“Poor Jeremiah. It’s too bad.” Marjorie’s little hand slipped itself into the plump girl’s fingers. “You know you’d have done just as I did. I had quite a long talk with Mignon last night. After dinner her father left us to ourselves. It wasn’t exactly pleasant. She would say mean things about Rowena. Still, she said she’d like to try again and wished that we would all help her. So I said for all of us that we would. You won’t back out, will you, Jerry?”
“I don’t know. Wait a week or two and see what she does, then I can tell better. You’ve got to show me. I mean, I must be convinced.” Jerry wrinkled her nose at Marjorie and giggled. Her ruffled good humor was smoothing itself down.
“That means, you will help her,” was Marjorie’s fond translation. “Constance is willing, too. I am sure of Irma and Harriet, but Susan and Muriel are doubtful. Still, I think I can win them over if I tell them that you are with me in our plan.”
“There’s just this much about it, Marjorie.” Jerry spoke with unusual seriousness. “Mignon will have to play fair or I’ll drop her with a bang. Just like that. The first time I find her trying any of her deceitful tricks will be the last with me. Remember, I mean what I say. If anything like that happens, don’t ask me to overlook it, for I won’t. Not even to please you, and I’d rather please you than anybody else I know.”
“I’ll remember,” laughed Marjorie. She was not greatly impressed by Jerry’s declaration. The stout girl was apt to take a contrary stand, merely for the sake of variety. She had expected that Jerry would scold roundly, then give in with a final threatening grumble.
Susan and Muriel she found even harder to convince of Mignon’s repentance than Jerry. Muriel was especially obstinate. “I’ll speak to Mignon,” she stipulated, “but I won’t ask her to my house or go any place with her. Now that we’ve made over five hundred dollars out of the operetta for the library, you know we’ve been talking about getting up a club. Of course, she’ll want to be in it. But she sha’n’t.”
“Then there’s no use in trying to help her,” said Marjorie calmly, “if we don’t include her in our work and our good times.”
“That’s precisely what you said last year,” retorted Muriel. “You invited her to your party and she nearly broke it up. After that I wonder that you can even dream of trusting her. I’ve known her longer than you, Marjorie. When we all went to grammar school together she was always the disturber. She used to fight with us and then come sliding around to make up. She’d promise to be good, but she never kept her word for long.
“Once she behaved pretty well for three months and we began to like her a little. Then one day some of us went to the woods on a picnic. We took our luncheon and spread a tablecloth on the grass. When we had all the eats spread out on the tablecloth and sat down around it, Mignon got mad because Susan said something to me that made me laugh. We happened to look at her, but we weren’t talking about her. She thought so, though. She began sputtering at us like a firecracker. The more we all tried to calm her the madder she got. Before we could stop her she caught the tablecloth in both hands and gave it a hard jerk. You can imagine what happened! All our nice eats were jumbled together into the grass. The ants got into them and we had to throw nearly everything away. She didn’t stop to help pick up things. She rushed off home and none of us spoke to her for the rest of the year. That’s why I can’t believe in her repentance. Sooner or later she’s bound to upset things again, just as she did that time.”
Marjorie could not resist laughing a little at Muriel’s tragic tale of a woodland disaster. “I can’t blame you for feeling as you do,” she said, “but I must keep my word to her father. It means so much to him. Being in the operetta has given her a little start. Perhaps she’s begun to see that it pays to do well. She knows now how it feels to be treated badly. It must remind her of some of the mean things she’s done. If she’s ever going to change, the time has come. But if no one believes in her, then she’ll get discouraged and be worse than ever. Connie is willing to help. I’d be ashamed to refuse after that. Even Jerry says she’ll consider it.”