Betty was catering for the party, acting as special reception committee for all the shy and friendless factory hands, and finding time between to consult flitting members of the “Proper Excitement” and “Proper Encouragement” committees. Money-making summers must be arranged for some of the Morton Hall girls, and positions assured for many needy seniors. Betty had started a Harding teacher’s agency, and already the demands upon it were almost greater than the supply.
“But I don’t intend they shall teach unless they really want to,” Betty decreed, “and not unless they’re at least a little fitted to. Teaching isn’t the only way for earning money—look at the Tally-ho. Mr. Morton wants a private secretary if I can honestly recommend one. He’s been telling his friends about my ideas of fitting people to positions, and I got the funniest letter from one of them—a very distinguished author. She said the woman question would soon be settled if I kept on insisting that a woman’s work should be her true vocation. Best of all, she wants a manager for a lace shop she is interested in, and a chaperon for her two daughters who are to study art in Paris next winter. Those are two splendid openings.”
“There are a lot of dolls left,” Babbie announced, having finished her distribution. “I think Bob would like them sent to New York for her floating hospitals and playgrounds. Where shall we put them? I’m afraid it’s going to rain.”
“In the Tally-ho workroom,” Betty decided rapidly. “It does look like rain. Then we’d better have the ice-cream and cakes in the club-house. Where’s Nora? Babbie, could you ask Mr. Thayer to tell them all to go to the club-house? Why will it always pour on garden parties?”
She had just found Nora, sent her to give new orders to the men who were carrying the ice-cream, made sure that Bridget had taken all the cakes over, and started across the lawn herself, when the storm broke—a pelting spring shower that sent her scurrying back to the deserted Tally-ho in search of an umbrella and rubbers. Before she had found them, a forlorn, dripping little figure fell upon her.
“Oh, Betty dear,” cried the Smallest Sister, “I went to the party to find you—Mr. Thayer asked me to come, but I only went to find you. And I didn’t like to climb the fence, as long as it was a party, so I came all the way around, and I’m soaked. Betty, something awful has happened. Frisky has run away.”
Betty stared in dismay. “Dorothy, I haven’t a minute to spare now. Take Emily’s umbrella and hurry home and get off those wet things. I’ll come to see you to-night, but I can’t possibly stop now—nothing will go right if I’m not there.”
“About the ice-cream, you mean?” demanded Dorothy. “To-night will be too late to do anything about Frisky.”
“But, dearie,” Betty told her, “I can’t do anything about Frisky. If she’s run away from Miss Dick’s school, why, Miss Dick is the one to attend to it.”
“Miss Dick doesn’t know.”