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Brenda, Her School and Her Club

<h2>XII</h2> <h3>CONCERNING JULIA</h3> In the meantime the Four Club held regular meetings, and every Thursday afternoon Julia heard Edith and Nora and Belle rushing up past her door to Brenda's room on the floor above. Of course in a general way she knew what was going on, for the affairs of the Four Club were no secret. Yet although from time to time Brenda and her friends dropped a word or two regarding their doings, they never talked very freely about the club. Nora and Edith were silent because they were sorry that they could not persuade Brenda to let them invite Julia to the meetings. Brenda said little about the club, because possibly she was ashamed of her own indifference. As to Belle, she never had had much to say to Julia, and in this case although she felt pleased that her influence chiefly had kept Brenda from counting her cousin in the club group, she hardly ventured to express this feeling in words. There might as well have been five girls as four in the group working for the Bazaar and no one knew this better than Brenda and Belle themselves. Although Julia had a pretty correct idea of what was going on, she tried to show no feeling in the matter. Her studies, her music, and her exercise occupied almost all her afternoons, and she reasoned with herself that even if she had been invited, it would have been only a waste of time for her to spend hours at fancy-work, which might otherwise have been more profitably employed. But after a while, when through the half-open door she heard her friends running upstairs, she sometimes felt a thrill of disappointment that they did not care enough for her to stop on their way to ask her to join them. Now Julia meant always to be fair in her thoughts, as well as in her actions towards others. So at first when she found that she was left out of the plans of her cousin and her friends, she reasoned with herself somewhat in this fashion. "Now, Julia, you know that you are a newcomer, and you cannot expect that you will be taken in all at once, just wait." But after she had waited a good while, she began to feel a little hurt, although she did her best to conceal her feeling from Nora and Edith. In the meantime the latter two girls argued warmly with Brenda, and tried to make her see that it was mean to keep Julia out of the Four Club. "Nonsense," said Belle, who happened to overhear them, "Julia herself would say that it was awfully stupid to sit for a whole afternoon, sewing." "Well, if she did not work harder than—well than Brenda does, she would not be very much bored; besides she could look out of the window part of the time, the view there is perfectly fine," responded the lively Nora. Brenda had tried to speak when Nora had made this very unflattering allusion to her own lack of industry, and when Nora finished she said, holding up a square of linen on which a wreath of yellow flowers was half embroidered, "There, I've done all this this month." "That's very good for you," said Belle, patronizingly, "but I'd be willing to bet——" "Don't say 'bet,'" murmured Edith. "I'd be willing to bet anything," continued Belle, "that you'll never finish it." "Why, Belle," continued the others. "No, you won't," repeated Belle, "you never could, you'll get tired of the pattern or of the color, or you will spoil it in some way, and throw it into the fire, or worse into that bottom drawer of yours with all those other specimens." Brenda, instead of growing angry at this, only laughed. "Well if I don't wish to finish it, I certainly won't," she replied. "But it happens that I have made up my mind to finish it this Autumn, before Christmas, in fact, so you can make your bet as large as you please, and pay the money into the fund for Manuel's benefit, for I shall win." The girls were all a little surprised at Brenda's reply. She was more ready usually to answer pettishly any criticism made by Belle. "Very well," said Belle, "Edith and Nora are my witnesses, and we shall watch to see when you finish that centrepiece." "Yes, indeed, Brenda," laughed Nora, "indeed we shall follow the career of this wreath with great interest, and now since you seem to be in an amiable frame of mind, let us go back to Julia. It seems terribly mean not to ask her to join us." The pleasant expression on Brenda's face changed to a frown. "I've told you often that Julia would not enjoy working with us, and it would just spoil everything to have her come." "Of course it's your house, Brenda, and you started the club, and Julia is your cousin, so Edith and I have not the same right to say anything, but it seems to me very unkind to leave her out." "There, I don't want to hear anything more about it," cried Brenda, "haven't Belle and I both said that Julia would not enjoy herself, sewing with us, and it would not be a 'four club,' and I don't want to hear anything more about it." By this time Brenda's voice was positively snappish, and Edith looked up in alarm. But Nora was undismayed. "Nonsense, Brenda," she cried, "Belle said that Julia would not enjoy the cooking class, though I'm perfectly sure that no one there had a better time, and the boys thought that she was splendid, didn't they, Edith?" "Yes," returned Edith, "Philip was surprised; he said she was fine, he always supposed that she was a kind of blue-stocking with glasses, and——" Here Brenda interrupted, "Well, I'm sure that I never said anything like that to him, and I shouldn't think that you would, Edith." "Of course, I didn't," responded Edith, indignantly, "it was something Frances Pounder said, and well—Belle——" "Now, Belle, I do wish that you would not say things about my cousin," broke in Brenda. "Oh," cried Belle, "you wish to have the privilege of saying everything yourself; but you might as well let other people have a chance." "Philip did not mean that anybody said anything particularly disagreeable about Julia, only he had a sort of an idea that she did not like people, and that she would not join much in any fun that we might plan." "Oh, what nonsense, Edith!" exclaimed Nora, "she likes fun as well as any of us, only she is just a little quiet herself. She wants somebody else to start the fun for her." "Well, she does not dance," said Belle, "and a girl can't have much fun if she does not dance." "I know that she does not care for round dances, at least her father would not let her learn, but I'm sure that she does the Virginia Reel as well as anybody, and the Portland Fancy. Why she was as graceful as, as anything the other evening," concluded Nora. But all the conversation at the meetings of the Four Club did not concern Julia and her absence from the club. The girls had many other things to discuss, and their tongues were often more active than their needles. Sometimes as their merry voices floated down to Julia, the young girl sighed. It is never pleasant for any one to think that she is not wanted in any gathering of her friends, although in this special case Julia had no great desire to devote even one of her afternoons to needlework. Nevertheless she could not repress a sigh that she was of so little consequence to Brenda and her friends. Before Thanksgiving came, the club really seemed in a fair way of realizing its plans for a sale. Edith had finished two or three dainty sets of doilies, for she worked out of club hours. Nora's afghan was at least a quarter made, a great accomplishment for Nora. Belle had several articles to show, and even Brenda had persevered with her centrepiece until hardly more than a quarter of the embroidery remained unfinished. Moreover several of the girls at school had promised to help, on condition that nothing should be expected of them until after Christmas. "That will be time enough," the Four always answered, "for we shall not have the sale until Easter week." The girls at school were especially interested when they heard that the Bazaar was to be for the benefit of Manuel, not that any one of them had a clear idea of his needs. But they felt an interest in him because they believed that his life had been saved by one of their number. There were, to be sure, one or two sceptics, like Frances Pounder, who said that of course the child had been in no great danger, for in his own part of the city children are in the habit of playing most of the time under the very feet of the horses passing that way. "And who," the wise Frances had added, "ever heard of a child like that having so much as a leg broken?" But Frances was not infallible, and many of the girls had heard of accidents to poor children. If they had not, the fact remained, which Nora and Brenda and half a dozen others were ready to testify to that Manuel had been in great danger on the memorable day of his rescue. With his danger granted, it was plain enough that caring for him became a duty imposed on his rescuers. With little opportunity to show it, Julia had as much interest in Manuel as the other girls. Strange though it may seem, he was the first very poor person with whom she had been brought in contact. For in the secluded life which she had led with her father, she had not seen a great variety of people. It is true that in traveling she had often come across miserable looking and ill-clad women and children, and she knew very well that there were many like them in the world. With her own allowance she subscribed to a number of charities, but her father had not encouraged her greatly in this kind of thing. His own ill health had had the rather unusual effect of making him unsympathetic towards forms of misery unlike the kind which had been sent to him. He thought, too, that young people should be as closely sheltered as possible from the knowledge of the dark side of life. He gave liberally to hospitals, but poverty in itself did not appeal to him. On that account Julia was not permitted to hear or to see much of actual poverty. But Julia, on the other hand, had always had the greatest desire to help the less fortunate, and to know more about the conditions of their lives. She was therefore greatly pleased when one day in a book-shop she found a copy of "How The Other Half Lives." It was very suggestive to her, and buying it she had read it at home eagerly from cover to cover. Now she knew that in Boston she was not likely to see any cases of misery as extreme as those described in that famous book, and yet in the midst of the luxury of her uncle's house she often wished that she could do something to help the poor. But Julia, in spite of her self-reliance in practical matters, was rather shy, and whenever she thought of speaking to her aunt on the subject, she hesitated in fear lest she should be thought presumptuous. Manuel and his wants, when Brenda and Nora came home full of what they had seen at the North End, seemed to her an opportunity. She hoped, indeed she almost expected that she would be invited to go with them on a second visit. Her disappointment in this matter was even greater than that which came from being left out of the "Four Club." There were things she knew that she could have done for Manuel and his mother, and even if Brenda and her friends were able to provide for all his wants, there must be others in the same neighborhood as poor as he. Yet week after week passed away, and no chance seemed to open for her to tell Brenda what she would like to do. At school Julia was left much to herself. The girls near her own age were so absorbed in their own affairs that they seldom had a thought for the lonely stranger. They had so many things to talk about in which Julia had no part,—the dancing class, the bowling club—and a thousand and one harmless bits of gossip harmless for the most part, though sometimes carrying with them a little sting. When Julia sat or walked with one of these chattering groups she felt that she was only tolerated, and she could seldom join intelligently in what was said, and often a dropping of the voice, or an only half-intentional glance of significance made her feel herself in the way. To be sure there were Edith and Nora, of the set a little younger than the girls with whom she recited. They were undeniably her friends, and yet Brenda and Belle had a fashion of dragging them off at recess without giving Julia an invitation to follow, and the latter had too much sense to care to bring herself too often within the reach of Belle's sharp tongue. So though she sat or walked by herself, the older girls who noticed her excused themselves with "Oh, if she cared to go with any one she would walk with Brenda and Nora and the others of the 'Four,'" for in school, as in the club the "Four" had come to have a special meaning. On the other hand Brenda and Belle would usually say to the remonstrating Edith and Nora: "What is the use of talking, Julia is in the classes with the older girls, and she ought to make friends with them. She really doesn't belong with us, and there is not the least reason why we should have her on our minds all the time." Now there is hardly any classification of persons more definite and rigid than that which separates the girls of one age at school from those who are a year or two older, or a year or two younger. Nor did Julia generally repine at her own situation. She thought it perfectly natural that the other girls should be slow in admitting her to intimacy. If she had any feeling it was regret that her own cousin seemed so indifferent to her. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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