"It seems too good to be true," said Bettie, "but think of it, girls--the rent is paid! It's 'most time for Mr. Black to go by. Let's watch for him from the doorstep--our own precious doorstep."
"It needs scrubbing," said Mabel. "Besides, it isn't ours, yet. Perhaps Mr. Black has changed his mind. Some grown-up folks have awfully changeable minds."
"Oh!" gasped Marjory. "Wouldn't it be perfectly dreadful if he had!"
It seemed to the little girls, torn between doubt and expectation, that Mr. Black was strangely indifferent to the calls of hunger that night. Was he never going home to dinner? Was he never coming?
"Perhaps," suggested Jean, "he has gone out of town." "Or forgotten us," said Marjory.
"Or died," said Mabel, dolefully.
"No--no," cried Bettie. "There he is; he's coming around the corner now--I can see him. Let's run to meet him."
The girls scampered down the street. Bettie seized one hand, Mabel the other, Marjory and Jean danced along ahead of him, and everybody talked at once.[20] Thus escorted, Mr. Black approached the cottage lot.
8
"Well, I declare," said Mr. Black. "You haven't left so much as a blade of grass. Do you think you could sow some grass seed if I
have the ground made ready for it?"
The girls thought they could. Bettie timidly suggested nasturtiums.
"Flower beds too? Why, of course," said Mr. Black. "Vegetables as well if you like. You can have a regular farm and grow fairy beanstalks and Cinderella pumpkins if you want to. And now, since the rent seems to be paid, I suppose there is nothing left for me to do but to hand over the key. Here it is, Mistress Bettie, and I'm sure I couldn't have a nicer lot of tenants."
[21]
>
CHAPTER 3
The Tenants Take Possession
"Our own house--think of it!" cried Bettie, turning the key. "Push, somebody; the door sticks. There! It's open."
"Ugh!" said Mabel, drawing back hastily. "It's awfully dark and stuffy in there. I guess I won't go in just yet--it smells so dead-ratty." "It's been shut up so long," explained Jean. "Wait.[22] I'll pull some of the vines back from this window. There! Can you see better?" "Lots," said Bettie. "This is the parlor, girls--but, oh, what raggedy paper. We'll need lots of pictures to cover all the holes and
spots."
"We'd better clean it all first," advised sensible Jean. "The windows are covered with dust and the floor is just black."
"This," said Marjory, opening a door, "must be the dining-room. Oh! What a cunning little corner cupboard--just the place for our dishes."
"You mean it would be if we had any," said Mabel. "Mine are all smashed."
"Pooh!" said Jean. "We don't mean doll things--we want real, grown-up ones. Why, what a cunning little bedroom!" "There's one off the parlor, too," said Marjory, "and it's even cunninger than this."
"My! what a horrid place!" exclaimed Mabel, poking an inquisitive nose into another unexplored room, and as hastily withdrawing that offended feature. "Mercy, I'm all over spider webs."
"That's the kitchen," explained Bettie. "Most of the plaster has fallen down and it's rained in a good deal. But here's a good stovepipe hole, and such a cunning cupboard built into the wall. What have you found, Jean?"[23]
"Just a pantry," said Jean, holding up a pair of black hands, "and lots of dust. There isn't a clean spot in the house."
"So much the better," said Bettie, whose clouds always had a silver lining. "We'll have just that much more fun cleaning up. I'll tell you what let's do--and we've all day tomorrow to do it in. We'll just regularly clean house--I've always wanted to clean house."
"Me too," cried Mabel, enthusiastically. "We'll bring just oceans of water--"
"There's water here," interrupted Jean, turning a faucet. "Water and a pretty good sink. The water runs out all right." "That's good," said Bettie. "We must each bring a broom, and soap--"
"And rags," suggested Jean.
"And papers for the shelves," added Marjory. "And wear our oldest clothes," said Bettie.
9
"Oo-ow, wow!" squealed Mabel.
"What's the matter?" asked the girls, rushing into the pantry.
"Spiders and mice," said Mabel. "I just poked my head into the cupboard and a mouse jumped out. I'm all spider-webby again, too." "Well, there won't be any spiders by tomorrow night," said Bettie, consolingly, "or any mice either,[24] if somebody will bring a cat.
Now let's go home to supper--I'm hungry as a bear."
"Everybody remember to wear her oldest clothes," admonished Jean, "and to bring a broom."
"I'll tie the key to a string and wear it around my neck night and day," said Bettie, locking the door carefully when the girls were outside. "Aren't we going to have a perfectly glorious summer?"
When Mr. Black, on the way to his office the next morning, met his four little friends, he did not recognize them. Jean, who was fourteen, and tall for her age, wore one of her mother's calico wrappers tied in at the waist by the strings of the cook's biggest apron. Marjory, in the much shrunken gown of a previous summer, had her golden curls tucked away under the housemaid's sweeping cap. Bettie appeared in her very oldest skirt surmounted by an exceedingly ragged jacket and cap discarded by one of her brothers; while Mabel, with her usual enthusiasm, looked like a veritable rag-bag. When Bettie had unlocked the door--she had slept all night with the key in her hand to make certain that it would not escape--the girls filed in.
"I know how to handle a broom as well as anybody," said Mabel, giving a mighty sweep and raising such a cloud of dust that the four
housecleaners were obliged to flee out of doors to keep from strangling.[25]
"Phew!" said Jean, when she had stopped coughing. "I guess we'll have to take it out with a shovel. The dust must be an inch thick."
"Wait," cried Marjory, darting off, "I'll get Aunty's sprinkling can; then the stuff won't fly so."
After that the sweeping certainly went better. Then came the dusting.
"It really looks very well," said Bettie, surveying the result with her head on one side and an air of housewifely wisdom that would have been more impressive if her nose hadn't been perfectly black with soot. "It certainly does look better, but I'm afraid you girls have most of the dust on your faces. I don't see how you managed to do it. Just look at Mabel."
"Just look at yourself !" retorted Mabel, indignantly. "You've got the dirtiest face I ever saw."
"Never mind," said Jean, gently. "I guess we're all about alike. I've wiped all the dust off the walls of this parlor. Now I'm going to
wash the windows and the woodwork, and after that I'm going to scrub the floor."
"Do you know how to scrub?" asked Marjory.
"No, but I guess I can learn. There! Doesn't that pane look as if a really-truly housemaid had washed it?" "Oh, Mabel! Do look out!" cried Marjory.
But the warning came too late. Mabel stepped on[26] the slippery bar of soap and sat down hard in a pan of water, splashing it in every direction. For a moment Mabel looked decidedly cross, but when she got up and looked at the tin basin, she began to laugh.
"That's a funny way to empty a basin, isn't it?" she said. "There isn't a drop of water left in it."
"Well, don't try it again," said Jean. "That's Mrs. Tucker's basin and you've smashed it flat. You should learn to sit down less suddenly."
"And," said Marjory, "to be more careful in your choice of seats--we'll have to take up a collection and buy Mrs. Tucker a new basin, or she'll be afraid to lend us anything more."