A successful venture

by Ellen Douglas Deland

By the end of the week, their plans were made, and they were ready to put them at once into action. The idea of a boarding-school was abandoned. That was absolutely impracticable, as they soon saw for themselves. They had no experience upon which to go to work, and no influence upon which they could depend to bring them pupils.

Honor, however, opened a day school for small children. There happened to be none already in Fordham, and among the friends of the Starrs there were a number who were glad, not only to help the girls in their efforts for self-support, but also to have a class formed for the children whom it was not desirable, because of their extreme youth, to send to the larger schools.

Katherine had already secured several music scholars and hoped for more, while she also intended to help Honor with the school, in which Sophy was to be a pupil. Victoria and Peter left the private schools which they had attended and were transferred to public ones, although Victoria secretly determined that this should be her last winter of study. She felt that she must unite with the others in working for the support of the family. Had not she been the one who had first suggested the idea? In the meantime she planted her violet bed and proceeded to investigate the cultivation of mushrooms.

The house servants were all informed that they must go, and a new “maid of all work” was engaged, who was expected to perform wonders in the kitchen and elsewhere. The gardener and the coachman were also dismissed, and the horses and cows were sold. The girls had concluded that it would be unwise at present to attempt to make butter, for with their many other duties it would be impossible to attend to it. A man who lived near could be called upon to come occasionally if one were needed upon the place, and when spring approached they could engage some one regularly, if they decided to raise vegetables for sale.

At present their chief thought was the school. A room on the second floor was to be used for the purpose, the bedstead and bureau removed, and some desks, which Katherine went to Boston to buy, were to be placed there in readiness for the pupils. There had been some discussion about the purchase of these desks, Victoria suggesting that tables would do for the present, until they should have a little more ready money, and should also be able to see whether the number of scholars would warrant such an outlay.

But Katherine was strongly of the opinion that desks would add greatly to the professional appearance of the room, and would have, in consequence, a beneficial effect upon the children, and as Honor agreed with her in this, she went off triumphantly to Boston with the money in her pocket with which she was to pay for them. Neither Honor nor Victoria was able to go with her, but she professed herself quite equal to the task of choosing the necessary articles without her sisters’ help.

When she returned she announced to them that she had bought not only six small desks with chairs to match, but also a larger desk for Honor, a map of the world to hang upon the wall, and a blackboard.

“You know it is really important to have all these things,” said she. “A schoolroom without a map would be like bread without butter, and this is the cheapest and the most complete thing you ever saw. The United States on one side, and the whole world on the other, and only a dollar. And you needn’t shake your head over the desk for Honor, Victoria! Of course she ought to have a desk.”

“I’m afraid our bread will soon be without butter if you go on in this way,” remarked Victoria. “Honor could have used a table with a drawer.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t do at all!” said Katherine, impatiently. “You have such scrimpy ideas, Vic; I don’t see where you get them. And besides, I did a stroke of business. They allowed me a discount of ten per cent at the furniture store because I was a professional, so it really paid to get all those things. It is great fun to be a professional. I get music cheaper at the music stores, just because I give lessons.”