Read Online Re-Creations by Grace Livingston Hill - Free Book Online Page A

she was dressed that way there, and folks were all looking at her and saying it wasn’t nice. She dances, too, and kicks, with lots of skirts and ruffles and things, made of chiffon; and she makes eyes at boys; and I know a girl at school that says she saw her smoking cigarettes at a restaurant once. You see it isn’t much use to fix up Carey’s room when he does things like that. He doesn’t deserve it.”
    Cornelia looked aghast.
    “Oh, but we must, Louie! We must all the more then. And perhaps the girl isn’t so bad if we knew her, and—and tried to help her. Some girls are awfully silly at a certain age, dear.”
    “Well, you oughta see her. Harry knows, and he thinks she’s the limit. He says the boys all talk about her. She wears makeup, too, and big black earrings down on her shoulders sometimes, and she wears her hair just like the pictures of the devil!”
    Cornelia had to laugh at the earnest, fierce little face, and the laugh broke the tension somewhat.
    “Well, dearie, we’ll have to find a way to coax Carey back to us,” she said soothingly, even while her heart was sinking. “He’s our brother, you know, and we love him, and it would break Mother’s heart.”
    “Oh yes,” said Louise, not noticing her sister’s face. “We hadn’t any side windows at all there; the houses were close up, and there were very unpleasant people all around. It wasn’t at all a good neighborhood. Carey hated it. He wouldn’t come home for days and days. He said it wasn’t fit for pigs.”
    “Where did he go? Where has he gone now, do you suppose?”
    “Oh, off with the boys somewhere. Sometimes to their houses. Sometimes they take trips around. One of them has a car. His father’s rich. But I don’t like him. His name’s Brand Barlock. He drives wherever he likes. They went to Washington once and were gone a week. Mother never slept a wink those nights, just sat at the front window and watched after we went to bed. I know, for I woke up and found her so several times. He might’ve gone to Baltimore now. There’s a game down that way sometime soon. I guess it was last night. Harry heard ‘em talking about it. They go with the gang of fellows that used to play on our high school team when Carey was in school.”
    “School?” Cornelia caught at the word hopefully. “Perhaps it’s only fun, then, Louie. Maybe, it’s nothing really bad.”
    “No. They’re pretty tough,” sighed the wise child. “Harry knows. He hears the boys talk.”
    “Well, dear, we’ll have to forget it now, anyway, and get to work. We must fix Carey’s room so he can sleep there tonight if he does come back, and we must have supper ready when Father gets home.”
    The child brightened. “Won’t they be surprised?” she said with a happy light in her eyes. “What do you want me to do? Shall I peel the potatoes?”
    “Yes, do, and have plenty. We’ll mash them, shall we? I found the potato-masher in the bottom of a barrel in the parlor, so I don’t believe you’ve been using it lately.”
    “That’s right. We had all we could do to bake them or boil them whole,” said Louise. “You bake the bread, and I’ll get things away upstairs and make Carey’s bed.”
    “Are there any clean sheets? I didn’t know where to look.”
    “No, there’s only one pair, and I kept them for you next week.”
    “We can’t keep anything for me, duckie dear,” said Cornelia, laughing. “Carey’s got to have clean sheets this very night. I have a hunch he’s coming home, and I want that room to be ready. That’s the first step in getting him back to us, you know.”
    “Oh, well, all right,” said the little sister. “They are in the lower drawer of our bureau. How good that bread smells! My, it was nice of you to make it! And how dear the dining room table looks with that little flower in the middle. Some girls’ sisters would have thought that was unnecessary. They would have made us wait for pretty things. But you didn’t,