Brenda, Her School and Her Club

by Helen Leah Reed

For the first time since the beginning of her acquaintance with Miss South, Julia felt decidedly anxious to ask questions about her early life. Perhaps Miss South had an insight into her mind. At any rate she said, in a half tone of apology, "Since you are interested, Julia, I will tell you a little about myself. When my brother was ten years old, and I fourteen, our father died. Our mother had died several years before. The little bit of money which our father left was hardly enough to support us until we were educated. Fortunately he had a friend, a lawyer, who looked after it very carefully, and although he had to spend most of the capital for us as well as the interest, we were both able to live comfortably, though in a very economical way, until I was eighteen. At this time we had but a few hundred dollars left, and Louis was glad enough to take a situation in a railroad office offered to him by the efforts of the same kind friend. He was soon earning his board, and every year he has had an increase of salary, with a steady promotion. I went first to the State University in the state where I had grown up and was able to afford myself a good normal course. Since I came to Boston I have been able to save a little from my salary. You can see, then, that I am not very badly off—only I do wish sometimes that I had a few relations."

"Haven't you any, really?" asked Julia.

"None—at least practically none near enough to take any interest in me. You see my mother was an only child, at least her brother and sister died young, and so was my father. Besides he was an Englishman, and what distant cousins of his there are, live in England."

Julia would have liked to ask more, but just at that moment a little figure darted into view, and flung himself upon her. It was Manuel, in all the glory of a new pair of trousers, new at least to him, though even an eye inexperienced in tailoring could see that they had been cut down from garments originally made for a much larger person. But to him they were absolutely the finest pair of trousers that he had ever seen, because they were the first that he had ever worn. After this there was no danger that any one could imagine that he was his own little sister, a mortifying mistake that strangers were in the habit of making.

Miss South and Julia followed him down the crooked street, which their several visits had made very familiar to them, and stood behind him as he pushed open the narrow door. At the very first glance into the room, Miss South, who was ahead, felt a little disheartened. Everything was in disorder, although she had been making such efforts this winter to get Mrs. Rosa to see the necessity for cleanliness and neatness. But when she and Julia went inside she felt that perhaps she had been a little too severe in her judgment. Mrs. Rosa lay back in her chair looking sicker and weaker than they had ever seen her, and though she put out her hand in greeting, she seemed unable to rise.

"How is this?" exclaimed Miss South.

"Oh, miss, I believe I'm real sick," was the reply; "I haven't eaten nothing for such a long time. I can't eat nothing, and I can't hardly raise my voice to the children. Here you, Manuel, don't eat that bread and molasses before the ladies."

Then Mrs. Rosa lay back in her chair in a fit of violent coughing brought on by her efforts to be polite and parental at the same time.

"Aren't you almost ready to go to the hospital, now, Mrs. Rosa?" enquired Miss South, sympathetically. "I think that it is altogether too hard for you to try to stay here to manage these children and take care of yourself."

Mrs. Rosa shook her head. "Not the hospital, miss; I should die, I'm sure, if I should go there."