Uncollected Pieces for Young Readers
Main Contents & Search
"Dolly Franklin's Decision" and "A Good Girl"
By
Sarah Orne Jewett
Introduction
In his New England Quarterly article, "Sarah Orne
Jewett and Mary E. Wilkins (Freeman): Two Shrewd Businesswomen
in Search of New Markets" (1997 Mar. 1997 (70,1): 57-82, Charles
Johanningsmeier identifies this story as one that Jewett
contributed to S. S. McClure's pioneer newspaper syndicate.
Jewett's title was "Dolly Franklin's Decision," under which it
appeared in the Boston Globe (24 November 1889, sec. 2.
p. 5), the first text that appears below. A second, abbreviated
version appeared in the New York World (24 November
1889, p. 28). Following the second version is a table of major
differences between the two versions. It is likely that the
story appeared in number of other newspapers in the United
States.
The illustrations both appear in the
Boston Globe. Only the second appears in the New York World.
The illustrator has not be identified. The first is entitled:
"She was ringing at the neighbor's." The second is: "It's so
nice to have you here."
Corrections are indicated with brackets
in both versions.
DOLLY FRANKLIN'S DECISION
Or How a Boston Girl Brought Sunshine into a Home Life.
[copyright, 1889, by the author.]
Somebody asks a question about an ideal girl, and there seems to be no answer. "An imaginary model of perfection," and a gay, helpful, hopeful, often mistaken, but progressing young creature just this side of womanhood, seem to have but little relation to one another, at first thought. Yet which of us has not known a girl to praise and love and set as copy for other girls - a young, thoughtful Mary or busy Martha, who filled her place in life well and charmingly? I can think of one just now whom I should like to have a great many other girls see as [she] goes to and fro about her work in her father and mother's house. Her name is Dolly Franklin, and she lives in Boston, but not in the city itself. Her home is in one of the new streets which have been made through an old estate in Roxbury, where only two or three years ago there were fields and even pasture ground, and wild thickets, and flowers that one would never think of looking for so near a great town.
Now there are 10 wooden houses on one side of the street and 10 on the other, built by the same plan, and, as the real estate agent's notice said, "Commodious, modern, and elegant, and for rent at excessively moderate rates." The truth was that of the three adjectives only the second was true of the little houses, and, as for the rent, it was as high as the real estate agent and the owner dared to make it.
Mr. Franklin, Dolly's father, knew that it would not be easy to pay so many dollars a quarter, but he was tempted by two things, there was a lovely view of the lower country and the salt water from the windows of the front bed room upstairs, and in the front yard there was a beautiful young linden tree which had grown on the lawn through which the new street had been made. Some of the other houses had trees, too, but not many of them, and Mr. Franklin had always thought that if he had a place of his own he would plant a linden in front of it. There was a bit of ground behind each house where one might have a very small garden, and there was a narrow strip for flowers at the side next the driveway to the shed. The little home looked much pleasanter than any other in the double row. For some reason it seemed the only one with any individuality to it. Whether this was on account of the linden tree nobody could tell; but when Mr. Franklin went upstairs and looked out of the windows in the June sunlight and thought what a high, dry, sunshiny place it would be for his sick wife, he determined to risk paying the extra rent and to save the money for it some way or other.
Dolly, who had come out with him in the open horse car, was sure that they could not do better. They had to leave their house in town because a large apartment house was going to be built on the land, and, indeed, nobody was very sorry; the street was dark already because a high block of buildings had lately been put up on the other side. Dolly ran up to her mother's room as soon as they came back and told about the new house with great enthusiasm. It seemed as if it were already theirs, and Mrs. Franklin listened, and tried hard to make it clear just which room had the great closet with shelves and drawers and which opened on the back entry and had two windows to the west and the pretty paper with the blue and pink morning glories.
"It was so nice to have you here to see about it all, Dolly," said Mrs. Franklin, when at last the chapters of description seemed to be coming to an end.
"I am thankful," insisted young Dolly. "I knew that father ought to have one of us go with him to see about it; he would get a house that was either too big or too little, and all he cared about today was the tree in the front yard and the view out of your window."
"How old are you, Dolly?" inquired her father unexpectedly, while every body laughed at him. Bob was there, too, a blustering brother of 12.
"I'm 16," said Dolly.
"I suppose you'll be in school these three years yet," said Mr. Franklin soberly. "I begin to grudge the time. It seems to me that we ought to have you right here."
"Oh, no!" said Dolly's mother quickly, but Dolly's face shone with a new light. She began to speak, and then checked herself in a steady grown-up way, and skipped down stairs to see that her mother's supper was ready in season. There was no fire set in the kitchen. The house girl had not come in, though she had faithfully promised to return from an errand within a few minutes of 3 o'clock, when Dolly had set forth with her father. She was not reliable, this girl, and she was very incompetent, but nobody had known how to get a better person in her place. Housework is a business which is seldom learned as other businesses are. One wonders, when so much well being depends upon it, why so few people take real pride in this honorable employment.
Dolly Franklin felt very cross for a minute. She had helped Lizzie Gregg a long time that morning so that she could go out early, but there was no use fault finding, and she whisked a big apron out of a drawer, and Bob kindly went down cellar for kindlings and made a crackling fire with ever so many matches and at least three newspapers, so that tea was ready in good season, and Dolly was just going up stairs with her mother's little tray when the dallying Lizzie came in.
That night Dolly went to bed early, and for once did not go to sleep as soon her head touched the pillow. This young had was full of plans, and yet she thought that the bright June moon was making her wakeful because it shone into her little room. She had been away from home at school for two years, and she did not think that it would be right to stay away any longer. To be sure the school was free, but there were many little expenses, and it cost much more than if she stayed at home. The question was whether she were really gaining enough in every way to make it worth while. She had never seen so plainly how much her own home needed her, or what unselfishness her father and her mother showed in their frequent discomfort without her. She had been living with her father's sister while she went to school, and this had been very pleasant; but her aunt had often said that she meant to take some other young girl to live with her in school days when Dolly's school days were over, so that she would not be too much missed.
Dolly liked her lessons, and liked her
schoolmates still better. She had always supposed until that
night that she would graduate with her class.
II.
The moving was over early in July, and the Franklins were settled in the new house behind the linden tree, and Mrs. Franklin had been so much better for the change that she often could come down to dinner and supper and "behave," as Bob said, "like everybody else." The view out of her window was even a greater pleasure than could be expected. Bob was fast turning into a landscape gardener, and so far had not flagged in keeping the yard and garden patch looking clean and tidy. He had requested a pear tree for his birthday, and though transplanted so late in the season it seemed to be doing well. Dolly was as busy as a bee inside the house; the heedless Lizzy had refused the week before they moved to go into what she was pleased to call the country, and at first Mrs. Franklin had been made very miserable. Dolly proposed advertising, but her mother gave a disconsolate shake of the head.
"Where's old Nora?" asked Mr. Franklin, suddenly. "Have you seen her lately? Doesn't she live somewhere near the new house?"
"Of course," said his wife, brightening. "I think that it can't be more than half a mile. Perhaps she'll come and help us in the morning, and then we'll see what can be done afterward."
Nobody knows to what good end any little lane of decision may lead. Old Nora had indeed helped with the morning. Her children were grown now, and she had much spare time on her hands, and was glad to earn something and to help her old mistress. She had, indeed, helped Dolly amazingly, and they had many a comfortable talk together as they worked in the clean new kitchen. At last Dolly ventured to say a word at the end of the first 10 days, when she and her father were sitting in Mrs. Franklin's room, and there was a pause, and the breeze rustled in the cool tree outside: "Don't you think we have been getting on well with the housekeeping?" she said timidly, and the mother and father eagerly said yes.
"Then why can't we keep on just in the same way all this summer?" Dolly asked again.
"Oh, but you can't, dear child!" said the mother.
"Why not?" asked Dolly, and she thought that her father never had looked so pleased.
"I can try for awhile at any rate," the girl went on. "It is so easy to do the work here in this nice house, and Nora can wash on Mondays; she says she will, and then she can come again in the week to help with any heavy work, or if we have company. I wish that I could try. It would save us so much money, and you know we had to spend more than we expected in coming here; it would be a way that I could help father along until Bob can do something."
"Why, don't you mean to--"
But Dolly was not ready to say anything else and just then somebody rang the front door bell, and she ran down with her heart beating very fast. It was only a woman with dressmaking patterns to sell, who talked a long time about them. Dolly tried to listen patiently after she had said that nobody wished for any, but at any rate she had time to get over the excitement she had felt about her plans. She could not tell yet whether she must give up going to school any more.
The housekeeping, with some hindrances, went on delightfully that summer. It was, perhaps, a commonplace thing enough that a girl of 16, well grown and strong, and capable as Dolly Franklin was, should cook and sweep and plan and sew for her little home household, but to the anxious girl herself and the applauding members of the family it seemed most wonderful. Dolly was a very good cook, and was always learning new things, and she kept the house looking fresh and pleasant. She was very careful not to waste anything, for she knew how hard her father worked for what they had, and what a difference it made because her mother was not well and strong. There was always a doctor's bill to reckon on, but this half year it promised to be much less than usual.
Nobody knew how many of the lightest
things in the housework found their way to Mrs. Franklin's
willing, thin hands, and somehow there was a pleasantness in the
household that warmed everybody's heart. It made such a
difference when one really wished to do the work; so many girls
hate to do it, and are even ashamed of it in their own dear
homes; but more and more Dolly found her ambition and her power
growing, and the morning work could soon be done in so much less
time than at first. She had plenty of time to go into town
whenever it was necessary, and she saw as much of her friends as
ever she had and somehow enjoyed life a great deal better than
before. Sometimes she did not need old Nora for anything but the
washing; sometimes she came two or three times in a week to help
with hard work; but Dolly looked round and well and prettier
than ever, her mother thought, when she and her father and Bob
started for church on Sunday morning, all in their Sunday
clothes.
III.
It was not very long before the Franklins began to know their neighbors in the new street. The houses were being taken one by one until few were left empty, and Bob knew all the boys by sight and name, and was desperately intimate with one or two. In one house there were some cousins of Mr. Franklin's fellow-bookkeeper, which led to a pleasant acquaintance and neighborliness, and in the next house to theirs was an old gentleman and his daughter, who gave music lessons. Dolly wished to make friends of these people more than of any one else. There was something so tasteful and pretty about their house and they had such charming faces. The old father looked like a soldier and held his head proudly as he walked by; the daughter looked kind and smiling as she hurried out with her music roll. Dolly was sure that she was never impatient with her little music scholars. She sometimes heard the neighbors speaking a foreign language, and they were so polite to one another. The old soldier took off his hat with a fine air when he bade any one good morning.
Dolly wished more and more that she knew them, but she could not tell how to begin, the young lady was a good many years older than she. It was perfectly wonderful how interesting they and their house became; theirs [their's] was the most charming house of the double row, while some looked so cheap and tawdry and unclean that our friend could never believe that they were really all built from the same measurements and painted the same color.
Dolly never had cared much for any of her school lessons, but learned them because she must. She did care for her French lessons, however, and she liked the stories that she was just beginning to read. She could not help a little sigh when she thought that if she stopped going to school she must give them all up. As for the geometry and the next year's chemistry course, she was glad to escape these. She had never said a word about going back to school, but soon it was past the middle of August, and she must let her aunt know if she did not mean to come back. What would her father and mother say? They had always said so much about Dolly's having a good education, but to Dolly it appeared more and more as if she had shut her desk cover [over] for the last time. When the evenings grew longer she would get out her books and study a little. She could help Bob, too, when his school began, for out-of-door Bob suffered many things in the quest for book-learning.
She could look across from the kitchen window, where she oftenest stood, to the house of the interesting neighbors, but she did not know them yet, though the old gentleman had once taken off his hat as he opened her gate most politely. She was just remembering one day that it was a good while since she had seen either the father or daughter, when her mother said that the daughter must be sick; she had not gone by for several days and there had been a doctor's carriage at the door. "Your father says they are French people," said Mrs. Franklin, and Dolly was more interested than ever. She had come up to confer with her mother about something uncommon that was to be made for supper. Two of Dolly's own acquaintances were coming out to tea from town. It was such fun to have what one liked and take pride and pleasure in it, instead of being at the mercy of somebody else who resented a visitor and felt herself aggrieved if there were anything extra to do.
"What comfort we have had this summer! How I shall miss you, Dolly," said the mother, and she spoke so plaintively that Dolly came very near telling her then and there about her plans. It was not that Bob always had his favorite buns and molasses cookies and that Dolly knew exactly how to bake the Sunday beans dry and sweet and brown as her father liked them, but there was a delightful sense of comfort and friendliness all about the house; there was no unwilling and protesting member [members] of the little family. For the wages that they were able to pay they could not have a well-trained, able house-girl; they had been made wretched enough by the untrained, unwilling girls who knew so little about their business and would not take the trouble to learn any more. It had been different when Mrs. Franklin was well and about the house for even the most provoking person could not help feeling the influence of her careful friendly ways as they worked together. But the pale little mistress always said that it was a hard place for a young girl now.
Not hard for Dolly! She was surprised to find how easy it was to do the work, and that every day had some new interesting thing about it. She wondered why there was no drudgery.
One morning as she walked across
toward the French neighbors she was tempted to go over herself
to ask for the young lady. The doctor had not been there now for
a day or two. To be sure they were strangers, but Dolly's warm,
young heart was touched when she [the] thought that there seemed
to be nobody to show a friendly interest. Late in the morning
Dolly put a cup of her mother's broth and some thin oatmeal
biscuit and a piece of light cake on a little waiter and started
out feeling as if it were a great adventure. On her way down the
yard she picked a bright pink geranium flower and two of its
fresh green leaves to make the tray look pretty, and the next
minute she was ringing at the neighbor's door. The old gentleman
came to open it, looking very old and troubled.
"Will you enter?" he asked most politely, and Dolly stepped in, blushing a good deal.
"We have much of trouble," said the old man sadly. "You are kind, my dear. Will you ascend the stairway?" And Dolly went up and entered the room. There was the poor lady who had been very ill, and was better now, so that she had managed to sit up in bed and was trying to write some letters to her pupils. She was so glad to see our Dolly's pleasant face, and proved herself most grateful for the little luncheon on the tray. It is needless to say that they became fast friends and that Dolly went over to spend an hour or two that very afternoon and sent word besides to Nora, whose strong hands were needed in the neglected kitchen. It seemed when our friend told her father about the French people that night as if she had known them for weeks.
"No, mother," said Dolly Franklin, a week later. "I'm not going back to school, but I'm going to study a great deal harder than I used to there." Somehow the old idea of graduating with the class had faded out, for she needed to know things now that she could not learn in school. Her father had already been easily talked over to the new plan, but Mrs. Franklin anxiously protested.
"I love so to be here, and you need me," said Dolly. "It isn't as if I were going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a home girl always, and I mean to be learning home things. You don't know how ambitious I am. This year, anyway, you will have to keep me, and we will have such good times this winter. Mlle. Trevy is going to give me French lessons: that is, she says that I may read to her, and she will help me to learn to speak all she can. I shouldn't have half so good a chance at the seminary. They are so pleased because father got that translating for them to do for his establishment. Truly, I shall learn more, being with such lovely people. The old gentleman is so nice he never grumbles or frets but I know that it is very hard for them having to be so poor and uncertain. Oh, mother, you will like them so much! There are ever so many nice people in this street!"
"If I were only well!" sighed poor
Mrs. Franklin.
"But perhaps you will be soon," said Dolly in a most heartening way. "Think how much better you are than when you came here!"
"Your father says that he is going to pay you just the same that he paid Lizzie Gregg," said Mrs. Franklin, smiling again. "He thinks it is only fair, and so you will have some money that is really your own. The first of the year he will have his increase of salary, and then he can give you more; but he was so pleased this morning, telling me that you had saved so much from what it used to cost him for housekeeping, that he hasn't minded the high rent a bit. You ought to have heard father praise you. He said two or three times that he wished every father and mother had such a good girl. You take more care of us now than we do of you."
"Oh, no!" said Dolly, "I work just because I love to, and you do everything for me." Then she went down to her neat little kitchen with great happiness in her heart. She was sure that none of the girls she knew had such a happy home, but after all Dolly herself did as much as any one to make it so; it was Dolly herself who deserved praise that day. She was lucky to have learned so soon that having plenty of good work and liking [living] it is the best thing in the world.
A GOOD GIRL.
[copyright, 1889, by the author.]
Somebody asks a question about an ideal girl, and there seems to be no answer. I can think of one just now whom I should like to have a great many other girls see as she goes to and fro about her work in her father and mother's house. Her name is Dolly Franklin, and she lives in Boston, but not in the city itself. She had been away from home at school for two years, and she did not think that it would be right to stay away any longer. To be sure, the school was free; but there were many little expenses, and it cost much more than if she stayed at home. The question was whether she were really gaining enough in every way to make it worth while. She had never seen so plainly how much her own home needed her, or what unselfishness her father and her mother showed in their frequent discomfort without her. She had been living with her father's sister while she went to school, and this had been very pleasant; but her aunt had often said that she meant to take some other young girl to live with her in school days when Dolly's school days were over, so that she would not be too much missed.
Dolly liked her lessons, and liked her schoolmates still better. She had always supposed until that night that she would graduate with her class.
The moving was over early in July, and the Franklins were settled in the new house behind the linden tree, and Mrs. Franklin had been so much better for the change that she often could come down to dinner and supper and "behave," as Bob said, "like everybody else." The view out of her window was even a greater pleasure than could be expected. Bob was fast turning into a landscape gardener, and so far had not flagged in keeping the yard and garden patch looking clean and tidy. He had requested a pear tree for his birthday, and though transplanted so late in the season it seemed to be doing well. Dolly was as busy as a bee inside the house, the heedless Lizzy had refused the week before they moved to go into what she was pleased to call the country, and at first Mrs. Franklin had been made very miserable. Dolly proposed advertising, but her mother gave a disconsolate shake of the head.
"Where's old Nora?" asked Mr. Franklin, suddenly, "Have you seen her lately? Doesn't she live somewhere near the new house?"
"Of course," said his wife brightening. "I think that it can't be more than half a mile. Perhaps she'll come and help us in the morning, and then we'll see what can be done afterwards."
Nobody knows to what good end any little lane of decision may lead. Old Nora had indeed helped with the morning. Her children were grown now, and she had much spare time on her hands, and was glad to earn something and to help her old mistress. She had, indeed, helped Dolly amazingly, and they had many a comfortable talk together as they worked in the clean new kitchen. At last Dolly ventured to say a word at the end of the first ten days, when she and her father were sitting in Mrs. Franklin's room, and there was a pause, and the breeze rustled in the cool tree outside: "Don't you think we have been getting on well with the housekeeping?" she said timidly, and the mother and father eagerly said yes.
"Then why can't we keep on just in the same way all this Summer?" Dolly asked again.
"Oh, but you can't, dear child!" said the mother.
"Why not?" asked Dolly, and she thought that her father never had looked so pleased.
"I can try for awhile at any rate," the girl went on. "It is so easy to do the work here in this nice house, and Nora can wash on Mondays; she says she will, and then she can come again in the week to help with any heavy work, or if we have company. I wish that I could try. It would save us so much money, and you know we had to spend more than we expected in coming here; it would be a way that I could help father along until Bob can do something."
"Why, don't you mean--"
But Dolly was not ready to say anything else and just then somebody rang the front door bell and she ran down with her heart beating very fast. It was only a woman with dressmaking patterns to sell, who talked a long time about them. Dolly tried to listen patiently after she had said that nobody wished for any, but at any rate she had time to get over the excitement she felt about her plans. She could not tell yet whether she must give up going to school any more.
The housekeeping, with some hindrances, went on delightfully that Summer. It was, perhaps, a commonplace thing enough that a girl of sixteen, well-grown and strong, and capable as Dolly Franklin was, should cook and sweep and plan and sew for her little home household, but to the anxious girl herself and the applauding members of the family it seemed most wonderful. Dolly was a very good cook and was always learning new things, and she kept the house looking fresh and pleasant. She was very careful not to waste anything, for she knew how hard her father worked for what they had and what a difference it made because her mother was not well and strong. There was always a doctor's bill to reckon on, but this half year it promised to be much less than usual.
Nobody knew how many of the lightest things in the housework found their way to Mrs. Franklin's willing thin hands, and somehow there was a pleasantness in the household that warmed everybody's heart. It made such a difference when one really wished to do the work; so many girls hate to do it, and are even ashamed of it in their own dear homes; but more and more Dolly found her ambition and her power growing, and the morning work could soon be done in so much less time than at first. She had plenty of time to go into town whenever it was necessary, and she saw as much of her friends as ever she had and somehow enjoyed life a great deal better than ever before. Sometimes she did not need old Nora for anything but the washing; sometimes she came two or three times in a week to help with hard work; but Dolly looked round and well and prettier than ever, her mother thought, when she and her father and Bob started for church on Sunday morning, all in their Sunday clothes.
It was not very long before the Franklins began to know their neighbors in the new street. The houses were being taken one by one until few were left empty and Bob knew all the boys by sight and name and was desperately intimate with one or two. In one house there were some cousins of Mr. Franklin's fellow bookkeeper, which led to a pleasant acqu[a]intance and neighborliness, and in the next house to theirs [their's] was an old gentleman and his daughter, who gave music lessons. Dolly wished to make friends of these people more than of any one else.
There was something so tasteful and pretty about their house and they had such charming faces. The old father looked like a soldier and held his head proudly as he walked by; the daughter looked kind and smiling as she hurried out with her music roll. Dolly was sure that she was never impatient with her little music scholars. She sometimes heard the neighbors speaking a foreign language and they were so polite to one another. The old soldier took off his hat with a fine air when he bade any one good morning. Dolly wished more and more that she knew them, but she could not tell how to begin; the young lady was a good many years older than she. It was perfectly wonderful how interesting they and their house became; theirs was the most charming house of the double row, while some looked so cheap and tawdry and unclean that our friend could never believe that they were really all built from the same measurements and painted the same color.
Dolly never had cared much for any of her lessons, but learned them because she must. What would her father and mother say? They had always said so much about Dolly's having a good education, but to Dolly it appeared more and more as if she had shut her desk cover for the last time. When the evenings grew longer she would get out her books and study a little. She could help Bob, too, when his school began, for out-of-door Bob suffered many things in the quest for book learning.
She could look across from the kitchen window, where she oftenest stood, to the house of the interesting neighbors; but she did not know them yet, though the old gentleman had once taken off his hat as he opened her gate most politely. She was just remembering one day that it was a good while since she had seen either the father or daughter when her mother said that the daughter must be sick; she had not gone by for several days and there had been a doctor's carriage at the door. "Your father says they are French people," said Mrs. Franklin, and Dolly was more interested than ever. She had come up to confer with her mother about something uncommon that was to be made for supper. Two of Dolly's own acquaintances were coming out to tea from town. It was such fun to have what one liked and take pride and pleasure in it, instead of being at the mercy of somebody else who resented a visitor and felt herself aggrieved if there were anything extra to do.
"What comfort we have had this Summer? How I shall miss you, Dolly," said the mother, and she spoke so plaintively that Dolly came very near telling her then and there about her plans. It was not that Bob always had his favorite buns and molasses cookies and that Dolly knew exactly how to bake the Sunday beans dry and sweet and brown as her father liked them, but there was a delightful sense of comfort and friendliness all about the house; there was no unwilling and protesting member of the little family. For the wages that they were able to pay they could not have a well-trained, able housegirl; they had been made wretched enough by the untrained, unwilling girls who knew so little about their business and would not take the trouble to learn any more. It had been different when Mrs. Franklin was well and about the house, for even the most provoking person could not help feeling the influence of her careful, friendly ways as they worked together. But the pale little mistress always said that it was a hard place for a young girl now.
Not hard for Dolly! She was surprised to find how easy it was to do the work, and that every day had some new interesting thing about it. She wondered why there was no drudgery.
One morning as she walked across towards the French neighbors she was tempted to go over herself to ask for the young lady. The doctor had not been there now for a day or two. To be sure they were strangers, but Dolly's warm young heart was touched when she thought that there seemed to be nobody to show a friendly interest. Late in the morning Dolly put a cup of her mother's broth and some thin oatmeal biscuit and a piece of light cake on the little waiter and started out feeling as if it were a great adventure. On her way down the yard she picked a bright pink geranium flower and two of its fresh green leaves to make the tray look pretty, and the next minute she was ringing at the neighbor's door. The old gentleman came to open it, looking very old and troubled.
"Will you enter?" he asked most politely, and Dolly stepped in, blushing a good deal.
"We have much of trouble," said the old man sadly. "You are kind, my dear. Will you ascend the stairway?" And Dolly went up and entered the room. There was the poor lady, who had been very ill, and was better now, so that she had managed to sit up in bed and was trying to write some letters to her pupils. She was so glad to see our Dolly's pleasant face, and proved herself most grateful for the little luncheon on the tray. It is needless to say that they became fast friends and that Dolly went over to spend an hour or two that very afternoon and sent word besides to Nora, whose strong hands were needed in the neglected kitchen. It seemed when our friend told her father about the French people that night as if she had known them for weeks.
"No, mother," said Dolly Franklin, a week later, "I'm not going back to school, but I'm going to study a great deal harder than I used to there." Somehow the old idea of graduating with the class had faded out, for she needed to know things now that she could not learn in school. Her father had already been easily talked over to the new plan, but Mrs. Franklin anxiously protested.
"I love so to be here and you need me," said Dolly. "It isn't as if I were going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a home girl always, and I mean to be learning home things. You don't know how ambitious I am. This year, anyway, you will have to keep me and we will have such good times this Winter. Mlle. Trevy is going to give me French lessons; that is, she says that I may read to her and she will help me to learn to speak all she can. I shouldn't have half so good a chance at the seminary. They are so pleased because father got that translating for them to do for his establishment. Truly, I shall learn more, being with such lovely people. The old gentleman is so nice, he never grumbles or frets, but I know that it is very hard for them having to be so poor and uncertain. Oh, mother, you will like them so much! There are ever so many nice people in this street!"
"If I were only well!" sighed poor Mrs. Franklin.
"But perhaps you will be soon," said Dolly in a most heartening way. ["]Think how much better you are than when you came here!"
"Your father says that he is going to pay you just the same that he paid Lizzie Gregg," said Mrs. Franklin, smiling again. "He thinks it is only fair, and so you will have some money that is really your own. The first of the year he will have his increase of salary, and then he can give you more; but he was so pleased this morning, telling me that you had saved so much from what it used to cost him for housekeeping that he hasn't minded the high rent a bit. You ought to have heard father praise you. He said two or three times that he wished every father and mother had such a good girl. You take more care of us now than we do of you."
"Oh, no!" said Dolly, "I work just because I love to, and you do everything for me." Then she went down to her neat little kitchen with great happiness in her heart. She was sure that none of the girls she knew had such a happy home, but after all Dolly herself did as much as any one to make it so; it was Dolly herself who deserved praise that day. She was lucky to have learned so soon that having plenty of good work and liking it is the best thing in the world.
Note
thoughtful Mary or busy Martha:
See Luke 10, for the story of Jesus's visit to the home of Mary
and Martha, sisters of Lazarus.
[ Back ]
Major Differences between the two texts.
Minor changes
in punctuation are not included here.