazza, Patience was waiting for her, a look of mischief
in her blue eyes. Patience was ten, a red-haired, freckled slip of a
girl. She danced about Pauline now. "Why didn't you tell me you were
going out so I could've gone, too? And what have you been up to, Paul
Shaw? Something! You needn't tell me you haven't."

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Pauline answered, going on into
the house. The study door was half open, and when she had taken off
her things, Pauline stood a moment a little uncertainly outside it.
Then suddenly, much to her small sister's disgust, she went in, closing
the door behind her.

Mr. Shaw was leaning back in his big chair at one corner of the
fireplace. "Well," he asked, looking up, "did you get your letter in
in time, my dear?"

"Oh, it wasn't the time." Pauline sat down on a low bench at the other
end of the fireplace. "It was that I wanted to feel that it was really
mailed. Did you ever feel that way about a letter, father? And as if,
if you didn't hurry and get it in--you wouldn't--mail it?"

Something in her tone made her father glance at her more closely; it
was very like the tone in which Patience was apt to make her rather
numerous confessions. Then it occurred to him, that, whether by
accident or design, she was sitting on the very stool on which Patience
usually placed herself at such times, and which had gained thereby the
name of "the stool of penitence."

"Yes," he answered, "I have written such letters once or twice in my
life."

Pauline stooped to straighten out the hearth rug. "Father," she said
abruptly; "I have been writing to Uncle Paul." She drew a sharp breath
of relief.

"You have been writing to your Uncle Paul! About what, Pauline?"

And Pauline told him. When she had finished, Mr. Shaw sat for some
moments without speaking, his eyes on the fire.

"It didn't seem very--wrong, at the time," Pauline ventured. "I had to
do something for Hilary."

"Why did you not consult your mother, or myself, before taking such a
step, Pauline?"

"I was afraid--if I did--that you would--forbid it; and I was so
anxious to do something. It's nearly a month now since Dr. Brice said
Hilary must have a change. We used to have such good times
together--Hilary and I--but we never have fun anymore--she doesn't care
about anything; and to-day it seemed as if I couldn't bear it any
longer, so I wrote. I--I am sorry, if you're displeased with me,
father, and yet, if Uncle Paul writes back favorably, I'm afraid I
can't help being glad I wrote."

Mr. Shaw rose, lighting the low reading-lamp, standing on the study
table. "You are frank enough after the event, at least, Pauline. To
be equally so, I am displeased; displeased and exceedingly annoyed.
However, we will let the matter rest where it is until you have heard
from your uncle, I should advise your saying nothing to your sisters
until his reply comes. I am afraid you will find it disappointing."

Pauline flushed. "I never intended telling Hilary anything about it
unless I had good news for her; as for Patience--"

Out in the hall again, with the study door closed behind her, Pauline
stood a moment choking back a sudden lump in her throat. Would Uncle
Paul treat her letter as a mere piece of school-girl impertinence, as
father seemed to?

From the sitting-room came an impatient summons. "Paul, will you never
come!"

"What is it, Hilary?" Pauline asked, coming to sit at one end of the
old sofa.

"That's what I want to know," Hilary answered from the other end.
"Impatience says you've been writing all sorts of mysterious letters
this afternoon, and that you came home just now looking like---"

"Well, like what?"

"Like you'd been up to something--and weren't quite sure how the
grown-ups were going to take it," Patience explained from the rug
before the fire.

"How do you know I have been writing--anything?" Pauline asked.

"There, you see!" Patience turned to Hilary, "she doesn't deny it!"

"I'm not taking the trouble to deny or confirm little girl nonsense,"
Pauline declared. "But what makes you think I've been writing letters?"

"Oh, 'by the pricking of my thumbs'!" Patience rolled over, and
resting her sharp little chin in her hands, stared up at her sisters
from under her mop of short red curls. "Pen! Ink! Paper! And such a
lot of torn-up scraps! It's really very simple!"

But Pauline was on her way to the dining-room. "Terribly convincing,
isn't it?" Her tone should have squelched Patience, but it didn't.

"You can't fool me!" that young person retorted. "I know you've been
up to something! And I'm pretty sure father doesn't approve, from the
way you waited out there in the hall just now."

Pauline did not answer; she was busy laying the cloth for supper.
"Anything up, Paul?" Hilary urged, following her sister out to the
dining-room.

"The barometer--a very little; I shouldn't wonder if we had a clear day
to-morrow."

"You are as provoking as Impatience! But I needn't have asked; nothing
worth while ever does happen to us."

"You know perfectly well, Pauline Almy Shaw!" Patience proclaimed,
from the curtained archway between the rooms. "You know perfectly
well, that the ev'dence against you is most in-crim-i-na-ting!"
Patience delighted in big words.

"Hilary," Pauline broke in, "I forgot to tell you, I met Mrs. Dane this
morning; she wants us to get up a social--'If the young ladies at the
parsonage will,' and so forth."

"I hate socials! Besides, there aren't any 'young ladies' at the
parsonage; or, at any rate, only one. I shan't have to be a young lady
for two years yet."

"Most in-crim-i-na-ting!" Patience repeated insistently; "you wrote."

Pauline turned abruptly and going into the pantry began taking down the
cups and saucers for the table. As soon as Hilary had gone back to the
sitting-room, she called softly, "Patty, O Patty!"

Patience grinned wickedly; she was seldom called Patty, least of all by
Pauline. "Well?" she answered.

"Come here--please," and when Patience was safely inside the pantry,
Pauline shut the door gently--"Now see here, Impatience--"

"That isn't what you called me just now!"

"Patty then--Listen, suppose--suppose I have been--trying to do
something to--to help Hilary to get well; can't you see that I wouldn't
want her to know, until I was sure, really sure, it was going to come
to something?"

Patience gave a little jump of excitement. "How jolly! But who have
you been writing to--about it, Paul!"

"I haven't said that--"

"See here, Paul, I'll play fair, if you do; but if you go trying to act
any 'grown-up sister' business I'll--"

And Pauline capitulated. "I can't tell you about it yet, Patty; father
said not to. I want you to promise not to ask questions, or say
anything about it, before Hilary. We don't want her to get all worked
up, thinking something nice is going to happen, and then maybe have her
disappointed."

"Will it be nice--very nice?"

"I hope so."

"And will I be in it?"

"I don't know. I don't know what it'll be, or when it'll be."

"Oh, dear! I wish you did. I can't think who it is you wrote to,
Paul. And why didn't father like your doing it?"

"I haven't said that he--"

"Paul, you're very tiresome. Didn't he know you were going to do it?"

Pauline gathered up her cups and saucers without answering.

"Then he didn't," Patience observed. "Does mother know about it?"

"I mean to tell her as soon as I get a good chance," Pauline said
impatiently, going back to the dining-room.

When she returned a few moments later, she found Patience still in the
pantry, sitting thoughtfully on the old, blue sugar bucket. "I know,"
Patience announced triumphantly. "You've been writing to Uncle Paul!"

Pauline gasped and fled to the kitchen; there were times when flight
was the better part of discretion, in dealing with the youngest member
of the Shaw family.

On the whole, Patience behaved very well that evening, only, on going
to bid her father good-night, did she ask anxiously, how long it took
to send a letter to New York and get an answer.

"That depends considerably upon the promptness with which the party
written to answers the letter," Mr. Shaw told her.

"A week?" Patience questioned.

"Probably--if not longer."

Patience sighed.

"Have _you_ been writing a letter to someone in New York?" her father
asked.

"No, indeed," the child said gravely, "but," she looked up, answering
his glance. "Paul didn't tell me, father; I--guessed. Uncle Paul does
live in New York, doesn't he?"

"Yes," Mr. Shaw answered, almost sharply. "Now run to bed, my dear."

But when the stairs were reached. Patience most certainly did not run.
"I think people are very queer," she said to herself, "they seem to
think _ten_ years isn't a bit more grown-up than six or seven."

"Mummy," she asked, when later her mother came to take away her light,
"father and Uncle Paul are brethren, aren't they?"

"My dear! What put that into your head?"

"Aren't they?"

"Certainly, dear."

"Then why don't they 'dwell together in unity'?"

"Patience!" Mrs. Shaw stared down at the sharp inquisitive little face.

"Why don't they?" Patience persisted. If persistency be a virtue,
Patience was to be highly commended.

"My dear, who has said that they do not?"

Patience shrugged; as if things had always to be said. "But, mummy--"

"Go to sleep now, dear." Mrs. Shaw bent to kiss her good-night.

"All the same," Patience confided to the darkness, "I know they don't."
She gave a little shiver of delight--something very mysterious was
afoot evidently.

Out on the landing, Mrs. Shaw found Pauline waiting for her. "Come
into your room, mother, please, I've started up the fire; I want to
tell you something."

"I thought as much," her mother answered. She sat down in the big
armchair and Pauline drew up before the fire. "I've been expecting it
all the evening."

Pauline dropped down on the floor, her head against her mother's knee.
"This family is dreadfully keen-sighted. Mother dear, please don't be
angry--" and Pauline made confession.

When she had finished, Mrs. Shaw sat for some moments, as her husband
had done, her eyes on the fire. "You told him that we could not manage
it, Pauline?" she said at last. "My dear, how could you!"

"But, mother dear, I was--desperate; something has to be done
for--Hilary, and I had to do it!"

"Do you suppose your father and I do not realize that quite as well as
you do, Pauline?"

"You and I have talked it over and over, and father never
says--anything."

"Not to you, perhaps; but he is giving the matter very careful
consideration, and later he hopes--"

"Mother dear, that is so indefinite!" Pauline broke in. "And I can't
see--Father is Uncle Paul's only brother! If I were rich, and Hilary
were not and needed things, I would want her to let me know."

"It is possible, that under certain conditions, Hilary would not wish
you to know." Mrs. Shaw hesitated, then she said slowly, "You know,
Pauline, that your uncle is much older than your father; so much older,
that he seemed to stand--when your father was a boy--more in the light
of a father to him, than an older brother. He was much opposed to your
father's going into the ministry, he wanted him to go into business
with him. He is a strong-willed man, and does not easily relinquish
any plan of his own making. It went hard with him, when your father
refused to yield; later, when your father received the call to this
parish, your uncle quite as strongly opposed his accepting it--burying
himself alive in a little out-of-the-way hole, he called it. It came
to the point, finally, on your uncle's insisting on his making it a
choice between himself and Winton. He refused to ever come near the
place and the two or three letters your father wrote at first remained
unanswered. The breach between them has been one of the hardest trials
your father has had to bear."

"Oh," Pauline cried miserably, "what a horrid interfering thing father
must think me! Rushing in where I had no right to! I wish I'd
known--I just thought--you see, father speaks of Uncle Paul now and
then--that maybe they'd only--grown apart--and that if Uncle Paul knew!
But perhaps my letter will get lost. It would serve me right; and yet,
if it does, I'm afraid I can't help feeling somewhat disappointed--on
Hilary's account."

Her mother smiled. "We can only wait and see. I would rather you said
nothing of what I have been telling you to either Hilary or Patience,
Pauline."

"I won't, Mother Shaw. It seems I have a lot of secrets from Hilary.
And I won't write any more such letters without consulting you or
father, you can depend on that."

Mr. Paul Shaw's answer did not come within the allotted week. It was
the longest week Pauline had ever known; and when the second went by
and still no word from her uncle, the waiting and uncertainty became
very hard to bear, all the harder, that her usual confidant, Hilary,
must not be allowed to suspect anything.

The weather had turned suddenly warm, and Hilary's listlessness had
increased proportionately, which probably accounted for the dying out
of what little interest she had felt at first in Patience's "mysterious
letter."

Patience, herself, was doing her best to play fair; fortunately, she
was in school the greater part of the day, else the strain upon her
powers of self-control might have proved too heavy.

"Mother," Pauline said one evening, lingering in her mother's room,
after Hilary had gone to bed, "I don't believe Uncle Paul means
answering at all. I wish I'd never asked him to do anything."

"So do I, Pauline. Still it is rather early yet for you to give up
hope. It's hard waiting, I know, dear, but that is something we all
have to learn to do, sooner or later."

"I don't think 'no news is good news,'" Pauline said; then she
brightened. "Oh, Mother Shaw! Suppose the letter is on the way now,
and that Hilary is to have a sea voyage! You'd have to go, too."

"Pauline, Pauline, not so fast! Listen, dear, we might send Hilary out
to The Maples for a week or two. Mrs. Boyd would be delighted to have
her; and it wouldn't be too far away, in case we should be getting her
ready for that--sea voyage."

"I don't believe she'd care to go; it's quieter than here at home."

"But it would be a change. I believe I'll suggest it to her in the
morning."

But when Mrs. Shaw did suggest it the next morning, Hilary was quite of
Pauline's opinion. "I shouldn't like it a bit, mother! It would be
worse than home--duller, I mean; and Mrs. Boyd would fuss over me so,"
she said impatiently.

"You used to like going there, Hilary."

"Mother, you can't want me to go."

"I think it might do you good, Hilary. I should like you to try it."

"Please, mother, I don't see the use of bothering with little half-way
things."

"I do, Hilary, when they are the only ones within reach."

The girl moved restlessly, settling her hammock cushions; then she lay
looking out over the sunny garden with discontented eyes.

It was a large old-fashioned garden, separated on the further side by a
low hedge from the old ivy-covered church. On the back steps of the
church, Sextoness Jane was shaking out her duster. She was old and
gray and insignificant looking; her duties as sexton, in which she had
succeeded her father, were her great delight. The will with which she
sang and worked now seemed to have in it something of reproach for the
girl stretched out idly in the hammock. Nothing more than half-way
things, and not too many of those, had ever come Sextoness Jane's way.
Yet she was singing now over her work.

Hilary moved impatiently, turning her back on the garden and the bent
old figure moving about in the church beyond; but, somehow, she
couldn't turn her back on what that bent old figure had suddenly come
to stand for.

Fifteen minutes later, she sat up, pushing herself slowly back and
forth. "I wish Jane had chosen any other morning to clean the church
in, Mother Shaw!" she protested with spirit.

Her mother looked up from her mending. "Why, dear? It is her regular
day."

"Couldn't she do it, I wonder, on an irregular day! Anyhow, if she
had, I shouldn't have to go to The Maples this afternoon. Must I take
a trunk, mother?"

"Hilary! But what has Jane to do with your going?"

"Pretty nearly everything, I reckon. Must I, mother?"

"No, indeed, dear; and you are not to go at all, unless you can do it
willingly."

"Oh, I'm fairly resigned; don't press me too hard, Mother Shaw. I
think I'll go tell Paul now."

"Well," Pauline said, "I'm glad you've decided to go, Hilary. I--that
is, maybe it won't be for very long."

CHAPTER II

THE MAPLES

That afternoon Pauline drove Hilary out to the big, busy, pleasant
farm, called The Maples.

As they jogged slowly down the one principal street of the sleepy, old
town, Pauline tried to imagine that presently they would turn off down
the by-road, leading to the station. Through the still air came the
sound of the afternoon train, panting and puffing to be off with as
much importance as the big train, which later, it would connect with
down at the junction.

"Paul," Hilary asked suddenly, "what are you thinking about?"

Pauline slapped the reins lightly across old Fanny's plump sides. "Oh,
different things--traveling for one." Suppose Uncle Paul's letter
should come in this afternoon's mail! That she would find it waiting
for her when she got home!

"So was I," Hilary said. "I was wishing that you and I were going off
on that train, Paul."

"Where to?" Paul asked. After all, it couldn't do any harm--Hilary
would think it one of their "pretend" talks, and it would he nice to
have some definite basis to build on later.

"Anywhere," Hilary answered. "I would like to go to the seashore
somewhere; but most anywhere, where there were people and interesting
things to do and see, would do."

"Yes," Pauline agreed.

"There's Josie," Hilary said, and her sister drew rein, as a girl came
to the edge of the walk to speak to them.

"Going away?" she asked, catching sight of the valise.

"Only out to the Boyds'," Pauline told her, "to leave Hilary."

Josie shifted the strap of school-books under her arm impatiently.
"'Only!'" she repeated. "Well, I just wish I was going, too; it's a
deal pleasanter out there, than in a stuffy school room these days."

"It's stupid--and you both know it," Hilary protested. She glanced
enviously at Josie's strap of hooks. "And when school closes, you'll
be through for good, Josie Brice. We shan't finish together, after
all, now."

"Oh, I'm not through yet," Josie assured her. "Father'll be going out
past The Maples Saturday morning, I'll get him to take me along."

Hilary brightened. "Don't forget," she urged, and as she and Pauline
drove on, she added, "I suppose I can stick it out for a week."

"Well, I should think as much. _Will_ you go on, Fanny!" Pauline
slapped the dignified, complacent Fanny with rather more severity than
before. "She's one great mass of laziness," she declared. "Father's
spoiled her a great deal more than he ever has any of us."

It was a three-mile drive from the village to The Maples, through
pleasant winding roads, hardly deserving of a more important title than
lane. Now and then, from the top of a low hill, they caught a glimpse
of the great lake beyond, shining in the afternoon sunlight, a little
ruffled by the light breeze sweeping down to it from the mountains
bordering it on the further side.

Hilary leaned back in the wide shaded gig; she looked tired, and yet
the new touch of color in her cheeks was not altogether due to
weariness. "The ride's done you good," Pauline said.

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