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

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Sometimes Pauline would enclose one or two of Hilary's snap-shots of
places, or persons. At one of these, taken the day of the fishing
picnic, and under which Hilary had written "The best catch of the
season," Mr. Paul Shaw looked long and intently. Somehow he had never
pictured Phil to himself as middle-aged. If anyone had told him, when
the lad was a boy, that the time would come when they would be like
strangers to each other--Mr. Paul Shaw slipped the snap-shot and letter
back into their envelope.

It was that afternoon that he spent considerable time over a catalogue
devoted entirely to sporting goods; and it was a fortnight later that
Patience came flying down the garden path to where Pauline and Hilary
were leaning over the fence, paying a morning call to Bedelia, sunning
herself in the back pasture.

"You'll never guess what's come _this_ time! And Jed says he reckons
he can haul it out this afternoon if you're set on it! And it's
addressed to the 'Misses Shaw,' so that means it's _mine, too_!"
Patience dropped on the grass, quite out of breath.

The "it" proved to be a row-boat with a double set of oar-locks, a
perfect boat for the lake, strong and safe, but trig and neat of
outline.

Hilary named it the "Surprise" at first sight, and Tom was sent for at
once to paint the name in red letters to look well against the white
background and to match the boat's red trimmings.

Its launching was an event. Some of the young people had boats over at
the lake, rather weather-beaten, tubby affairs, Bell declared them,
after the coming of the "Surprise." A general overhauling took place
immediately, the girls adopted simple boating dresses--red and white,
which were their boating colors. A new zest was given to the water
picnics, Bedelia learning to know the lake road very well.

August had come before they fairly realized that their summer was more
than well under way. In little more than a month the long vacation
would be over. Tom and Josie were to go to Boston to school; Bell to
Vergennes.

"There'll never be another summer quite like it!" Hilary said one
morning. "I can't bear to think of its being over."

"It isn't--yet," Pauline answered.

"Tom's coming," Patience heralded from the gate, and Hilary ran indoors
for hat and camera.

"Where are you off to this morning?" Pauline asked, as her sister came
out again.

"Out by the Cross-roads' Meeting-House," Tom answered. "Hilary has
designs on it, I believe."

"You'd better come, too, Paul," Hilary urged. "It's a glorious morning
for a walk."

"I'm going to help mother cut out; perhaps I'll come to meet you with
Bedelia 'long towards noon. You wait at Meeting-House Hill."

"_I'm_ not going to be busy this morning," Patience insinuated.

"Oh, yes you are, young lady," Pauline told her. "Mother said you were
to weed the aster bed."

Patience looked longingly after the two starting gayly off down the
path, their cameras swung over their shoulders, then she looked
disgustedly at the aster bed. It was quite the biggest of the smaller
beds.--She didn't see what people wanted to plant so many asters for;
she had never cared much for asters, she felt she should care even less
about them in the future. Tiresome, stiff affairs!

By the time Tom and Hilary reached the old Cross-Roads' Meeting-House
that morning, after a long roundabout ramble, Hilary, for one, was
quite willing to sit down and wait for Pauline and the trap, and eat
the great, juicy blackberries Tom gathered for her from the bushes
along the road.

It had rained during the night and the air was crisp and fresh, with a
hint of the coming fall. "Summer's surely on the down grade," Tom
said, throwing himself on the bank beside Hilary.

"So Paul and I were lamenting this morning. I don't suppose it matters
as much to you folks who are going off to school."

"Still it means another summer over," Tom said soberly. He was rather
sorry that it was so--there could never be another summer quite so
jolly and carefree. "And the breaking up of the club, I suppose?"

"I don't see why we need call it a break--just a discontinuance, for a
time."

"And why that, even? There'll be a lot of you left, to keep it going."

"Y-yes, but with three, or perhaps more, out, I reckon we'll have to
postpone the next installment until another summer."

Tom went off then for more berries, and Hilary sat leaning back against
the trunk of the big tree crowning the top of Meeting-House Hill, her
eyes rather thoughtful. From where she sat, she had a full view of
both roads for some distance and, just beyond, the little hamlet
scattered about the old meeting-house.

Before the gate of one of the houses stood a familiar gig, and
presently, as she sat watching, Dr. Brice came down the narrow
flower-bordered path, followed by a woman. At the gate both stopped;
the woman was saying something, her anxious, drawn face seeming out of
keeping with the cheery freshness of the morning and the flowers
nodding their bright heads about her.

As the doctor stood listening, his old shabby medicine case in his
hand, with face bent to the troubled one raised to his, and bearing
indicating grave sympathy and understanding, Hilary reached for her
camera.

"Upon my word! Isn't the poor pater exempt?" Tom laughed, coming back.

"I want it for the book Josie and I are making for you to take away
with you, 'Winton Snap-shots.' We'll call it 'The Country Doctor.'"

Tom looked at the gig, moving slowly off down the road now. He hated
to say so, but he wished Hilary would not put that particular snap-shot
in. He had a foreboding that it was going to make him a bit
uncomfortable--later--when the time for decision came; though, as for
that, he had already decided--beyond thought of change. He wished that
the pater hadn't set his heart on his coming back here to practice--and
he wished, too, that Hilary hadn't taken that photo.

"Paul's late," he said presently.

"I'm afraid she isn't coming."

"It's past twelve," Tom glanced at the sun. "Maybe we'd better walk on
a bit."

But they had walked a considerable bit, all the way to the parsonage,
in fact, before they saw anything of Pauline. There, she met them at
the gate. "Have you seen any trace of Patience--and Bedelia?" she
asked eagerly.

"Patience and Bedelia?" Hilary repeated wonderingly.

"They're both missing, and it's pretty safe guessing they're together."

"But Patience would never dare--"

"Wouldn't she!" Pauline exclaimed. "Jim brought Bedelia 'round about
eleven and when I came out a few moments later, she was gone and so was
Patience. Jim's out looking for them. We traced them as far as the
Lake road."

"I'll go hunt, too," Tom offered. "Don't you worry, Paul; she'll turn
up all right--couldn't down the Imp, if you tried."

"But she's never driven Bedelia alone; and Bedelia's not Fanny."

However, half an hour later, Patience drove calmly into the yard,
Towser on the seat beside her, and if there was something very like
anxiety in her glance, there was distinct triumph in the way she
carried her small, bare head.

"We've had a beautiful drive!" she announced, smiling pleasantly from
her high seat, at the worried, indignant group on the porch. "I tell
you, there isn't any need to 'hi-yi' this horse!"

"My sakes!" Miranda declared. "Did you ever hear the beat of that!"

"Get down, Patience!" Mrs. Shaw said, and Patience climbed obediently
down. She bore the prompt banishment to her own room which followed,
with seeming indifference. Certainly, it was not unexpected; but when
Hilary brought her dinner up to her presently, she found her sitting on
the floor, her head on the bed. It was only a few days now to
Shirley's turn and it was going to be such a nice turn. Patience felt
that for once Patience Shaw had certainly acted most unwisely.

"Patty, how could you!" Hilary put the tray on the table and sitting
down on the bed, took the tumbled head on her knee. "We've been so
worried! You see, Bedelia isn't like Fanny!"

"That's why I wanted to get a chance to drive her by myself for once!
She went beautifully! out on the Lake road I just let her loose!" For
the moment, pride in her recent performance routed all contrition from
Patience's voice--"I tell you, folks I passed just stared!"

"Patience, how--"

"I wasn't scared the least bit; and, of course, Bedelia knew it. Uncle
Jerry says they always know when you're scared, and if Mr. Allen is the
most up in history of any man in Vermont, Uncle Jerry is the most in
horses."

Hilary felt that the conversation was hardly proceeding upon the lines
her mother would have approved of, especially under present
circumstances. "That has nothing to do with it, you know, Patience,"
she said, striving to be properly severe.

"I think it has--everything. I think it's nice not being scared of
things. You're sort of timid 'bout things, aren't you, Hilary?"

Hilary made a movement to rise.

"Oh, please," Patience begged. "It's going to be such a dreadful long
afternoon--all alone."

"But I can't stay, mother would not want--"

"Just for a minute. I--I want to tell you something. I--coming back,
I met Jane, and I gave her a lift home--and she did love it so--she
says she's never ridden before behind a horse that really went as if it
enjoyed it as much as she did. That was some good out of being bad,
wasn't it? And--I told you--ever'n' ever so long ago, that I was
mighty sure Jane'd just be tickled to death to belong to our club. I
think you might ask her--I don't see why she shouldn't like Seeing
Winton, same's we do--she doesn't ever have fun--and she'll be dead
pretty soon. She's getting along, Jane is--it'd make me mad's anything
to have to die 'fore I'd had any fun to speak of. Jane's really very
good company--when you draw her out--she just needs drawing out--Jane
does. Seems to me, she remembers every funeral and wedding and
everything--that's ever taken place in Winton." Patience stopped,
sheer out of breath, but there was an oddly serious look on her little
eager face.

Hilary stroked back the tangled red curls. "Maybe you're right, Patty;
maybe we have been selfish with our good times. I'll have to go now,
dear. You--I may tell mother--that you are sorry--truly, Patty?"

Patience nodded. "But I reckon, it's a good deal on account of
Shirley's turn," she explained.

Hilary bit her lip.

"You don't suppose you could fix that up with mother? You're pretty
good at fixing things up with mother, Hilary."

"Since how long?" Hilary laughed, but when she had closed the door, she
opened it again to stick her head in. "I'll try, Patty, at any rate,"
she promised.

She went down-stairs rather thoughtful. Mrs. Shaw was busy in the
study and Pauline had gone out on an errand. Hilary went up-stairs
again, going to sit by one of the side windows in the "new room."

Over at the church, Sextoness Jane was making ready for the regular
weekly prayer meeting; never a service was held in the church that she
did not set all in order. Through one of the open windows, Hilary
caught sight of the bunch of flowers on the reading-desk. Jane had
brought them with her from home. Presently, the old woman herself came
to the window to shake her dust-cloth, standing there a moment, leaning
a little out, her eyes turned to the parsonage. Pauline was coming up
the path, Shirley and Bell were with her. They were laughing and
talking, the bright young voices making a pleasant break in the quiet
of the garden. It seemed to Hilary, as if she could catch the wistful
look in Jane's faded eyes, a look only half consciously so, as if the
old woman reached out vaguely for something that her own youth had been
without and that only lately she had come to feel the lack of.

A quick lump came into the girl's throat. Life had seemed so bright
and full of untried possibilities only that very morning, up there on
Meeting-House Hill, with the wind in one's face; and then had come that
woman, following the doctor down from the path. Life was surely
anything but bright for her this crisp August day--and now here was
Jane. And presently--at the moment it seemed very near indeed to
Hilary--she and Paul and all of them would be old and, perhaps,
unhappy. And then it would be good to remember--that they had tried to
share the fun and laughter of this summer of theirs with others.

Hilary thought of the piece of old tapestry hanging on the studio wall
over at the manor--of the interwoven threads--the dark as necessary to
the pattern as the bright. Perhaps they had need of Sextoness Jane, of
the interweaving of her life into theirs--of the interweaving of all
the village lives going on about them--quite as much as those more
sober lives needed the brightening touch of theirs.

"Hilary! O Hilary!" Pauline called.

"I'm coming," Hilary answered, and went slowly down to where the others
were waiting on the porch.

"Has anything happened?" Pauline asked.

"I've been having a think--and I've come to the conclusion that we're a
selfish, self-absorbed set."

"Mother Shaw!" Pauline went to the study window, "please come out here.
Hilary's calling us names, and that isn't polite."

Mrs. Shaw came. "I hope not very bad names," she said.

Hilary swung slowly back and forth in the hammock. "I didn't mean it
that way--it's only--" She told what Patience had said about Jane's
joining the club, and then, rather reluctantly, a little of what she
had been thinking.

"I think Hilary's right," Shirley declared. "Let's form a deputation
and go right over and ask the poor old soul to join here and now."

"I would never've thought of it," Bell said. "But I don't suppose I've
ever given Jane a thought, anyway."

"Patty's mighty cute--for all she's such a terror at times," Pauline
admitted. "She knows a lot about the people here--and it's just
because she's interested in them."

"Come on," Shirley said, jumping up. "We're going to have another
honorary member."

"I think it would be kind, girls," Mrs. Shaw said gravely. "Jane will
feel herself immensely flattered, and I know of no one who upholds the
honor of Winton more honestly or persistently."

"And please, Mrs. Shaw," Shirley coaxed, "when we come back, mayn't
Patience Shaw, H. M., come down and have tea with us?"

"I hardly think--"

"Please, Mother Shaw," Hilary broke in; "after all--she started this,
you know. That sort of counterbalances the other, doesn't it?"

"Well, we'll see," her mother laughed.

Pauline ran to get one of the extra badges with which Shirley had
provided her, and then the four girls went across to the church.

Sextoness Jane was just locking the back door--not the least important
part of the afternoon's duties with her--as they came through the
opening in the hedge. "Good afternoon," she said cheerily, "was you
wanting to go inside?"

"No," Pauline answered, "we came over to invite you to join our club.
We thought, maybe, you'd like to?"

"My Land!" Jane stared from one to another of them. "And wear one of
them blue-ribbon affairs?"

"Yes, indeed," Shirley laughed. "See, here it is," and she pointed to
the one in Pauline's hand.

Sextoness Jane came down the steps. "Me, I ain't never wore a badge!
Not once in all my life! Oncet, when I was a little youngster, 'most
like Patience, teacher, she got up some sort of May doings. We was all
to wear white dresses and red, white and blue ribbons--very night
before, I come down with the mumps. Looks like I always come down when
I ought to've stayed up!"

"But you won't come down with anything this time," Pauline pinned the
blue badge on the waist of Jane's black and white calico. "Now you're
an honorary member of 'The S. W. F. Club.'"

Jane passed a hand over it softly. "My Land!" was all she could say.

She was still stroking it softly as she walked slowly away towards
home. My, wouldn't Tobias be interested!

CHAPTER IX

AT THE MANOR

"'All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,
And the Lady Hollyhock,'"

Patience chanted, moving slowly about the parsonage garden, hands full
of flowers, and the big basket, lying on the grass beyond, almost full.

Behind her, now running at full speed, now stopping suddenly, back
lifted, tail erect, came Lucky, the black kitten from The Maples.
Lucky had been an inmate of the parsonage for some weeks now and was
thriving famously in her adopted home. Towser tolerated her with the
indifference due such a small, insignificant creature, and she
alternately bullied and patronized Towser.

"We haven't shepherd's purse, nor lady's smock, that I know of, Lucky,"
Patience said, glancing back at the kitten, at that moment threatening
battle at a polite nodding Sweet William, "but you can see for yourself
that we have hollyhocks, while as for bachelor's buttons! Just look at
that big, blue bunch in one corner of the basket."

It was the morning of the day of Shirley's turn and Pauline was
hurrying to get ready to go over and help decorate the manor. She was
singing, too; from the open windows of the "new room" came the words--

"'A cheerful world?--It surely is
And if you understand your biz
You'll taboo the worry worm,
And cultivate the happy germ.'"

To which piece of good advice, Patience promptly whistled back the gay
refrain.

On the back porch, Sextoness Jane--called in for an extra half-day--was
ironing the white dresses to be worn that afternoon. And presently,
Patience, her basket quite full and stowed away in the trap waiting
before the side door, strolled around to interview her.

"I suppose you're going this afternoon?" she asked.

Jane looked up from waxing her iron. "Well, I was sort of calculating
on going over for a bit; Miss Shirley having laid particular stress on
my coming and this being the first reg'lar doings since I joined the
club. I told her and Pauline they mustn't look for me to go junketing
'round with them all the while, seeing I'm in office--so to speak--and
my time pretty well taken up with my work. I reckon you're going?"

"I--" Patience edged nearer the porch. Behind Jane stood the tall
clothes-horse, with its burden of freshly ironed white things. At
sight of a short, white frock, very crisp and immaculate, the blood
rushed to the child's face, then as quickly receded.--After all, it
would have had to be ironed for Sunday and--well, mother certainly had
been very non-committal the past few days--ever since that escapade
with Bedelia, in fact--regarding her youngest daughter's hopes and
fears for this all-important afternoon. And Patience had been wise
enough not to press the matter.

"But, oh, I do wonder if Hilary has--" Patience went back to the side
porch. Hilary was there talking to Bedelia. "You--you have fixed it
up?" the child inquired anxiously.

Hilary looked gravely unconscious. "Fixed it up?" she repeated.

"About this afternoon--with mother?"

"Oh, yes! Mother's going; so is father."

Patience repressed a sudden desire to stamp her foot, and Hilary,
seeing the real doubt and longing in her face, relented. "Mother wants
to see you, Patty. I rather think there are to be conditions."

Patience darted off. From the doorway, she looked back--"I just knew
you wouldn't go back on me, Hilary! I'll love you forever'n' ever."

Pauline came out a moment later, drawing on her driving gloves. "I
feel like a story-book girl, going driving this time in the morning, in
a trap like this. I wish you were coming, too, Hilary."

"Oh, I'm like the delicate story-book girl, who has to rest, so as to
be ready for the dissipations that are to come later. I look the part,
don't I?"

Pauline looked down into the laughing, sun-browned face. "If Uncle
Paul were to see you now, he might find it hard to believe I
hadn't--exaggerated that time."

"Well, it's your fault--and his, or was, in the beginning. You've a
fine basket of flowers to take; Patience has done herself proud this
morning."

"It's wonderful how well that young lady can behave--at times."

"Oh, she's young yet! When I hear mother tell how like her you used to
be, I don't feel too discouraged about Patty."

"That strikes me as rather a double-edged sort of speech," Pauline
gathered up the reins. "Good-by, and don't get too tired."

Shirley's turn was to be a combination studio tea and lawn-party, to
which all club members, both regular and honorary, not to mention their
relatives and friends, had been bidden. Following this, was to be a
high tea for the regular members.

"That's Senior's share," Shirley had explained to Pauline. "He insists
that it's up to him to do something."

Mr. Dayre was on very good terms with the "S. W. F. Club." As for
Shirley, after the first, no one had ever thought of her as an outsider.

It was hard now, Pauline thought, as she drove briskly along, the lake
breeze in her face, and the sound of Bedelia's quick trotting forming a
pleasant accompaniment to her, thoughts, very hard, to realize how soon
the summer would be over. But perhaps--as Hilary said--next summer
would mean the taking up again of this year's good times and
interests,--Shirley talked of coming back. As for the winter--Pauline
had in mind several plans for the winter. Those of the club members to
stay behind must get together some day and talk them over. One thing
was certain, the club motto must be lived up to bravely. If not in one
way, why in another. There must be no slipping back into the old
dreary rut and routine. It lay with themselves as to what their winter
should be.

"And there's fine sleighing here, Bedelia," she said. "We'll get the
old cutter out and give it a coat of paint."

Bedelia tossed her head, as if she heard in imagination the gay
jingling of the sleighbells.

"But, in the meantime, here is the manor," Pauline laughed, "and it's
the prettiest August day that ever was, and lawn-parties and such
festivities are afoot, not sleighing parties."

The manor stood facing the lake with its back to the road, a broad
sloping lawn surrounded it on three sides, with the garden at the back.

For so many seasons, it had stood lonely and neglected, that Pauline
never came near it now, without rejoicing afresh in its altered aspect.
Even the sight of Betsy Todd's dish towels, drying on the currant
bushes at one side of the back door, added their touch to the sense of
pleasant, homely life that seemed to envelop the old house nowadays.

Shirley came to the gate, as Pauline drew up, Phil, Pat and Pudgey in
close attention. "I have to keep an eye on them," she told Pauline.
"They've just had their baths, and they're simply wild to get out in
the middle of the road and roll. I've told them no self-respecting dog
would wish to come to a lawn-party in anything but the freshest of
white coats, but I'm afraid they're not very self-respecting."

"Patience is sure Towser's heart is heavy because he is not to come;
she has promised him a lawn-party on his own account, and that no
grown-ups shall be invited. She's sent you the promised flowers, and
hinted--more or less plainly--that she would have been quite willing to
deliver them in person."

"Why didn't you bring her? Oh, but I'm afraid you've robbed yourself!"

"Oh, no, we haven't. Mother says, flowers grow with picking."

"Come on around front," Shirley suggested. "The boys have been putting
the awning up."

"The boys" were three of Mr. Dayre's fellow artists, who had come up a
day or two before, on a visit to the manor. One of them, at any rate,
deserved Shirley's title. He came forward now. "Looks pretty nice,
doesn't it?" he said, with a wave of the hand towards the red and white
striped awning, placed at the further edge of the lawn.

Shirley smiled her approval, and introduced him to Pauline, adding that
Miss Shaw was the real founder of their club.

"It's a might jolly sort of club, too," young Oram said.

"That is exactly what it has turned out to be," Pauline laughed. "Are
the vases ready, Shirley?"

Shirley brought the tray of empty flower vases out on the veranda, and
sent Harry Oram for a bucket of fresh water. "Harry is to make the
salad," she explained to Pauline, as he came back. "Before he leaves
the manor he will have developed into a fairly useful member of
society."

"You've never eaten one of my salads, Miss Shaw," Harry said. "When
you have, you'll think all your previous life an empty dream."

"It's much more likely her later life will prove a nightmare,--for a
while, at least," Shirley declared. "Still, Paul, Harry does make them
rather well. Betsy Todd, I am sorry to say, doesn't approve of him.
But there are so many persons and things she doesn't approve of;
lawn-parties among the latter."

Pauline nodded sympathetically; she knew Betsy Todd of old. Her wonder
was, that the Dayres had been able to put up with her so long, and she
said so.

"'Hobson's choice,'" Shirley answered, with a little shrug. "She isn't
much like our old Therese at home, is she, Harry? But nothing would
tempt Therese away from her beloved New York. 'Vairmon! Nevaire have
I heard of zat place!' she told Harry, when he interviewed her for us.
Senior's gone to Vergennes--on business thoughts intent, or I hope they
are. He's under strict orders not to 'discover a single bit' along the
way, and to get back as quickly as possible."

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