“Oh, Miss Carlyon!” said Frances shyly, “we thought perhaps we might just help you—a little.”
“We’ll help each other, dear. And then we shall be Altruists among ourselves. I can assure you, I think, besides being useful, we shall be very jolly.”
And so it proved. None of the club meetings were more spirited or more mirthful than those at which the Honorary President made her appearance; and the frequent presence of Edward Carlyon encouraged his boys to stand firmly by the Society, and to lose all fear that they were “benevolent prigs”, as they had been called by Jack Shorter. Jack was the only one of Carlyon’s boys who had possessed sufficient unamiability to remain outside the club. At last, finding himself sent to Coventry, Jack repented and became an embarrassingly active Altruist.
When the Wood Bank schoolrooms opened their doors for the autumn term, it was discovered that the Carlyons intended their support to be anything but “honorary”. They had fitted up a large basement room as a workshop for various handicrafts, and there the boys and girls learned to make all sorts of things for the Society’s stores. Out of doors, a shed held all kinds of necessary tools, and the young folks studied practical gardening, with intent to aid such villagers as might own neglected plots. Sewing-meetings produced a wonderful collection of garments, new and renovated, which helped to fill Frances’s clothing-cupboard. The juvenile choir and orchestra made free offers of their services; and lads and lassies with a talent for “reading and recitation” were in enormous request.
Frances’s days were busy and happy. She enjoyed her school-work with Muriel Carlyon, a teacher of the class to which she had grown accustomed at Haversfield. Muriel’s system of teaching was not without originality; and her love of outdoor occupations hindered her from possessing the traditional characteristics of a blue-stocking. Her brother Edward was a muscular, well-built young Englishman, whose college triumphs had not prevented respectable attainments with scull and bat. The Carlyons took a lively interest in their pupils, whom they treated and trained with a success which would have astonished primmer pedagogues. Their boys and girls trooped to school together, and often measured wits or muscles in their class-rooms or their play-grounds. Thus their friendships were closer and more sympathetic than those of lads and lassies usually are. They learned to appreciate one another’s tastes and dispositions, and to sacrifice individual whims to the common good.
Autumn drifted into winter with the coming of a bleak November. Football and hockey were in full swing in the playing-fields. The little ones had built their first snow-man; and the rubbing and oiling of skates followed careful studies of the barometer. The youngsters were now in some danger of forgetting the duties of their Society. Their time had suddenly assumed an incalculable value.
It was at this stage of affairs that Max Brenton one day made his appearance at the door of the club-room, wherein sat Frances busily posting up the Society’s accounts.
“If you please,” began Max in a great hurry, “may I have a blanket, two flannel petticoats, a three-year-old frock, and a pair of very large old boots?”
Frances wrinkled her forehead. “I’m sorry we have no flannel petticoats left, owing to a great demand. I can manage the other things, except the boots. We are quite out of very large boots. Couldn’t one of you boys learn shoemaking?”
“I fancy that would be a little rough on the village cobbler.”