Letty's good luck

Introduction

Letty Grey first made her appearance in “ Letty of the Circus,” which told of a little girl who drove Punch and Judy, a pair of trick ponies. When she was left alone in the world by the death of her mother Letty was adopted by Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, “ the writer lady.” A jolly little boy and girl who had befriended her during her hard times took her to the country, and what they did there was described in “ Letty and the Twins.” Afterward she and her adopted mother move to New York, where Letty has some interesting new experiences at Miss Sims’ School, and where she begins to suspect that she has a voice worth cultivating. This is all in “ Letty’s New Home.”

A trip to England is described in “ Letty’s Sister,” which tells also how Mrs. Hartwell- Jones discovers a child of her own, Violet, whom she had long believed to have been lost at sea. “ Letty’s Treasure ” is mostly about 3

INTRODUCTION school and the girls there, with something of Madame Henri, Letty’s teacher. Part of the time the girls are at Lakewood, where a little seed of jealousy springs up and sprouts and causes trouble, though not enough to prevent some very good times with a large circle of friends.

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Illustrations

Talking It All Over “ Can We Help You ? ” .

She Opened Her Book .

“Run Up-Stairs and Get Ready” “I Wonder What This Is?”

PAGE

Frontispiece

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. 116

. 191

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Chapter I

Letty Grey was cuddled very comfortably in a hollow of warm, dry sand which she had made for herself on the beach. She was feeling very contented and a little sleepy after her sea bath, and not at all inclined to move.

Even when she saw her sister Violet and Molly Wilson approaching she did not get up, but lay watching them idly, out of half-closed eyes. She smiled a dreamy greeting when the two girls flopped down beside her and curled up her feet to make room.

“ Here are two letters for you, Letty,” announced Violet, dropping them in her lap. “ We’ve just come from the post-office. One of them looks rather interesting ; such funny handwriting.”

Violet did not bathe in the sea. The doctor 9 io LETTT'S GOOD LUCK was afraid that the energy of the surf might have a bad effect on her weak hip, and Molly Wilson frequently missed her morning dip for the sake of being with her friend.

Molly and Violet had established an intimacy which was almost David and Jonathanlike in its intensity. Letty often declared to herself that she was not jealous of this ardent friendship, just as she had so often declared to herself the winter before that she did not mind giving up her pretty bedroom to Violet and moving herself and her belongings up to the third story. But she was surprised to find that timid, shrinking Violet had actually grown to prefer some one’s else society to her own ; and she felt lonely sometimes. Her illness in the spring had left Letty not quite so strong as formerly and a little more sensitive.

But every day of the simple, well regulated life in the invigorating sea air brought back fresh health and nerve force ; she was at least strong enough to keep all such petty emotions to herself, so that no one, not even her beloved Aunt Mary, guessed at her state of mind.

“ Aren’t you going to read your letters?” asked Violet curiously, after a pause.

SOMETHING FOR LETTT u

Letty sat up and yawned.

“ It’s so deliciously warm and comfy, I hate to move,” she said lazily. “ Who’d you say my letters are from ? ”

“ One’s from Meta Lowell ; I recognize the handwriting, but who the other is from, I don’t believe you can guess yourself.”

“ Go to the foot of the class for a mistake in grammar,” interpolated Molly playfully. She had undertaken in a quiet, tactful manner to bring up to time some of the lagging ends of Violet’s tardy education. “ From takes the accusative case, ‘ from whom.’ Repeat after me, child, and I’ll overlook the slip this time.”

Violet rewarded her instructor by throwing sand at her, and then urged Letty to try and guess the name of her correspondent.

Letty’s curiosity was roused and she took up the letter in question. It was addressed in a cramped, unformed hand, and had been forwarded to Sea Side from the New York address.

“ I wonder if it can be from Tottie Haines,” she speculated. “ But Mrs. Goldberg knows our address here. I wonder ”

“ What good will wondering do? ” laughed

Violet. “ Do open it, Letty ; then you’ll know.”

“ I think it’s part of the excitement of getting a strange letter to wonder about it,” put in Molly. “ Let’s each make up a person it might be from. I say the writer is a widow, the mother of seven children, who wants you to get up a concert and give her the proceeds.”

“ Mercy, how could a poor widow with seven children know that Letty sings,” objected the literal Violet. “ It probably is from Tottie and she sent it off without telling Mrs. Goldberg anything about the matter.”

“ We might as well solve the mystery,” said Letty. “ Here goes. Oh ! Why, it’s from Mrs. Drake. Poor soul, her husband is ill,” she added, glancing over the contents of the letter.

“Who is Mrs. Drake?” asked Molly, completely unenlightened by Letty’s ejaculation.

Violet explained that the Drakes were owners of a circus with which Letty had once performed. While she sketched, as well as she could, the little page of Letty’s past history, Letty herself was reading her letter with some astonishment.

SOMETHING FOR LETTT 13

“ Well, this is funny,” she exclaimed at length. “ Let’s go home, girls. I want to show this to Aunt Mary.”

“ There ! ” exclaimed Violet. “ I felt sure that it was something more than an ordinary letter. Do tell us what’s happened, Letty.”

“ Why, nothing’s happened. At least, I don’t suppose anything is going to happen, really, but I’d like to talk over the matter with Aunt Mary. It — it has brought up the past,” she added with a little break in her voice. And the two girls, seeing how sad Letty looked, did not ask her any more questions.

When they reached Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s cottage, Violet and Molly, by mutual consent, stopped at the gate to let Letty proceed alone. But she turned with her own merry laugh.

“ Why, come along, you dear geese ! There isn’t anything private about it,” she laughed. “ I declare, look at the disappointment in Violet’s face. I do believe she’s been cooking up a mystery.”

Mrs. Hartwell-Jones came out on the veranda to meet them. She generally took the mornings for her literary work, but always managed to be through in time to greet the girls when they came home from the beach, to have a little walk or talk all together before luncheon.

The girls made a pretty picture, with their fresh young faces and bright summer dresses, as they came up the path, arm in arm, and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones smiled in great content as she watched them.

“ Oh, Aunt Mary,” called Letty, “ do you remember Mrs. Drake ? ”

“ Of course I do, and the funny little circus. Why ? Have you heard something about her ? ”

“ I’ve heard from her,” answered Letty, waving her letter. “ And we’ve come to you for a consultation.”

“ Mrs. Drake’s is the circus we got Punch and Judy from,” explained Violet in an aside to Molly. “ I forgot to tell you that. Do read the letter aloud, mother, if Letty doesn’t mind,” she added. “ She said there wasn’t anything private in it and we don’t know what it’s all about.”

“ Of course I don’t mind. Read away, please, Aunt Mary. That is, if you can make it out. Or would you rather have me read it? It’s pretty blotty and scrawly, but I’ve deciphered it once.”

“Then you will do it much better justice than I could,” laughed Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, who had surveyed the grimy, misspelled letter with some dismay.

“ Well, here goes. But I’m going to read it in good English, so to speak, and you can all look at the mistakes afterward, if you like. There are some funny ones.”

They all seated themselves on the veranda, Letty perching on the balustrade to get a good light on her paper.

“ 4 Dear little Miss Letty/ ” she began, “ ‘ I’m most ashamed to write you, ’deed I am, because what I’m about to write ought to have been written long ago/ (I hope you all appreciate my ‘ rendering at sight,’” Letty said in a parenthesis.)

“Do go on,” urged Violet. “It sounds like the opening pages of a mystery story. Perhaps you are the long-lost grandchild of an exiled king and she was the nurse who changed you in your cradle.”

“ My dear child, what sort of books have you been reading ! " ejaculated Mrs. Hartwell- Jones. “ It sounds like a mixture of ' Pinafore ’ and the 1 Duchess.' "

“ If you are what Violet suggests — I should say, suspects — you ought to have three gifts with magical properties," laughed Molly gayly. “ I’ll present you with a magic cup which will appear before you, filled with ice-cream soda of any desired flavor, whenever you express the wish for it."

“ And I will give you a magic coin that will pay the doctor automatically whenever you express your wish too frequently," said Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, always ready to enter into a game.

Violet sought her brain frantically for an appropriate gift in her turn. She was not accustomed to these little flights of fancy and nonsense, but was anxious to keep up with the others.

“ Never mind, Violet-Mary, your gift being the third and last, is important, so you think up a really marvelous one while I finish the letter," advised Letty and went on reading, after she had found her place.

“ 'When your brother Ben died that summer — you remember, my dear, for all you was so young then — I was never quite so sorry for any one. Well, as I was saying, when Ben signed with Mr. Drake, he gave him a little bundle of papers which he asked him to keep for him, and to give them to you in case anything ever happened to him.

44 4 Well, something did happen — something none of us could ever have expected or been afraid of, because he was so awful skilful on the trapeze, so quick and sure, but ’ ”

Letty stopped reading abruptly, her eyes filled with tears, and she sat with face averted, staring out over the bright, sunlit sea until she could recover from her emotion. Ben had been her only brother, a good brother to her, although rough and careless ; and his sudden death had been a terrible shock.

Her three listeners sat in respectful silence. Mrs. Hartwell- Jones changed her seat to one on a bench beside the balustrade, where she could take one of Letty’s hands and stroke it sympathetically.

Letty was soon ready to go on with her letter.

44 4 But it did happen/” she read, 44 4 and when Mr. Drake remembered about those papers, why, he couldn’t find them. He felt mighty bad about it, of course, but as you remember, a good many troubles rose up and fastened on him that summer, and he knew they wasn’t important papers, anyhow. At least, he supposed they wasn’t. Only he would have liked to do what Ben had asked him to do — to give them over to you. But they wasn’t nowhere to be found.

“ ‘ But now, I guess you know what’s coming next. They’ve turned up, that bunch of papers and letters, in a funny way, and Mr. Drake, he’s most anxious to give ’em back to you. The bundle’s all here, sealed up in a big envelope, just as Ben give it to him, and he’s so relieved that it seems as if he couldn't wait to get it into your hands.

“ ‘ But he isn’t willing to send it to you by mail, Miss Letty. He’s afraid it’ll get lost again, and he’d be double to blame. He wants to know if you can’t come after it?

“ ‘ 1 forgot to say that we’ve given up the circus business, and Mr. Drake has charge of a moving picture show here at Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island. It pays real well, better’n the circus ever did, and is heaps easier. We’re both gettin’ too old to go about country with a circus any more. Besides, this pays better.

“ ‘ Mr. Drake won’t trust the mail, because once he had a letter with some money in it sent to him and it never came. But he says most likely you’ll be coming up this way on one of your automobile trips — heaps and heaps of people come here — and you could stopover and get the bundle. Anyhow, I told him I’d write and see what you’d say about it. He’s keepin’ the bundle most careful, but it frets him. He’s been right sick, a spell of fever and cold, and things fret him easy, so I hope you can come.

“ 4 Do you remember my baby you used to carry about and who cried so pitiful after you left us? Well, he’s a bouncing boy now, and as good as gold. They use him sometimes to pose in the moving pictures, when they need a baby or small kid. Ain’t he beginning young to be an actor ?

“ 1 My respectful regards to Mrs. Hartwell- Jones and the other young lady. It seems a long time since we were at your party, which was very nice.

20 LE TIT'S GOOD LUCK

“ * Hoping to hear from you soon, where our address is Baily and Drake’s Moving Picture Aerodome, Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island, I am,

“ 4 Your obedient servant,

“ ‘ Susan Drake.’ ”

“ There, I told you so ! ” exclaimed Violet triumphantly, as soon as Letty had stopped reading. “ They are important papers, only that Mr. Drake knows how careless he was to have lost them, and won’t own up, but he’s taking very good care not to let them get lost a second time, you see. Do you suppose your brother had a fortune hidden away somewhere, Letty ? ”

“ Oh, no, no,” exclaimed Letty quickly and gravely. “ I am quite sure I know what the papers are. They are surely the letters my mother wrote to Ben whenever he was away from us. How glad I shall be to see them ! I was never away from my mother while she lived, you know, and so I never had any letters from her. How glad I shall be to have these,” she added solemnly.

“ Of course you will, my darling,” agreed

Mrs. Hartwell- Jones tenderly. “ Do write to Mrs. Drake at once to send you the package. Ask her to tell Mr. Drake that if he will register the package it will come in perfect safety.”

“ I think it would be great fun to go on a motor trip after them, as Mrs. Drake proposes, n observed Molly, trying to cover a secret disappointment she felt in Letty’s practical solution of the promised mystery. “ My aunt and uncle were talking just the other day about a trip. Has Aunt Isabel spoken to you about it, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones ? ”

“ She suggested something of the sort, for some time during the summer,” replied Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, “ but it was all very indefinite.^

“ I know. They didn’t know just where to go. Perhaps this about the letters will give them an idea. I’ll speak to them about it, anyhow, if I may ? ”

“ It certainly would be no end of fun,” exclaimed Letty, “ but we couldn’t go until after the concert, you know.”

“ Oh, no, of course not. But the concert is coming off so soon now.”

“ Yes, awfully soon,” agreed Violet a little nervously, and the other two girls laughed mischievously.

Just then Katy appeared in the doorway to announce luncheon, and Molly rose to go — expressing her astonishment at the lateness of the hour.

“ You'll stay, of course, Molly?” said Mrs. Hartwell-Jones hospitably, but smiling at the form, for Molly generally stayed for luncheon.

“ I’d like to, if you don’t mind ? I do hope I’m not an awful bore, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones.”

“Silly I” answered Violet for her mother, tucking her hand fondly into the crook of Molly’s elbow. “ You know perfectly well we’d all be furious and offended if you didn’t stay.”

The girls chattered about the approaching concert ail through luncheon and apparently had forgotten about the odd letter — even Letty herself. But Mrs. Hartwell-Jones had not forgotten and she allowed her imagination a little free play. She, at any rate, had not been wholly convinced by Letty’s statement as to the probable contents of Mr. Drake’s bundle of papers. No doubt there were letters in it, but she felt sure that there was something else beside. Mrs. Drake would not have used the expression “ papers ” if her husband had not got the information from Ben when he took the bundle into his care that there was something more than mere correspondence.

Mrs. Hartwell-Jones looked across at Letty’s animated face with a sudden curious thrill. What if her brother Ben had left her a fortune, even as Violet had said ? There had always been some vague, illusive charm to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones about her picture of Letty’s big, bluff, kindly brother. It would not be at all out of keeping with her impression of him if after all these years he should turn out to be her benefactor.

Chapter II

“Girls, please don't think me a turn-tail, or a silly, or anything horrid,” exclaimed Violet, “ but I really can’t go on with my part in the concert to-morrow night unless we tell mother. I’ve just tried to do as you all want me to, but it makes me too miserable. Let every one else be surprised, but not mother.”

“ Why, Violet-Mary, if you feel that way about it, of course we’ll tell,” replied Letty emphatically. “ We only thought it would add to the general fun and Aunt Mary’s pleasure.”

“But that’s just what I’m afraid it won’t do. I’ve gone over it all in my mind a thousand times, and tried to think it was all right, but I can’t. I haven’t said anything to any of you before because, well, to tell the truth, I was afraid to. I was afraid you girls would think me a spoil-sport.”

Poor Violet was nearly crying by this time from nervousness and the consciousness of her own weakness. Letty flew across the room and took her protectingly into her arms.

“ You poor, dear little goose,” she cried, “ that is the very last thing in the world any one would think of calling you ! Let’s Molly and you and me form ourselves into a committee of three to go and tell Aunt Mary all about it, at once. It’s time the meeting adjourned, anyway — at least as far as I’m concerned, for I have to go to the station to meet Meta.”

From the day the girls had begun their plans for getting up a concert, which was to be given for the benefit of the local church of Sea Side village, Molly Wilson was determined that Violet should take some part in it.

She proposed a recitation, a part in one of the little plays, for although the girls spoke of the entertainment as a concert — for short, as Letty expressed it — it was in reality to offer a great variety of features. But Violet shrank from any suggestion on the plea that she had never done any of. those things and would simply be scared to death to begin.

At length, by persistent coaxing and questioning, Molly extracted from Violet, in a supremely confidential moment, the fact that she had one accomplishment ; that there was one musical instrument upon which she could play fairly well — the concertina. Violet was ashamed of her commonplace, plebeian attainment, but Molly fairly screamed with

joy.

“ Oh, just the thing for the concert ! You’ll surely do it ? Let’s tell Letty at once ! ”

“ I don’t mind if you tell Letty, as a dead secret, but I don’t really believe I’d have the courage to play it in public,” protested Violet. “ Besides,” she added as a conclusive argument, “ I haven’t got a concertina.”

But the girls found this last difficulty one of the easiest to overcome. They combined the remnants of their allowances and thought the amount quite sufficient to buy an instrument.

“ What do they cost, Violet-Mary ? ” asked Letty practically.

“ I don’t know, I’m sure. The one I used to play on at Lyme Regis belonged to a little girl in the village who had never learned it.

2 7

She won it as a premium for selling soap, or reels of cotton. When I came away I asked Mother Moore to send it back to her.”

“ Well, I don’t believe they cost very much anyway,” put in Molly, the optimist. “ We’ll see what our money will buy. But if Violet- Mary’s appearance at the concert is to be a dead secret, how can we buy it ? Neither Aunt Isabel nor Mrs. Hartwell-Jones will let us go up to town by ourselves. We’ll have to confide in somebody.”

“ Then let it be Mr. Jack Beckwith,” said Letty with conviction. “ He’s as safe with a secret as a locked safety deposit vault with the key lost. I’ll ask him to get it this very next Monday when he goes up to town, and bring it down himself on Wednesday.”

“My, yes, don’t let him send it! Every one’s curiosity would be on the rampage if they heard that one of us had received a mysterious package.”

“I’ll give him what money we have — are you sure you can spare all that, Molly ? Here, you’d better keep out a quarter. The sundae craze may prove too much for you before the beginning of the month. And I’ll tell him that if they cost more than this, to buy a second-hand one. I don’t see why -a second-hand one wouldn’t do, in any event. How about it, Violet-Mary ? ”

“ I suppose it would be all right if the bellows isn’t punctured,” replied Violet doubtfully. “ Of course Mr. Jack would try it. I’d like to have it as soon as possible, to practice. I may have forgotten how.”

Accordingly the concertina was bought, and Mr. Jack Beckwith, when he understood for what purpose the instrument was intended, took the liberty of adding enough money out of his own private “ allowance ” to buy a creditable one.

The girls had great fun inventing times and places for Violet to practice so that no one should hear, and Letty and Molly were really surprised to hear how much sweetness and expression Violet could extract from what to them had always been an impossible musical implement.

Violet was very much at home with her concertina, but she still felt timid about a public appearance, so Letty’s fertile brain concocted a little scene.

“ I know the very thing ! ” she exclaimed. “ You and I will dress like Italian peasants, Violet-Mary, and we’ll come on the stage together. That will be easier than for you to do it alone, won’t it? And I’ll sing some song to your accompaniment — an Italian street song — -just to get you started. Then for an encore you’ll have got up enough courage to go on by yourself and show them what you really can do.”

“ But she must appear at least twice on the programme,” declared Molly firmly.

“ So she shall. The second time she can come on — let me see — why, just after your farce, Molly, of course. Keep that outdoor scene with the house in the background and Violet-Mary can come on as the peasant again ; it’s always easier to do things when you’re dressed up in some sort of costume, Violet- Mary.”

“ Yes, always,” agreed Molly. “ It takes you out of yourself. And you can play in front of the house, Violet-Mary, just like a real street musician, and at the end one of us will appear and toss you some pennies. That will be very realistic and no end of fun.”

3 o LET TV'S GOOD LUCK

So the plans for the entertainment went along with perfect smoothness, and splendid success promised to crown their efforts. Letty had planned a certain deed of great kindness, which she unfolded to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, prefacing her confidence with the request for permission to invite Meta Lowell to visit her.

“ Don’t you think it would be nice, Aunt Mary,” she said, “ if we could make one of the numbers on the programme that scene from La Malade Imaginaire between Argan and Luison, and let Meta do Argan ? You know she was terribly disappointed that time she missed doing it at school, although she’s never said much about it to any of us. It really wasn’t her fault, either. She would have got there in plenty of time if the motor hadn’t broken down. And I’ve always felt secretly selfish to have taken her part away from her. If she could do it again, here, I’d feel as if she’d got her chance back somehow. Do you think Mrs. Somers would let little Ellen do Luison again ? ”

“ I’ll ask her, myself, Letty mine. I think it very sweet of you to think about Meta,” and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones embraced her warmly. “ But do you think Meta can come ? ”

“Oh, I think so. She is at Watch Hill, you know, and they have their motor there. She could motor down to New London and take the boat across to Sag Harbor, and come up here by train. Nobody would object to her traveling just from Sag Harbor to here by herself.”

“ I am sure that would be a perfectly safe journey for any one so self-reliant as Meta,” smiled Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, “ so go .ahead and invite her, Letty mine, and I’ll enclose a note to her mother.”

Meta accepted her invitation only too eagerly and the days sped busily, happily by. Letty did not feel particularly disappointed when Violet confessed her imperative desire to have her mother share the secret of her own part in the coming entertainment. She was rather relieved, indeed. Letty had never had any secrets from her Aunt Mary, except the secret of a discontented, rebellious spirit, which is a form of secret always best locked up in one’s innermost soul and never confided, even to one’s self, until it languishes and dies out from sheer neglect and lack of sympathy.

Mrs. Hartwell-Jones was not exactly carried away with enthusiasm over the idea of her daughter playing a concertina in public, but she appreciated heartily Molly’s generous anxiety to have Violet share in the good time, and felt that Letty had made the best of the occasion with her plan of peasant costumes. She expressed only her pleased surprise and heartiest good wishes, and Violet went to work with more eagerness and interest than she had yet shown.

“ I’ll go and practice up in my own room, while you are at the station getting Meta,” she said happily. “ It’s a great comfort to think I don’t have to huddle myself away in Mrs. Emlin’s loft, or be driven down the beach to hide in the dunes.”

“ So that is why you girls have taken such a fancy lately to that remote corner of the beach,” laughed her mother. “ I’ve often watched poor little Punch and Judy toiling across that soft beach road with a load of you, and felt a little sorry for the ponies.”

“ Oh, it has done them good, Aunt Mary.

They were getting disgracefully fat, and you know Mr. Parsons said that was bad for them. ,,

“ But you must also remember that they are not so young as they once were, my dear.”

“ Oh, you little darlings, surely you aren’t growing old and stiff and short-breathed,” cried Letty, and she ran out to the gate to fondle her pets, who were standing there in philosophic patience until it was time for Letty to drive them to the station.

“ I hope Letty isn’t overdoing in her zeal to make the concert a success,” exclaimed Mrs. Hartwell-Jones with an anxious little sigh as she stood watching the pony carriage out of sight. “ She doesn’t seem listless or languid to you girls, does she?”

“ No, mother, of course not,” rejoined Violet positively. “ It seems to me that Letty gets better every day. She’s got lots more energy than she had when we first came down, and is more interested in everything that is going on. I think the concert’s doing her lots of good.”