CHAPTER XX A SMALL BROWN BAG

And Rosa was getting thin! In this simple, easy, pleasant way—just long walks, daily. That meant rain or shine and “long” meant all the way to the village, clear down to the post office, two miles each way. At first Rosa objected; she found her feet untrained for such tramps, but Nancy knew and insisted.

“Why not try my cure?” she urged. “It’s not near as unpleasant as Orilla’s.”

“Very well,” Rosa would sigh. “But you better tip off the scales. If they don’t mark me low—”

“They will,” Nancy promised, and of course they always did.

Gar proposed tennis. Rosa had never before played—“good reason why,” she explained, but now she was anxious to try the splendid summer game.

224 “You look wonderful in your sport suit, Rosa,” Nancy encouraged, “and out on the courts—”

“All right. Anything once, but don’t expect me to fly up in the air after the ball, the way you do, Nance. I’m still something of a paper weight, you know.”

So tennis was tried, successfully.

“I know what was the matter with you, Rosa,” her cousin told her one afternoon after an especially enjoyable set with Paul and Gar, “you thought you were fat, and so you were self-conscious and miserable. Now you think you aren’t very fat, and you’re proud.”

“I think I’m not! I am not, am I Nancy? Tell me quickly! End this ‘crool’ suspense—” and Rosa performed a wonderful stunt with tennis racket and ball, actually “flying” off her feet in a really creditable manner.

She was so happy! No one who has always been free from such an insistent worry as Rosa’s had been, can actually understand the joy of hope that a few pounds less flesh can bring. The hand of that little white scale became225 a friend, an understanding friend, and every time it pointed to a figure Rosa held her breath.

But this did not solve the mystery built around Orilla. Rosa herself was as keenly interested in that as was Nancy, in spite of her rescue from any actual need of it. Bit by bit she confided in Nancy details of the queer bargain between her and Orilla. She had shared her allowance with her, who insisted she had a right to some of it anyway, and that she would not “make Rosa as thin as herself” if she didn’t pay well for it.

“But what has she done with the money?” Nancy asked, after that admission.

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Rosa, innocently. “You see, she had some big project in her mind and everything else she could get was supposed to go toward it.”

One evening when Nancy was seeking a little solitude along the lake front, there to read again her latest letter from her mother and the latest “funny page” from Ted, she226 was startled by someone calling her name in a hushed, whispering voice.

“Who is it?” she asked, although quite certain of whom it would prove to be.

“I, Orilla,” came the answer, as the girl stepped from behind the shrubbery into Nancy’s path.

“Oh, how you frightened me!” Nancy exclaimed. “I was so intent upon—my own thoughts. How are you, Orilla? We haven’t seen or heard of you in such a long time.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” replied the girl, who as usual wore the dingy suit of khaki, and a boy’s soft hat upon her thick red hair. “I’m glad I met you here. I want to ask a favor of you.”

“All right, Orilla,” said Nancy sincerely, “I shall be glad to help you if I can.”

“I believe you. You’re different. Maybe it’s because you’re poor—”

Nancy smiled broadly at this, but Orilla did not appear to notice it. She motioned to a rustic seat and they both sat down. Nancy was curious and a little anxious, for Orilla,227 while assuming friendship, still had that queer, furtive look in her eyes, and her face was surely unnaturally flushed.

“Have you been working too hard, Orilla?” Nancy asked kindly. “You aren’t strong and you shouldn’t—”

“I’m strong as an ox,” interrupted the girl. “That’s because I live out doors. I was sick once, and since I cured myself no one has interfered with my ways.”

This, thought Nancy, must be why Orilla’s mother allowed her to do as she pleased. But even so, she surely might have saved her daughter from wood chopping!

“Yes, I only go indoors at night—I steal in. No one knows where I go,” this meant much to Orilla, evidently. “But you’re my friend and we both have a secret, so that’s what I want to tell you.”

Nancy was so surprised she merely listened, not venturing to interrupt with a single word. Orilla kept locking and unlocking her fingers in a nervous way, and she fidgeted in her seat even more nervously.

228 As if the secret so long waited for was about to burst over Nancy’s head, like a cloud before a storm, she waited.

“Yes, I know I can trust you,” Orilla continued after a pause. “You’re what they call an idealist, aren’t you?”

“No, I don’t think I am,” faltered Nancy. “Why should I be?”

“Because you’re so square. I’ve read about girls like you. They always want everything just right, no tricks nor sneaking. I knew that night when you tried on that cape that you were doing something for Rosa.”

“Why? How did you know?”

“You looked it. When a girl is sneaking she doesn’t flare up and get mad the way you did,” went on the surprising Orilla and Nancy knew better than to prolong the discussion by any arguments. She merely smiled and accepted the words as they were intended.

“And since then you’ve never told,” Orilla declared, her features drawn and strained as she talked, and her eyes shifting. “You never told Rosa, for if you had she would have told229 me. What she knows the world knows,” said Orilla, scornfully.

“But Rosa has never said anything against you, Orilla,” spoke up Nancy. “I’m sure you ought to give her credit for that.”

“There you go again. I told you you were an idealist. But that’s all the better for me. I can trust you, too.”

This sounded like trickery to Nancy, and she said so.

“But you are lots older than I am and you ought to have lots more sense,” she pointed out. “I don’t mind helping you, if it’s something you can’t do yourself, but I must be loyal to my own family,” she insisted, firmly.

“It won’t interfere with your family, don’t worry,” replied Orilla. “I just want you to take care of some money for me. That’s not so hard to do, is it?”

“Money!” Nancy remembered what Rosa had said about that. “Why can’t you take care of it?” she asked.

“Because I suspect that someone knows I’ve got it, and they’re after it.” Orilla was very230 calm and composed now, and Nancy noticed how quickly her moods changed. “It’s in this little bag,” Orilla continued, showing to Nancy a square, brown bag made of khaki, just like her suit. It was bulky and seemed to contain quite a lot of money—if it were all money.

“Well, if you just want me to take it for a few days I don’t suppose there is any harm in that,” reasoned Nancy. “But suppose someone stole it from me?”

“No one would around here, that is, not up in your rooms,” replied Orilla. “Please take it, Nancy. It means an awful lot to me,” and she laid the bag on Nancy’s lap as she pleaded.

“All right. But don’t hold me responsible. I’ll do the best I can to take care of it, of course,” Nancy assured her, “but if anything does happen—”

“It won’t. Thank you for taking it, Nancy. Now I am free to—finish my work,” and she stood up to leave.

“But, Orilla, you were going to tell me something else; your secret place, wasn’t it?”231 Nancy felt now she should know more about Orilla’s business if she were going to act as her secret treasurer.

“Oh, I can’t wait now, but meet me here to-morrow evening at this time, and then I’ll tell you. Good-bye, I must go. Don’t mention having seen me,” and just as she had done before, Orilla slipped away, back of the bushes like a wild creature of the woods, indeed.

For a few minutes Nancy sat there, the brown bag lying in her lap, an unwelcome treasure.

“How queer!” she was thinking. “And most of this was Rosa’s. But Rosa gave it to her, so it really is Orilla’s now. Imagine my being her—cashier!” and a little laugh escaped from Nancy’s lips.

The gentle splash of a canoe paddle told of Orilla’s departure, and Nancy checked her thoughts to listen.

“She is certainly the oddest girl I have ever met,” she reflected. “But I had no idea of becoming a chum of hers. What would Rosa say if she knew?”

232 This was not a pleasant consideration, but somehow Nancy knew she could serve even Rosa best by agreeing, partly, with Orilla, so her misgivings were presently quieted.

Having the bag of money was certainly a tangible link between her and Orilla, and already Nancy understood its significance.

“I’d love to tell Rosa,” she pondered, “but if I did Orilla would not trust me further, and I know I must keep her confidence, for a while at least. Just now Rosa is getting along so splendidly,” she told herself, “and she’s so relieved from her worries, that it surely must be best to keep her out of Orilla’s affairs.”

The little brown bag assumed almost a live form as Nancy clutched it. How long had Orilla been saving all that money? Some of it was in bills—that was easily felt through the cloth—and much of it was in coin; the weight vouched for that.

However, it was all in Nancy’s keeping now, and she tucked it under her scarf as she entered the house. Meeting Rosa in the hall,233 Nancy then accepted the plan for an evening at Durand’s.

“Anything easy for to-night,” she replied to Rosa’s suggestion. “I don’t feel a bit like thinking—hard.”