THE CRIMSON BAG

“Uncle Fred, I’m going to play being poor for a whole week,” said Alene, meeting Mr. Dawson at the gate one evening.

“What put that idea into your head, child?”

“You see it’s so much more exciting to do things when you haven’t money! We felt quite hilarious this afternoon when Nettie discovered that one could get a great big sugar cake for a cent at the new bakery. It was Ivy’s treat and we all went in a crowd and bought half a dozen for five cents! We really don’t see how they can afford to give such big ones!”

“They depend on large sales and small profits, no doubt; besides it will attract other customers. A good advertisement too, for here am I, for one, who would have gone past the new bakery a hundred times, never once glancing that way, never dreaming of those elephantine sugar cakes, were it not for you! Are you sure the bakery didn’t bribe you girls to sound their praises?”

“The idea!”

“It’s not so foolish after all; I’m almost famished for one of those sugar cakes. Greedy Alene, to devour them every one!”

“No, I did not! There was Laura and Ivy, and Nettie and Claude, and Lois and little Elmer, besides myself, to divide among!”

“Which suggests my school days and problems in arithmetic! I think this would be a question in short division or would it be short cake?”

“No, indeed! We all had almost enough! But, Uncle, do behave! Here’s my purse; I want you to keep it.”

“‘With all my lordly goods I thee endow!’ Why, thank you, Miss Dawson! I hear the gold pieces clinking! But I don’t know if my mamma will allow me to accept such valuable presents!”

There was a little gurgling laugh from Alene.

“Do let me finish! I only want you to keep it for me until the end of the week!”

“Indian giver! Indian giver! Take your old purse! I guess it was only the clink of pennies I heard, anyway!”

Alene clasped her hands behind her back.

“You must keep it or I can’t play being poor! Now Uncle, won’t you be good! I feel so ashamed to have so much when the other girls have so little, and I want to try it for just one little week; besides, it will be fun!”

“Fun for you, but what a temptation to put in your own Uncle’s way! However I don’t want to be too selfish. I’ll keep the purse.”

“For a week. Thank you, Uncle!”

“Have you any more stray pennies to put in my charge?”

“I have exactly six cents left and I must get along on that.”

“Won’t you allow me to contribute an occasional quarter?”

“Well, not more than a nickel at a time. Just pretend I’m a poor little girl who is hired to run errands at the Towers!”

“And if you demand part of the content of the purse?”

“Don’t give it to me! But I shan’t!”

Alene held her week’s allowance in her hand until they entered the house; then she placed it beside her plate at dinner. She found it troublesome keeping track of it.

“I need a small purse to put it in. There’s a pretty one for a quarter at Nixon’s store ah, I forgot already, I haven’t enough money.”

Uncle Fred offered her the use of a flat red-morocco pocketbook, but Alene said it was not convenient to carry, and besides, people would expect so much from its size! She at last decided to use a small knit bag of crimson silk with silver rings, which she kept in a box upstairs.

The next day she had a long letter to mail to her parents, and the girls accompanied her to the post-office.

On the way back they heard music.

They soon came to where the players stood, a crippled Italian and a little, dark-skinned boy, with a harp and violin.

At the conclusion of several numbers the boy went through the crowd, holding out his battered cap.

Laura put in all she had, a bright new cent.

“I haven’t a penny,” lamented Ivy.

“I have just one solitary, shamed little fellow, done up in crimson satin and silver buckles,” announced Alene, taking the pretty bag from her wrist.

Ivy giggled.

“Everybody is looking, Alene! They expect a piece of silver, at least, from that gorgeous purse!”

“Well, I can’t help it! I paid a nickle postage on my letter, you know!”

“Yes, I know, but the rest of the town is in ignorance of that great expenditure.”

“You needn’t laugh, Miss Bonner. Considering the amount of my capital, it was a big payment to meet!”

“And so early, too, in your poverty-stricken career, I can sympathize with you,” said Laura.

The bright bag with its shining rings, over which the heads of the three girls were bent, seemed to have attracted the attention of the crowd as Ivy had said, and the penny, hidden away in its crimson corner, while Alene fumbled in vain for it, held them longer in the public gaze.

Laura gave a relieved sigh and Ivy a squeak of delight when it at last appeared, and Alene dropped it, as if it burned her fingers, into the outstretched cap.

As she turned away with cheeks that were blazing to match the hue of the bag, a tall boy standing near lifted his hat courteously, and gave way to her.

“Sir Mark!” whispered the irrepressible Ivy. “And looking as grave as a cemetery, without the ghost of a smile!”

“If he hadn’t, I’d never, never have spoken to him again!” declared Alene. “Girls, I can sympathize now with those who would like to help others and can’t.”

“Giant Generosity with his pigmy purse,” suggested Ivy.

“It’s so much pleasanter as well as more blessed to give,” remarked Laura.

“But, after all, money isn’t everything!” said Alene. “If we are poor we can still give love and sympathy and unselfishness ”

“And advice,” broke in Ivy. “And feel the richer the more we give!”

Alene said never a word to her uncle, that evening, relative to the state of her finances. She kept her collapsed purse hidden away.

“When one is poor, one is too proud to beg!” Which reflection did not keep her from being very glad when Mr. Dawson remarked:

“Here, child, is a nickle for the little maid who trimmed my lamp so nicely.”

She dropped him a courtesy.

“Thank you, Uncle. I think she will be very glad to get it. I feel quite prosperous again,” she said, shutting the coin away in her crimson bag.

Mr. Dawson laughed.

“I suspect you will find that wealth has its uses, and when you are of age and have command of a large sum of money, I only hope that you will use it well. I think your experiences as a Happy-Go-Lucky will teach you much that you would not otherwise learn.”

“There’s one thing I should like to do find that clever doctor who cures the lame children, and have him cure Ivy. When I’m grown up I’ll build a hospital just for the poor children but then it will be too late to help her!”

“My friend Dr. Medway, who assists in those operations, promised to pay me a visit this summer,” remarked the gentleman.

Alene clapped her hands.

“Oh, I’m so glad!”

“What about, Miss Jump-at-Conclusions?”

“To think that if I’m not grown up, someone else is,” said Alene mysteriously.

Uncle Fred made no reply but smiled thoughtfully as he puffed away at his pipe.

Heralded by Prince’s loud barking, and escorted by Jed and Kizzie, who ran out to investigate, a vendor, laden with a large square basket, came to the kitchen door. Alene, who was at luncheon, hurriedly gulped down her coffee and joined the group.

The man opened his basket and exhibited some really fine specimens of Mexican drawn-work, beaded moccasins and Indian blankets.

Mrs. Major bought a centre piece, Kizzie a collar-and-cuff set, and Alene looked longingly at a pair of dainty moccasins that were now, alas, beyond her means. She thought regretfully of the cut-steel purse in Uncle Fred’s possession.

“But even if he were here I wouldn’t ask for it. That would be breaking my word,” she said sturdily. The man used all his persuasive powers in vain; she looked and longed and sadly shook her head.

At last he took from the bottom of the basket a long wooden box, and raised the lid.

“How lovely!” They all crowded round with cries of admiration.

“You thinka them vair fine!” the man said, picking up a handful and turning them over in the light till they shone like fairy lanterns of rainbow-tinted dew.

“Here-a is whata you call heem, black fire opal, here-a meelk, here-a cherry, here-a blue!” cried the seller volubly.

Alene stood in silent ecstasy! How she would love to buy three, one each for Laura, Ivy and herself! She knew she could borrow the money from Mrs. Major, and repay her upon Uncle Fred’s return that evening, or even let it stand until the next week, when she would regain her fortune but

“And here-a, leettle lady, ees de jewelry de feela-gree broocha and de Swastika charm,” continued the man persuasively, having noted the little girl’s indecision. The others, who were aware of her vow of voluntary poverty, looked on in sympathy and were ready, as she knew, to help her if she desired.

“The other girls often wish to buy, and it’s just as hard for them when they can’t; besides, it wouldn’t be right to borrow for such things when one is poor, and I’m not supposed to know this week that I’ll be able to afford it next,” reasoned Alene, shaking her head the more energetically to fortify her resolution.

The man, disappointed, slowly repacked his wares, shouldered them and shambled away, while Alene stood looking on.

“After all, opals are unlucky,” said Kizzie consolingly.

Alene felt Prince’s soft nose against her hand.

“You feel sorry, don’t you, old fellow? But this is what the rest of the Happy-Go-Luckys have to bear all the time! I’ve been used to going through the world picking up everything I fancied, with never a thought for others who had to go without. This is a sort of experience week for me! But cheer up, Prince Sobersides, and come along for a run!”

“Girls, this is the Crimson Bag’s last night, and it’s my treat!” announced Alene, when she met her friends Saturday evening.

They proceeded blithely down the street, dressed in their best, in honor of the evening which was generally observed in the town as the gala time of the week, when the stores were kept open to accommodate the workingmen who were paid that night, and the young people promenaded Main Street as far as the ice-cream parlors.

When the girls reached “Clyde’s Parlors and Restaurant,” as the highly gilded sign in the window proclaimed it, they found the place crowded.

Ivy gave Laura a nudge and the latter, turning suddenly, collided with another girl.

“I beg your pardon Oh, Hermione, is it you?”

“You can’t think it’s my ghost that nearly knocked your hat off! Ah, there’s your other two-thirds, Alene and Ivy! How d’you do, girls?” She paused for a chat until Vera with several other girls came along on their way out of the store.

“Ah, good evening, Alene! Let me introduce my friends,” she said, proceeding with the ceremony and totally ignoring Laura and Ivy.

“And these are my friends, Miss Lee and Miss Bonner,” said Alene.

Vera soon hurried her party away, but they had gone only a few steps when she paused at a show case, apparently much interested in its contents.

“I want to see what Alene Dawson is going to buy!” she explained in an undertone. “That’s the reason she likes to go with those girls; she can ‘show off’ more with them and act the Lady Bountiful! Mamma says it’s a shame for her uncle to allow her so much money to throw away!”

Hermione shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh, come along, girls; it’s none of our affair,” said she, but Vera’s words had aroused the curiosity of the others and they loitered beside her.

All unconscious of their spying, Alene and her friends went their way. Instead of taking seats at one of the many little tables placed invitingly around, they stopped at the next counter. Alene unfastened the crimson bag and gravely searched within it.

“More show!” whispered Vera.

“Three Dill pickles, please; you need not wrap them up,” said Alene, laying a nickle on the counter.

Then Vera made a hasty retreat amid the raillery of her friends.