“Open your bundles, while I get the thread,” said Margaret.
Wesley unwrapped the shoes. Margaret took them up and pinched the leather and stroked them.
“My, but they are fine!” she cried.
Wesley picked up one and slowly turned it in his big hands. He glanced at his foot and back to the shoe.
“It's a little bit of a thing, Margaret,” he said softly. “Like as not I'll have to take it back. It seems as if it couldn't fit.”
“It seems as if it didn't dare do anything else,” said Margaret. “That's a happy little shoe to get the chance to carry as fine a girl as Elnora to high school. Now what's in the other box?”
Wesley looked at Margaret doubtfully.
“Why,” he said, “you know there's going to be rainy days, and those things she has now ain't fit for anything but to drive up the cows——”
“Wesley, did you get high shoes, too?”
“Well, she ought to have them! The man said he would make them cheaper if I took both pairs at once.”
Margaret laughed aloud. “Those will do her past Christmas,” she exulted. “What else did you buy?”
“Well sir,” said Wesley, “I saw something to-day. You told me about Kate getting that tin pail for Elnora to carry to high school and you said you told her it was a shame. I guess Elnora was ashamed all right, for to-night she stopped at the old case Duncan gave her, and took out that pail, where it had been all day, and put a napkin inside it. Coming home she confessed she was half starved because she hid her dinner under a culvert, and a tramp took it. She hadn't had a bite to eat the whole day. But she never complained at all, she was pleased that she hadn't lost the napkin. So I just inquired around till I found this, and I think it's about the ticket.”
Wesley opened the package and laid a brown leather lunch box on the table. “Might be a couple of books, or drawing tools or most anything that's neat and genteel. You see, it opens this way.”
It did open, and inside was a space for sandwiches, a little porcelain box for cold meat or fried chicken, another for salad, a glass with a lid which screwed on, held by a ring in a corner, for custard or jelly, a flask for tea or milk, a beautiful little knife, fork, and spoon fastened in holders, and a place for a napkin.
Margaret was almost crying over it.
“How I'd love to fill it!” she exclaimed.
“Do it the first time, just to show Kate Comstock what love is!” said Wesley. “Get up early in the morning and make one of those dresses to-morrow. Can't you make a plain gingham dress in a day? I'll pick a chicken, and you fry it and fix a little custard for the cup, and do it up brown. Go on, Maggie, you do it!”
“I never can,” said Margaret. “I am slow as the itch about sewing, and these are not going to be plain dresses when it comes to making them. There are going to be edgings of plain green, pink, and brown to the bias strips, and tucks and pleats around the hips, fancy belts and collars, and all of it takes time.”
“Then Kate Comstock's got to help,” said Wesley. “Can the two of you make one, and get that lunch to-morrow?”
“Easy, but she'll never do it!”
“You see if she doesn't!” said Wesley. “You get up and cut it out, and soon as Elnora is gone I'll go after Kate myself. She'll take what I'll say better alone. But she'll come, and she'll help make the dress. These other things are our Christmas gifts to Elnora. She'll no doubt need them more now than she will then, and we can give them just as well. That's yours, and this is mine, or whichever way you choose.”
Wesley untied a good brown umbrella and shook out the folds of a long, brown raincoat. Margaret dropped the hat, arose and took the coat. She tried it on, felt it, cooed over it and matched it with the umbrella.
“Did it look anything like rain to-night?” she inquired so anxiously that Wesley laughed.
“And this last bundle?” she said, dropping back in her chair, the coat still over her shoulders.
“I couldn't buy this much stuff for any other woman and nothing for my own,” said Wesley. “It's Christmas for you, too, Margaret!” He shook out fold after fold of soft gray satiny goods that would look lovely against Margaret's pink cheeks and whitening hair.
“Oh, you old darling!” she exclaimed, and fled sobbing into his arms.
But she soon dried her eyes, raked together the coals in the cooking stove and boiled one of the dress patterns in salt water for half an hour. Wesley held the lamp while she hung the goods on the line to dry. Then she set the irons on the stove so they would be hot the first thing in the morning.
CHAPTER III
WHEREIN ELNORA VISITS THE BIRD WOMAN, AND OPENS A BANK ACCOUNT
Four o'clock the following morning Elnora was shelling beans. At six she fed the chickens and pigs, swept two of the rooms of the cabin, built a fire, and put on the kettle for breakfast. Then she climbed the narrow stairs to the attic she had occupied since a very small child, and dressed in the hated shoes and brown calico, plastered down her crisp curls, ate what breakfast she could, and pinning on her hat started for town.
“There is no sense in your going for an hour yet,” said her mother.
“I must try to discover some way to earn those books,” replied Elnora. “I am perfectly positive I shall not find them lying beside the road wrapped in tissue paper, and tagged with my name.”
She went toward the city as on yesterday. Her perplexity as to where tuition and books were to come from was worse but she did not feel quite so badly. She never again would have to face all of it for the first time. There had been times yesterday when she had prayed to be hidden, or to drop dead, and neither had happened. “I believe the best way to get an answer to prayer is to work for it,” muttered Elnora grimly.
Again she followed the trail to the swamp, rearranged her hair and left the tin pail. This time she folded a couple of sandwiches in the napkin, and tied them in a neat light paper parcel which she carried in her hand. Then she hurried along the road to Onabasha and found a book-store. There she asked the prices of the list of books that she needed, and learned that six dollars would not quite supply them. She anxiously inquired for second-hand books, but was told that the only way to secure them was from the last year's Freshmen. Just then Elnora felt that she positively could not approach any of those she supposed to be Sophomores and ask to buy their old books. The only balm the girl could see for the humiliation of yesterday was to appear that day with a set of new books.
“Do you wish these?” asked the clerk hurriedly, for the store was rapidly filling with school children wanting anything from a dictionary to a pen.
“Yes,” gasped Elnora, “Oh, yes! But I cannot pay for them just now. Please let me take them, and I will pay for them on Friday, or return them as perfect as they are. Please trust me for them a few days.”
“I'll ask the proprietor,” he said. When he came back Elnora knew the answer before he spoke.
“I'm sorry,” he said, “but Mr. Hann doesn't recognize your name. You are not a customer of ours, and he feels that he can't take the risk.”
Elnora clumped out of the store, the thump of her heavy, shoes beating as a hammer on her brain. She tried two other dealers with the same result, and then in sick despair came into the street. What could she do? She was too frightened to think.