DOROTHEA’S SCHOOL GIFTS
BY EUNICE WARD
“It seems very queer,” said Dorothea thoughtfully, “people who are going to do something nice always have presents given them, but people who are going to do something horrid never get a thing, and they need it twice as much.”
“As for instance?” said her father, laying down his paper and drawing her onto his knee, while the rest of the family prepared to give the customary amused attention to their youngest’s remarks.
“‘you know school begins next week,’ said dorothea.”
“Well, when Cousin Edith went to Europe we all gave her presents to take with her, and when she came home lots of people sent her flowers. Anita’s been getting cups and things ever since she was engaged, and last spring, when Florence graduated, almost all the family gave her something; and when Mary Bowman was confirmed she got a lovely white prayer-book and a gold cross and chain. But when people are going to do what they hate to do, they’re left out in the cold.”
“What are you going to do that you don’t like, Baby?” asked Florence.
“Why, you know, school begins again next week,” said Dorothea. “It makes me feel quite mournful, and I don’t see anything to cheer me up and make it interesting for me.” A little smile was hidden in the corners of her mouth although her tone was as doleful as possible.
“If you were going to boarding-school—” began Anita, who was apt to take everything seriously.
“Then I’d have lots of things,” interrupted Dorothea. “New clothes and a trunk and a bag, and you’d all come to see me off, and it would be interesting. But I’m going to work just as hard here at day-school, and yet I’ve got to bear it, all by myself.”
Her father pinched her ear, and her big brother Jim offered to have a bunch of roses placed on her desk at school if that would make her feel better, while her two sisters looked at each other as though the same idea had occurred to them both.
On the morning of the first day of school, Dorothea was suddenly awakened by a loud ting-a-ling-a-ling. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. The room was flooded with morning light and the brass knobs on her bed gleamed cheerfully at her and seemed to say: “Get up, get up!” Now Dorothea was a “sleepyhead” and had seldom been known to get up when first awakened. It usually took at least three calls from her mother or the girls, and sometimes Jim stole in and administered a “cold pig,” that is, a few drops of chilly water squeezed upon her neck from a sponge, before she was ready to leave her comfortable bed.
“It’s an alarm clock,” thought Dorothea. “But where is it?” Her eyes traveled sleepily around the room but saw nothing that had not been there the night before. The ting-a-ling-a-ling sounded once more. “It’s in this room somewhere!” she exclaimed, bouncing out of bed. She looked on bureau, washstand, bookcase, and window-seat, and then jumped, for the loud ting-a-ling came almost from underneath her feet. She hastily lifted the drooping cover of a little table that stood near the window, and there on the edge of the lower shelf stood an alarm-clock of the ordinary pattern but of rather extraordinary appearance, owing to a large yellow paper ruff which encircled its face.
“How did it get there?” exclaimed Dorothea in astonishment; and as she gazed the clock burst forth with another loud ting-a-ling.
“Isn’t it ever going to stop doing that?” she said, lifting it as she spoke. The yellow ruff seemed to have something written on it, so she took it off and, smoothing it out, read:
Dear Dolly: Happy school-day! After much earnest consideration I have selected this as a suitable reminder of this joyful (?) anniversary. It will continue to remind you five mornings in the week, thereby saving your family much wear and tear, for it will be properly wound and set every night by
Your affectionate brother,
Jim.
p.s. When you are sufficiently aroused, press the lever and the alarm will stop.
“It’s one of those awful clocks that go off every minute!” said Dorothea, carefully examining it to find the lever. She almost dropped it when it began another of its loud and long rings, but she soon found and pressed the lever and thereafter the clock was silent except for its customary tick.
“I don’t believe I shall ask anybody to give me presents any more,” she said, eying Jim’s “reminder” with disfavor. But she changed her mind a little later when, on looking for a clean handkerchief, she discovered a flat square box tied with blue ribbon, and, opening it, saw half a dozen handkerchiefs with narrow blue borders and a little blue D in the corner. On the top was Cousin Edith’s visiting-card, on the back of which was printed in fantastic letters:
Dear Dolly: Use a handkerchief
Whenever you’re inclined to sniff.
But with this band of blue I think
They don’t need polka-dots of ink.
It was a constant wonder to the household what Dorothea did with her handkerchiefs when she was at school. In vain she protested that she didn’t wipe her pen on them, and she didn’t use them as blotters or to wash out her ink-well; but, nevertheless, black stains almost always appeared upon them, and Florence insisted that the family had to buy an extra pint of milk a day to take out all these ink-stains. Cousin Edith was too frequent a visitor not to know all the family plans and jokes, and Dolly, as she laughed and shook out one of the blue-bordered squares, resolved that “polka-dots” should be conspicuous by their absence, for Edith would be sure to know.
She entered the breakfast room just as the family were sitting down to the table.
“Behold the effects of my generosity and fore-thought!” exclaimed Jim waving his hand toward her. “Our Youngest is in time for breakfast!”
“Many happy returns of the day, small sister,” said Anita, just as if it was her birthday, kissing her good morning and slipping a little hard package into her hand. “Bob sends you this with his love.”
“I don’t mind returns of the day when it’s like this,” said Dorothea, opening the package and at the same time spying a couple of tissue-paper parcels lying beside her plate. Inside was a small chamois-skin case out of which slid a little pearl-handled penknife. The accompanying card bore the name of her future brother-in-law, and also these words:
I hesitate to offer you
This knife, for I shall be
Afraid that if you cut yourself
You straightway will cut me.
“How long did it take Bob to execute that masterpiece?” inquired Jim as Dorothea read it aloud.
“You’re jealous,” she said. “Yours wasn’t half so lovely as Cousin Edith’s and Bob’s. It wasn’t poetry at all.”
“I left all the eloquence to my gift itself,” answered Jim, helping himself to an orange.
Dorothea paid no attention to him, for she was opening a small package fastened by a rubber band. It was a silver-mounted eraser with a tiny brush at one end. The inclosed note read:
This advice I must repeat;
Spare the rub and spoil the sheet.
If you can’t restrain your speed,
This will prove a friend in need.
Dolly joined rather shamefacedly in the general smile, as she thanked Florence, whose writing she had recognized. She was very apt to postpone her work until the last minute, and then rush through it as fast as possible; her compositions suffered from the many careless mistakes that she was always in too much of a hurry to correct, while her drawings belonged to what Jim called the “slap-dash school.”
“We shall know by the amount of rubber left at the end of the term whether you have taken my valuable advice,” said Florence. “What’s in that other package, Baby? I know it is Anita’s by the extreme elegance of its appearance.”
“‘many happy returns of the day, small sister,’ said anita.”
Dorothea opened an oblong package tied with green ribbon and found a set of blotters fastened to a dark green suède cover ornamented with an openwork design of four-leaf clovers, and a pen-wiper to match. On top lay a slip of paper on which was written in Anita’s pretty hand:
Wishing “Our Youngest” good luck and a happy school year.
“I’m not good at verses, so you’ll have to be content with plain prose,” said Anita, and Dorothea assured her that she was quite satisfied.
“Half past eight, Dolly,” said her mother when breakfast was over. “It is time you started.”
“Oh, not yet, mother,” said Dorothea the Dawdler. “It only takes me fifteen minutes.”
“Now, see here,” said Jim; “what do you suppose stirring young business-men like your father and brother are lingering until the nine o’clock train for, unless it is to see you off for school? We want to give you as good a send-off as possible, for you’re going to be absent four whole hours, but we can’t,—unless you do your part and begin to go pretty soon. I don’t believe you’ve got all your books together, as it is.”
“‘lend me your pencils, won’t you, jim?’ said dorothea.”
“Yes, I have,” answered Dorothea triumphantly. “They are all on the hall table, for I put them there last night. Oh, gracious!” she exclaimed blankly: “I forgot to see whether I had any pencils! I don’t believe I have one! Jim, lend me yours, won’t you? Just for to-day.”
“Lend you my most cherished possession? Never!” said Jim, placing his hand dramatically over his breast pocket.
“Then, Daddy, won’t you please lend me yours?”
“Trot along, trot along!” said her father; and Dorothea, not knowing quite what to make of having her demands thus ignored, put on her big sailor hat and started to gather up her books. On top of the pile was a slender inlaid box under a card bearing the words, “For Dolly, from Father.” Pushing back the sliding cover, Dorothea saw that the box contained a row of pencils, all beautifully sharpened, a dozen pens, and a slim gunmetal penholder.
“Oh!” she squealed with delight. “So that’s why you wouldn’t lend me any pencils!” and gave her father a hug.
“Hurry up, now,” said Jim. “Don’t forget we’ve got to see ourselves off after we’ve seen you.”
“Why don’t you take your bag?” asked Anita.
“It’s too small for my new Geography,” answered Dorothea, placing this huge outward and visible sign of her progress in learning so that it would form a foundation for the rest of her books. “Besides, it’s too shabby”.
“You had better take it to-day, anyhow, as you have so much to carry,” suggested her mother. “I brought it downstairs and it’s on the hat-rack.”
“I just hate it!” pouted Dorothea, turning; and then stopped in surprise, for instead of her little old satchel, a large new one made of soft dark brown leather was hanging on the rack. It was ornamented on one side with her monogram in raised tan-colored letters, and it was large enough for the largest Geography that she was ever likely to have.
“at the gate she turned to wave her hand.”
“Who gave me that?” she cried. “Oh, I know—Mother! It’s just exactly what I wanted. I think going to school this way is perfectly lovely!” she added as she slipped her other possessions into the bag.
“Twenty minutes to nine!” called Jim warningly.
“All right, I’m going now,” answered Dorothea gaily as she kissed them all around.
“And the first day of school isn’t so dismal after all, is it?” said her father.
“Oh, it’s splendid, just splendid!” she replied enthusiastically. At the gate she turned to wave her hand at the assembled family, who waved back at her vigorously; and then, swinging her bag, she ran off down the street toward school.
oris’s papa gave her a five-dollar bill, such a lot of money! Doris went to a big bank and asked if they could give her smaller money for it. The banker said he thought they could. So he gave her two two-dollar bills and a big silver dollar. How much did that make? Doris wanted the dollar changed again; so the banker asked if she would have two fifty-cent pieces, or one fifty-cent piece and two quarters—or perhaps four quarters or ten dimes—or twenty five-cent pieces—or a hundred pennies.
Doris thought a hundred pennies would be a good many to count and to carry, so she said she would take two quarters, three dimes and four five-cent pieces.
She laid away four dollars in the bank, those were the two bills, and put the change in her purse. When she went to the shop, she had such a lot of money that she thought she never could spend it. So she bought a paint-box with two little saucers in it for 10 cents; that left her 90 cents; and then a big rubber balloon for 25 cents; that left 65 cents; and a little one for 10 cents; and then Doris bought a whole pound of candy for thirty cents. Out of the 25 cents she had left, it cost 10 cents to go in the car.
When Doris got home she opened her paint-box. What do you think? Of course it was only a cheap paint-box and the paints were so hard that they would not paint at all. Doris cut out the dolls, but they were no better than those in any newspaper’s colored supplement. Doris’s mama said that the candy was too bad to eat at all, and the rubber balloons got wrinkled and soft in the night, because the gas went out of them. Doris cried when she saw them. “Now,” she said, “I have nothing left of my beautiful dollar but 15 cents.”
“I’m sorry, Dearie,” Doris’s mama said, “but it’s bad enough to have wasted one dollar without crying about it, too. When you and I go out, we’ll try to get such good things for the next dollar, that it will make up for our mistake about this one.” The next bright day they went to the bank and got another dollar.
Now Doris’s mama was a very wise person (mamas often are). So they went to a store where there were some books that had been wet a little by the firemen when the store caught fire. There they found a large, fine book of animal stories with pictures in it that had been 50 cents, but the book-store man sold it for 10 cents, because the back cover and a little bit of the edge was stained with water and smoke.
That left—how much? Ninety cents. Doris’s brother had told her he would teach her to play marbles, so she bought six glass marbles for 5 cents and a hoop with a stick for 5 more. That left 80 cents.
Then Doris asked if her mama thought she could buy a pair of roller skates. Her mama said they could ask how much roller skates cost, but the shopman said they were a dollar a pair! So Doris said she would save up the 80 cents that was left of her dollar and wait until she had enough for the skates.
However, a little boy was looking in at the window of the toy-shop and he looked so sad, and so longingly at the toys, that Doris spoke to him, and when he said he wanted one of the red balls, she bought it for 5 cents, and gave it to him. That left 75 cents.
When they got home, they told papa about the skates and he said he could get them down-town for 75 cents, and he did.
So Doris learned by losing her first dollar, to get a lot of good things that would be more useful and would last longer, with her second dollar.
