Almost fifteen

Front matter

By

GRACE IRWIN

Little Miss Redhead Under Summer Skies Almost Fifteen

Contents

I. Guest Towels 15

II. Flopsy Is Perplexed 41

III. Much Ado About Everything 64

Chapter One

F LOPSY MOORE was almost completely satisfied with life on that dreary Monday afternoon after the Thanksgiving holidays. She sat, swinging her legs, on the wall which enclosed the grounds of the Alexander Hamilton High School. Her own head of shining curls, the color of burnished copper, was the only bright spot in the dismal scene. But Flopsy’s thoughts were gay as she waited impatiently for her schoolmates, Alice Holt and Fleurette Muldoon.

It was fun being a Sophomore B, she decided, after having momentarily weighed the joys and sorrows of that advanced status, and then the important plan for the afternoon consumed all her attention. The three girls were to call on Mrs. David Stewart, their former Eighth Grade teacher, in her new home. Not one of them had seen Mrs. Stewart recently, but there was an even more exciting objective to this visit. For the first time the girls were going to see Mrs. Stewart’s very new baby!

Flopsy could scarcely sit still as, speculating on the baby’s probable name, she watched the front doors of the High School carefully. Her purpose in being es¬ pecially alert was twofold. She not only wanted to see Fleurette and Alice at the first possible moment, but

is she was also anxious not to be seen by any of the teachers. She knew that it was strictly against the rules for her to sit on the wall, and in addition she had been excused from her last class because she had pleaded a headache. No teacher could be convinced that a really severe headache could have disappeared so quickly!

There they were! Flopsy jumped to the ground and ran toward her friends. As she wriggled her way in and out among the groups of chattering students, she was stopped by three girls.

“Wait a minute, Flopsy! Wait—” and one of them caught her by the arm.

Flopsy stood still a little impatiently. She mustn’t, she simply mustn’t lose Fleurette and Alice. It would be terrible.

“I want to pay my class dues—I keep forgetting— and forgetting—and forgetting!” The girl dug into her purse and handed Flopsy a dime. “I guess I’m paid up now.”

“I guess you are,” Flopsy answered vaguely, her eyes still on Fleurette and Alice. Oh, she mustn’t lose them, she mustn’t.

“And I’ll pay, too, while I’m about it,” one of the other girls opened her purse. “How much do I owe?”

“Well—” Flopsy tried to control her impatience. “I really don’t know. I’ll have to look it up in my book. I’ll tell you tomorrow.” Fleurette and Alice were head¬ ing, at top speed, down a path in the opposite direc¬ tion! “Do you mind?” Flopsy apologized as she tried to get away, “I’ve simply got to catch up to Alice Holt. We have a date,”

“M pay for next month,” and the third girl started to put her hand in her pocket.

“Oh, don’t please!” Flopsy begged frantically. “That makes it too—too—” she broke off. Jinks! This was terrible! She was having a fearful time keep¬ ing track of past dues and she simply couldn’t risk any further complications. The future accounting she must give as class treasurer was something that she didn’t care to contemplate. It made her head genuinely ache. It positively made her ill. Who were these girls, anyway? In despair, Flopsy felt she must take the time to ask their names, even if she were to lose Fleurette and Alice.

“Tell me,” she went on, with what she fervently hoped was a business-like air, “what are your names?” Flopsy asked as though she were vitally interested, but this question seemed to annoy the three girls.

“I am Lois Crane. You know me. You do, really. Don’t you remember? I helped you with your Latin one day last week.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Flopsy tried to grin, but it was rather sickly. She didn’t remember. Anyway, how could this girl have helped her with Latin? No one in this wide world could. She was past all help. And she’d nearly have to break her neck to catch Fleurette and Alice. Flopsy groaned to herself, “Why don’t they stand still?”

“And I’m Elsie Martin. I sit two seats away from you in French.”

“Lois Crane and Elsie Martin,” Flopsy repeated slowly. She took a pencil out of her pocket, but its point was broken. She was going to write this down immediately. That’s what her mother had ordered her to do. Write it down at once!

“Lois Crane, Elsie Martin.” She looked for all the world as though she were writing the names on a page in her loose-leaf notebook. “You know,” she explained, still writing, “Alice Holt and Fleurette Muldoon and I are going to call on Miss Hilton, our Eighth Grade teacher at School Number Nine. And those two sim¬ pletons are supposed to be waiting for me. Look at them, just look at them racing up the street! I hope they trip!” Flopsy banged her notebook shut. “I’ll give you your receipts in the morning. Please, please ask for them,” she begged. She never yet had refused to give a receipt to anyone who had asked for it. She blithely tossed them around. Writing them out was quite the simplest part of this business of being treas¬ urer.

“They are standing still now, Flopsy.” Lois smiled. Lois admired Flopsy. She really did want to stop and talk with her, and Flopsy’s failure to remember her name was completely forgiven.

“Well, it’s about time. I had visions of falling right on my nose chasing them up the street.” Flopsy flashed a broad and dazzling grin, showing a dimple in one cheek. She touched her nose. “I’d hate to break my nose. It’s right in the center of the only face I have.” She started off, and then whirled about. “Thank you, Lois, and thank you, Elsie, very much for your dues. I’ll give you both receipts in the morning. But if I forget, just be sure to ask me.” Flopsy raised one hand in a salute. “Bye!” she sang out as she dashed up the street.

Lois and Elsie stood looking after her.

“Let’s see if she catches them,” Lois commented. “I think she’s a riot. She keeps our Latin class in stitches. She’s taking first year Latin for the second time. She says she’s better than she was last year, but I can’t see how she can be. She’s terrible! I just switched to Latin this year, but I can help her,” Lois boasted.

Flopsy, in an undignified sprint, had gotten within earshot of Fleurette and Alice. With her heart still pounding, she sputtered breathlessly, “What was the big idea of racing up the street? Why didn’t you wait for me, you idiots?”

“Several girls said you ducked out of gym before the class was over, and Fleurette got it into her head that you’d said you’d meet us at Mrs. Stewart’s. Then we met some one else who said they had seen you waiting for some one. You’re an idiot yourself,” Alice almost snapped. Then they all laughed. The happy experience ahead of them put them all in good humor. The three girls swung up the street in radiant spirits.

“We saw you, Flopsy Moore, back there talking to some girls as though you had all the time in the world.”

“Just two girls paying their class dues. I was rip¬ ping! I am going to make a rule that you can only pay your dues during the meetings. This way is—” she hesitated. Not for anything would she admit that it was far, far too hard for her to keep her accounts in order! “It’s just a nuisance. I don’t carry my treas¬ urer’s book around with me—”

“I don’t see how you keep anything straight,” Fleurette laughed, “I’d get into a perfect mess. I bet if I were treasurer I’d be put in jail, and they’d throw the key away.”

Flopsy looked at her horrified. What a ghastly thought that was! She shivered! But she did not care to go on with the subject. She changed it abruptly.

“Did you see Janet Dudley when she was home last week?” Flopsy turned to Alice. “She telephoned to thank me for my last letter. But she was so—so— rushed she couldn’t see me.” There was an edge of sarcasm in Flopsy’s voice.

“I know some one who saw her,” Fleurette broke in, “and they said she’d plucked her eyebrows!”

“All of them?” Flopsy giggled. “She must look at least peculiar!”

“Not all of them!” Alice put in quickly. “/ saw her. But she’s changed. She’s changed a lot. She has a new raccoon coat. You’d think she was nearly eighteen, honestly. She’s really only just fifteen. She was with a boy in a uniform—”

“Was he a boy scout, or Western Union?” Fleurette chirped.

“He was not! He’s from some very swanky military academy up on the Hudson River.”

“Didn’t you talk to her?” Flopsy asked breathlessly. She hoped not. Alice always acted as though Janet belonged to her. She loved to boast about knowing her.

“No, only for a minute. She had every minute taken up for the whole holiday. Janet just seems to live in another world from us. She has more boy friends!!!”

The time had come to change the subject again. Flopsy had had enough of this angle too. It wasn’t as depressing as the job of being treasurer, but she knew that if it went on, she’d get exceedingly bored. “Bored” was what she thought she’d be, although “peeved” would have been a better word. After all, Janet wrote to her more than she ever did to Alice, and Janet loved to read Flopsy’s letters to her room mate. She could write a very funny letter, Flopsy admitted to herself unblushingly.

“What do you suppose Miss Hilton’s baby’s name is?” Flopsy introduced the question lightly. This ought to be a safe topic.

“Well, Hilton wouldn’t be one of them, you crazy goose. You never call her Mrs. Stewart. Never! And you were a bridesmaid at her wedding. She’s been married now for way over a year and you ought to be used to it by now.”

“I bet it will be Barbara. What do you bet?” Fleurette put in.

“We won’t bet. I am sure it will be Barbara. It simply has to be!” Flopsy announced.

This emphatic statement was not contradicted. The three girls were in perfect accord. Their former teacher simply must name her baby after her young sister, Barbara Hilton, who was just their age. She had grad¬ uated with them from School Number Nine. Her ap¬ pearance on the platform that night was the most dramatic and exciting thing that had ever happened at any graduation. It was a thrill that had made all of them tingle, right down to their toes. Although “Miss Hilton” had often talked of her ranch home out West, in a place called Rawhide, and of a young sister Bar¬ bara who still lived there, she had in no way prepared her pupils for the surprise on the night of their gradu¬ ation.

Flopsy was the only one in the class who had been in on this precious secret. “Miss Hilton” had been absent from school, due to illness, a few weeks before the end of the term. Her class had had a substitute, and a “substitute” had meant to them only an opportunity for riotous fun. “Miss Hilton” had heard of their be¬ havior, and it had made her very unhappy. Were her pupils endangering their chances of getting diplomas by wasting time right before their final examinations? She loved her little redhaired pupil, Flopsy Moore, but she felt quite certain that none of her other pupils had been up to more mischief during her absence. So “Miss Hilton” had sent for her. Flopsy knew that if she were to live to be a hundred and fifty years old, she would never forget that visit.

Gently “Miss Hilton” had told her of Barbara, or Babbie, who had never been to any school. Several years earlier, she had fallen from a bucking horse and for a long time it seemed as though she might never walk again. Now, she was quite well. During that year Babbie’s greatest happiness had been to make believe she was in her sister’s class. Her sister had sent her the lessons just as though she were right in the classroom with the other girls and boys. Babbie had been an amazing student, and “Miss Hilton” had proudly shown her work to friends on the Board of Education. It was they who planned the dramatic con¬ clusion to the graduation exercises. Babbie came East to receive her diploma with the other graduates from Number Nine!

There was one thrill that was Flopsy’s very own.

Babbie had chosen her as her “best friend” long before that exciting graduation. She had loved nothing better than to have her sister write about redhaired Flopsy Moore. Flopsy was quite the most amusing and inter¬ esting girl she had ever heard of. This was a big sur¬ prise, but it deeply touched Flopsy and made her humble, yet proud.

Yes, there could be no other name for “Miss Hil¬ ton’s” baby than Barbara!

“And—” Flopsy went on after her announcement, “don’t you miss Babbie? I wish she’d come back.”

“When will she?” Fleurette asked.

“When they sell the ranch. That’s why they went back. And just as soon as Miss Hilton is well enough, or the baby is big enough, or something, Miss Hilton and her husband and the baby are going to fly out to the ranch and stay there for a while.”

Suddenly, without any warning, heavy flakes of soft wet snow began to fall.

The three girls let out wild whoops of joy.

“Snow!” Flopsy yelled. “Coasting!”

Alice squealed, “My hair’s getting soaked!”

“Who cares?” Fleurette mocked good-naturedly.

“Well, I do,” Alice shouted. “I just had it set!”

“That’s what you get for having a permanent wave,” Flopsy teased. She had been a little envious of Alice’s “permanent,” a feeling which her mother had noticed and ridiculed. “What a silly attitude. Anyone should be happy to have naturally curly hair,” Mrs. Moore had said. But Flopsy wanted to go to the beauty shop to have her hair “set.” All the girls did. They were forever talking about it. She eyed her friend’s hair with gleeful malice. Maybe it would turn frizzy. Alice

Flopsy held one hand over her head planted her school books on her head and walked primly. Flopsy, for the moment, felt cheated. She was not to enjoy seeing Alice’s hair get kinky. Sud¬ denly, Flopsy realized that her own hair was getting very wet, and remembered that she had carefully ar¬ ranged her curls in just the exact way she wanted them. She followed Alice’s example. Her books began to slide at once, and the rings on her notebook caught. She put up her hand and held the books in place.

“Alice, you are walking like a stick. We’ll never get there.” Flopsy took a few steps ahead. This was fun. It was so silly.

Fleurette held one hand over her head. She, too, had naturally curly hair, and she had just adopted a new “hair comb.” She had no desire to have it “simply ruined.”

“This isn’t too funny!” Flopsy yelped. “We are going to look like drowned rats. Let’s run.”

The others took her suggestion at once, but Flopsy, herself, tried still another plan. She attempted to run, still holding her books on her head. They slid from beneath her hand, and fell on the wet, dirty pavement.

“Oh—o—o—” Flopsy groaned, and shut her eyes. “I can’t look. Tell me what happened. Break it to me gently. Do you see a piece of paper with algebra homework on it face downward in the mud? Quick! ”

“Ask us pretty please, and we’ll look.” Fleurette and Alice were hysterical with laughter. They bent down and looked over the sorry mess. The loose-leaf notebook was spattered with mud, and so were a lot of papers.

Flopsy put both arms over her eyes.

‘Til die on the spot if that paper has to be done over. It’s the first time in ages I’ve done my home work in algebra. Tell me quick. Pretty please, with sugar in it.”

“We don’t like sugar. You’ll have to give us some¬ thing else. You have no idea what you have asked us to do. Almost all of your papers are sopping.”

Flopsy kept her eyes shut.

“Pretty please with strawberry jam on it. Pretty please with marmalade on it. Pretty please with fudge sauce.”

“Could this be it?” Alice gasped between convulsions of laughter.

“Quick!” Flopsy begged, “Tell me!”

“Flora Moore. Algebra. December 2nd.” Fleurette shrieked wildly, as she read.

“Don’t tell her yet. It might be fatal. You have to break the news gently.”

Alice snickered, and then tried to speak solemnly “Your algebra is very sick. Oh, it looks very, very, sick.”

Flopsy opened her eyes.

“You can’t fool me. It’s dead. It’s been killed.” She spoke very tragically, her hand on her heart in a dramatic gesture. “My poor, dear algebra paper, my only one, the only one I’ve had in so, so long.” She looked down and let out a shriek. “Glory Hallelujah! What a sweet and priceless mess! Girls, you’ve got to help me. It would be contemptible to just stand there and laugh. You couldn’t!”

But they could stand there and laugh, and they did. They laughed until they were weak and wobbly.

“That ought to be a lesson to me! I’ll never do algebra again. This is what comes of it!” Flopsy gasped. She was trying to wipe off the covers of her book. “How about lending me your handkerchief? Mine’s positively disgusting. Look at it.” She held up one corner of what appeared to be a muddy rag, and, walking to the curb, tossed it into the gutter. Then she looked down at her hands and screwed up her face into an awful grimace.

“Look at my hands! Oh—o—o—” she groaned, and made believe that she was going to wipe them off on her tan coat.

The three girls went off into boisterous laughter again.

“Oh, Pete! My coat! How can I carry these wet muddy books? My coat just came from the cleaners. My mother will just be ripping.” Flopsy held her books out in front of her.

“It’s raining, it’s pouring,” Fleurette squealed. “Let’s hurry.”

“Your hair is getting all ‘unset,’ Alice,” Flopsy sput¬ tered as she ran.

The three girls dashed up the street. With only a short block to go, they took the long walk leading up to the Stewart home in flying leaps. A final spurt landed the three on the porch.

“Let’s stop and get organized,” Flopsy moaned. “I’m heaving like a horse. Don’t you dare ring that bell, Alice Holt, or I’ll crown you.”

Alice and Fleurette were wiping their feet on the door mat.

“Don’t dirty that mat all up. I need a corner. I’ve a bright idea.” Flopsy knelt down on the floor and began to wipe her books on it. “Keep your big feet out of my way, Fleurette Muldoon!”

The front door opened.

“Won’t you come in, young ladies?” A maid in a black dress spoke in a tone as cool and crisp as her white apron.

Flopsy, taken off guard, promptly lived up to her name and flopped right down on the door mat. Fleur¬ ette and Alice hysterically tried to drag her to her feet, but they all landed in a heap.

“Oh, Ellen! What is it? What’s the matter?” A sweetly familiar voice came to them. Never had the three girls been more appreciative of the music in their former teacher’s voice.

“You poor children, you’re soaked. Come in. Come in this second!”

Almost too exhausted for words, the three girls un¬ scrambled themselves, and got to their feet.

Mrs. David Stewart, or, as they had known her, Miss Molly Hilton, came past her maid and greeted her young guests enthusiastically.

“Flopsy! What in the world?” but she never fin¬ ished, for they all went off into gales of laughter.

“Flopsy was carrying her books on her head to keep her hair dry, and they fell off when she ran,” Alice managed to explain.

“And she was wiping them on the door mat,” Fleur¬ ette squealed, and then began to giggle all over again.

Meanwhile, Ellen, still in the doorway, was trying not to laugh.

“Ellen, do show Miss Flopsy to the bathroom, and take her coat out to the kitchen. We’ll have to clean it for her.”

Flopsy ducked her head, with an expression which contained both ridicule for herself and dismay. She would have liked to call upon Mrs. David Stewart in her beautiful home without doing anything embarrass¬ ing.

Ellen, with the coat over her arm, led Flopsy down the hall. She turned her head to roll her eyes heav¬ enward at her two friends as she followed Ellen meekly. Once in the bathroom, Flopsy drew a long, deep sigh of relief. But the sigh turned to a frown when she saw herself in the mirror.

“Ye gods and jelly fishes!” she groaned, as she be¬ gan to repair the damage to her precious “hair comb.”

For a few moments, Flopsy was so absorbed by her task that she did not hear the door open. When she saw the grinning faces of her two friends in the mir¬ ror, she whirled around.

“Well! Well! Fancy meeting you here!”

Fleurette closed the door quickly and tightly. The three girls, just as they afterward expressed it, “nearly died laughing.”

“Fall into the tub, Fleurette, and crack your skull right open, and it will be the end of a perfect day,” Flopsy warned.

“You’re such a perfect nut, Flopsy! ” Fleurette wiped the tears from her eyes, as she stood up. She had been swinging perilously on the edge of the bathtub.

“You know what I heard!” Alice suddenly had a thought so impressive that it smothered her giggles.

“What, for Pete’s sake?” Flopsy asked in alarm. If it were as serious as Alice’s expression indicated, she felt she would go right off into real hysterics—not just this laughing kind.

“I heard they have five bath rooms in this house! And you know Janet Dudley only has three.”

“Well,” Flopsy drew a long deep breath. “If they all stay where they belong, they can’t hurt me. I can’t stand much more. If they began to run round, I’d just fold right up in a heap and die.”

“Listen, Fleurette Muldoon!” Alice ordered severely. “Don’t laugh at Flopsy again. Stop it! We’ve got to go out and act like human beings. Remember we have to see Mrs. Stewart’s baby.”

So the girls combed their hair and washed their hands and faces.

“Don’t you hate to use guest towels?” Flopsy com¬ mented, as they opened the door in a subdued silence. “Your hostess can tell just how dirty you were when you came to call on her. It’s practically a dead give away.”

“Keep still, will you Flopsy?” Alice begged. “And don’t think of anything silly for a while.”

Mrs. Stewart came to meet them.

“What would you like to do first, go to the nursery, or have tea with me in the living room? Mrs. Walker, our nurse, said that we may go upstairs now.”

“Oh, let’s—let’s!”

“We want to see the baby.”

Molly Stewart’s face beamed. She was delighted, and she gaily led the way up a wide staircase. Her three former pupils followed with solemn dignity. But their eyes were wandering in all directions. They wanted to see everything. On the second floor, they frankly peered with open curiosity into the numerous bed¬ rooms they passed. Finally Molly Stewart opened a door and led them into a much smaller room than any they had seen. But what a room! Its walls were danc¬ ing with the gayest and merriest of nursery figures. Even on this dull December day, the room twinkled. In one corner was the bassinet. Beside it stood a nurse in a white uniform. Mrs. Walker’s face was as twinkling as the room. Flopsy, Alice, and Fleurette were completely awe-stricken and tongue-tied.

For no good reason at all, Flopsy could feel her knees wobbling. “Miss Hilton’s” baby. It was a sweetly sol¬ emn thought.

“May we have my baby?” Molly Stewart asked Mrs. Walker.

“You certainly may.” Mrs. Walker smiled, and bend¬ ing over the crib, she lifted out a tiny bundle.

“How old is the baby?” Alice asked politely. She felt she had to ask something.

“Just four weeks—two days—and six hours—” Molly Stewart took her baby into her arms.

“We were guessing the baby’s name,” Fleurette swal¬ lowed self-consciously.

“My baby’s name is Hilton.” The fond mother looked down lovingly into the tiny face.

“Why!” Flopsy burst out, her eyes wide with amaze¬ ment, “That’s what I said. And the girls said it couldn’t be! It couldn’t be! And it is—but—” she broke off in utter confusion, and then went on falteringly, “and how could it be?” She put her finger tips to her mouth and looked from one face to the other in bewilderment. “How could it be Hilton?”

Her two friends appeared to be quite as baffled as she was.

“And why not? Why can’t my baby be named Hil¬ ton?” Molly Stewart was only a little less confused than her young friends.

“It—well—we—thought—in fact, we all thought she had to be named Barbara. We decided—” Flopsy’s words tumbled out in confusion. “And your name is Mrs. Stewart now.”

Molly Stewart and Mrs. Walker laughed.

“So, my dear little son, these young ladies want to make a sissy of you. They want you to go through life with a girl’s name. What do you think of that, Hilton Stewart?” she inquired of the squirming bundle in her arms.

“A— what?” Flopsy gasped.

“A son. This precious baby I hold in my arms is my son. My son and David Stewart’s.”

The girls laughed, but not hilariously. They were frankly disappointed. They had wanted their “Miss Hilton” to have a baby girl named Barbara. All three were very fond of Babbie.

“Won’t you look at ‘Hilton’ and speak to him, even if you are disappointed? And I can see that you are,” Molly Stewart asked a little wistfully.

The girls were instantly contrite. They mustn’t let their beloved teacher down. They mustn’t hurt her feelings. After all, it was scarcely her fault.

“Of course! Of course! I’m crazy to see him.” Flopsy went forward eagerly. “Oh, let me hold him, please! I just love to hold babies.” This statement, although meant kindly, and uttered with the warmest and most ardent desire to please, had practically no truth in it. Flopsy had never held a baby in her life. Her brother, Dickie, was past five, and her mother had never permitted her to hold him when he was a baby. There was something about Flopsy always that was a little harum scarum, and no mother would have know¬ ingly given a precious baby into her uncertain hands.

“Wait!” Mrs. Stewart laughed, “Just a minute.”

“You’d better not!” Alice gasped. “You’re going at him the way you used to go after the ball when you played basketball.”

“Do you play basketball?” Mrs. Stewart laughed again, evading the issue. She didn’t want to hurt Flopsy’s feelings, but she also did not wish to take any chances with her baby.

“She did!” Fleurette’s eyes were fixed on Flopsy in a worried fashion. “She always fumbled the ball. She nearly always dropped it.”

“Good gracious!” gasped Mrs. Walker. “You’d bet¬ ter hold the baby, Mrs. Stewart.”

“I certainly think I had!”

Flopsy’s mouth drooped. She felt crushed and ashamed of herself.

“He’s just beautiful!” she faltered, peering into the tiny face. “He is simply beautiful. I never saw such a wonderful baby!” Her voice quivered a bit. She must somehow convince “Miss Hilton” of her devotion. Flopsy could never call her former teacher by anything but the name by which she had first known and loved her. But these words of praise for the baby were, unfortunately, as untrue as the statement that she loved to hold babies. She did not think he was beautiful. He was at the moment, screwing his face up into a weird expression, and was blowing out little bubbles from his tiny mouth. Flopsy was completely miserable. She had failed “Miss Hilton,” completely and irrevocably. She did not think her teacher’s beloved son was beauti¬ ful. But she would always do anything to make “Miss Hilton” happy, even if it meant that her own con¬ science was not quite clear.

Hilton Stewart howled.

“I’ve frightened him out of his wits!” Flopsy gasped in horror. “I am sorry.”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Walker protested, taking the now screaming baby out of her mistress’ arms. “He loves to be told he is beautiful by pretty little ladies. And he is. He is the most perfect baby of his age I’ve seen. And I’ve seen hundreds. He is just cheering with ap¬ proval.”

“He is?” Flopsy echoed blankly. “I thought he was crying.”

“Well, he’s not. He has to exercise his lungs, you know.”

“He looks just like you!” Alice said politely, turning to Mrs. Stewart.

“At this moment? Oh, dear me!” And Molly Stew¬ art’s laugh was spontaneous. “Even when you Eight A’s acted up, you never heard me howl like that. Come downstairs. Hilton is going to be a regular boy. He doesn’t want to have a lot of gushing, flattering girls and women around him. It insults his manly dignity.” With a wink at Mrs. Walker, Molly Stewart led the girls out of the room. She carefully closed the door.