Read Ebook: Madge Morton's Victory by Chalmers Amy D V

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Ebook has 952 lines and 55290 words, and 20 pages

Miss Matilda leaned over, and before Phil could grasp what was happening had pinned in the soft folds of her organdie gown the class pin, which was usually an enameled shield with a crown of laurel above it; but the center of Phil's shield was formed of small rubies and the crown of tiny diamonds.

Phyllis turned scarlet with embarrassment, but Madge's eyes sparkled with delight. She was no longer ashamed of having been chosen as valedictorian. In spite of herself, Phyllis Alden was the star of their commencement.

It was not until the four girls were seated with their dear ones about a round luncheon table in the largest hotel in Harborpoint that Madge suddenly recalled the stranger whose warning cry had probably saved her from a serious hurt.

Mrs. Curtis and Tom were entertaining in honor of Madge and Phyllis. There were no other guests except the two houseboat girls, Eleanor and Lillian, Dr. and Mrs. Alden, and Mr. and Mrs. Butler.

Madge sat next to Tom Curtis, and during the progress of the luncheon managed to say softly: "Did you see who it was that called my name so strangely this morning, Tom? I was so frightened at having to deliver my valedictory that when I heard that sudden shout, 'Madge!' I was too much confused to recognize the voice."

Tom shook his head. "I don't know who it was. I heard the voice but couldn't discover its owner. It must have been some one at the very back of the room, for no one in the audience seems to know who called out to you."

"I suppose I'll never know," sighed Madge. "It is a real commencement day mystery, isn't it?"

Madge shook her head soberly. "We are not going to be on the houseboat this year," she whispered. "Going to New York to be bridesmaids is about as much as four girls can arrange. We haven't even dared to think of the houseboat."

"I have," interposed Phyllis, who had heard the remark and the reply, "but we don't wish our families to know. You see, Madge and I are hoping and planning to go to college next winter, so, of course, we can't afford another summer holiday," she ended under her breath.

"What's that, Phil?" inquired Dr. Alden from the other end of the table.

Phil blushed. "Nothing important, Father," she answered.

"Oh, then I must have been mistaken," replied Dr. Alden, "for I thought I caught the magic word, 'houseboat.' No one of you girls has ever spoken of the 'Merry Maid' as unimportant."

A cloud instantaneously overspread five faces about the luncheon table. Neither Mrs. Curtis nor Dr. Alden realized that in mentioning the houseboat they had forced the houseboat passengers to break a vow of silence. Only the day before the five of them had met in Miss Jenny Ann Jones's room. There they had solemnly pledged themselves that, since it was impossible for them to have this year's vacation aboard the "Merry Maid," they would bear the sorrow in silence. This time there was no "Miss Betsey" to pay the expenses of the trip. The girls and Miss Jenny Ann hadn't a dollar to spare. The cost of going to Madeleine Curtis's New York wedding was appalling to all of the girls except Lillian, whose parents were in affluent circumstances. But, of course, Madeleine was almost a houseboat girl herself. Readers of the first houseboat story will recall how Madeleine's fianc?, Judge Hilliard, rescued Madge and Phyllis from a serious situation and saved Madeleine from a far worse plight than that in which he found the two girls.

It was a good thing that Mrs. Curtis was not giving a formal luncheon. A united shriek of delight suddenly arose from four throats. Madge sprang from the table to hug her uncle, Eleanor blew kisses to her mother from across the room, Lillian clapped both hands, and Miss Jenny Ann smiled rapturously.

Phil's face was the only serious one. "Are you sure we can afford it, Father?" she queried.

Dr. Alden nodded convincingly. "For a few weeks, certainly," he returned.

"Then we don't need to worry about afterward," rejoined Madge. "And don't you think, girls, it will be perfectly great, so long as we are going to Madeleine's wedding in New York, for us to spend this holiday at the seashore?"

"Where, Madge?" asked Lillian.

"I'll tell you," answered Mrs. Curtis, "only, not to-day. It is a secret. Here is our pineapple lemonade. Let's hope for the happiest of holidays for the little captain and her crew aboard the good ship 'Merry Maid'."

TANIA, A PRINCESS

"Madge, do you think there is any chance that Tom won't meet us?" inquired Eleanor Butler nervously. "I do wish we could have come on to New York with Lillian, Phil, and Miss Jenny Ann instead of making that visit to Baltimore. It seems so funny that they have been in New York two whole days before us. I suppose they have seen Madeleine's presents, and our bridesmaids' dresses--and everything!"

Eleanor sighed as she leaned back luxuriously in the chair of the Pullman coach, gazing down the aisle at her fellow passengers.

Madge was occupied in staring very hard at her reflection in the small mirror between her seat and Eleanor's. She had wrinkled her small nose and was surreptitiously applying powder to the tip end of it.

"Of course Tom and the girls will meet us, Eleanor," she replied emphatically. "Tom would expect us to be lost forever if we were to be turned loose in New York by ourselves. Oh, dear me, isn't it too splendid that we are going to be Madeleine's bridesmaids? I wonder if we shall look very 'country' before so many society people?"

"Of course we shall," returned Eleanor calmly. "You need not look at yourself again in that mirror. You are very well satisfied with yourself, aren't you?" teased Eleanor.

"We are almost in Jersey City now, aren't we, Madge?" exclaimed Eleanor, making a leap for her bag, which promptly tumbled out of the rack above and fell directly on the head of a young man who was walking down the aisle of the car.

Madge giggled. Eleanor, however, was crimson with mortification. The young man did not appear to be pleased. The girls had a brief glimpse of him. He had blue eyes and sandy hair and was exceedingly tall. Eleanor's bag had knocked his glasses off and he was obliged to stoop in search of them in the aisle.

"Oh, I am so sorry," apologized Eleanor in her soft, Southern voice, as she picked up the glasses and restored them to their owner. "I am glad they were not broken."

The young man paid not the slightest attention to her apology.

"Hurry, Nellie," advised Madge, "it is nearly time for us to get off the train and your hat is on crooked. Don't be such a timid little goose! You are actually trembling. Of course Tom or some one will meet us, and if they don't I shall not be in the least frightened." Madge announced this grandly. "That whistle means we are entering Jersey City. We will find Tom waiting for us at the gate."

Eleanor obediently followed Madge out of their coach. The little captain seemed older and more self-confident since she had been graduated at Miss Tolliver's, but Nellie hoped devoutly that her cousin would not become imbued with the impression that she was really grown-up. It would spoil their good times.

The two girls had never seen such a headlong rush of people in their lives. They clung desperately to their bags when a porter attempted to carry them. A man bumped violently against Madge, but he made no effort to apologize as he rushed on through the crowd.

"I never saw so many people in such a hurry in my life," declared Nellie pettishly. "They behave as though they thought New York City were on fire and they were all rushing to put the fire out. I shall be glad when Tom takes charge of us."

Once through the great iron gates the girls looked anxiously about for Tom, but saw no trace of him.

"I suppose Tom must have missed the ferry," declared Madge with pretended cheerfulness. "We shall have to wait here for only about ten minutes until the next ferry boat comes across from New York."

When fifteen minutes had passed and there was still no sign of Tom, Madge began to feel worried.

"Madge, I am sure you have made some kind of mistake," argued Eleanor plaintively. "I know Mrs. Curtis would not fail to have some one here on time to meet us for anything in the world. Perhaps Tom wrote for us to come across the ferry, and that he would meet us on the New York side. Where is his letter?"

"It is in my trunk, Nellie," replied Madge in a crestfallen manner. She was not nearly so grown-up or so sure of herself as she had been half an hour before. "I know it was silly in me not to have brought Tom's letter with me, but I was so sure that I knew just what it said. Perhaps we had better go on over to New York. Let's hurry. Perhaps that boat is just about to start."

The two young women hurried aboard the boat, which left the dock a moment later, just as a tall, fair-haired young man, accompanied by two girls, hurried upon the scene. The young man was Tom Curtis and the young women were Phyllis Alden and Lillian Seldon.

In the meantime Madge and her cousin had crossed the river and had landed on the New York side. What was the dreadful roar and rumble that met their ears? It sounded like an earthquake, with the noise of frightened people shrieking above it. After a horrified moment it dawned on the two little strangers that this was only the usual roar of New York, which Tom Curtis had so often described to them.

Eleanor would fall in with Madge's plans to a certain point; then she would strike. Now she positively refused to get into a cab. Her mother and father and Miss Jenny Ann had warned her never to trust herself in a cab in a strange city. New York was too terrifying! Eleanor would search for Mrs. Curtis's home on foot, in a car, or a bus, but in a cab she would not ride.

Madge was obliged to give in gracefully. A policeman showed the girls to a Twenty-third Street car. He explained that when they came to the Third Avenue L they must get out of the car and take the elevated train uptown, since Madge had explained to him that Mrs. Curtis lived on Seventieth Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues.

There was only one point that the policeman failed to make clear to Eleanor and Madge. He neglected to tell them that elevated trains, as well as other cars, travel both up and down New York City, and the way to discover which way the "L" train is moving is to consult the signs on the steps that lead up to the elevated road. The policeman supposed that the two young women would make this observation for themselves. Of course, under ordinary circumstances, Madge and Nellie would have been more sensible, but they were frightened and confused at the bare idea of being alone in New York and consequently lost their heads, and they dashed up the Third Avenue elevated steps without looking for signs, settled themselves in the train and were off, as they supposed, for Seventieth Street.

They were too much interested in gazing into upstairs windows, where hundreds of people were at work in tiny, dark rooms, to pay much attention to the first stops at stations that their train made. They knew they were still some distance from Mrs. Curtis's. Madge was completely fascinated at the spectacle of a fat, frowsy woman holding a baby by its skirt on the sill of a six-story tenement house. Just as the car went by the baby made a leap toward the train. Madge smothered her scream as the woman jerked the child out of danger just in time. Then it suddenly occurred to her that this was hardly the kind of neighborhood in which to find Mrs. Curtis's house. The sign at the next stop was a name and not a street number. It could not be possible that she and Eleanor had made another mistake!

Madge hurried back to the end of the car to find the conductor.

"We wish to get out at the nearest station to Seventieth Street and Lexington Avenue," she declared timidly.

The man paid not the slightest attention to her. Madge repeated her question in a somewhat bolder tone.

"You ain't going to get off near Seventieth Street for some time if you keep a-traveling away from it," retorted the conductor crossly. "You've got on a downtown 'L' 'stead of an up. Better change at the next station. You'll find an uptown train across the street," the man ended more kindly, seeing the look of consternation on Madge's white face.

The girls walked sadly down the elevated steps, dragging their bags, which seemed to grow heavier with every moment. They found themselves in one of the downtown foreign slums of New York City. It was a bright, early summer afternoon. The streets were swarming with grown people and children. Pushcarts lined the sidewalks. On an opposite corner a hand organ played an Italian song. In front of it was a small open space, encircled by a group of idle men and women. Before the organ danced a little figure that Madge and Eleanor stopped to watch. They forgot their own bewilderment in gazing at the strange sight. The dancer was a little girl about twelve years old, as thin as a wraith. Her hair was black and hung in straight, short locks to her shoulders. Her eyes were so big and burned so brightly that it was difficult to notice any other feature of her face. The child looked like a tropical flower. Her face was white, but her cheeks glowed with two scarlet patches. She flung her little arms over her head, pirouetted and stood on her tip toes. She did not seem to see the curious crowd about her, but kept her eyes turned toward the sky. Her dancing was as much a part of nature as the summer sunshine, and Madge and Eleanor were bewitched.

A rough woman came out of a nearby doorway. She stood with her hands on her hips looking in the direction of the music. "Tania!" she called angrily. Elbowing her way through the crowd, she jostled Madge as she passed by her. "Tania!" she cried again. The men and women spectators let the woman make her way through them as though they knew her and were afraid of her heavy fist. Only the child appeared to be unconscious of the woman's approach. Suddenly a big, red arm was thrust out. It caught the little girl by the skirt. With the other hand she rained down blows on the child's upturned face. One blow followed the other in swift succession. The little dancer made no outcry. She simply put one thin arm over her head for protection.

The music went on gayly. No one of the watching men and women tried to stop the woman's brutality. But Madge was not used to the indifference of the New York crowd. Like a flash of lightning she darted away from Eleanor and rushed over to the woman, who was dragging the child along and cuffing her at each step.

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