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

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Pauline settled herself on the top rail of the fence bordering the
garden at the back. Patience's enthusiasm was infectious. "What sort
of good times do you mean?" she asked.

"Picnics!"

"We have such a lot of picnics--year after year!"

"A nice picnic is always sort of new. Miranda does put up such
beautiful lunches. O Paul, couldn't we afford chocolate layer cake
_every_ time, now?"

"You goosey!" Pauline laughed again heartily.

"And maybe there'll be an excursion somewhere's, and by'n'by there'll
be the town fair. Paul, there's a ripe berry! And another and--"

"See here, hold on, Impatience!" Pauline protested, as the berries
disappeared, one after another, down Patience's small throat.
"Perhaps, if you stop eating them all, we can get enough for mother's
and father's supper."

"Maybe they went and hurried to get ripe for to-night, so we could
celebrate," Patience suggested. "Paul, mayn't I go with you next time
you go over to The Maples?"

"We'll see what mother says."

"I hate 'we'll see's'!" Patience declared, reaching so far over after a
particularly tempting berry, that she lost her balance, and fell face
down among them.

"Oh, dear!" she sighed, as her sister came to her assistance,
"something always seems to happen clean-apron afternoon! Paul,
wouldn't it be a 'good time,' if Miranda would agree not to scold 'bout
perfectly unavoidable accidents once this whole summer?"

"Who's to do the deciding as to the unavoidableness?" Pauline asked.
"Come on, Patience, we've got about all the ripe ones, and it must be
time for you to lay the supper-table."

"Not laying supper-tables would be another good time," Patience
answered. "We did get enough, didn't we? I'll hull them."

"I wonder," Pauline said, more as if speaking to herself, "whether
maybe mother wouldn't think it good to have Jane in now and then--for
extra work? Not supper-tables, young lady."

"Jane would love it. She likes to work with Miranda--she says
Miranda's such a nice lady. Do you think she is, Paul?"

"I'm thinking about other things just now."

"I don't--There's mother. Goodness, Miranda's got the cloth on!"
And away sped the child.

To Patience's astonishment, nothing was said at supper, either of Uncle
Paul's letter, or the wonderful things it was to lead to. Mr. Shaw
kept his wife engaged with parish subjects and Pauline appeared lost in
thoughts of her own. Patience fidgeted as openly as she dared. Of all
queer grown-ups--and it looked as though most grown-ups were more or
less queer--father was certainly the queerest. Of course, he knew
about the letter; and how could he go on talking about stupid,
uninteresting matters--like the Ladies' Aid and the new hymn books?

Even the first strawberries of the season passed unnoticed, as far as
he was concerned, though Mrs. Shaw gave Patience a little smiling nod,
in recognition of them.

"Mother," Pauline exclaimed, the moment her father had gone back to his
study, "I've been thinking--Suppose we get Hilary to pretend--that
coming home is coming to a _new_ place? That she is coming to visit
us? We'll think up all the interesting things to do, that we can, and
the pretty places to show her."

"That would be a good plan, Pauline."

"And if she's company, she'll have to have the spare room," Patience
added.

"Jolly for you, Patience!" Pauline said. "Only, mother, Hilary doesn't
like the spare room; she says it's the dreariest room in the house."

"If she's company, she'll have to pretend to like it, it wouldn't be
good manners not to," Patience observed. The prospect opening out
ahead of them seemed full of delightful possibilities. "I hope Miranda
catches on to the game, and gives us pound-cake and hot biscuits for
supper ever so often, and doesn't call me to do things, when I'm busy
entertaining 'the company.'"

"Mother," Pauline broke in--"do keep quiet. Impatience--couldn't we do
the spare room over--there's that twenty-five dollars? We've planned
it so often."

"We might make some alterations, dear--at least."

"We'll take stock the first thing to-morrow morning. I suppose we
can't really start in before Monday."

"Hardly, seeing that it is Friday night."

They were still talking this new idea over, though Patience had been
sent to bed, when Mr. Shaw came in from a visit to a sick parishioner.
"We've got the most beautiful scheme on hand, father," Pauline told
him, wheeling forward his favorite chair. She hoped he would sit down
and talk things over with them, instead of going on to the study; it
wouldn't be half as nice, if he stayed outside of everything.

"New schemes appear to be rampant these days," Mr. Shaw said, but he
settled himself comfortably in the big chair, quite as though he meant
to stay with them. "What is this particular one?"

He listened, while Pauline explained, really listened, instead of
merely seeming to. "It does appear an excellent idea," he said; "but
why should it be Hilary only, who is to try to see Winton with new eyes
this summer? Suppose we were all to do so?"

Pauline clapped her hands softly. "Then you'll help us? And we'll all
pretend. Maybe Uncle Paul's thought isn't such a bad one, after all."

"Paul always believed in developing the opportunities nearest hand,"
Mr. Shaw answered. He stroked the head Towser laid against his knee.
"Your mother and I will be the gainers--if we keep all our girls at
home, and still achieve the desired end."

Pauline glanced up quickly. How could she have thought him
unheeding--indifferent?

"Somehow, I think it will work out all right," she said. "Anyhow,
we're going to try it, aren't we. Mother Shaw? Patience thinks it the
best idea ever, there'll be no urging needed there."

Pauline went up to bed that night feeling strangely happy. For one
thing the uncertainty was over, and if they set to work to make this
summer full of interest, to break up the monotony and routine that
Hilary found so irksome, the result must be satisfactory. And lastly,
there was the comforting conviction, that whatever displeasure her
father had felt at first, at her taking the law into her own hands in
such unforeseen fashion, had disappeared now; and he was not going to
stay "outside of things," that was sure.

The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Pauline ran up-stairs
to the spare room. She threw open the shutters of the four windows,
letting in the fresh morning air. The side windows faced west, and
looked out across the pleasant tree-shaded yard to the church; those at
the front faced south, overlooking the broad village street.

In the bright sunlight, the big square room stood forth in all its prim
orderliness. "It is ugly," Pauline decided, shaking her head
disapprovingly, but it had possibilities. No room, with four such
generous windows and--for the fire-board must come out--such a wide
deep fireplace, could be without them.

She turned, as her mother came in, duly attended by Patience. "It is
hideous, isn't it, mother? The paper, I mean--and the carpet isn't
much better. It did very well, I suppose, for the visiting
ministers--probably they're too busy thinking over their sermons to
notice--but for Hilary--"

Mrs. Shaw smiled. "Perhaps you are right, dear. As to the
unattractiveness of the paper--"

"We must repaper--that's sure; plain green, with a little touch of
color in the border, and, oh, Mother Shaw, wouldn't a green and white
matting be lovely?"

"And expensive, Pauline."

"It wouldn't take all the twenty-five, I'm sure. Miranda'll do the
papering, I know. She did the study last year. Mother, couldn't we
have Jane in for the washing and ironing this week, and let Miranda get
right at this room? I'll help with the ironing, too."

"I suppose so, dear. Miranda is rather fussy about letting other
people do her regular work, you know."

"I'll ask her."

"And remember, Pauline, each day is going to bring new demands--don't
put all your eggs into one basket."

"I won't. We needn't spend anything on this room except for the paper
and matting."

Half an hour later, Pauline was on her way down to the village store
for samples of paper. She had already settled the matter with Miranda,
over the wiping of the breakfast dishes.

Miranda had lived with the Shaws ever since Pauline was a baby, and was
a very important member of the family, both in her own and their
opinion. She was tall and gaunt, and somewhat severe looking; however,
in her case, looks were deceptive. It would never have occurred to
Miranda that the Shaws' interests were not her interests--she
considered herself an important factor in the upbringing of the three
young people. If she had a favorite, it was probably Hilary.

"Hmn," she said, when Pauline broached the subject of the spare room,
"what put that notion in your head, I'd like to know! That paper ain't
got a tear in it!"

So Pauline went further, telling her something of Uncle Paul's letter
and how they hoped to carry his suggestion out.

Miranda stood still, her hands in the dish water--"That's your pa's own
brother, ain't it?"

Pauline nodded. "And Miranda--"

"I reckon he ain't much like the minister. Well, me an' Sarah Jane
ain't the least bit alike--if we are sisters. I guess I can manage
'bout the papering. But it does go 'gainst me, having that sexton
woman in. Still, I reckon you can't be content, 'till we get started.
Looking for the old gentleman up, later, be you?"

"For whom?" Pauline asked.

"Your pa's brother. The minister's getting on, and the other one's
considerable older, I understand."

"I don't think he will be up," Pauline answered; she hadn't thought of
that before. Suppose he should come! She wondered what he would be
like.

Half way down the street, Pauline was overtaken by her younger sister.
"Are you going to get the new things now, Paul?" she asked eagerly.

"Of course not, just get some samples."

"There's always such a lot of getting ready first," Patience sighed.
"Paul, mother says I may go with you to-morrow afternoon."

"All right," Pauline agreed. "Only, you've got to promise not to 'hi
yi' at Fanny all the way."

"I won't--all the way."

"And--Impatience?"

"Yes?"

"You needn't say what we want the new paper for, or anything about what
we are planning to do--in the store I mean."

"Mr. Ward would be mighty interested."

"I dare say."

"Miranda says you're beginning to put on considerable airs, since
you've been turning your hair up, Paul Shaw. When I put my hair up,
I'm going on being just as nice and friendly with folks, as before,
you'll see."

Pauline laughed, which was not at all to Patience's liking. "All the
same, mind what I say," she warned.

"Can I help choose?" Patience asked, as they reached the store.

"If you like." Pauline went through to the little annex devoted to
wall papers and carpetings. It was rather musty and dull in there,
Patience thought; she would have liked to make a slow round of the
whole store, exchanging greetings and various confidences with the
other occupants. The store was a busy place on Saturday morning, and
Patience knew every man, woman and child in Winton.

They had got their samples and Pauline was lingering before a new line
of summer dressgoods just received, when the young fellow in charge of
the post-office and telegraph station called to her: "I say, Miss Shaw,
here's a message just come for you."

"For me--" Pauline took it wonderingly. Her hands were trembling, she
had never received a telegram before--Was Hilary? Then she laughed at
herself. To have sent a message, Mr. Boyd would have first been
obliged to come in to Winton.

Out on the sidewalk, she tore open the envelope, not heeding Patience's
curious demands. It was from her uncle, and read--

"Have some one meet the afternoon train Saturday, am sending you an aid
towards your summer's outings."

"Oh," Pauline said, "do hurry, Patience. I want to get home as fast as
I can."

CHAPTER IV

BEGINNINGS

Sunday afternoon, Pauline and Patience drove over to The Maples to see
Hilary. They stopped, as they went by, at the postoffice for Pauline
to mail a letter to her uncle, which was something in the nature of a
very enthusiastic postscript to the one she had written him Friday
night, acknowledging and thanking him for his cheque, and telling him
of the plans already under discussion.

"And now," Patience said, as they turned out of the wide main street,
"we're really off. I reckon Hilary'll be looking for us, don't you?"

"I presume she will," Pauline answered.

"Maybe she'll want to come back with us."

"Oh, I don't believe so. She knows mother wants her to stay the week
out. Listen, Patty--"

Patience sat up and took notice. When people Pattied her, it generally
meant they had a favor to ask, or something of the sort.

"Remember, you're to be very careful not to let Hilary
suspect--anything."

"About the room and--?"

"I mean--everything."

"Won't she like it--all, when she does know?"

"Well, rather!"

Patience wriggled excitedly. "It's like having a fairy godmother,
isn't it? And three wishes? If you'd had three wishes, Paul, wouldn't
you've chosen--"

"You'd better begin quieting down, Patience, or Hilary can't help
suspecting something."

Patience drew a long breath. "If she knew--she wouldn't stay a single
day longer, would she?"

"That's one reason why she mustn't know."

"When will you tell her; or is mother going to?"

"I don't know yet. See here, Patience, you may drive--if you won't hi
yi."

"Please, Paul, let me, when we get to the avenue. It's stupid coming
to a place, like Fanny'd gone to sleep."

"Not before--and only once then," Pauline stipulated, and Patience
possessed her soul in at least a faint semblance of patience until they
turned into the avenue of maples. Then she suddenly tightened her hold
on the reins, bounced excitedly up and down, crying sharply--"Hi yi!"

Fanny instantly pricked up her ears, and, what was more to the purpose,
actually started into what might almost have been called a trot.
"There! you see!" Patience said proudly, as they turned into the yard.

Hilary came down the porch steps. "I heard Impatience urging her
Rosinante on," she laughed. "Why didn't you let her drive all the way,
Paul? I've been watching for you since dinner."

"We've been pretty nearly since dinner getting here, it seems to me,"
Patience declared. "We had to wait for Paul to write a letter first
to--"

"Are you alone?" Pauline broke in hurriedly, asking the first question
that came into her mind.

Hilary smiled ruefully. "Not exactly. Mr. Boyd's asleep in the
sitting-room, and Mrs. Boyd's taking a nap up-stairs in her own room."

"You poor child!" Pauline said. "Jump out, Patience!"

"_Have_ you brought me something to read? I've finished both the books
I brought with me, and gone through a lot of magazines--queer old
things, that Mrs. Boyd took years and years ago."

"Then you've done very wrong," Pauline told her severely, leading Fanny
over to a shady spot at one side of the yard and tying her to the
fence--a quite unnecessary act, as nothing would have induced Fanny to
take her departure unsolicited.

"Guess!" Pauline came back, carrying a small paper-covered parcel.
"Father sent it to you. He was over at Vergennes yesterday."

"Oh!" Hilary cried, taking it eagerly and sitting down on the steps.
"It's a book, of course." Even more than her sisters, she had
inherited her father's love of books, and a new book was an event at
the parsonage. "Oh," she cried again, taking off the paper and
disclosing the pretty tartan cover within, "O Paul! It's 'Penelope's
Progress.' Don't you remember those bits we read in those odd
magazines Josie lent us? And how we wanted to read it all?"

Pauline nodded. "I reckon mother told father about it; I saw her
following him out to the gig yesterday morning."

They went around to the little porch leading from Hilary's room, always
a pleasant spot in the afternoons.

"Why," Patience exclaimed, "it's like an out-door parlor, isn't it?"

There was a big braided mat on the floor of the porch, its colors
rather faded by time and use, but looking none the worse for that, a
couple of rockers, a low stool, and a small table, covered with a bit
of bright cretonne. On it stood a blue and white pitcher filled with
field flowers, beside it lay one or two magazines. Just outside,
extending from one of the porch posts to the limb of an old cherry
tree, hung Hilary's hammock, gay with cushions.

"Shirley did it yesterday afternoon," Hilary explained. "She was over
here a good while. Mrs. Boyd let us have the things and the chintz for
the cushions, Shirley made them, and we filled them with hay."

Pauline, sitting on the edge of the low porch, looked about her with
appreciative eyes. "How pleasant and cozy it is, and after all, it
only took a little time and trouble."

Hilary laid her new book on the table. "How soon do you suppose we can
go over to the manor, Paul? I imagine the Dayres have fixed it up
mighty pretty. Mr. Dayre was over here, last night. He and Shirley
are ever so--chummy. He's Shirley Putnam Dayre, and she's Shirley
Putnam Dayre, Junior. So he calls her 'Junior' and she calls him
'Senior.' They're just like brother and sister. He's an artist,
they've been everywhere together. And, Paul, they think Winton is
delightful. Mr. Dayre says the village street, with its great
overhanging trees, and old-fashioned houses, is a picture in itself,
particularly up at our end, with the church, all ivy-covered. He means
to paint the church sometime this summer."

"It would make a pretty picture," Pauline said thoughtfully. "Hilary,
I wonder--"

"So do I," Hilary said. "Still, after all, one would like to see
different places--"

"And love only one," Pauline added; she turned to her sister. "You are
better, aren't you--already?"

"I surely am. Shirley's promised to take me out on the lake soon.
She's going to be friends with us, Paul--really friends. She says we
must call her 'Shirley,' that she doesn't like 'Miss Dayre,' she hears
it so seldom."

"I think it's nice--being called 'Miss,'" Patience remarked, from where
she had curled herself up in the hammock. "I suppose she doesn't want
it, because she can have it--I'd love to be called 'Miss Shaw.'"

"Hilary," Pauline said, "would you mind very much, if you couldn't go
away this summer?"

"It wouldn't do much good if I did, would it?"

"The not minding would--to mother and the rest of us--"

"And if you knew what--" Patience began excitedly.

"Don't you want to go find Captain, Impatience?" Pauline asked hastily,
and Patience, feeling that she had made a false move, went with most
unusual meekness.

"Know what?" Hilary asked.

"I--shouldn't wonder, if the child had some sort of scheme on hand,"
Pauline said, she hoped she wasn't--prevaricating; after all, Patience
probably did have some scheme in her head--she usually had.

"I haven't thought much about going away the last day or so," Hilary
said. "I suppose it's the feeling better, and, then, the getting to
know Shirley."

"I'm glad of that." Pauline sat silent for some moments; she was
watching a fat bumble bee buzzing in and out among the flowers in the
garden. It was always still, over here at the farm, but to-day, it
seemed a different sort of stillness, as if bees and birds and flowers
knew that it was Sunday afternoon.

"Paul," Hilary asked suddenly, "what are you smiling to yourself about?"

"Was I smiling? I didn't know it. I guess because it is so nice and
peaceful here and because--Hilary, let's start a club--the 'S. W. F.
Club.'"

"The what?"

"The 'S. W. F. Club.' No, I shan't tell you what the letters stand
for! You've got to think it out for yourself."

"A real club, Paul?"

"Indeed, yes."

"Who's to belong?"

"Oh, lots of folks. Josie and Tom, and you and I--and I think, maybe,
mother and father."

"Father! To belong to a club!"

"It was he who put the idea into my head."

Hilary came to sit beside her sister on the step. "Paul, I've a
feeling that there is something--up! And it isn't the barometer!"

"Where did you get it?"

"From you."

Pauline sprang up. "Feelings are very unreliable things to go by, but
I've one just now--that if we don't hunt Impatience up pretty
quick--there will be something doing."

They found Patience sitting on the barn floor, utterly regardless of
her white frock. A whole family of kittens were about her.

"Aren't they dears!" Patience demanded.

"Mrs. Boyd says I may have my choice, to take home with me," Hilary
said. The parsonage cat had died the fall before, and had had no
successor as yet.

Patience held up a small coal-black one. "Choose this, Hilary!
Miranda says a black cat brings luck, though it don't look like we
needed any black cats to bring--"

"I like the black and white one," Pauline interposed, just touching
Patience with the tip of her shoe.

"Maybe Mrs. Boyd would give us each one, that would leave one for her,"
Patience suggested cheerfully.

"I imagine mother would have something to say to that," Pauline told
her. "Was Josie over yesterday, Hilary?"

Hilary nodded. "In the morning."

As they were going back to the house, they met Mr. Boyd, on his way to
pay his regular weekly visit to the far pasture.

"Going to salt the colts?" Patience asked. "Please, mayn't I come?"

"There won't be time, Patience," Pauline said.

"Not time!" Mr. Boyd objected, "I'll be back to supper, and you girls
are going to stay to supper." He carried Patience off with him,
declaring that he wasn't sure he should let her go home at all, he
meant to keep her altogether some day, and why not to-night?

"Oh, I couldn't stay to-night," the child assured him earnestly. "Of
course, I couldn't ever stay for always, but by'n'by, when--there isn't
so much going on at home--there's such a lot of things keep happening
at home now, only don't tell Hilary, please--maybe, I could come make
you a truly visit."

Indoors, Pauline and Hilary found Mrs. Boyd down-stairs again from her
nap. "You ain't come after Hilary?" she questioned anxiously.

"Only to see her," Pauline answered, and while she helped Mrs. Boyd get
supper, she confided to her the story of Uncle Paul's letter and the
plans already under way.

Mrs. Boyd was much interested. "Bless me, it'll do her a heap of good,
you'll see, my dear. I'm not sure, I don't agree with your uncle, when
all's said and done, home's the best place for young folks."

Just before Pauline and Patience went home that evening, Mrs. Boyd
beckoned Pauline mysteriously into the best parlor. "I always meant
her to have them some day--she being my god-child--and maybe they'll do
her as much good now, as any time, she'll want to fix up a bit now and
then, most likely. Shirley had on a string of them last night, but not
to compare with these." Mrs. Boyd was kneeling before a trunk in the
parlor closet, and presently she put a little square shell box into
Pauline's bands. "Box and all, just like they came to me--you know,
they were my grandmother's--but Hilary's a real careful sort of girl."

"But, Mrs. Boyd--I'm not sure that mother would--" Pauline knew quite
well what was in the box.

"That's all right! You just slip them in Hilary's top drawer, where
she'll come across them without expecting it. Deary me, I never wear
them, and as I say, I've always meant to give them to her some day."

"She'll be perfectly delighted--and they'll look so pretty. Hilary's
got a mighty pretty neck, I think." Pauline went out to the gig, the
little box hidden carefully in her blouse, feeling that Patience was
right and that these were very fairy-story sort of days.

"You'll be over again soon, won't you?" Hilary urged.

"We're going to be tre-men-dous-ly busy," Patience began, but her
sister cut her short.

"As soon as I can, Hilary. Mind you go on getting better."

By Monday noon, the spare room had lost its look of prim order. In the
afternoon, Pauline and her mother went down to the store to buy the
matting. There was not much choice to be had, and the only green and
white there was, was considerably beyond the limit they had allowed
themselves.

"Never mind," Pauline said cheerfully, "plain white will look ever so
cool and pretty--perhaps, the green would fade. I'm going to believe
so."

Over a low wicker sewing-chair, she did linger longingly; it would look
so nice beside one of the west windows. She meant to place a low table
for books and work between those side windows. In the end, prudence
won the day, and surely, the new paper and matting were enough to be
grateful for in themselves.

By the next afternoon the paper was on and the matting down. Pauline
was up garret rummaging, when she heard someone calling her from the
foot of the stairs. "I'm here, Josie," she called back, and her friend
came running up.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Pauline held up an armful of old-fashioned chintz.

"Oh, how pretty!" Josie exclaimed. "It makes one think of high-waisted
dresses, and minuets and things like that."

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