"n.o.body's touched the soup!" reported Nina Edmonds, who was the first to return with her tray, when the buzzer under Miss Parson's chair sounded the signal in the kitchen that it was time to remove the first course.

"n.o.body touched it!" echoed Rosemary in alarm. "Let me see!"

She hurried around the table to inspect Nina's tray. Sure enough, six little cups, still filled with soup, were there.

"Say, something's the matter with the soup," said Bessie Kent in a shrill whisper as she came in with her tray. "They didn't eat it--see, all the cups are full."

"Did Miss Parsons say anything?" asked Rosemary, staring at the trays which now surrounded her. "How does she look?"

"Kind of queer," answered Fannie Mears, breaking her silence. "She must feel funny, with all those folks sitting and looking at their soup and not eating it."

"You hush up!" said Bessie Kent rudely. "There's the buzzer. Come on, girls, we'd better hustle."

In a daze Rosemary saw to it that the trays were filled again, but she took no pride in the beautifully browned pies, the fragrant corn pudding or the glistening potatoes wrapped in snowy napkins. Her dinner, she was sure, was ruined. She wanted to run home and cry where no one would see her, but instead she saw to it that each girl had what she needed on her tray. Then, when her two a.s.sistants were arranging the forks and plates for the salads, Rosemary slipped over to the table where she had put the soup kettle and tasted the contents.

Salt! The soup was so thick with salt that she choked. Rich and thick and smooth, what did it matter the texture or flavor, since only one overpowering taste was present--that of salt.

"How could it get like that!" puzzled Rosemary as she drank a gla.s.s of water. "I tasted it just before we served it and it was fine.

What on earth must Miss Parsons be thinking of me!"

Empty plates were carried back to the kitchen next time, and word reached the young cooks that the pies were "wonderful" or "simply great"--this last the expressed opinion of Mr. Oliver--and the fruit salad met with an equally hearty reception. But not even the evident enthusiastic approval which greeted the delicious ice-cream and cake and perfect coffee which concluded the dinner, could compensate Rosemary for her earlier mortification. When the meal was over and the guests had gone down to the gymnasium for the reception and the other girls had shed their ap.r.o.ns and followed, Nina too eager to display the blue velvet frock to wait for Rosemary who insisted there were several things she had to attend to, then she felt she might cry a little for the first time in that long evening.

"Rosemary, my dear child, what is the matter?" Miss Parsons bustled in, followed by the three elderly women who were to wash the dishes.

"Are you tired out? Was the dinner too much work?"

"The soup!" choked Rosemary. "n.o.body could eat it. And I took such pains with it."

"Well, I was sorry afterward that I told you to salt it again," said Miss Parsons regretfully. "I suppose you were nervous and added too much. But don't let that grieve you dear. The rest of the dinner was perfectly delicious and you should hear what people are saying about you. I want you to come down to the gymnasium now and meet some of the teachers."

"Miss Parsons, I didn't over-salt the soup," protested Rosemary earnestly. "I tasted it before and added just a dash as you told me; and then I tasted it again, and it was all right. I _know_ I didn't put in too much salt."

"Oh, nonsense, Rosemary, you were excited, that's all," said Miss Parsons briskly. "Any one is likely to make a mistake when she has a good deal on her mind. Don't give it another thought, and if you do, just remember it is a warning against the next time. I like to think that every mistake we make keeps us from running into danger some other time when the results might be more serious."

Rosemary followed her teacher down to the gymnasium, but she only half heard the introductions that followed and the kind comments on her skill in cooking. She was wondering how she could convince Miss Parsons that she had never put all that salt into her soup.

"Why it tasted as though a whole box of salt had just been thrown into it," said Rosemary to herself, standing near a window to watch for Doctor Hugh and the car. "I don't care how much any one has on her mind, no one puts a whole box of salt into a soup kettle!"

And the voices of a group of girls, going home early, floated up to her.

"She says she didn't do it," said one of them, and Rosemary could not identify the speaker though the tone sounded familiar. "But if it had been good I'll bet she would have taken all the credit. They say it was fairly briny, it was so salty!"

Rosemary flushed scarlet. It wasn't fair!

"For I didn't, I didn't, I know I didn't!" she declared, sitting between Doctor Hugh and Jack that night as they sped home in the car. "I'm just as sure as I can be that I didn't make a mistake--why I tasted it afterward and it was delicious."

"Well, if you didn't over-salt it, who did?" asked Jack practically.

"I don't know," admitted Rosemary. "I could cry when I think of it."

"I wouldn't do that," said her brother, turning in at their driveway. "How about making us a chicken pie for Sunday dinner, Rosemary, and asking Jack over to sample it?"

"I'll make it," agreed Rosemary, "but just the same I want to know who salted my soup."

CHAPTER XVIII

SHIRLEY IN MISCHIEF

The chicken pie was a wonderful success, so Doctor Hugh and Jack a.s.sured Rosemary at the Sunday dinner, but the mystery of the over-salted soup seemed destined to remain unsolved. Miss Parsons never mentioned it again and Rosemary herself might have forgotten it more readily except for several ill-natured references by Fannie Mears whenever the Inst.i.tute dinner was spoken of. Fannie and Rosemary did not get along very well together and this was, in one way, odd, because Fannie and Nina Edmonds were apparently most congenial. They usually ate their lunches together, but Rosemary chose to be with Sarah and Shirley and their corner table was usually crowded with younger girls who adored Rosemary openly.

The brief Thanksgiving holidays--with no school from Thursday to Monday--brought the Willis family a more sincere appreciation of their blessings than ever before. A short note from the little mother lay beside each plate on Thanksgiving Day morning, and Winnie kept one hand on hers tucked in her ap.r.o.n pocket even when she served the golden brown waffles. When Aunt Trudy asked who would go to church with her, Doctor Hugh answered for them all.

"We'll please Mother," he said simply, and after the service he packed the three girls into the little roadster and carried them off for a long cold ride that gave them famous appet.i.tes for Winnie's dinner.

Doctor Hugh's practice was growing to include a wide radius of countryside and the "young doctor" was gaining a name as one never "too busy" to answer a country call. Doctor Jordan had prolonged his vacation till late in October and then had returned to Eastsh.o.r.e just long enough to sell his practice, office and instruments to his young colleague and set off on a leisurely trip to California, a luxury well earned after years of sacrificing service. Doctor Hugh still retained the Jordan office, while seeing an increasing number of patients at his home within fixed hours.

His office had a great attraction for Shirley, and Rosemary had discovered her one afternoon standing on a chair and calmly smelling the rows of bottles that stood on the cabinet shelf, one after the other. The shining instruments, in their gla.s.s racks, had a fascination all their own for the small girl and she declared that she intended to be a doctor when she grew up.

"All right, and I'll take you into practice with me," Doctor Hugh promised, having surprised her in a hurried investigation of his medicine case. "But leave all these things alone, until you are ready to study medicine. Don't come in the office when I'm not here, Shirley; you'll hurt yourself some day, if you are not careful."

But Shirley was possessed with the idea that she would like to be a doctor. She begged and carefully treasured all the empty bottles and pill boxes she could gather; she demanded a knife for "operations"

and was highly indignant when Winnie gave her a pair of blunt scissors and told her they would have to do; usually tender-hearted, she drew the wrath of Sarah by declaring that she would like to cut off a rabbit's leg, "just like a doctor."

"I think you're a cruel, cold-blooded girl!" stormed Sarah. "Cut off a rabbit's foot indeed! Why don't you cut off your own foot and see how it feels?"

"Oh, Shirley just says that," Rosemary tried to soothe her outraged sister. "She wouldn't hurt a rabbit any more than you would, Sarah.

You know that. But you've gone without dessert twice for meddling with Hugh's things, Shirley, and you did promise to remember after the last time, you know."

Shirley, deprived of pudding and charlotte, was grieved and penitent, but her memory was resilient and the day after Thanksgiving temptation a.s.sailed her again. Winnie had gone to carry a pie to an old neighbor several blocks away, Sarah was out playing with a school chum and Rosemary and Aunt Trudy were deep in the discussion of new curtains for the former's room. Shirley was left to amuse herself and her small feet carried her to the empty office.

"Jennie needs an operation," whispered Shirley, her dancing eyes roving toward the desk.

As luck would have it, a curved scalpel lay there in plain view.

Ordinarily it would have been locked up safely, but Doctor Hugh, hurriedly selecting his choice of instruments that morning, had not bothered to replace it in the rack. Shirley went over to the desk, picked up the shining silver thing and carefully put it down.

"I'll go get Jennie," she said to herself. "She's very, very bad this morning, and I ought to 'tend to her right away."

Upstairs she trotted, past Aunt Trudy's room and on to her room and Sarah's where she rescued Jennie from under the bed.

"What are you doing, honey?" called Rosemary, as Shirley pa.s.sed the door again on her way down stairs.

"Playing with Jennie," was the wholly satisfactory answer.

"I think she plays better by herself than with Sarah," announced Aunt Trudy. "Sarah is so apt to lead her into mischief. Would you rather have a hem-st.i.tched hem or ruffles, Rosemary?"