"Dear _me_!" said Helen again, quite awed. "You are brave. Shall I come with you?"

"If you like," replied Rosanna. "We will go right after school tomorrow."

The interview with Mr. Harriman took place as planned the first thing after school. School let out at two o'clock, and it was half-past when the girls mounted the steps of the grim old fortress in which Mr.

Harriman lived. Now it happened that half past two was a very dark hour for Mr. Harriman because at about that time he was always in the clutch of a bad attack of indigestion brought on daily because he would _not_ mind his doctor and omit pickles and sweets from his bill of fare. At this time he read the morning paper and reviled the world at large. His sister always left him with the excuse that she wanted to lie down, and he was alone with his abused stomach and his pepsin tablets and his thoughts.

The two girls entered the room and waited for him to speak.

Mr. Harriman looked up from his reading with a dark scowl. Most of the newspaper was on the floor where he had thrown it to stamp on. He always felt better when he stamped on the editorials that displeased him most.

It seemed to soothe his feelings. He managed to grunt, "'Dafternoon!

'Dafternoon!" when he saw the two girls advance across his library, and then he waited, looking over the tops of a very grubby pair of gla.s.ses for them to state their errands. It was Rosanna who spoke first, although generally Helen was the spokesman. But Helen was frankly afraid of the grouchy old gentleman, while Rosanna was too anxious to help Gwenny to be afraid of anyone. So she said, "Please excuse us, Mr.

Harriman, if we have interrupted your reading."

"Well, you have!" said Mr. Harriman gruffly. "Whadder you want? Sell me chances on a doll's carriage or sofy pillow? Who's getting up your fair?

Meth'dist, 'Piscopal? Here's a dime."

He held out the money, which Rosanna took gently and laid on the table beside him.

"Thank you," she said. "We don't want any money today. We have come to tell you about an entertainment we are going to give. First if you don't mind I think I will just shine up your gla.s.ses. You can't see to think through them the way they are," and as Helen looked on, expecting to see Rosanna snapped in two any second, she held out her hand for the gla.s.ses, shaking out a clean pocket handkerchief as she did so. No one was more surprised than Mr. Harriman himself when he took off the smeary spectacles and handed them to Rosanna, who silently polished them and handed them back. They _were_ better; Mr. Harriman acknowledged it with a grunt.

"Girls are real handy," said Rosanna with her sweet smile.

"Grrrrrr!" from Mr. Harriman. "Whadded you want to tell me?" but his voice certainly seemed a shade less gruff.

Rosanna, speaking distinctly and as carefully as though she was explaining to a small child, told the old man about Gwenny and the benefit and after that, as he sat perfectly still looking at her through unnaturally shiny gla.s.ses, she went on to tell him about the Girl Scouts. You couldn't tell whether he cared a snap about it, but at all events he listened, and Helen and Rosanna both thought it was a good sign. They did not dare to glance at each other, but Rosanna went on talking until she felt that she had told him all that he would want to know if he had been a regular sort of a human being instead of a grouchy, cross old man who seemed to delight in scaring everyone away from him.

"That's all," said Rosanna finally, smiling up into the scowling old face.

There was a long silence,

"Grrrrrr!" said Mr. Harriman again. "So you want me to come to your show, do you? Haven't been to a show for forty years! No good! Silly!"

"Ours isn't," declared Helen, suddenly finding her voice. "Our entertainment is perfectly splendid!"

"Perfectly splendid!" mimicked Mr. Harriman. "Sounds just like a woman!

All alike, regardless of age. Grrrrrr!"

"You will come, won't you?" asked Rosanna. "Please do! You see it is only a nickel if you do not think it is worth more."

"A great many persons are going to pay a quarter," hinted Helen.

"All right, all right!" said Mr. Harriman. "You are less objectionable than most children. I will come if I can remember it."

"Suppose I come after you?" suggested Rosanna, remembering what she had said to Helen about getting Mr. Harriman if she had to come after him.

"All right, all right! Let it go at that! I know your s.e.x! You will forget all about your agreement by the time you reach the next corner.

If you come after me, I will go to your show. In the Hargrave barn, eh?

Anything to sit on, or shall I bring a chair?"

"No, sir; Uncle Robert has fixed seats and everything. And I will come for you quite early because I have to be there doing my part."

"That's nuff!" grunted Mr. Harriman, nodding curtly. "'Dafternoon!" He resumed his paper, and as he caught the opening sentences of the article before him, there came a sound like the grating of teeth and the noise of a large boiler that is about to explode.

The girls said, "Good afternoon!" in two small voices and went out as quickly as they could.

Helen breathed a sigh of relief when she reached the outer air.

"Rosanna, you are certainly a very brave girl," she said. "I am glad to get out alive. Every minute I expected to hear him say, 'Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the breath of an English-mun!'"

Rosanna laughed.

"He is pretty awful," she granted. "But I mean to make him come. I think it will do him good to see that play, and I shall certainly go after him. If he thinks I am going to forget about him, he is greatly mistaken."

"Let's try to get rid of all our tickets this afternoon. You know we are to meet Uncle Robert at the barn at five o'clock to see the theatre he has fixed up. Oh, Helen, I am _so_ excited!"

For a couple of hours the girls repeated the story of Gwenny and the benefit until they could say it by heart. The tickets went so fast that they were sorry that they did not have twice as many. At a quarter of five they hurried back to Mrs. Hargrave's, where Elise was waiting for them and Uncle Robert soon joined them. There was a short wait then, because he refused to unlock the door before Miss Hooker arrived although the girls begged and begged, a.s.suring him that she wouldn't mind.

Finally they heard the tap, tap, tap of her tiny shoes on the old brick walk, and round the corner she came, looking more dimply and dainty and altogether beautiful than ever. Uncle Robert looked as though he could eat her, but somehow it was not the sort of look he had given Rosanna that other time. Not at all! Rosanna noticed it.

CHAPTER VI

The stairs were broad and easy, and the girls ran up after Uncle Robert who proceeded to fit a large key in the lock of the big door at the head of the stairs. It was a very fine stable, built many, many years ago, and finished outside and inside with great care. The walls were all sealed or finished with narrow strips of varnished wood. As the door swung open, the three girls stood dumb with amazement. Then "Oh, _darling_ Uncle Robert!" cried Rosanna, and threw herself into his arms.

Uncle Robert looked over her head at Miss Hooker and smiled.

"Glad if you like it, kiddie," he said. "It is my contribution to little Gwenny. And Doctor Rick told me to tell you that he would send some music for his share."

"Oh, Helen, Helen, isn't that _splendid_?" cried Rosanna. "Now we won't have to have a Victrola! It will be like a real theatre."

"Just exactly," said Helen absently. She could not give very much thought to the orchestra when the little theatre claimed her attention.

There was a real stage, and before it a long green tin that the girls knew concealed the footlights. A splendid curtain hung before them, painted in a splashy way with a landscape. To the girls it seemed a rare work of art. Well, the sign painter who had done it was rather proud of himself, so it _must_ have been all right.

They walked down the aisle between rows of nice new benches, made with comfortable backs. Mr. Horton left them and went around back of the stage. Immediately there was a sound of ropes squeaking, and the curtain rose as majestically as though it was the curtain of a real theatre. And there was the stage! The same accommodating sign painter had painted a back drop and "flies" as they are called. It was a woodland scene. Trees were the thing that accommodating sign painter could do best, and he had made lots of them, as green as green! He had also painted two canvas covered boxes so that you could scarcely tell them from real rocks.

"Isn't that pretty nifty looking scenery?" asked Uncle Robert proudly.

"It only goes to show that there is a lot of kindness floating around loose in this work-a-day old world. The man who painted all this knew Gwenny's mother when she was a girl, and when I asked for his bill he said he had done it all Sundays and nights and it was his contribution.

He wouldn't take a cent. Doing it nights is why some of the trees look sort of bluish but I don't think it hurts, do you?"

"What a nice, _nice_ man!" exclaimed Miss Hooker. "I should say it _doesn't_ hurt! To think of his working nights after painting all day long. I should admire those trees if they were a bright _purple_!"

"Of course you would," said Uncle Robert softly. "You are like that."

Rosanna was hurt. "Why, Uncle Robert! She doesn't mean that she would just as _soon_ like a purple tree as a green one. She means how nice it was of the man."