Four Girls and a Compact | Page 3

to know what 'T.O.' stands for--that's it!" And the amused look in the girls' eyes changed quickly to understanding at sight of her face. "Well," she challenged, "why don't you say what an appropriate name it is? It's a wonder you talented ones didn't guess it long ago! Listen! Loraine's talent is writing--we all know she'll be an author some day. Laura Ann's is art. Oh, you needn't laugh--need she, girls? One of these days we're all going to a 'hanging,' and _it'll be Laura Ann's!_ Billy's talent everybody knows. She can play wicked folks good, if there's a piano handy. Well, what is my talent? Don't everybody speak at once!" The girl's flushed face defied them. It was bitter with longing to be a Talented One.
[Illustration: "YOU POOR LITTLE BLESSED!" SHE MURMURED.]
"Dear!" It was like gentle Loraine to begin with a "dear," and like her, too, to cross the room to T.O. and touch her little bitter face with cool fingers. "Dear, don't you worry--your talent is _there._"
"Where?" demanded T.O. Then she laughed. "I suppose you mean buried in a handkerchief! But I shall never be able to dig it out--never! There's such an awful pile of them on top! They keep piling on new ones every day. If I keep on selling handkerchiefs till I'm seventy-five, I'll never get down to my talent."
It was, after all, quite true, though none of them would acknowledge it--except the Talentless One herself. She was, as she insisted, the odd one in the busy little B-Hive. Her very face, small and dark and lean, was an "odd" one; the faces of the other three were marked by an indefinable something that she called talent, and she was not far wrong. A subtle refinement, intellectuality, asserted itself gently in all three of them. The dark little face of T.O. was vivacious and keen, but not refined or intellectual.
Billy was the baby "B," as Loraine was the acknowledged queen. They all favored Billy and took care of her. Was it a rainy morning? Somebody got Billy's rubbers, somebody else her umbrella! Was the child paler than usual? She must have the softest chair and be babied. Poor little toiler-Billy, created to have a mother and a home, to sit always in soft chairs and be taken care of! Yet without them all she was making a splendid struggle for independence, with the best of them, and they were conscious of a certain element of heroism in her toiling that none of the rest of them laid claim to in their own. The other B.'s were proud of Billy.
T.O. was as small and thin as Billy, but no one thought of taking care of T.O. or babying her. Instead, T.O.--the Talentless One--took care of them all. She had always been a toiler, always been alone, and to the rest it was comparatively a new experience. T.O., as she herself said, was able to give them all "points."
While tired Billy slept to-night, the Grand Plan discussion was taken up again and entertained with new enthusiasm. It was now a definite Plan, since they had voted unanimously to adopt it--it was no longer merely a unanimous wish, to be bandied about longingly. It remained only to choose a brave soul to go forth and find for it a "local habitation."
"When Billy wakes up, we'll draw lots," Loraine decided gently. "The one who gets the longest slip _will go_--but mercy! I hope I sha'n't be the one! Girls, there really ought to be one to--er--oversee the drawing of the lots--"
"Hear! Hear!" from T.O.
"You will take your chances with the common herd, my dear," Laura Ann said firmly. "You really need not be alarmed, though, for I shall draw the fatal slip. I always do. Then I shall go up-country and engage four boards at a nice white house with green blinds, and forget to ask how much they will cost--the 'boards,' I mean--and whether they'll take Billy at half-price. You'll all like my white house, but you won't be able to stay more than one night on account of the expense. So you'll turn me out of the B-Hive and I shall--"
"Oh, don't do anything else--don't!" T.O. groaned. "That will be doing enough."
"We shall have to find a very cheap place," Loraine said, thoughtfully, too intent on the fate of the Grand Plan to listen to pleasantries. "Somewhere where it won't cost much of anything."
"Such an easy place to find!" murmured Laura Ann. "I see myself going straight to it!"
"We've got to go to it, on account of--" Loraine nodded toward the sleeping little figure in the softest chair. "Girls, Billy is all worn out."
"So are you," Laura Ann said tenderly.
"And you," retorted Loraine.
The Talentless One, unintentionally left out, sighed an infinitesimal sigh, preparatory to smiling stoutly.
"Of course