A borrowed sister

Lois Page, who had been an only child all her life, was to have a borrowed sister for the space of a year or more, and the prospect filled her with keen delight. If she had searched the wide world over she could not have found a more congenial sister than Jessie Matthews. Lois was equally fond of Ellen Morgan, and Ellen was a more stimulating friend, but Ellen had an uncertain temper, which would make living with her a torment, as well as a joy, while Jessie was as serene as a summer morning.

There was only one person who was not wholly satisfied with the arrangement, and this was Ellen. She sat on the edge of one of the beds in Lois’s room, and criticised her arrangements in an aggravating way, while Lois was clearing out two drawers in her bureau.

“I should think you would rather have Jessie in the spare room,” said Ellen finally. “It is dreadful to have so little room for one’s things.”

Lois, with a pile of petticoats in her arms, looked up in surprise.

“Why, that’s the joy of it all, Ellen. That’s the best part. Always having somebody to talk to when you go to bed, and when you wake up in the morning. You’ve always had a sister, and so you don’t understand how lonely it is to be all by yourself. It is the loveliest thing that ever happened to me,” she added, with strong emphasis.

Ellen had borne as much as she could. “I think it is perfectly horrid,” said she.

Lois was pulling open the lower drawer in the bureau and crowding in the petticoats. She looked up in bewildered surprise.

“I thought you loved Jessie,” she said.

“I like her well enough,” returned Ellen, who was in truth very fond of Jessie, “but I think it is perfectly horrid for you to have her living with you. You’ll have such a good time every single minute that you won’t care any more about me.”

Lois came over and sat down on the edge of the bed and put her arms around Ellen. “Why, Ellen, you dear thing!” she exclaimed. Lois loved her friends so intensely that it never seemed possible they could care equally for her, and this admission from the self-reliant Ellen, who was such a favorite, filled her with an amazed joy.

“I shall care just as much for you,” Lois said. “It will be the same as it is with you and Anne. And there will be four of us to do things together.”

“I shall expect to play with you every single day,” said Ellen.

“Why, of course.”

“And I don’t want you to like Jessie any better than you like me; I couldn’t stand that. I know she’s ever so much nicer, and I don’t see how you can help it.”

“I love you both dearly,” said Lois.

After this the atmosphere was cleared, and Ellen began to take an interest in the preparation of Lois’s closet.

“Do you think she’ll like the right-hand side or the left-hand side best?” asked Lois, who always needed a great deal of advice from her friends.

“The right-hand side is lots more convenient, because it is over next the shelves.”

“But the left-hand side has that extra row of hooks across the end, and she has so many more dresses than I have.”

Lois paused irresolutely, with a pink frock in one hand and a brown one in the other.

“I don’t see how you ever get anything done, it takes you so long to decide,” said Ellen impatiently.

“It does take me a good while,” Lois admitted apologetically.

Her tone softened Ellen, and she helped Lois move her dresses, deciding that Jessie should have rather more than half of the right-hand side of the closet.

Lois and Ellen wanted to do all they could to make Jessie’s arrival a cheerful one.

“I am going to the greenhouse to buy some flowers for Jessie,” Ellen said. “She loves flowers. Won’t you come with me?”

The two children went out into the world that was beginning to be made over new by a gentle April shower. Lois reflected, as she closed the door, that it was almost a year from the first time that she and Ellen had met. Lois remembered how lonely she had been because Daisy, her best friend, had gone away forever, and then almost as soon as the door closed to shut Daisy out, it opened to let Ellen in. Lois felt very thankful and happy, as they went along the village street. They stopped at Ellen’s house and unlocked a battered bank that she had owned for many years. She had refused to have Lois go shares with her in the matter of the flowers, and so Lois quietly dropped in a ten-cent piece through the slit in the top while Ellen was taking out two ten-cent pieces from the door at the back.

“Lois Page!” she protested. “I wanted it to be all my present.”

“It is,” said Lois. “But I guess I’ve a right to put my money in a savings’ bank, if I like. It is a good safe bank.”

Ellen had so little money that Lois could not bear to have her squander twenty cents so recklessly.

Ellen’s formidable brothers were coming in at the gate as the two little girls were going out. In the winter, when Lois had stayed under the Morgans’ hospitable roof, she had grown to be good friends with these boys, but now that she had not seen them for some time her old shyness returned.

“Hullo,” said Amyas and Reuben.

“Hullo,” said Lois in a faint voice. She dropped her eyes and did not look at them as she and Ellen passed through the gate.

When the children reached the greenhouse they were speechless at first in their admiration, for there was such a brilliant array of flowers.

“What are you going to get for Jessie?” Lois inquired.

“Pink roses,” said Ellen, who generally had her mind made up. She glanced at a jar full of them as she spoke. “How much are they a dozen?” she asked.

“Two dollars,” replied the black-haired girl behind the counter.

“Two dollars!” Ellen’s face fell. “Then six would be a dollar,” she added after a moment’s hesitation.

“Yes.”

“And for twenty cents”—the calculation was too intricate. Ellen looked up with a puzzled frown. “How many could I have for twenty cents?”

“One. They are twenty cents apiece.”

“Only one rose for twenty cents! And it would fade so soon!” said Ellen.

Lois had her nose buried in the roses. “Oh, Ellen, they are so lovely!” she exclaimed. “It seems as if just one rose was lovelier than a lot of anything else.”

But Ellen did not think so.

“You can get a whole plant for twenty cents,” said the girl, “and it could be set out in the garden later and last all summer.”

A whole living, growing plant for the same price as a single evanescent rose! How incredible that seemed! The children wandered around the greenhouse, looking first at one plant and then at another; even Ellen was for once undecided. There were fragrant hyacinths in bud and blossom, pink ones, white ones, and others of a beautiful shade of lilac, and lilac was Jessie’s color; but the hyacinths, while perfect for the moment, would be out of blossom soon. Lois was attracted by a Marguerite, with its delicate white petals and yellow centre. It looked like Jessie, she said.

“It looks just like a common field daisy,” objected Ellen, who was in an obstinate mood and preferred to choose her own plant. She went over to the other end of the greenhouse, where the geraniums were. They were stocky little plants; most of them were in blossom or in bud. There were pink geraniums and dark red ones, besides several of a brilliant scarlet. Lois looked at them irresolutely, but Ellen instantly set her affections on a scarlet geranium, with two gorgeous blossoms, as a concession to the present, as well as a bud of promise.

“I should like that one,” she said.

“That is twenty-five cents.”

“That is the one I want,” repeated Ellen firmly, “but I’ve only got twenty cents.” It seemed to her that nothing else in life would satisfy her but this one geranium, with its full and perfect flowers.

“You can have any of these for twenty cents,” said the girl, indicating an inferior group.

“This is a nice one; it has three buds,” said Lois.

“It is all right for you who are going to live in the house with it, but I want it to look beautiful when I give it to her. I want that one,” said Ellen, “and I don’t want any other, and I only want to pay twenty cents.”

The girl looked at Ellen, she saw determination written all over her eager face and shining out from her dark eyes, and she remembered her own childhood not so many years ago.

“I guess if my father was here he’d let you have that geranium for twenty cents,” she said.

Ellen’s eyes shone, and she paid over her two ten-cent pieces and hastily seized her property.

When they reached Lois’s room, Ellen put the red geranium on a little table in front of the wide window. There were white muslin curtains tied back with white cords and tassels. The walls were a soft gray, and although the cushion on the window seat was many-hued, and so were the rugs, the general effect was more subdued than Ellen liked, and this blaze of scarlet pleased her.

A little later they heard the sound of horses’ hoofs and wheels in the distance.

“She is coming! She is coming!” cried Lois, and Ellen had a bitter pang at the rapture of that tone.

It was only the ice-cart lumbering down the street.

The children were in the parlor with their faces pressed close against the window. A bright fire was burning on the hearth and Lois’s mother sat before it with her sewing.

Here Jessie was at last! The carriage stopped at the gate, and a golden-haired girl alighted, and came swiftly along the walk. Ellen and Lois ran out to meet her. Lois flung her arms about Jessie.

“You dear, dear thing!” she said. “It is so good to have you here!”

Then she looked at Jessie, and saw that her face was wet with tears, and she remembered that this day, which was the happiest in her own life, was perhaps the saddest in Jessie’s, for she had just parted from her father and mother, who were to sail for Europe on account of her father’s ill health.

Lois felt very shy and could not say anything more. Her own joy seemed positively wrong.

Jessie smiled bravely through her tears.

“It is so lovely to be coming to live with you, Lois,” she said, “and it was dear of you, Ellen, to be here to meet me.”

Jessie put one arm around Lois and the other around Ellen. Ellen did not feel any longer that Jessie was to separate them; it seemed instead as if they would all three be drawn more closely together.

“Lois and I have bought a scarlet geranium for you, Jessie.”

It was impossible to keep back this great announcement any longer.

“It was your present,” said Lois.

Ellen no longer wanted to have the whole glory of the gift.

“It was our present,” she said; “you know you put your money in my bank.”