It did seem as though there had never been as good a supper as that happy family sat down to enjoy. Oh, what a good supper it was! After the chilly canned meats, and olives and delicatessen cakes that Mabel had been subsisting on, to have fluffy hot biscuit, flaky potatoes, tender asparagus, and perfectly broiled beefsteak—Mabel nearly cried with happiness. They all helped to get it, and Frank sang at the top of his voice while he set the table.
As soon as supper was over and the dishes stacked in the kitchen, Mrs. Brewster made Mabel get on her Scout uniform, and Frank walked over to the Hortons with her.
The girls were all glad to see Mabel, and there was a sort of stir of excitement as they one and all remembered that on her return to the Scout meetings Mabel was to tell them all about her experiences in the big world of labor.
Mabel was so anxious to get her story over with that she could scarcely wait for the business part of the meeting to be finished. The Captain was anxious, too. As she had had no chance to see Mabel before the meeting opened, she could not guess what Mabel intended to say, although she had an inkling that the experiment had turned out exactly as she had hoped it would.
When Mabel's chance finally came, when the Captain had given her permission to speak, and she rose from her chair and faced the roomful of girls, she found that her heart was beating heavily and her breath coming fast. But she did not hesitate.
"I reckon the first thing to tell you about my experiment in living for myself alone is that it will not work. I don't believe that anyone in the world can actually live as selfishly as I tried to. A girl needs her mother every minute, and she needs whatever else she has in the line of a family.
"Well, to begin at the beginning, I had been reading a lot of silly novels, and every time I could I went to see a movie about elopements and girls who were misunderstood by their families. You see I am going to make this a real honest confession instead of just a report. If I just said that I failed, why, some of you perhaps would think you could do better than I did, and try it for yourselves. But you needn't waste your time. Only I don't believe any other Girl Scout would ever be as silly as I have been.
"Well, to begin again, I went over to an apartment that a friend of ours was leaving vacant, and there I stayed all alone. Some of you girls came to see me, but you didn't act as though you were very crazy over it and I finally learned why. Of course I know how to cook quite a few things but it was not much fun trying to fix meals for just one, and I remembered all the time how I used to grumble at home because I had to get things for Frank once in awhile. And all the while I was there in that apartment my dear brother was sleeping on a mean little settee in the hall because he was afraid I would be scared or sick." Mabel paused, and her eyes filled with tears. Then she continued:
"Mother arranged for me to take a position under Miss Gere, the Society Editor of the Times-Leader, I thought I was going to do wonders but I found that Miss Gere had to rewrite almost everything I turned in, and no one wanted to be interviewed by a school-girl, anyway. There was an awfully nice boy in the office. I thought I was a great deal better than he was, and I snubbed him awfully, and come to find out, he is a great friend of Frank's and I am dreadfully ashamed of the way I treated him. Everything went from bad to worse. I finally got so I didn't have anything for meals but cooked stuff from the delicatessens, and at that I spent everything I made. I just bought me one hat. It costs awfully to live and buy food. I don't see how grown people do it. Oh, well, I will skip a lot of details. But I was sick as I could be of my experiment, and wished myself back home a million times a day; but I was too stubborn to give in. Besides, I still thought I was a little wonder at writing. But yesterday! I was in the cloak-room, and overheard the Editor talking to Miss Gere, and oh, girls, he said the most awful things about me and the way I worked, and the wretched stuff I wrote, and oh, everything! What he thought of me for my disloyalty to my mother, trying to get out and shirk my duty just when she needs me, and everything! I don't believe he left out anything! And girls, it is all true. Every bit!
"Well, he and Miss Gere went out, and I went home and sat down and thought about everything. I never felt so small. And however small I felt, I knew it was my really true size. The size I belong. About an inch high.