Chapter IX

THE KING'S DAUGHTERS AND THE VENETIAN FETE.

"O ladies, dear ladies, the next sunny day,
Please trundle your hoops just out of Broadway,
From its whirl and its bustle, its fashion and pride,
And the temples of trade which tower on each side,
To the alleys and lanes where Misfortune and Guilt
Their children have gathered, their city have built.

* * * * *

Then say, if you dare,
Spoiled children of fashion, you've nothing to wear!"

Milly Roseveldt made an important entry in her diary a few days after this. She was very exact about keeping her diary, recording for the most part, however, very trivial matters, but the day that she wrote "We have organized a 'King's Daughters Ten'" was a day with a white stone in it, and deserved to be remembered.

Jim had passed the crisis of the fever, and recovered rapidly. Neither of the other Hettermans was taken ill. The house was thoroughly cleansed and disinfected, and after a few weeks we took up our interrupted botany lessons. But Jim's illness had made more than a transient impression, and Adelaide's suggestion that we should broaden and deepen our work was talked over amongst us.

"There is a society," said Emma Jane, "which I have heard of somewhere, which is called 'The King's Daughters.' I think they have much the same idea that Miss Prillwitz has expressed. It is formed of separate links of ten members, bound together by the common purpose of doing good. Now, I think, we might form such a link, with Miss Prillwitz for our president. There are five of us, but we need five more. Whom shall we ask?"

"Girls," said Winnie, "I'm afraid you won't agree, but there is real good stuff in those Hornets."

"The Hornets! Oh, never!"

"What an idea!"

"Why, they hate us!"

"No, they simply think that we despise them."

"Well, so we do. I am sure, the way that Cynthia Vaughn behaves is simply despicable."

"Perhaps so," Winnie admitted, "but the other three girls are not so bad. Little Breeze"--that was our nickname for Tina Gale--"is a real good-natured girl, and a perfect genius for getting up things. When I roomed in the Nest she was devoted to me; so they all were, for that matter. I could make them do whatever I pleased, and Rosaria Ricos, the Cuban heiress, is just as generous as she can be. 'Trude Middleton is a great Sunday-school worker when she is at home, and Puss Seligman's mother has a longer calling-list than Milly's, I do believe. Don't you remember what a lot of tickets she sold for the theatricals? If we are going to get up a charitable society we must use some brains to make it succeed, and those girls are a power. You know very well that it is the Hornets' Nest and the Amen Corner which support the literary society, and when we unite on any ticket-selling or other enterprise it is sure to succeed."

"Yes," replied Emma Jane Anton, "that is because we appeal to entirely different sets of girls--between us we carry the entire school."

"I will take all in," said Adelaide, "except Cynthia. She has been too hateful to Tib and Milly for anything!"

"Oh, don't mind me," murmured Milly; "I dare say she could not help laughing when I made that mistake about Paul and Virginia."

"I don't believe she will join us," I said, doubtfully; "but I am sure I would a great deal rather have her for a friend than an enemy."

"She will be so surprised and flattered that she will be as sweet as jam," said Winnie, confidently. "You have no idea what a lofty reputation you girls have. I used to reverence and envy you until it amounted to positive hatred. That is what made me behave so badly. I knew we couldn't approach you in good behavior, and I determined to take the lead in something. That's just the way with Cynthia. She imagines that you would not touch her with a ten-foot pole, and she wants you to think that she doesn't care, but she does."

Milly promptly furnished the wherewithal for a spread, and the Hornets were invited. Adelaide said that they acted as if a sense of gratification were struggling with a sneaking consciousness of unworthiness, and it was all that she could do not to display the scorn which she was afraid she felt. But Milly was as sweetly gracious as only Milly knew how to be, and Winnie put them all at their ease with her rollicking good-fellowship. I was sure that Cynthia at first suspected some trick, but even she succumbed at last to our praise of her banjo-playing, which was really admirable. They melted completely with the ice-cream--little ducks with strawberry heads and pistache wings; and when Winnie told them the entire story of the little prince they were greatly interested.

"Now," said Winnie, "I have been talking with Jim, and he says that the tenement house in which he lived swarms with children who ought not to pass the summer there, who will die if they do; and what I want to propose is, that we club together and have some sort of entertainment, to send them to the country, or do something else for them."

The proposition met with favor, as did the plan for the King's Daughters society, which was organized at once, and officered as follows, the "spoils" being divided equally between the Amen Corner and the Hornets:

President--Miss Prillwitz.

Vice-Presidents--Adelaide Armstrong and Gertrude Middleton.

Secretary--Cynthia Vaughn.

Treasurer--Emma Jane Anton.

Executive Committee--The foregoing officers and the rest of the society.

"Little Breeze" then made a practical suggestion: "You know," said she, "that the literary society is always allowed to give an entertainment the week before the graduating exercises, to put the treasury in funds, or, rather, to pay old debts. We have no debts this year, and I am sure that the society will let us have the occasion. Whatever we ten favor is sure to be carried in the literary society."

"That is what I said," remarked Winnie.

"So if Miss Anton will get Madame's permission for the change, I have no doubt we can make at least three hundred dollars."

"Nonsense! we will make twice that," said Puss Hastings.

"But what shall we have?"

"I know the sweetest thing," said Little Breeze. "A Venetian Fete! It is really a fair, but the booths are all made to represent gondolas. They are painted black, and have their prows turned toward the centre of the room. We can have it in the gymnasium. The gondolas are canopied in different colors and hung with bright lanterns. We must all be dressed in Venetian costume, and have music and some pretty dances. It will be lovely!"

The fair was planned out: each girl had a gondola assigned her, with permission to work other girls in, and enthusiasm had reached a high pitch, when the retiring-bell clanged and the Hornets took their departure, the utmost good feeling prevailing between what had been until this evening rival factions of the school.

After our next botany lesson we lingered to inform Miss Prillwitz of what we had done, and to ask her to accept the Presidency of our ten. She listened with much interest.

"My tears," she said, "I sink perhaps you s'all do much good. I have justly been sinking, sinking; but ze need is great. I know not how we s'all come at ze money which we do need."

Then Miss Prillwitz explained that she had visited Rickett's Court, and had found so many little children in those vile surroundings; some of them, whose mothers were servants in families, and received good wages, were "boarding" with Mrs. Grogan, the baby-farmer. She had met one such mother in the court--a waitress on Fifth Avenue, who had three children with Mrs. Grogan.

"I pay her fifteen dollars a month," she said; "it is cheaper than I can board them elsewhere, and all that I can pay; but it makes my heart sick to see them sleeping and playing beside sewers and sinks, and to have them exposed to language of infinitely worse foulness. I know that if they do not die in childhood, of which there is every likelihood, they will grow up bad; and I don't know which I would choose for them. I wouldn't mind slaving for them, if there was any hope, if I could see them in decent surroundings, with some prospect of their turning out well in the end; but now, when I ask myself what all my toil amounts to, it seems to me that the best thing which could happen to us all would be to die."

The waitress knew of other servants who could have no home of their own for their children, but who could pay something for their support, and whose maternal love and feeling of independence kept them from giving their children up to institutions; who had entrusted their little ones to bad people, who hired them to beggars, beat and half starved them. And now the summer was approaching, and it was dreadful to think of those closely packed tenement houses under the stifling heat.

Miss Prillwitz said that it had seemed to her positively wrong for her to go away to the seashore for the summer while so many must remain and suffer.

"I don't see that," said Adelaide, "unless by staying you can make their condition better."

"Perhaps I can so," replied Miss Prillwitz, "if ze King's Daughters will help me." And then she developed a plan of Jim's. He had noticed the vacant floors in her house, which had remained unlet all the winter. "If you could rent them for the summer, Miss Prillwitz," he had suggested, "we wouldn't need much furniture, but could just invite a lot of the children in and let them camp down. The rooms are so clean, and there is such lovely fresh air and no smells, and such beautiful bath-tubs, and the park for the little ones to play in, and Mary Hetterman could watch them."

"You forget," Miss Prillwitz had replied, "zat zose children are use probably to eat somet'ings."

No, Jim had not forgotten that, but Mrs. Hetterman would be out of a place for the summer vacation, and would cook for them, and the children's mothers would pay something, and he would do the marketing. After the public school closed the older children could earn something, he thought. He was all on fire with the idea, and his enthusiasm had communicated itself to our princess. "I haf even vent to see my landlord," she confessed; "he is von very rich man. I sought maybe he let me use ze rooms for ze summer, since he cannot else rent them. But no, he did not so make his wealths. We can have them von hundred dollar ze months; six months, five hundred. We cannot else. Now do you sink you make five hundred dollar from your fair?"

"Oh, I think so; indeed, I am sure of it!" Adelaide exclaimed; "dear little Jim, what an angel he is! We will go right to work and see what we can do."

Of course the fair was a success, as fairs go. I have since thought that a fair is a poor way for Christian people to give money to any charitable purpose. So much goes astray from the goal, so much is swallowed up in the expenses, that if people would only put their hands in their pockets and give at the outset what they do give in the aggregate, more would be realized, and much time, vexation, and labor saved. But people do not yet recognize this, and we knew no better than to follow in the old way. I had charge of the Art gondola, with Miss Sartoris and all the Studio girls to help me. We decided that, as it was a Venetian fete, we would make a specialty of Italian art. Miss Sartoris suggested etchings, and one of the leading art dealers allowed us to make our choice from his entire collection, giving them to us at wholesale, as he would to any other retail dealer, we to sell them at the regular retail price, thereby taking no unfair advantage over our purchasers, and yet making a handsome profit on each etching sold, while we ran no risk, as all unsold stock was to be returned.

We were surprised to find how many Venetian subjects had been etched. There were half a dozen different views of St. Mark's Cathedral--exteriors and interiors; San Giorgios and La Salutes; there were Rainy Nights in Venice, and Sunny Days in Venice, canals and bridges, shipping and palaces, piazzas and archways and cloisters.

Then we obtained a quantity of photographs of the Italian master-pieces, chiefly from the works of Titian and the Venetian school, though we included also the Madonnas of Raphael. Miss Sartoris found an Italian curiosity-shop, which was a perfect treasure-trove, for here we secured, on commission, a quantity of Venetian glass beads, the beautiful blossomed variety, with tiny smelling-bottles of the same material, together with sleeve-buttons of Florentine mosaic, ornaments of pink Neapolitan coral, and broken pieces of antique Roman marbles, all of which we sold at immense profit. We had not thought of having any statuary, until Jim came to us, one afternoon, saying that Miss Prillwitz had told him that we intended to have an Italian fete, and as several of the families whom he wished benefited were Italians, who lived in Rickett's Court, he thought they might help us.

"What do they do?" I asked.

"The older Stavini boys peddle plaster-of-paris images, and some of them are very pretty. Pietro will bring you a basket of them, I am sure, and take back all you don't sell."

The plaster casts proved to be artistic and new. There was a set of five singing cherubs which we had seen on sale in the stores at twenty-five dollars a set, which Pietro offered us at fifty cents each, and others in like proportion. We sold his entire basketful at advanced prices, and received several orders for duplicates.

Winnie had charge of the refreshment department, and had a troop of the "preparatories" dressed as contadinas, who were to serve Neapolitan ices in colored glasses. Jim enabled her to introduce a very taking novelty by telling her of Vincenzo Amati, a cook in an Italian restaurant, who had three motherless little girls who were candidates for the summer home. Vincenzo agreed to come and cook for us while the fair lasted, Mrs. Hetterman kindly giving him place in the kitchen, so that we were able to add to our other attractions that of a real Italian supper, served on little tables in an adjoining recitation-room. Vincenzo brought us several dozen Chianti wine flasks, the empty bottles at the restaurant having been one of his perquisites. They were of graceful shapes, with slender necks, and wound in wicker, which Miss Sartoris gilded and further ornamented with a bow of bright satin ribbon. These flasks, empty, decorated each of the little tables, and one was given to each guest as a souvenir.

The menu consisted of--

Riso con piselli, } (Soup).
Minestra Zuppa, }
Olives.
Bistecca (Beefsteak).
Macaroni al burro (with butter).
Macaroni a pomidoro (with potatoes).
Testa de vitello (Calf's head).
Carciofi (Artichokes).
Cavolifiori (Cauliflower).
Salami di Bologna (Bologna Sausage).
Crostata di frutti (Fruit tarts).
Formaggio (Cheese).

Adelaide was musical director, and led the singing class in "Dolce Napoli" and other Italian songs. The girls were dressed in costume, and there was one fisher chorus, which made a very effective tableau with a background of colored sails and nets. Vincenzo allowed his little girls to appear with a neighbor's hand-organ, and when they passed their tambourines they gathered a goodly harvest of pennies.

Little Breeze arranged the tableaux and the dances, Mrs. Halsey sending in designs for the costumes; and Cynthia Vaughn ran a side show of stereopticon views, Professor Todd kindly working the lantern.

Milly had the flower gondola, or booth of cut flowers, supplied from her father's conservatory, and Miss Prillwitz contributed to this department a quantity of little albums and herbaria containing pressed flowers and seaweed from different Italian cities. Our dear princess was present, beaming with happiness, and the "ten" introduced her proudly to their parents and friends. Mr. Roseveldt seemed much interested, in an amused way, in what we were trying to do. "Go ahead, my dear," he said to Milly, "and if you don't come to me to shoulder a lot of bad debts before the summer is over, I shall be greatly surprised, and have a far higher respect for what little girls can do than I now possess."

"'Little girls,' indeed!" Milly repeated, with scorn. "There are younger gentlemen, sir, who consider us young ladies, if you do not. But we will compel your respect, and we will not ask you for one penny either."

This was rather hard, for we had secretly hoped, all along, that Milly's father would help us, and now she had made it a point of pride not to ask him. He behaved very well, however, for although he bantered us cruelly on our Utopian enterprise, he bought a button-hole bouquet of his own violets from Milly, paying a five-dollar bill for it and neglecting to ask for change, and then took Miss Prillwitz, Madame, Emma Jane Anton, Miss Sartoris, and Miss Hope successively out to supper. He purchased, too, an alabaster model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which Madame had contributed on condition that it should be sold for not less than twenty dollars, and which we had feared would not be disposed of, as we had voted that there should be no raffling. Madame was greatly interested in the fair; it drew attention to her school, and she smiled on everyone--a self-constituted reception committee. She was even gracious to the cadet band which had serenaded the school in the fall term. The cadets to a man invited Milly out to dinner. She went with each of them in succession, and as the viands were sold _a la carte_, she bravely ordered the more expensive dishes over and over again, enduring a martyrdom of dyspepsia for a week in consequence.

Of course Jim was present, and his mother. Adelaide was attentive to both; there seemed to be a mutual attraction that kept them together, and whenever Adelaide left Mrs. Halsey, and taking up her baton (Milly's curling-stick), led her orchestra, Mrs. Halsey's eyes followed her with a strange wistfulness. Winnie, with her usual heedlessness, had neglected to introduce Adelaide to Mrs. Halsey when she called on her in the court, and she now turned to Jim and asked her name. It happened that Jim thought that she referred to the pianist instead of to Adelaide, and he replied that the young lady in question was Miss Hope, the music-teacher. Mrs. Halsey gave a little sigh of disappointment, and continued her spell-bound gaze. I was about to correct the mistake which I was sure Jim had made, when it was announced that Mrs. Le Moyne, the celebrated interpreter of Robert Browning, would kindly recite a poem of Mrs. Browning's. Mrs. Halsey and Jim moved nearer the rostrum, and my opportunity for explanation was lost. If I had known the effect that the name of Adelaide Armstrong would have had upon Mrs. Halsey, chains could not have kept me in my gondola--so many invisible gates of opportunity are closed and opened to us all along life's pathway!

The poem recited was, most appropriately, "The Cry of the Children." Tears welled into the eyes of many a mother as the practiced art of the speaker rendered most feelingly the pathetic words:

"But these others--children small,
Spilt like blots about the city
Quay and street and palace wall--
Take them up into your pity!

Patient children--think what pain
Makes a young child patient yonder;
Wronged too commonly to strain
After right, or wish or wonder;

Sickly children, that whine low
To themselves and not their mothers,
From mere habit, never so--
Hoping help or care from others;

Healthy children, with those blue
English eyes, fresh from their Maker,
Fierce and ravenous, staring through
At the brown loaves of the baker.

Can we smooth down the bright hair,
O my sisters, calm, unthrilled in
Our hearts' pulses? Can we bear
The sweet looks of our own children?

O my sisters! Children small,
Blue-eyed, wailing through the city--
Our own babes cry in them all;
Let us take them into pity!"

That poem was worth a great deal to our cause. Those of the mothers of our Ten who were present were won to us at once.

Mrs. Middleton, our vice-president's mother, and the wife of a clergyman, entered into our scheme with enthusiasm, and felt sure that her husband's church would assist us.

Mrs. Seligman and Mrs. Roseveldt put their heads together and planned to interest their society friends. One of hers, Mrs. Roseveldt was sure, would contribute the coal, and another the flour, while Mrs. Seligman would provide the blankets, and a friend of her acquaintance would certainly assume the butcher's bill. Madame Celeste, the dress-maker, who was present, was about to refurnish her parlors, and would contribute curtains. Madame Celeste bought a quantity of my photographs of old Italian portraits, and I have no doubt that they were very serviceable to her in the way of suggestions for aesthetic costumes.

We knew before the evening closed that the fair must have realized more than we had hoped, and Emma Jane, the Treasurer of the new society, announced at our next meeting that the fair had cleared six hundred dollars. Vociferous applause followed, and we immediately adjourned to Miss Prillwitz's to report the unexpectedly happy result.

Our princess had talked over the scheme with such of our mothers as were present at the fair; and she now advised that we create them a board of managers of the proposed Home, to carry it on for us, as we were all minors, and lacked the necessary experience, we to labor for it harder than ever. This was immediately done, and after this, affairs marched with great rapidity. The Home of the Elder Brother was licensed and fitted up for its little guests within a week. The vacant floors in Miss Prillwitz's house were rented--not for the summer only, as we had at first planned, but, to our great surprise, for a year. An "unknown friend," who had admired our efforts, sent in a subscription of nine hundred dollars, thereby more than doubling the amount obtained by the fair, and guaranteeing that amount annually as long as the Home was continued.

Mr. Roseveldt had been better than his word, and the Home was placed on an assured basis for a year. What it would be after that we could not tell. It was only permitted to see one step ahead, but that step we could take with thankful assurance.

Madame sent over a quantity of furniture, as she intended to refit the students' rooms during the summer vacation. Donations of every kind poured in, and twenty-five little iron bedsteads were dressed in white, and set in the sunny rooms which were to be used as dormitories. Madame Celeste had said that she would not require Mrs. Halsey during the three summer months, and the little woman offered her services for that interim as nursery care-taker.

Another surprise came when Emma Jane Anton announced that she had written home and obtained permission to remain as matron. She had a talent for housekeeping, and she gave her services freely. "I am not rich," she said. "I can't give money, but I can give myself. I am not used to children; I don't believe they will like me, for I don't care for them overmuch; but Mrs. Halsey will mother them, and I can keep the house sweet and clean; I can market economically, and keep accounts exactly, and I mean that the princess shall not give up her visit to Tib. She must go to the country for a part of the summer at least."

"And when she comes back," I said, "you must take your turn, Emma Jane; we will be so glad to have you!"

"Oh, immensely! I am a genial, sweet creature, I know, an addition to society; but I thank you, all the same, and if I feel run down, I will come and get a sniff of sea air."

The King's Daughters' Ten held their last meeting before the breaking up of the school. The money gained was entrusted to Emma Jane's care for the summer, and each of the members bound herself to carry the scheme with her wherever she went, to interest others, to gather and forward funds, and to work for the Home in every possible way.

Then we paid our last visit, for that term, to Miss Prillwitz, and our first to our little guests, and returning, packed our trunks, attended the graduating exercises of the senior class (the Amen Corner and the Hornets were all juniors and sophomores, with the exception of Emma Jane, who graduated), hugged and wept over each other, and elected Winnie corresponding secretary for the summer, and promised to write to her every month, reporting work done for the Home, and separated with mingled hilarity and depression of spirits.

Mr. Roseveldt called at the Home with Milly and Adelaide before they left town. It was a little plan of the girls to interest him in Jim, and it succeeded admirably. After a number of other questions, Mr. Roseveldt asked Jim if he could drive.

"I managed the milkman's nag," the boy replied, "and he was an awfully hardmouthed, ugly brute."

"Then I fancy you will have no trouble with Milly's pony, which is as gentle as a kitten," Mr. Roseveldt replied. "I want a boy in buttons just to sit in the rumble while the girls drive about the country." And so Jim was engaged to go to Narragansett Pier, and would have a happy summer with Milly and Adelaide.