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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40366 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 40366-h.htm or 40366-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40366/40366-h/40366-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40366/40366-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      http://archive.org/details/marywareintexas10john
+
+
+
+
+
+MARY WARE IN TEXAS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Works of ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON
+
+
+The Little Colonel Series
+
+(_Trade Mark, Reg. U. S. Pat. Of._)
+
+Each one vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated
+
+    The Little Colonel Stories                   $1.50
+
+      (Containing in one volume the three stories, "The
+      Little Colonel," "The Giant Scissors," and "Two Little
+      Knights of Kentucky.")
+
+    The Little Colonel's House Party              1.50
+    The Little Colonel's Holidays                 1.50
+    The Little Colonel's Hero                     1.50
+    The Little Colonel at Boarding-School         1.50
+    The Little Colonel in Arizona                 1.50
+    The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation       1.50
+    The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor             1.50
+    The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding      1.50
+    Mary Ware: The Little Colonel's Chum          1.50
+    Mary Ware in Texas                            1.50
+
+    The above 11 vols., _boxed_ with The Little Colonel Good
+    Times Book, as a set of 12 vols.             18.00
+
+
+
+    The Little Colonel Good Times Book            1.50
+    The Little Colonel Doll Book                  1.50
+
+
+Illustrated Holiday Editions
+
+Each one vol., small quarto, cloth, illustrated, and printed in colour
+
+    The Little Colonel                           $1.25
+    The Giant Scissors                            1.25
+    Two Little Knights of Kentucky                1.25
+    Big Brother                                   1.25
+
+
+Cosy Corner Series
+
+Each one vol., thin 12mo, cloth, illustrated
+
+    The Little Colonel                            $.50
+    The Giant Scissors                             .50
+    Two Little Knights of Kentucky                 .50
+    Big Brother                                    .50
+    Ole Mammy's Torment                            .50
+    The Story of Dago                              .50
+    Cicely                                         .50
+    Aunt 'Liza's Hero                              .50
+    The Quilt that Jack Built                      .50
+    Flip's "Islands of Providence"                 .50
+    Mildred's Inheritance                          .50
+
+
+Other Books
+
+    Joel: A Boy of Galilee                       $1.50
+    In the Desert of Waiting                       .50
+    The Three Weavers                              .50
+    Keeping Tryst                                  .50
+    The Legend of the Bleeding Heart               .50
+    The Rescue of the Princess Winsome             .50
+    The Jester's Sword                             .50
+    Asa Holmes                                    1.00
+
+
+    L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
+    53 Beacon Street          Boston, Mass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: It would have been joy to her soul could she have seen
+herself----
+
+MARY WARE IN TEXAS Chap XIII]
+
+
+MARY WARE IN TEXAS
+
+by
+
+ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON
+
+Author of "The Little Colonel Series," "Big Brother,"
+"Ole Mammy's Torment," "Joel: A Boy of
+Galilee," "Asa Holmes," etc.
+
+Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Boston * L. C. Page
+& Company * MDCCCCX
+
+Copyright, 1910,
+By L. C. Page & Company
+(Incorporated)
+
+Entered at Stationer's Hall, London
+
+All rights reserved
+
+First Impression, October, 1910
+
+Electrotyped and Printed by
+The Colonial Press
+C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+    F. V. P.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+      CHAPTER                          PAGE
+         I. IN SAN ANTONIO                1
+        II. IN SEARCH OF A HOME          25
+       III. THE LITTLE TOWN OF BAUER     51
+        IV. MARY FINDS GAY               71
+         V. AT FORT SAM HOUSTON          93
+        VI. ON THE CREEK-BANK           116
+       VII. CHRISTMAS                   139
+      VIII. "DIE KLEINEN TEUFEL"        171
+        IX. AT THE BARNABY RANCH        198
+         X. IN JOYCE'S STUDIO           230
+        XI. PHIL GOES TO WARWICK HALL   259
+       XII. IN "BLUE-BONNET" TIME       284
+      XIII. JACK                        308
+       XIV. SAN JACINTO DAY             329
+        XV. NEW TRAILS                  353
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                             PAGE
+  "IT WOULD HAVE BEEN JOY TO HER SOUL COULD SHE HAVE
+        SEEN HERSELF" (_See page 308_)              _Frontispiece_
+  "'WHAT AN ADORABLE LITTLE CURL!'"                             7
+  "A DASHING GIRL IN KHAKI AND A COWBOY HAT, ASTRIDE
+        A FIERY LITTLE MUSTANG"                                59
+  "HE . . . SEATED HIMSELF BESIDE HER, COFFEE-CUP
+        IN HAND"                                              113
+  "SHE SENT THE BOAT DOWN STREAM WITH LONG, SWIFT
+        STROKES"                                              134
+  "THREE ALERT AND EXPECTANT LITTLE FIGURES SAT IN
+        A ROW ON THE STEPS"                                   198
+  "LEANING AGAINST THE MANTEL, LOOKED DOWN AT HER,
+        THOUGHTFULLY"                                         263
+  "'WELL, I'M GOING AWAY AND I MAY NOT SEE YOU AGAIN'"        375
+
+
+
+
+MARY WARE IN TEXAS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+IN SAN ANTONIO
+
+
+THE musicians were tuning their instruments somewhere behind the palms
+in the hotel courtyard. It was one of the older hotels of San Antonio,
+much sought by Northern tourists on account of that same inner garden,
+around which the big building stretched itself. The rooms opening on to
+it had vine-covered balconies, and, looking down from them into the
+tropical growth of palms and banana trees and roses, one felt that it
+was summer time, no matter what the calendar said.
+
+It was on one of the second floor balconies at the close of a November
+day that Mary Ware stood looking around her with eager eyes. Queen's
+wreath and moon-vines made such a thick screen that no one could see
+her, so she might lean over the railing as far as she pleased to watch
+the brilliantly lighted scene below. Electric bulbs were strung through
+the cacti and devil's ivy like elfin lamps. There was a shine of brass
+buttons as colored bell boys scudded across the open space with clinking
+ice-pitchers or jingling keys, and through the glass doors beyond came
+the gleam of silver and flowers where the waiters were arranging the
+tables for dinner.
+
+There was to be a military banquet in one of the private dining-rooms,
+and already the guests were beginning to arrive for the reception which
+was to precede it. So much bunting was draped over the arch between the
+office corridors and this inner court, that the view was somewhat
+obscured, but, by leaning dangerously far over the railing, Mary could
+catch a glimpse of the legs of a uniform now and then, strolling along
+beside the trailing skirt of a dainty evening gown.
+
+All this warmth and life and color was in sharp contrast to the dreary
+solitudes of the snow covered mining camp which she had just left. It
+had been winter for nearly a month up in the hills of Arizona, and Lone
+Rock in the winter was such a barren waste socially that her present
+surroundings seemed wildly exciting. In Lone Rock it was a matter of
+comment whenever a human being passed the house, and even a stray mule,
+stumbling along with a bell on its neck, was enough to call one to the
+windows.
+
+The orchestra behind the palms having finished its tuning, swung into a
+gay two-step. At the sudden burst of music Mary drew a long breath and
+stood up straight, her pulses a-tingle. Something delightful was
+beginning to happen. Two girls, one in white and one in pale
+lemon-yellow, attended by a young lieutenant and a still younger man in
+civilian's evening dress, came out under the bunting-draped arch and
+strolled along past the banana trees to the garden seat just below her.
+
+From her hiding place behind the moon-vines, Mary watched them as only a
+sociable little soul could watch, who for months had been hungering for
+such companionship. She clutched the railing with both hands, hoping
+fervently that they would stop.
+
+They did pause for a few moments, just under the balcony, so near that
+for the little while they stood there she could almost feel herself to
+be one of the party. She could even smell the white violets that the
+girl in white wore on her corsage, and was close enough to see that an
+amber comb was slipping out of the soft auburn-bronze hair arranged so
+becomingly on the graceful little head. Each laugh and gesture sent it
+slipping lower and lower till involuntarily Mary's hand went out to stop
+it. Then she drew back in confusion. She had almost called attention to
+herself by speaking aloud.
+
+"Let's go into the other court," insisted the girl in yellow. "I want to
+show you the alligators in the fountain, Mr. Wade, to convince you that
+you're really in the sunny South. Some people can't appreciate
+alligators--Bogey there, for instance."
+
+Her disdainful glance indicated the lieutenant. "He jeers at me for
+liking them, but I think they are more interesting than half the people
+one meets."
+
+"_Bogey!_ What a nickname for such a dignified officer," thought Mary,
+peeping over the railing to see how such banter was received. Evidently
+the lieutenant was accustomed to it, for he smiled indulgently as one
+would at a spoiled child.
+
+"'Birds of a feather,' you know," was his answer. "Go on, Roberta. _I_
+don't care to flock with alligators myself, but if you do we'll follow
+and see it done."
+
+Roberta deigned no reply but a glance intended to be withering, which
+failed in its purpose because it was only counterfeit. Her eyes were as
+dark as a gypsy's and she had the curliest lashes Mary had ever seen. A
+boyish straightforwardness of manner contradicted their coquettish
+curliness, however. She had an air that comes only from being brought up
+in a houseful of teasing brothers. The man in civilian dress, whom she
+called Mr. Wade, watched her as if he had found a new species of girl,
+uncertain what she might say or do next. He was familiar with the
+coquettish kind and with the tom-boy kind, but this combination puzzled
+him.
+
+Mary longed to follow as the four went slowly away together into the
+adjoining court, wholly unconscious that they had left an indelible
+memory behind them, or that they had revealed anything of themselves and
+their affairs to an unseen listener. But to Mary it was as if a new book
+had been opened before her and she had been allowed a glimpse of one
+page and the attractive picture that illustrated it. It was never
+necessary for her to begin at the first chapter of a book. Often,
+attracted by some paragraph in the middle, she would plunge into a
+story, only turning back for the beginning after she had pursued it
+eagerly through to the last word and found "how it all ended."
+
+[Illustration: "MARY WARE in TEXAS"
+
+"What an adorable little curl"]
+
+Now as the interesting group walked away she fervently hoped that fate
+would send them across her path sometime again during her sojourn in
+San Antonio, that she might piece together the rest of the story. All
+that she knew now was that the girl in white was a daughter of one of
+the majors at Fort Sam Houston, that the lieutenant had known Roberta
+ever since he was a cadet at the West Texas Military School, and that it
+was her brothers who had dubbed him Bogey. She had learned also that
+this was Mr. Wade's first visit to Texas, and that Roberta was trying to
+impress him with it by marvelous tales, so that he would decide to spend
+the winter in San Antonio instead of going on to Mexico.
+
+But if the conversation revealed little, the picture they made as they
+stood against the tropical background of palms and banana trees held
+many suggestions. Mary felt that she knew all about lieutenants, having
+met two at a Kentucky house-party where she had gone to be flower-girl
+at a wedding when she was only fourteen. Fashions evidently had not
+changed in lieutenants, since these looked as if they might have been
+taken out of the same box that furnished the first soldiers of her
+acquaintance; but the girls--there had been many changes in girls since
+she last saw any of this kind. It was eight months since she had left
+school at the end of the Easter vacation, and none of the girls at
+Warwick Hall were doing their hair then as Roberta and the Major's
+daughter were doing theirs. Each had a very elaborate coiffure with a
+cluster of little short curls escaping to nestle against their white
+necks.
+
+Her attention was especially called to this new style by Roberta's
+escort, whom Mary had classified in her mind as a "callow youth with a
+habit of making gallant little personal speeches."
+
+When they first stepped into the court Roberta had thrown a white scarf
+about her, almost as light as thistledown, and glistening with crystal
+beads which spangled its soft meshes like dewdrops. As they turned to go
+it slipped from her shoulders, and Mr. Wade sprang forward to replace
+it. Drawing it around her shoulders he said with a melting glance at her
+dark hair, "What an adorable little curl!
+
+    "'Ringlet, O Ringlet, she blushed a rosy red,
+     When Ringlet, O Ringlet, she clipped you from her head!'"
+
+Mary, who knew her Tennyson like her multiplication table, recalled the
+next lines,
+
+    "Ringlet, O Ringlet, she gave you me and said,
+     'Come kiss it, love, and put it by,
+     If this can change, why, so can I.'"
+
+Roberta only laughed, not in the least impressed by his manner nor
+embarrassed by the inference of his quotation. Mary knew that she could
+not copy the curls, but she decided to try the rest of the coiffure in
+the morning. Not a single twist or wave had escaped her sharp eyes. In
+the darkness of her retreat, after they had gone, she put her hands to
+her head, rehearsing in pantomime each move she would have to make to
+produce the result she admired.
+
+Suddenly her hands dropped and one clutched the railing, as the window
+shutters of the next room were thrown open with a bang and some one
+stepped out on to the balcony adjoining hers. The intruder was a large
+and elderly woman in a rustling black dress. The light from the room
+streaming out behind her showed that she was portly and gray-haired, and
+the way she peered through the vines, changing quickly from one
+view-point to another, showed that she was impatient.
+
+When she turned, Mary saw that her dress, which was made to fasten in
+the back, was open from collar to belt, and she readily guessed the
+trouble. Forgetting that her presence was unknown to the anxious
+watcher, she leaned forward through the dark, saying politely, "Can I
+help you, Madam?"
+
+If a hand had reached out and grabbed her, the old lady could not have
+been more startled. With a stifled shriek she backed up against the wall
+to hide her open bodice, and stood there limp and panting.
+
+"Merciful _fathers_! how you scared me!" she breathed as Mary's face
+appeared in the full light. When she saw only a little school-girl of
+seventeen or thereabouts her relief found vent in a hysterical giggle.
+It shook her plump shoulders until they both started to laughing so hard
+that she could barely find voice to explain, or Mary to apologize.
+
+"I just couldn't get my dress hooked up the back," she finally managed
+to say. "I rang half a dozen times for a chambermaid, but the ones on
+this floor all seem to be off duty this time of evening, and I won't ask
+a bell-boy as some of the ladies do. I don't think it's decent. So I
+just thought I'd look down into the court and see if I couldn't catch
+sight of James. He did it yesterday and I vowed I'd never ask him again.
+He's willing enough, but he kept me standing a solid half hour by the
+clock, and we were both tuckered out when he got through."
+
+"Let me come and do it for you," said Mary with her usual alacrity for
+following up promising beginnings.
+
+"Oh, if you only would!" was the grateful answer. "I'll go in and unlock
+the door--"
+
+Before she could finish her sentence Mary had climbed lightly over the
+railing which divided their balconies, and was following her into her
+room through the long windows that opened to the floor.
+
+"Do you know," confided the old lady while Mary deftly fastened the
+hooks, "I think a hotel is the lonesomest place on the face of the globe
+for a woman. I come down here once a year or so with my husband, and he
+has a good time sitting around in the lobby smoking and making friends
+with stockmen like himself, but by the end of the second day I'm
+homesick for the ranch. Of course I enjoy the stores and the crowds on
+the street, and seeing all the finely dressed tourists at meal-times,
+but we've been down here three days now, and you're the first person
+I've spoken to besides the chambermaid and James. It's all right for
+strangers to keep themselves to themselves I suppose, but I must say
+it's a sort of strain when it comes to being the stranger yourself. I
+want somebody to neighbor with."
+
+"So do I," responded Mary with such heartiness that the old lady
+instantly expanded into warm friendliness. Before she was fairly
+fastened into her rustling black and purple gown she had confided to
+Mary that it was her very best one, and that it just wouldn't wear out,
+because it was too fine for church and she had no occasion to put it on
+save when she made her rare visits to San Antonio. The sleeves had been
+changed so many times to keep it in fashion, that her dressmaker had
+refused to alter it another time, even if the lace on it did cost five
+dollars a yard. James said why didn't she wear it at home and get done
+with it. But she told him much comfort a body would take around home in
+the tight gear a dressmaker boned you up in. But she'd have to do
+something, for full skirts were clear out now, and she felt like a
+balloon when other people were going around as slim and lank as starved
+snakes.
+
+"It doesn't take long to get out of date," she added, "when you're
+living up in the hills in the back-woods."
+
+"Oh, I know that," agreed Mary. "I've been living in a lonesome little
+spot out in Arizona for so long that I've nearly forgotten what
+civilization is like."
+
+"You don't look like it," was the frank comment as the still franker
+gaze of her listener travelled over her dress from top to bottom, noting
+every detail.
+
+"Oh, this," answered Mary, as if the eyes had spoken. "This is a dress
+that I got in New York last Easter vacation. I was in school at
+Washington, but as I had to leave at the end of the term and go back
+home I've had no occasion to wear it since. That's why it looks so new."
+
+"Now do sit down and tell me about it," urged her hostess hospitably.
+"I've always wanted to go to Washington."
+
+She pushed forward a low rocker, and took the arm chair opposite with
+such a look of pleasurable anticipation on her kindly old face, that
+Mary obeyed. She knew how it felt to be fairly bursting with a
+sociability for which there was no outlet. She had experienced that same
+sensation a few minutes before when she watched Roberta and the Major's
+daughter go by with their friends. Besides, she felt a real liking for
+this companionable old lady who introduced herself as Mrs. Barnaby of
+Bauer, Texas. Mrs. James Barnaby.
+
+"She's the real, comfortable, homey sort," thought Mary, who had been
+much given of late to classifying people. "She's like mission
+furniture--plain and simple and genuine. She'd be her simple
+unpretentious self no matter what gilt and veneer she found herself
+among."
+
+Mary was proud of her insight afterward when she learned more about Mrs.
+Barnaby's family. They had come out from Ohio over fifty years before
+when she was so young that she could barely remember the great prairie
+schooner that brought them. They had suffered all the hardships of the
+early Texas settlers, gone through the horrors of the Indian uprisings,
+and fought their way through with sturdy pioneer fortitude to the place
+where they could fold their hands and enjoy the comforts of the
+civilization they had helped to establish.
+
+She told Mary little of this now, however, but led her on with many
+questions to talk of herself. Mrs. Barnaby had a lively curiosity and
+always took the most straightforward means to gratify it.
+
+"She's interested in people, no matter who they are, just as I am,"
+thought Mary, instantly recognizing the spirit which prompted the
+questions, and for that reason was led on to tell more than she would
+have told to most strangers. She did not take the world at large into
+her confidence now as she had done in her chatterbox days. In just a few
+moments Mrs. Barnaby had a very fair snapshot picture of the Ware
+family in her mind. Mary had given it very simply.
+
+"I had gone from school at Warwick Hall to New York, to spend the Easter
+vacation with my sister Joyce. She's an artist and has her studio there.
+And we got word that my oldest brother, Jack, had been dreadfully hurt
+in an accident at the mines where he was manager--that it had made him a
+cripple for life. We all just adore Jack, so of course I packed up and
+went straight back to Arizona. It wasn't possible for Joyce to leave
+just then, and my brother Holland is in the navy, and of course he
+couldn't get away. Except the trained nurse there was nobody with mamma
+at the time but my youngest brother Norman, and as he is only fourteen I
+felt that I had to go."
+
+"I hope he got better right away," interrupted Mrs. Barnaby eagerly.
+
+"Yes, he did for awhile. He even got so that he could wheel himself
+around in his chair and go down to the office awhile every morning. But
+as soon as the cold weather set in he began to have such dreadful
+rheumatism that the doctor said the only thing to do was to take him to
+a milder climate. So we got ready right away and brought him down
+here."
+
+"It must have been a hard trip for him," commented Mrs. Barnaby with a
+sympathetic shake of the head. "Arizona always did seem to me like the
+jumping-off place. I don't see how you managed it, him in a wheeled
+chair and so helpless."
+
+"Oh, we came in a private car," Mary made haste to explain, "and Jack
+really enjoyed the trip. Waffles, the old colored cook on the car, you
+know, just laid himself out to please him, and the porter was so strong
+and helpful."
+
+"H'm!" exclaimed her interested listener. "I've always thought I'd like
+to travel in a private car. It must be such a nice way to get over the
+country. But it isn't everybody that can afford it."
+
+It was on the tip of Mary's honest little tongue to explain that it was
+not their car. They had come as guests of Mr. Robeson, one of the mine
+owners. But Mrs. Barnaby interrupted her with a question.
+
+"Didn't you all go out in a big red automobile this afternoon? I've been
+trying to think ever since you came in here where it was I'd seen you
+before, and I believe it was with that party. There was a little lady in
+black and a boy and a rather heavy-set man with iron gray whiskers. I
+heard him giving orders to the chauffeur to go out to the missions."
+
+"Yes," agreed Mary, "that was Mr. Robeson, one of the owners of the
+mine. He's so fond of Jack and has been so lovely to all of us on his
+account. His valet stayed with Jack while we went out to see the town.
+He's going on to Mexico this afternoon."
+
+Again she was on the point of saying that it was as Mr. Robeson's guests
+they had enjoyed the outing in the expensive car, but another question
+switched her off to another subject and left Mrs. Barnaby with the
+impression that the Wares were wealthy beyond computation. Mary had the
+manner of one always accustomed to luxury, and her easy way of referring
+to the studio in New York and the private car and the valet made one
+think she was born to purple and fine linen.
+
+The impression was deepened later, when the Barnabys found themselves at
+the same table with Mary and Norman in the dining-room. "Mrs. Ware was
+having dinner in her rooms with Jack," Mary explained. He was sensitive
+about being wheeled into a public dining-room, so she and her mother
+would take turns staying with him.
+
+With a brief glance at the menu card Mary ordered dinner for herself and
+brother before Mr. Barnaby had adjusted his glasses on his long nose and
+stumbled half-way through the menu. He always read the bill of fare
+aloud to his wife, pronouncing the French words exactly as they were
+spelled, and they paused to discuss the nature of each unfamiliar dish
+with the amused waiter before ordering.
+
+The ease with which Mary ordered gave further evidence to Mrs. Barnaby
+that the Wares had always been accustomed to sumptuous living, and to
+being "waited on, hand and foot." And it was proof to Mary that "James"
+was as genuine and primitive as his wife when he made no attempt to
+cover his ignorance of French menus. Looking up with a twinkle in his
+eyes he said to the waiter, "Just bring me the same as my wife ordered."
+Then he added with an odd one-sided smile that gave an irresistible
+expression of humor to his face, "I always take the blazed trail when
+there is one. It's a heap sight safer than striking out for yourself
+when you're in tall timber."
+
+Evidently Mrs. Barnaby had told him all that she had learned of the Ware
+family, for he at once began making minute inquiries about Arizona and
+the mines, with the interest of a shrewd, genial old man who kept pace
+with the times and liked the companionship of young people. They were
+warm friends before the meal was over, and Mary hurried up-stairs
+afterward, to report all she could remember to Jack. She had fallen into
+the habit of making the most of everything she saw and heard, for his
+entertainment.
+
+She found him in his chair, out on the balcony with her mother, looking
+down on the same scene she had watched earlier in the evening. Mrs. Ware
+had just tucked a lap-robe around him and drawn a wrap over her own
+shoulders when Mary opened the door of the room behind them, and started
+across the floor to join them.
+
+Some letters had been sent up while she was at dinner and seeing one on
+the table addressed to herself, she paused to read it before joining
+them. It was just a note from one of the girls at Warwick Hall, who,
+knowing Mary's fondness for the beautiful old garden there, always
+enclosed some leaf or flower from it every time she wrote. This time
+several violets fell out, withered but still sweet. As Mary stooped to
+pick them up she heard Jack say in a voice so full of hearty enjoyment
+that she scarcely recognized it for his: "This certainly is great! What
+a world of things we've been missing all these years, little mother! I
+never realized just how much we have missed till I went East last
+year. Then afterwards the days were so full of work and the new
+responsibilities that I didn't have time to think about it much. But I
+can see now what a dull gray existence _you've_ had, for as far back as
+I can remember there's only been three backgrounds for you: a little
+Kansas village, a tent on the edge of the Arizona desert, and a lonely
+mining camp. How long has it been since you've seen a sight like this?"
+
+The scattered violets were all picked up now, but Mary still stood by
+the table, waiting for her mother's reply.
+
+"It's so long ago I'll have to stop and count up. Let me see. You're
+twenty-two and Joyce twenty-three--really it's almost a quarter of a
+century since I've been in a large city, and seen anything like this in
+the way of illuminations, with music and crowds. Your father took me to
+New York the winter after we were married. Before that I'd always had my
+full share. I'd visited a great deal and travelled with Cousin Kate and
+her father. And I'm sure that no one could want anything brighter and
+sweeter and more complete than life as I found it as a girl, in 'my old
+Kentucky home.' As I had so much more than most people the first part of
+my life I couldn't complain when I had less afterwards. But I certainly
+do enjoy this," she added earnestly, as the orchestra began the
+haunting air of the Mexican "Swallow Song," _La Golondrina_, and the
+odor of roses stole up from below. The court was filled now with gay
+little groups of people who had the air of finding life one continual
+holiday.
+
+The cheeriness of the reply almost brought tears to Mary's eyes, as she
+realized for the first time how much more than any of them her mother
+must have suffered from the hardships of their early poverty, because it
+was in such sharp contrast to what she had known before. To hide the
+little quiver that wanted to creep into her voice Mary laughed as she
+joined them, dragging a chair through the French window after her.
+
+"Here you sit like two comfortable cats in the lap of luxury," she said.
+"You'll begin to purr soon."
+
+"That's exactly what we're doing now," answered Jack. "We're
+congratulating ourselves on being in this land of summer with every
+comfort at hand and a free show to entertain us. This is as good as
+being in a box-party at the opera."
+
+Mary settled herself with her chair tipped back on its rockers, and
+looked down on the court below. "I wish we could stay at this hotel all
+winter," she exclaimed. "I wish we could be as rich all the time as I
+feel to-night. Ever since we started South in Mr. Robeson's car I've
+felt as opulent and as elegant as if we owned the earth, and I've
+noticed that you and mamma take to luxury quite as readily as I do--like
+ducks to water. Norman is learning fast, too, for one of his
+opportunities. He's having the time of his life now, down in the lobby,
+just 'seein' things at night.' He asked me for a quarter when I left
+him, to get some postcards of the Alamo and the plaza to send home."
+
+"Well?" queried Jack as she paused. Mary had had the family finances in
+hand since his illness, and her economical clutch had earned her the
+title of "Watch-dog of the Treasury."
+
+"Oh, I gave it to him," she answered. "Gave it with a lordly sweep of
+the hand, as if bestowing millions were a daily habit of mine. But
+to-morrow it will be a different story. To-morrow a copper cent may be
+too great a boon for my family to ask me to part with. To-morrow we go
+house-hunting, with the sad realization that we're all as poor as Job's
+old blue turkey hen."
+
+"What's the odds so long as you're happy," quoted Jack. There was a long
+pause in which they listened to the music, each enjoying to the fullest
+the novelty of being in such a place. Then Jack asked, "Didn't you have
+any adventures down in the dining-room? We rather expected that you'd
+have a series of them to report."
+
+"Mercy, yes! I've had half a dozen since I saw you last, very mild ones
+though. I've seen some most interesting people, a major's daughter and a
+lieutenant from the Post, called Bogey, and I overheard the beginning of
+a romance, a most sentimental request for an 'adorable little curl,' and
+I've hooked Mrs. James Barnaby of Bauer, Texas, up in her best black and
+purple gown, and James himself has invited me to take 'pot luck' with
+them up at the Barnaby ranch any time I choose to go. He's a dear and so
+is she, and if you'd only--"
+
+Her chatter was stopped by a sudden exclamation from Jack, and following
+his gaze into the court below she saw two of the group in which she had
+been so interested earlier in the evening.
+
+"That's the lieutenant I told you about!" she exclaimed excitedly.
+"That's Bogey, and the other is the major's daughter. I don't wonder
+that you're stunned at the sight of a pretty girl like that when it's
+been such ages since you have seen one."
+
+"I'm stunned because it happens to be a girl I know," exclaimed Jack in
+a tone almost as excited as her own. "That's Gay Melville, and I met her
+at The Locusts the night I stopped in Lloydsboro Valley with the
+Shermans."
+
+"Are you sure?" gasped Mary.
+
+"Dead sure! She played the violin that evening, and you can't take your
+eyes off her face when she plays, it's so sweet, and you could never
+forget it after you'd watched her through one performance. Then her
+hair--there's no mistaking _that_, and that little trick of lifting her
+chin. Besides, it's no surprising matter to see her. She lives here and
+she's a popular girl."
+
+"Oh, I know it!" exclaimed Mary, "and I've known all the time that her
+home is in San Antonio. Haven't I heard the Warwick Hall seniors talk of
+her by the hour? But somehow I never put two and two together and got it
+through my head that we're in the same town. Really I'd forgotten her in
+the excitement of our sudden coming. But now it just takes me off my
+feet to know that we're under the same roof, and to remember that she
+lived a whole summer in Lloydsboro Valley and is such a dear friend of
+the Little Colonel and Betty. Why, we're _bound_ to meet her some time
+this winter. Oh, I know we're going to have a good time here, and I
+think that San Antonio is just the dearest, most charming old place in
+the world."
+
+"It is certainly a good place to be to-night," answered Jack, following
+with intent gaze the vanishing figure of the major's pretty daughter.
+"And to-morrow--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence, for the violins were throbbing through
+that last refrain of _La Golondrina_ so softly and sweetly that he did
+not want to lose a note. When it was done Mary took up his last word,
+quoting with a dramatic sweep of the hand, "To-morrow do thy worst, for
+I have lived to-day!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN SEARCH OF A HOME
+
+
+IT was with the vision of a charming little bungalow in her mind that
+Mary started on her search for a house next morning; a little white
+bungalow half hidden in vines, and set among heuisach and mesquite
+trees, or maybe in the shelter of one giant pecan. As they had whirled
+around the city in the touring car the day before, she had seen several
+of that kind which she thought would suit both their taste and their
+purse.
+
+She had not yet reached the point of picturing to herself the inside
+furnishings. They would have to be of the simplest sort, of course. But
+one picture seemed to rise up of its own accord whenever she thought of
+the new home. She saw a big living-room, the centre of a cheery
+hospitality, where girls fluttered in and out at all hours of the day.
+Bright, fun-loving, interesting girls like Gay Melville and Roberta. Her
+wistful little face grew very sweet and eager at the mere thought of
+such companionship, and there was such a dancing light in her gray eyes
+and such a happy glow of expectancy on her cheeks that more than one
+passer-by took a second glance and felt the morning brighter because of
+it.
+
+Mrs. Ware had expected to accompany her, leaving Jack to Norman's care
+for the morning, but a neuralgic headache, an old enemy of hers, seized
+her on awakening, and she was obliged to shift the responsibility to
+Mary's willing shoulders. Although it doubled the car-fare, Mary took
+Norman with her for company. Armed with a map of the city and a list of
+houses, clipped from the morning paper, they started gaily out on their
+quest. It was good just to be alive on such a morning, and out in the
+brilliant sunshine, with the air so fresh and sweet, and the plaza as
+green and flowery as if it were mid-summer instead of the week before
+Thanksgiving.
+
+They walked at first, wanting a closer view than the cars afforded of
+the fascinating old curio shops. Mexicans were no novelty to them as
+they were to Northern tourists. They had seen too many in Phoenix and at
+the mining camp to care for a second look at the tall, peaked hats of
+the men or the rebosa-draped heads of the women. But the narrow streets
+of the Mexican quarter with their chili and tamale stands interested
+them. It was some kind of a fête day, and flags were flying and a
+festive spirit was in the air; a spirit that seems to belong peculiarly
+to this alluring old Spanish city, where fête days come often and one
+soon learns to say "mañana" with the rest.
+
+Norman, who picked up bits of information here and there as a magnet
+draws needles and nails, imparted some of it to Mary as he trudged along
+beside her. Everything was making a deep impression on his mind because
+this was his first journey of any consequence.
+
+"This is the third oldest city in the United States, the guide book
+says," he began, then paused before a shop window, attracted by the
+sign, "Dressed Fleas, 35 cents," to exclaim, scornfully, "Who'd be fool
+enough to want one of _those_ things, dead or alive!" With a skip or two
+to catch up with Mary, he continued, "And there's thirteen miles of
+river twisting in and out among the streets, with seventeen bridges over
+it."
+
+"It surely is the twistiest, crookedest river that I ever saw on a map,"
+answered Mary, "but that's what makes the town so lovely--all those
+graceful bends with the green banks and tropical foliage and the little
+boats tied up here and there to the landings. I wish we could find the
+kind of a place we want somewhere along the river. Maybe we could manage
+to get a boat. Anyhow, if we couldn't do any better we could make a
+raft. I'd love to pole one, and it would be just like doing it in our
+own back yard if the river ran right behind our place."
+
+"Say! Let's!" exclaimed Norman, explosively. "Mary Ware, you've got a
+head on you that's worth something! And I'll tell you something else I
+wish we could manage to do,--that's to get a house out near Brackenridge
+park. They've got antelope and buffalo and elk, and all sorts of wild
+animals out there. I'd like to see them often."
+
+"We'd better get down to business, then," said Mary, "instead of
+loitering along this way. We can look at the shops after we've found a
+house."
+
+"Stop just a minute at the Alamo," begged Norman. "I want to see the
+place where Travis and Davy Crockett and Bowie put up such a desperate
+fight against Santa Anna. This is just as interesting a place to me as
+Bunker Hill or Plymouth Rock would be, and I want to write home to Billy
+Downs about it."
+
+"But it isn't the _exact_ spot," objected Mary, who wanted to lose no
+more time and was sometimes provokingly literal. "This is only the
+little chapel, and the real fight took place in a court that was away
+over yonder, and the walls were pulled down long ago."
+
+Norman planted himself at the entrance and proceeded to argue the
+matter. "But the chapel was part of it, and it stands for the whole
+thing now--a sort of monument, you know, and there's relics inside
+and--"
+
+"Oh, well, come on, then," said Mary, "if you're _that_ anxious, but
+just for a minute. You can come here some other time by yourself and
+prowl around all day."
+
+She followed him into the dim interior, still insisting at every step
+that they must hurry. It was so early no one but the care-taker was in
+sight. She knew how Norman liked history, and what enthusiastic
+admiration he had for the heroes of frontier times, but she was
+surprised to see how deeply he was impressed by the venerable building.
+He took off his hat as they entered and walked around as reverently as
+if they were in a church. As they gazed up at the narrow, iron-barred
+windows which had witnessed such a desperate struggle for liberty, he
+said, in an awed tone, which made even Mary feel solemn:
+
+"'Here, for ten days, took place the most memorable, thrilling, tragic,
+and bloody siege in American history. One hundred and seventy-nine
+indomitable American frontier riflemen against an army of six thousand
+brave and disciplined troops led by veteran officers!'"
+
+"_Where_ did you get all that?" demanded Mary, in surprise.
+
+"I saw it in a little pamphlet, in the reading-room last night, and it
+told about the Comanche Indians that came here about seventy years ago.
+The fiercest fighting you ever heard of--thirty-two Indian warriors
+killed right out there in the street that we came across just now, and
+seven Texans."
+
+"Goodness, Norman!" she answered, with a shrug. "What do you want to
+resurrect all those old horrors for? It doesn't make the place any more
+attractive to me to know that its streets once ran red with blood. I'd
+rather think of them as they will be in the Spring on San Jacinto Day,
+red with roses after the Battle of Flowers. Think of our being here to
+see that!" she added, exultingly.
+
+As they emerged from the dimly-lighted chapel into the blinding sunshine
+of the street, Norman remarked thoughtfully, "Of course I'm sorry that
+Jack had the rheumatism so badly that he had to get out of Lone Rock,
+but as long as we did have to leave home, I'm jolly glad it brought us
+to San Antonio. Think of the times we'll have going out to Fort Sam
+Houston to guard-mounts and parade. It's something just to be within
+walking distance of the largest army post of the United States."
+
+"I'm thinking of the public library," was her rejoinder. "Jack can have
+all the books he wants to read this winter; and I'm thinking of the
+friends we'll have; the real, satisfying kind, that do things, and go
+places, and think, and keep you from sinking to the level of a cabbage.
+I've always wanted to live in the thick of things, and here we are at
+last!"
+
+They paused on the curb to wait for a long string of vehicles to pass.
+An army ambulance came first, drawn by sleek mules, driven by a soldier
+in khaki and carrying several ladies and children from the Post. Close
+behind it came a riding party, clattering in on horseback from a
+breakfast at the Country Club. Then followed close on each other's
+heels, a dilapidated prairie schooner, three boys on a burro, a
+huckster's wagon, and a carriage with liveried coachman and prancing,
+thoroughbred horses. The clang of a long line of electric cars whizzing
+past, the honk of many automobiles, and the warning sound of bicycle
+bells, as their owners wheeled in and out through the bewildering maze
+of vehicles and pedestrians, made Norman exclaim, joyfully, "Gee! I'm
+glad we're out of Lone Rock! There's something to see here every single
+minute."
+
+Mary signalled a passing car, and as soon as they were seated, drew out
+her newspaper clippings. "Mrs. Barnaby said for us to go to Laurel
+Heights first," she remarked, "so I believe we'll find it best to try
+this one. It sounds all right."
+
+She read the advertisement aloud: "A five-room bungalow, never been
+occupied, all modern conveniences, one block from car-line, rent
+reasonable, inquire next door."
+
+Then she unfolded the map and studied it as they whirled along, now and
+then repeating the name of a street as she came across one which sounded
+particularly pleasing and story-bookish, as she called it, to Norman:
+"King William Street, Mistletoe Avenue, Dolorosa and San Pedro."
+
+When a little later they alighted from the car and found the place
+described in the advertisement, it was almost the bungalow of Mary's
+dreams. The vines were lacking and the lawn was still strewn with the
+débris of building, but that could soon be remedied.
+
+"What good, wide porches to hang a hammock on!" exclaimed Norman, as
+they mounted the steps and walked around, peering through the windows.
+
+"You'll have to say gallery," corrected Mary. "Everybody down here calls
+a porch a gallery. They won't know what you mean."
+
+They walked all around the house, exclaiming over each attractive
+feature, as each window revealed a new one. The electric lights, the
+convenient little bathroom, the open fire-place in the living-room, the
+built-in china closet. Norman's only complaint was that the house was
+nowhere near the river. That was a drawback in Mary's eyes also, for
+ever since they had thought of a boat it had begun to take its place in
+that mental picture in which those alluring girls were always fluttering
+in and out.
+
+"Of course we'll look farther," she said. "It wouldn't do to take the
+first one we came to when there are so many to choose from. I'll just
+run in next door and inquire the price, and tell them we'll make up our
+minds later."
+
+But when she had made her inquiries her decision followed immediately.
+What might seem reasonable rent to the owner and to the people of that
+neighborhood was entirely out of the reach of the Ware pocket-book. "You
+won't find anything cheaper in this part of town," the woman assured
+her, and after several more experiences of the same kind, Mary believed
+her.
+
+They passed all sorts of beautiful homes in their wanderings; stately
+Colonial mansions, comfortable wide-spreading houses with broad
+galleries and hospitable doors, picturesque bungalows in the mission
+style, little white-winged cottages over-run with tangles of Maréchal
+Niel roses, their fragrant buds swinging from the very eaves. The
+farther they searched the more Mary longed to find a home among them,
+and it was with a feeling of deep disappointment that she turned back to
+the hotel for lunch.
+
+Mrs. Ware had spent part of the morning telephoning to different real
+estate offices recommended by Mr. Barnaby, and had a small list of
+houses sifted down from those offered her.
+
+"They tell me we are too late to get much of a choice," she reported.
+"People have been pouring into the city for a month, and the freight
+stations and ware-houses are piled up with household goods. It is this
+way every fall, they say. No matter how many homes they build there are
+always more families clamoring to occupy them than can be accommodated.
+It would be easier for us to find one if we could afford to pay more,
+but I had to cut out all the high-priced ones from the lists that they
+gave me."
+
+Mary took the slip of paper from her mother, saying, "So far the ones we
+have seen have been too big or too expensive, or else far too small. I
+wonder what will be the matter with these?"
+
+She began to find out almost as soon as she and Norman resumed their
+search again after lunch. The lists they had led them into older parts
+of the town, where the rented houses had seen several generations of
+transitory occupants. Some of the places they visited made her shrink
+back in dismay. A long procession of careless tenants had passed
+through, each leaving some contribution to the evidences of their slack
+housekeeping. Nearly every family had had its share of disease and
+death, and Mary hurried away with a wry face and the single exclamation,
+"germs!" Mrs. Barnaby had spoken of that class of houses. "You want to
+be careful," she told her. "Even the nicest looking may have had
+dreadfully sick tenants in them, and although there is a law requiring
+landlords to fumigate, and all that sort of thing, you can't be sure
+that it has been done as thoroughly as it should."
+
+"This is getting monotonous," Mary exclaimed, wearily, when they had
+walked block after block to no purpose, and the end of the day found
+them with nothing accomplished. The morning freshness of the atmosphere
+had given place to such enervating heat that she had been carrying her
+coat on her arm for several hours. The sky was overcast with clouds,
+when fagged and inwardly cross she climbed on the car that was to take
+them back to the hotel, vowing that she couldn't drag herself another
+step.
+
+At the next corner half a dozen people hurried down the street, waving
+frantically for the car to wait. As they crowded into the aisle,
+laughing and out of breath, Mary heard a lady exclaim, "We certainly
+were lucky to catch this car. If we'd had to wait for the next one the
+'Norther' surely would have caught us, and this is going to be a nasty,
+wet one, too."
+
+Even as she spoke there was a sense of sudden chill in the air. A cold
+gale swept down the street, setting flags and awnings to flapping, and
+blinding pedestrians with whirling clouds of dust. The conductor
+hurried to close the car windows, and the passengers began struggling
+into their wraps.
+
+The sudden freshening of the air had such a bracing effect that Mary
+straightened up, feeling that after all she might be able to walk the
+half block from the car to the hotel. When the time came, she found that
+she could even run the distance, for the few big drops of rain that
+splashed in her face were the fore-runner of a downpour, and they had no
+umbrella. Just as they reached the entrance such a mighty deluge began
+that Mary's disappointment in house-hunting was somewhat softened by the
+fact that her beloved hat had escaped a wetting which must have ruined
+it.
+
+"Never mind, little Vicar," said Jack, consolingly, when she had made
+her report to the assembled family. "The proverbial turn in our fortune
+is bound to come. It's never failed us yet, you know."
+
+"But we've simply got to get out of this expensive hotel," she answered,
+desperately. "Do you realize that we could keep house for a week on what
+it costs the four of us to stay here just one day?"
+
+Mrs. Ware broke the long silence that followed, by suggesting, "Maybe
+for the present we'd better try to get a few rooms somewhere, just for
+light housekeeping. It's a last resort, I know, but Mary is right. Every
+day we spend here is taking a big mouthful out of our little capital."
+
+Nobody liked the suggestion, for whatever else they had lacked in their
+Arizona homes there had been no lack of space, but they all saw the
+wisdom of Mrs. Ware's suggestion, and agreed to try it until they could
+look around and do better.
+
+"How lovely it must be to have an ancestral roof-tree," thought Mary
+that night, as she tossed, restlessly, kept awake by the noises of the
+big hotel. "I can't think of anything more heavenly than to always live
+in the house where you were born, and your fathers and grandfathers
+before you, as the Lloyds do at The Locusts. It must be so delightful to
+feel that you've got an attic full of heirlooms and that everything
+about the place is connected with some old family tradition, and to know
+that you can take root there, and not have to go wandering around from
+pillar to post as we Wares have always had to do. I wonder if Lloyd
+Sherman knows how much she has to be thankful for!"
+
+Next day in her shortest skirt and rain-coat, and under a dripping
+umbrella, Mary started to look for rooms. She was alone this time.
+Company was too expensive a luxury to afford more than one day, since it
+meant extra car-fare. She paddled blithely off, however, never minding
+the weather. This rain made the little home she was seeking seem all the
+more desirable. Whenever a window showed her a cozy interior with the
+light of an open fire shining cheerily over it, she thought it would not
+be long till she would be making afternoon tea over just such a fire, or
+popping corn or toasting marsh-mallows. She could think of a dozen ways
+to make it attractive for the girls when they dropped in of rainy
+afternoons.
+
+Occupied with such plans she tramped along through the mud and slush as
+happily as she had gone through the sunshine the day before. But by the
+end of the morning repeated failures began to bring a worried line
+between her eyes and a sharp note of anxiety into her voice when she
+made her inquiries. Once, finding herself in the neighborhood of a house
+which she had refused the day before because it did not quite measure up
+to the standards she had set, she went to look at it again, thinking,
+after all, they might manage to be more comfortable in it than in a few
+rooms. To her disappointment she found a family already moving in. It
+had been rented almost immediately after her refusal to take it.
+
+In her search for rooms a new difficulty faced her. Invariably one of
+the first questions asked her was, "Anyone sick in your family?"
+
+"Yes, my brother," she would say. "He has rheumatism. That is why we are
+particular about getting a sunny south room for him."
+
+"Well, we can't take sick people," would be the positive answer, and she
+would turn away with an ache in her throat and a dull wonder why Jack's
+rheumatism could make him objectionable in the slightest degree as a
+tenant. The morning was nearly gone before she found the reason. She was
+shown into a dingy parlor by a child of the family, and asked to wait a
+few moments. Its mother had gone around the corner to the bakery, but
+would be right back.
+
+There were two others already waiting when Mary entered the room, a
+stout, middle-aged woman and a delicate-looking girl. The woman looked
+up with a nod as Mary took a chair near the stove and spread out her
+damp skirts to dry.
+
+"I reckon you're on the same errand as us," said the woman, "but it's
+first come, first served, and we're ahead of you."
+
+"Yes," answered Mary, distantly polite, and wondering at the aggressive
+tone. When the child left the room the woman rose and shut the door
+behind it, and then came back to Mary, lowering her voice
+confidentially.
+
+"It's just this way. We're getting desperate. We came down here for my
+daughter's health--the doctor sent us, and we've gone all over town
+trying to get some kind of roof over our heads. We can't get in anywhere
+because Maudie has lung trouble. People have been coming down here for
+forty years to get cured of it, and folks were glad enough to rent 'em
+rooms and take their money, till all this talk was stirred up in the
+papers about lung trouble being a great white plague, and catching, and
+all that. Now you can't get in anywhere at a price that poor folks can
+pay. I've come to the end of my rope. The landlady at the boarding-house
+where we've been stopping, told me this morning that she couldn't keep
+us another day, because the boarders complained when they found what
+ailed Maudie. I was a fool to tell 'em, for she doesn't cough much. It's
+only in the first stages. After this I'm just going to say that I came
+down here to look for work, and goodness knows, _that's_ the truth! What
+I want to ask of you is that you won't stand in the way of our getting
+in here by offering more rent or anything like that."
+
+"Certainly not," Mary answered, drawing back a little, almost
+intimidated by the fierceness which desperation gave to the other's
+manner.
+
+The landlady bustled in at that moment, and as she threw the rooms open
+for inspection, she asked the question that Mary had heard so often that
+morning,--"Any sick in your family?"
+
+"No," answered the woman, glibly. "I'm down in the city looking for
+work. I do plain sewing, and if you know of any likely customers I'd be
+glad if you'd mention me."
+
+The landlady glanced shrewdly at Maudie, who kept in the background.
+
+"She does embroidery," explained her mother. "Needle-work makes her a
+little pale and peaked, sitting over it so long. I ain't going to let
+her do so much after I once get a good start."
+
+"Well, a person in my place can't be too careful," complained the
+landlady. "We get taken in so often letting our rooms to strangers. They
+have all sorts of names for lung trouble nowadays, malaria and a weak
+heart and such things. The couple I had in here last said it was just
+indigestion and shortness of breath, but she died all the same six
+weeks later, in this very room, and he had to acknowledge it was her
+lungs all the time, and he knew it."
+
+Mary looked around the room with a shiver. Its old wallpaper, dingy
+paint and worn carpet proclaimed too plainly that its renovation since
+the last lodgers' departure had been only a superficial one, barely what
+the law demanded.
+
+"No, thank you," she replied to the landlady, who had turned to her with
+the hope of finding a more desirable tenant. "I couldn't consider these
+rooms at all. There are only two, and we need three at least."
+
+Out on the street again a tear or two splashed down and mingled with the
+rain on her face as she walked away. She was growing desperate herself.
+If two rooms had been all they needed, she could have found them a
+number of times over. Or, if they could have afforded some of the flats
+or the sunny suites she discovered on pleasant streets, her search would
+have been soon over. But it was the same old circle she kept coming back
+to. When the rooms were large enough and within their means, either they
+were unsanitary or the owners objected to invalids. In vain she
+explained that Jack's helplessness was due to an accident, and that
+rheumatism is not contagious. Too many people like Maudie's mother had
+been ahead of her and bred suspicion of all strangers in quest of rooms
+for light housekeeping.
+
+Mary had told her mother not to expect her back for lunch. She would go
+into some tea-room or restaurant wherever she happened to be. But one
+o'clock found her in a part of the town where nothing of the kind was in
+sight. She bought an apple and some crackers at a grocery, and ate them
+under cover of her umbrella while she stood on a corner, waiting for a
+car to take her to another part of the city.
+
+What a different place it seemed to be from the one they had seen the
+day of their arrival! Then it was a world of hospitable homes and
+sunshine and kindly faces. The very shop windows looked friendly and
+inviting. Now, plodding along in the wet, to the tired, homesick girl it
+seemed only a great, desolate place full of lonely, discouraged
+strangers and sick people and dingy boarding-houses, whose doors shut
+coldly in anxious faces.
+
+All afternoon she kept up the search. The electric lights were beginning
+to gleam through the rain, throwing long, quivering reflections in the
+puddles when she finally turned back to the hotel, bedraggled and
+utterly discouraged.
+
+"I _won't_ cry!" she said, fiercely, to herself. "I can't! For Jack
+would see that I had been at it, and he is getting so sensitive lately.
+It would hurt him dreadfully to know that we are barred out of all the
+desirable places because he is an invalid."
+
+The habit of years is strong. Mary had persisted so long in applying the
+good Vicar of Wakefield's motto to her childish difficulties and
+disappointments, that it had taught her remarkable self-control. Instead
+of bursting impulsively into the room as so many girls of her age would
+have done, and giving vent to her over-taxed nerves and discouragement
+in a tearful report of the day's adventures, she walked slowly from the
+elevator to her room, trying to think of some careless way in which to
+announce her failure. She paused with her hand on the knob, thinking,
+"I'll just tell them that I've come back like Noah's dove did the first
+time it was sent out from the ark, because I could find no rest for the
+sole of my foot; at least a rest which fitted both our ideas and our
+income."
+
+To her relief, the room was empty when she entered. The only light
+streamed through the transom and keyhole from Jack's room, where a low
+murmur told that her mother was reading aloud. Opening the door just a
+crack so that her face was not visible, she called, gaily, "I'm back,
+mamma, but you can just go on with your reading; I'll not tell a single
+thing till I'm all dried and dressed. I'm as wet as a frog."
+
+"Oh, I was afraid you'd be," came the anxious answer. "I'll come and
+get--"
+
+"No," interrupted Mary, decidedly. "I don't want anything but time."
+Closing the door between the rooms, she switched on the light and began
+slipping out of her wet clothes into dry ones. In a moment or two she
+was in her soft, warm kimona and Turkish slippers, standing on the
+threshold of the bathroom, intending to plunge her face into a basin of
+hot water. It was the best thing she could think of to remove the traces
+of tears, and she was so tired that now she was safe in the harbor of
+her own room the tears _would_ come, no matter how hard she tried to
+keep them back.
+
+But before she could turn the faucet, a tap at the hall door made her
+dab her handkerchief hastily across her eyes, for Mrs. Barnaby's voice
+followed the tap.
+
+"I surely hate to trouble you," she began, apologetically, as soon as
+Mary had admitted her, "but if you could only hook me up this one more
+time--I've been waiting for James with this shawl over my shoulders for
+nearly half an hour. Then I heard you come in and I thought maybe you
+wouldn't mind doing it once more. We're going home in the morning."
+
+Then with a keen look into Mary's face, she added, kindly, "Why, you
+poor child, what's the matter? Your brother isn't worse, I hope!"
+
+There was such a note of real concern in the sympathetic voice that
+Mary's lip trembled and her eyes brimmed over again. When the next
+moment she found herself drawn into Mrs. Barnaby's capacious embrace
+with a plump hand patting her soothingly on the back, the story of her
+discouragement seemed to sob itself out of its own accord. The
+performance left Mary's eyes very red and tear-swollen, but the outburst
+brought such relief that she could laugh the moment it was over. It was
+Mrs. Barnaby's surprise which brought the laugh.
+
+"I can't get over it!" she kept exclaiming. "To think that all this time
+I supposed that you were enormously wealthy--actually rolling in riches!
+Well, well!"
+
+"I didn't know that my 'short and simple annals of the poor' would be so
+upsetting," giggled Mary, hysterically. "You were so sweet and
+sympathetic I couldn't help telling you. But don't take it to heart,
+please. We Wares never stay discouraged long. I'll be all right now
+after I get my face washed. As soon as I fasten your dress I'll run in
+and turn on the hot water."
+
+The hooking proceeded in silence, Mrs. Barnaby so absorbed in thought
+that she forgot her usual sigh of relief and expression of thanks at the
+end. Instead she said, abruptly, "You come and go up on the train with
+us in the morning to Bauer. It's only thirty miles from here and it's up
+in the hills, high and dry, and there's the Metz cottage I'm sure you
+can get, all freshly scrubbed and ready to move into. Mrs. Metz is the
+cleanest little German woman you ever saw,--scrubs even the under sides
+of her tables as white as the tops. It wasn't rented when we came down
+here last Saturday. Let me talk to your mother about it. I'm sure it is
+just the place for you."
+
+"Oh, no," began Mary. "We couldn't possibly go there! We've counted so
+much on living here in San Antonio this winter and meeting some of our
+friends' friends--"
+
+Then she stopped with a little gasp, and after an instant's pause said,
+apologetically, "I didn't mean to refuse so abruptly, and now I take it
+all back. Changing plans so suddenly is somewhat of a shock to one's
+system, isn't it! After all, I'm like a drowning man catching at straws,
+and I'd be very glad, indeed, if you would talk to mamma about it. You
+can go right in now while I finish dressing, if you like."
+
+It was not the first time Mrs. Barnaby had been ushered into Jack's
+room. Their acquaintance had begun over the railing of their adjoining
+balconies the first day of Mary's house-hunting, and had rapidly
+deepened into a mutual liking. So strongly had Mrs. Barnaby been
+attracted to the young fellow who bore his crippled condition so lightly
+that he made others forget it, that she induced James to go in and make
+his acquaintance also. The two men had spent several hours of the long,
+rainy morning together, each greatly interested in the other's
+conversation.
+
+Mary, who had been gone all day, did not know of this, but she knew that
+her mother had met and liked Mrs. Barnaby, and that the story of the
+day's unsuccessful search would not sound half so serious if that
+cheerful old lady told it, especially if it were followed immediately
+by her offer to find them a home in Bauer.
+
+Bauer was an uncharted country on Mary's map, but if Mrs. Barnaby
+thought of it as their desired haven, she could trust her capable hands
+to take them safely into it. So it was with a sigh of relief that she
+opened the door between the rooms, saying, "Here's Mrs. Barnaby, mamma,"
+and left her to make explanations while she finished dressing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LITTLE TOWN OF BAUER
+
+
+MARY was the only one to whom the change of plans made a vital
+difference. She had built such lovely dream-castles of their winter in
+San Antonio that it was hard to see them destroyed at one breath.
+
+"Of course it's the only thing to do," she said, in a mournful aside to
+Norman, "but did you ever dream that there was a dish of rare, delicious
+fruit set down in front of you, so tempting that you could hardly wait
+to taste it, and just as you put out your hand it was suddenly snatched
+away? That's the way I feel about leaving here. And I've dreamed of
+getting letters, too; big, fat letters, that were somehow going to
+change my whole life for the better, and then just as I started to read
+them I always woke up, and so never found out the secret that would make
+such a change in my fortunes."
+
+"Maybe it won't be so bad after all," encouraged Norman. "Maybe we can
+have a boat. There's a creek running through the town and the Barnaby
+ranch is only seven miles out in the country. We'll see them often."
+
+Mary wanted to wail out, "Oh, it isn't boats, and ranches, and old
+people I want! It's girls, and boys, and something doing! Being in the
+heart of things, as we would be if we could only stay here in this
+beautiful old city!"
+
+The wail found no voice, however, for even in the midst of her
+disappointment Mary remembered Jack, and could not let him feel that
+this change in their plans meant any sacrifice for her. Besides, she had
+to acknowledge that the creek and the ranch _did_ hold out some
+compensations, and she was deeply grateful to these two kind old people
+who had come to their rescue in such cordial, neighborly fashion. Mr.
+Barnaby had been called into the family council also, and had spent the
+evening with them discussing prices and prospects.
+
+Even Norman was impressed by their offers of assistance, and spoke of it
+as he sat slowly unlacing his shoes after they had gone. Mary was in the
+next room, repacking her trunk, for it had been decided that she and
+Norman were to go to Bauer on the early accommodation train when the
+Barnabys left for home. The door between the rooms was still open, and
+she heard him say, thoughtfully:
+
+"What do you suppose makes them so rattling good to us when we're just
+strangers?"
+
+Jack laughed and quoted, teasingly:
+
+    "'What makes the lamb love Mary so?'
+       The eager children cry.
+     'Oh, Mary loves the lamb, you know,'
+       The teacher did reply."
+
+"Aw, talk sense!" was Norman's disgusted answer. "I don't know what you
+mean by that."
+
+An understanding smile flashed between Jack and his mother, who had
+stayed to help him prepare for the night, and she answered for him.
+
+"Jack only means that we get just what we give in this world, dear. From
+the days of Solomon it's been a proverb that the man who would have
+friends 'must show himself friendly.' And that's what you and Mary did
+the first night you met the Barnabys. You made them feel that you found
+them genuinely interesting, and that awakened a liking for you."
+
+"But anybody'd find that old man interesting," Norman explained,
+gravely. "You never heard such Indian stories as he can tell,--true
+ones that he's been in himself,--and hunting--Gee! you ought to hear
+him! I bid to sit next to him going up on the train."
+
+"You're welcome to him!" called Mary. "I'll take Mrs. B." Then she came
+to the doorway, a pile of folded garments in her hands. "I declare,
+she's just an old dear! She's thought of so many ways to save us expense
+since she found out that we have to economize. She even offered to have
+our two extra trunks checked on their tickets. They only brought
+suit-cases. So we'll have no extra baggage to pay for."
+
+The sun was shining next morning, and although the chill of the Norther
+was still in the air, the rain-washed plazas were greener than ever, and
+new roses were opening to take the places of the old ones that the storm
+had beaten off the day before. Mary's spirits seemed to have passed
+through the same freshening process, for there was no trace of tears or
+regrets on the bright face that greeted her travelling companions.
+
+The only morning train was an accommodation, which carried much freight
+and took its own time for the journey. This happened to be a day when it
+was four hours on the road, but none of the little party felt that time
+dragged. Ordinarily, Mary would have enjoyed keeping close to the old
+ranchman, as Norman did, hopping off the car every time they stopped on
+a side-track, to investigate everything along the way,--the lime works,
+the rock quarry, the station where the mail was put off for the soldiers
+who were camped at the Government reservation for target practise. Even
+the little oil-burning engine would have been of as much interest to her
+as it was to Norman, had she not been so busily occupied otherwise.
+
+As they wound higher and higher into the hills she looked out now and
+then with a quick exclamation of pleasure at the view, but for the most
+part she was "visiting" with Mrs. Barnaby, as that good soul expressed
+it. Their acquaintance took long strides forward that morning. Part of
+the time Mary chattered along just as if her listener had been one of
+the Warwick Hall girls, and part of the time she listened to elderly
+views and confidences with the seeming sympathy of middle age. A bit of
+personal history from one called out a corresponding scrap from the
+other, and they had exchanged views on many subjects, ranging from young
+turkeys to unhappy marriages, when the porter passed through the train
+calling, "Bauer! All out for Bauer!"
+
+Mrs. Barnaby glanced out the window, saying in surprise, "I had no idea
+we were so near home!" Then she gave Mary's sleeve an affectionate
+little pat with her plump hand, exclaiming cordially, "I declare, it's
+been a real treat to have you along." And Mary, as she helped Mrs.
+Barnaby struggle into her coat, responded, "Well, I've enjoyed every
+inch of the way. Somehow you make me feel that you're just my age or I'm
+just yours,--I don't know which. You can't imagine how 'little and lorn'
+I feel at the thought of leaving you."
+
+"Oh, but I'm not going to leave you until you're safely settled," was
+the comforting assurance. "James has some business at the court-house
+that will keep him in town for an hour or so. As soon as we drop him
+there I'll drive around with you to make arrangements about the cottage.
+There's Pedro now."
+
+They were on the platform by this time, and she indicated by a nod the
+slim young Mexican who had driven the carriage from the ranch to meet
+them. It was a roomy, old-fashioned carriage drawn by two big gray
+mules, with much shining nickel-plating on their stout black harness.
+The station was half a mile away from the village, and as they swung
+down the sunny white road towards it, at a rapid gait, both Norman and
+Mary looked out eagerly at the place that was to be their home for a
+whole long winter, and maybe more.
+
+From a distance it looked almost like a toy village, with its red roofs,
+blue barns and flashing windmills nestled against the background of
+misty hills. Low mountain peaks rose here and there on the far horizon
+beyond.
+
+"This is distinctly a German village, you know," explained Mrs. Barnaby,
+as they passed a group of little flaxen-haired Teutons on the roadside,
+who were calling to each other and their dog in a tongue which Mary
+could not understand.
+
+"Bauer was settled by an old German count and a baron or two, who came
+over here with their families and followers. They made it as much like a
+corner of the Fatherland as they could, and their descendants still
+cling to their language and customs. They don't want any disturbing,
+aggressive Americans in their midst, so they never call on new-comers,
+and never return their visits if any of them try to make the advances.
+They will welcome you to their shops, but not to their homes. Even the
+English and Scotch people who have owned the out-lying ranches as long
+as they have owned the town are looked upon as aliens and strangers, in
+a way."
+
+[Illustration: "MARY WARE in TEXAS"
+
+"A dashing girl in khaki and a cowboy hat astride of a fiery little
+mustang"]
+
+Mary gave an exclamation of dismay. "Texas certainly is full of
+surprises," she said, in a disappointed tone. "One thinks of it as being
+young and crude, and with the proverbial hospitality of a new country.
+I've always thought of it as having the latch-string out for everybody."
+
+"Oh, _Texas_ has," Mrs. Barnaby hastened to assure her. "Its doors are
+wide open, and its welcome corresponds to its size, the biggest in the
+Union. But Bauer is different. It has a few families who will not look
+on you with suspicion. The old couple who own the cottage which I hope
+to get for you will be good neighbors, and if you were to live here a
+long time there are others who would be friendly. Then there are several
+American families who have found a foothold in the town, and as I said,
+English-speaking people on the ranches hereabout. They are cultured,
+refined people, interesting to know, but strangers coming here rarely
+make their acquaintance. You see we have so many transients coming for
+their health, staying just a few weeks or months and going on
+again--it's hardly to be expected we'd--"
+
+Her sentence was interrupted by a dashing girl in khaki and a cowboy
+hat, astride a fiery little mustang. She rode past the carriage, calling
+out a greeting as she passed. Norman turned around exclaiming, "Did you
+see that? A cartridge belt around her waist and a six-shooter in her
+holster! That's the wild West for you."
+
+"That's the sheriff's daughter," explained Mrs. Barnaby. "She's his
+deputy, and meets the trains when it's necessary and he's out of town."
+
+"I'd like to know her," said Mary. "I'm glad that there's something to
+give one the kind of a thrill you naturally expect to have out here. I
+was beginning to have such a foreign, far-away feeling, seeing all these
+picturesque little German gardens with old women weeding in them. We can
+imagine we are abroad this winter in Cologne or Pottsdam or Bingen on
+the Rhine. Oh, _oh!_ How quaint and dear!"
+
+The exclamation escaped her as the gray mules stopped at the gate of an
+old garden, over whose stone walls arched a row of great pecan trees. A
+straight path ran from the gate to the kitchen door, stiffly bordered by
+coxcombs and princes' feather, while on each side chrysanthemums and
+roses and a host of old-fashioned autumn flowers made the little plot a
+tangle of colors and sweet smells. There were some bee-hives under the
+bare peach trees, and at one side beyond them, a small vineyard where
+the mockingbirds still sang noisily although the grapes had all been
+gathered and pressed into wine. An old man with a flowing white beard
+and a high black hat sat on a bench by the kitchen door placidly smoking
+a long pipe.
+
+"That's Mr. Metz," said Mrs. Barnaby, preparing to alight. "Come in with
+me."
+
+"It's all just like one of the pictures in Joyce's studio," commented
+Mary, as they followed the straight walk to the door, "and this is just
+like one of those lovely old-master, Dutch interiors," she added, in a
+whisper, as Mr. Metz ushered them into the big, clean kitchen, where his
+wife sat knitting.
+
+On the deep window-sill a cat lay asleep in the sun beside a pot of
+glowing red geraniums, and there was such an air of cleanliness and
+thrift and repose about the room that Mary could not help exclaiming
+aloud over it. As she glanced around with admiring glances her bright
+face showed its appreciation also, and Mrs. Metz watched it shrewdly
+while she talked with Mrs. Barnaby, in English so broken as to be almost
+unintelligible.
+
+What the old woman saw must have satisfied her, for she accepted Mrs.
+Barnaby's offer after a very short parley with her husband in German,
+and when they rose to go she bade them wait while she made a stiff
+little nosegay for each of them, culled from her garden borders and
+edged with strong-smelling mint. In the center of Mary's was one of her
+handsomest coxcombs. Mrs. Barnaby smiled meaningly when she saw it, and
+when they had climbed back into the carriage, said in a pleased tone,
+"That shows that she has weighed you in the balance and is satisfied
+with the result. You'll get along famously with her, I'm sure, and we'll
+soon have you settled now, in fine shape."
+
+An hour later Mary stood on the threshold of the cottage she had rented,
+with the keys of possession in her hand. Thanks to Mrs. Barnaby and the
+rapid gait of the gray mules, much had been accomplished in that time.
+The groceries they had ordered were already piled on the table in the
+kitchen. A load of wood was on its way. The new mattresses they had
+bought at the furniture shop (kept by the undertaker of the village)
+were promised for delivery early in the afternoon, and they had been
+introduced at each place as friends of the Barnabys, who were to be
+charged home prices, and not the ones usually asked of strangers. Mrs.
+Barnaby was what she called plain-spoken, and although she made a jest
+of her demands they carried weight.
+
+Their trunks, three of which contained bedclothes and dishes, stood on
+the front gallery waiting to be unpacked. Inside, the house looked as
+clean as soapsuds and fresh paint could make it. Mrs. Metz herself had
+attended to the scrubbing after the last tenant left. But Mary decided
+that she would feel more comfortable, moving in after strangers, if she
+should give the furniture a personal washing before they began to use
+it. While Norman built a fire in the kitchen stove, she unlocked one of
+the trunks and changed her travelling suit for a gingham dress and
+apron.
+
+"Let's eat picnic fashion," called Norman, "and unpack afterward. It's
+nearly one o'clock, and I'm too hungry to wait. I've found a cup I can
+boil some eggs in, and if we don't use any dishes we won't have any to
+wash afterwards."
+
+"That's a bright suggestion," Mary called back. "We haven't any time to
+lose if we are to get everything ready for mamma and Jack by to-morrow
+afternoon."
+
+When she came dancing out into the kitchen a few minutes later Norman
+had already begun his luncheon, and was walking around with a cheese
+sandwich in one hand and a pickle in the other, investigating the
+premises while he ate. Mary followed his example, and wandered from the
+open doorway to the open windows, looking at the view from each, and
+exclaiming over each new discovery. The house was on a slight knoll with
+a wide cotton-field stretching down between it and the little village.
+From this distance it looked more than ever like a toy village, against
+the background of low hills.
+
+"You ought to see it from the top of the windmill," said Norman. "I
+climbed up while you and Mrs. Barnaby were talking so long at the gate.
+I'm glad we've got a windmill. It'll save me a lot of pumping, and it
+makes such a fine watch-tower. You ought to see how far you can look
+across the country. You can see the creek. It's just a little way back
+of our place."
+
+"I'm going up this minute!" answered Mary. Slipping her unfinished
+sandwiches into her apron pocket, she ran out to the windmill and began
+to swing herself from one cross-piece of the tower to another, as
+lightly as Norman had done.
+
+"It's perfectly lovely!" she called back from the top. "I'd like to perch
+up here all afternoon if there wasn't so much to do. I'm going to come up
+here often. It gives you such a high-up-above-all-your-earthly-ills
+feeling! There's St. Peter's," she called, "over at the south end of
+town. I recognize the little stone belfry. What do you suppose that
+square tower is at the other end of town?"
+
+Norman came out and climbed half-way up the windmill, swinging there
+below her by one arm, as he slowly munched a ginger-snap.
+
+"Oh, that," he said, as he looked in the direction which she pointed.
+"That's the Sisters' school. I asked Pedro this morning. It's the
+Academy of the Holy Angels."
+
+Mary's face glowed as she shook back the hair which the wind kept
+blowing into her eyes. "That's perfectly fascinating!" she declared.
+"There's something beautiful to me in the thought that the little town
+we've come to lies between two such guardians. It's a good omen, and I'm
+not sorry now that we had to come."
+
+She stayed perched on the windmill, enjoying the view and eating her
+sandwiches until Norman called her that the wash-water was boiling over
+on the stove. Then she climbed nimbly down and started towards the
+kitchen door. The kitchen was in an ell of the house, and from its front
+window she could see the road which ran in front of the house. Just
+across it, half hidden by a row of bushy umbrella trees, stood two
+little blue cottages. They were within easy calling distance, and the
+voices of half a dozen children at play came cheerfully across to her.
+Although they spoke in a foreign tongue the chatter gave her a sense of
+companionship.
+
+"Norman," she suddenly suggested, "let's stay here to-night, instead of
+going to the boarding-house as mamma and Mrs. Barnaby arranged. I'm not
+afraid with neighbors so near, and I'm sure mamma wouldn't care if she
+could see how quiet and peaceful it is here. We'd be saving
+considerable--a night's lodging for two, and we can make this real
+comfortable and homey by bedtime."
+
+With the promise of hot biscuit and honey for supper Norman agreed to
+her plan. He was to call at the boarding-house and cancel the
+arrangements Mrs. Barnaby had made for them, when he went for the milk
+which Mr. Metz had promised to sell them. It was from the Metz bee-hives
+they were to have the honey, too. She had engaged it as a special treat
+for Jack.
+
+Under her direction Norman fell to work making a kitchen cabinet out of
+two old boxes, while she scrubbed away at the chairs and tables.
+
+"Isn't it funny the way history repeats itself?" she remarked. "This
+makes me think of the time that Joyce and Jack had getting settled in
+the Wigwam. I felt so defrauded then because I couldn't have a hand in
+it, and this seems a sort of compensation for what I missed then."
+
+The exercise seemed to loosen her tongue, for as she worked she went on,
+"I'm truly glad that I can enjoy both the top and bottom crusts of
+things. Nobody, I am sure, could have squeezed more pleasure out of this
+last week than I did. I fairly revelled in all the luxuries we had as
+Mr. Robeson's guests. It comes so easy to be waited on and to be the
+fine lady. And on the other hand, it is a real joy to be working this
+way, blacking stoves and filling lamps and making things look spick and
+span. I can spend like a lord and I can skimp like a scrubwoman, and I
+really don't know which I enjoy most."
+
+She did not attempt to put any finishing touches to the house that day,
+but left such things as the hanging of curtains and the few pictures
+they had brought until next morning. But before she stopped everything
+was shining, her room was ready for the night, and a cot was made up for
+Norman in the room which he was to share with Jack. Later, while she
+waited for the biscuits to bake and for him to come home with the milk
+and honey, she wrote a letter to Joyce. She did not take time to go to
+the bottom of her trunk for writing material, but emptying the sugar
+from a large paper sack, cut it into several square sheets. With a big
+tin pan turned bottom upwards in her lap for a desk, she hastily
+scribbled the events of the day with a lead-pencil, which she sharpened
+with the carving-knife.
+
+Joyce has that letter yet. It was scribbled in the most careless,
+commonplace way, just as Mary would have told it had they been together;
+but Joyce, who could read her little sister like a book, read between
+the lines and divined the disappointments she had conquered, and saw the
+courage it took to make the most of every amusing incident in such a
+cheery way, while she touched only lightly on the serious ones.
+
+"We had a visitor a little while ago," wrote Mary, in closing. "The
+Reverend Paul Rochester came to call, and where, of all awkward
+impossible places, do you suppose he found me? Up on the windmill
+tower. I had gone up again to watch the sunset,--for just a minute. The
+glow on the roofs of the town and the hills beyond was so lovely! If
+Norman had had any sense he would have ignored my high perch. He was
+splitting kindling by the back door, making such a noise that we could
+not hear Mr. Rochester's knock at the front door, so he came around.
+
+"Mrs. Barnaby had stopped at the rectory on her way home to tell them
+about our coming to town, and Mrs. Rochester thought that we were all
+here, and that we would be so busy getting settled that we wouldn't have
+much time to cook things for an invalid, and she had sent the most
+tempting basketful of good things you ever saw. There was orange
+gelatine and charlotte russe, and some delicious nut sandwiches. The
+rector had walked all the way up here and carried the basket himself.
+You know I've always stood in awe of clergymen. At first this one seemed
+fully as dignified and reverend as all the others, and I nearly fell off
+my perch with embarrassment when he looked up and saw me hanging there
+like a monkey on a stick. But the next moment we both laughed, and he
+seemed almost as young and boyish as Jack.
+
+"I scuttled down in a hurry, I assure you. He only stayed a minute, just
+long enough to deliver the basket and his wife's message, but you've no
+idea how that little incident changed the whole atmosphere. I'd been
+looking down the white road that leads from our place into the town,
+thinking how lonely and foreign everything was, and how hard it would be
+to live all winter in a place where nobody wanted to be neighborly, and
+where the only people we knew were slightly old like the Barnabys or
+awfully old like the Metzes, and then Mr. Rochester appeared, young and
+so nice-looking and with a jolly twinkle in his eyes that makes you
+forget the clerical cut of his clothes.
+
+"His wife must be young, too, or she couldn't be married to him, and she
+must be dear or she wouldn't have sent such a dainty, altogether
+charming basket with her message of greeting. You've no idea how their
+cordial welcome changed everything. Now as I look through the open door
+at the same road leading to the town, it doesn't look lonely and foreign
+any more. It makes me think of a verse that dear old Grandmother Ware
+taught me once. You remember how she used to take us up in her lap and
+make us spell the words out to her from her big Bible with the terrible
+pictures. '_The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways
+shall be made smooth!_'
+
+"Well, grandmother's verse is coming true. It was all so crooked and
+uncertain and rough yesterday. But now everything is being smoothed out
+for us so beautifully. I have just looked out to see if Norman is
+coming. I can hear him whistling away down the road.
+
+"I wish you, with your artist's eye for effect, could see the little
+town now, spread out below the hills in the twilight, with the windmills
+silhouetted against the sky. At one end is the little stone belfry of
+St. Peter's, at the other the square gray tower of the Academy of the
+Holy Angels; and just between, swinging low over the hills in the faint
+afterglow, the pale golden crescent of the new moon. After all, it's a
+good old world, Joyce, and I 'feel it in my bones' that little old Bauer
+is going to bring us some great good that shall make us thankful always
+for having come. In some way, I am sure, all our '_rough ways shall be
+made smooth_.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MARY FINDS GAY
+
+
+THE day before Thanksgiving saw the Ware family fully settled in their
+new home. The trunks had been unpacked and their contents disposed of to
+make the little cottage look as homelike as possible. Even the
+preparations for their Thanksgiving dinner were all made. They had been
+simplified by Mrs. Barnaby's gift of a jar of mince-meat, and the plump
+hen, which was to take the place of a turkey, had been bought already
+dressed.
+
+Now at only nine o'clock the morning work was all done, and Mrs. Ware
+sat sewing on the south gallery where Jack had wheeled himself into the
+sunshine. Mary came and stood in the doorway.
+
+"Things stay so clean here," she grumbled in a laughing way. "I could do
+everything there is to be done with one hand and not half try, and when
+you all help we get through so fast it makes me dizzy. Then there's
+nothing left to do but sit in the sun and wait till time to get the next
+meal ready. I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry to put everything in
+order. I wouldn't be so restless and idle now. It makes me fidgety to
+have nothing to do."
+
+"Take the basket and dishes back to the rectory," suggested Mrs. Ware,
+after Jack had proposed several occupations to no purpose.
+
+"But I've never met Mrs. Rochester yet," objected Mary, "and it would be
+sort of awkward, going in and introducing myself."
+
+"No more awkward than it was for Mr. Rochester to come here and
+introduce himself," said Jack. "You can tell her for me that that
+charlotte russe was perfection."
+
+"I wonder what she is like," mused Mary, half persuaded to go and see.
+"If I thought she'd be approachable and easy to talk to--but--"
+
+"Oh, you know she's all right," urged Jack, "or she never would have
+been so good to a family of strangers. I'll bet she's a dear, motherly
+old soul, in a checked apron, with gray hair and a double chin."
+
+"Why, she couldn't be!" cried Mary. "Not and be Mr. Rochester's wife. He
+doesn't look much older than you do, and for all he's so dignified
+there's something so boyish and likable about him that I felt chummy
+with him right away."
+
+"Well, the things she cooked tasted as if she were the kind of woman I
+said," persisted Jack, "and I shall keep on thinking of her as that kind
+until it's proved that my guess is wrong. I should think that anybody
+with as much curiosity as you have would go just to satisfy it."
+
+"You mean you want yours satisfied," retorted Mary. "Well, she'll do it
+herself in a few days. She sent word that she'd call soon, so I believe
+that I'll wait."
+
+Coming out she stood leaning idly against one of the gallery posts, a
+restless, dissatisfied little figure. Then she strolled out to the front
+gate and stood there awhile, looking down the deserted road. Jack's gaze
+followed her sympathetically, and he said to his mother in a low tone,
+"Poor little kid, it's going to be a dull winter for her I'm afraid. She
+was never cut out for solitude. She'd 'rather dwell in the midst of
+alarms,' and this place isn't much more diverting than a country
+graveyard."
+
+Mrs. Ware's glance followed his, then she replied confidently as she
+looked down to thread her needle, "Oh, she'll soon adjust herself.
+She'll find something that will not only keep her busy but will amuse
+all the rest of us."
+
+Jack picked up the magazine from which he had been reading aloud the
+evening before and resumed the story, but he was conscious all the time
+of the little figure at the gate, and saw her without seeming to notice
+when she slipped around the corner of the house presently to the back
+yard. Then he looked up with a smile when he heard the creaking of the
+windmill crank at the back of the house.
+
+"She's stopping the wheel," said Mrs. Ware, "so that she can climb to
+the top of the tower again. It seems to have some sort of fascination
+for her."
+
+Jack went on with his story, and Mary, perched on her watch-tower, clung
+to the bar above and looked down over the town. The currents of air were
+stronger up at the height to which she had climbed. Down below scarcely
+a breath was stirring, but here a fresh breeze blew the hair into her
+eyes and began to blow the discontent out of her mind. Her wish that
+Jack could see the view was followed instantly by the thought that he
+could never, never have any other outlook than the one the wheeled chair
+afforded.
+
+"It's wicked of me to be discontented one single minute," she thought
+remorsefully. "There I was fussing right before him about having nothing
+to do, when he'd give worlds just to be foot loose--to climb up here and
+walk about the place. And he was so dear and considerate, never once
+reminded me how much harder it is for him than me, and that he has
+nothing else to look forward to as long as he lives."
+
+The yellow walls of the rectory gleamed through the trees at the north
+end of the little hamlet, reminding her of Jack's laughing wish to know
+what Mrs. Rochester was like.
+
+"It's as little as I can do to go and find out for him," she thought,
+"even if he did ask it in a joke. I ought to be willing to do anything
+in the world he expresses a wish for, poor boy. There's little enough
+here to amuse him."
+
+A few minutes later, in her travelling suit and hat, with Mrs.
+Rochester's basket on her arm, she interrupted the reading on the
+gallery.
+
+"I'm going to see your motherly friend," she announced--"to find out if
+she is gray-haired and double-chinned. Maybe I'll tell her how you
+described her."
+
+"Don't you dare," warned Jack, laughingly. "I'll get even with you if
+you do."
+
+"You've already done that on a dozen old scores," answered Mary gaily.
+"Good-bye, my friends and kinsmen dear! As the story books say, 'we
+shall see what we shall see.'"
+
+What she saw when she rang the bell at the rectory was the exact
+opposite of the motherly creature whom Jack had pictured; for Mrs.
+Rochester, who came to the door herself, was tall and slim and very
+young, with the delicate, spirituelle kind of beauty that had always
+been plump little Mary's greatest admiration and desire. One part of
+Jack's guess was correct, however. She wore a big checked apron, for she
+was making cake, and she invited Mary into the dining-room where the
+materials were all spread out on the table.
+
+With the girlish cordiality that had won her so many friends even in
+unsociable Bauer, she made Mary feel so much at home, that in a few
+moments she was insisting on helping with the cake. It seemed a matter
+of course that Mrs. Rochester should hand her the egg-beater, and before
+the eggs were whipped into a stiff white mountain of snow, they were
+exchanging experiences like old friends. Mrs. Rochester had found Bauer
+a lonely place too, at first.
+
+"Jack says there was some great mix-up made when I alighted on this
+planet," said Mary. "I should have dropped down some place where 'the
+breaking waves dashed high on a stern and rock-bound coast.' He says I
+wasn't meant for a quiet fish-pond existence."
+
+"I know," laughed her hostess. "You feel as if you were bound into the
+wrong book. You'd be perfectly satisfied to find yourself in one of
+Scott's novels, in a jumble of knights and tourneys and border wars, but
+you would be bored beyond endurance to have to be one of the characters
+in Jane Austen's stories."
+
+"Oh, you _do_ know," cried Mary eagerly, emphasizing her pleasure with a
+harder bang of the egg-beater. "You understand exactly. There's nothing
+tamer than Miss Austen's stories. Why, there's pages and pages taken up
+with just discussing the weather and each other's health; and they do
+such trivial, inane things and go around and around in such a deadly
+monotonous circle that sometimes I've been so out of patience with them
+that I wanted to throw the book into a corner."
+
+"But you never did throw it down," answered Mrs. Rochester, "you read on
+to the end and in spite of yourself you were interested in those same
+commonplace happenings and conversations, just as readers before you
+have been interested in them and always will be as long as those books
+live. And I'll tell you why. You read them to the end because they are
+true pictures of the lives of average people. The majority of us have to
+put up with the humdrum, no matter how much we long for the heroic, and
+it's a good thing to read such books as 'Emma' and 'Pride and Prejudice'
+every now and then, as a sort of spirit-level. We're more satisfied to
+amble along the road if everybody else drives a slow nag too."
+
+"I'm not," declared Mary. "I want to whizz past everything in sight that
+is poky and slow. I know it would be lots easier for me if I could only
+make up my mind to the fact that nothing exciting and important is ever
+going to happen to me, but I can't break myself of the habit of
+expecting it. I've felt that way as far back as I can remember. I'm
+always looking for something grand and unexpected, and every morning
+when I wake up it gives me a sort of thrill to think, maybe it will come
+to-day."
+
+"Well, if you're going to stay in Bauer for awhile you certainly do need
+another dose of 'Emma,'" answered Mrs. Rochester, nodding to the shelves
+in the adjoining library, where stood a well thumbed edition of Miss
+Austen's works. "Take her home with you, and any of the books you think
+your brother would like. We are glad to make our library a circulating
+one."
+
+Mary's face showed her pleasure quite as much as her words, as she left
+her seat by the table to slip into the great book-lined room and glance
+around it.
+
+"You've made up for one of my disappointments," she called back. "I had
+counted so much on having the library in San Antonio to draw on this
+winter, and this is even better, for I'm sure that they haven't all
+these rare old prints and first editions that I see here."
+
+Her five minutes' call stretched into an hour, when she found that Mrs.
+Rochester had been brought up in Washington and had spent her school
+days there. Then it stretched into two, for some one drove in from the
+country with a carriage load of autumn leaves, and Mary stayed to help
+arrange them in the little church for the Thanksgiving service next day.
+It was nearly noon when she finally started home with several books
+under her arm, her usual hopefulness and buoyancy of spirits quite
+restored.
+
+"Mamma and I can't both be away from Jack at the same time," she said in
+response to Mrs. Rochester's invitation to attend the service next day.
+"I want her to come. I've already had my share of Thanksgiving. I've
+been thankful every minute while I've been here that I discovered you.
+It's been a beautiful morning."
+
+"Come over often," urged Mrs. Rochester cordially. "I can always find
+something for you to do, and I'd love to have you come."
+
+Mary's wave of the hand as she turned to latch the gate at the end of
+the walk was answered by a flutter of Mrs. Rochester's apron in the
+doorway, and each went her way smiling over the recollection of the
+other.
+
+"She's a diverting little piece," Mrs. Rochester reported to her husband
+at noon. "I laughed all the time she was here."
+
+"She's a darling," Mary reported at home, and quoted her at intervals
+for several days.
+
+"She's promised to take me with her sometime when she drives out to call
+at the ranches. Nearly all the members of St. Boniface are out-of-town
+people, so they'll probably not call on us she says. But she's coming as
+soon as she can get around to it. I saw our name on a list she has
+hanging beside her calendar. But there's nearly a week full of things
+for her to do before she gets to us. I wish that I had a list of duties
+and engagements that would keep me going every minute, the way she has
+to go."
+
+"You can easily fill out a list that will keep you busy for awhile,"
+answered her mother. "While you were gone Jack and I got to discussing
+dates, and it was somewhat of a shock to find that Christmas will be
+here so soon. One forgets the calendar in this summer-like climate.
+Whatever we send to Holland and Joyce must be started from here in less
+than three weeks, and as our gifts must be all home-made we cannot
+afford to lose any time in beginning."
+
+The problem of Christmas giving had always been a knotty one in the Ware
+household, but it was especially hard this year. Mary spent nearly all
+afternoon making her list of names with the accompanying list of gifts
+that seemed suitable for each one. There were so many to whom she longed
+to send little remembrances that the length of it was appalling. Then
+she revised it, putting in one column such people as Madam Chartley and
+Mrs. Lee, to whom she decided to write letters--the gayest, brightest
+greetings she could think of. Still there were a goodly number left to
+provide with gifts, no matter how simple, and she was busy till
+bed-time measuring and figuring over the amount of material she would
+need for each, and how much it would cost. It had been decided that she
+should go to San Antonio for a day to attend to the family shopping.
+
+"The trouble is," she sighed next morning, "it's the simplest things
+that are always the hardest to get. Don't you remember, in the story of
+Beauty and the Beast, the father had no difficulty in buying ropes of
+jewels and costly things for his oldest daughters, but it almost cost
+him his life to get the one common little white rose that his youngest
+daughter so modestly asked for. I could do this shopping in a few hours
+if I did not have to stop to consider pennies, but there are several
+little things that may take me all day to find. I'm sure that that
+particular kind of narrow beading that I need for Lloyd's present will
+prove to be the fatal white rose. I can't make it without and there
+isn't time to send back East for it."
+
+"Maybe you'd better arrange to stay over night," suggested her mother,
+"and take two days to look around for what you want. Of course you
+couldn't go to a hotel alone, and it would be too expensive even if you
+had company, but Mrs. Rochester might be able to recommend some private
+family who has rooms for transients."
+
+Mary caught at the idea so eagerly that had it not been Thanksgiving Day
+and she feared to intrude, she would have gone that very hour to ask if
+the Rochesters knew of such a place. She remembered that they were to
+have guests to dinner. Fortunately for her peace of mind the rector and
+his wife called for a few moments just before dusk. Mrs. Rochester did
+know of a quiet inexpensive place where she could spend the night, and
+then and there slipped off her gloves to write a cordial note of
+introduction.
+
+It rained the Friday after Thanksgiving, but the next day was fair, and
+Mary insisted on doing the week's washing Saturday morning, and as much
+of the ironing as she could accomplish in the afternoon, in order to be
+able to start early Monday morning. Several times she left her tubs to
+run into the house and jot down some small items on her memorandum,
+which she remembered would be indispensable in making up their Christmas
+packages. Once she thought of something in the night, when the barking
+of a neighbor's dog awakened her.
+
+If she had been alone in the room she would have lighted a candle and
+made a note of it. As it was she was afraid to do so lest she waken her
+mother, and afraid not to lest it should slip her mind before morning.
+Finally she settled the difficulty by putting her hand to her head and
+pulling out several hairs which she twisted together and tied around her
+finger.
+
+"There!" she said to herself. "Hair will make me think of herring, and
+then ring will make me think of the little white celluloid rings that I
+must get for those safety-pin holders."
+
+Armed with Mrs. Rochester's letter she started off gaily on the Monday
+morning train. It was not due in the city till nearly ten, so she
+decided that it would save time to go at once to the largest department
+store, check her suit-case and wait until shopping hours were over
+before going out to the boarding-house which Mrs. Rochester had
+recommended.
+
+She had thought San Antonio charming the first time she saw it, but it
+seemed doubly so now that she came back to it, as one familiar with its
+principal streets and landmarks. The life, the color, the holiday air of
+the crowds, the fête day atmosphere of the old town itself, exhilarated
+her till her cheeks glowed like roses, and several times, both on the
+street and in the stores, she caught herself whistling half under her
+breath.
+
+Although the usual Monday morning bargain hunters were out in throngs,
+she found no trouble in making her purchases. Everything seemed to be in
+her favor this morning. The shop girls were unusually responsive and
+helpful, showed her just what she wanted or suggested something better
+than she had thought of. Only once or twice did the prices go above the
+limit she had set for them, and several times they were lower. By
+quarter to twelve she had checked off two thirds of the articles on her
+list.
+
+Elated by this success, she stood waiting at the transfer desk for her
+change, looking around with unabated interest. Suddenly her attention
+was attracted to a girl in a brown tailor suit, standing in the next
+aisle. Her back was turned towards Mary, but there was something
+familiar looking in the poise of the graceful head; something very
+familiar looking in the puffs of soft auburn-bronze hair held by amber
+combs, and arranged so becomingly under the big brown hat.
+
+Mary had been on the look-out all morning for the girl whom Jack had
+recognized at the hotel as Gay Melville. She might have missed her had
+Gay been an ordinary blonde or brunette, but as Jack said, there was no
+mistaking that glorious hair. Snatching up the proffered change, which
+the cashier put through the cage window, she pushed her way into the
+next aisle. The girl turned. The big plumed hat drooped over her face,
+still Mary recognized the delicate profile, the slight tilt of the
+slender chin. It was an opportunity which she could not afford to lose,
+and as the girl turned her back again to receive a package held out to
+her by a clerk, and started slowly to the door, Mary hurried after her.
+
+Almost breathless in her eagerness she exclaimed impulsively, "I beg
+your pardon--but aren't you _Gay_?"
+
+There was an instant of freezing silence as the eyes of the girl in
+brown swept Mary from head to foot.
+
+"Well, not particularly," was the indignant reply.
+
+The roll of her r's emphasized Mary's mistake. It was evidently some
+stranger from the North whom she had accosted. One glance into her full
+face made Mary see how dire her mistake had been. There was no
+resemblance whatever in that to Gay. Wishing that she could drop out of
+sight through the floor, she hastily apologized and hurried out into
+the street, her cheeks burning, as she smarted under the recollection of
+the stranger's supercilious glance.
+
+"She needn't have been so snippy," Mary thought. "_Any_body is liable to
+make such mistakes."
+
+Not until she had crossed the street and was stopped short by her own
+reflection in a mirror in the show window opposite, did she realize how
+her question might have sounded.
+
+"Oh, she must have thought that I was asking her if she wasn't _gay_!
+_Gay with a little g!_" she gasped. "No wonder she looked at me so
+freezingly."
+
+She was so perturbed by this discovery, that she walked on, unmindful of
+the direction. When a group of children crowded past her on the narrow
+pavement, she turned into a side street to avoid being jostled, and
+walked aimlessly for some distance. It was the sight of a green kettle
+swinging above a door which she was approaching that brought her to
+herself with a start. Mrs. Rochester had told her to stop at the Sign of
+the Green Kettle for lunch, and had given her directions for finding it.
+Here she had stumbled upon it unaware, just as the city bells were
+beginning to clang for noon.
+
+At the next glance her heart went to thumping so hard that she could
+plainly hear it. There on the step leading up to the door of the Green
+Kettle, stood Gay Melville; the real Gay this time. There was no shadow
+of doubt about it. As she looked, Mary wondered how she ever could have
+mistaken the other girl for her, although each had hair wonderfully like
+the other.
+
+This one carried a violin case. She had paused on her way in to call
+back something to the girl in the carriage, who had brought her down
+town. And the girl in the carriage was Roberta--Roberta of the boyish
+speech and coquettish eyelashes, whose laughing question held the girl
+on the step long enough for Mary to reach it too, and stand there beside
+her while she gathered courage to speak.
+
+It was the little pin thrust through Gay's tie which finally brought the
+words trembling to Mary's lips, for it was the Warwick Hall pin which
+only its alumni might wear; those who had kept the four years' tryst
+with all its requirements. It was a mailed hand rising from a heart to
+grasp a spear, the motto and the crest of Edryn.
+
+All diffidence fled at that familiar sight, but this time Mary did not
+ask if the girl were gay. With a gesture toward the pin she cried
+breathlessly, "Oh, I know by _that_ that you are Miss Melville. _Aren't_
+you!" Gay after one look into the eager gray eyes said quite as
+cordially, "And you're Mary Ware! I had a letter from Betty Lewis this
+very morning telling me to be sure to find you."
+
+She gave a quick glance at the chatelaine watch she wore. "I haven't a
+minute to stop--I'm to play an obligato for the great prima donna,
+Madame de Martel, and she has a beast of a temper which she lets loose
+if a person is one second late at rehearsal. But I must take time to say
+one thing if she wipes me off the face of the earth for it. The girls'
+letters have made me wild to know you. At what hotel can I find you?
+I'll call this very day."
+
+"We've taken a cottage in Bauer," Mary answered hastily. "I came down on
+a little shopping expedition, and am on my way in here for luncheon."
+
+The heavy chords of a piano accompaniment rolled threateningly through
+the music rooms up-stairs, and Gay shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
+"Do be a long time over it," she begged as she turned towards the
+stairs. "I'll get through as quickly as possible and hurry back for
+another word with you."
+
+Mary watched her out of sight before starting into the dining-room of
+the Green Kettle, and then deliberately pinched herself to make sure
+that she was awake. It was a good hard nip, which hurt, and smiling to
+herself because it proved that she was not dreaming, she sat down at a
+table near the window to gloat over the fact that one of her best dreams
+had come true at last. She had met Gay Melville.
+
+The lunch was a good one, but it would have made no difference to Mary
+what was put before her that day. Anything would have been nectar and
+ambrosia served to the accompaniment of the music overhead. A chorus of
+cherubim and seraphim could not have left her more uplifted. Madame de
+Martel might have the temper of a beast at times, but she had a voice of
+rare sweetness and power, and the knowledge that it was Gay's violin
+pouring out that tremulous, tender, heartbreaking obligato, enhanced
+Mary's enjoyment of every note.
+
+The rehearsal was a short one. All that the famous visiting singer
+wanted was to make sure, since her own accompanists had failed her,
+that the local ones were satisfactory. It came to an end just as Mary
+began her dessert, and almost instantly it seemed Gay was at her elbow,
+and seating herself in the chair beside her.
+
+"Isn't it a shame I haven't more than two minutes to stay," she began.
+"This is like having Warwick Hall and Lloydsboro Valley rolled into one,
+to find somebody who loves them both as much as I do. I could talk a
+week without stopping about each place, and ask a thousand questions,
+but I'm due at a luncheon out on Government Hill by the time the next
+car can put me there. Immediately after that is over we're all going to
+the polo tournament. All during rehearsal I kept trying to think of some
+way I could arrange to see you, and there's only one. You've simply got
+to come home with me to stay all night. Go on and finish your shopping,
+and I'll come down for you after the tournament and meet you anywhere
+you say."
+
+The invitation, as cordial as it was sudden, was gladly accepted and Gay
+exclaimed, "Oh, I'm so delighted to think I've found you at last! You've
+no idea how often you were quoted the summer I was in the Valley. Lloyd
+and Betty and the old Colonel and Dr. Alex Shelby were always saying
+'as little Mary Ware says.' I feel as if I'd known you from babyhood
+up."
+
+"And I know all about your past," laughed Mary. She was about to mention
+several incidents to prove her claim, when Gay stopped her by a glance
+at the clock and the question: "Wouldn't you like to see the dress
+parade at the Post this evening? Most people do, and it's well worth
+seeing."
+
+Would she _like_ it! Mary's beaming face answered the question before
+her usually ready tongue found a word, and Gay smiled as she hastily
+drew on her gloves and picked up her violin case.
+
+"I'd like to keep you all to myself to-night," she said, "but I do want
+you to meet some of the people that Kitty Walton liked best when she
+visited me last year. I'll pick up Roberta and Lieutenant Boglin to take
+dinner with us if I can get them. They're always so nice to my Warwick
+Hall friends. They were both wild about Kitty. Well, at quarter to five,
+then, I'll meet you--where?"
+
+Finally the glove counter at Joske's was agreed upon as a meeting place,
+and with a friendly pat on the shoulder in passing, Gay hurried away to
+keep her engagement. Smiling blissfully after her, Mary whispered to
+herself with one of her old childish wriggles of pleasure, "And _Bogey_,
+too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+AT FORT SAM HOUSTON
+
+
+PROMPTLY at the time agreed upon, Mary took her station by the glove
+counter, almost sure that Gay would be late. It was one of the Warwick
+Hall traditions that something tragic always happened to Gay's clothes
+at the last moment, to delay her departure. But she had scarcely seated
+herself and deposited her suit-case on the floor beside her when the
+door opened and Gay came breezily into the store. Her hat was awry and
+her hair disheveled.
+
+"On time for once," she exclaimed triumphantly with a glance at the
+clock. "But I couldn't have been if Roberta hadn't come to the rescue.
+She brought me down in their carriage. It's Roberta Mayrell," she
+explained, as they made their way as rapidly as possible down the
+crowded aisle.
+
+"She isn't really one of the Army girls, but she lives just outside the
+Post and has always been counted in everything there, since she was old
+enough to talk. I've been telling her all about you on the way down."
+
+"Well, I hope she'll find me as interesting as the alligators," began
+Mary, remembering the speech she had overheard from the hotel balcony.
+But Gay was stopping to apologize to an old lady whom she had bumped
+into, and did not hear the remark. The next moment they were outside and
+at the curbstone, where a carriage drawn by two Kentucky horses was in
+waiting, and Roberta was stepping down with outstretched hands to
+welcome her.
+
+Roberta at close range was even more fascinating than when seen from a
+hotel balcony, and Mary, sitting between the two girls as they drove
+along towards Government Hill, had much the same feeling that a thirsty
+Bedouin has when after miles of desert journeying he finds himself
+beside the well of a green oasis.
+
+They were fairly bubbling over with high spirits, and it was impossible
+to be with them and not share their exhilaration. Before they had gone
+two blocks the weight of care and anxiety that had been resting on
+Mary's shoulders ever since Jack's accident, began to slip off. It
+almost gave her a sense of having wings, to be so light and care free.
+
+The last eight months with their constant association with suffering and
+anxiety about finances had been like a hard march through the sands. Now
+the sudden substitution of something frivolous and young was so
+refreshing that she giggled almost hysterically in her enjoyment of it.
+
+"Oh, we forgot to tell you," exclaimed Gay as they came in sight of the
+parade grounds. "There's to be a hop at the gymnasium to-night for the
+visiting polo team. They got it up on short notice. Lieutenant Boglin
+told me about it when I invited him to come to dinner. He asked if he
+might take you, and I said he might, for of course you won't want to
+miss it, and old Bogey is quite the nicest officer in the bunch when it
+comes to giving a girl a good time."
+
+Mary's face wore such a comical expression of blended delight and dismay
+that Roberta laughed, and Gay stopped the refusal that Mary was
+beginning to stammer out by putting both hands over her ears.
+
+"No, I won't listen," she declared. "Of course you didn't expect to do
+anything like this, and didn't bring the proper clothes, but it is such
+an informal affair that it doesn't make any difference. Roberta and I
+can rig you out in something of mine. It will be all the more fun."
+
+"Oh, it's just the larkiest lark that ever was!" exclaimed Mary so
+excited over the prospect that her cheeks were growing redder and
+redder, and her eyes shining with happy anticipation.
+
+"This day has been full of thrills, and--oo, oo! There goes another!"
+she added with a little shiver of delight as the band began to play. The
+carriage had stopped at the end of the parade ground, where the usual
+crowd of spectators was gathered.
+
+"Martial music always sends cold shivers up and down my back," she said
+gravely. "It makes me want to cheer and march right off to do something
+big and brave--'storm the heights,' or bleed and die for my country, or
+something of that sort. I've always thought that I'd have been a soldier
+if I hadn't been born a girl."
+
+She laughed as she said it, but there was a quiver of earnestness in her
+voice. Parade was a matter-of-course affair to Gay and Roberta, a part
+of the weekly routine of Post life, which familiarity made ordinary.
+They exchanged amused glances which Mary did not see, and made remarks
+and criticisms on the manoeuvres which she did not hear. Wholly
+absorbed, she leaned forward in the carriage, watching every movement of
+the drill.
+
+It is always an inspiring sight, even to one who looks no farther than
+the outward show, admiring the clock-like precision which makes a
+battalion move as one man; but to Mary every khaki coat in the regiment
+clothed a hero. Lexington and Valley Forge, Gettysburg and Chickamauga
+called to her through every drum-beat and bugle note.
+
+She had loved her old dog-eared copy of the History of the United
+States, and many a time had spread it out on her desk to re-read, when
+she should have been studying other things. She had pored over its
+stories of war till the black and white of its printed pages had
+transformed her into a little fire-ball of a patriot. Now as she saw for
+the first time these men who stood as the guardians of "Old Glory,"
+everything she had ever read of heroism and blood-stained battle-fields
+and glorious dying, came back to her in a flood of enthusiasm which
+nearly lifted her to her feet. When at last the band struck into "The
+Star-spangled Banner" and the guns fired the signal which heralded the
+lowering of the colors, her plain little face was almost transfigured
+with the exalted emotions of the moment.
+
+    "Aye, call it holy ground,
+     The soil that they have trod,"
+
+she was repeating to herself, when she became aware that Roberta was
+trying to attract her attention, and was holding out a box of candy.
+
+"Come down to earth!" she exclaimed laughingly. "I tried to get you to
+take some earlier in the action, but you hadn't eyes for anything but
+the brass buttons. I don't believe you would have heard thunder!"
+
+"It wasn't brass buttons I was seeing," began Mary. "It was--" Then
+realizing the utter hopelessness of trying to explain what soul-stirring
+visions had been hers for that little space of time that the band played
+and the heroes of the past as well as the present passed before her, she
+did as Roberta advised, came down to earth and took a caramel.
+
+When they reached Major Melville's house in the officers' quarters,
+Roberta dismissed the carriage and went in with Gay and Mary. She had
+decided not to change her dress for the hop, she said as she threw off
+her long cloak in the hall, revealing the pretty frock of pink and gray
+foulard which she had worn at the luncheon.
+
+Mrs. Melville came out to meet them, a large sandy-haired woman with a
+certain faded fairness and enough of a resemblance to Gay to suggest
+what she might have looked like in her teens. Her cordial welcome put
+Mary at ease at once, and she followed the girls up the broad staircase,
+feeling that this visit was quite the most delightful thing which had
+happened to her since she left Warwick Hall.
+
+While Gay rummaged through trunks and wardrobes to find party raiment
+for her guest, Mary walked about the room, experiencing more thrills at
+every turn; for on each wall and book-shelf and bracket was some picture
+or souvenir of Warwick Hall or Lloydsboro Valley.
+
+"Oh, there's Lloyd and Betty and the Walton girls!" she cried. "I have
+this same picture at home, and one like this of Madam Chartley too, in
+her high-back chair with the carved griffins on it.
+
+"What a splendid picture this is of Dr. Alex Shelby," she called a
+moment later. Then catching sight of a larger one on the mantel in a
+silver frame, she exclaimed in surprise, "Why, you have two of Doctor
+Alex."
+
+Gay was deep in a closet, her head between rows of dress-skirts, and she
+made no answer; but Roberta, perching in the window-seat, cleared her
+throat to attract Mary's attention, and then with an impish smile held
+up seven fingers and pointed in different directions to five other
+photographs that Mary had not yet discovered.
+
+"One for each day in the week," she said in a low tone. "I'd give a good
+deal to see that man. He was here last spring, but I was down on the
+coast and missed him. I intend to make a point of staying at home next
+time he comes. I want to see for myself what's up. Gay pretends there
+isn't anything, but I have my own ideas."
+
+"Oh, is he coming again?" cried Mary.
+
+Roberta's only answer was a significant nod, for Gay emerged from the
+closet just then.
+
+"There's nothing in there," she announced, "but I've just thought of one
+that Lucy left here this spring. I'll ask mother where it is."
+
+"You see," said Roberta as the door closed behind Gay, "I wouldn't tease
+her if she'd confess anything, but she won't. Kitty Walton thinks I've
+guessed right too. She said that from the moment she heard about their
+romantic meeting she was sure something would come of it."
+
+"Oh, tell me about it," urged Mary. "I know Doctor Alex so well that I
+can't help being interested."
+
+"And do you know a place in Lloydsboro Valley called the Log Cabin?"
+asked Roberta. "A fine country home built of logs and furnished with
+beautiful old heirlooms? Gay's sister, Mrs. Harcourt, rented it one
+summer."
+
+"Indeed I do know it," assented Mary. "It is a fascinating place, with a
+big outside fire-place on the porch, and the front is covered with a
+climbing rose. We used to pass it often."
+
+"Well, Kitty says that the day after the Harcourts took possession, Gay
+put a ladder against the front of the house and climbed up on it to hang
+a mirror on the outside of her window-sill, the way they do in Holland.
+It was one she had brought all the way from Amsterdam. And while she was
+up on the ladder, looking like a picture, of course, with the roses all
+about her and the sunshine turning her hair to gold, Dr. Shelby came by
+on horseback. She saw him in the mirror and the girls teased her about
+it--called it her Lady of Shalott mirror and him her Knight of the
+Looking-glass. Kitty says he was devotion itself to her all summer."
+
+What more she might have revealed was interrupted by Gay's return. She
+tossed an armful of dainty muslin and lace on the bed, and for a few
+moments all three gave their undivided attention to the trying-on
+process.
+
+"I must confess it doesn't look as if it were fitted to you in perfect
+health," confessed Roberta, "but it's one of those soft clinging things
+that doesn't have to fit like a glove. I can pin it up on you to make it
+look all right, and it's so pretty with all that fine lace and
+embroidery that it'll pass muster anywhere."
+
+Gay sat down to make some slight alteration in the girdle, while Roberta
+invited Mary to a seat in front of the dressing-table, proposing to try
+her skill on her as a hair-dresser. It was all so delightfully intimate
+and friendly, just such a situation as Mary had longed for in her
+dream-castle building, that she even felt at liberty to grow a little
+personal with Roberta. She peeped out through the hair which now hung
+over her face, to watch Roberta's face reflected in the mirror opposite.
+
+"Do you know," she remarked with a mischievous glance, like a skye
+terrier peeping through its bangs, "that I've actually lain awake
+nights, wondering if you'd been persuaded yet to give up that 'adorable
+little curl.'"
+
+Roberta's mouth opened wide in astonishment, and she dropped the comb
+with which she was parting Mary's hair.
+
+"How spooky!" she cried. "I was just thinking about that myself. Who in
+the world told you anything about that?"
+
+"Oh, I overheard the remark," confessed Mary. "I was on one of those
+hotel balconies all hidden by moon-vines when you and Gay and Mr. Wade
+and the officer you call Bogey came out into the court. I was so
+lonesome for some young person to talk to, and so close to you all that
+I could see the comb slipping out of Gay's hair. I didn't know who she
+was then. If I had I should have leaned over the railing and called to
+her. Wouldn't it have made a sensation?
+
+"I'll never forget how either of you looked. She was in white with white
+violets, and you were in pale lemon yellow with a scarf over your
+shoulders that looked like a white moonbeam spangled with dewdrops. It
+slipped down as you started to go and see the alligators, and that Mr.
+Wade drew it up for you and said what he did about the curl."
+
+"That was the first time he ever mentioned it," explained Roberta. "I
+thought when you spoke that you meant last night. I was going to tell
+Gay about it, and as long as you're so interested I don't mind telling
+you, too. You know Mr. Wade has been very nice to me, and I thought he
+was great fun until he began to get sentimental. My brother William
+knew him at college, and he told me what I might expect. He said 'that
+chap always gets sentimental with every girl he goes with.' It's a great
+thing to have plenty of brothers to put you wise.
+
+"When Mr. Wade began that nonsense about wanting one of those little
+curls and its being the most fetching thing he had ever seen I laughed
+at him. But it only made him the more determined. He wrote some poetry
+about wearing it over his heart forever and all that sort of thing. If
+he only could have known how Billy and I shrieked over it! Of course I
+hadn't given him the slightest encouragement, or it would have been
+different--"
+
+"Roberta," interrupted Gay sternly, "how can you say that? You know you
+looked at him. I saw you do it. And when you look out at anybody from
+under those lashes, whether you mean it or not you _do_ look
+flirtatious, and you know it."
+
+"I don't!" contradicted Roberta hotly, with boyish directness. "I can't
+help the way my lashes are kinked, and I'm very sure I'm not going to
+pull them out to keep people from getting a wrong impression. Anyhow
+there's no kink in my tongue! I told him straight enough what I thought
+of his silly speeches. I put a stop to them last night, all right."
+
+"How?" demanded Gay.
+
+"Well," began Roberta, plaiting Mary's hair so energetically that it
+pulled dreadfully. "He went over the same performance again, begging me
+for that little curl in token that I'd be his'n forevermore, etc. And
+after he'd spun it out into a most romantic proposal I said very
+sweetly, 'Really, Mr. Wade, to be honest with you, I can't afford to
+give away a seventy-five cent curl to every man who asks for one. You
+see I'm always financially embarrassed, for papa won't let me borrow
+after I've spent my monthly allowance, and I never by any chance have a
+cent left over after the second of the month. But if you must have a
+curl I'll give you Madame Main's address on Houston Street, where you
+can get an exact duplicate. I'm sure it will be just as good to wear
+over your heart as mine would.'"
+
+"Roberta, you little beast!" laughed Gay. "How could you give him the
+impression they were false, when you know very well they grow tight on
+your own scalp?"
+
+"I wanted to see if he would say 'with all thy faults I love thee
+still.' But he didn't. He got very stiff and red and walked away, and
+spent the rest of the evening flirting with Louie Rowan to show that he
+didn't care."
+
+Gay continuing to shake her head in a shocked and disapproving way,
+Roberta cried out, "I don't care! It's no worse than what you said to a
+certain freshman who proposed to you."
+
+"I don't call that a proposal," calmly disagreed Gay. "He didn't ask
+anything. He simply took it for granted that I'd fall all over myself to
+accept him. Mary, what would you say to a boy, one whom you'd always
+known but who'd never been particularly nice to you, who would march up
+to you some day and say: 'You suit me better than any girl I know, and
+I'd like to talk over arrangements with you now. Of course we couldn't
+marry till a year after my graduation, but I want to have it settled
+before I go away, so that I'll know what to depend on. My family all
+tell me that it's risky business, choosing a wife with red hair, but I'm
+willing to take the chances.'"
+
+"Now, Gay, you know it wasn't as bald as that," protested Roberta. "He
+put in all sorts of 'long and short sweetenin'.'"
+
+"It amounted to the same thing," persisted Gay, and in answer to Mary's
+gasping question, "What _did_ you say?" she replied:
+
+"I couldn't speak at first, I was so furious at his speech about red
+hair. But I managed to tell him several things before I finished, and
+nothing can be frostier and snippier than a sixteen year old girl when
+she tries to appear very dignified. That was my age then. The thing that
+made him maddest however, was that I told him that even the 'frog who
+would a-wooing go' knew how to go about such a matter in a much better
+way than he did. That he'd better wait till he was older, and amounted
+to something more than a mere silly boy. My snubbing almost gave him
+apoplexy, but it did him good in the long run."
+
+"A proposal, and she was a year younger than I am now," thought Mary,
+wishing with a queer little throb of envy that she had some such
+experience to confess. Roberta was only nineteen now, and to judge by
+Gay's teasing remarks had had any number of romantic affairs. Lloyd was
+only fourteen when Phil first began to care so much for her.
+
+Roberta was putting the finishing touches to her hair now, and as Mary's
+eyes met their wistful reflection in the mirror, she wondered if there
+would ever be a time when any one would care enough for her to come to
+her with the momentous question. She wouldn't mind so much being an old
+maid if she could only have some such experience to lay away in her
+memory, as people lay away treasures in rose-leaves and lavender. But so
+far she couldn't count even a susceptible youth like young Mr. Wade, or
+a conceited freshman like Gay's early admirer. She wanted to ask how it
+felt to be proposed to, and thus keep the conversation rolling along in
+the same interesting groove. But Roberta suddenly switched off to
+saddles. She was about to buy a new one, and saddles, as Roberta
+presented the topic, became so vastly important that Mary did not have
+the courage to attempt to turn the talk back to the subject of mere men.
+
+It was one of Roberta's chief characteristics that she swept everything
+before her by the sheer force of her personality. She dominated whatever
+company she was in, and the most frivolous things she said carried
+weight and made people listen because of the way she said them. She made
+statements in the same manner she was now thrusting the safety-pins into
+Mary's skirt-bands, in a direct, forcible way that made people feel that
+they might be depended upon.
+
+"Roberta's pins always stay where they are put," Gay remarked
+admiringly, as she watched the capable way in which Mary was being
+fastened into her borrowed gown. "There's no danger of your coming to
+pieces, when she fixes you. Sometimes I think that she must hypnotize
+things. It's a gift with her. There! You look perfectly fine. Come on
+down stairs and let's try that piece of new music before dinner."
+
+Mary had her doubts about looking perfectly fine. She was uncomfortably
+conscious that the dress was not a good fit. It was too tight in the
+arm-holes and too short in the waist. But the girls seemed proud of the
+costume they had evolved for her, the parting glance in the mirror
+showed that the general effect was becoming, and their compliments were
+most reassuring. So she followed them down stairs in a very elated and
+"partified" state of mind.
+
+The old Major's affable greeting as she entered the living-room was as
+cordial as his wife's had been, and seemed to place her at once on the
+footing of an old friend. She sank into the comfortable chair he pushed
+forward for her with the sensation that she was coming back to a
+familiar hearthstone, where she had been a guest many times. It was very
+queer, but it was decidedly pleasant to have it all seem so homelike
+and familiar.
+
+With such surroundings Mary ought to have appeared at her best, but
+Roberta's dominating presence made her silent and shy. It had not had
+that effect when they were up-stairs together, but now in the presence
+of older people Roberta gave the effect of a lamp that has suddenly been
+turned up to a brighter flame. She was positively brilliant, Mary
+thought, and made everybody else in the room seem of secondary interest.
+Roberta, who ran in and out every day, felt the same freedom that a
+daughter of the house would have. She laughingly pushed Mrs. Melville
+into a chair and ordered her to sit still while _she_ ran up-stairs for
+the forgotten spectacles. She joked with the Major about numberless
+things which were meaningless to Mary because she had not shared their
+beginnings, and when she sat down at the piano and played with strong
+masterful touches, it really seemed that what Gay had jokingly said
+about her having hypnotic powers was true.
+
+Mary felt as if she had been thrust into a corner and deprived of power
+to come out. At first she was so absorbed in her enjoyment of the music
+that she was not conscious of that sensation, but it oppressed her when
+Lieutenant Boglin and the Captain of the polo team, a Mr. Mills, came
+in. They were strangers to her but old friends of all the others, and
+she suddenly felt herself as self-conscious and shy as the bashful
+little country mouse of the fable. She began to contrast herself with
+the other girls, and try to find a reason for the difference which she
+felt existed.
+
+"It's partly because they've always lived in the heart of things," she
+thought, a trifle enviously. "They're used to meeting strangers, and
+they're pretty and gifted and accomplished; a very different thing from
+being just 'plain little Mary Ware,' with no talents or _anything_. I
+can't even play Yankee Doodle with one finger, as Norman does."
+
+When they went out to dinner the uneven number and the small size of the
+company made the conversation general around the table. If it had been a
+larger party with only her immediate neighbors to give ear, Mary was
+sure that she could have found plenty to say to the Major on one side,
+or to Lieutenant Boglin on the other. But Roberta kept the
+conversational ball rolling, and always in directions that Mary could
+not follow. She knew nothing of polo or golf or the people of the Post,
+and the funny stories and quick-witted replies which circled around the
+table gave her no opportunity to rise to the occasion as the others did.
+
+[Illustration: "MARY WARE in TEXAS"
+
+"He seated himself beside her, coffee-cup in hand"]
+
+They were all so vastly entertained and entertaining themselves that no
+one seemed to notice Mary's silence. She was angry with herself because
+she could not chime in with the others, and thought with flaming cheeks
+that they must think her dreadfully stupid and unresponsive; just a
+bread-and-butter miss, not yet out of the nursery. Once there came a
+place where an anecdote about Hawkins and a new school-girl would have
+fitted in beautifully if she could only have mustered up courage to tell
+it. She had a conundrum too, when the others were propounding them, and
+had opened her mouth to tell it--in fact had said "Did you ever hear--"
+when somebody else who had not heard her tremulous beginning captured
+the attention of the table with one of his own. The sound of her voice
+thus suddenly stopped made her blush, choke, take a drink of water and
+subside into silence again.
+
+It was not until coffee was being served afterward in the living-room,
+that Mary found her tongue. Roberta did not take coffee, and at the
+Major's request had gone to the piano to play a dashing fantasie that he
+always called for on such occasions. The lieutenant, who, as Mary had
+feared, had classed her as a callow little school-girl who couldn't talk
+except in embarrassed monosyllables, had been wondering why Gay had made
+such a point of his meeting her. Now as he looked across the room at her
+animated face, responsive to every chord of the brilliantly executed
+music, he decided that there might be some reason for Gay's interest in
+her which he had not yet fathomed, and he at once proceeded to find out.
+
+He started towards her, stopping to say in an aside to Gay, "What's the
+little girl's name? I've forgotten. Oh, thank you." Then he deliberately
+pulled up a chair, tête-à-tête wise, and seated himself beside her,
+coffee-cup in hand.
+
+"Miss Ware," he began in a flatteringly confidential tone, "it is an old
+saying that the 'shallows murmur, but the deeps are dumb.' Is that why
+you are so silent this evening?"
+
+It was easy now, under cover of the music, and in response to such
+deferential attention to make a reply, and Mary began at a rate that
+made Bogey "sit up and take notice," as he expressed it afterward.
+
+"No, I was only like the fox in Æsop's fables, the one that went to dine
+with the stork, you know. Don't you remember, the stork put the soup
+into such a slender-necked deep vase that only a long-beaked bird like
+himself could reach it. You see the people you talked about to-night
+were utter strangers to me, and I never saw a polo game, so I couldn't
+very well dip into the conversation."
+
+"By George!" exclaimed Bogey. "That wasn't very considerate of us, _was_
+it?"
+
+"Oh, I enjoyed it!" Mary hastened to add. "Only I was afraid you'd think
+I was dreadfully stupid. It made me think of the time I used that same
+fable to get rid of an unwelcome caller when I was at a house-party in
+Kentucky. I wanted to be with the older girls who were to be
+bridesmaids, and watch their preparations for the wedding, and this
+child tagged after me so persistently that I lay awake nights trying to
+plan some way to get rid of her. It was the fable that finally suggested
+it. I had lots of fun playing the stork, but I never realized before
+just how _she_ must have felt, till I took the part of fox to-night."
+
+"Tell me how you did it," insisted the lieutenant. He liked the way
+Mary's face lighted up when she talked, and the way her dimples flashed
+in and out as she chattered on. Gay looked over approvingly a little
+later when his hearty laugh showed that he was thoroughly amused by
+something that she had said.
+
+The tête-à-tête was ended by the stopping of the music and the arrival
+of the man who was to be Gay's escort, and almost immediately after it
+seemed, although in fact it was half an hour, the 'bus whistle sounded
+outside, and Mary was being hurried into her borrowed party cloak and
+helped into the waiting 'bus.
+
+"It always goes around the Post collecting passengers on such occasions
+as this," Bogey told her. "You can imagine we sometimes have a jolly
+crowd."
+
+It was an old story to the other passengers, but as they passed the
+sally port where the sentinel stood attention, Mary nearly fell out in
+her eagerness to see all the novel sights. The lieutenant smiled at her
+enthusiasm. Visiting girls always exhibited it in some degree, but never
+in quite such a precipitate manner as Mary.
+
+"She's a funny little piece," he thought as the whole 'bus load laughed
+at her naïve comment on the sentinel, "but there is something genuine
+and likeable about her. She shall have the time of her life to-night if
+I can give it to her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ON THE CREEK-BANK
+
+
+THERE is only a partial account of that evening in Mary's Good Times
+book. She recorded the fact that the General himself came and talked to
+her a few minutes, and laughed several times at her replies till people
+turned to see who it was that he found so amusing. The handsome officer
+of the day in sword and spurs was brought up to be introduced, and there
+was a most gratifying list of names on her well-filled program.
+Lieutenant Boglin had dutifully seen to that.
+
+Had it not been for one circumstance the evening would have been a
+succession of thrills, and she could have filled several pages with
+enthusiastic recollections of it. That one little happening, however,
+marred the whole occasion. She made no record of it in her Good Times
+book, and she made up her mind never to speak of it, but to seal it up
+in its particular memory cell as the bees do any intruding object which
+threatens to poison their honey.
+
+There was so much else to tell about her visit, that for several days
+after her return she kept the family amused by her lively descriptions.
+She and Gay had had a whole string of adventures the morning after the
+hop, when they went down town together to finish her shopping. There had
+been some interesting guests from New Zealand at luncheon, who had vied
+with each other in telling marvelous yarns, and Mary had stored them all
+away to repeat at home.
+
+With so much else to talk about she might have succeeded in keeping her
+resolution, had not she and Jack gone off to the creek one afternoon,
+instead of taking their usual excursion towards the village. The spot
+where they paused was a place which seemed to invite confidences. She
+wheeled his chair along the bank, close to the water's edge, until they
+came to a secluded circle of shade under an ancient cypress tree. There
+she sat down opposite him on a big boulder.
+
+They were some distance from the main road. Except when a wagon rattled
+down the hill and across the ford it was so very still that the rush of
+water over the pebbles sounded almost brawling. The constant gurgle and
+swish seemed to have a sort of hypnotic effect on them both, for neither
+of them spoke for a long time. Then Jack broke the silence.
+
+"This monotony is getting on my nerves," he said in a low tense voice.
+"You're a wonder to me, Mary. I don't see how you can come back to such
+a deadly stupid place as this is, after the taste of gay times you've
+had, and settle down again as cheerfully as you do. It makes me
+desperate whenever I think that if it wasn't for my being in such a fix
+you needn't be tied here. You could be where you'd have the social
+opportunities you ought to have."
+
+Mary looked up quickly. This tone of bitterness was a new note in Jack's
+speech. He had drawn his hat down over his eyes, and was gripping the
+arms of his chair with both hands, as if trying to keep his resentment
+against fate in check.
+
+"Just let me tell you something," cried Mary, so anxious to smooth the
+grim lines of suffering out of the beloved face that she recklessly
+broke her resolution. "_I didn't have as good a time at that hop as I
+made out! The last part of it was perfectly ghastly, and I never want to
+go to another as long as I live!_"
+
+Then, seeing the look of blank amazement that spread over Jack's face,
+she hastened to explain.
+
+"Oh, it started out beautifully. I was simply ecstatic when we climbed
+out of the 'bus and were ushered into that long room with the flags and
+the evergreens, and the military music. And you already know how much it
+meant to me to have the General so nice to me and the officer of the day
+so attentive and complimentary; and how happy I was to have my programme
+filled up so that there was no danger of my being a wall-flower. I was
+having the loveliest time imaginable, when I went up to Gay to ask if
+any of the safety-pins showed below my girdle. The polo man I had met at
+dinner, that Mr. Mills, had been dancing with me, and, when he left me
+with Gay, went over to speak to a pretty butterfly sort of girl, a
+little brunette all in frilly pink and white; I'd been admiring her at a
+distance. Of course he didn't know his voice carried so far. He was
+protesting because she had left no place for him on her programme, and I
+heard him say:
+
+"'It wasn't _my_ fault that I didn't get to you in time. Bogey roped me
+in first thing for a turn with that kindergarten kid he's got in tow.
+She's Miss Melville's guest and I couldn't get out of it, but really,
+Juliet--_that was punishment enough_ without your--'"
+
+"I didn't hear the rest of it. Some people beside me laughed just then
+and drowned his voice, but the girl looked over at me, and gave me a
+long, searching glance, sort of out of the corner of her eye, and then
+turned away with a little shrug of her shoulders and smiled up at him
+quite as if she agreed with him and had forgiven him because he had such
+a good excuse.
+
+"I never had anything make me so uncomfortable in all my life as his
+speech and then her sidelong look and nasty little shrug. It was the
+_way_ he said it, and the _way_ she answered, that hurt. After that I
+never forgot for a moment that my dress was a borrowed one and that it
+didn't fit, and that I was the plain little country mouse that they were
+polite to, merely because I was Gay's guest and Lieutenant Boglin asked
+them to be. And I couldn't help feeling that every man who danced with
+me was as bored as Mr. Mills had been; even more so, for I had been
+perfectly natural and at ease when I was talking to him, and after I
+overheard his remark I was so stiff and self-conscious that such a state
+of mind was bound to have its effect all the rest of the evening. I was
+perfectly aware that I was boring my partners."
+
+"But that was such a little thing to let spoil your whole evening,"
+interrupted Jack. "It was awfully rude of the fellow to make such a
+speech, but he probably said it just to square himself with the other
+girl. 'All's fair in love and war,' they say, and you don't know how
+much it might have meant to him to keep in her good graces. I don't
+believe he really meant it."
+
+"Oh, I know better!" insisted Mary dismally. "He _did_ mean it! I felt
+it!"
+
+She slowly gathered up a handful of pebbles and sent them skipping
+across the water at intervals as she continued:
+
+"It gave me the same sensation that I had years ago, when I had my first
+toy balloon. That is one of my earliest and most vivid recollections.
+One moment I was hugging it to me because it was such a dear, gay, red
+bubble, fairly entranced with the beauty of it. The next I was looking
+down in a scared, puzzled way at what was left--just a dull scrap of
+wrinkled rubber. That one remark and glance and shrug made all the
+pleasure ooze out of the evening as quickly as my hugging squeezed the
+air out of that collapsed balloon."
+
+Jack smiled at her comparison. He remembered that time, and how they had
+all laughed at her bewildered expression when the balloon burst in her
+hands. She could not be convinced at first that her beautiful, red
+bubble had ceased to be, and hopefully peered under tables and chairs,
+even while she held the wreck of it in her hands.
+
+Jack had always been her comforter. He had dried her tears then with the
+promise of another balloon as soon as he could find the man who sold
+them, and now he hurried to lift the gloom that had settled down on her
+usually cheerful features. Having thrown away all her pebbles, she
+bunched herself up into a disconsolate little heap, on the boulder, her
+elbows on her knees, and her chin in her hand.
+
+"No, it's no use your trying to comfort me," she said presently in
+response to his repeated attempts. "Every time I think about that
+evening I'm so mortified that I could cry. My mind's made up. I am a
+dead failure socially, and I never want to go to another function as
+long as I live!"
+
+"You're a little goose! That's what you are," said Jack. "And I know
+what's at the root of the whole trouble. You've done a lot of imagining
+about your social career at one time and another. You've looked forward
+to it and seen yourself in the rôle of an irresistible charmer. You've
+felt like a dowager duchess inwardly, and forgotten that you've no marks
+outwardly to show that you've grown up to take such a part. You have
+your own individual charm, but so far it is only the charm of an
+unsophisticated little school-girl, and naturally grown men find older
+girls more interesting, just as you would prefer Phil Tremont's company
+for instance, to that of little Billy Downs. But that's not saying that
+you dislike Billy Downs, or that he won't grow up to be a social lion
+some day. So may you. Now own up. You always have pictured yourself as
+cutting quite a wide swath on your first appearance in society, haven't
+you? That's one reason you were so disappointed at the hop."
+
+"Well," admitted Mary, smiling in spite of herself, "I own I did expect
+to once, a long time ago, and maybe that had a sort of sub-conscious
+influence on me. It was when we first moved to Arizona. Hazel Lee and I
+found a book that a boarder had left behind in his tent. It was called
+'The Lady Agatha's Career; A Novel.' We took it out on the desert, a
+little way, and spelled it out between us, sitting on the sand behind a
+clump of grease-wood bushes, that hid us from view of the ranch house.
+Hazel was allowed only juvenile books, and she knew her mother would
+take this away from us on account of the word novel.
+
+"It was such a horribly sentimental story that we found it embarrassing
+to read the tenderest parts of it aloud, and I suppose because it was
+the first one of the kind we had ever come across, it made a deeper
+impression on us than it would have done otherwise. We fairly devoured
+it. For days we thought and talked of nothing else, and we used to take
+turns playing we were the Lady Agatha, about to burst on society like a
+dazzling star, and win the heart of the proud scion of the House of de
+Hoverly."
+
+Jack threw back his head and laughed so heartily that Mary was forced to
+smile again herself, as she went on with her confession.
+
+"That all came back to me the other night when we climbed out of the
+'bus, and I almost giggled when I remembered that this was what Hazel
+and I had looked forward to as such a grand event--being escorted for
+the first time by a grown man. It was on a similar occasion that the
+Lady Agatha made such a hit in society. Our ideas of society were so
+crude and funny then," Mary went on, beginning to relish her own
+reminiscences. "All we knew about it we gathered from that book. It
+seemed to be made up principally of haughty earls and dowager duchesses
+who lived in castles and wore coronets. I didn't know what a dowager
+was then, but I privately resolved to be one when I was grown. The name
+seemed so grand and high-sounding, and in the story they always had
+everything their own way. I couldn't help laughing a bit ago when you
+used the word, for you had hit the nail on the head."
+
+"Then you won't mind when I say 'I told you so'" laughed Jack. "If you
+hadn't gone that night expecting to create a sensation, you'd have been
+satisfied to have people nice to you simply because you were their
+friend's friend, and wouldn't have been so cut up over that remark you
+overheard."
+
+"I'm not so sure about the last part," Mary insisted, her face clouding
+again. "It _was_ nasty of him to say it, and the mere thought of that
+man will always be an abomination to me."
+
+There was silence for a little while. Everything was so still that a
+bird hopped fearlessly out on a limb above them, and began to call to
+its mate. When Mary spoke again there was a whimsical expression on her
+face that soon reflected itself in Jack's.
+
+"I can't help picturing things out beforehand, the way I'd like to have
+them be. I've done it all my life. The rehearsing is always more fun,
+though, than the actual happening. Now when I went away to school last
+year, every time I'd wake up that last night in the sleeping-car, I'd
+plan just what I'd say and how I'd act to make my entrance to Warwick
+Hall imposing. I could actually see myself sweeping in to make a good
+impression on Madam Chartley, and you know what happened! My hat was
+cocked over one ear, the wire sticking out through the loops of ribbon,
+and Madam caught me jumping up and down to try every seat in the
+reception-room, one after the other."
+
+Jack chuckled, glad to see some of Mary's cheerfulness returning.
+
+"And then," she continued, "you remember when we met Phil and Elsie
+Tremont on the train, as we were going out to Arizona to live?"
+
+Jack nodded.
+
+"I was only nine years old then, but for weeks I thought of Phil as a
+sort of young god--a regular Apollo, and I pictured all sorts of scenes
+in which I should be a prominent personage at our next meeting. And when
+he _did_ come I was sprinting down the road in a cloud of dust, hatless
+and breathless and purple in the face, crying, and crazy with fright,
+because I thought that a harmless old Indian who chanced to be riding
+down the same road, was chasing me. How Phil does laugh every time that
+is mentioned!"
+
+Mary was sitting up straight on the boulder now, her face dimpling as
+she recalled these various predicaments.
+
+"Then there's the time the Little Colonel visited us at the Wigwam.
+Hadn't I dreamed of that first meeting for weeks--what we'd say and what
+she'd say? Me in my rosebud sash and best embroidered white gown. But
+she caught you and Joyce at the wash-tub, and I had to take my first
+peep at her, crouched down in an irrigating ditch on my way home from
+school, all inky and dirty and torn.
+
+"But I don't think I've done quite so much romancing since Betty gave me
+my Good Times book and preached me that little sermon on being
+self-conscious," Mary chattered on. "She said that my always thinking of
+the impression I was making on people, and being so eager to please was
+what made me miserable when I fell short of my expectations. She said
+that I ought to copy Lloyd. That her greatest charm was her utter
+unconsciousness of self. I think that is Betty's too. She's _such_ a
+darling."
+
+There was no response to this. The mention of Betty's name brought up
+so many pleasing scenes to Mary, that she sat living them over,
+unmindful of the long silence that fell between her and Jack. He sat
+with his hat pulled still farther over his eyes, in a revery as deep as
+hers. Betty's name recalled the picture that was often before him in
+these long, idle days. He was seeing her as he had seen her the first
+time, now over a year ago, when he made his memorable visit to Kentucky.
+She was standing at the end of the long locust avenue, all in white,
+between the stately white pillars, with her godmother's arm about her,
+as they awaited his approach.
+
+Slim and girlish and winsomely sweet she was, and when he looked into
+her wistful brown eyes, he felt in some strange way that he had come to
+the end of all pilgrimage. The world held nothing beyond worth seeking
+for.
+
+After a long time the swirl of the water past them was lost in the sound
+of a wagon, rattling noisily down the hill and across the ford. Then a
+long line of cattle passed down the same road, accompanied by the hoarse
+calls of their drivers on horseback. Mary looked up.
+
+"Jack," she said hesitatingly, "did you ever hear this verse?
+
+    "'For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill,
+     And come not by the far sea-way, yet come he surely will.
+     Close all the roads of all the world--_Love's road is open still_.'
+
+"Do you believe that is true?"
+
+"Not for me," he answered in a hoarse voice, so bitter, so resentful
+that it startled her, coming as it did after long silence. He gripped
+the arms of his chair again, as if in pain too great to endure, and then
+burst out vehemently, "_Every_ road is closed to me now! It wouldn't be
+so hard if there was any prospect of the end coming soon, but I may have
+to hang on this way for years--just a living death! Caged in this
+helpless hulk of a body, a drag on every one and a misery to myself!
+_Heavens!_ If I could only end it all!"
+
+"Oh, Jack!" begged Mary, starting up, tears in her eyes. "Don't talk
+that way! You're not a drag on anybody! We couldn't live without you!
+You've been so brave--just like Aldebaran in the Jester's Sword. '_So
+bravely did he bear his lot, it seemed a kingly spirit dwelt among us!_'
+Don't you know that just having you with us is more to us than anything
+else in the whole world?"
+
+She was fairly wringing her hands in her distress over this revelation
+of the overwhelming bitterness of Jack's soul. For months he had been
+so cheerful, hiding his real feelings under a playfulness of manner,
+that it was a shock to her to find that his cheerfulness was only
+assumed. Because he "had met his hurt so bravely and made no sign" she,
+like the Jester, thought "the struggle had grown easier with time, and
+that he really felt the gladness that he feigned." Like the Jester, too,
+she was "at her wit's end for a reply." She could think of no word of
+comfort.
+
+The loud halloo which sounded just then in a familiar voice from up the
+creek, was a welcome interruption. The next instant Norman came in sight
+around the curve. He was standing up in a flat-bottomed boat, poling
+down stream towards them, with the vigor and skill of a young Indian. It
+was a clumsy, home-made affair, with "The Swan" painted in blue letters
+on the side.
+
+"She's mine for the winter!" he announced joyfully, as soon as he was
+within speaking distance. "A man who lives up past Klein's crossing
+rented it to me. I'm to chop wood awhile every Saturday to pay for the
+use of it."
+
+Norman was so interested in his new possession that he could not see
+that he had interrupted a conversation of tragic seriousness.
+
+"Come on and get in, Mary," he urged. "It's great. Beats those old rafts
+you used to pole at Lee's ranch, all hollow. Don't you want to try it?"
+
+Mary hesitated. To go off and leave Jack sitting on the creek-bank,
+unable to accompany her, would emphasize his crippled condition. To
+refuse to leave him would only be added proof in his present sensitive
+mood that he was a "drag on every one."
+
+"The sun is dropping so low we ought to be starting home before it
+begins to get chilly," she said with a meaning glance towards Jack,
+which to her relief Norman interpreted aright. He answered cheerfully,
+
+"Oh, go on! It's a cinch _you_ won't get chilly if you push that old
+boat along as fast as I did, and if we get cold waiting for you, it
+won't be many minutes till we'll be 'seen, a-rolling down the Bowling
+Green' towards home."
+
+"All right, then," said Mary, climbing in as he climbed out to hold the
+boat steady for her. "I won't go far, but I'm surely glad to get out on
+the water again."
+
+She took the oar he handed her, and with a skilful push against the bank
+she sent the boat gliding out into the stream. As she went off she
+thought: "That was considerate of Norman, to put it the way he did--to
+include Jack with himself as a matter of course, and not to remind him
+of his helplessness by saying he'd stay and take care of him. Norman has
+lots of tact for a boy of his age; more than I have. I must have hurt
+Jack many a time by my inconsiderate speeches, but I had no idea he felt
+so horribly sensitive about being dependent."
+
+All the way up the creek she was so occupied with thinking of what Jack
+had said, and so depressed over the depths of mental suffering which his
+exclamations revealed, that she plied her oar mechanically, only partly
+awake to the scenes about her. But the long even strokes, first on one
+side and then the other, sent her darting forward through the water so
+rapidly that she soon reached a turn in the creek which she had never
+passed before, and as she rounded the curve such a beautiful sight
+greeted her that she cried out in pleased surprise, "How perfectly
+_heavenly_!"
+
+On one side the bank towered up into a high, steep cliff, straight as a
+wall. It was completely covered with ferns; delicate, feathery
+maiden-hair ferns, as luxuriantly green as in mid-summer. In this
+sheltered spot they were still left untouched by the frost, although it
+was now December. Everywhere else vegetation was dry and sere, but the
+green freshness of this bank was accounted for by a number of tiny
+water-falls splashing down from unseen springs above, and sending a
+light spray in every direction, as fine as mist.
+
+"I'm coming straight back here in the morning," she said to herself,
+"and dig up a lot of these ferns before the frost gets them. I can't
+think of anything lovelier to send to Gay for a Christmas greeting than
+a clump of them growing in a box--a rustic box covered with bark and
+dainty lichens. One would be nice for Mrs. Rochester, too. She's just
+the kind that would appreciate such a gift. Well, that solves two of my
+hardest problems of what to give." That trip up the creek in _The Swan_
+was a voyage of discovery in more ways than one, for Mary came upon the
+fact that she had grown older in the last quarter of an hour, quite as
+suddenly and unexpectedly as she had come upon the fern-bank. That cry
+of Jack's, "Heavens! If I could only end it all!" had shocked her into a
+deeper understanding of pain, and human limits of endurance.
+
+She had always prided herself on her ability to imagine herself in
+other people's places, and until now had believed that she fully
+understood and appreciated the depths of Jack's suffering. Now she saw
+that she had not even begun to fathom it. His bravery had deceived her.
+All the while that she had been thinking that he was growing accustomed
+to his lot and that time was making it easier for him to bear, a fire of
+rebellion was smouldering fiercely within him, making each day one of
+new torture.
+
+[Illustration: MARY WARE in TEXAS
+
+"She sent the boat down stream with long swift strokes."]
+
+Because she could plaster up her own small hurts with platitudes and
+proverbs, and ease her disappointments by counting her blessings "as one
+would count the beads upon a rosary" she had vainly imagined that all
+this would be balm for him. How many times she had offered him such
+comfort, feeling with childish complacency that she was helping to ease
+his pain. She understood now. A sugarplum may help one to forget a
+bee-sting, but a death-thrust is another matter.
+
+Absorbed in her thoughts, she sent the boat down stream with long, swift
+strokes, not noticing how fast it was going. Helped by the current, she
+came in sight of Jack and Norman before she had mentally adjusted
+herself to her new view-point. She was afraid that as soon as she and
+Jack were left alone again they would find themselves facing the same
+wall of blank despair, and she dreaded it. So to gain time, she began
+calling to them about the wonderful bank of ferns she had discovered,
+and made several awkward thrusts of the oar in an attempt to land,
+before she finally ran the boat up on the bank.
+
+But Norman did not leave them alone. Deciding that that secluded spot
+would be a good place to chain the boat, and that it was time to be
+doing his evening chores, he slipped the padlock key in his pocket and
+handed the oar over to Mary, saying, "You carry this and I'll wheel the
+chair."
+
+Jack had taken a new grip on his courage, and if Mary could have but
+known it, it was by the help of one of the very means she had branded as
+futile, a few moments before. The sight of the bloodstone on his
+watch-fob, as he glanced at the time, recalled the story of the poor
+Jester who had been born in Mars month, like himself, and for that
+reason had cause to claim undaunted courage as the "jewel of his soul."
+The merest flicker of a smile crossed Jack's grimly-set lips as he
+looked down at the bloodstone and thought of all it stood for; and
+pulling himself together he whispered the Jester's vow between clenched
+teeth: "I'll keep my oath until the going down of one more sun."
+
+When Mary joined them he was chaffing Norman quite as usual, and
+immediately began to joke about the awkward landing she had made. On the
+way home Norman laughed often, thinking that Jack was in one of his
+jolliest moods; but Mary walked beside them, the oar over her shoulder,
+saying to herself, "And under all this brave show, _he's feeling every
+minute that he'd be glad to die_!"
+
+When she reached the house Mrs. Ware met them at the door, and Mary,
+passing in quietly as Norman began telling about the boat, suddenly
+remembered that that was not the natural way for her to come home.
+Whenever she had any news she fairly tumbled into the house in her haste
+to tell it. The boys knew that she had discovered the bank of ferns, and
+that it was as exciting as Norman's discovery of a boat, because it
+would provide some of her Christmas presents without cost. Yet here she
+was walking in as calmly as if she were fifty years old and had outgrown
+her girlish enthusiasms. It certainly was not natural.
+
+So she turned back and interrupted Norman, because that was what she
+always did when she was in a hurry to tell things, and she tried to make
+her description as full of life and color as she usually did; but all
+the time she had a feeling that she was acting.
+
+Mrs. Ware expressed her interest with many pleased exclamations as she
+always did when Mary came to her with any new-found cause for rejoicing,
+but Mary, suddenly grown keen of vision, saw the look of anxiety and
+weariness that seemed to lie in the back of her eyes behind the smile.
+"I wonder," she mused, "if mamma is acting, too, if her gladness is only
+on the surface, and she smiles to keep up her courage and ours, as they
+say little boys whistle in the dark. Oh, it's dreadful to grow up if one
+has to lose faith in this being a good old world. It used to seem so
+happy all the time, and now it's all so sorrowful and out of joint."
+
+She went into her room to wash her hands and get an apron before going
+out into the kitchen to help prepare supper. As she stood tying the
+apron-strings, she looked up at Lloyd Sherman's picture which hung over
+her bed, as it used to hang in Warwick Hall and at Lone Rock, when she
+pretended that it was Lloyd's _shadow-self_, the chum to whom she could
+carry all her troubles, sure of silent sympathy. But somehow, while the
+beautiful eyes smiled down into hers as kindly as they had always done,
+they did not bring the sense of her presence. They did not speak to her
+as they had done those other times when she turned to them for the
+imagined communion that always brightened her spirits.
+
+"It's never seemed the same since I knew she was engaged," Mary thought
+with a sigh. "Of course I know she's just as fond of me as she was
+before, but I can't help feeling that she's so taken up with other
+things now, her life so heavenly full since she has found her prince,
+that she _can't_ take the same interest in my affairs."
+
+As she passed the mirror she turned back for a second glance. The first
+had shown her the fresh unlined face of a girl of seventeen, but judging
+by the way she felt she was sure there should be wrinkles. The weight of
+world-weariness and disillusionment and foreboding which depressed her,
+certainly could not belong to youth. They must be the property of an old
+woman, in her sixties at least.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CHRISTMAS
+
+
+TEN days before Christmas Mary opened the bottom drawer of her bureau,
+in which she had placed each gift as soon as it was finished, and
+sitting down on the floor beside it, proceeded to take an inventory of
+the packages within. They were all wrapped, stamped and addressed, but
+she had made them ready without a single Christmas thrill. There was
+nothing in the climate or surroundings to suggest the holiday season,
+and she compared this year's preparations with the year before at
+Warwick Hall, when the very air seemed charged with a spirit of
+delightful expectancy; when everybody had secrets and went around
+smiling and humming snatches of carols which the choir-girls were
+practising for the service in the chapel.
+
+Mechanically she counted the bundles and checked them off her list: the
+ones for Holland, for Joyce, for Eugenia, the bunny doll with the
+chamois skin head which she had made for little Patricia. She was very
+well satisfied with them all, as well as with the fancy trifles she had
+made for Lloyd and Betty and the girls at school, with whom she still
+kept up a correspondence. They were inexpensive, but they were original
+and appropriate.
+
+Allowing for the crowded condition of the mails, she decided that the
+packages which had the longest distance to go should be started that
+very day. These she took from the drawer and piled on her bed, and then
+got out her pen to begin the writing of her Christmas letters.
+
+Now one may make all sorts of dainty gifts, and tie them with holly
+ribbon, and send them away in Christmasy looking packages which will
+bring a glow to the heart of the one who opens them, and yet do it all
+without one spark of festal feeling herself. But it is impossible to
+write a Christmas letter and put the proper zest into its greetings,
+unless one is a-tingle with it. When Mary discovered that fact, she tore
+up the sheets on which she had made various beginnings, and put the cork
+in her ink-bottle.
+
+"I can't do it any more than I could keep Thanksgiving on the Fourth of
+July or New Year's on April Fool's day," she thought. "Luckily the
+letters travel faster than second-class mail, so I'll take my packages
+to the post-office now, and then go out in the boat awhile, and think
+about snow and sleigh-bells and holly berries till I work myself up to
+the proper mood."
+
+As she started out of the door her mother called to her to remind her
+that they needed eggs. That meant that Mary was to go around by the Metz
+place to get them on her way home, which would take so much longer that
+there wouldn't be much time for meditation in the boat. But it was in
+going for the eggs that she came across the very inspiration of which
+she was in quest.
+
+Mr. Metz and his wife were sitting on a bench in the sunny garden near
+the kitchen door, when Mary opened the gate. Looking up the path between
+the stiff rows of coxcombs and prince's feather, she could see that the
+old lady was knitting, as usual. He sat with a newspaper across his
+knees, and his spectacles folded in one hand. The other grasped the end
+of his long white beard which flowed almost to his lap.
+
+They were both singing; singing with the quavering voices of age, a song
+which they had brought with them from their far away youth in the
+beloved Fatherland. It was a song of Christmas joy which they had
+carolled many a time around a candle-lighted tree. Their voices were
+thin and tremulous, and broke now and then on the high notes, but it was
+a gay little tune, very sweet and full of cheer; and Mary, who stopped
+to listen just inside the gate, was thankful that they had not heard the
+latch click. When it came to an end she waited a moment, hoping there
+would be another verse, but they began to talk, and she started on up
+the path. But halfway to the house she paused again, for they had begun
+another song.
+
+"_Am Weinachtsbaum die Lichter brennen!_"
+
+Their voices came to a sudden stop at the end of that line, however, as
+they became aware of an approaching visitor. Mary hurried forward
+saying, "Oh, I understood one word of it. You were singing about a
+Christmas tree, weren't you? The children in the blue cottages across
+from us have been talking about a 'Weinachtsbaum' all week. Please don't
+stop. It sounded so sweet as I came in at the gate."
+
+At some other time the old couple might have been hard to persuade, but
+the holiday season was their high-tide of the year, and its return
+always swept them along with a rush of happy memories, to a state of
+enjoyment that was almost childish in its outward manifestation. Finding
+that Mary was really interested in hearing them talk of the customs of
+their youth, they began a series of reminiscences so interesting that
+she could have listened all day.
+
+Seventy Christmases they could remember distinctly, besides the dim
+impressions of several earlier ones. In the course of describing them it
+came about quite naturally that they should sing her the interrupted
+song.
+
+The old man, because he spoke better English than his wife, interpreted
+the verses first. But even his speech was halting and broken, and he
+pulled his white beard desperately, and used many despairing gestures
+when he could not find the right word. She, clicking her needles, kept
+up a constant nodding while he explained.
+
+"On the Christmas tree the lights are burning. The children gaze at the
+what you call it--picture--scene--till the eye laughs and the heart
+laughs and the old look Himmelwartz, heavenwards that means, with
+blessed rapture."
+
+"Yah, yah!" nodded the old wife, prompting him as he paused. "Zwei
+Engel"--
+
+"Two angels appear," he repeated, going haltingly on with the next
+verse. Mary could not understand all that he tried to convey, but she
+caught the meaning of the last part, that the day brings God's blessing
+to young and old alike, to the white as well as the brown hair.
+
+"It is the same all over the world," he said, clearing his throat
+preparatory to singing the lines he had just translated.
+
+"We will be alone this year. We cannot go to our children and they
+cannot come to us. But we shall not feel alone. We will make ready one
+little tree, and in our hearts we will join hands with all the happy
+ones who greet the _Weinachtsbaum_. We will be part of that circle which
+reaches around the whole wide world."
+
+The quavering old voices took up the tune, and although Mary recognized
+only three words, Christmas-tree, angels and heavenward, there was
+something in the zest with which they sung it, something in the
+expression of the wrinkled old faces, which gave her the inspiration she
+was in search of. It was as if she had brought to them a little
+unlighted candle, and they had kindled it at the flame of their own
+glowing ones.
+
+When Mary went home she was more like her accustomed self than she had
+been for days. She went dancing into the house with the eggs, and
+immediately set about the writing of her Christmas letters in her usual
+resourceful way. Mrs. Ware looked up, much amused, to see her piling
+some fresh orange peel and bits of broken cedar on the table beside her
+ink-bottle.
+
+"There's nothing like that combination of smells to make you think that
+Santa Claus is coming straight down the chimney," exclaimed Mary
+gravely, catching her mother's amused glance. "You may think it is
+foolish, but really it makes all the Christmases I have ever known stand
+right up in a row in front of me, whenever I smell that smell."
+
+She rubbed a bit of the fresh peel and then a piece of the cedar between
+her palms to bring out the pungent fragrance, and afterwards, from time
+to time, bent over it for another whiff to bring her new inspiration.
+
+By the twentieth of December the last letter and the last out-of-town
+package but one was started on its way. Gay's box of ferns, a mass of
+luxuriant, feathery greenness, sat on a window-sill, waiting for its
+time to go. The crate in which it was to be shipped stood ready in the
+wood-shed, even to the address on the express-tag. Then time began to
+drag. The next two days, although the shortest in the year, seemed many
+times longer than usual.
+
+"It's like trying to keep things hot when somebody is late and keeps
+dinner waiting," complained Mary. "If you can't eat when it's all ready,
+some of the things are sure to dry up and some to get cold. I was worked
+up to quite a festive state of mind day before yesterday, but my
+enthusiasm is all drying up and cooling off now."
+
+"Here's something to warm it over again," announced Norman, coming in
+from the express office with a box on his shoulder. "Here's the first
+gift to arrive. Let's open up right now, and open each thing that comes
+after this _when_ it comes instead of waiting for one grand surprise on
+Christmas morning. You never will try my way, and it would spread the
+pleasure out and make it last lots longer if you only would. You're
+bound to get more enjoyment out of each thing if you give your undivided
+attention to it."
+
+For once Norman's suggestion, made yearly, was not opposed, and as he
+pried the lid off the box Mary flopped down on the floor beside it, Jack
+wheeled his chair closer, and Mrs. Ware came in from the next room in
+answer to their eager calls that it was from Joyce.
+
+Each one of the studio family had contributed to the filling of the box.
+The holly-wreaths on top, tied with great bows of wide red ribbon, were
+from Miss Henrietta Robbins.
+
+"Don't you know," exclaimed Mary, as she lifted them out and held them
+up for them all to admire, "that Miss Henrietta has turned that studio
+into a perfect bower of Christmas greens? She gives it all the elegant
+costly touches that Joyce never could afford, just as she's put the
+finishing touch on these wreaths with this beautiful ribbon. It's wide
+enough and satiny enough for a sash."
+
+"And isn't it just like little Mrs. Boyd to send _this_!" she cried a
+moment later, when the opening of a fancy pasteboard box revealed a doll
+about six inches long, dressed like a ballet dancer. Its fluffy scarlet
+skirts hid the leaves of a needle-book, concealed among its folds, and
+from the ends of the sash, by which it was intended to dangle, hung a
+tiny emery bag in the shape of a strawberry, and a little silk
+thimble-case.
+
+"She got the idea for that from the Ladies' Home Magazine, I am sure.
+She adores the pages that tell how to evolve your entire spring outfit
+from a shoe-string and a strip of left-over embroidery. It's not that
+she's trying to economize. Joyce says she has the piece-bag habit. The
+girls tease her about not being able to see a scrap of goods without
+wishing to find some way to use it, but they love the homey flavor her
+home-made things give to the house. She is as old-fashioned and dear in
+her ways as she is in her ideas of art."
+
+"That is an unusually pretty doll," remarked Mrs. Ware as Mary swung it
+around by its sash.
+
+"Yes," she answered, "it's the kind Hazel Lee and I were always wishing
+for. Ours were flaxen haired, and this has raven curls. We would have
+called her 'Lady Agatha' if we had had her then. I believe I'll name her
+that now," she added with a glance towards Jack to see if he understood
+the allusion.
+
+But Jack was not noticing. He was turning the pages of a handsomely
+illustrated work on Geology, a book he had long wanted to own. Joyce had
+had little to spend this year compared with last, but in her hurried
+shopping expeditions, she had considered the tastes and needs of each
+one so well that every gift was hailed with delight.
+
+"Norman's way is a dandy one," acknowledged Mary, as she opened a box of
+fine stationery engraved with her monogram, the first she had ever
+owned. "Now I can write my note to Gay on this. If we had waited I
+should have had to use the common paper that we buy at the drug-store
+by the pound, because it is cheap. And it's so nice too, to have these
+holly-wreaths beforehand."
+
+She danced away to hang them in the windows, and to swing the Lady
+Agatha from a corner of the mirror over her bureau, where her hidden
+needle-book could readily be reached. Then she thriftily gathered up
+every bit of ribbon and tinsel from the discarded wrappings, smoothed
+out the tissue paper and picked loose from it all the adhering seals
+that had not been broken in the process of tearing open the packages.
+
+"Here's seven whole seals with holly on them," she announced to her
+mother, "six with Santa Claus heads and four with the greeting Merry
+Christmas. I'm going to use them over again in doing up the rest of my
+packages. That box that the doll came in is exactly what I want to put
+the candy in that I made for the Barnabys. And that plain one that holds
+the stuffed dates that Lucy Boyd sent will do for the candy I'm going to
+send Mr. and Mrs. Metz. All I'll need to do is to cover it with some of
+this holly paper and tie it with the same gold cord. I'll find a use for
+nearly everything I've saved before the week is over."
+
+She said it in a tone of such deep satisfaction that Norman looked up
+from the book and other gifts in which he had seemed absorbed, to laugh
+at her.
+
+"Mary is like that old woman who wrote those recipes for cheap pies in
+that old New England cook-book we have at home," he said to his mother.
+"She thinks 'a little Ingenuity added to almost any material that comes
+to hand will make a tasty pie!' You ought to send the Ladies' Home
+Magazine some pointers, Mary, on '_How to make Christmas gifts for
+others on the wrappings of those sent you_.' Didn't some one say
+something about the _scrap-bag_ habit awhile ago?"
+
+Mary's only answer was a saucy grimace. She could afford to let him
+tease her about her squirrel instinct for hoarding, when it gave her so
+much satisfaction to add to her store of scraps. She had all sorts of
+things to draw on in emergencies. In the one month they had been in
+Bauer she had nearly filled a shoe-box with odds and ends. She had
+sheets of tin-foil, saved from packages of chocolate, picture cards,
+little bottles and boxes and various samples of toilet articles sent out
+by firms who advertise their goods in that way.
+
+For the next two days every mail brought greetings and remembrances to
+some one of the family, sometimes to all, so that the hours slipped by
+at a fairly rapid pace. One of the gifts which gave Mary most pleasure
+was the chiffon scarf that Lloyd sent. It was like the one Roberta wore
+the first evening Mary had seen her, and which she rapturously compared
+to "a moonbeam spangled with dew-drops," only she thought hers far
+lovelier than Roberta's. A dozen times a day she slipped into her room
+to take the floating, filmy web from its box, and spread it out to gloat
+over it. She had to try the effects of different lights on it, sunshine
+and moonlight and the rays of the lamp. She spread it over different
+dresses, white, pink and green, to see which produced the prettiest
+glimmers, and Norman caught her once posing before a mirror with it
+draped over head, and teased her all the rest of the evening.
+
+Betty's gift was a simple, inexpensive one, intended merely as a
+greeting. It was only a green bay-berry candle, but the card tied to it
+by a scarlet bow bore the verse:
+
+    "This bay-berry candle's tongue of flame
+     Bears message. Prithee hear it!
+    _While it burns mid your Christmas greens
+     I'm with you all in spirit!_"
+
+"I'm glad that it's a big fat candle," said Mary, passing it around for
+each one to enjoy the spicy, aromatic fragrance. "It'll burn a long
+time."
+
+She lighted it Christmas eve and put it in the centre of the table with
+one of the holly-wreaths laid around the base, and the tongue of flame
+did seem to "bear message." It started Mary to talking of her absent
+friend; of the bloodstone and the Good Times book Betty had given her.
+Of Betty's clear brown eyes and dearer ways, of Betty's sweet
+consideration for others, of her talent for writing which was sure to
+make her famous some day. She talked of her all during supper, not
+noticing that Jack was unusually silent, and that his eyes rested
+oftener on the candle than it did on his plate.
+
+As they left the table Mr. Metz appeared at the door like a veritable
+old Santa Claus, with his long white beard and eyes a-twinkle. In one
+arm he carried a big round hat-box full of nuts, in the other two
+bottles of home-made wine. His own pecan trees and vineyard had
+furnished his offering. He thanked them so volubly in his broken way for
+the little gifts that Norman had carried over when he went for the milk,
+and delivered his nuts and wine with such benign smiles and a flow of
+good wishes from his wife and himself, that Mary gave a skip of
+pleasure when she closed the door after him. She went back to the
+kitchen singing:
+
+"'Now jingle, jingle, come Kris Kringle!' Oh, I feel as if the old
+fellow himself had really been here. He and Betty's candle have given me
+a real Night-before-Christmas-and-all-through-the-house feeling. It's
+lovely!"
+
+They had had supper so early that it was barely dusk outdoors when she
+and Norman started to take the box of ferns to the rectory. When they
+had passed the cotton field, the bend in the road soon brought them to
+the edge of the village, and the beginning of the short thoroughfare
+which led to the main street, past the cotton-gin and the Free
+Camp-yard.
+
+The Free Camp-yard was always an interesting place to both of them, and
+they never passed it without looking in. It was a large lot surrounded
+by a high board fence. Low sheds were built along one side within the
+enclosure, in which both men and beasts might find shelter in time of
+storm. Usually they slept in the open, however, with little campfires
+here and there to boil their coffee and give them light. Peddlers,
+hucksters and belated country people were its usual patrons. But
+sometimes one saw a family of armadillo hunters on their way to the
+curio dealers, with crates full of the queer nine-banded shells which
+can be made into baskets, simply by tying the head and tail together.
+
+One evening Mary saw two country belles, putting the finishing touches
+to their toilets behind a wagon, by the aid of a pocket-mirror. They had
+come in for one of the Saturday night balls, held regularly in the town
+hall. The week before, part of a disbanded freak show had taken refuge
+in the camp-yard. Norman, peeping through a knot-hole, the gate being
+shut, had seen the Armless Man scratch a match and light a fire with his
+toes.
+
+It was deserted to-night, except for a dilapidated covered wagon which
+had driven in a few minutes before. It was drawn by a big bony horse and
+a dejected little burro, and piled high with household goods. A gaunt,
+rough-looking man with a week's stubble of red beard on his chin, was
+beginning to unhitch. His wife, who was only a young thing, and pretty
+in a worn, faded way, put down the sleeping baby that she had been
+holding, and stretched her arms wearily. She seemed too tired and
+listless to move till one of the two children, who were climbing down
+over the wheel, fell and began to whimper. A pair of hounds that had
+trailed along behind dropped down under the wagon as if they had
+followed a long way and were utterly exhausted.
+
+"Did you ever see anything so forlorn in all your life!" exclaimed
+Norman as they passed on. "And Christmas eve, too. I don't suppose those
+poor little kids will have a thing."
+
+"No, I suppose not," answered Mary. "It seems a shame, too, when
+there'll probably be a tree in every house in Bauer. Mrs. Metz says that
+is one custom that they keep up here as faithfully as they do in the old
+country. Even the poorest families will manage to get one somehow."
+
+"Those were cute kids," Norman went on, too much interested in what he
+had just seen to put the subject by. "That oldest little girl with the
+yellow curls looked like a big doll, and the little one is almost as
+pretty."
+
+He spoke of them again on the way back, after they had left the ferns at
+the rectory, and turned homeward. The lights were beginning to twinkle
+all down the long street. In every house they passed, where the shades
+had not been drawn, they could see a tree, standing all ready for the
+lighting, from gift-laden base to top-most taper. As they drew near the
+camp-yard again they saw the red-whiskered man going into the corner
+grocery with a tin pail on his arm. At the camp-yard gate they looked
+in. A small fire had been started, over which a battered coffee-pot had
+been set to boil. The burro and the bony horse were munching fodder near
+the wagon, but the woman and the children had disappeared.
+
+"There they are," whispered Mary, pointing down the road a little way to
+a group standing in front of the pretty green and white cottage next to
+the cotton gin. The lace curtains had been dropped over the windows, but
+they did not hide the gay scene within. The family was having its
+celebration early, because the two small lads for whom it was designed
+were so young that their bedtime came early. They were handsome little
+fellows, one in kilts and the other just promoted to trousers. The gifts
+hanging from the lighted boughs were many and costly. The two little
+ones outside looking in, had never seen anything so fine and beautiful
+before, and stood gazing in round-eyed wonder. Attracted by the music
+they had strayed down from the camp-yard, and their mother had followed
+with the sleeping baby thrown across her shoulder, to bring them back.
+Now she, too, stood and stared.
+
+The phonograph was still playing when Mary and Norman reached the gate,
+so they paused to listen, also, more interested in the watchers outside
+however, than the revellers within.
+
+Presently Mary turned to the woman, saying, "It's pretty, _isn't_ it?"
+in such a friendly way that her remark called out an equally friendly
+response, and in a few moments she had learned what she wanted most to
+know about the strangers. They were moving on to the next county, having
+already been two days and a night on the road. Her man thought he could
+find work in the cedar brakes.
+
+They stood talking until the phonograph stopped, then a glance over her
+shoulder told the woman that her husband was returning to the wagon, and
+she turned to go. The children were loath to leave, however.
+
+"It's their first sight of Sandy Claws," she remarked as if to explain
+their unwillingness. Then as one of them stumbled and caught at her
+skirts she added impatiently, "I reckon it's likely to be your last. He
+don't care anything for the likes of _us_."
+
+It was said so bitterly, that as Norman trudged on in the opposite
+direction with his sister, he exclaimed in a regretful tone, "It's too
+bad that we didn't find out about them sooner, in time to fix something
+for them. It sort of spoils my own Christmas to think of those kids
+going without."
+
+"They are not going without," replied Mary promptly, who had been
+thinking rapidly as she walked. "We've got to get something ready for
+them before they shut their eyes to-night."
+
+"Huh, I'd like to know how you'll do it this late," Norman answered.
+
+She laughed in reply, saying teasingly, "Who was it said that 'A little
+Ingenuity added to almost any material that comes to hand will make a
+tasty pie?' Well, it will make a tasty tree too. If you'll help I'll
+have one ready in an hour."
+
+His skeptical "I don't believe it! Why, you _can't_!" was all she needed
+to start her to working out her resolution with the force of a young
+whirlwind. She could plan with lightning-like rapidity when any need
+arose.
+
+"I said if you'd all help," she reminded him.
+
+As soon as he had expressed a hearty willingness to do anything he could
+to carry "Sandy Claws" to the camp-yard, she began.
+
+"The minute we get home, you hack off one of the bottom branches of that
+cedar tree outside the gate; a good bushy one about three feet high. Put
+it into the box that Joyce's presents came in, and nail it in place
+with cleats made from the lid. Better weight it with some stones in the
+bottom, and we can tack green crêpe paper all over the base. We've
+nothing but ordinary white candles, but we can cut them in two, and wire
+them on with hairpins, and cover the pins with tinfoil out of my
+scrap-box that you make so much fun of. That will be _your_ part.
+
+"There's some corn already popped, waiting till I get back, to be made
+into balls. I'll get mamma to string it instead, and Jack to make a lot
+of little gilt cornucopias out of some stuff I've saved. I'm sure he'll
+donate the candy cane Joyce sent as a joke, although he is so fond of
+old-fashioned striped peppermint sticks. We'll break it up into short
+pieces and hang that on. And we can tie up a few dates and nuts into
+tiny packages. There are fancy papers and ribbons galore in that
+aforesaid scrap-box. I'll think of more after we get started. Come on,
+let's race the rest of the way. The one who gets there first can tell
+the others."
+
+Norman reached the front door several yards ahead of Mary, but he did
+not claim his privilege. He merely rushed into the kitchen for a
+hatchet, calling as he dashed out again, "Sixty minutes to make a
+Christmas tree in! Everybody get to work." Mary did not stop to take
+off her hat. Throwing off her coat, she began talking "on the bounce" as
+Jack said, for she hurried from one room to the other, explaining at the
+top of her voice, while she gathered up pop-corn, scrap-box, paste-tube
+and scissors. Her enthusiasm was so contagious, her description of the
+camp-yard pilgrims so appealing, that by the time she had finished her
+breathless account of them Jack had begun cutting squares of gilt paper
+and Mrs. Ware was stringing corn as if they were working to win a wager.
+
+The race against time was the most exciting experience they had had in
+Bauer. They watched the clock with many laughing exclamations, but were
+working too fast to talk much. In twenty minutes Norman brought in a
+shapely little tree firmly fastened on a green base. In thirty minutes
+more the candles were wired in place; a few skilful twists had turned
+part of the tinfoil into silvery ornaments to hang beneath, while the
+rest had gone to the making of a great star to blaze on the top-most
+bough. White strings of pop-corn were festooned around it like garlands
+of snow. Every branch was bright with gilt and silver and blue and red
+packages, holding only a nut or a sweetmeat it is true, but adding much
+to the gay attire of the tree.
+
+A little pocket-mirror flashed from one bough, a fancy sample bottle of
+perfume hung from another. A miniature cake of scented soap and many
+fluttering picture cards bore witness to the resources of the scrap-box.
+Then exclaiming over a sudden happy thought Mary darted into the bedroom
+and took down Lady Agatha. Three snips of the scissors robbed her of the
+needle book hidden under her fluffy scarlet skirts and of the emery bag
+and thimble case tied to her sash ends, and left her no longer useful;
+only so ornamental that any little girl would have been glad to take her
+to her arms and affection.
+
+"I know Mrs. Boyd wouldn't mind my passing it on to those children,"
+Mary said as she tied it to one of the highest branches, "if she knew
+that it makes me happy as well as them."
+
+"But," asked Norman, "what if Goldilocks and her sister both want to
+play with it at the same time? What will the left-out one do?"
+
+Mary thought an instant and then flew to the tray of her trunk to snatch
+out a woolly toy lamb, that had fallen to her lot from the mock
+Christmas tree at Warwick Hall.
+
+"I brought it down to Texas with me because Dorene said that 'everywhere
+that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.' I expected to keep it always as
+a reminder of that lovely evening, but--" with a half stifled sigh, "it
+will do them more good than me."
+
+When that was in place she gave one last glance around the room to see
+what else she could appropriate. Her eyes fell on the holly wreaths.
+
+"Those red bows will make lovely hair-ribbons," she cried. "We can spare
+two of them. Hurry, mamma, and help me untie them! The needle-book may
+as well go too. Pin it on, Norman, and stick a date in the thimble bag
+and swing it up, Jack."
+
+In the meantime Norman had been lighting the candles in order that they
+might see how it looked when it was all ashine, and it stood now, a very
+creditable and a very bright little tree. There were none of the
+spun-glass birds and crystal icicles and artificial fruits that had made
+little Patricia's tree such a gorgeous affair the year before, and were
+probably making it beautiful to-night, but there was sparkle and color
+and glow and charm of beribboned packages, enough to make little eyes
+who saw such a sight for the first time believe that it was the work of
+magic hands.
+
+"Done!" cried Mary triumphantly, "and in only fifty-eight minutes!"
+
+"Well, I didn't believe it would be possible," acknowledged Norman.
+"I'll bet it's the only tree in Texas trimmed in such short order."
+
+When he and Mary reached the camp-yard again, they found the family
+sitting around the smouldering fire, listening to the phonograph which
+was still playing in the cottage down the road. The quilts were spread
+out in the wagon, ready for the night, but the children, who had slept
+most of the afternoon on their tiresome journey, could not be induced to
+climb in while the music lasted.
+
+The two bearers of Yule-tide cheer set the tree down and reconnoitered
+through cracks in the fence. "The man looks awfully down in the mouth,"
+whispered Norman. "So does she. Shall we tell them 'Sandy Claws' sent
+it?"
+
+"No," Mary whispered back. "They look so forlorn and friendless, and the
+woman seemed to feel so left out of everything, that it might do them
+good to tell them we brought it because the angels sang peace on earth,
+good-will to men, and that it's a sort of sign that they're _not_ left
+out. They're to have a part in it too."
+
+Norman turned his eye from the knot-hole to gape at her. "Well!" was
+his whispered ejaculation. "If you want all _that_ said you'll have to
+say it yourself. I'm no preacher."
+
+"Come on then," said Mary boldly. She knew what she wanted to convey to
+them but the words stuck in her throat, and she never could remember
+afterwards exactly what she blurted out as they put the tree down in
+front of the astonished family and then turned and ran. However, her
+words must have carried some of the good cheer she intended, for when
+she and Norman paused again outside, she at the knot-hole this time and
+he at the crack, it gave them each a queer little flutter inside to see
+the expression on the pleased faces and hear their exclamations of
+wonder.
+
+"They couldn't be more surprised if it had dropped right down out of the
+sky," whispered Norman. "Now the kids are getting over their daze a bit.
+They're hopping around just like they saw the Kramer boys do."
+
+"See, they've found Lady Agatha," answered Mary. "Just _look_ at
+Goldilocks now! Did you ever see such an ecstatic little face. I
+wouldn't have missed it for anything. Now they've got the lamb. I'm so
+glad I thought of it, for the Kramers had a whole bunch of little white
+sheep around the base of their tree."
+
+They were both very quiet when they finally turned away from the fence
+and started home. They did not speak till they reached the white
+moonlighted road, stretching past the cotton field. Then Mary looked up
+at the stars saying reverently, "Somehow I feel as if we'd been taking
+part in the _first_ Christmas. It was a sort of camp-yard that the Star
+of Bethlehem led to. Don't you remember, 'there was no room in the inn'
+for the Child and His mother? It was a manger the gold and frankincense
+and myrrh were carried to. I feel as if we'd been following along--a
+little way at least--on the trail of the Wise Men."
+
+"Me too," confessed Norman. Then nothing more was said for a long time.
+Mary could find no words for the next thoughts which puzzled her. She
+was picturing all the Christmas trees of the world brought together in
+one place, and trying to imagine the enormous forest they would make.
+Then she fell to wondering what it was about them that should make "the
+eye laugh and the heart laugh, and bring a blessing to the silver hair
+as well as brown" as the old couple had sung in the garden. All over the
+world it was so.
+
+Since looking into the windows at other peoples' trees, and then causing
+one to bloom and bear fruit herself for the homeless campers, she felt
+that she had joined hands with that circle which reaches around the
+world. She was no longer an alien and stranger among the people of
+Bauer. The "Weinachtsbaum" had given her a happy bond of understanding
+and kinship. It had taken the hard, hopeless look out of the older faces
+around the camp-fire, for awhile at least, and made the little ones
+radiant. And at home--she remembered gratefully how Jack had burst out
+whistling several times while he helped to trim it. And the tune that
+came in such lusty, rollicking outbursts was one which he never whistled
+except when he was in high good humor with himself and all the universe.
+She was sure that he wasn't acting then--he couldn't have been just
+pretending that he was glad, for it sounded as it always used to do back
+at the Wigwam. She wondered why the tree had had that effect.
+
+And then, like an answer, a verse popped into her thoughts; one that she
+had spelled out long ago for Grandmother Ware, letter by letter, one
+little finger pointing to each in turn. It was a verse from Revelation,
+about the tree that stands on either side of the river, clear as
+crystal, "_which bare twelve manner of fruit, and the leaves were for
+the healing of the nations_."
+
+Then all of a sudden she understood why those shining boughs with their
+strange fruitage of gifts have power to bring hope and good cheer to
+lonely hearts the world over. They are the symbols, which the Spirit of
+Christmas sets ashine, of that Tree of Life. And the Spirit of Christmas
+is only another name for Love, and it is Love alone, the human and
+divine together, which can bring about the healing needed by hearts in
+every nation.
+
+All this did not come to Mary in words. She could not have expressed it
+to any one else, but it sent her on her way, deeply, quietly glad.
+
+Next morning while she was stooping before the oven, basting the turkey
+which the Barnabys had sent with their greetings, Jack called her to the
+front window where he was sitting.
+
+A covered wagon was creaking slowly by, drawn by a big horse and a
+little burro. The cover was looped up, and in the back end, carefully
+tied to the tail-gate, stood the tree which had taken them fifty-eight
+minutes to prepare, but whose memory would not be effaced in that many
+years from the minds of the two children, seated on the quilts beside
+it.
+
+"I'm so glad you got to see them," said Mary. "Aren't they dear? And oh,
+look! Goldilocks is still holding Lady Agatha, and the other one's
+hugging the woolly lamb!"
+
+When the wagon was entirely out of sight Mary started back to her turkey
+basting, but stopped a moment to take another look at the gifts spread
+out on the side table. Several things had been added to them that
+morning; a dissected puzzle picture which Norman had made for her, a
+spool case that Jack had whittled out, and a strip of exquisitely
+embroidered rosebuds that Mrs. Ware had wrought to be put into a white
+dress. There was also a pot of white hyacinths from the rectory, and
+Mary held her face down against the cool snow of their blossoms, taking
+in their sweetness in long breaths.
+
+"It's been a pretty full Christmas, hasn't it!" exclaimed Jack as he
+watched her.
+
+"It's really been one of the nicest I ever had," she answered, "for one
+reason because it's lasted so long. Norman's plan is a success."
+
+That night after supper Norman insisted on taking his mother down into
+the village to look at the lighted windows. After they had gone Mary
+took out her Good Times book to record the happenings of the day. She
+had a few more notes of acknowledgment to write also, and was glad that
+Jack was busy with his own writing. She noticed that he was using India
+ink and a crow-quill pen, but thought nothing of that as he was always
+experimenting with them.
+
+Joyce was not the only one of the children who had inherited artistic
+ability. Jack never attempted pictures, but he did beautiful lettering;
+odd initials and old English script, and had copied verses for calendars
+and fly-leaf inscriptions. Joyce said some of his pen-and-ink work was
+as beautifully done as the letters she had seen in old missals, made by
+the monks.
+
+Nearly an hour went by. Mary addressed her last envelope. He laid down
+his pen and pushed a narrow strip of cardboard towards her.
+
+"I've made you one more present to end the day with, Mary," he said
+jokingly. "It's a bookmark."
+
+Inside a narrow border of conventional scrollwork was one line, and the
+line was from the verse which she had quoted so disastrously that day at
+the creek-bank:
+
+"Close all the roads of all the world, _Love's_ road is open still!"
+
+As she looked up to speak he interrupted her hurriedly:
+
+"Yes, I know how miserable I made you that day with my outburst against
+fate, and I've felt that you've never believed me since when I laughed
+and joked and said that I enjoyed things. But that was only one time
+that I gave way, just once that I got down in the dumps and I don't want
+you to think that is my usual state of feelings. Really I'm getting more
+out of life than you imagine. I'm putting up the best fight I can. I
+just wanted you to know that although every other road in the world is
+closed against me I can still scrape along pretty comfortably because
+that last line is true. Love's road is open still. You all have made it
+a good wide one for me, and made it worth while for me to travel it with
+you cheerfully to the end. I'm perfectly willing to, _now_."
+
+"Oh, Jack!" cried Mary in a voice that trembled with both joy and tears.
+"I've had a happy Christmas, but knowing you feel that way is the very
+best part of all!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"DIE KLEINEN TEUFEL"
+
+
+CHRISTMAS was followed by a week of small calamities. Some of them would
+have been laughable, counted singly, but taken all together they assumed
+a seriousness not to be considered lightly.
+
+In the first place, Mary, attempting to tie the boat at the usual
+landing, slipped on the muddy bank and dropped the chain. In her effort
+to recover it she stepped into the water. Her shoes were soaking wet
+when she reached home, and as they were her only good ones she stuffed
+them carefully with paper and hung them over the little drum stove in
+the living room to dry. That evening Jack read aloud while they washed
+the dishes, so they were all in the kitchen when the smouldering log in
+the drum stove, having reached the blazing point, suddenly burst into
+flame.
+
+Presently a smell of burning leather made them all begin to sniff
+inquiringly, and Mary rushed in to find that one of her shoes had
+dropped from the string to which she had tied it by the laces, and was
+scorching to a crisp on the red-hot stove. Her old shoes were so shabby
+that the immediate need of new ones, left her figuring over the family
+accounts until bed-time. It was hard to cut down a list of expenses
+already reduced to low water mark.
+
+The next day a wet "Norther" blew up, bringing the first cold weather of
+the winter. After weeks of almost summer-like heat, the mercury dropped
+to freezing point in just a few hours, and roaring fires in both the
+kitchen and drum stoves failed to warm the little cottage. Like most
+houses in that section it had not been built with a view to excluding
+the cold. The wind blew in under the north door, lifting the rugs until
+they shifted with a wave-like motion across the floor. Jack had to have
+a blanket hung behind his chair, and when Mrs. Ware sat down to write
+her weekly letter to Joyce the draughts that rattled the windows set her
+to sneezing as if she never could stop.
+
+Mary, full of resources, brought her pink sunbonnet and perched it on
+her mother's head, pulling its ruffled cape well down on her shoulders.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, laughing at the jaunty effect. "That will keep
+'the cauld blasts' from giving you a stiff neck. Do look in the mirror
+and then draw a picture of yourself for Joyce. Tell her that the Sunny
+South is a delusion. The mercury is only down to freezing, but I am sure
+that there isn't an Esquimau in all the Arctic Circle as cold as we are
+this blessed minute. That wind goes through a body like a fine-pointed
+needle."
+
+"These little stoves fairly eat up the wood," she grumbled a few minutes
+later, glancing into the empty wood-box which Norman had piled to the
+top before he left that morning.
+
+"Norman will be back soon," said Mrs. Ware, looking out from her aureole
+of pink ruffles, which she had found such a comfortable shield from the
+draughts that she left it as Mary had placed it. "He'll fill the box
+again as soon as he comes."
+
+But Mary had slipped into a coat and was tying a veil over her ears. "It
+isn't safe to wait," she answered. "We'd be stiff and stark as icicles
+in no time if we were to let the fires go out. I don't mind being
+stoker. It's good exercise."
+
+She skipped out to the wood-pile gaily enough, but the tune she was
+whistling changed to a long-drawn note of surprise and dismay when she
+saw what inroads they had made on it since the last time she had noticed
+it.
+
+"We'll have to have another cord right away," she thought. "I never
+dreamed that fuel would be such a big item of expense, away down here so
+far South. But if we have much more weather like this it will be a very
+serious item."
+
+The discovery sent her back to her account book again, but this time she
+took it to her own room where Jack could not see her figuring. The
+butcher raised the price of meat that week. Both butter and eggs went
+higher, and Jack's rubber air-cushion sprung such a leak that it
+collapsed hopelessly. A new one was a necessity. Then the cold Norther
+made Jack's rheumatism so much worse that he had to stay in bed, and
+several visits from the doctor and a druggist's bill had to be added to
+the list of the week's calamities.
+
+The last straw was reached when Joyce's letter came, deploring the fact
+that the check which she was enclosing was only half the size which she
+usually sent. She had some unexpected expenses at the studio which she
+was obliged to meet, but she hoped to send the customary amount next
+month. This information was not in the letter which Mrs. Ware promptly
+sent in to Jack by Norman, but in a separate postscript, folded inside
+the check. Mary read it with startled eyes.
+
+"Whatever are we going to do?" she asked in a despairing whisper.
+
+Mrs. Ware shook her head and sat folding and unfolding the check in an
+absent-minded way for several minutes. Then she went into her room for
+pen and ink to endorse it, so that Mary, who was going down into the
+town that afternoon, could cash it. She was gone a long time and when
+she came back she had two letters ready to post.
+
+As Mary went down the road a while later, she glanced at the first
+envelope which was addressed to Joyce, admiring as she always did her
+mother's penmanship.
+
+"It's just like her," she thought, "so fine and even and ladylike." Then
+she gave an exclamation of surprise as she saw that the second envelope
+was addressed to Mrs. Barnaby.
+
+"Whatever can she be writing to _her_ about?" she wondered. "It's queer
+she never said anything about it, when we always talk over everything
+together, even the tiniest trifles."
+
+She puzzled over it nearly all the way to the post-office till she
+remembered that she had heard her mother say that she was not altogether
+satisfied with the new doctor's treatment for Jack, and that she wanted
+to ask Mrs. Barnaby whom to call in consultation. Satisfied with that
+solution, Mary thought no more about the matter till the following
+Friday, when she came back from a short call at the rectory, to find
+that Mrs. Barnaby had just driven away from the house. She was
+disappointed, for these visits were always hailed as joyful events by
+the entire household.
+
+"I wouldn't have missed her for _anything_!" exclaimed Mary, following
+her mother into their bedroom. "She's so diverting. What particularly
+funny things did she say this time? _What's that?_"
+
+Her glance and question indicated a bundle that her mother had brought
+in from the back doorstep and laid on the bed. Mrs. Ware shook her head
+meaningly, and closed the door into Jack's room before she answered.
+Then she said in a low tone:
+
+"It's some linen and lace that Mrs. Barnaby brought this afternoon. I
+wrote to her asking her if she had any fine hand-sewing that I could do.
+Sh!" she whispered, lifting a warning finger, as Mary's cry of "Why,
+Mamma Ware!" interrupted her.
+
+"Jack will hear you, and he is not to know. That's why I had Pedro take
+the bundle to the back door. Mrs. Barnaby understands. Something had to
+be done, and under the circumstances sewing is the only thing I can turn
+my hand to at home."
+
+"But mamma!" exclaimed Mary, so distressed that she was almost crying.
+"Your eyes are not strong enough for that any more. You nearly wore
+yourself out trying to support us when we were little, and I'm very sure
+we're not going to allow it now. Joyce would be terribly distressed, and
+as for Jack--I know perfectly well that he'd just rather lie down and
+die than have you do it. We'll bundle that stuff right back to Mrs.
+Barnaby, and I'll go down town and see if I can't get a position in one
+of the stores."
+
+Mrs. Ware's answer was in such a low voice that it went no farther than
+the closed door, but it silenced Mary's protests. Only a few times in
+her remembrance had the gentle little woman used that tone of authority
+with her children, but on those rare occasions they recognized the force
+of her determination and the uselessness of opposing it. Mary turned
+away distressed and sore over the situation. She said nothing more, but
+as she went about her work she kept wiping away the tears, and a fierce
+rebellion raged inwardly.
+
+There would have been little said at the supper-table that night if
+Norman had not come home in a talkative mood. He was to start to the
+public High School the following Monday, at the beginning of the new
+term, and had recently made the acquaintance of a boy lately come to
+Bauer, who would enter with him.
+
+"Ed Masters is his name," Norman reported, raising his voice a trifle,
+so that Jack, who was taking his supper at the same time from a bedside
+table in the next room, might be included in the conversation.
+
+"I like him first rate, and it will make it lots easier for me at
+school, not to be the only new boy. The only trouble is, he doesn't know
+whether his folks are going to stay in Bauer long enough to make it
+worth while for him to start or not. They came for the whole winter, but
+they say that they can't stand it at the hotel many more days if
+something isn't done to those Mallory kids. Ed says they're regular
+little imps for mischief. They've been here only two weeks, but they're
+known all over Bauer as 'die kleinen teufel.'"
+
+"Which being interpreted," laughed Jack from the next room, "means the
+little devils. What have they done to earn such a name?"
+
+"It might be easier to tell what they haven't done," answered Norman.
+"There's two of them, the boy seven and the girl eight, but they're
+exactly the same size, and look so much alike everybody takes them for
+twins. They put a puppy in the ice-cream freezer yesterday morning, Ed
+says, and Miss Edna, the landlady's daughter, almost had a spasm when
+she went to make ice-cream for dinner and found it in the can.
+
+"Yesterday afternoon the delivery wagon stopped at the side entrance of
+the hotel (it's the Williams House where Ed is staying), and those
+children waited until the boy had gone in with a basket of groceries.
+Then they climbed up into the delivery wagon and changed the things all
+around in the other baskets so that the orders were hopelessly mixed up,
+and nobody got what he had bought. There was a ten gallon can of
+kerosene in the wagon, the kind that has a pump attachment. The boy
+stopped to talk a minute to Mrs. Williams, and by the time he got back
+they had pumped all the kerosene out into the road, and were making
+regular gatling guns of themselves with a bushel of potatoes. They were
+firing them out of the basket as fast as they could throw, in a wild
+race to see which would be first to grab the last potato.
+
+"Ed says they ride up and down the hotel galleries on their tricycles
+till it sounds like thunder, when the other boarders are trying to take
+a nap, or they'll chase up and down hooting and slashing the air with
+switches. If people don't dodge and scrooge back against the wall
+they'll get slashed too.
+
+"I suppose every merchant on Main Street has some grievance against
+them, for they haven't the slightest regard for other people's rights or
+property, and they're not afraid of anything. The little girl went into
+the livery stable the other day and swung onto the tail of one of those
+big white 'bus horses, and pulled a handful of hairs out of it. It's a
+favorite trick of theirs to climb into any automobile left at the
+curbstone, and honk the horn till the owner comes out. Then they calmly
+sit still and demand a ride."
+
+"They must be the children that Doctor Mackay was telling me about,"
+spoke up Jack. "He came in here one day, furious with them. He had
+caught them smearing soap over the glass wind shield of his new machine.
+They had climbed all over the cushions with their muddy feet, and
+tinkered with the clock till it couldn't run. He threatened to tell
+their father, and all they did was to put their thumbs to their noses
+and say: 'Yah! Tattle-tale! You _can't_ tell! He's a thousand miles
+away!'"
+
+"Isn't any one responsible for them?" asked Mrs. Ware.
+
+"Yes," said Norman, "there is a colored girl at their heels whenever
+they don't give her the slip. But their mother is ill--came here for her
+health, Ed says, and their grandmother who tries to look after them is
+so deaf that she can't hear their noise and their saucy speeches.
+They're so quick that she never sees them making faces and sticking
+their tongues out at people. They do it behind her back. She thinks they
+are little angels, but she'll find out when they're asked to leave the
+Hotel. Ed says it's coming to that very soon--either the Mallorys will
+have to go, or everybody else will. They got into his box of fishing
+tackle, and you never saw such a mess as they made. He is furious."
+
+With her mind intent on her own troubles, Mary did not listen to the
+recital of other people's with her usual interest, although what she
+heard that night was recalled very clearly afterward. All evening she
+brooded over her grievance, trying to discover some remedy. She could
+not take the sewing away from her mother and do it herself, for while
+fairly skilful with her needle, she had not learned to make a fine art
+of her handiwork. The garments Mrs. Ware made were as beautifully
+wrought as those fashioned and embroidered by the French nuns.
+
+"I _know_ Mrs. Barnaby never would order anything so fine and
+expensive," thought Mary bitterly, "if she didn't know that we need the
+money so badly. She did it because mamma asked her, and felt that she
+couldn't refuse. That is a sort of charity that kills me to accept, and
+I sha'n't do it one minute longer than I have to."
+
+It was easier to make such a resolution, however, than to carry it out.
+A short call on Mrs. Metz next morning, showed her that her first plan
+was not feasible. The old woman being related to nearly half of Bauer by
+birth or marriage, and knowing the other half with the intimacy of an
+"oldest inhabitant," was in a position to know each merchant's needs and
+requirements, also what wages he paid each employee. Most of them had no
+occasion to hire outside help. Their own families furnished enough. It
+was a necessary requirement of course, that any one applying for a
+position must speak German. That one thing alone barred Mary out, and
+she went home anxious and disheartened. Still, even if she could have
+spoken a dozen tongues, the position she had coveted did not seem so
+desirable, after she learned the small amount the clerks received.
+
+All that day and the next she worried over the matter, and finally
+decided to go to Mrs. Rochester and ask her advice. On the way up to the
+rectory she stopped at the post-office. The mail was being distributed,
+and while she stood waiting for the delivery window to open, the rector
+himself came in. As he turned away from his locked box, in which only
+papers had been deposited so far, he saw Mary and went over to her with
+a cordial greeting.
+
+"I'm looking for something," he said with a twinkle of fun in his eyes.
+"Maybe you can help me. It is as hard to find as the proverbial needle
+in the haystack, but I must have it before sundown if possible. Some one
+as patient as Job, as tactful as a diplomat, with the nerve of a
+lion-tamer and the resources of a sleight-of-hand performer--the kind
+who can draw rabbits out of a silk hat if necessary."
+
+Mary laughed. "What are you going to do with such a wonderful creature
+when you find it?"
+
+"Turn it loose on those Mallory children," answered Mr. Rochester,
+lowering his tone. "I was sent for yesterday, presumably to see their
+mother who is an invalid, but I found that the real reason was to give
+some advice to Mr. Mallory about the children. The hotel refused to
+harbor them any longer, and he had been summoned hastily by telegraph.
+He has moved his family to a furnished cottage near the hotel. Their
+meals will be sent in to them, and his mother can look after his wife,
+but he is desperate about the children.
+
+"He acknowledges he could not cope with them even if he could stay here
+all the time away from his business. His wife has never allowed them to
+be punished, and has foolishly humored them till they are past being
+controlled. He besought me to find some one who could take them in hand
+for a part of the day at least."
+
+"But what could an outsider do with them if their own family has
+failed?" queried Mary.
+
+"Ah, that's where the lion-tamer and the sleight-of-hand performer
+combination gets in his work. He must quell them with his eye, and draw
+ways and means out of his silk hat. Mrs. Mallory would like to have them
+taught to read and write if it can be done without crossing the little
+dears, but I inferred that their father would be glad simply to have
+them taken in hand and tamed sufficiently to keep them from being public
+nuisances."
+
+Mary's pulses began to pound with the excitement of a daring thought,
+but she managed to appear unconcerned, and asked him in a joking way,
+"And if you can't find this Job-like, diplomatic lion-tamer they want,
+they'll have to take some ordinary person?"
+
+"They'll be obliged to. But I'm afraid that a quest even in that
+direction will prove fruitless. It's a field for real missionary effort,
+though. Some one might be willing to approach it in that spirit."
+
+The delivery window flew up, and as the waiting line began moving along
+towards it, Mr. Rochester lifted his hat and turned away. But before he
+could fit his key in the lock of his box, Mary was at his side.
+
+"One moment, please," she exclaimed, her face flushing. She spoke very
+fast. "If you think that _I_ can fill that position will you tell them
+about me? I've really got lots of patience with children, and"--laughing
+nervously--"last summer I partly tamed a young wild-cat. I could at
+least tell the children stories, and teach them all sorts of wood-lore
+that would keep them busy and interested out of doors. Besides," she
+flushed still deeper, "I _must_ find some way to earn some money soon.
+My very need of it would make me try all the harder to fill the place.
+I am on my way now to see Mrs. Rochester and ask her advice about what
+to do."
+
+A few minutes later she and Mr. Rochester were walking rapidly along the
+road in the direction of the Williams House. As they crossed the wide
+foot-bridge which spans the creek, and climbed the hill on the other
+side, she told him of the work she had done the previous summer under
+the noted naturalist, Professor Carnes.
+
+"He had arranged to send his fifteen-year-old niece to Lone Rock this
+winter," she added, "but her physicians decided at the last moment that
+she needed a milder climate. She was to have boarded near us, and I had
+promised to devote my mornings to keeping her out of doors and teaching
+her in an indirect way that would not suggest books or study hours.
+Maybe the fact that such a man as Professor Carnes thought me competent
+to do that, and was willing to pay me a grown teacher's salary, might
+have some weight with the Mallorys. Oh, I _hope_ they won't think
+seventeen and a half is too young," she exclaimed, with an anxious
+glance at her companion, as if to discover his opinion.
+
+"If I'd only known such an important interview was ahead of me I'd have
+worn my blue suit. I look lots older in that because it's longer than
+this one."
+
+"I don't think you need worry about that," the rector answered. He spoke
+gravely, but the face he turned away from her twitched with suppressed
+amusement.
+
+They passed the Williams House, and turned in at the gate of a gray
+cottage, where Mr. Mallory himself met them at the door. He was a
+prosperous young broker with an affable manner and the self-confident
+air that some people acquire from the carrying of a fat bank-book. He
+ushered them into the room where Mrs. Mallory was lying on a couch. She
+was very young and blue-eyed and soft-haired. Curled up among the
+cushions under a blue and white afghan, she made Mary think of a kitten.
+She seemed so helpless and incapable, as if she had never known anything
+but cushions and cream, all her life.
+
+Two children were playing quietly under a table, in the corner. Mary
+could not see what they were doing, for they were lying on their
+stomachs with their heads towards the wall. Only their little
+black-stockinged legs and slippered feet protruded from under the table,
+and they were waving back and forth in mid-air above their backs.
+
+When Mr. Rochester introduced Mary as the young lady they were so
+desirous of finding, one pair of small legs stopped waving, and their
+owner backed hastily out into the room. Humping along on all fours until
+she reached her mother's couch, she sat on the floor beside it and began
+studying the visitors with a quiet intense gaze. She was an attractive
+child, with rather a wistful little face. Her hair was cut short in
+Buster Brown fashion, and she was remarkably strong and sturdy looking
+for a girl. Otherwise there was nothing in her appearance to justify
+one's belief that she had done all the tom-boy things ascribed to her.
+
+To Mary's surprise Mrs. Mallory discussed the children as freely as if
+they were not present, repeating their pranks and smart sayings as if
+they were too young to understand what was being said, and frankly
+admitting her inability to control them.
+
+"Mr. Mallory and I agree on every subject but the proper way to rear
+children, and we almost come to blows over that," she said, smiling up
+at him till the dimples in her cheeks made her seem more childish and
+appealing than ever.
+
+"I believe in letting children do exactly as they please as far as
+possible. The time will come soon enough when they can't, poor little
+dears. We have not imposed our wishes on them even in the matter of
+names. It has been a life-long regret with me that my mother burdened me
+with a name that I despised, and I made up my mind that _my_ children
+should be allowed to choose their own. Little brother, there, has chosen
+his father's name, Herbert. But we're slow about adopting it. We've
+called him Brud so long, his sister's baby name for him, when she was
+learning to talk, that it is hard to break the habit."
+
+"And the little girl?" asked Mary politely, beginning to feel that she
+had hastened to shoulder a load which she might not be able to carry.
+
+"Really it's too cunning the way Little Sister does," exclaimed Mrs.
+Mallory. "One week she announces she's Genevive and the next that she's
+Bessie or Maud or Irma--whatever happens to strike her fancy, and she
+gets simply furious if we don't remember every time she changes. That
+was one thing that Miss Edna fell out with us about. She kept calling
+her Bessie the week that she wished to be known as Marion. Of course the
+child naturally resented it, and Miss Edna actually caught her and shook
+her, when she hadn't done a thing but throw a biscuit or some little
+article like that in her direction."
+
+Mary cast a half-frightened glance at Mr. Rochester, aghast at the
+prospect before her. The soft voice went on.
+
+"_We_ don't believe in being harsh with children, _do_ we, Beautiful?"
+She reached down to stroke the little head nestled against her couch. "I
+want my children to have it to remember of their mother that she never
+scolded or punished them. _You_ can say that. _Can't_ you, pet?"
+
+Pet only nodded in reply, but she caught the slim white hand in both her
+own and pressed it lovingly against her cheek. It made a pretty tableau,
+and Mary found it hard to realize that this affectionate little creature
+was one of the "kleinen teufel" of Norman's report. But she noticed the
+satisfied gleam in the child's eyes when her mother went on to retail
+other instances of Miss Edna's harshness.
+
+Mr. Rochester saw the expression also, and the shrewd, knowing glance
+that followed when he finally broached the terms of a settlement, asking
+them to specify exactly what would be expected of Mary and what salary
+would be paid in return. He mildly suggested that it might be wiser to
+dispense with a juvenile audience at this point.
+
+He had chosen words that he thought far beyond Little Sister's
+comprehension, and there was something startling as well as uncanny in
+the way she spoke up for the first time since his entrance.
+
+"_I aren't a-going to leave this room! Nobody can make me!_"
+
+Mrs. Mallory looked up at her husband with an amused simper and shook
+her head as if to say, "Now, isn't that the smartest thing you _ever_
+saw?" and Mr. Rochester's suggestion was ignored.
+
+When they rose to go it had been arranged that Mary was to take the
+children in charge every afternoon, except Sundays, from one o'clock
+till five, at the same salary Professor Carnes had offered her. She was
+to teach them anything she could in any way she chose, provided her
+methods did not conflict with their happiness. The chief thing was that
+they should be kept interested and amused.
+
+"Then to-morrow at one," said Mr. Mallory, rising with them, "they will
+take their first lesson. Come out from under that table, Brud, and get
+acquainted with your new teacher."
+
+Brud waved one leg in token that he heard, but made no further response.
+Suddenly Sister found her voice again.
+
+"_What you going to teach us first? 'Cause if we don't like it we won't
+go._"
+
+Taken thus suddenly, without having had a moment in which to form any
+plan of action, Mary groped wildly around in her mind for an answer. She
+recognized this as a crucial moment. She could not hesitate long, for
+Mrs. Mallory's appealing blue eyes were fixed on her also, the while she
+patted the child's cheek and purred, "Why, of _course_ little Sister
+will go when the nice lady is planning to give her such a happy time."
+
+"Happy time adoing _what_?" was the persistent question.
+
+Just then, Meliss, the colored nurse-girl, opened the side door, and
+there floated in from the hotel kitchen the appetizing smell of
+pies--hot mince pies just being lifted from the oven. Mary caught
+eagerly at the straw of suggestion which the odor offered. At the same
+time some instinct prompted her that it was foolishness to address this
+child of eight as if she were an infant, or to talk down to her as her
+family made a practise of doing. So speaking directly to her as if she
+were addressing an intelligent and reasonable being she said gravely:
+
+"The kind of school we are going to have is so different from any you've
+ever heard of, that I can't explain it beforehand. I can only tell you
+this,--it is somewhat like a Jack Horner pie. Each day you'll put in
+your thumb and pull out a plum. But what that particular plum will be
+depends on so many things that I could not possibly give it a name
+before it actually happens. It will be a surprise school."
+
+At the mention of pies the legs under the table hastily came down out of
+the air, and the small boy attached hastily backed out into general
+view. Planting himself in front of Mary with a swaggering air, his feet
+wide apart, he announced aggressively:
+
+"I'll bring my new hatchet if I want to, and nobody can make me leave it
+at home!"
+
+There was something so impertinent in his manner that Mary longed to
+shake him and say, "Don't be so sure of that, Mr. Smarty!" But
+remembering the dignified position she now had to maintain, she only
+remarked in a matter of fact tone:
+
+"If your hatchet has a good sharp edge it will probably be one of the
+first things you'll need. And you'll find use for a pocket full of
+medium sized nails, too."
+
+"What for?" he demanded, drawing a little closer to begin a thorough
+cross examination. But Mary, who had turned to listen to a question of
+Mr. Mallory's, paid no heed.
+
+"I say," Brud repeated, calling as if she were deaf. "What for? _What
+for?_ WHAT FOR?"
+
+Mary paid not the slightest attention until she had answered his father,
+then said deliberately, "I've already explained that in a surprise
+school you can't know what is going to happen till the time comes."
+
+"Why?" he whined.
+
+"Because," she said, pausing impressively, and then lowering her voice
+as if she were imparting a mysterious secret, "_it's the Law of the
+Jungle_."
+
+The unexpectedness of this mystifying answer and the sepulchral voice in
+which she gave it, was so different from anything Brud had ever
+encountered before, that it took him some seconds to recover, and she
+was gone before he could think of another question.
+
+Mr. Mallory walked to the gate with them. "You've certainly started out
+well, Miss Ware," he remarked admiringly. "At first I thought we might
+have some difficulty in getting their consent to go, but they'll be on
+hand to-morrow all right. You've aroused their curiosity to such a pitch
+that a regiment armed to the teeth couldn't keep them from satisfying
+it now." After an instant's pause he added a trifle awkwardly, seeming
+to feel some explanation was due, "Their mother never sees a fault in
+them, and my business keeps me away from them so much that--well, you
+see yourself how it is."
+
+On the way home neither Mary nor Mr. Rochester spoke till they were
+halfway down the hill. Then they looked at each other and laughed.
+
+"I hope I haven't got you into _too_ deep water, Miss Mary," he said.
+"It's a big undertaking. I must confess to a curiosity as great as
+Brud's. What _are_ you going to do with them?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know!" exclaimed Mary desperately. "Did you see me fencing
+for time when Little Sister demanded to be told what I'd teach them
+first? Things had happened so fast that I hadn't had a moment to think,
+so I had to say the first thing that came into my head. I tremble to
+think what a long pause there might have been if the smell of those pies
+had not suggested an answer. I think the first week I'll just play with
+them as hard as I can. Play Indian maybe, so that if they get too
+obstreperous it will be part of the game to tie them to a tree and
+torture them. But after all I can't help being sorry for the little
+things after hearing their mother talk to them and about them."
+
+At the end of the foot-bridge where she turned to take the lower road
+which was the short cut home, she started to thank him, but he stopped
+her earnest words with an uplifted hand and an amused protest.
+
+"Wait and see how it turns out before you thank me. You may want to
+wreak dire vengeance on me before the week's over, for getting you into
+such a predicament."
+
+With a cordial word of parting Mary hurried down the road, and burst
+into the house with the breathless announcement that she'd consented to
+go as a missionary; that Mr. Rochester had persuaded her to take the
+step. She waited a moment to give them a chance to guess what special
+field it was she was about to enter, but was so eager to tell that she
+had to burst out with the answer herself:
+
+"It's to the heathen at home I am going, I'm to be an apostle to 'die
+kleinen teufel'!"
+
+Jack gave a loud whistle of surprise and then burst out laughing, but
+Mrs. Ware looked across at him soberly, with a triumphant nod of the
+head.
+
+"There! What did I tell you?" she asked. "Didn't I say that she'd soon
+adjust herself--find something to amuse herself and all the rest of us
+as well?"
+
+Mary, who had been wondering all the way home how her news would be
+received, had never imagined this--that her venture would be looked upon
+merely as an outlet for her surplus energy, but after one gasp of
+surprise she was glad that her mother had put it that way.
+
+"She did it on purpose," Mary thought. "So that Jack need not have added
+to his other ills the tormenting thought that he had driven his little
+sister to a disagreeable task, in order that she might help support
+him."
+
+An understanding glance from her mother, full of approval and tender
+appreciation, flashed on her as she drew her chair up to the stove, but
+all she said was, "I'm sure you had an amusing interview." Then Mary
+proceeded to recount it, giving a graphic and laughable description of
+her half hour in the gray cottage. But all the time she was talking and
+mimicking she was looking forward to the moment when she could escape to
+a corner of the kitchen, and calculate with pencil and paper what she
+could never do in her head, the height of prosperity to which this tidal
+wave of a salary would lift them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AT THE BARNABY RANCH
+
+
+[Illustration: "MARY WARE in TEXAS"
+
+"Three alert and expectant little figures sat in a row on the steps--"]
+
+THREE alert and expectant little figures sat in a row on the steps of
+the gray cottage, and watched for Mary's coming the next afternoon.
+Brud, sawing his hatchet blade up and down on the edge of the step below
+him, made deep notches in the paint while he waited. Little Sister,
+fuming with impatience, sat with one arm around the young hunting dog
+which squatted beside her, and made dire threats as to her conduct, in
+case the new teacher should refuse to let him go with them.
+
+He was a brown English pointer, with a white vest, and the silver plate
+on his collar bore the name by which he was registered among the
+aristocracy of dogs. The name was "Uncle August." Strangers always
+laughed when they read that on his collar, but as Brud usually began to
+explain about that time that he was a "peggydreed" dog, his sister
+thought that they were laughing at the way he pronounced pedigreed.
+Therefore, she would gravely correct him and add the information that
+one of his great gram'pas was the King of Kent and another was Rip-rap;
+that he was the finest bird-dog in the United States,--her pappy said
+so,--and that he had been to a dog college and learned all that there
+was for a dog _to_ know.
+
+The moment Mary appeared, the usual formula was gone through with before
+they gave her a chance for more than a bare word of greeting, and she
+never knew how much her reception of Uncle August counted in her favor
+with the two watching children.
+
+Like everybody else, she laughed when she heard his name, and put out
+her hand to shake the brown paw which he gravely offered. But when he
+continued to hold it out to her, and plainly showed by every way in a
+dog's power that he liked her and wanted to emphasize his friendliness,
+she took his silky ears in her hands, and looking down into his wistful
+eyes, praised and petted him till he wriggled all over for joy.
+
+Brud immediately gave her his full approval, but Little Sister, while
+impressed favorably, was not in a mood to approve anything fully.
+According to Meliss, "she'd done got out of bed crosswise of herself
+that mawnin'" and had continued so ever since. There was a pout on her
+lips when her mother called her in to kiss her good-bye, and there was
+a defiant light in her eyes as she listened to the farewell instructions
+delivered to Mary through the window. She lagged behind when the others
+started briskly off, and halfway down the hill began to drag and scrape
+her feet annoyingly through the gravel. Although she hadn't the faintest
+intention of turning back, she stood still when they reached the
+foot-bridge, and announced with a whine:
+
+"I'm going home! I aren't a having a happy time like mommey said I
+would!"
+
+Mary, who was a few steps ahead, never stopped, even to glance back over
+her shoulder, and Sister was obliged to follow in order to hear what she
+was saying.
+
+"You can hardly expect to enjoy a thing before it _begins_," explained
+Mary, politely, in that grown-up tone that was such a novelty to Sister
+when employed towards herself. "You've never seen the place where Mr.
+Metz has given us permission to build. It's where a branch of the creek
+curves up through his place. It's dry now, but it is full of big, flat
+rocks where we can build the fire when we get to that part of the
+school. Maybe we'll be ready for one as soon as next week."
+
+There was no response save a stifled sniffle and the patter of small
+feet which had to move briskly in order to keep up with the procession.
+But Brud's questions opened the way for further information which was
+not lost on the reluctant follower.
+
+"There's a little spring that comes bubbling out below, so that we won't
+have to go far to fill our kettle. He said we might trim off some of the
+smallest shoots of his willows, and he marked the trees we could chop.
+That's where you will find use for your hatchet. Willow switches woven
+together make a fine covering for a wigwam or a Robinson Crusoe shack. I
+learned how to weave them the way the Indians do when I first went to
+Arizona."
+
+It was the novelty of being talked to in that dignified, grown-up way
+that drew Sister slowly but surely along after the others. As they
+followed the creek, Uncle August, dashing on ahead, scared a rabbit out
+of the underbrush. He was too well trained to give chase to it, so the
+frightened little cotton-tail loped away unhurt. It served its mission
+in life, however, as far as Mary was concerned, for it reminded her of a
+story which she proceeded to tell as they walked along. Sister listened,
+suspiciously, expecting a personal application at the end, about a
+sulky little girl who never wanted to do anything that other people did.
+That was the kind Meliss always told. So did mommey, in vivacious,
+kindergarten style, when they had been especially naughty. Sister hated
+stories, since those with a moral attached were the only kind she had
+ever known.
+
+When this tale turned out to be one of Br'er Rabbit's funny adventures
+in outwitting Mr. Fox, and ended with a laugh instead of a personal
+application, she was bewildered for a moment. Then she remembered that
+this was a surprise school, and determined not to miss anything that
+seemed to start out with such promise for further entertainment, she
+stopped dragging her feet and took up a more cheerful pace along the
+creek bank, in the trail of Brud and Uncle August.
+
+It would have been a determined soul indeed who could have stayed morose
+very long, out-of-doors in the perfect weather that had followed the
+Norther. It was like late October in Kentucky--sunny, yet with a
+crystal-like coolness that made exercise a delight.
+
+It had been such a short time since Mary had stepped out of her own play
+days that she found herself stepping into the children's with an
+_abandon_ which almost equalled theirs. There was no pretense about her
+enjoyment at first. With a pleasure almost as deep and unalloyed as when
+she and Hazel Lee built wigwams on the edge of the Arizona desert, she
+went about the building of a shack on the side of this Texas creek bank.
+
+The energy with which she brought things to pass was contagious. Brud
+and Little Sister worked like beavers to keep up with this rare, new
+playfellow, who had something better than a Midas touch,--something
+which not only put a golden glamour over everything she said and did,
+but turned their little world of mimic sports into a real world of
+tremendous meaning and importance. For the first time in his life Brud
+found himself where there were things lawful for his hatchet to cut. For
+the first time Sister was kept so busy doing delightful things that
+there was no necessity for anyone to say "don't."
+
+Before the week was over Mary had opened so many windows for them into
+the Land of Make-believe that they began to look upon her resources for
+entertainment as boundless. The more she gave, the more they demanded.
+They never wanted to go home and would have hung on to her until dark
+every evening, had it not been for the alarm-clock which she brought
+with her each day. She had no watch and was afraid to accept Jack's
+offer of his, lest she should lose it in the woods. It was a little,
+round clock, with a bell on top, the dollar and a half kind sold in
+country groceries and cross-roads stores.
+
+She always wound the alarm just before she hung the clock on a bush,
+muttering over it a mysterious charm that the children listened to with
+skeptical grins, yet with furtive side-glances at each other. To her
+surprise they accepted the whirr and bang of the alarm-bell at five
+o'clock as the voice of Fate, which must be promptly obeyed. She often
+wondered why they did. To Mary the muttering of the abracadabra charm
+was only a part of the game, one of the many little embellishments which
+made her plays more picturesque than ordinary people's, and she had no
+thought of the children attaching any superstitious import to it. She
+did not take into account their long association with Meliss, who was
+wise on the subject of hoodoos. But the fact remained that her
+alarm-clock was the only timepiece within their reach which they never
+tampered with, and the only one whose summons they ever obeyed.
+
+It was probably because she had set such a hard pace for herself that
+first week that she found it so difficult to go on afterward. A surprise
+school was a greater tax on her inventive genius than she had
+anticipated. She had promised them a different plum in their pie each
+day, and she lay awake at night to plan games that were instructive as
+well as interesting, for she was conscientiously carrying out her
+agreement to teach them as well as to amuse them. By the end of the
+second week the strain was almost unendurable.
+
+One evening she went home to find the Barnaby carriage and the gray
+mules standing at the gate. Mrs. Barnaby had brought in some venison for
+them, and waited to see Mary before taking her leave.
+
+"I'm waiting to hear about those little savages of yours," she said, as
+Mary greeted her and sank limply down into a chair. "Why, you look all
+tuckered out. They must be even worse than people say."
+
+"No, they're not!" protested Mary, warmly. "I'm really proud of the way
+I succeeded. The only thing is, I have to keep them busy and interested
+every moment, and they're so hungry for stories they never get enough.
+The poor little souls have never heard any before, and it is really
+pathetic the way they listen. They'll sit as still as graven images, so
+interested they scarcely breathe, till the last word is out. Then
+they'll begin, 'Oh, tell us another, Miss Mayry! Just _one_ more!
+Please, Miss Mayry!' They cling to me like burrs. We nearly always have
+a small campfire every day now, for either we're Indians or gypsies,
+cooking our meals, or we're witches brewing spells, or elves gathering
+magic fires for our midnight revels. They play so hard that the last
+hour they always want to sit down by the embers and listen to stories.
+But they've nearly drained me dry now. Sometimes I come home so limp and
+exhausted I can scarcely move my tongue. I'm glad that to-morrow is
+Sunday, for I've surely earned one day of rest."
+
+"Come out and spend it at the ranch," urged Mrs. Barnaby, hospitably.
+"It happens that there is no service to-morrow at St. Boniface, but
+James will be coming in for the mail, and will be glad to bring you out
+in time for dinner."
+
+Mary had spent two afternoons at the Barnaby ranch, driving out with
+Mrs. Rochester, and she enjoyed them so much that she welcomed the
+thought of a return to the homelike old place, with its air of thrift
+and comfort. Jack had been better the last few days, so she eagerly
+accepted the invitation.
+
+Next morning Mr. Barnaby drove in for her himself with the gray mules
+and the roomy old carriage. Mary, comfortably stowed away on the back
+seat, because it had the best springs, leaned forward to hold the reins
+while he went into the post-office. She had risen early and hurried
+through as much of the work as she could in order that her holiday might
+not mean extra work for her mother. Now with an easy conscience she
+settled herself to enjoy a care-free day, and looked forward with keen
+enjoyment to the seven miles' drive along the smooth country road.
+
+She had been sitting in a pleasant reverie some four or five minutes,
+when a familiar little voice close by the wheel piped out:
+
+"Why, there's Miss Mayry! _Where_ are you going?"
+
+Before she could reply, Brud and Sister and Uncle August came swarming
+into the carriage, stepping on her toes, climbing up on the seat, and
+showing such joy over having discovered her that it was impossible not
+to give them a gracious reception, even though she groaned inwardly at
+the sight of them. Their prompt demand for a story the moment they were
+seated was followed by the appearance of Mr. Barnaby.
+
+"I can't tell you any stories to-day," Mary explained, pleasantly,
+"because I am going visiting. But I'll tell you a lovely one to-morrow,
+about Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. You'll have to hop out now. Mr.
+Barnaby is ready to start."
+
+"I aren't going to hop out!" declared Sister, winding her arms around
+Mary's neck in a choking clasp. Brud immediately threw his arms around
+Uncle August and held him tight, regardless of the fact that Mr. Barnaby
+was whistling to the dog and motioning him to jump out.
+
+"We are a-going with you," Brud announced.
+
+"But you are not invited," Mary answered, in a provoked tone. "You
+surely don't care to go where you're neither asked nor wanted!"
+
+"Come on, Bub. I'm in a hurry," said Mr. Barnaby, kindly. He took hold
+of the child's arms to lift him out, but Brud, seizing the back of the
+seat with both hands, stiffened himself and began to cry, shrieking out
+between sobs, "I want to go with Miss Mayry! _Please_ don't put me out!
+Aw, Miss Mayry! _Don't_ let him put me out!"
+
+Immediately Sister added her tearful wails to his. Meliss, sauntering
+down the street in search of the children, heard the familiar cries, and
+quickened her pace to a run. A crowd was gathering around the carriage.
+She came up in time to hear Mr. Barnaby say, good-naturedly, "Oh, well,
+if they're going to break their little hearts over it, let 'em come
+along. _I_ don't mind!"
+
+"But their mother will think that something has happened to them,"
+protested Mary. "She'll be frantic."
+
+Meliss pushed her way through the crowd to the carriage. "No'm, she
+won't, Miss Ma'y. She won't worry none. Her haid aches fit to bus' this
+mawnin'. I'll tell her _you's_ takin' keer of 'em, and she'll be only
+too thankful to you-all for a free day."
+
+"It's Meliss who will be thankful for a free day," thought Mary, still
+hesitating. She rebelled at the thought of her own day being spoiled,
+and realized that for discipline's sake the children ought not to be
+allowed to carry their point. Mr. Barnaby settled the question by
+stepping into the carriage and gathering up the reins.
+
+"Tell their mother I'll bring them back before night," he said to
+Meliss.
+
+The sobs and tears stopped as suddenly as they had begun. Presently Mr.
+Barnaby glanced back over his shoulder, saying:
+
+"This load doesn't seem equally divided. Here, one of you kids climb
+over into the front seat with me." At the invitation both children threw
+themselves violently on Mary and clung to her, beginning to sniffle
+again. He looked back at her with the humorous one-sided smile that she
+always found irresistibly droll.
+
+"First time I ever came across that particular brand of youngsters.
+Strikes me the old Nick has put his ear marks on 'em pretty plain.
+You're crowded back there, aren't you, with that dog sitting on your
+feet? Here, sir! Come over here with me!"
+
+With one bound Uncle August sprang over on the front seat, and sat up
+beside his host, looking so dignified and so humanly interested in
+everything they passed that Mr. Barnaby laughed. He laid a caressing
+hand on him, saying, "So you're the dog that's been to college. Well, it
+has made a gentleman of you, sir! I admire your manners. It's a pity you
+can't pass them around the family."
+
+Charmed by the novelty of the drive, the children cuddled up against
+Mary, and were so quiet all the way to the ranch that she felt
+remorseful when she remembered how near she had come to depriving them
+of the pleasure.
+
+Mrs. Barnaby threw up her hands in surprise when she saw the three
+self-invited guests who calmly followed Mary out of the carriage, but
+when the situation had been explained in a laughing aside, she said in
+her whole-souled, motherly way, "Now, my dear, don't you worry one mite!
+We are used to children, and we'll find some way to keep them from
+spoiling your day."
+
+Her first step in that direction was to take them out to the kitchen and
+fill their hands with cookies, and send them outdoors to eat them. She
+also gave them instructions to stay out and play. A low swing and a
+seesaw between the kitchen and the garden gate showed where her
+grand-children amused themselves hours at a time on their annual visits.
+When she went back into the living-room Mary had seated herself in a
+rocking-chair with a sigh of content.
+
+"What a dear old room this is," she said, looking up with a smile. "It
+makes me think of Grandmother Ware's. I love its low ceiling and little,
+deep-set windows and wide fireplace. I could sit here all day and do
+nothing but listen to the clock tick and the fire crackle, and rest."
+
+"Well, you do just that," insisted Mrs. Barnaby, hospitably. "I have to
+be out in the kitchen for a while. I've got pretty fair help, but she
+needs a good deal of oversight, so you sit here and enjoy the quiet
+while you can."
+
+The early rising and the drive had made Mary drowsy, and as soon as she
+was left alone the deep stillness of the country Sabbath that filled the
+room seemed to fold about her like a mantle of restfulness. She closed
+her eyes, making believe that she really was back at her Grandmother
+Ware's; that the sunshine streaming in at the open door was the sunshine
+of a Northern June instead of a Texas January; and that the odor of
+lemon verbena which reached her now and then came from an outside garden
+instead of the potted plant on the deep window-sill at her elbow. The
+old place was so associated in Mary's memory with a feeling of
+perpetual, unbroken calm, that she had never lost one of her earliest
+impressions that it was the place of "green pastures and still waters"
+mentioned in the Psalms.
+
+"Jack always said that I'll have my innings when I'm a grandmother," she
+said, drowsily, to herself. "I wonder if I'll ever get to a place where
+I can always be as serene of spirit as she was, no matter what happens.
+I wonder if she ever had anything as upsetting as Brud and Sister to try
+her nerves in her young days."
+
+As if in answer to her mere thought of them, the two children came
+racing around the house. They fairly fell into the room, and, throwing
+themselves across her lap, demanded that she come out at once and see
+the peacocks. Had they said any other kind of fowl she would have
+resented the intrusion more than she did, but peacocks recalled Warwick
+Hall so pleasantly that she got up at once and went with them. She had
+seen none since leaving school. These had not been near the house on her
+former visits to the ranch. The stately birds strutted up and down in
+the sunshine, their tails spread in dazzling gorgeousness.
+
+"They're Sammy's," called Mrs. Barnaby from the kitchen door. "He takes
+the greatest pride in them. That cock took a prize at the last San
+Antonio fair."
+
+Mary had met "Sammy" the last time she was at the ranch, and had heard
+of him ever since her first conversation with Mrs. Barnaby. He was an
+elderly cousin of her husband's who had made his home with them for
+years. A few minutes later she came upon the old man in the barnyard.
+The children, having once obtained possession of her, had dragged her
+down there to see a colt that they had discovered.
+
+Sammy was sitting on the fence in his Sunday clothes, busy with his
+usual Sunday occupation of whittling. His bushy gray beard made him look
+older than Mr. Barnaby, and the keen glance he gave the children from
+under his shaggy eyebrows made them sidle away from him. They, too, had
+met him before, under circumstances which they did not take pleasure in
+recalling. Only a few moments before he had caught them chasing the
+ducks until they were dizzy, and stopped them with a sternness that made
+them wary of him. They had had an encounter with him one day in town
+also, soon after their arrival in Bauer. They had climbed into the
+wagon, which he left hitched in front of the grocery, and had poked
+holes into every package he had piled on the seat, in order to discover
+what they held. When he came out little streams of rice and sugar and
+meal were dribbling out all over the wagon. When he started after them
+with a threatening crack of his whip they escaped by darting into the
+front door of the butcher shop and out of the back, but they always felt
+that it was one of the narrowest escapes they ever made, and that a day
+of reckoning would come if he ever got close enough to them to reach
+them with his whip.
+
+It was a trifling disconcerting to come across him suddenly on this
+peaceful ranch, and they pulled Mary away as soon as they could. She was
+enjoying the conversation they had drifted into, starting with the colt.
+He spoke with a strong New England twang, and his quaint sayings and
+homely comparisons suggested the types and times portrayed in the
+Bigelow Papers.
+
+Despite her determination not to have her day taken up by the children,
+Mary found herself devoting the entire morning to their entertainment.
+Country sights and sounds were so new and strange to them that it seemed
+selfish not to answer their eager questions, and when their wanderings
+around the place led them to a deserted cabin where the Indians had once
+killed two Mexican shepherds, she repeated the thrilling story as she
+had heard it from Mrs. Barnaby, with all its hair-raising details. When
+they went in to dinner she had been answering questions and entertaining
+her pupils for two hours, as diligently as on any week-day.
+
+It was an old-fashioned "turkey dinner" to which they were summoned, and
+the variety and deliciousness of the dishes may have had much to do
+with the children's conduct. They were so quiet and well behaved that
+Mary watched them in surprise. Beyond yes and no and politely expressed
+thanks, Brud spoke not at all, and Sister only once. That was to say,
+when Mrs. Barnaby addressed her as Sister, "Call me Nancy. I'm trying
+that name now."
+
+Seeing the look of surprise that circled around the table, Mary
+explained, feeling that Sister, as usual, was enjoying the limelight
+that this peculiar custom of hers called her into.
+
+"Hump!" exclaimed old Sammy. "Something of a chameleon, eh? If she
+changes her nature to suit her name it must keep her family busy getting
+acquainted with her."
+
+"I think it does have some slight influence," answered Mary. "Then she'd
+better drop the name of Nancy," said old Sammy, with a solemn wag of the
+head. "In an old blue poetry book that I used to read back in Vermont,
+it said,
+
+    "'Little Nancy would never her mother obey,
+     But always did choose to have her own way.'
+
+"She came to a frightful end, jumping up and down in her chair.
+
+    "'In vain did her mother command her to stop.
+     Nan only laughed louder and higher did hop,'
+
+till she fell over and cracked her head. The only Nancys I have ever
+known have all been self-willed like that."
+
+Garrulous Cousin Sammy was only indulging in reminiscence. He had not
+intended to tease the child, but she resented his remarks, and thrusting
+out her tongue at him, screwed up her face into the ugliest grimace
+possible for her to make. Fortunately the arrival of a huge pumpkin pie
+turned his eyes away from her just then, for Sammy Bradford, old
+bachelor though he was, had strict New England notions about the rearing
+of children, which he sometimes burned to put into practice for the good
+of the general public.
+
+After dinner Mr. Barnaby retired to his room for his usual Sunday nap.
+Cousin Sammy took his pipe to the sunny bench outside the open door, and
+Mrs. Barnaby provided for the children's entertainment by bringing out a
+box of toys that had been left behind at different times by various
+grand-children. She arranged them on a side table in the dining-room,
+with some colored pencils, paper and scissors.
+
+Brud and "Nancy," ever ready to investigate anything new, seated
+themselves at her bidding, and began to paw over the games and pictures
+with apparent interest. Thereupon Mrs. Barnaby and Mary went into the
+next room, and drawing two big easy chairs into the chimney corner, they
+settled themselves for a long, cosy _tête-à-tête_. It was the first
+opportunity Mary had had to explain to Mrs. Barnaby that she had
+undertaken to teach the children in order to prevent her mother from
+sewing for other people.
+
+They had had about ten minutes of uninterrupted quiet, when the door
+opened and "Nancy" walked in with her hat and coat on. Her lips were
+drawn into a dissatisfied pout, and she threw herself across Mary's lap,
+whining, "I don't like those old things in there! Tell us about the
+Forty Thieves _now_!"
+
+"No, Nancy," said Mary, firmly, hoping to appease her by remembering to
+use the new name. "I told you before you came out here that I'd not tell
+you a single story to-day."
+
+"But you already have," cried Brud, triumphantly, appearing in the
+doorway also in coat and hat. "You told us about the Indians killing the
+shepherds."
+
+"Oh, but that was just a true happening that I told to explain about the
+cabin we were looking at," was the patient answer. "That was different
+from sitting down on purpose to tell you a story, and I shall _not_ do
+that to-day."
+
+"Then come and play with us," demanded Sister, seizing her by the hands,
+after one keen glance at her to see if she really was in earnest. "Come
+on, Brud, and help me pull. We'll _make_ her come!"
+
+"Sh!" warned Mary, attempting to free herself, as they began shouting
+and tugging at her. "I came out here to visit Mrs. Barnaby, and I'll not
+play with you till to-morrow. If you don't want to make pictures or cut
+paper or work the puzzle games you'll have to go outdoors and amuse
+yourselves. But you must not make such a noise. Mr. Barnaby is asleep."
+
+"Then if you don't want us to wake him up you've _got_ to play with us
+to keep us still!" cried Brud. "Hasn't she, Sister?"
+
+"Call me Nancy when I tell you!" screamed Sister, in an exasperated
+tone, stamping her foot. Then, fired by Brud's suggestion, she dropped
+Mary's hands and darted across the room to the piano, which was standing
+open in the corner. It was an old-fashioned one, its rosewood case
+inlaid above the keyboard with mother-of-pearl. The yellow keys were out
+of tune, but they had never been touched save by careful fingers, for
+it was one of Mrs. Barnaby's cherished treasures. Now she rose as if she
+had been struck herself, as both children began pounding upon it
+ruthlessly with their fists, making a hideous, discordant din.
+
+"Stop, children! Stop, I say!" she demanded. But her commands fell on
+unheeding ears, and they pounded away until she laid vigorous hands on
+them and forcibly dragged them away from the piano. Instantly they
+struggled out of her grasp, and rushing back, pounded the keys harder
+than before. Mary, who had never seen them act like this, was distressed
+beyond measure that she had been the cause, even though the unwilling
+one, of such an invasion. She started to the rescue, thinking savagely
+that they would have to be gagged and tied, hand and foot, and that she
+would take pleasure in helping do it.
+
+Old Sammy reached them first, however, his Puritanical soul resenting
+both the disobedience and the Sabbath-breaking uproar. With one swoop he
+caught up a child under each arm, and carried them kicking and
+struggling out-of-doors.
+
+"Here ye'll stay the rest of the afternoon!" he announced, in a gruff
+voice, as he put them down. "There's all out-of-doors to play in, and if
+you so much as step over the door-sill into that room until I give ye
+leave, I'll _withe_ ye!"
+
+It was a mysterious threat, since neither child had ever heard the word
+_withe_ before, and he said it in a deep, awful voice that made Brud
+think creepily of the Fee-fi-fo-fum giant in his picture-book at home,
+who went about smelling blood and saying, "_Dead or alive, I will have
+some!_"
+
+For a moment they stood in awed silence, gaping at the only person who
+had ever intimidated them; then Sister, in a blind rage, seized his clay
+pipe that he had put down on the bench, and threw it with all her force
+on the stone floor of the porch.
+
+"You let me alone!" she shrieked, as she darted away from him.
+"You--you--you old _Billygoat_, you!" It was the sight of his gray beard
+that finally suggested to her choking wrath a name ugly enough to hurl
+at him. Then she took to her heels down the grassy lane, Brud following
+as fast as possible.
+
+"There's nothing for me to do but follow them," said Mary, starting into
+the bedroom for her hat and coat, which had been laid away in there.
+"I'd feel so responsible if they should get hurt, and there are so many
+things on a big place like this that they are not used to."
+
+"Now, don't you worry," interrupted old Sammy. "I'll keep _my_ eye on
+them."
+
+He was quite red in the face with vexation over the loss of his pipe,
+which lay in several pieces on the floor, and Mrs. Barnaby, knowing him
+well, prevailed on Mary to come back to her easy-chair.
+
+"You leave them to him," she insisted, in a laughing aside. "He's so mad
+that he'll watch them like a hawk, just for the pleasure of pouncing
+down on them again if they cut up any more didoes; but his bark is worse
+than his bite, and they'll be perfectly safe with him."
+
+So Mary allowed herself to be drawn back to their interrupted
+conversation, but she could not rid herself of an uneasy feeling that
+kept obtruding itself into her thoughts, even when she was most
+interested.
+
+If Brud and Sister had deliberately planned a revenge on the old man who
+had forced them into exile and temporary obedience, they could not have
+chosen anything which would have hurt him worse than their next prank.
+Their wild chase down the lane had been brought to a sudden stop by the
+sight of the lordly peacock, strutting back and forth in the barn-yard,
+his beautiful tail spread wide in the sun. They climbed up on the gate
+to watch it, and, hanging over the top bar, admired it in almost
+breathless ecstasy for several minutes. The iridescent shimmer of the
+gorgeous eyes in its tail started a dispute.
+
+"That's why you can't ever catch a peacock," Brud asserted, "'cause with
+all those eyes in its tail it can see you coming up behind it."
+
+"Aw, goosey," contradicted Nancy, "it sees with its two little _head_
+eyes. Those feather eyes in its tail can't see."
+
+"They can!"
+
+"They can't!"
+
+The two words were bandied back and forth, the dispute promising to go
+on indefinitely, till Brud's triumphant, "Ten million times _can_," was
+answered by Nancy's final, "Million billion times _can't_! So there."
+
+"We'll prove it," was Brud's next taunt. "Try and see if you can catch
+him."
+
+"All right," was the willing assent. "And if the feathers come out of
+his tail as easy as they did out of Mis' Williams' red rooster, won't
+that old man be mad!"
+
+In the meantime Sammy had gone into the house to hunt among his
+possessions for a certain corncob pipe, to take the place of the clay
+one just broken. The mantel-shelf in his room was as crowded as the
+corner of an old junk shop, so it took some time for him to find what he
+was searching for. He had taken it down and was slowly filling it, when
+the sound of a wild commotion in the barn-yard made him hurry to the
+door. Turkeys, guineas, ducks, hens,--everything that could gobble or
+flutter or squawk, were doing their utmost to attract someone's
+attention. And the cause of it all, or, rather, the two causes, were
+standing by the watering-trough, comparing the spoils of the chase. They
+had crept up behind the peacock, despite his thousand eyes, and caught
+him by the tail. Each proudly clutched a handful of long, trailing
+feathers, and the bird, miserably conscious that his glory had been torn
+from him, had taken refuge under the corn-crib.
+
+"You outrageous little Hittites!" roared old Sammy, coming upon them
+suddenly and seeing the feathers. Then a real chase began.
+
+A little while later, Mary paused in the middle of a sentence to say,
+"Listen! Didn't that sound like the children crying or calling?"
+
+Mrs. Barnaby, who was slightly deaf, shook her head. "No, I think not.
+Anyhow, Sammy is looking after them. He won't let them come to any real
+harm. What was it we were talking about? Oh, yes! Those heirloom
+candlesticks."
+
+More than an hour afterward a shadow darkened the doorway for an instant
+as Sammy strode past it on his way across the porch.
+
+"Mr. Bradford," called Mary. "Do you know where the children are?"
+
+At her call he turned back to the door, holding out a great handful of
+peacock feathers which he was taking sorrowfully to his room.
+
+"Those pesky little varmints!" he exclaimed, still wrathful, "They've
+teetotally ruined that cock's looks. Yes, I know where they are. I've
+had them shut up in the corn-crib till a minute ago."
+
+"Shut up in the corn-crib!" echoed Mary and Mrs. Barnaby in the same
+breath.
+
+"Yes, as I told 'em, they haven't any more idea of other people's rights
+than weasels, and it's high time they are being taught."
+
+"Well, do you think they've learned their lesson in one dose, Sammy?"
+asked Mr. Barnaby, dryly, coming out from his room in time to hear his
+cousin's speech.
+
+"That remains to be seen," spluttered Sammy, as he strode on to his
+room. "They were sniffling and snubbing considerable when I let them
+out. I don't think they'll chase _my_ peacock any more."
+
+The "sniffling and snubbing" changed into out-and-out crying as soon as
+they reached Mary's side, and that was followed by heart-broken wails
+and demands to be taken home. Nothing comforted them. Nothing could turn
+them aside from their belief that they had been abused and must be taken
+back immediately to mommey.
+
+After nearly half an hour spent in vain attempts to silence them, Mrs.
+Barnaby said in sheer desperation, "Well, James, you'll just have to
+hitch up and take them back, even if it is so early. I hate to have
+Mary's visit cut short, but they'd spoil it worse if they stayed. If I
+only felt free to give them a good sound spanking now--"
+
+She did not finish the sentence, but looked over her spectacles so
+sternly that the children backed away, lest a feeling of liberty might
+suddenly descend upon her.
+
+As Mary pinned on her hat before the mirror in the bedroom, she turned
+to her hostess with a hunted look in her eyes.
+
+"Do you ever get desperate over things?" she asked. "That's the way I am
+now. I'm so tired of those children that the very sound of their voices
+sets my teeth on edge. If I only could have had this one whole day away
+from them I might have been able to go on with them to-morrow, but now
+it seems as if I can't! I just _can't_!"
+
+"I don't wonder, you poor child," was the sympathetic answer.
+
+"The worst of it is, I'm utterly discouraged," confessed Mary, almost
+tearfully. "I've been pluming myself on the fact that my two weeks' work
+had amounted to something; that I'd really made an impression, and given
+them all sorts of good ideas. But you see it isn't worth a row of pins.
+They are good only so long as I'm exercising like an acrobat, mind and
+body, to keep them entertained. The minute I stop they don't pay the
+slightest attention to my wishes."
+
+"Maybe you've done too much for them," said Mrs. Barnaby, shrewdly
+guessing the root of the trouble. "You told them it was a surprise
+school. Let the next surprise be a different sort. Turn them loose and
+make them hunt their own entertainment."
+
+"As they did to-day," Mary answered, with a shrug. "They'd run home
+howling and their mother would think I was incapable and give my place
+to someone else. No, we must have the money, so I'll have to go on and
+put in my best licks, no matter how I detest it."
+
+When she drew on her gloves she was so near to tears that the little
+bloodstone ring on her hand looked so dim she could scarcely see it. But
+it made her glance up with a smile into the benevolent old face above
+her, and she stripped back the glove from her finger with a dramatic
+gesture.
+
+"See?" she said, brightly, exhibiting the ring. "By the bloodstone on my
+finger, I'll keep my oath until the going down of one more sun."
+
+"You're a brave little girl. That's what you are!" said Mrs. Barnaby,
+stooping to kiss her good-bye. Only that week she had read _The Jester's
+Sword_, from which Mary was quoting, and she knew what grim
+determination lay beneath the light tone.
+
+"I guess it will help you the same way it did the poor Jester, to
+remember that it's only one day at a time you're called on to endure.
+And another thing," she added, trying to put as many consoling thoughts
+into their parting as possible, "If you _do_ succeed in teaching them
+anything that'll help to snatch them as brands from the burning, it will
+count for a star in your crown just as much as if you'd gone out and
+converted the heathen on 'India's coral strand.'"
+
+"It's not stars in my crown I'm working for," laughed Mary. "It's for
+pence in my purse." Nevertheless the suggestion stayed with her all the
+way home. When conversation flagged, she filled the silences with
+pleasant snatches of day-dreams, in which she saw herself becoming to
+these benighted little creatures, asleep on either side of her, the
+inspiration that Madam Chartley was to everyone who crossed the
+threshold of Warwick Hall.
+
+"I've just _got_ to do something to make them see themselves as they
+look to other people," she thought, desperately. "But the question is,
+_what_?"
+
+A hard problem indeed for one who, in many ways, was still only a child
+herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN JOYCE'S STUDIO
+
+
+IT was a wild, blustery day in March, two months after Mary's
+interrupted visit at the ranch. Joyce Ware, sitting before the glowing
+wood fire in the studio, high up on the top floor of a New York
+apartment house, had never known such a lonesome Sunday. The winds that
+rattled the casements and sent alternate dashes of rain and snow against
+the panes had kept her house-bound all day.
+
+Usually she was glad to have one of these shut-in days, after a busy
+week, when she could sit and do nothing with a clear conscience. Every
+moan of the wind in the chimney and every glimpse of the snow-whitened
+roofs below her windows, emphasized the luxurious comfort of the big
+room. She had had a hard week, trying to crowd into it some special
+orders for Easter cards. A year ago she would not have added them to her
+regular work, but now she was afraid to turn anything away which might
+help to swell the size of the check she must send home every month. If
+the days were not long enough to do the tasks she set for herself at a
+comfortable pace, she simply worked harder--feverishly, if need be, to
+finish them.
+
+She had been practically alone the entire day, for the two members of
+the household who were at home were staying in their own rooms. Lucy
+Boyd had a cold, and her devoted little aunt was nursing her with the
+care of the traditional hen for its one chicken. Mrs. Boyd had not
+allowed Lucy to leave her room even for her Sunday dinner, but had
+carried it in to her with her own on a tray. As Miss Henrietta Robbins
+was spending the week-end in the country, Joyce did not take the trouble
+to set the table for herself, but ate her own dinner in the little
+kitchenette.
+
+Afterward, to make the day as different as possible from the six others
+in the week, in which she sat at her easel from morning till night in a
+long-sleeved gingham apron, she went into her room and put on a dress of
+her own designing, soft and trailing and of a warm wine-red. Pushing a
+great sleepy-hollow chair close enough to the hearth for the tips of her
+slippers to rest on the shining brass fender-rail, she settled herself
+among the cushions with a book which she had long been trying to find
+time to read.
+
+The story, like the bleak outdoor world, seemed to accentuate her sense
+of shelter and comfort, but at the same time it somehow emphasized her
+loneliness. Now and then, when her eyes grew tired, she paused for a
+moment to look around her. There were several things which gave her keen
+pleasure every time her attention was called to them, which she felt
+ought to be enough of themselves to dispel her vague depression: the
+odor of growing mignonette, the sunny yellow of the pot of daffodils on
+the black teakwood table, the gleam of firelight on the brasses, and the
+warm shadows it cast on the trailing folds of her wine-red dress.
+
+That lighting was exactly what she wanted for some drapery folds which
+she would be putting on a magazine cover next week. She studied the
+effect, thinking lazily that if it were not her one day of rest, she
+would get out palette and brushes, and make a sketch of what she wanted
+to keep, while it was before her.
+
+She read for over two hours. When the story came to an unhappy ending
+she dropped the book, wishing she had never come across such a tale of
+misfortune and misunderstanding. It depressed her strangely, and
+presently, as she sat looking into the fire, the unbroken quiet of the
+big room gave her an overwhelming sense of loneliness that was like an
+ache.
+
+"I'd give anything to walk in and see what they're all doing at home
+right now," she thought, as she stared into the red embers, "but I can't
+even picture them as they really are, because they are no longer living
+in any place that I ever called home."
+
+The thought of their being off in a strange little Texas town that she
+had never seen made her feel far more forlorn and apart than she would
+have felt could she have imagined them with any of the familiar
+backgrounds she had once shared with them. They seemed as far away and
+out of reach as they had been that winter in France, when she used to
+climb up in Monsieur Greyville's pear tree and cry for sheer
+homesickness. That was years ago, and before the Gate of the Giant
+Scissors had opened to give her a playmate, but she recalled, as if it
+were but yesterday, the performance that often took place in the pear
+tree.
+
+She began by repeating that couplet from _Snowbound_,--
+
+    "The dear home faces, whereupon
+     The fitful firelight paled and shone."
+
+It was like a charm, for it always brought a blur of tears through which
+she could see, as in a magic mirror, each home face as she had seen it
+oftenest in the little brown house in Plainsville. There was her mother,
+so patient and gentle and tired, bending over the sewing which never
+came to an end; and Jack, charging home from school like a young
+whirlwind to do his chores and get out to play. She could see Mary, with
+her dear earnest little freckled face and beribboned pigtails, always so
+eager to help, even when she was so small that she had to stand on a
+soap-box to reach the dish-pan. Such a capable, motherly little atom she
+was then, looking after the wants of Holland and the baby untiringly.
+
+Despite the ache in her throat, a smile crossed Joyce's face now and
+then, as she went on calling up other scenes. They had had hard work at
+the Wigwam, and had felt the pinch of poverty, but she had never known a
+family who found more to laugh over and enjoy when they looked back over
+their hard times. But now--the change was more than she could bear to
+think of. Jack a hopeless cripple, Mary tied down to the uncongenial
+work that she had to take up as a breadwinner, when she ought to be free
+to enjoy the best part of her girlhood as other girls were doing. Tears
+came into Joyce's eyes as she brooded over the pictures she had conjured
+up. Then she rose, and trailing into her bedroom, came back with a
+lapful of letters; all that the family had written her since leaving
+Lone Rock four months ago. Dropping on the hearth-rug, she arranged them
+in little piles beside her, according to their dates, and beginning at
+the first, proceeded to read them through in order. They did bring the
+family nearer, as she had expected them to do, but the later ones
+brought such a weight of foreboding with their second reading, that
+presently she buried her face in the cushions of the chair against which
+she was leaning, and began to cry as she had not cried for nearly a
+year. Not since the first news of Jack's accident, had she given way to
+such a storm of tears.
+
+It was some time before she sobbed herself quiet, and then she still sat
+with her head in the cushions, till she heard the faint buzz of an
+electric doorbell. It sounded so far away that she thought it was the
+bell of the adjoining apartment, and gave it no more than a passing
+thought. So, too, the sound of an opening door, of an umbrella dropped
+into a hat-rack, of voices, seemed to have but a vague connection with
+her world. Then she was startled by hearing Mrs. Boyd's voice at the
+portière saying:
+
+"Joyce, dear, here is Mr. Tremont to see you. Ah! I _knew_ you were
+asleep. He rang twice, so I answered the bell."
+
+Phil Tremont, pausing between the portières as Mrs. Boyd slipped back to
+Lucy, caught only a glimpse of Joyce's red dress trailing through the
+opposite doorway. The scattered letters on the rug bore witness to her
+hurried flight.
+
+"Come on in to the fire, Phil," she called, through the partly closed
+door. "Poke it up and make yourself at home. I'll be out in a minute. I
+never dreamed of such joy as a caller on this dreadful day, or I should
+have been sitting up in state, waiting to receive you!"
+
+The laughing reply he sent back brightened her spirits as if by magic.
+The next best thing to having one of her own family suddenly appear, was
+the pleasure of seeing the friend who had made one of their home circle
+so often and so intimately in the old Wigwam days which she had just
+been crying over. Hastily smoothing her rumpled hair, bathing her eyes
+and fluffing a powder-puff over her nose to take away the shine which
+her tear-sopped handkerchief had left on it, she came out to find him
+standing before the fire, looking down suspiciously at the scattered
+letters.
+
+As he stepped forward with a hearty hand-clasp, she felt that the keen
+glance he gave her was a question, and answered as if he had spoken
+aloud.
+
+"No, I wasn't asleep, as Mrs. Boyd thought. I was just having a good
+old-fashioned cry--a regular bawl! I don't get a chance to indulge in
+such an orgy of weeps often, but now the storm is over and it has
+cleared the atmosphere for another year or so."
+
+"What is it, Joyce? Bad news from home? Is Jack worse?"
+
+Phil's voice was so sympathetic, his real concern so evident, that Joyce
+could not trust herself to answer immediately. She stooped and began to
+pick up the letters.
+
+"I--I'm afraid I boasted too soon about the storm being over. You'll
+have to talk about something else for awhile, or I might tune up again."
+
+"All right," he answered, in a soothing tone, reaching down to help her
+gather up the letters. "That suits me, anyhow, for I came on purpose to
+bring you a rare bit of news concerning the Tremont family."
+
+In her present mood the mere sight of Phil's broad shoulders was a
+comfort. They might not be able to lift her actual burdens, but she felt
+their willingness, and his unspoken sympathy steadied her like an
+outstretched hand. Now with the consideration that was one of his most
+lovable traits, he gave her time to compose herself, by rattling on in a
+joking way about himself.
+
+"I've come a long distance in the rain and snow to tell my news. I've
+torn myself away from all the wiles of Stuart and Eugenia to keep their
+only brother with them. I've braved the dangers of Greater New York and
+defied the elements in order to be the bearer of such important tidings,
+and you needn't think I'm going to give it to you as if it were any
+common bit of information. I tell you what I'll do. You may have three
+guesses. If you fail you pay a forfeit, say--an invitation to supper,
+with the privilege of my helping get it ready in that tabloid kitchen of
+yours."
+
+"That is highly satisfactory," agreed Joyce, whose voice was under
+control by this time. She drew her chair a trifle closer to the fire,
+and, leaning her elbows on her knees, looked into the embers for
+inspiration.
+
+"It concerns the Tremont family," she mused. "That means all of you.
+Well, it must be that the old tangle about your great-aunt Patricia's
+holdings in England has been settled and you're coming into some money
+after all these years."
+
+"No; guess again."
+
+Picking up the long brass tongs, she began to trace pictures on the
+sooty background of the chimney while she tried to think of a better
+answer.
+
+"It concerns _all_ of you!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+With his hands in his pockets, Phil walked over to the window and stood
+looking out over the wide stretch of city roofs below, now almost hidden
+by the rapidly deepening twilight. He was smiling while he waited, and
+humming half under his breath a song that his old English nurse used to
+sing to him and his sister Elsie: "Maid Elsie roams by lane and lea." He
+had whistled it almost constantly the last few days:
+
+      "Kling! lang-ling!
+    She seems to hear her bride-bells ring,
+       Her bonnie bride-bells ring!"
+
+He hummed it again when Joyce's second guess was wrong, while he waited
+for the third. Then, when it, too, was wide of the mark and she demanded
+to be told, he began it again; but this time he sang it meaningly, and
+loud enough to fill the room with the deep, sweet notes:
+
+    "A year by seas, a year by lands,
+     A year since then has died,
+     And Elsie at the altar stands,
+     Her sailor at her side.
+       While kling! lang! ling!
+     Their bonnie bride-bells gaily ring!"
+
+Joyce's face grew bright with sudden understanding as he finished, and
+she cried, "Elsie is to be married! Is _that_ what you came to tell me?"
+
+"Yes, my littlest, onliest sister is to be married, immediately after
+Easter, out in California, in the Gold-of-Ophir rose-garden you have
+heard so much about. We are all going--Daddy and Stuart and Eugenia and
+little Patricia and your obedient servant, 'Pat's Pill,' himself."
+
+He left the window, and stretching himself out in the big chair opposite
+hers, gave her the details that she instantly demanded.
+
+"Elsie's sailor lad is a navy surgeon. The wedding is to be in the
+rose-garden, because there is where they first met, and there is where
+Elsie has had all the best times of her life. She has always lived with
+mother's people, you know, since our home was broken up, and even before
+mother's death, we used to spend our winters there. Yes, Daddy opposed
+the marriage at first, but you know Daddy. He'd hardly think an
+archangel good enough for Elsie."
+
+The news had the effect which Phil had foreseen, and Joyce's own affairs
+retired into the background, while she discussed the matter which was of
+such vital importance to the whole Tremont family. Later, he asked her
+to name all the things she considered the most desirable and unique as
+wedding gifts, and they were still adding to the list from which he was
+to make his choice, when they heard Mrs. Boyd come out into the hall to
+turn on the light. In the bright firelight, they had not noticed how
+dark it had grown outside. Joyce looked at the clock and sprang up,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Lucy will be wanting her cream toast, and it's time also for me to pay
+my forfeit to you. How much of a supper are you going to claim, young
+man?"
+
+"That depends on how many good left-overs there are in the pantry and
+ice-box," said Phil, rising also. "I'll come and investigate, myself,
+thank you."
+
+Pinning up the train of her red gown and tying on a big apron, Joyce
+made quick work of her supper preparations, and the long, lonely day
+ended in a jolly little feast, which completely restored her to her
+usual cheerful outlook on life. Mrs. Boyd joined them, despite the fact
+that she must leave Lucy to eat alone, in order to do so. It was always
+a red-letter day in her drab existence when Phil Tremont came into it.
+She was such a literal little body, that she never joked herself. She
+was mentally incapable of the repartee that always flew back and forth
+across the table when Phil was a guest, but she considered his tamest
+sallies as positively brilliant. When she went back to Lucy she had
+enough material to furnish conversation all the rest of the evening.
+
+"Now," said Phil, when he and Joyce were back in the studio again,
+before the fire, "I don't want to upset your equanimity, but if you can
+talk about it calmly, I'd like to hear exactly how things are going with
+Jack and Aunt Emily and that little brick of a Mary. I had one letter
+from Jack the first of the winter, and I've had the casual reports
+you've given me at long intervals, but I've no adequate idea of their
+whereabouts or their present sayings and doings."
+
+"Suppose I read you some of Mary's letters," proposed Joyce. "I've been
+surprised at the gift she's developed lately for describing her
+surroundings. Really, she's done some first-class word-pictures."
+
+In answer to his pleased assent, Joyce turned over the letters till she
+came to the first one that Mary had written from Bauer.
+
+"It was written on pieces of a paper sugar-sack while she was getting
+supper," explained Joyce. "But you can fairly see the little town spread
+out between the spire of St. Peter's and the tower of the Holy Angels'
+Academy, with the windmills in between and the new moon low on the
+horizon."
+
+Phil, lounging back in the big chair, sat with a smile on his face as he
+listened to Mary's account of the rector's call, while she was perched
+up on the windmill. But when Joyce reached the closing paragraph about
+its being a good old world after all, and her belief in Grandmother
+Ware's verse that the crooked should be made straight and the rough
+places smooth, a very tender light shone in his keen eyes. He said in a
+low tone, "The dear little Vicar! She's game to the core!"
+
+Urged to read more, Joyce went on, sometimes choosing only an extract
+here and there, sometimes reading an entire letter, till he had heard
+all about her visit to Gay, her first experience at a military hop,
+their brave attempt to make a merry Christmas among strangers, and
+finally her experience with the Mallory children, because of their
+desperate need of money.
+
+"Don't skip!" insisted Phil, still laughing over her account of her "day
+of rest" at the Barnaby ranch, when the peacock lost its tail.
+
+"The next one isn't funny," replied Joyce, "but it is especially
+interesting to me because it shows how Mary is growing up."
+
+She hunted through the disordered pile until she found one dated two
+months ago.
+
+"'The night after I brought Brud and Sister back from the ranch I lay
+awake for hours, trying to think what to do next to find the vulnerable
+spot in my _kleinen teufel_. I couldn't think of a thing, but decided to
+begin telling them Kipling's jungle stories instead of any more
+fairy-tales, and to try Mrs. Barnaby's suggestion of making them
+responsible for their own entertainment part of the time.'
+
+"Oh, this isn't the one I thought," exclaimed Joyce. "It goes on to tell
+about the last news from Holland, instead of the children. Here is the
+one I wanted, written two weeks later:
+
+"'Hail, Columbia, happy land! I've found the "open sesame," thanks to
+Kipling, and in a way I little expected. The children showed a
+breathless interest in the Jungle stories from the start, and began
+dramatizing them of their own accord. They have thrown themselves into
+the play with a zest which nothing of my proposing has ever called out.
+For two weeks I have been old Baloo, the Brown Bear, and Father Wolf by
+turns. There are two little hairless man-cubs in our version, however,
+for a Mowglina divides honors with Mowgli. Sister says she has chosen
+the name of Mowglina "for keeps," and I sincerely hope she has, if what
+Mr. Sammy Bradford said about names having a moral effect on her is
+true.
+
+"'We have our Council Rock up on the high hill back of St. Peter's,
+where Meliss sometimes plays the part of the Black Panther. We no longer
+greet each other with "Good morning." It is "Good Hunting" now, and when
+we part, it is with the benediction, "Jungle favor go with thee!" You
+remember Baloo taught the wood and water laws to Mowgli, how to tell a
+rotten branch from a sound one, how to speak politely to the wild bees
+when he came upon a hive of them, etc. But more than all he taught the
+Master Words of the Jungle, that turned every bird, beast and snake into
+a friend. It is simply amazing to me the way they seemed to be charmed
+by that idea, and it is strange that such utterly lawless children
+should be not only willing but eager to abide by the rules laid down for
+animals. It does my soul good to hear Brud, who has never obeyed anyone,
+gravely declaim:
+
+    "'"Now these are the laws of the Jungle,
+       And many and mighty are they,
+       But the head and the hoof of the law
+       And the haunch and the hump is--_obey_!"
+
+"'Or to hear saucy little Sister in the rôle of Mowglina, repeating
+Kaa's words to Uncle August, "A brave heart _and a courteous tongue_,
+they will carry thee far through the Jungle, manling."
+
+"'It was Uncle August, bless his old brown body, who helped me to make
+my first personal application of the play. I had just heard of their
+latest prank down-town. (Sad to say, the more angelic they are as little
+wolves, the more annoying they are when they return to the Man-pack.)
+They had dropped a live garter snake, a good-sized one, through the slit
+of the package box, and the postmistress had picked it up with a bundle
+of newspapers. She was so frightened that she yelled like a Comanche,
+and then had a nervous chill that lasted for a quarter of an hour. That
+same day they filled all the keyholes of the private letterboxes with
+chewing-gum, as far up as they could reach, and everybody who had to
+stop to pry it out was _so_ cross.
+
+"'I didn't say anything to them about it till after they had told me
+about Uncle August's chasing the calves out of Mrs. Williams' garden,
+and how she had petted and praised him for it. We talked a few minutes
+about the way Uncle August is beloved by everybody who knows him, and
+how even strangers on the street stop to pat his head or say something
+kind about him.
+
+"'"It's because he keeps every Law of the Jungle, for dogs," I told
+them, and then I said, quite mercilessly, "but the whole town looks on
+you two children as _Banderlogs_! Mere, senseless monkey-folks, outcasts
+who have no leaders and no laws!" Really, it hurt them dreadfully and I
+felt almost cruel for saying it. I could see that the shot told when I
+reminded them how they had been turned out of the hotel and chased out
+of every store in town. I told them that people said ugly things about
+them behind their backs, just as Kaa and Baloo did about the silly gray
+Apes who threw dirt and sticks and made mischief wherever they went.
+
+"'That was the climax. They both threw themselves across my lap and
+began to cry, protesting that they were _not_ Banderlogs. They didn't
+want people to call them that. I think my good angel must have inspired
+me to make the little sermon that I gave them then, for I certainly had
+never thought of the analogy before--how the same thing that is true in
+the Jungle holds good in the Man-world; that we must learn the Master
+Words for each person we meet, so that every heart will understand when
+we call out, "We be of one blood, ye and I." That just as the elephants
+and kites and snakes became friendly to Mowgli as soon as he learned the
+Master Words of their speech, so Miss Edna and the postmistress and old
+Mr. Sammy would be friendly to them, when they showed that they not only
+had brave hearts, which scorned to play little, mean, silly tricks, but
+_courteous tongues_ as well.
+
+"'The amazing part of it is that they understood me perfectly, and right
+then and there had a sort of spiritual awakening to the fact that they
+really are "of one blood" with these people they have been tormenting.
+It is pathetic to watch how hard they have been trying ever since, to
+convince people that they are _not_ Banderlogs, but are sensible
+children, willing to be governed by laws that they never understood
+before. Now, at parting, they insist on my repeating _all_ the verse:
+
+    "'"Wood and water, wind and tree,
+      _Wisdom_, _strength and courtesy_,
+       Jungle favor go with thee."
+
+They seem to believe that it verily holds some sort of hoodoo spell
+which will armor them with magic power to make friends.
+
+"'Already Sister has made peace with the postmistress by the gift of a
+crude little willow basket of her own weaving, filled with wildflowers.
+It met with such a gracious reception (due principally to private
+explanation beforehand) that Sister fairly squirmed with the blessedness
+of giving,--her first real experience of that sort. Brud used his
+hatchet to split a pine box into kindling, and presented the same, tied
+in neat bundles, to Mrs. Williams. Her surprise and voluble thanks (also
+solicited beforehand) were so gratifying that Brud came home so
+satisfied with the new application of the game that he burns to play it
+with everyone in Bauer, proving with actions, if not words, that he has
+a right to say, "We be of one blood, ye and I," and that he is _not_ a
+Banderlog.'"
+
+As Joyce slipped the letter back into its envelope, Phil leaned forward
+to put another log on the fire, saying, as he did so, "Good for Mary!
+She always manages to find some way out, and it is always a way no one
+else would think of. But somehow I can't quite place her in these
+letters. She's the same little bunch of energy that I've always known,
+and yet there's a difference. I can't quite make out what."
+
+"She's growing up, I tell you," answered Joyce. "That's what makes the
+difference. Listen to this one:
+
+"'Yesterday being Valentine's day, we had a picnic at the Council Rock.
+The hill rises straight up from the public road, just back of the
+Mallory cottage and St. Peter's. There is a roundabout road to the top,
+leading in from a back lane, which is easy to climb, but, of course, the
+children chose the steep trail starting near their gate. Nothing but a
+goat could walk up it with perfect ease and safety.
+
+"'Once at the top, the view is lovely. You can see over half the county,
+and look right down into the chimneys of the town. The whole hilltop is
+covered with wildflowers; strange, beautiful things I have never seen
+before--so many exquisite colors, you'd think a rainbow had been broken
+to bits and scattered over the ground.
+
+"'At one o'clock we started out of the Mallory gate, the most grotesque
+procession that ever went down the pike of Bauer. You see, we'd dropped
+the Jungle game for the day, and they were doing St. Valentine honor. I
+went first in my oldest dress, on account of the climb, my Mexican hat
+on my head, my alarm-clock, as usual, in one hand and a thermos bottle
+in the other. I was taking some boiling water along to make them tea, as
+a great treat. They don't like it particularly, but they wanted to use a
+little Japanese tea-set that had just been sent to them.
+
+"'Sister, fired by some of my descriptions of Valentine costumes, had
+elected to attend the picnic as the Queen of Hearts, and had dressed
+herself for the part with the assistance of Meliss. She looked perfectly
+ridiculous, spotted all over with turkey-red calico hearts. They were
+sewed on her dress, her hat, and even her black stockings. She was as
+badly broken out with them as a measles patient would have been with a
+red rash.
+
+"'Brud wouldn't let her dike him out in the same way. She wanted him to
+go as Cupid. He consented to let her call him Cupid and he carried a bow
+and arrow, and wore some of the trimmings, but he wore them in his own
+way. The white turkey-wings, which she tried to attach to his
+shoulderblades, he wore bound to his brow like an Indian chieftain's
+war-bonnet. Long-suffering Uncle August frisked about in a most
+remarkable costume. I think it must have been made of the top section of
+Brud's pajamas, with the sleeves pulled up over his front paws, and
+buttoned in the back. It was sprinkled with big hearts, some blue and
+some yellow.
+
+"'But, funny as they looked, Meliss was the comic Valentine of the
+occasion. The front of her was covered with an old lace window curtain.
+Across her bosom, carefully fastened with a gilt paper arrow, was the
+lithographed picture of a big red heart, as fat and red and shiny as a
+ripe tomato. She carried the lunch basket.
+
+"'I must confess it staggered me a trifle when the procession came out
+to meet me, but they were so pleased with themselves I hadn't the heart
+to suggest a single change. I led on, hoping that we wouldn't meet
+anyone. Well, we hadn't gone a hundred paces till we heard hoof-beats,
+and a solitary horseman came riding along behind us. Brud looked back
+and then piped up in his shrill little voice:
+
+"'"Oh, look, Miss Mayry! Look at the soldier man coming!"
+
+"'Naturally, I glanced back, and my blood fairly ran cold, for there,
+riding along with a broad grin on his face at sight of our ridiculous
+turnout, was Lieutenant Boglin! I was so amazed at seeing him that I
+just stood still in the road and stared, feeling my face get redder and
+redder. Somehow I had no power to move. He didn't recognize me till he
+was opposite us, but the instant he did, he was off his horse and coming
+up to shake hands, and I was trying to account for our appearance. It
+seems he had been with the troops up at Leon Springs for target
+practice, and was taking a day off while they were breaking camp. He had
+been commissioned to look at a polo pony somebody had for sale in Bauer,
+and thought while he was about it he would call and see the Ware family,
+after he had had dinner at the hotel. He was on his way there.
+
+"'Well, there I was! I couldn't ask him to go on such a babyfied lark as
+our Valentine picnic. I couldn't leave the children and take him over
+home, because my time is Mrs. Mallory's. Even if she had excused me, the
+children would have raised an unstoppable howl, and probably would have
+followed us. They are making grand strides in the courtesy business, but
+they are still far from being models of propriety.
+
+"'When I had explained to the best of my ability, I told him I would be
+through at five, and asked him to wait and take supper with us. I could
+see that he was inwardly convulsed, and I do believe it was because we
+all looked so ridiculous and he wanted to see the show a second time
+that he accepted my invitation with alacrity. As soon as he started on
+to the Williams House, I stopped under a tree and wrote a scrawl to
+mamma on the margin of the newspaper that was spread on top of the
+lunch-basket. Then I gave Meliss a dime to run over home with it, so
+that the family needn't be taken by surprise if Bogey happened to get
+there before I did.
+
+"'But it seems that he forgot the directions I gave him for finding the
+house, and about ten minutes to five, as the children and Meliss were
+finishing the lunch which was spread out on the Council Rock, he came
+climbing up the side of the hill. The children had been angelic before
+his arrival and they were good after he came, except--I can't explain
+it--there was something almost impish in the way they sat and watched
+us, listening to everything we said, as if they were committing it to
+memory to repeat afterward. Even Uncle August, in his heart-covered
+pajamas, squatted solemnly on the rock beside them and seemed to be
+stowing away something to remember.
+
+"'The lieutenant couldn't glance in their direction without laughing out
+loud; they looked so utterly comical. So he turned his back on them and
+began to admire the view, which certainly was magnificent. As the sun
+began to go down the wind came up, and the veil I had tied around my hat
+got loose, and streamed out like a comet's tail. I couldn't tie it down
+and I couldn't find a pin to fasten it, and first thing I knew he had
+taken one of those fancy bronze pins from the collar of his uniform,
+those crossed guns that officers wear, you know, and he gave me that to
+fasten my veil with.
+
+"'Now, there was nothing remarkable in that. Gay and Roberta have whole
+rows of such pins that different officers have given them. But Sister
+pointed her finger at me and shrilled out like a katydid, as if they had
+been discussing the subject before, "No, sir, Brud! You can't fool _me_!
+He _is_ Miss Mayry's valentine. He's her _beau_!"
+
+"'Unless you could have heard the elfish way she said it, you couldn't
+understand why it should have embarrassed me so dreadfully. My face felt
+as hot as a fiery furnace. He sort of smiled and pretended not to hear,
+and I couldn't think of a word to break the awful pause. But just then
+the alarm-clock, hanging on a bush behind us, went off with a whang and
+clatter that sent us both springing to our feet.
+
+"'They had finished their lunch by that time, so I helped Meliss hustle
+the dishes into the basket and headed the party for home as soon as
+possible. You can imagine the deep breath of thankfulness I drew when I
+finally left them at their own gate. But I drew it too soon. I should
+have waited until we were out of earshot. For as they went racing up the
+path to meet their mother, we could hear them shrieking to her about
+Miss Mayry's valentine beau who gave her two teeny, weeny guns to pin
+her veil with.
+
+"'The wind wasn't blowing so hard down where we were then, so as we went
+along I said in a careless sort of way, "Oh,--'lest we forget'--I'll
+return this now," and started to take it out of my veil. But he only
+laughed and said, with such a mischievous glance, "No, keep it, 'Miss
+Mayry,' lest you forget--your valentine."
+
+"'Fortunately, it was one of Jack's good days, and he was able to be out
+in the sitting-room, and the two took to each other at once. You know
+nobody can give people quite such a gentle, gracious reception as mamma
+can, and much as I had dreaded taking him into such a barely furnished
+little house, and serving him from our motley collection of dishes, I
+didn't mind it at all after she had made him welcome. Such things don't
+matter so much when you've a family you can be proud of.
+
+"'We had a delicious supper, and he ate and ate, and said nothing had
+tasted so good since he left home years ago to enlist. He stayed till
+ten o'clock, and then went down to the livery stable to get his horse
+and ride back to camp by moonlight. We sat up for nearly an hour after
+he left, comparing notes on how we had enjoyed the evening, and talking
+over all he had said. Jack said it was like coming across a well in a
+thirsty desert to meet a fellow like that, and mamma said she was sure
+he had enjoyed his little taste of simple home life quite as much as we
+had enjoyed having him. He quite captivated her, especially when he
+asked permission to come again. Norman was so impressed that he has been
+talking ever since about the advantages of being an army man. As for me,
+I found him lots more interesting than he was the night of the hop,
+although I must say I'll always remember him as a sort of guardian angel
+that night, for being so kind and saving me from being a wall-flower.'"
+
+There was a peculiar expression on Phil's face as Joyce laid down that
+letter.
+
+"Do you know," he said, gravely, "I feel as if I'd been seeing the
+little Vicar grow up right under my very eyes. I'd never before thought
+of her as being old enough to have 'affairs,' but this seems to give
+promise of blossoming into one. Of course, it's what one might naturally
+expect, but somehow I can't quite get used to the idea, and--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence aloud, but as he scowled into the fire,
+he added to himself, "_I don't like it_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PHIL GOES TO WARWICK HALL
+
+
+Had it not been for that package of letters read aloud before the fire
+on that stormy March night, this story might have had a very different
+ending. But for them Phil never would have known what a winsome,
+unselfish character the little Vicar had grown up to be. The casual
+meetings of years could not have revealed her to him as did these
+intimate glimpses of her daily life and thought, through her letters to
+Joyce.
+
+They showed her childishly jubilant in her delight when the first
+month's salary was paid into her hands, and yet practical and womanly in
+her plans for spending it. Like a child she was, too, in her laments
+over some of the mistakes which her inexperience led her into with Brud
+and Sister, yet he could see plainly underneath her whimsical words her
+deep earnestness of purpose. At last she had recognized that this
+opportunity to impress them with her high ideals was one of the King's
+calls, and she was bending every energy to the keeping of that tryst.
+It was this development of character which interested Phil, even more
+than the news of the letters. Still there were a number of items which
+gave him something to think about. Lieutenant Boglin had made a second
+visit. Once she mentioned a book he had sent her, and another time a
+rare butterfly to add to the new collection she was starting. Evidently
+they had found several interests in common.
+
+On his last visit she had taken him to Fernbank in the boat, and he had
+captured a fine big hairy tarantula for her from among the roots of a
+clump of maidenhair ferns. She had been able to enjoy the boat a great
+deal more since the children had learned the meaning of the word obey.
+She could take them with her now without fear of their rocking the boat,
+and in consequence they had had many a delightful hour on the water that
+had not been possible before.
+
+"Do you know," said Phil, slowly, when he had listened awhile longer,
+"it doesn't strike me that those are particularly doleful letters; at
+any rate, anything to send you into an 'orgy of weeps.' I believe it is
+nothing but the weather which gave you the spell of doldrums that you
+were in when I came."
+
+"Oh, but you haven't heard the latest ones," Joyce exclaimed. "Mamma's
+reports of Jack's condition and Jack's own little pencilled scrawls. I
+can read between the lines just what a desperate fight he is making, and
+this last one from Mary simply knocked all the props out from under the
+hope I had been clinging to."
+
+She picked up the last envelope on the pile, postmarked March first, and
+turned to the closing pages:
+
+"'Jack is so much worse that I can scarcely think of anything else. We
+are _so_ worried about him. He is in bed all the time now, and is
+growing so thin and weak. He is very despondent,--something new for him.
+It keeps us busy trying to think of things to tempt his appetite or to
+arouse him out of his listlessness. He has always been so cheerful
+before--so full of jokes and so responsive to any attempt to amuse him.
+But now he doesn't seem to want to talk or to be read to or anything.
+Once in a while he'll smile a wan little sort of smile when I repeat
+some of the children's doings, but he isn't like himself any more.
+Sometimes I believe he's just worn out with the long effort he's made to
+be brave and keep up for our sake.
+
+"'It is hard for me to keep my interest in the children keyed up to the
+proper pitch any more, when all the time I am thinking how pitiful and
+white he looks, lying back on his pillows. I am telling you exactly how
+things are because I would want you to tell me if I were in your place
+and you in mine. I can understand how hard it is for you to be so far
+away where you can't see for yourself how he is, every hour. I'll try to
+send a note or postal each day.
+
+[Illustration: MARY WARE in TEXAS.
+
+"Leaning against the mantel looked down at her thoughtfully"]
+
+"'He's talked about you a lot, lately. Says you have the pioneer spirit
+of all our old Colonial grandmothers, to stick to your post the way you
+are doing for our sakes. He's constantly referring to things that
+happened at the Wigwam, and to the people who used to come there,--Mr.
+Ellested and the Lees and Phil,--especially Phil. I wish he could drop
+in here to see us daily as he used to do in Arizona. Maybe Jack would
+rouse up and take some interest in _him_. He doesn't take any now in the
+people we have met here, although no one could be kinder than the
+Rochesters and the Barnabys have been to us.'"
+
+Joyce finished reading, and Phil rose to his feet and began pacing up
+and down the long room, his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on
+the floor as if he were considering some weighty problem. Finally he
+stopped, and leaning against the mantel, looked down at her,
+thoughtfully, saying, "Joyce, I've about thought out a way to manage
+it--to take in Bauer on my way to California, I mean. You told me once
+that Aunt Emily calls me her 'other boy.' Well, you all are my other
+family, and these glimpses you've given me of it make me homesick to see
+them. I might be able to help matters some way. I'm almost sure I can
+arrange to start several days before the rest of the party and go around
+that way, so if you have any messages or things to send, get them
+ready."
+
+"Oh, Phil!" she cried, thankfully. "They'll be so glad--I know it will
+do them a world of good to see you. Maybe you can cheer Jack up a bit.
+So much depends on keeping him hopeful." Then she added, wistfully, "I
+only wish you could put me in your pocket and take me along."
+
+"I wish I could," he answered, cordially. Then more cordially still
+after a moment's thought, "Why, that's the very thing! Come and go
+along! Just cut loose for a short visit and let things here go hang! It
+would mean more to them at home to see you again than the few dollars
+you could pile up if you stayed on here."
+
+"No," she contradicted, sadly, the light dying out of her eyes, which
+had brightened at the mere thought of such a visit. "It's too long a
+trip and too expensive, and--"
+
+"But we can easily arrange all that," he interrupted, eagerly. "Under
+the circumstances you ought to let me do for Jack's sister what Jack
+would gladly do for mine were the circumstances reversed. _Please_,
+Joyce."
+
+She shook her head as he urged his plan, but her eyes filled with tears
+and she said, brokenly, "You are a dear, generous boy to offer it, and
+I'll remember it always, but Phil--don't you see--there's too much at
+stake. I _can't_ leave now. Not only my work in hand would stop, but I'd
+lose the orders that are constantly coming in, and I can't afford to
+miss a penny that would add to Jack's comfort in any way. He may be
+helpless for years and years, and Mary's salary will stop as soon as the
+Mallorys leave Bauer this summer."
+
+"Well, think about it, anyway," urged Phil, hopefully. "Maybe you'll see
+things differently by daylight, and change your mind. I'll ring you up
+in the morning."
+
+"By the way," he said, a few minutes later, when he was slipping into
+his overcoat, "don't write to Mary that there is a possibility of my
+going to Bauer. If I should go I want to surprise her."
+
+"Very well," agreed Joyce. "But I may write about Elsie's wedding and
+say that you'll all be going West?"
+
+"Oh, yes, she'll probably have cards herself soon, for Elsie has never
+forgotten her one encounter with the little Vicar, and she wrote for her
+address some time ago."
+
+It was several days before Joyce saw Phil again. When he did come he was
+in such a hurry that he did not wait for the elevator, which seemed to
+be stuck somewhere in the basement. After several impatient rings he
+started up the stairs, two steps at a time, and had reached the fifth
+floor before the elevator overtook him. He was slightly out of breath,
+but so intent on his errand that he never would have thought to step in
+and ride the rest of the way, had it not stopped on the landing for
+another passenger, as he was about to pass the cage.
+
+The janitor was cleaning the halls of the top floor apartments, and the
+door into Joyce's studio being open, Phil walked in without waiting to
+ring. Joyce was at her easel hard at work. Her face lighted up when she
+saw his, for it showed so plainly he was the bearer of good news.
+
+"Daddy's going with me," were his first breathless words of greeting.
+"We--" Then he paused as if some sudden recollection warned him to ask,
+"What have you heard from home lately?"
+
+She thought the question was prompted by his fear that it might not be
+convenient for them to have guests in the house if Jack were so ill, so
+she hastened to reassure him.
+
+"Oh, I had the cheerfulest sort of letter from Mamma this morning,
+written last Sunday, the very day I was crying my eyes out over them.
+Isn't that always the way? Here it was so bleak and blustery that I
+couldn't help imagining that they were as dismal as I. And all the time
+it was as warm as summer in Bauer, the country a mass of wildflowers,
+and they were having a perfectly delightful time with Gay Melville. And
+guess who had gone up with her to spend the day there! Alex Shelby of
+Kentucky!" she added, without an instant's pause for him to answer.
+
+"Mamma wrote that she didn't know when she had had such an enjoyable
+day. Dr. Shelby insisted on her going for a little outing with the girls
+while he and Norman took care of Jack. Mary poled them up to Fernbank
+in the boat, and when they got back they found that, in some
+unaccountable way, Jack had been wonderfully cheered up. He seemed more
+like himself than he had been for weeks. Mamma was so happy over that,
+for even if he can never be any better physically it is a lot to be
+thankful for to have his spirits kept up."
+
+"Is that all?" asked Phil, when she paused at last.
+
+"Yes. Why? Isn't that _enough_?"
+
+"I only wanted to find out how much you knew before I broke _my_ news.
+Now, listen to this! Alex Shelby wrote to Daddy that same night. You
+know they met at Eugenia's wedding, and Shelby who was just beginning to
+practise medicine then seemed to develop a case of hero-worship for
+father. Shelby has taken a great interest in Jack's case ever since he
+heard of the accident, and the reason he sent Aunt Emily out that
+afternoon was that he might have a chance to examine Jack without her
+knowing it. He didn't want to raise anybody's hopes if nothing can be
+done. He thinks that the first operation did not go quite far enough.
+There is still a pressure on the spinal cord which may be removed by a
+very delicate bit of surgery. _I_ don't understand his technical terms,
+but it's one of the most difficult things known to the medical
+profession.
+
+"Daddy says there are very few cases on record of its having been done
+successfully, although it has been attempted several times. Personally
+he knows of two cases. One was a football player in this country who had
+his back broken, and one was a man in Germany who was injured in exactly
+the same vertebræ where Jack's trouble lies. And--mark this now--_Daddy
+helped with that operation_. The surgeon who performed it was a friend
+of his, and called him in because it was such a rare and peculiar case."
+
+Joyce was scarcely breathing now, as she listened. She was white to the
+lips in her intense excitement.
+
+"Oh, go _on_!" she exclaimed, unable to endure the suspense when he
+paused. "Doctor Tremont thinks he can cure him?"
+
+"No--" was the guarded response. "He is not sure. He doesn't say that.
+But there is a chance, just one chance, and he is going to take it.
+We're leaving in a few hours, so I haven't another moment to stay!"
+
+Joyce, who had risen in her first excitement, dropped back on her stool
+again, limp and trembling. She had thought so long of Jack's illness as
+being hopeless that the possibility of a cure almost unnerved her with
+the great joy of it. Phil went on, rapidly:
+
+"Shelby told Jack of his hope, but evidently he said nothing to the rest
+of the family, or they would have known the reason for Jack's return to
+cheerfulness. Now, don't go to getting upset like that," he added,
+holding out his hands for a cordial leave-taking. "I don't want to get
+your hopes up too high, but I've always felt that Daddy could come as
+near to working miracles as anyone living, and you just remember
+this--he's going to work one this time, if mortal man can do it! You
+see, he knows what the Wares were to me that year on the desert. He
+hasn't forgotten how you all saved his motherless boy for him. That's
+the way he puts it. Saved me from my besetting temptation and sent me
+away to make a man of myself. If he can put Jack on his feet again he
+will feel that he is only paying back a small part of his obligation to
+you all--to say nothing of _my_ debt. Lord! I can't even talk about that
+now! It's too big for me ever to tackle myself. But I just wanted you to
+know how we both feel about it--"
+
+He did not attempt to finish, but with a final strong handclasp he was
+gone before Joyce could find her voice for more than a faltering
+good-by.
+
+For a little while after he left she sat before her easel, gazing
+vacantly at the canvas with eyes which saw nothing. She could not settle
+down to work again with so many exciting mental pictures rising up
+before her: Jack, undergoing the operation at home. The awful suspense
+and tension of that time of waiting until they could know the result,
+and then--Jack, strong and well and swinging along with the vigorous
+stride she remembered so well. Or would it be--She shut her eyes and
+shuddered, putting away from her with an exclamation of horror the other
+scene that persisted in presenting itself. She had never forgotten the
+tramp of feet across the threshold of the little brown house in
+Plainsville the day they carried her father away.
+
+Presently she could bear it no longer, and pushing back her easel she
+slipped off her apron and called to Mrs. Boyd that she was going out for
+awhile. In her present tremor of nervousness she could not trust herself
+to stop and explain. She felt that she could not bear to listen to the
+little woman's platitudes, no matter how sympathetic they might be.
+
+It was not till she was on the car, half-way out to Central Park, that
+she remembered she had not told Phil of one other item of news in her
+mother's letter. She wondered if he knew that Gay and Alex Shelby were
+engaged. The reason that they had gone to Bauer was to announce it
+themselves to the only people in that part of the world who knew and
+loved Lloydsboro Valley. It was in that happy valley that their romance
+had begun, and they both knew that Mrs. Ware had spent her girlhood
+there, that Mary regarded it as her "Promised Land," and that Jack,
+although his visit there had been limited to one day, had seen the
+rose-covered cabin where Gay and her Knight of the Looking-glass had
+first caught sight of each other, and where their married life was to
+begin.
+
+It was several hours before Joyce got back to the studio. The long
+car-ride and the brisk walk in the park had helped her to regain her
+usual outward composure, but she was far from being as calm as she
+seemed. Alternate moods of hopefulness and foreboding kept her swinging
+like a pendulum from exhilaration to a sickening sense of fear. She
+could hardly fix her mind on her work, although her hands moved
+feverishly.
+
+Before starting back to work she hunted up one of Henrietta's railroad
+time-tables, and fastened it to a corner of her canvas, so that she
+could follow the course of the Texas-bound travellers. At intervals she
+glanced from the clock to the card, thinking, "Now they are just leaving
+the New York station," or, "Now they are pulling into Washington." Later
+she found the time when they would be going aboard the New Orleans
+sleeper, and from then on a thousand times her thoughts ran on ahead to
+picture their reception in Bauer, and the events that would follow there
+in quick succession. Her waking hours were filled with only one thought
+till Phil's first telegram announced their arrival. Then she scarcely
+ate or slept, so great was her anxiety as she waited his second message.
+
+As Doctor Tremont and Phil pushed through the crowds at the New York
+station, hurrying to reach the Washington-bound train, steaming on the
+track, Phil recalled the last time he had passed through. It was in
+March of the previous year, but later in the month, that he had come
+down with Joyce to put Mary and Betty aboard the train, the morning
+after they had heard about Jack's accident. It was at that stand that he
+bought the fruit for them, here he had snatched up the magazines, and
+there was where he had stood while the train pulled out, waiting for the
+last glimpse of the little Vicar's face at the window, bravely smiling
+in her efforts to "keep inflexible" for Joyce's sake.
+
+The scene had been impressed vividly upon his memory, because of the way
+the whole affair had touched his sympathies, and now he found himself,
+after a year, recalling things that at the time he had barely noticed.
+It was like taking a second look at a snapshot picture, and finding
+details in the background to which he had paid no attention when first
+focussing the camera. There was that wistful look in Betty's brown eyes,
+for instance. They had been almost as full of trouble as Mary's. Their
+appealing sadness came back to him now quite as forcibly as Mary's
+tearful good-by smile.
+
+He remembered the protecting way she had put her arm around her little
+pupil. They had been such good comrades all through the vacation
+pleasures which they had shared, that Christmas and Easter. He
+remembered now how far back Betty's friendship with Joyce dated.
+Suddenly it occurred to him that Betty, of all people, would be most
+interested in what was about to occur in the Ware family. Whatever
+followed the operation, whether it were grief or joy, she would share
+with them.
+
+Doctor Tremont had some business to attend to which would keep him busy
+during the few hours they were obliged to stop over in Washington, and,
+after a few moments' deliberation, Phil decided to go out to Warwick
+Hall while he waited, instead of spending his time looking up an old
+acquaintance, as he had intended doing.
+
+There was another reason for calling on Betty, which he did not
+acknowledge to himself as a reason, but it carried weight in helping him
+to make a decision. That was the knowledge that she would have the
+latest news of Lloyd Sherman. He had had six months in which to grow
+accustomed to the idea that the little unset turquoise he had once given
+her could never stand for anything more between them than the "true-blue
+friendship stone." He had been so determined to make it more, that his
+whole world seemed jolted out of its orbit when he heard of her
+engagement to Rob Moore. He could not talk of it at first. Lately,
+however, he had come to take a more philosophical view of the situation.
+
+Several hours later, when Phil found himself in front of Warwick Hall,
+the great castle-like building and beautifully kept grounds seemed as
+familiar as if he had visited it before. The Lloydsboro valley girls had
+sung its praises ever since he had known them. Lloyd herself had talked
+much of it in the days when every subject she mentioned was
+interesting, simply because she chose to talk about it. Mary Ware had
+pictured it to him as a veritable paradise, and he had been pressed to
+admire so many photographs of it on so many occasions that it was no
+wonder it had a familiar look, every way he turned.
+
+He would have been highly amused could he have known what a sensation he
+was creating in the school, as he stood on the highest terrace, looking
+down the flight of stately marble steps that led to the river. In the
+first place, the sight of such an unusually attractive man, young,
+handsome, and with an air of distinction, was a rarity in those parts.
+That he should loiter down the walk instead of striding straight up to
+the massive portal, aroused the curiosity of every girl who happened to
+be near a window, and why he should pluck a leaf from the Abbotsford
+ivy, overhanging the pergola, and then walk along the hedge of the
+wonderful old garden until he could lean over and read the motto on the
+ancient sun-dial, was more than any of them could fathom. There was a
+flutter among those who had seen him, when presently the great knocker,
+echoing through the hall, announced that he was ready to enter.
+
+The pompous butler opened the door, and for the second time in his
+history nearly fell backward, for the dignified young stranger who stood
+there with the easy grace of at least a viscount, called out as if he
+had known him always, "Oh, it's Hawkins."
+
+When Phil raised his hand to the knocker he was smiling over Mary's
+account of her first entrance through that door. He had teased her
+unmercifully when he heard of her rehearsals for the purpose of
+impressing the butler, and when the man instantly appeared just as Mary
+had pictured him, he was so much like a stiff old portrait bowing from
+the frame of the doorway, that the exclamation slipped from Phil in
+surprise. Then he smiled again, thinking how inadvertently he had copied
+Mary.
+
+At first glance Hawkins thought he must be one of Madam Chartley's
+relatives from England, and bowed again, obsequiously this time. But the
+card laid on his silver tray was not for Madam. It was for Miss
+Elizabeth Lewis, the youngest and most popular teacher in the Hall.
+
+It was after recitation hours and Betty was not in her room, but she
+came in presently from a walk, looking as girlish and rosy as the little
+freshman who had been her companion. The March winds had given her
+color, and blown her brown hair about her face in soft little curls.
+Phil could see her through the curtained arch as she came into the hall
+and took the card Hawkins presented on his tray. Her face lighted up
+with pleasure, and she gave an exclamation of surprise, both of which
+items Hawkins noticed. When she hurried into the reception-room he cast
+a look of discreet curiosity after her. Then he turned away with a wise
+wag of the head. Of course, one knew what to expect when the young
+stranger called her by her first name in such a joyful tone as that, and
+she responded cordially that it was such a lovely surprise to see "the
+Best Man!"
+
+All the wedding party had called Phil the Best Man, ever since Mary had
+emphasized the name by her comically reverent use of it, and it seemed
+quite natural that the next remark should be about her. Phil thought to
+surprise Betty by saying, casually, "I've just stopped by to ask if you
+want to send any message to Mary Ware. I'm on my own way to Bauer now."
+
+But he was the one to be surprised, for her face paled and she
+exclaimed, in a voice tense with suppressed excitement, "Oh, is your
+father going, too? Has he really consented to attempt the operation?"
+
+Then, in answer to his exclamation of astonishment that she should know
+anything about it, she explained, while the color returned in a rush.
+She had had a note from Jack that morning, just a scribbled line,
+telling what Alex Shelby had written to Doctor Tremont, and what they
+hoped would be the answer.
+
+"He hasn't told the family yet," she explained, seeing from Phil's face
+that he thought it queer she should know of it. "He didn't want them to
+suffer the cruel disappointment it would be should they discover they
+had been cherishing a false hope. But he just _had_ to tell somebody,
+and he knew I'd understand how much recovery would mean to him, for he
+used to write me so fully of his plans and ambitions before he was
+hurt."
+
+She closed her hands so tightly that the pink nails pressed into the
+tender palms. "Oh, I _hope_ Alex hasn't been mistaken," she exclaimed.
+"I can't think of anything so cruel as to hold out the heaven of such a
+hope to him, only to have it dashed away."
+
+"Daddy says there is one chance," answered Phil, "and he is going to
+take it." Then, with a sudden understanding of the situation as he
+watched her face, he began to comfort her with the same words he had
+spoken to Joyce. "Daddy can come as near to working miracles as any man
+living, and you just remember this, little girl. He's going to work one
+this time if mortal man can do it!"
+
+The ring of certainty in his voice made her look up at him with a smile
+that was like an April day, such joy shone through the brown eyes, which
+a moment before had been misty with tears. She did not know how much she
+had revealed, but as she turned away Phil said to himself, "So _that's_
+the way the land lies! I must give Daddy a hint of how much is at stake.
+If he saves Jack it won't be for the Ware family alone."
+
+Betty had been called aside a moment to speak to a visiting parent, and
+when she came back to Phil, had fully recovered her composure.
+
+"Come on," she said, gaily. "There are a few things I must show you. It
+will never do for anybody to confess to Mary Ware that he has been to
+Warwick Hall and missed seeing the things that she particularly adores."
+
+It was a short pilgrimage she led him on; to meet Madam Chartley first,
+then to see the great stained-glass window where the motto of Edryn, "I
+keep tryste," flaunted itself in letters of light above the ruby heart
+and the mailed hand, clasping the spear. Then outdoors they went, past
+the peacocks on the terraces, down the marble steps to the river, where
+pretty girls were walking arm in arm, and Phil was conscious of many
+curious glances cast in his direction. Then they strolled through the
+garden, where the crocuses and early March flowers were making a brave
+showing, and out towards the golf links a little way. Betty's cheeks
+were almost as red as the bright Tam O'Shanter cap she wore, and her
+eyes shone with a happy, tender light as she talked of Mary and what the
+school had meant to her. The pilgrimage, like the bundle of letters
+which Joyce had read, was eloquent with suggestions of Mary at every
+turn. He understood now as he had not before how much she had renounced
+when she left without finishing the year. He began to appreciate the
+greatness of her sacrifice, and, guided by Betty at his elbow, he began
+to perceive what an influence such a place, with its ideals and its
+refined, old-world fashion of living might exert on a girl like Mary
+Ware.
+
+There was not much opportunity to lead the conversation towards Lloyd,
+with Betty constantly breaking off to say, "Oh, don't forget to mention
+this to Mary," or, "Tell her you saw this and that." He learned very
+little about her, save that she was well and happy. Betty had always
+known, she said, that Rob was the one written in the stars for the
+Princess Winsome. They knew each other so thoroughly and had such a
+happy childhood in common, and in her opinion they had always been meant
+for each other from the beginning.
+
+It was growing late when they came back to the front door, but Betty
+insisted on his coming in for a moment for a cup of tea, "Served from an
+ancestral teacup," she insisted, "so that you can brag to Mary of it."
+While they waited for it to be brought, Betty hastily summoned several
+of the girls whom she wanted him to meet.
+
+"You'll never remember their names," she said, laughingly, "and Mary
+will make your life a burden with questions if you can't answer. Give me
+a pencil and I'll scribble them down for you. Elise Walton, you'll
+remember, of course, for she was the pretty child with the long, dark
+curls, whom you used to meet so many times at The Beeches, the summer
+Eugenia was married. You'll quite fall in love with her, I am sure, for
+she is getting prettier every day, and you'll not need any memorandum to
+keep her in mind when you've once heard her talk. A. O. Miggs will be
+the little roly-poly dumpling of a girl, and Dorene Derwent, the one who
+giggles so gurglingly. Cornie Dean you'll remember for the elaborate way
+she does her hair, and the coy way she has of casting melting
+side-glances. That's a habit she has acquired just in this last year, so
+you might mention it to Mary. She'll be immensely interested in hearing
+it. See, I have made marginal notes for each one, if you can understand
+my abbreviations."
+
+As she handed him the slip of paper the girls came in, all pleased to
+meet "such a fascinating, Lord-Lochinvar looking man," as A. O.
+described him afterward, and all overjoyed to find that he would be the
+bearer of messages to Mary Ware. They sent so many that he laughingly
+disclaimed all responsibility in case he should get them mixed in
+transit. He had an odd feeling that he was on exhibition to these girls
+as Mary's friend, and that he must do her credit. The few moments he
+stayed with them he used to such advantage that he was straightway
+written down in their opinion as the most fascinating man they had ever
+met. When he took his leave it was with a flattering regret that made
+each girl feel that she was the one who inspired it, and they went back
+to their rooms to compare notes and to "rave over him," as Dorene
+expressed it, for days.
+
+The twilight was falling when he started back to the station. Betty
+walked part of the way with him. Only once they referred to Jack again,
+and that was not till they reached the bend in the driveway, where Betty
+turned back. She put out her hand with wishes for a safe journey, and he
+held it an instant to say, "I'm sure it's all going to end happily, and
+you shall have the first telegram."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN "BLUE-BONNET" TIME
+
+
+THE time of "blue-bonnets" had come. No matter where else in Texas the
+lupin may grow, one thing is certain; there is enough of it in the
+meadows around Bauer nearly every spring to justify its choice as the
+State flower. This particular March, acres and acres of it, blue as the
+Mediterranean, stretched away on either side of the high-roads. Viewed
+from a distance when the wind, blowing across it, made waves of bloom,
+it almost seemed as if a wide blue sea were rolling in across the land.
+
+From his bed near the window Jack Ware could catch a glimpse of one of
+these meadows, where the cattle stood buried up to their bodies in the
+fragrant blossoms. Now and then the breeze, fluttering his curtains,
+brought the odor to him almost as heavy and sweet as the smell of
+locusts. He watched the picture with languid eyes which closed weakly at
+intervals. They were shut when Mary tiptoed into the room, to see if
+there was anything she could do for his comfort before starting out on
+her usual afternoon excursion with her pupils, but they opened with an
+expression of greater interest than they had held for some days as he
+saw her standing there in a freshly laundered gingham. It was so blue
+and white that she suggested a blooming blue-bonnet herself.
+
+"Hullo, Finnigan," he said, with an attempt at his old-time pleasantry.
+"'Off agin, gone agin,' are you? Which way this time?"
+
+Touched almost to tears by this evidence of returning interest, Mary
+explained eagerly that they were still studying about bees. She had
+found a bee-tree in the Herdt pasture, and the lupin was all a-buzz with
+specimens to illustrate the lesson. That was for the Wisdom part of it.
+For the Strength there were some new exercises in climbing and hanging
+from a low limb. The practical application of their Courtesy lesson
+would be the gathering of a great basketful of blue-bonnets for the
+ladies of the Guild, who wanted to decorate the parish house with them
+for an entertainment to be given there.
+
+"Oh, they're making long strides," she assured him. "Mrs. Mallory told
+me that the time it rained so hard last week, and I couldn't get across
+the foot-bridge at the ford to give them their usual lesson, Brud sat
+down at bedtime and howled, because he said he'd have to 'count that day
+lost.' The sun was down and he hadn't 'any worvey action done.' It took
+the combined wits of the family to think of some worthy action he could
+do at that late hour, and he finally went to bed happy. So you see my
+labor hasn't been all in vain."
+
+There was a faint gleam of amusement in Jack's eyes, but seeing that she
+was about to leave him, he turned the subject by motioning toward the
+table beside his bed, where Elsie Tremont's wedding invitations lay.
+
+"Mary," he said, slowly, "would you be surprised if Phil were to come by
+Bauer on his way to California?"
+
+To her vehement avowal that such a happening would certainly surprise
+her out of a year's growth, at least, he answered:
+
+"Well, I am a good deal more than half-way looking for him. 'I feel it
+in my bones' that he is coming, and coming very soon."
+
+"Oh, Jack!" she cried in distress. "Don't look for him. Don't set your
+heart on seeing him! I couldn't bear for you to be disappointed."
+
+"Don't you worry about that," he answered, soothingly. "You run along
+and pick your blue-bonnets, and if Phil _should_ happen to come walking
+down the road towards you one of these days, remember the feeling in my
+bones warned you. The poor old things have been so full of aches and
+pains that you might allow them one pleasant sensation at least."
+
+"But, Jack," she began again, a wrinkle of distress deepening between
+her eyes. "If he shouldn't come you'd be so awfully disappointed!"
+
+Jack's thin hand waved both her and her objections aside.
+
+"Hike along," he insisted, cheerfully, "I merely said _if_!"
+
+Considerably worried by what she thought was a groundless hope of
+Jack's, Mary started out of the gate. His suggestion seemed to change
+the entire landscape, and instead of seeing it as it had grown to look
+to her accustomed eyes, she saw it as she imagined it would appear to
+Phil; the cottage she was leaving behind her, the wide blue lupin
+meadows ahead, the white of the wild plum blossoms mingled with the
+glowing branches of the red-bud trees, in every lane and stretch of
+woodland.
+
+With her old childish propensity for day-dreaming unabated, she made
+pictures for herself as she walked along towards the foot-bridge.
+Suppose he really would come, and she, by some intuition of his
+approach, could divine the day and hour. She would like to be all in
+white when he met her, emerging from the edge of the woods with her arms
+heaped up with snowy masses of wild plum blossoms, and a spray of
+red-bud in her hair. Or, maybe, it would be more picturesque for her to
+be standing in the boat, poling slowly towards the landing, a cargo of
+wild flowers at her feet like a picture of the Spirit of Spring.
+
+Here she broke off from her musings, saying, half aloud, "But as sure as
+I posed to look like a Spring goddess I'd be looking like a young goose.
+It doesn't pay for me to plan impressive entrances and meetings; they
+always turn out with my looking perfectly ridiculous."
+
+She had reached the first turn in the road by this time, and, stooping
+to tie her shoe, suddenly became aware of the fact that her hands were
+empty. She had started off without the alarm-clock and the magnifying
+glass which she always carried on these trips. In addition she had
+intended to bring a large market-basket to-day, in which to put the
+flowers. The basket, with the clock and glass inside, was in her hand
+before she started. She remembered she had set it down for a moment on
+the front step while she went back into Jack's room, and it was what he
+said about Phil's coming that made her go off without it. There was no
+time to lose, so she started back, running all the way.
+
+Snatching up the basket from the step where she found it still
+undisturbed, she was starting off again, when a little bird-like cry
+stopped her. It was like the softest notes of a mocking-bird.
+
+"That provoking little wildcat is out of her cage again!" she exclaimed,
+stopping to look all around. "Here, Matilda, kitty, kitty, where are
+you?"
+
+In response to her call, what seemed to be the gentlest of house-kittens
+came bounding through the grass. Thinking it would be less trouble to
+take it along than to carry it back to its cage in the woodshed when she
+was in such a great hurry, Mary caught it up in her arms, and once more
+started down the road, one hand slipped through the handle of the
+basket. It snuggled down against her shoulder, purring loudly.
+
+"You ridiculous little atom!" laughed Mary. "I wonder what the girls at
+Warwick Hall would say if they could see me going along carrying a live
+_wildcat_. That will be something wild and Texasy for me to put in my
+next letters. I needn't say that it weighs only twenty ounces, and that
+if it wasn't for its bow legs and funny little bobbed tail and spotted
+stomach one would think it was just a tame, ordinary, domestic pussy.
+But you'll be savage enough by and bye, won't you? When the tassels grow
+on your ear-tips and your whiskers spread out wide and your spots get
+big and tigery!"
+
+Two soft paws reached up to tap her face, and she gave the furry ball in
+her arms an affectionate squeeze. She had never cared especially for
+kittens, but this little wild one with its coquettish ways had
+wonderfully ingratiated itself into her affections in the week she had
+owned it. Mrs. Barnaby had brought it in from the ranch. Cousin Sammy
+had found eight of them in the woods after Pedro had killed the old
+mother cat, caught in the act of carrying off one of the turkeys. This
+was the only one that lived. Mrs. Barnaby could not keep it, because,
+tiny as it was, it toddled around after the chickens and put even the
+big Plymouth Rock hens to flight. So she brought it in to Mary, and
+Mary, feeling particularly forlorn that day, welcomed the little
+orphan, because its lonely state gave them a bond in common.
+
+The day it came happened to be her eighteenth birthday, with nothing to
+mark it as a gala occasion except a handkerchief from her mother and a
+string of trout from Norman. He had gone out before daylight to catch
+them for her breakfast. Joyce's present did not arrive until the next
+day, and the round-robin letter from Warwick Hall was nearly a week
+late. Not until after the sorority was seated at its annual St.
+Patrick's Day dinner, did they recall the double celebration they had
+had the year before. The letter was written then and there, passing
+around the table with the bonbons, that each one present might add a
+birthday greeting. Then Dorene, to whom it was entrusted, forgot to post
+it for several days. It was a joy when it did come, but the anniversary
+itself, before the letter reached her, was a disappointing day.
+
+She had always looked forward to her eighteenth birthday as being one of
+the most important milestones of her life; not so important, of course,
+as one's graduation or début or wedding, but still a day that should be
+made memorable by something unusually nice. Years ago Jack had promised
+her a watch on her eighteenth birthday, a little chatelaine watch with
+a mother-of-pearl case, like the one the old Colonel had given to Lloyd.
+But when the time came Jack did not even know that it was her birthday.
+He never looked at the calendar since their weary, monotonous days had
+grown to be all alike. She did not show him the handkerchief or tell him
+that the delicious fish which they had for breakfast was in honor of any
+especial occasion. In no way did she refer to its being the seventeenth
+of March.
+
+She ironed all morning and took the children out in the afternoon, as
+usual, and nothing made the day different from an ordinary one, only
+that she felt very old and grown up, and thought now and then a little
+pityingly of her early expectations and the way they had turned out. In
+a vague sort of way she was sorry for herself, till Mrs. Barnaby came in
+with the baby wildcat, which she jokingly offered as a St. Patrick's day
+greeting.
+
+Mary immediately named it Matilda, for Mrs. Barnaby, and for the
+civilizing effect such a tame, gentle sort of name ought to have on a
+wild creature. In watching it and laughing over its playful antics she
+forgot to feel middle-aged and sorry for herself.
+
+As long as someone could keep an eye on it to prevent its straying away
+after any animal that passed the house, it could be allowed the liberty
+of the place, but whenever Mary went off for a long time it had to be
+fastened in its cage. This was the first time she had taken it with her
+for an afternoon's outing, and as she hurried down the road with it in
+her arms, the knowledge of what she was carrying gave her the first
+feeling of adventure that she had had since coming to Texas. "It's all
+been as tame as an old Tabby and a teapot," she thought. She had
+pictured Texas as a land of cowboys and round-ups and thrilling frontier
+experiences. She had found only the commonplace and conventional, so
+that there was a source of satisfaction in the fact that, at last, she
+had captured something untamed and savage.
+
+As she reached the foot-bridge a party on horseback came down the
+opposite bank to cross the ford. She recognized the young fellow in the
+lead as a boy from the East who had been staying at the Williams House
+several months. Evidently he also had expected to find Texas a land of
+adventure. Soon after his arrival he appeared in the quiet streets of
+Bauer attired like the cowboy of a Wild West show. That he was a
+tenderfoot was amusingly apparent to the natives. Everything proclaimed
+it, from his awkward seat in his creaking new saddle to the new rope
+coiled around the horn of it. He could have no more use for a lariat
+than for a tomahawk, but he never rode without it. He had his picture
+taken in full paraphernalia, from his spurs to the rattlesnake skin band
+on his rakish sombrero, to send back home to show what a sport he had
+become; and his cup of satisfaction brimmed over when a still more
+recent tenderfoot took a snapshot of him, evidently considering him the
+"real thing."
+
+He had three Eastern girls with him this morning, whom he was trying to
+impress with stories of his recklessness and prowess, and of the dangers
+one daily encountered in a new country. He had met Norman and he knew
+Mary by sight, and had heard of her odd pet. As they approached her he
+said, in a tone which she could not fail to hear, although he lowered
+his voice:
+
+"There's mighty little out here that is tame. Lots of people keep foxes
+running around their premises instead of rat-terriers, and when they can
+get a wildcat they always prefer them to tame mousers."
+
+"Now, Dexter, stop stuffing us," one of the girls exclaimed. "I don't
+believe a word of it!"
+
+"It's the truth," he insisted. "That very young lady over yonder on the
+foot-bridge could tell you so. That isn't a kitten she is carrying. It
+is a young wildcat."
+
+The next instant the girl was splashing through the water across to
+Mary, calling, "Excuse me, but _is_ that a wildcat? I can't believe it!"
+
+Mary had heard the conversation, and her face dimpled with amusement as
+she held Matilda up to view, saying, "Certainly. See how beautifully she
+is marked." She pointed out the various signs which proved her claim.
+
+The girl gave a little shriek. "For mercy sakes!" she exclaimed.
+"Suppose it should get loose! What a dreadful country! Aren't you
+afraid?"
+
+Assured that Mary was not in the least afraid, she dashed up the bank
+after her laughing escort, who thereafter had no trouble in convincing
+her that his most daring tales were true, since Matilda had proved the
+truth of his first one.
+
+Mary looked after them almost enviously. When she first came to Bauer
+she had had faint hopes of sometime being able to join a riding party
+like that. She had seen girls going by often from the hotel, and had
+told herself that, before the winter was over, she intended to find some
+way to earn enough to hire a horse one afternoon of every week. And that
+time when she visited Gay, and Roberta talked of saddles while she
+combed Mary's hair, Roberta had said that she would ride up to Bauer
+sometime after Christmas; all her "crowd" would go, and they would stay
+several days at the Williams House, and Mary was to show them the
+country.
+
+Gay had promised several visits, and Mary had looked forward to them
+more eagerly than she knew, till word came soon after New Year that the
+Bauer trips would have to be postponed indefinitely. Roberta had gone to
+the coast for the rest of the winter, and Gay expected to spend several
+months with her sister Lucy, Mrs. Jameson Harcourt, in Florida.
+
+It seemed to Mary that there had been disappointment for her in her
+Texas winter every way she turned. True, Gay was home now, and they had
+had two pleasant days with her, once when she and Alex Shelby came up to
+announce their engagement, and cheered Jack up so wonderfully. But Gay
+wasn't interested in horseback riding with "the crowd" any longer.
+Besides, the Ware fortunes had taken such a turn that the money she had
+succeeded in earning had to go for more necessary things than saddles
+and horse-hire and a pretty habit.
+
+As Mary glanced after the departing cavalcade once more the sight of
+them suggested a new picture that appealed to her as an interesting way
+to meet Phil in case he should come. It would be so picturesque to be
+galloping down the road on a mettlesome black horse in a pretty white
+riding habit like those girls were wearing. White, with a scarlet
+four-in-hand and a soft fold of scarlet silk around the crown of her
+wide-brimmed white hat. Phil had been such a dashing horseman himself,
+and had owned such a beautiful animal when they were out on the desert,
+that maybe he would be more interested in an approach made that way,
+than one in a boat with a cargo of wild flowers. She walked along
+slowly, considering the question, till Brud and Sister hailed her.
+
+Meanwhile Jack was saying to his mother that it wouldn't have been fair
+to the kid to let her get away without some inkling of the truth.
+
+"She'd have been terribly upset if I'd have told her that they are due
+here this afternoon, and she'd have been equally upset if they had
+walked in on her without any warning. But the hint I gave her will start
+her to thinking about them, so she will not be altogether surprised when
+she sees them."
+
+He had waited until Mary left the house before breaking the news to his
+mother that he expected Alex Shelby to come sometime during the
+afternoon, bringing Doctor Tremont and Phil. But even then he did not
+mention the faint hope which had buoyed him up night and day since
+Alex's first visit. He had faith in the young physician's ability, but
+not until the older one confirmed his opinion would he allow himself to
+share that hope with any one else, lest it prove without foundation.
+
+With his eyes on the clock he lay counting the minutes until their
+arrival. He was deliberately forcing himself to be calm; to take slow,
+even breaths, to think of everything under the sun save the one thing
+which set his pulses to beating wildly and sent a thrill like fire
+tingling through him. He lay there like a prisoner in his dungeon who
+hears footsteps and new voices approaching. They might mean that
+deliverance is at hand, or they might pass on, leaving him to the
+blackness and despair of his dungeon for the rest of his life. In a
+like agony of apprehension he watched the pendulum swing back and forth,
+and listened to the slow tick! tock! till his suspense grew almost
+unendurable.
+
+One hand clasped and unclasped a corner of the counterpane in a paroxysm
+of nervousness. He lay with his face turned away from his mother, and
+she, busy with her endless sewing over by the side window, did not guess
+what great effort he was making to retain his outward composure. She saw
+his eyes fixed on the clock, however, when she rose to get a spool that
+had rolled away, and feeling his restrained restlessness she tried to
+think of something to talk about which would make him forget how slowly
+time was passing. Subjects of that kind are rare, when two people have
+been constantly shut in together for a year, and while she considered, a
+long silence fell between them. It was broken by a demand, almost
+querulous, from Jack; the same cry that had aroused her in the night,
+when he was a little boy, suddenly awakening from a scary dream.
+
+"_Sing to me, mother!_"
+
+It had been years since she had heard that cry, and the long form
+stretched out under the white covers bore small resemblance to the
+little one that had summoned her then, but she answered in the same
+soothing way:
+
+"All right, little son, what shall I sing?"
+
+She smiled as the same tremulous answer came now as it had then.
+
+"Why, sing _my_ song! Of course!"
+
+She did not rise as had been her custom, to go to his bedside and hold
+his hand while she lulled him back to sleep with her low humming, and
+the blessed consciousness of her nearness. He was a grown man now, and
+it was broad daylight. But instinctively she felt his need was greater
+than it had ever been, and her voice took on its tenderest soothing
+quality as she began to croon the old hymn that had always been his
+chosen lullaby, when he was tucked to sleep in a little crib bed.
+"Pilgrims of the Night," she sang:
+
+    "'Hark, hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling,
+     O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore.'"
+
+Glancing across, she saw his drawn face relax a trifle, and he snuggled
+his thin cheek contentedly against the pillow. High and sweet her voice
+rose tremulously:
+
+              "'Angels of light,
+    Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.'"
+
+The song had many associations for them both. What he was thinking about
+she could not guess, but when she began the third verse:
+
+    "'Far, far away like bells at evening pealing,'"
+
+her own thoughts were back in that time when she rocked in her arms the
+dearest little son that ever cuddled against a mother's shoulder. She
+was recalling time after time when she had held him so, telling him
+good-night stories, listening to his funny little questions and baby
+confidences, and kissing the dimpled fingers clasped in her own when he
+knelt to lisp his evening prayer.
+
+He had always been a comfort to her, even in the boisterous outbreaking
+days that are the most trying in a boy's growing-up time. There had
+never been a noisier boy, or one who threw himself into his play with
+more headlong vigor, but, in a flash, scene after scene passed through
+her mind, showing him both at work and play as she had prayed he might
+be, strong and manly and clean and absolutely fearless either of fists
+or opinions. Then she thought of his touching consideration of her when
+he tried "to take father's place behind the plow." He had been a tower
+of strength to her from that day on. What a future she had dreamed for
+him, and now in the high tide of his young manhood, when he should have
+years of conquest and achievement ahead of him, here he was a helpless
+cripple!
+
+    "Rest comes at last, though life be long and dreary,
+     The day must dawn, and darksome night be passed."
+
+Her voice faltered almost to breaking now, as she sang on, rebelling at
+the thought that his life which promised so fair, should have been made
+long and dreary, changed so hopelessly and so suddenly into darksome
+night. It seemed so cruel, she thought, with a tightening of the throat
+which made it almost impossible to finish the song. But supposing from
+the peaceful expression of Jack's face that he was falling asleep, she
+sang bravely on to the end, although the tears were dropping down on the
+seam in her now idle hands.
+
+    "Angels sing on, your faithful watches keeping,
+     Sing us sweet fragments of the song above,
+     Till morning's joy shall end the night of weeping,
+     And life's long shadows break in cloudless love.
+               Angels of Jesus,
+               Angels of light,
+               Singing to welcome
+               The pilgrims of the night."
+
+Looking across as the last note died away, she thought he was asleep,
+and rose to draw down the window-shade. But as she tiptoed past him he
+opened his eyes and held out his hand to draw her to him.
+
+"Little mother," he said with a wistful smile that made her bend hastily
+over him and kiss his forehead to hide the trembling of her lips. "I'd
+like you to know in case anything should happen--sooner than we
+expect--that that's the way I think of death. It's a going out into the
+dark--but it's only going as a 'Pilgrim of the night.' I don't mind it.
+It'll not be lonesome. They'll be singing to welcome me."
+
+In answer to her cry, "Oh, Jack! Don't!" he drew her cheek down against
+his, and as he felt it wet with tears he said, lightly:
+
+"Why, mother mine, that's nothing to cry about. I've always looked
+forward in a way to that ever since I can remember. That song always
+brings up the most comforting picture to me--a procession of friendly
+white angels coming down the dark road to meet a frightened little boy
+and lead him home!"
+
+She held him close a moment, not finding words wherewith to answer him,
+but feeling that he understood all that was left unspoken in her heart.
+She wanted to hold him thus, always, so tightly that he could not slip
+away on that pilgrimage he faced so confidently, that pilgrimage from
+which he could never return to her.
+
+While she clung to him thus, a noise outside brought them back to the
+things of earth. An automobile, speeding up the road, had stopped at the
+gate. Mrs. Ware glanced out hastily. As she saw the three men striding
+up the path her first thought was one of housewifely dismay. She
+wondered how she could stretch the simple supper she had planned for
+that evening, into enough for these unexpected guests. If Jack had only
+given her a little longer notice--
+
+But that thought was immediately thrust aside in her pleasure at seeing
+Phil again. It was the first time since the day she bade him good-bye in
+the little wigwam sitting-room, and sent him out with her Godspeed to
+make a man of himself. His waywardness had given her a motherly interest
+in him, and now, her quick glance showed that he had not disappointed
+her, that he had kept every promise. She welcomed him with a welcome
+that made him feel that this was a real home-coming, so that he called
+out to the distinguished-looking, gray-haired old doctor just behind
+him, "Now, Daddy, you see for yourself how it was!"
+
+Mrs. Ware ushered them at once into Jack's room. She knew he was
+waiting impatiently to see them, but did not dream how much was at
+stake. It was nearly half an hour later when Phil discovered that he was
+thirsty, and asked the way to the well. Mrs. Ware led him out through
+the kitchen, picking up a pitcher and tumbler as she went. The windmill
+was in motion, and while the water was gushing from the pump spout into
+the pitcher Phil said, meaningly, "Well, Aunt Emily, your prodigal has
+come back."
+
+"Yes," she responded. "It makes me glad and proud to see how my faith in
+him has been justified. But, oh, boy, why didn't you give me a little
+warning, so that we might have had time to make ready a 'fine, fatted
+calf?' Jack never told me until a few minutes before you arrived that he
+expected you."
+
+"I'd rather have the pleasure of surprising you all than to share in a
+fatted calf, any day. Besides, there won't be an occasion for trotting
+out such a commodity. Alex will be going back to San Antonio in less
+than an hour. You see he has only a few more days to spend with his lady
+love, as he is due in Kentucky the last of this week. He can't afford to
+miss even one of these gorgeous moonlight nights. Daddy is so tired with
+his trip and thinking of the strain ahead of him that he is in no trim
+for visiting. On the way here we stopped at the Williams House and
+engaged rooms for to-night. I promised him that he needn't stay up for
+supper, could take it in his room and turn in soon after we had made a
+short call here. You see he didn't sleep at all coming out here, so he
+is considerably worse for wear. He's very much interested in Jack's
+case, and thinks something may be done to relieve his suffering, so
+maybe it will be as well for us to stay out here a bit and give them a
+chance to look him over."
+
+From the quick lighting up of Mrs. Ware's face it was evident that such
+a hope was a new one to her. Jack had not mentioned the prospect of an
+operation, so Phil left the subject as quickly as possible, beginning to
+tell her of his last visit to Joyce. As he had come directly from her
+Mrs. Ware found so much to question him about, that she was surprised,
+when Alex Shelby joined them, to find that they had been leaning against
+the windmill tower for more than half an hour, too interested to think
+of finding a seat.
+
+Alex's face was glowing, and he looked across at Phil with a nod of
+elation. "Your father confirms my opinion, Phil, so I'll be starting
+back at once."
+
+When Mrs. Ware found out Doctor Tremont's real purpose in coming, she
+was thankful that Jack had spared her all those days of anxiety and
+apprehension that would have been hers had she known of the operation
+earlier. As it was there would be only one night in which to dread it.
+Alex was coming back in the morning with a nurse and it would all be
+over by noon of the next day. Now she understood their consideration in
+going to a hotel. It was not so much that Doctor Tremont was in no
+condition for visiting, as that they knew that any guests, no matter how
+much desired, would be a burden on the eve of such an event.
+
+Jack's room was already nearly as bare and clean as a hospital ward, but
+there would still be much to do before the surgeons could begin their
+delicate and vital task. So when Alex Shelby went away, Doctor Tremont
+went with him as far as the hotel. Phil was to follow later after he had
+seen Mary and had the pleasure of "surprising" her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+JACK
+
+
+A HUISACHE tree leaned over the old stone wall which separated the Herdt
+pasture from the road, and here Phil took his stand. He had started to
+find the bee-tree, following Mrs. Ware's directions, but shrill little
+voices floating across the meadow, made him pause. It was evident that
+Mary and her small charges were somewhere near.
+
+A moment later they came in sight, and for once in her life Mary moved
+on towards a meeting, often rehearsed in thought, which did not end
+ridiculously. It would have been joy to her soul could she have seen
+herself as she looked to Phil, coming across the field of blue-bonnets.
+The fresh blue and white dress she wore, repeated the color of the waves
+of bloom through which she waded. Sister had twined a wreath of the same
+flowers around the crown of her Mexican hat, and she carried a great
+sheaf of them across one arm. The inevitable alarm clock swung from the
+other hand.
+
+Brud was carrying a butterfly net, Sister as a great favor held Matilda,
+and Meliss brought up the rear with the big basket of blue-bonnets,
+which they had gathered as a special act of courtesy for the Guild
+ladies. Their voices blended happily as they drew nearer, but when they
+were close enough for Phil to distinguish their words the procession
+stood still. They had reached the place where a path crossed the one
+they were following, and the cross-path was a short cut to the
+foot-bridge.
+
+"Here's the parting of the ways," called Mary gaily. "So run along with
+Meliss, now, and be sure to give Mrs. Rochester my message."
+
+"We will," answered Brud, in a voice that was almost a happy little
+squeal it was so high and eager, "and we'll have another good time
+to-morrow! _Won't_ we, Miss Mayry?"
+
+"Indeed we will," was the answer, given so heartily and convincingly,
+that it was easy to see how she had obtained her hold on the two little
+friends who seemed so loath to leave her. They stood talking a moment,
+then Sister deposited the kitten on Mary's armful of flowers, with a
+farewell squeeze, and the parting ceremony began. Four voices, for
+Meliss was taking the part of the Black Panther this afternoon, repeated
+gravely and distinctly the words of their daily benediction:
+
+    "Wind and water, wood and tree,
+     Wisdom, strength and courtesy,
+    _Jungle favor go with thee_!"
+
+Then Mary called as they started down the path, "Good-bye, Mowgli and
+Mowglina! Good-bye, Panther," and a trio of happy voices answered,
+"Good-bye, Baloo!"
+
+It was a childish performance, but Brud and Sister went through their
+part so seriously, as if it had been an incantation of some kind, that
+Phil did not smile as he watched the little by play. It was proof to him
+that Mary had accomplished what she had set out to do. She had inspired
+them with an ambition to always "keep tryst" just as Edryn's window had
+inspired her.
+
+Feeling that she had had a particularly satisfactory afternoon, Mary
+answered their last wave with a swing of the hand that held the clock,
+and started on towards the stone wall. If her attention had not been
+engrossed by her efforts to hold the big armful of blue-bonnets, the
+clock and the squirming kitten without dropping one of the three, she
+would have seen Phil stepping out from the shadow of the huisache to
+meet her. But the kitten struggled out of her arms and climbed up on
+her shoulder, catching its claws in her collar, and biting playfully at
+her chin.
+
+"Matilda, you little mischief!" scolded Mary affectionately, "How am I
+ever going to get over this stone wall with you acting so?"
+
+"Come on! I'll help you!" spoke up Phil from the other side.
+
+The expression of utter amazement which spread over her face when she
+looked up and saw him standing in front of her was even more amusing
+than he had anticipated it would be. Despite Jack's hints and the fact
+that they had set her to picturing Phil's possible coming, the surprise
+of his actual presence was so overwhelming that she could scarcely
+speak.
+
+She let him take the clock and the wildcat from her, and put them down
+on his side of the wall with the flowers, but not until she had climbed
+to the top of the wall and felt the firm clasp of his hands,
+outstretched to help her down, did she persuade herself that she was not
+dreaming. Then the face that she turned towards him fairly beamed, and
+he thought as he looked down at her that it was well worth the long
+journey, to find some one so genuinely glad to see him.
+
+"When did you come? Have you been to the house? Was Jack very much
+surprised?"
+
+The questions poured out in a steady stream as soon as she found her
+voice, and if he had not been looking at her, he could have well
+believed that she was the same amusing child she was when he found her
+running away from the Indian on the desert road to Lee's ranch. But he
+could not look away long enough to keep up the illusion. There was a
+charm about her face which drew his eyes irresistibly back to it. He
+tried to determine just what that charm was. It was not of feature, for
+much as she had improved, she did not at all measure up to his standard
+of beauty.
+
+Presently he decided that it was just Mary's own self, her interesting,
+original personality shining out through her eyes and speaking through
+every movement of her mobile lips, which made her so attractive. Her
+years of effort to grow up to her ideal of all that was sweet and
+maidenly had left their imprint on her face. Naturally unselfish,
+trouble and hard times had broadened her sympathies and taught her a
+still deeper consideration for others. Loneliness and a dearth of
+amusement had developed her own resources for entertainment, and taught
+her to find something of interest in every object and person about her.
+As he looked at her he thought it a pity that more of the girls of his
+acquaintance couldn't have a course in the same hard school of
+experience which had developed Mary into such a lovable and interesting
+character. He felt that in the one year since he had seen her last, she
+had grown so far past his knowledge of her, that it would be well worth
+while to cultivate her acquaintance further.
+
+It was some distance from the pasture to the cottage, and as they
+walked, Phil had time to tell her of his trip to Warwick Hall, and to
+deliver the mixture of messages from the girls, which by this time had
+resolved into a ridiculous hotch-potch, despite his effort to keep them
+separate, and his reference to the memorandum that Betty had given him.
+Then he presented the ivy leaf which he had plucked for her, as proof
+that he had actually walked in her beloved garden.
+
+Up to that time there had been so much to say that Mary had not
+discovered that Doctor Tremont was in Bauer also. The explanation came
+about when they reached the gate, and Phil, after opening it for her to
+pass through, stayed on the outside himself. Her surprise at his not
+coming in was fully as great as it had been when she first saw him.
+
+"The idea of your going to a hotel when you've come all the way from New
+York to Texas to see us!" she exclaimed. "And then not even staying to
+supper! Jack will be _so_ disappointed."
+
+"No," answered Phil. "He knows the reason why Daddy and I are putting up
+at the hotel. So does your mother, and they both think it is a good one.
+You run along in and ask them, and they'll convince you that I am right.
+I'll come over for a few minutes after supper though, just to show you
+that there's no hard feeling between us."
+
+He laughed as he said it, lifting his hat and turning away. Thoroughly
+mystified by his manner, Mary stood a moment looking after him. It was
+all so strange and unreal, his sudden appearance, and then his walking
+off in such a mysterious way. She could hardly believe the evidence of
+her own eyes. Yet the tall, handsome figure striding down the road was
+not "of such stuff as dreams are made on." Her fingers still tingled
+with the warm clasp of the strong hands that had helped her over the
+wall.
+
+When she went into the house it was Jack who told her of his coming
+ordeal, and he told her in a way to make it seem of little consequence.
+He said that Doctor Tremont wanted to experiment on him. He had known
+of a man injured in the same way, whose suffering had been entirely
+relieved by the removal of a fragment of bone which pressed on the
+spinal cord. It would be worth while to go through almost anything to be
+rid of the excruciating pain he had suffered at times, and Doctor
+Tremont assured him that it would pass away entirely if the operation
+proved successful.
+
+Not a word did he say about the greater hope that had been held out to
+him. As the time drew near he was beginning to lose faith in its being
+possible. It seemed too great a miracle for him to expect it to be
+wrought for him.
+
+Mary went out to find her mother in a daze of mingled emotions. The
+prospect of Jack's being freed from the pain that had racked him for
+months made her inexpressibly happy, but she had a horror of operations.
+The nurse they had in Lone Rock after Jack's first one, had spent hours
+telling grewsome details of those she had known which were not
+successful. Or if they were successful from the surgeon's viewpoint, the
+patients usually died from shock, later.
+
+She wanted to stay in Jack's room every minute of the time after she
+heard what was to be done, for she had a sickening foreboding that it
+might be the last evening he would be able to talk to them. Still she
+was so nervous that she was afraid her frame of mind might be
+contagious. She wondered how her mother could sit there so calmly,
+talking of the trivial things that filled the round of their days, just
+as if to-morrow were going to be like all the commonplace yesterdays.
+
+It was a relief to her when Phil came back, according to promise, and
+turned their thoughts into other channels for awhile. As he rose to go,
+Jack motioned to a letter lying on the table beside him, and asked Phil
+to post it on his way back to the hotel. Phil slipped it into his
+pocket, barely glancing at the envelope as he did so. It was addressed
+in such a big plain hand that the "Miss Elizabeth Lewis" on it, caught
+his attention as if the words had called out to him. Several other
+letters lying on the edge of the table fell to the floor as Phil's coat
+brushed them in passing. He stooped mechanically to pick them up, for he
+was busy talking, and without being conscious of having noted the
+address, laid them back on the table. But afterwards it occurred to him
+that they were all addressed to Jack, and by the same hand that had made
+the memorandum for him, about the girls whom he met at Warwick Hall.
+
+Mary wondered afterwards how she ever could have lived through the next
+morning had it not been for Phil. She was all right as long as there was
+anything to do, or while she sat listening to Doctor Tremont talk to her
+mother and the local physician, Doctor Mackay. But as soon as Alex
+Shelby arrived with the nurse she fell into such a tremor of nervousness
+that she could scarcely keep from shaking as if she had a chill.
+
+There was a cluster of umbrella trees in the farthest corner of the
+yard, and carrying some chairs out to their dense shade Phil called her
+to come and sit with him there. He had a glove that was ripped and he
+hoped she would take pity on him and sew it up. She understood perfectly
+well his object in putting her to work, and although her hands trembled
+at first so that she could barely thread a needle, she had to
+acknowledge inwardly that it was easier to compose herself when her
+hands were busy. One finger was ripped the entire length, so it took a
+long time to mend it neatly; to buttonhole the edges on each side, and
+then draw the stitches together in a seam that was stronger than the
+original one.
+
+Gradually she became so interested in her task and what Phil was telling
+her of his adventures in the past year, that she stopped glancing every
+moment towards the house, and no longer jumped nervously at every sound.
+Once or twice she smiled at something he told her; something that would
+have been uproariously funny if she had heard it at any other time. Just
+now she could not forget the fact that Jack was lying unconscious under
+the surgeon's knife, and the stories the Lone Rock nurse had told her
+came back to haunt her with terrifying suggestions.
+
+"I am to meet your friend, Miss Gay Melville," Phil said, when they had
+been sitting there a long time. "Shelby is to take Daddy and me up to
+the Post to-night, to dine at her house. The Major came down to the
+train with him when he met us yesterday morning, and delivered the
+invitation in person. He's a hospitable old duck, the Major. He's kin to
+some people that are intimate friends of Daddy's and he's almost ready
+to adopt us both into his family on the strength of it. Alex told me on
+the side that I am invited specially to meet a very particular chum of
+his fiancée's, Miss Roberta somebody, I can't remember the name. Miss
+Melville thinks I will find her my affinity, judging by what she knows
+of her and has heard of me."
+
+"Roberta Mayrell," prompted Mary. "Oh, I don't think you'll find her
+_that_! She's a fascinating sort of girl, but she's such a different
+type from--I mean--I think. Well--" She was floundering desperately to
+turn her sentence. "I can't imagine you'd care for her to the _affinity_
+point."
+
+What she had almost said was, "She's such a different type from the
+Little Colonel." She had remembered just in time that she was not
+supposed to know about that affair. Had she not been an unintentional
+eaves-dropper she could not have heard his offer to Lloyd of the unset
+turquoise, and all that followed.
+
+Phil noticed her embarrassment and wondered what caused it, but the
+subject was immediately forgotten. The door they had been watching so
+long opened at last, and Doctor Tremont came out and stood on the step.
+Phil beckoned, and he came across to the clump of umbrella trees where
+they were sitting. One glance at his face showed Mary that she had
+nothing to fear. He stood with his hand on Phil's shoulder as he said
+kindly,
+
+"It's all good news, Mary. We found exactly the state of affairs that I
+expected. If he follows the other case on record, it will not be long
+till he is as strong and husky and active as this young rascal here."
+
+He gave Phil's shoulder an affectionate grip. Mary looked up at him
+trying to comprehend all she had heard.
+
+"Strong--and husky and active--as Phil?" she repeated in dull wonder.
+"You can't mean that he--will ever be able--to _walk_?"
+
+The question came in dry, sobbing gasps.
+
+"Yes, just that."
+
+She stood up. The news was so stupendous, the reaction so great that
+everything turned black. She sat down again giddily. The sympathetic
+faces, the trees, everything seemed to be whirling around and around.
+She heard Phil's voice, but it sounded as if it were miles away.
+
+"Brace up, little Vicar! You're surely not going limp now, just when
+fortune is making such a tremendous turn in your favor."
+
+"No," she said, shaking herself and fighting off the faintness. Such a
+feeling had never assailed her before, and she did not know what to make
+of it. "You see, nobody ever told me--I didn't know such a heavenly
+thing was possible! I can't believe it yet. Oh, are you _sure_?"
+
+She looked up into the strong, calm face of the gray-haired old surgeon,
+as if his answer meant life or death.
+
+"As sure as any one can be about any operation," he answered. "He has
+everything in his favor; there is the clean life he has always led, back
+of him; his splendid constitution, the fine aseptic air of these hills.
+Everything is favorable. The paralysis and all the other trouble was
+caused by one thing. We have removed the cause, and I see no reason why
+he should not recover completely in time. He has rallied from the
+anesthetic, and is so happy over the result, so buoyantly hopeful, that
+that of itself, with his dogged determination to get well, will go a
+long distance toward pulling him through."
+
+The tears were rolling down Mary's cheeks, but she did not know it, nor
+did she know that her face was ashine at the same time with the inward
+light of a joy too great for telling.
+
+"To think that he'll be able to _walk_ again!" she exclaimed over and
+over, as if trying to grasp the greatness of such a fact. "And _you_ did
+it! Oh, Doctor Tremont! There isn't anything good enough in heaven or
+earth, for the hand that could bring a happiness like that to my brother
+Jack!"
+
+As she tried brokenly to express her gratitude, and the good old doctor
+tried as hard to deny any obligation on her part, saying he had only
+partly squared himself with the Wares, Phil slipped away. The scene was
+coming near to upsetting his own equanimity. Besides he had some
+telegrams to send. There were three and save for the address they were
+identically the same:
+
+"Operation successful. Every reason to expect complete and rapid
+recovery."
+
+Stuart Tremont received his just as he was driving in at the gate of his
+country place. A messenger boy on a wheel handed him the yellow
+envelope. He hurried into the house, catching up little Patricia, and
+swinging her to his shoulder as she ran to meet him. Eugenia was coming
+down the stairs.
+
+"Good news!" he cried boyishly. "Hurrah for Daddy! He's brought the year
+of jubilee to the Ware family, root and branch."
+
+"To say nothing of the professional laurels he has added to the house of
+Tremont," Eugenia answered. "Sometimes I'm tempted to wish you hadn't
+followed in his footsteps, Stuart, and chosen such a hard life. But when
+I think what just one cure like that means, I wouldn't have you anything
+else in the world than what you are, for all the kingdoms of the earth.
+Oh, I'm so glad for all of them! Joyce will be nearly wild with joy. She
+has been so broken up over Jack's condition ever since the accident,
+that now her happiness will be something good to see. I must try to go
+in to the city for a short call before we start West."
+
+Joyce's happiness _was_ good to see. When her telegram came she was
+starting out of the studio on her way to an interview with the art
+editor of a magazine that had published one of her sketches. She could
+not turn back because the appointed hour was too near at hand and the
+interview too important. So she stood in the corridor after she left the
+elevator, wiping away her happy tears until she was composed enough to
+go out on the street. And because she had to share her good news with
+some one, she told the janitor's wife. The hearty sympathy of that
+motherly Irish woman sent her away as if she were treading on air.
+
+The art editor, who dimly remembered her as a very quiet, reserved young
+girl, wondered at the transformation when she came into his office,
+looking like the very incarnation of Joy. She had been afraid of the
+stern, forbidding man before, saying to Henrietta that she always
+expected him to bark at her. But to-day, to her own surprise as well as
+his, she found herself telling him her good news, just as she had poured
+it out to the janitor's wife, because she couldn't help it. That his
+congratulations should be quite as hearty as Mrs. Phelan's caused her
+no surprise then, for at the moment Jack's recovery seemed such a
+miracle that she felt the whole world must be interested in hearing of
+it. But she wondered afterwards what he must have thought of her for
+pouring out her confidences to him about Jack as impulsively as if he
+had been an old friend instead of a stranger.
+
+Had she only known it, that impulsive outburst aroused a friendly
+interest in her that the reserved man rarely felt in struggling young
+artists, and he bought all the sketches she had with her. An hour
+before, that of itself would have been enough to send her back to the
+studio rejoicing; but now it seemed such a drop in the bucket compared
+to the news she had for Mrs. Boyd and Lucy and Henrietta, that she
+forgot to mention the little matter of the sale for several days.
+
+There was some delay in the transmission of Betty's message. It did not
+reach her until nearly sundown. She was passing through the lower hall
+on the way to the drawing-room, when the envelope was put into her
+hands. The house suddenly seemed to grow stifling. She needed all out of
+doors to breathe in. So running down the marble steps to the river, she
+walked along to the circular seat surrounding the old willow. With the
+tree between herself and the Hall, she looked out across the Potomac,
+that a gorgeous sunset was turning into a river of gold.
+
+The slip of paper fluttered in her fingers but she feared to read it.
+Such life-long tragedies can be told sometimes in the short space of ten
+words. But at last she summoned courage to glance at the message, after
+which she read it through slowly, several times.
+
+Then looking up above the shining of the river to the glory of the
+sunset sky beyond, she whispered softly, as she had always done since
+she was a little child, in the great moments of her life, "_Thank you,
+dear God!_"
+
+The same afternoon Doctor Tremont and Phil and Alex went to San Antonio,
+leaving the nurse and Doctor Mackay in charge of Jack. The Tremonts,
+after dining at Major Melville's, were to take the night train for
+California. They had promised Elsie to be with her as long as possible
+before her wedding. She had seen little of Phil for several years. He
+was taking a month's vacation; the first long one since he started to
+work, in order to spend the most of it with her in the old Gold-of-Ophir
+rose-garden, that had been their earliest playground. Doctor Tremont
+did not expect to come back to Bauer, but Phil promised to stop off for
+a few days on his return trip, which would be in a little less than
+three weeks.
+
+After the departure of their guests the family settled down to wait
+patiently and happily for time to finish the process of healing. Since
+such great cause for thanksgiving had come to them, the small ills that
+every one is heir to, almost lost the power to annoy. When Mary burned
+herself badly with a hot iron, when she ruined her best dress by
+spilling a bottle of ink, when the little wildcat, which grew dearer
+every day, was crippled so badly by a falling wood-pile that it had to
+be put out of its misery, there were some tears and regrets; but the
+unfailing balm for everything was the thought: "_But Jack's getting
+well!_ Nothing else matters much."
+
+As Spring deepened, the wild flowers grew still more abundant. Acres of
+wild verbenas spread their royal purple underfoot, and the china-berry
+trees hung answering pennons overhead of the same kingly color.
+Spider-wort starred the grass. Wine-cups held up their crimson chalices
+along every lane. Mexican blankets sported their gaudy stripes of red
+and yellow, and even the cacti, thorny and forbidding, burst into
+gorgeous bloom.
+
+And then, just at Easter, a waxen blossom, snow-white, and
+sweet-breathed as the narcissus, sprang up all over the hills. Rain
+lilies, Miss Edna called them. Norman and Mary gathered great armfuls of
+them and carried them to Mrs. Rochester to put around the chancel. They
+seemed to suit the little country church far better than the florists'
+lilies would have done. The casement windows stood open, and Mary sat
+looking out through one of them, listening to the reading of the account
+of the first Easter:
+
+"_And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came
+unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun._"
+
+But it was not the green Spring-time world outside she saw. It was
+Jack's face as she had caught a glimpse of it, earlier in the morning,
+when he lay listening to his mother read those same words. She had heard
+him say in one of the pauses:
+
+"Mother, sometimes I am so happy I don't see how I can endure such
+blessedness! I've dreamed so many times that I was well, only to waken
+and find it all a cruel mistake, that now when I realize it's really
+going to be true--that life still holds everything for me--oh, I can't
+tell you!" He broke off, a smile of ineffable happiness spreading over
+his face. "Now I know how Lazarus felt when the stone was rolled away
+and he heard the call 'Come forth!'"
+
+That smile was still before Mary's eyes when the white-robed choir rose
+to sing, and she joined with all her heart in the chant, which swelled
+forth at the end of every line into a glad "_Alleluia!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+SAN JACINTO DAY.
+
+
+IT was the twentieth of April when Phil returned to Bauer, and for the
+second time his visit was cut disappointingly short. The reason was that
+he had promised Major Melville the night he dined with him, to be back
+in San Antonio in time for the Carnival. The Major wanted to take him to
+a Mexican restaurant for a typical Mexican supper the night of the
+twenty-first. On the twenty-second there would be an entertainment for
+the Queen of the Carnival at her Court of the Roses; something too
+unique and beautiful for him to miss, they all said. Then, on the
+twenty-third, San Jacinto Day, which all loyal Texans keep as a state
+holiday, the annual Battle of Flowers would take place in the plaza in
+front of the Alamo, which they call their "Cradle of Liberty."
+
+The Flower Battle was an old institution, the Major explained. But this
+was only the second year for the Queen's Court, and it was something so
+surpassingly beautiful that he thought it ought to become a regular
+feature of every carnival.
+
+Roberta, who was also at the dinner, added her persuasions.
+
+"You'll think you're back in the time 'when knighthood was in flower,'"
+she insisted. "I wish every Easterner accustomed to poking fun at our
+state could see it. Nobody knows what I suffered at school from having
+people talk as if all Texans are 'long-horns.'"
+
+"Roberta was one of the duchesses last year," explained Lieutenant
+Boglin. "You should have seen her sweep up to the throne when they
+announced, 'Her Grace, the Lady Roberta of the House of Mayrell!' She
+certainly looked the real article, and was a far cry from a long-horn
+then."
+
+"Don't emphasize the _then_ so pointedly, Bogey," ordered Roberta.
+
+When Phil hesitated to accept because his time in Bauer would be
+shortened so much thereby, Gay insisted that she was going to invite
+Mary down for the Queen's entertainment and the Flower Battle anyhow,
+and that if he refused to come Mary would be cut out of the pleasure of
+coming, for, of course, she couldn't leave a guest behind, under the
+circumstances.
+
+So presently the Major's programme was arranged to his partial
+satisfaction. It was not complete, because he could not persuade the old
+doctor, who intended spending several months in California, to return
+also.
+
+Gay went up to Bauer that same week, directly after Alex Shelby's
+departure. She wanted to deliver her invitation in person, and to spend
+the day with the Ware family. She liked to hear them sing Alex's
+praises. _He_ was the one who discovered that something could be done
+for Jack, and he it was who had summoned Doctor Tremont, and every
+discussion of the subject always brought out the gratifying fact that
+had it not been for him, Jack would not now be on the high road to
+recovery. She had found, too, that Mary made a most satisfactory little
+confidante; much better than Roberta, for she seemed really interested
+in Alex and all that pertained to him, and never laughed at Gay's
+rhapsodies and made cynical remarks about "before and after taking" as
+the worldly-wise Roberta did.
+
+Two thoughts gave Mary the utmost satisfaction in accepting the
+invitation. One was, there would be time before San Jacinto Day to make
+up the white dress for which her mother had embroidered the lovely
+rosebuds. The other was, that an occasion had come at last when it would
+be appropriate for her to wear Lloyd's gift, the beautiful chiffon
+scarf, spangled with the crystal beads which sparkled like dewdrops.
+
+With only a day and a half to spend in Bauer, Phil could do few of the
+things she had planned for his entertainment. Now that Jack was better,
+she did not like to take him away from the house long enough to ride out
+to the Barnaby ranch and pole up to Fernbank, and such things. Instead,
+all the time was spent so that Jack could have his full share of the
+visit. She would have been greatly disappointed had she not known she
+was going to see Phil several times during her visit to Gay.
+
+He went down to the Mexican supper on the twenty-first, and she followed
+next morning. He was to take luncheon with the Mayrells that day, so she
+did not see him till night, when they all went in the same party to the
+entertainment, Phil and Roberta, Gay and Billy Mayrell, Mary and
+Lieutenant Boglin.
+
+The stage of Beethoven Hall was turned into a bower of roses on this eve
+of San Jacinto Day, and a great audience, assembling early, awaited the
+coming of the Queen of the Carnival and her royal court. In the patent
+of nobility given by her gracious majesty to her attendants, was the
+command:
+
+"We bid you to join with all of our loyal subjects in the Mirth and
+Merriment of this Festival of Flowers, which doth commemorate the
+glorious freedom of this, our Texas, won by the deathless heroism of the
+defenders of the Alamo, and the Victory of San Jacinto."
+
+This call for Mirth and Merriment struck the keynote of the carnival,
+and everyone in the great assembly seemed to be responding with the
+proper festival spirit.
+
+Back in the crowded house in a seat next the aisle and almost at the
+entrance door, sat Mary Ware, completely entranced by all that was going
+on about her. Lieutenant Boglin was beside her, and in the chairs
+directly behind them were Gay and Billy Mayrell. Roberta and Phil were
+in front of them. They had come early to secure these chairs, and the
+men had given the girls the end seats in order that they might have
+unobstructed view of both aisle and stage. They all turned so that
+conversation was general until the house was nearly filled, then Roberta
+said something which drew Phil's attention wholly to herself, and he
+turned his back on the others, beginning to talk exclusively to her.
+
+Gay, who appeared to know at least every fourth person who came down the
+aisle, sat, like most of the audience, with her head turned expectantly
+towards the door, and kept up a running comment to Mary on the
+acquaintances who passed her with nods of recognition or brief words of
+greeting. The thrum of the orchestra, the sight of so many smiling
+faces, although they were strange to her, and the blended colors of
+fashionable evening gowns would have furnished Mary ample entertainment
+after her dull winter in the country; but it was doubly entertaining
+with Gay to point out distinguished people and give her bits of
+information, supplemented by Billy and Bogey about this one from the
+Post and that one from the town.
+
+She wished that Phil could hear too. She wanted him to know what
+prominent personages he was in the midst of. Once when some world-known
+celebrity was escorted up the aisle she leaned over and called his
+attention to the procession. He looked up with a smile to follow her
+glance, and made a joking response, but returned so quickly to the
+fascinating Roberta, that Mary felt that his interest in everything
+else just then was merely perfunctory.
+
+She remembered what Gay had said about his finding his affinity, and
+stole a side glance at Roberta to study her in the new light which
+Phil's interest threw upon her. Now in the days when Phil worshipped at
+the Little Colonel's shrine, Mary was perfectly content to have it so.
+She would have walked over hot plowshares to have brought his romance to
+a happy consummation. It seemed so eminently fitting that the two people
+in the world whom she had invested with halos, should stand together on
+the same pedestal in her affections. To her doting eyes, Lloyd was such
+an angel that she knew Phil must be happy with her, and Phil measured so
+fully up to the notch on the sterling yard-stick which indicated the
+inches and ells that a true prince should be, that she was sure no girl
+who wove her Clotho-web for him could fail to find the happiness that
+was written for her in the stars.
+
+Mary had grown accustomed to the fact by this time that she had made a
+mistake in her reading of the stars. Lloyd was destined for someone
+else. But it had not occurred to her before that maybe Phil was, too.
+The thought that he would carry a secret sorrow with him to the grave,
+invested him with a melancholy charm that made him all the more
+interesting. It was somewhat of a shock to her to see him watch the
+downward sweep and swift upward glance of Roberta's pretty eyes in such
+an admiring way, although Mary herself had heretofore found pleasure in
+watching them. Of course she didn't want him to go on suffering always,
+still--she didn't want him to forget.
+
+In her passionate loyalty to Lloyd she resented his bestowing a second
+glance on any girl who was any less of an angel than she; and yet her
+loyalty to Phil made her want him to have whatever he wanted. Knowing
+how many men had fallen victims to Roberta's flirtatious little ways,
+she longed to save Phil from the same fate. The growing alarm with which
+she watched them was almost comical for one of her years. It was comical
+because it was so motherly. Not a particle of jealousy or a thought of
+self entered into it.
+
+A hush fell on the great audience, and the curtain rose on a tableau of
+surpassing loveliness. The stage seemed to be one mass of American
+Beauty roses. The walls were festooned and garlanded with them. They
+covered the high throne in the centre and bordered the steps leading up
+to it. They hung in long streamers on either side from ceiling to
+floor. Grouped against this glowing background, stood the noble dukes,
+the lords-in-waiting and their esquires. The gay-colored satins and
+brocades of their old-time court costumes, the gleam of jewelled
+sword-hilts, the shine of powdered perukes, transported one from prosaic
+times and lands to the old days of chivalry and romance.
+
+The jester shook his bells, the trumpeters in their plumed helmets
+raised their long, shining trumpets, and sounded the notes that heralded
+the first approach. Then the Lord Chamberlain stepped forth in a brave
+array of pink satin, carrying the gold stick that was his insignia of
+office.
+
+"That's me friend," whispered Gay, "the man who originated this affair.
+I tell him I think he must be one of the Knights of the Round Table
+re-incarnated, or else the wizard Merlin come to life again, to bring
+such a beautiful old court scene into being in the way he has done."
+
+She stopped whispering to hear the impressive announcement he was
+making, in a voice that rang through the hall:
+
+"Her Grace, Lady Elizabeth, of the House of Lancaster!"
+
+Immediately every eye turned from the stage to look at the rose-trimmed
+entrance door. The orchestra struck into an inspiring march and the
+stately beauty, first to arrive at the Court of Roses, began her
+triumphal entry up the long aisle. She passed so near to Mary that the
+tulle bow on the directoire stick she carried almost touched her cheek
+with its long floating ends, light as gossamer web. And Mary, clasping
+her hands together in an ecstasy of admiration, noted every detail of
+the beautiful costume in its slow passing.
+
+"It's like the Princess Olga's," she thought, recalling the old
+fairy-tale of the enchanted necklace. "Whiter than the whiteness of the
+fairest lily, fine, like the finest lace that the frost-elves weave, and
+softer than the softest ermine of the snow."
+
+The long court train that swept behind her was all aglisten, as if
+embroidered with dewdrops and pearls. Mary watched her, scarcely
+breathing till she had ascended the steps to the stage. Then her
+appointed duke came forward to meet her and led her to the steps of the
+throne.
+
+The music stopped. Again the heralds sounded their trumpets and the Lord
+Chamberlain announced the next duchess.
+
+"You see," explained Gay, hastily, as all necks craned toward the door
+again, "each girl is duchess of some rose or other, like Killarney or
+Malmaison or Maréchal Niel."
+
+One after another they passed by to take their places beside the throne,
+all in such exquisitely beautiful costumes that Mary thought that each
+one must be indelibly photographed on her memory. But when they had
+passed, all she could remember of so many was a spangled procession of
+court trains, covered with cascades of crystal and silver and pearls and
+strung jewels.
+
+Each time a new duchess swept slowly and majestically by, Mary turned a
+quick glance toward Phil to see if he were properly impressed; but when
+the Queen was announced, she had no eyes for anything but the regal
+figure proceeding slowly up the aisle, amid the admiring applause which
+almost drowned the music of the march.
+
+It was at this juncture that Phil glanced back at Mary. Her face so
+plainly showed the admiration which filled her that he continued to
+watch her with an amused smile, saying to Roberta in an undertone:
+
+"Look at Mary's rapt expression! She's always adored queens and such
+things, and now she feels that she's up against the real article."
+
+"I don't wonder," answered Roberta, herself so interested that she
+turned her back on Phil until the royal party had passed by. Two little
+pages in costumes of white and gold, with plumed hats and spangled
+capes, bore the royal train, and Roberta tried to upset the dignity of
+one of them, who was a little friend of hers, by whispering, "Hello,
+Gerald, where did you get that feather?"
+
+In Mary's estimation it was not the diamond crown that marked the Queen
+as especially regal, not the jewelled sceptre nor the white satin gown,
+heavily embroidered in gold roses and gleaming with brilliants; it was
+the fact that the long train borne by the little pages was of
+_cloth-of-gold_. To Mary, cloth-of-gold was more royal than ermine or
+purple velvet, and lovingly associated in her thought with the white
+samite of Tennyson's idyls. It was cloth-of-gold that the Lily Maid of
+Astolat had worn to her burying, and the only piece that Mary had ever
+seen was the drapery over the bier of the fair Elaine, when Lloyd took
+the part of the Lily Maid, in the tableaux at The Beeches. When she
+caught sight of it she clasped her hands still tighter, and never took
+her eyes from it until the Queen was seated on her throne, and the long,
+shining folds swept down beside her, the full length of the steps.
+
+The presentation scene followed. In the name of The Order of the Alamo,
+the Queen was given a magnificent necklace, with a jewelled pendant.
+After that the visiting duchesses were received, representing many towns
+of Texas, from El Paso to the gulf. They came with their maids of honor,
+and when they had been met by their lords-in-waiting and their esquires,
+the entertainment for the Queen began.
+
+Grecian maidens bearing garlands of roses danced before her. The second
+group was of seven little barefoot girls, carrying golden lyres, and
+forming a rainbow background for another small maid who gave a cymbal
+dance. The Grecian dances were followed by a gavotte of the time of
+Louis XIII, in which all the dukes and duchesses took part.
+
+"They danced the minuet last year," commented Gay. "This is the end of
+the performance, but we'll wait to watch them go out, on their way to
+the Queen's ball. I went to that too, last year. These are good seats;
+we catch them coming and going."
+
+The audience remaining seated until all the members of the Court had
+passed out two by two, had ample time for comment and observation.
+Bogey, who, seeing Mary's absorbing interest in the scene, had
+considerately left her undisturbed most of the time, now leaned over and
+began to talk. As Gay had once said, "When it comes to giving a girl a
+good time, Bogey is quite the nicest officer in the bunch," and Phil,
+overhearing scraps of their conversation, concluded that Mary was
+finding her escort as entertaining as the pageant. A backward glance now
+and then showed that she was not watching the recessional as closely as
+she was listening to him.
+
+As they all started out of the hall together, moving slowly along with
+the crowd, barely an inch at a time, they talked over arrangements for
+the next day. Lieutenant Boglin could not be counted in. He had to ride
+in the procession with the rest of the troops from the Post who were to
+take part in the parade. Billy Mayrell had another engagement, so Phil
+proposed to take all three of the girls under his wing. It was too late
+to secure seats in the plaza from which to watch the flower battle. The
+Major had been able to get only two. So Phil said the Major and his wife
+should occupy those. He would come around for the girls in an automobile
+and they could watch the parade seated in that.
+
+There was a blockade near the door, but as soon as they could get
+through it, they all walked up the street to a building in which the
+Major had secured the use of a second-story window, from which they
+could watch the parade of the Queen and her court on their way to the
+ball. The time spent in waiting was well worth while, when it finally
+appeared. The horses of the chariots were led by Nubian servants, and
+each chariot represented a rose, wherein sat the duchess who had made it
+her choice.
+
+The Queen's chariot was surmounted by a mammoth American Beauty rose,
+and as she smiled out from the midst of its petals, Mary had one more
+entrancing view of the royal robes. This time they were lit up by the
+red gleam of torches, for eight torch-bearers, four on a side,
+accompanied each chariot, and added their light to the brilliant
+illuminations of the streets.
+
+"You must see the river," said Billy Mayrell, after the procession had
+passed by. "Nobody can describe it, with the lights strung across it
+from shore to shore all down its winding course. It makes you think of
+Venice."
+
+He led them to a place where they could look across a bend and see one
+of the bridges. It was strung so thickly with red lights which outlined
+every part, that it seemed to be made of glowing rubies, and its
+reflection in the water made another shining ruby bridge below, wavering
+on the dark current.
+
+Mary leaned over the rail watching the shimmering lights, and feeling
+dreamily that this City of the Alamo was an enchanted city; that the
+buildings looming up on every side were not for the purpose of barter
+and trade. They were thrown up simply as backgrounds for the dazzling
+illuminations which outlined them against the night sky. The horns of
+the revellers answering each other down every street, the music of
+distant bands, the laughter of the jostling throngs, all deepened the
+illusion.
+
+It did not seem possible that this could be the city through which she
+had once tramped in the rain, discouraged and forlorn, in search of a
+home. It was a realm given over utterly to "Mirth and Merriment," where
+a gracious young queen held sway, where illness and trouble and grief
+had no part.
+
+"I don't wonder that the Major wants everybody not already a loyal Texan
+to see this," she said to the Lieutenant. "It's enough to make one want
+to live here always."
+
+She made the same remark to Gay next afternoon, as she sat beside her on
+the back seat of the automobile. Roberta was on the front seat with
+Phil. He had ordered a machine which he could drive himself, and they
+had taken a run through the principal streets to see all the
+decorations, before coming to a standstill to wait for the procession.
+It was an inspiring scene, the grandstand packed with applauding
+spectators, the plaza crowded from park to curbstone. Shops and offices
+had closed for the day, schools were dismissed and all work abandoned as
+far as possible, in order that everyone might share in the Carnival
+play-time. The wise old town knows the full worth of holidays, and makes
+the most of each one.
+
+The chariots Mary had seen in the brilliantly-lighted streets the night
+before, lost some of their glamour seen by day; but the duchesses and
+their ladies-in-waiting were dressed now in the colors of their chosen
+roses instead of the court-robes, and there were many new features in
+this parade; floats and handsomely decorated carriages, and a long line
+of troops from the post with the famous military bands. It was hard to
+sit still when they played so inspiringly.
+
+Back and forth in front of the Alamo went the two divisions of the
+parade, meeting and passing and turning to meet and pass again, all the
+while pelting each other with flowers, till the plaza where they rode
+was covered deep with them. And the bands played and the people cheered,
+till the smallest schoolboy in their midst felt a thrill of gratitude to
+the heroes whose deeds they were commemorating. He might miss the deeper
+meaning of it all, but he grasped one fact clearly enough: that had it
+not been for the grim battle which those brave fellows fought to the
+death, there would have been no San Jacinto Day for him. No
+pageant-filled holiday to make one feel that it is a great and glorious
+thing to be a son of the Lone Star State.
+
+Phil dined at the Major's again that night, and Roberta was the only
+other guest beside Mary. Gay had objected when her father proposed
+others, saying that they intended to devote the entire evening to music.
+Since they had discovered what a magnificent voice Mr. Tremont had, and
+he had discovered what proficient accompanists she and Roberta were,
+they had decided to treat themselves to a musicale given by the three,
+with only Mary for audience. The family could listen, of course, but
+with the understanding that there was to be no conversation. As the
+Major had an engagement which took him out immediately after dinner and
+Mrs. Melville had some friends drop in to call soon after, it happened
+that their audience was limited to one.
+
+Now the one thing that Mary enjoyed above all others was hearing Phil
+sing, and quite the pleasantest part of her whole visit was that last
+evening spent in listening to him, with Roberta at the piano, and Gay
+improvising wonderfully soft and lovely accompaniments on her violin.
+Mary had heard two celebrated opera singers while in Washington, but in
+her opinion neither one equalled Phil.
+
+Phil's surprise would have been unbounded could he have known that she
+was comparing his singing to the angel Israfel's, "whose heartstrings
+were a lute, and who had the sweetest voice of all God's creatures." It
+would have been a matter of still greater surprise if he could have
+known the exalted opinion that Mary had of him. Not that any sentimental
+interest entered into her regard for him. Despite her eighteen years and
+her womanly attitude towards the world in general, she was still a
+little girl, and a very humble little girl in her own estimation, as
+far as he was concerned. He was her ideal; the man whose good opinion
+she valued above all things, whose approval made her inexpressibly
+happy, and whose advice she eagerly followed.
+
+She had adored him for years as little girls do sometimes look up to and
+adore grown men, and had stored away in her memory many a remark that he
+forgot as soon as it was uttered. There was the time she confided to him
+her grief at being so fat and her ambition to be an "airy, fairy
+Lillian," like Lloyd. He did not even smile, and he answered so gravely
+and kindly that she remembered even yet the consolation that his words
+gave her. Another time she overheard him referring to her as an "angel
+unawares," because she had unknowingly done him a service by repeating
+something Lloyd had said about him.
+
+From that time on, that was the part she longed to play in his life. She
+burned to be the "angel unawares" who could help him to the attainment
+of everything he wanted. That was why she had been so bitterly
+disappointed when Lloyd's engagement to Rob Moore had been announced.
+She wanted Lloyd to marry Phil because she knew that was what Phil
+wanted. Now that that was not possible she was just as ready to help
+him if he should ever love again. She hardly thought that he could do
+_that_, though. It seemed so incredible that he should ever find another
+as fine and high and sweet as the Princess Winsome; it was still more
+incredible that once having set his mark that high he could ever look at
+anything less.
+
+His powerful, well-trained voice filled the room with a sweetness that
+brought an ache to her throat and sometimes tears to her eyes. Presently
+Roberta rummaged out some old, old melodies--"Drink to me only with
+thine eyes," and the "Bedouin Love-song."
+
+When she asked for that last one, Mary cringed inwardly, as if she had
+been hurt herself, so sure was she that it must bring up painful
+memories to Phil. She fully expected to see him lay it aside with some
+excuse for not singing it. She remembered as vividly as if it were only
+last night how she had sat on the floor of the library at The Locusts,
+listening to the notes of his guitar as he sang to Lloyd outside on the
+porch:
+
+    "Till the stars are old
+     And the sun grows cold
+     And the leaves of the Judgment
+         Book unfold."
+
+For the life of her, she couldn't see how Lloyd ever listened to any
+other wooing after that. Had any one sung that to _her_ in that voice it
+would have won her so completely that she would have risen like the
+Sleeping Beauty at the call of the prince.
+
+    "Beyond the night--across the day--
+     Through all the world she followed him."
+
+To her surprise, Phil took up the sheet of music as nonchalantly as if
+he had never seen it before. But when he began to sing it seemed to her
+anxious ear that he sang it more feelingly than anything she had ever
+heard. It was plain enough to her now that he had not ceased to care. It
+wrung her heart to hear him sing it so, pouring out his soul in a flood
+of noble devotion which he knew could never be requited, but which would
+live on till the sun lost its heat and the stars their light.
+
+"I love that song," said Roberta, laying it aside to pick up another.
+"But I'd like to meet that fiery old duck of a Bedouin when the leaves
+of the Judgment Book _do_ unfold, and find out how long his devotion
+kept up to high-water mark." Then she trilled airily, "Men are gay
+deceivers ever."
+
+Under the circumstances the remark seemed flippant, almost
+sacrilegious, to Mary. She gave Roberta a disapproving glance behind her
+back, thinking, "Little _you_ know about it. If you could see as I do
+now, how Phil is hiding his real feelings, you'd realize that there's
+_one_ man, at least, capable of the deathless devotion you scoff at."
+
+The evening was over all too soon. Phil was to take Roberta home on his
+way back to the hotel, and when he rose to go said, "I'll not make my
+farewells now. My train doesn't leave till nearly noon to-morrow, so
+I'll call some time during the morning to pay my respects to the Major
+and see you all again."
+
+"You'll have to say good-by to Mary now," said Gay. "She insists on
+taking that horrid freight car back to Bauer, at seven in the morning."
+
+"I must," said Mary. "You know they need me, now that the nurse is gone,
+and I've already been away two days."
+
+Roberta went out into the hall for her hat, and Gay followed as far as
+the door, talking as she went.
+
+"And I haven't had any visit with _you_ at all," said Phil, who was
+standing, hat in hand, looking down at Mary. "I haven't had a word with
+you by yourself, and you haven't confided once in me or asked me a
+single scrap of advice. It doesn't seem natural. But I'm not going to
+let you escape me this way; I'm going down to the train in the morning
+to see you off."
+
+Gay turned in time to hear the last part of his sentence. "That is," she
+corrected, "if you are called in time. They don't always do it at hotels
+when they say they will. I've had some bad experiences that way. So if
+he doesn't appear, Mary, you can console yourself with the thought that
+he's like Kathleen Mavourneen--'slumbering still.'"
+
+"I'll be there," was the confident reply, as he smiled down into Mary's
+wistful eyes and held out his hand to say good-night. "Electric bells
+are not as romantic as the 'horn of the hunter heard on the hill,' but
+they're more effective when it comes to getting a fellow up in the
+morning; you'll see me sure."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+NEW TRAILS
+
+
+THE train to Bauer left so early that Mary had to take the first
+street-car passing the Post, in order to reach the station in time. Gay
+had announced her intention of going down with her, but did not awaken
+until Mary, who occupied an adjoining room, was nearly dressed and the
+maid was bringing up a hastily-prepared breakfast, on a tray. But Mary
+could not honestly share Gay's regrets at being late. She had dressed
+noiselessly on purpose not to waken her. She wanted to go alone in order
+to have those last moments with Phil all to herself, and she was so
+elated when she finally got away from the house unaccompanied that she
+could have sung aloud.
+
+Her route took her through Alamo plaza again, and the streets which
+still bore witness to the presence of the Carnival. All the buildings
+were still gay with bunting, and flags flapped merrily in the morning
+sunshine. She wondered which would be first to reach the station, and
+all the way down, Phil's face was before her. She could see just the way
+he would look, coming towards her through the crowd, tall and
+distinguished and with such a jolly twinkle in his handsome eyes. And he
+would call out, "Hullo, little Vicar; I beat you to it!" or some such
+friendly greeting as that.
+
+She did not know that she was smiling to herself, but it made no
+difference. There was no one to see, for the men on the car were all
+hidden behind their morning papers. When she reached the station only a
+few people were in sight, and when she climbed into the coach at the end
+of the long line of freight-cars, there were not more than half a dozen
+passengers aboard. All of them looked sleepy, and a series of gentle
+snores attracted her attention to an old countryman, curled up on a back
+seat with his valise for a pillow.
+
+On her way in she had passed through the waiting-room and given a hasty
+look around to see if Phil were ahead of her. Glancing up at the clock
+she found that she had ten minutes to spare. Three of these passed in
+getting settled and in taking an inventory of her fellow-passengers.
+Then she began to hang out of the window and anxiously watch the
+waiting-room door. She was growing uneasy. Maybe the clerk _had_
+forgotten to call him. Maybe he _was_ "slumbering still," as Gay had
+prophesied. He might have missed the car he should have taken, or there
+might be a tie-up somewhere along the line.
+
+A colored man hurried into the coach with a chunk of ice for the water
+cooler. The conductor came down the platform looking at his watch, and
+signalled something to a brakeman. Mary put her head out of the window
+again and looked anxiously up and down, whispering in a flutter of
+nervousness, "Oh, _why_ doesn't he come? Why _doesn't_ he come? There's
+only a minute or two left and there won't be time for a word."
+
+She would not admit the possibility of his not coming at all, until she
+heard the warning, "All aboard!" the ringing of the engine bell, and
+felt the jerk and jar which proclaimed all too plainly that the car was
+in motion. She was so disappointed that she could hardly keep the tears
+back. Her last thought before falling asleep the night before and the
+first one on awakening had been that she was going to see the "Best Man"
+by himself a few moments, without any talkative Roberta to absorb his
+attention, or any other people to run away with the conversation.
+
+It was a very disconsolate little face that turned towards the open
+window to hide its disappointment from possibly curious neighbors. She
+found it hard to wink the tears back when she was so deeply, grievously
+disappointed. Her back was turned resolutely towards the aisle and her
+arms were crossed on the window-sill. In that position she could not see
+the rear door of the car open and some one come in from the back
+platform. He stood a moment, his hat in one hand and a suit-case in the
+other, breathing fast as if he had been running. Then after a searching
+glance through the car, he went directly down the aisle and stopped
+beside Mary's seat. Her attitude, even to the droop of her hat-brim,
+proclaimed her dejection so clearly that a smile twitched the corners of
+his mouth. Then he said in a deep voice, so deep that it was fairly
+sepulchral, "I beg pardon, Miss. May I occupy this end of the seat?"
+
+Startled by the strange voice so near, she turned a very sober and
+unsmiling face to see what manner of person had accosted her. Then she
+exclaimed, in astonishment, "Why, Phil Tremont! How ever did you get on
+without my seeing you? I looked and looked and thought you must have
+gotten left!"
+
+Then realizing that the train was well under way and they had been
+carried some distance past the station, she cried in alarm, "But you
+can't get off! They're carrying you away!" She was almost wringing her
+hands in her excitement.
+
+"Well, I don't mind it if you don't," said Phil, sitting down beside her
+and laughing at her concern. "I'm going along with you. Something Miss
+Roberta said last night on her way home started me to thinking, and--the
+result was, I decided to spend another day and night in Bauer. It's
+positively my last appearance, however. I'll leave for good in the
+morning."
+
+What Roberta could have said to make such a change in his plans was more
+than Mary could imagine. She almost had to bite her tongue to keep from
+asking, and Phil, knowing that he had aroused her wildest curiosity,
+laughed again. But he wasted no more time in teasing her.
+
+"No, really," he said, "I was joking. A telegram from my firm routed me
+out about six o'clock this morning. They want me to go to St. Louis to
+see some parties before returning to New York. I figured it out that I
+could double things up there so as to give me one more day here. But it
+took me so long to figure it, that, by the time I had made up my mind,
+there was only a moment to stuff my things into my suit-case and call a
+taxicab. When I got down to the station I saw I had about three minutes
+in which to snatch a sandwich and a cup of coffee at the lunch counter;
+but the coffee was so hot I came near missing my train. Had to run a
+block and swing up on the rear platform. If it had been the regular
+express I couldn't have caught it. Luckily it was a freight, so here I
+am."
+
+He did not add that an unaccountable impulse to go back to Bauer had
+seized him the night before when he bade her good-night, or that the
+impulse had been strengthened afterward by a casual remark of Roberta's
+about Lieutenant Boglin. Roberta thought she saw the first symptoms of a
+budding romance on Bogey's part.
+
+Not being given to the practice of analyzing his feelings, Phil did not
+stop to ask himself why it should make any difference to him what the
+lieutenant thought of little Mary Ware, nor did he realize at the time
+how much that remark influenced his decision to spend one more day with
+her. Afterwards he used to say that it was Fate and not himself that was
+responsible for that journey; that it was destined from the beginning he
+should chase madly after that freight-train, catch it, and thereby give
+himself four long uninterrupted hours in which to grow better acquainted
+with her than he had ever been before.
+
+At the end of that time he knew why he had been drawn back. It was that
+her real self, the depth of whose charm he had not even half suspected,
+should be revealed to him in the intimacy of this conversation. It
+changed his whole attitude toward her to find how much she had changed
+herself; how she had grown and developed. In some ways she was still the
+amusing child whose unexpected sayings had first attracted him. She
+would always be that, but she was so much more now; and, again, as on
+the day he met her in the field of blue-bonnets, he found himself
+watching her, trying to decide just wherein her charm lay, and how it
+made her different from any other girl he had ever known. Sometimes he
+would almost lose what she was saying, puzzling over the problem.
+
+At the stone quarry, while they waited a long time for the engine to
+switch off some empty cars, and pick up some loaded ones, they left the
+coach and walked up and down beside the track. They were talking about
+Gay and Alex, and he laughed at her outspoken honesty in expressing her
+opinion about their delayed wedding.
+
+"I think it's so sensible for them to wait till he's got something saved
+up for a rainy day, when he's nothing now but his practice. It's like
+providing a sort of financial umbrella. Really, it is just like
+starting out without a sign of an umbrella when you know it's going to
+rain, and trusting to luck to keep you dry, for people to marry with
+nothing to depend on but an uncertain salary."
+
+Phil laughed, as he answered, "What a little pessimist you are, Mary. It
+_doesn't_ always rain, and people _have_ married without such a
+provision who lived happily ever after."
+
+"But it does oftener than it doesn't," she insisted. "Papa and mamma
+lived happily, and he had only his practice as a young lawyer. But look
+what we've been through since he died. Things wouldn't have come to such
+a pass when his health broke down if there had been something laid away
+for such emergencies. Joyce and I have often talked about it when we've
+had to pinch and work and economize down to the last cent."
+
+"So you'll never marry a man who has only the shelter of a salary to
+offer you?" said Phil, teasingly.
+
+"I didn't say that," answered Mary, her face puckered up into a puzzled
+expression. "I don't want to, and I don't _think_ I would, but,
+honestly, I don't know what I would do. I'm afraid that if I loved a man
+as much as you ought to to be his wife that I'd be every bit as foolish
+as anybody else, and that I'd marry him even if I had to take in back
+stairs to scrub for a living. But I do hope I'll have more sense, or
+else he won't be that kind of a man. It isn't that I mind work," she
+added, "but I'm so tired of doing without and making over, and tugging
+and pulling to make both ends meet. Do you know what they call me at
+home? The Watch-dog of the Treasury, and you can guess what I've had to
+be like to earn such a name. I earned it, too, all right. I fought over
+every penny, and I'd hate to keep on in the same old rut all the rest of
+my days. It would be so nice to look forward to a luxurious old age."
+
+She laughed when she had said it, but such a tired little sigh came
+first, and that wistful look again in her honest, straightforward eyes
+as she glanced up at him, that he was seized with a sudden desire such
+as no one else had ever inspired before, to pick her up and carry her
+away from all her troubles; to surround her with all the girlish
+pleasures and pretty things she loved, and to humor every whim all the
+rest of her life. But all he said was:
+
+"And if you were a man I suppose you would feel the same way about it."
+
+"Oh, more so!" she cried. "The more I thought of a girl the surer I'd
+want to be that she need never face that rainy day unprotected."
+
+She stooped to pick a tiny yellow star from a clump of broom growing
+alongside the track, and they walked on in silence a moment. Then he
+said, with an amused side-glance at her:
+
+"You can't imagine how funny it seems to hear such common-sense,
+practical 'side talks on matrimony' from an eighteen-year-old girl like
+you. I feel as if I'd had a scolding from my grandmother, and that I'll
+have to own up that I did it, but I'm sorry and I'll never do it again."
+
+"Did what?" queried Mary in surprise.
+
+"Spent everything as fast as I made it. Had money to burn and burnt it.
+I don't ask any better salary than I've been receiving for several
+years. Of course, when I go in by myself, that'll be another matter. But
+I'll have to own up; out of it all, I've saved practically nothing. I
+haven't spent it in riotous living, and it doesn't seem that I've been
+particularly extravagant, but it's gone. It just slipped through my
+fingers."
+
+"Oh, well, _you_," began Mary. "That's different."
+
+"In what way is it different?" he persisted, when she did not go on.
+
+"Well, if a man doesn't mind getting wet himself it's nobody's business
+if he takes chances. It's the man who expects to--to have some one else
+to protect--who ought to be ready for the possible storms."
+
+"But what makes you think that I'll always go it alone?" insisted Phil.
+"That I'll never have any one to--protect? That's what you seem to
+insinuate."
+
+He was looking directly into her eyes, laughingly, teasingly, and a wave
+of color swept over her face. Roberta would have evaded the question,
+and turned it off with a laugh. Mary was too simple and direct. It was
+the moment she had long felt must confront her some time. Her day of
+reckoning had come for playing eavesdropper. No matter how hard she
+fought against doing so, she knew she was going to confess that she had
+been one, albeit unintentionally.
+
+As he repeated his question with smiling insistence, the words stuck in
+her throat, but the thought uppermost in her mind called out to him by
+some strange, telepathic power, and he understood as if she had spoken.
+
+"You think," he said slowly, looking into her eyes as if the written
+words were actually before him there and he was reading them aloud, "you
+think that it is on Lloyd's account. How did you know about--_that_?"
+
+It startled her so that he should read her thought in such a way that
+she could only stammer in reply:
+
+"I--I--heard you singing to her once at The Locusts, that song you sang
+last night, 'Till the stars are old,' and I thought if you cared for her
+as it sounded both times, that there _couldn't_ be anybody else,
+_ever_!"
+
+Phil turned partly away from her, and stared off towards the hills a
+moment, his eyes narrowed into a thoughtful, musing expression. Finally
+he said, "I thought so, too, Mary, once. I thought it for a number of
+years. That time will always be one of the sweetest and most sacred of
+my memories. One's earliest love always is, they say, like the first
+white violet in the spring."
+
+There was a long pause, then he finished the sentence by turning around
+to her to say, significantly, "But there's always a summer after every
+spring, you know. Come on, we'd better be getting aboard again. It looks
+as if they're about ready to start."
+
+He helped her up the steps and followed her down the aisle. While
+adjusting the window-shade before she took her seat, he began to talk of
+other things, and the subject was dropped between them. But it was not
+dropped in Mary's mind. She had been called on to adjust herself to a
+new viewpoint of him so quickly that it left her mentally gasping. With
+his own hand he had ruthlessly swept away one of her dearest illusions.
+She had always believed that no matter who else might forget, _he_ would
+always stand as a model of manly constancy. What surprised her now was
+not his change of view. It was her own. By that one sentence he had made
+it perfectly clear to her that it was not reasonable to expect him to go
+on mourning always for the "first white violet." It was only natural
+that summer should follow the spring.
+
+But the puzzle now was, who was good enough and sweet and high and fine
+enough to follow Lloyd? Mary was positive that there was nobody. He
+might hunt the whole world over, but she was sure he would be doomed to
+disappointment in the end. Her motherly concern over that was almost as
+great as her sympathy had been when she thought of him as doomed to
+carry a secret sorrow with him to the grave.
+
+After that the conversation was not so personal. It was nearly noon when
+they reached Bauer, and in that time they had exchanged views on enough
+subjects to have filled an encyclopædia. Twice after that they talked
+together alone. The first time was when they went out in the boat just
+before sunset. Mary wanted him to see Fernbank in all its glory of fresh
+April greenness, with the little waterfalls splashing their fine mist
+over the walls of delicate maiden-hair.
+
+She insisted on poling the boat, although he protested that it made him
+uncomfortable to sit still and see her doing the work. He refused to go
+at all, until she compromised by saying he might pole on the way back.
+
+"It isn't work," she insisted. "It's one of the greatest pleasures I
+have, and about the only one I've had in this benighted place."
+
+"You always did love to 'paddle your own canoe' and strike out and do
+things for yourself," he remarked, as they shot swiftly up the stream.
+"By the way, what are you going to do next? Will you be starting back to
+Warwick Hall again in September, now that Jack is sure of taking his old
+position in the mines then?"
+
+"No," was her decided answer. "We've scrapped about that a lot lately.
+He insists that I must. But it's this way. He's lost a whole year out of
+his life, and although he's never said so, I know the time is coming
+when he'll want to settle down and have a home of his own. And _he's_
+the kind who'd never ask a girl to marry him until he'd provided for her
+future in case anything should happen to him. Joyce's plans have been
+put back a year, too. She has her heart set on going to Paris with Miss
+Henrietta to study, just as soon as she can afford it. Of course, Jack
+will pay back his part of what she's spent on us this winter, but it
+will take a good while for him to do it. I've made up my mind I'm not
+going to stand in their way. I'll not be a drag on either one of them.
+There's lots of things that I can do. The summer is already provided
+for. When Mrs. Mallory found that we are going to stay on here till
+September, till Jack is strong enough to go back to work, she made up
+her mind to stay, too, no matter how hot it gets, because the children
+are so happy here. They can't bear the idea of stopping their lessons.
+They're beginning to learn to read now, and are as wild over that as if
+it were a new game. Mrs. Rochester says it does get frightfully hot here
+in the summers, but that we can stand it if we have the lessons in the
+morning instead of afternoon."
+
+"And then," asked Phil, "after that?"
+
+"After that I don't know, but there'll be something. It's all uncertain,
+but it's interesting just to wonder what will come next. I'm like the
+wolf in the last of the Mowgli stories."
+
+She turned to glance over her shoulder as she quoted, laughingly, "'_The
+stars are thin,' said Gray Brother, sniffing at the dawn wind. 'Where
+shall we lair to-day? For, from now, we follow new trails._' I don't
+know where the new trails will lead, but from all that's happened in the
+past, I've faith to believe that there'll be 'good hunting' in them."
+
+"There will always be that for you," said Phil, warmly. "You'll never
+strike one where you'll not find friends and interests and--"
+
+He started to say more, but checked himself, and after an instant's
+pause, stood up, almost upsetting the boat, and laughingly took the oar
+away from her, insisting that he couldn't sit still another minute. He
+had to work off some of his surplus energy.
+
+What he had come near saying when he checked himself was, "And you'll
+never strike a trail where you won't be the bravest, jolliest, dearest
+little comrade a man could have; one that he would never tire of, one
+who could inspire him to do and be his best."
+
+The impulse to say all this came upon him so suddenly that it startled
+him. Then a sober second thought told him that after all she was
+scarcely more than a child, that she had always looked upon him as an
+elderly brother, and that it would be better not to destroy that old
+intimate relationship until he was sure of being able to establish a new
+one. A strange feeling of humility took possession of him. It suddenly
+seemed that he had so little to offer one who could give so much. Even
+her opinion which he had laughed at at the stone quarry, about providing
+a financial umbrella, carried weight now, and made him hesitate, no
+longer confidant of himself.
+
+His strong, quick sweeps of the oar sent the boat upstream at twice the
+speed it had been going before, and Mary, from her seat in the stern,
+called out that it was as good as flying, and that she'd have to
+acknowledge that she'd never known before how delightful it was to sit
+still and let somebody else do the paddling. But that was because nobody
+else had taken her along so fast.
+
+At Fernbank they did not get out of the boat. Phil took the seat facing
+her, while they drifted around the deep pool for a little while. It was
+almost twilight there, for the high bank shut out the glow of the
+sunset, and it was deliciously cool and green and still. Presently some
+remark of Phil's made Mary exclaim:
+
+"That reminds me, although I don't know why it should, of something
+I've been intending to tell you, that Joyce wrote recently. You've heard
+her talk of little Jules Ciseaux, the boy who played such an important
+part in her winter in France. He lived in the house with the giant
+scissors on the gables, and over the great gate, you know. Well, he's
+over here in America now. He's always wanted to come ever since Joyce
+told him so much about it. His mother was an American and I think he was
+born in this country. At any rate, he's here now, sightseeing and trying
+to hunt up his mother's family.
+
+"He's come into quite a large fortune lately, ever so many hundred
+thousand francs. As he is of age, he can do as he pleases. Joyce says he
+wants to come out to Lone Rock to see us, because she used to entertain
+him by the hour with tales of us, and he used to envy us our good times
+together in the little brown house at Plainsville. He never knew any
+home life like ours. I'm wild to see him. Joyce says he is charming!
+Such lovely manners, and such a sensitive, refined face, like one's
+ideal of a young poet. He's really something of an artist. Joyce says
+he's done some really creditable work, and all her friends have taken
+him up and are making it nice for him while he is in New York."
+
+"That _is_ interesting," said Phil. "I'll look him up as soon as I get
+back. Wouldn't it be romantic if the friendship that started between
+them as children should grow into something more? All those inherited
+francs would provide the fine, large umbrella which you seem to think is
+necessary."
+
+"Oh, it never can be anything but friendship in this case," exclaimed
+Mary. "Jules is two years younger than Joyce."
+
+"By the same token he is three years older than you. Maybe it's Joyce's
+little sister he will be taking an interest in."
+
+"Humph! You're as bad as Norman!" replied Mary, calmly. "That's what
+_he_ said. He thought he had something new to tease me about, but he
+soon found out that it wouldn't work."
+
+Despite her indifference, Phil thought of the possibility again many
+times that night before he fell asleep. Knowing the limited space of the
+cottage, he had taken a room at the Williams House, despite Mrs. Ware's
+protests, saying he would be over early in the morning for breakfast.
+But it seemed for awhile that breakfast-time would arrive before he
+could fall asleep.
+
+Things assume formidable proportions in the darkness and dead quiet of
+the night that they never have by day. Away after midnight he was still
+thinking of what Mary had said about the young Frenchman who had lately
+come into his fortune, and of what Roberta had said about Lieutenant
+Boglin. The face of the latter rose up before him. Not a particularly
+good-looking face, he thought, but it was a strong, likable one, and he
+had a sense of humor which made him good company, and a blarney-stone
+turn of the tongue that would take with any girl. As for Jules Ciseaux,
+who had envied the Wares their home life, Phil knew all about the
+childhood of the lonely little lad left to the mercies of a brutal
+caretaker. Jules would only need to see Mary once, dear little
+home-maker that she was, to want to carry her away with him to his
+chateau beside the Loire.
+
+Before Phil finally fell asleep he had decided just what he would say to
+Mary next morning, and that he would go early enough to make an
+opportunity to say it. It _was_ early when he went striding down the
+road, across the foot-bridge, and took the short cut through a meadow to
+the back of the Ware cottage; but the preparations for breakfast were
+well under way. When he reached the back porch, screened by
+morning-glory vines, he saw the table set out there, with fresh
+strawberries at each place, wreathed in their own green leaves.
+
+Judging from the odors wafted through the door, chickens were broiling
+within to exactly the right degree of delectable crispness, and coffee
+which would be of amber clearness, was in the making. But the noises
+within the kitchen were not to be interpreted as easily as the odors.
+There was a banging and scuffling over the floor, muffled shrieks and
+broken sentences in high voices, choking with laughter. Not till he
+reached the open window and looked in could he imagine the cause of the
+uproar. Norman and Mary were wrestling and romping all over the kitchen,
+having a tug-of-war over something he was trying to take away from her.
+
+Unconscious of a spectator, they dragged each other around, bumping
+against walls amid a clatter of falling tinware, stumbling over chairs
+and coming to a deadlock in each others' arms in a corner, so full of
+laughter they could scarcely hold their grip.
+
+"Dare me again! will you?" gasped Norman, thinking he had her pinned to
+the wall. But wrenching one hand free, she began to tickle him until he
+writhed away from her with a whoop, and dashed out of the door.
+
+"Yah! 'Fraid cat!" she jeered after him. "Afraid of a tickle!"
+
+"You just wait till I get back with the milk," he cried, catching up a
+shining tin pail that stood on the bench, and starting down the path
+over which Phil had just come.
+
+[Illustration: MARY WARE in TEXAS.
+
+Well, I'm going away and I may not see you again.]
+
+"You'll have to hurry," she called after him. "Breakfast is almost
+ready."
+
+She stooped to open the oven door and peep at the pan of biscuit within,
+just beginning to turn a delicate brown. Then she looked up and caught
+sight of Phil. He was leaning against the window looking in, his arms
+crossed on the sill as if he had been enjoying the spectacle for some
+time.
+
+"For mercy sakes!" she exclaimed. "How long have you been there?"
+
+The coast was clear. Norman was well on his way to the Metz place, and
+Mrs. Ware was helping Jack get ready for breakfast. It was as good an
+opportunity as Phil could have hoped for, to repeat the speech he had
+rehearsed so many times the night before. And she looked so fresh and
+wholesome and sweet, standing there in her pink morning dress with the
+big white apron, that she was more like an apple-blossom than anything
+else he could think of. He wanted to tell her so; to tell her she had
+never seemed so dear and desirable as she did at this moment, when he
+must be going away to leave her.
+
+Yet how could he tell her, when she was all a-giggle and a-dimple and
+aglow from her romp with Norman? Clearly she was too far from his state
+of mind to share it now, or even to understand it. After all, she was
+only a little girl at heart--only eighteen. It wasn't fair to her to
+awaken her quite yet--to hurry her into giving a promise when she
+couldn't possibly know her own mind. He would wait--
+
+So he only leaned on the window-sill and laughed at her for having been
+caught in such an undignified romp, and asked her when she intended to
+grow up, and if she ever expected to outgrow her propensity for
+scrapping. But when he had joked thus a few minutes, he said, quite
+suddenly and seriously, "Mary, I want you to promise me something."
+
+She was taking the chickens from the broiler and did not look at him
+until they were safely landed in the hot platter awaiting them, but she
+said lightly, "Yes, your 'ighness. To the 'arf of me kingdom. Wot is
+it?"
+
+"Well, I'm going away and I may not see you again for a long time. The
+chief wants me to take a position, engineering the construction of a big
+dam down in Mexico. It would keep me down there two years, but it would
+be the biggest thing I've had yet, in every way. Last night I just about
+made up my mind I'd take it.
+
+"While I'm gone you will be striking out into all sorts of new trails,
+and I am afraid that on some of them somebody will come along and try to
+persuade you to join him on his, even if you are such a little girl. Now
+I want to have a hand in choosing the right man, and I want you to
+promise me that you won't let anybody persuade you to do that till I
+come back. Or at least if they do try, that you'll send me word that
+they're trying, and give me a chance to come back and have a look at the
+fellow, and see if I think he is good enough to carry you off."
+
+"Why, the idea!" she laughed, a trifle embarrassed, but immensely
+pleased that he should think it possible for her to have numerous
+suitors or to have them soon, and flattered that he should take enough
+interest in her future to want to be called back from Mexico to direct
+her choice.
+
+"But will you promise?" he urged.
+
+"Yes; that is not much to promise."
+
+"And you'll give me your hand on it?" he persisted.
+
+"Yes, and cross my heart and body in the bargain," she added, lightly,
+"if that'll please you any better."
+
+For all his gravity, she thought he was jesting until she reached her
+hand through the window to seal the compact.
+
+"You know," he said, as his warm fingers closed over it, "I've never yet
+seen anybody whom I considered good enough for little Mary Ware."
+
+Her eyes fell before the seriousness of his steady glance, and she
+turned away all in a flutter of pleasure that the "Best Man" should have
+said such a lovely thing about _her_. It was the very thing she had
+always thought about him.
+
+Mrs. Ware came out just then, wheeling Jack in his chair, and soon after
+Norman was back with the milk, and breakfast was served out on the porch
+among the morning-glories. "A perfect breakfast and a perfect morning,"
+Phil said. The 'bus which was to call for him came while they were still
+lingering around the table, and there was only time for a hasty good-by
+all around.
+
+"Come and walk out to the gate with me, Mary, and give me a good
+send-off," he said, hurriedly snatching up his suit-case.
+
+Now in this last moment, when there was much to say, neither had a word,
+and they walked along in silence until they reached the gate. There he
+turned for one more hand-clasp.
+
+"Remember your promise," he said, gravely, as his fingers closed warmly
+over hers. "I meant every word I said."
+
+"I'll remember," she answered, dimpling again as if he had reminded her
+of a good joke; "and I'll keep my word. Honest, I will!"
+
+With that he went away, carrying with him a picture which he recalled a
+thousand times in the months that followed; Mary, standing at the gate
+in the pink and white dress that had the freshness of a spring blossom,
+with her sweet, sincere eyes and her dear little mouth saying, "I'll
+keep my word! Honest, I will!"
+
+It was a long, long, hot summer that followed. The drought dried up the
+creek so that the boat lay idle on the bank. The dust grew deeper and
+deeper in the roads and lay thick on the wayside weeds. Even the trees
+were powdered with it; all the green of the landscape took on an ashen
+grayness. Meadows lay parched and sere. Walking ceased to be a pleasure,
+and as they gasped through the tropical heat of the endless afternoons,
+they longed for the dense shade of the pines at Lone Rock, and counted
+the days till they could go back.
+
+But as soon as the sun dropped behind the hills each day, and the breeze
+started up from the far-away Gulf, their discomfort was forgotten. In
+the wonderful brilliance of the starry nights when there was no moon, or
+in the times when one hung like a luminous pearl above a silver world,
+the air grew fresh and cool, and they sat late in the open, making the
+most of every minute. In the early mornings there was that same crisp
+freshness of the hills again, so one could endure the merciless, yellow
+glare and the panting heat of the afternoons, for the sake of the nights
+and dawns.
+
+Even without that, however, they would have been content to stay on,
+enduring it gladly, for Jack was daily growing stronger; and to see him
+moving about the house on his own feet, no matter how falteringly at
+first, was a cause for hourly rejoicing.
+
+Mary still played the part of Baloo with Brud and Sister, starting early
+in the morning and taking them over to the old mill-dam, in the shade of
+some big cypress and sycamore trees. She was teaching them to read and
+write, but there was little poring over books for them. They built their
+letters out of stones, and fashioned whole sentences of twigs; wrote
+them in the sand and modelled them in mud, scratched them on rocks with
+bits of flint, as Indians do their picture language, and pricked them
+in the broad sycamore leaves with thorns. By the end of the summer they
+had enough of a vocabulary to write a brief letter to their father, and
+their pride knew no bounds when each had achieved one entirely alone,
+from date to stamp, and dropped it into the box at the post-office. His
+pride in them was equally great, and the letter that he sent Mary with
+her final check was one of the few things which she carried away from
+Texas as a cherished memento.
+
+She did not write often in her Good Times book. There was so little to
+chronicle. An occasional visit from the Barnaby's, a call at the
+rectory, a few minutes spent in neighborly gossip in the Metz garden;
+never once in the whole summer a happening more exciting than that,
+except when the troops from Fort Sam Houston were ordered out on their
+annual "hike" and passed through Bauer in July. Each of the different
+divisions camped a day and a night in the grove back of the cottage,
+near enough for the Wares to watch every manoeuvre. The Artillery band
+played at sunset when it was in camp, and gave a concert that night in
+the plaza. When the Cavalry passed through, Lieutenant Boglin came to
+supper and spent the evening. Gay was up for a day twice, and Mary went
+once to San Antonio. That was all. Yet stupid as it was for a girl of
+her age, and much as she missed young companionship, Mary managed to get
+through the summer very happily. All its unpleasantness was atoned for
+one day in early September, when she looked out to see Jack going down
+the road, straight and strong, pushing his own wheeled chair in front of
+him. He was taking it down to Doctor Mackay's office to leave "for the
+first poor devil who needs it," he said.
+
+In the last few weeks he had discovered what he had not known before,
+that the town was full of invalids in quest of health, attracted from
+all over the country by the life-giving air of its hills. He had made
+the acquaintance of a number of them since he had been able to ride
+around with the doctor. Now, as he went off down the road with the
+chair, with all of the family at the window to see the happy sight, Mrs.
+Ware repeated to Mary what the doctor had said about Jack's effect on
+his other patients, and what the rector had told her of the regard all
+the villagers had for Jack.
+
+"The dear boy's year of suffering has done one thing for the world," she
+added. "It has given it another Aldebaran. Don't you remember in _The
+Jester's Sword_--" She quoted it readily, because ever since she had
+first seen it she had always read Jack's name in place of Aldebaran's:
+
+"'_It came to pass whenever he went by, men felt a strange,
+strength-giving influence radiating from his presence, a sense of hope.
+One could not say exactly what it was, it was so fleeting, so
+intangible, like warmth that circles from a brazier, or perfume that is
+wafted from an unseen rose._' That's what one feels whenever Jack comes
+near."
+
+"Yes, I know," assented Mary. "Even old Mr. Metz tried to say as much to
+me about him. He didn't choose those words, of course, but in his own
+broken way he meant the same thing."
+
+When the day came to leave, there was no one to go with them to the
+station. The Rochesters were away on their vacation, and it was too
+early in the morning for the Barnabys to come in from the ranch. They
+had bidden each other good-by the day before, with deep regrets on both
+sides. It seemed so good to both Mary and her mother to see Jack
+attending to the tickets and the trunks in his old way, so quick and
+capable. While he was getting the checks, Mary walked down the track a
+little piece to a place where she could look back at the town for one
+more picture to carry away in her memory.
+
+How friendly and homelike and dear it seemed now. Between the belfry of
+St. Peter's and the gray tower of Holy Angels, rose the smoke from many
+breakfast fires, and the windmills twirled merrily in the morning sun.
+For all its dreariness she was carrying away the recollection of a score
+of happy times.
+
+Over there was the free camp-yard, where their little Christmas tree had
+spread such cheer. Further on shone the spire of St. Boniface. She would
+always think of it as she saw it Easter morning, its casement windows
+set wide, and its altar white with the snowy beauty of the rain lilies.
+There was the meadow through which she had gone in blue-bonnet time, to
+find Phil waiting under the _huisache_ tree, and there the creek,
+running on to Fernbank. Nearer by she could see the windmill tower she
+had so often climbed, sticking up over the roof that had sheltered them
+during the ten months they had been in Bauer. "Dear little old Bauer,"
+she thought, gratefully. She wouldn't have believed it in the beginning
+if anyone had told her, that there would be any regrets in her
+leave-taking when the time came to go. How wonderfully it had all turned
+out. The crooked _had_ been made straight, and the rough places smooth.
+She could face the future gladly, buoyantly, now, no matter what it
+held, since Jack was well again.
+
+"Come on, Mary, it's time to go aboard!" called Norman.
+
+"You go on in, and save me a seat," she called back. "Here come the
+children. I must wait to speak to them."
+
+She had bidden them good-by the night before, and had not expected to
+see them again. They came running, out of breath. Sister had a little
+bag of animal crackers she had brought as a farewell offering, and Brud
+proffered a companion-piece, a sack of sticky red cinnamon drops. They
+had cried the night before, and they were close to tears now, realizing
+that something very rare and precious was passing out of their lives.
+She took their offerings with thanks that brought smiles to their
+dejected little faces, then once more stooped to kiss them good-by.
+
+"From now, it's new trails for all of us," she said, lightly, "and
+you'll write and tell me what you find in yours, and I'll write and tell
+you about mine."
+
+On the platform of the car she turned for a last look at the three
+disconsolate little figures, waiting to watch her start off towards
+those new trails. There were three, for Uncle August had joined them
+now, squatting mournfully beside them as if he, too, were losing his
+best playfellow. The train began to move slowly out. As she clung to the
+railing to wave to them one more time, a mournful little pipe followed
+her shrilly down the track. It was Brud's voice:
+
+"Good hunting, Miss Mayry! Good hunting!"
+
+    THE END.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL BOOKS
+
+(Trade Mark)
+
+_By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON_
+
+    _Each 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated, per vol._   $1.50
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL STORIES (Trade Mark)
+
+Being three "Little Colonel" stories in the Cosy Corner Series, "The
+Little Colonel," "Two Little Knights of Kentucky," and "The Great
+Scissors," put into a single volume.
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOUSE PARTY (Trade Mark)
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HOLIDAYS (Trade Mark)
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL'S HERO (Trade Mark)
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL AT BOARDING-SCHOOL (Trade Mark)
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL IN ARIZONA (Trade Mark)
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL'S CHRISTMAS VACATION (Trade Mark)
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL, MAID OF HONOR (Trade Mark)
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL'S KNIGHT COMES RIDING (Trade Mark)
+
+
+MARY WARE: THE LITTLE COLONEL'S CHUM (Trade Mark)
+
+
+MARY WARE IN TEXAS
+
+_These eleven volumes, boxed as an eleven-volume set_ $16.50
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL (Trade Mark)
+
+
+TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF KENTUCKY
+
+
+THE GIANT SCISSORS
+
+
+BIG BROTHER
+
+Special Holiday Editions
+
+Each one volume, cloth decorative, small quarto, $1.25
+
+New plates, handsomely illustrated with eight full-page drawings in
+color, and many marginal sketches.
+
+
+IN THE DESERT OF WAITING: THE LEGEND OF CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN.
+
+
+THE THREE WEAVERS: A FAIRY TALE FOR FATHERS AND MOTHERS AS WELL AS FOR
+THEIR DAUGHTERS.
+
+
+KEEPING TRYST
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE BLEEDING HEART
+
+
+THE RESCUE OF PRINCESS WINSOME: A FAIRY PLAY FOR OLD AND YOUNG.
+
+
+THE JESTER'S SWORD
+
+    Each one volume, tall 16mo, cloth decorative     $0.50
+    Paper boards                                       .35
+
+There has been a constant demand for publication in separate form of
+these six stories which were originally included in six of the "Little
+Colonel" books.
+
+
+JOEL: A BOY OF GALILEE: BY ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON. Illustrated by L. J.
+Bridgman.
+
+    New illustrated edition, uniform with the Little Colonel
+    Books, 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative      $1.50
+
+A story of the time of Christ, which is one of the author's best-known
+books.
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL GOOD TIMES BOOK
+
+    Uniform in size with the Little Colonel Series   $1.50
+    Bound in white kid (morocco) and gold             3.00
+
+Cover design and decorations by Peter Verberg.
+
+Published in response to many inquiries from readers of the Little
+Colonel books as to where they could obtain a "Good Times Book" such as
+Betty kept.
+
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL DOLL BOOK
+
+    Large quarto, boards                             $1.50
+
+A series of "Little Colonel" dolls,--not only the Little Colonel
+herself, but Betty and Kitty and Mary Ware, yes, and Rob, Phil, and many
+another of the well-loved characters,--even Mom' Beck herself. There are
+many of them and each has several changes of costume, so that the happy
+group can be appropriately clad for the rehearsal of any scene or
+incident in the series.
+
+The large, cumbersome sheets of most of the so-called doll "books" have
+been discarded, and instead each character, each costume, occupies a
+sheet by itself, the dolls and costumes being cut out only as they are
+wanted.
+
+
+ASA HOLMES: OR, AT THE CROSS-ROADS. A sketch of Country Life and Country
+Humor. By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON.
+
+With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.
+
+    Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top                      $1.00
+
+"'Asa Holmes; or, At the Cross-Roads' is the most delightful, most
+sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a long
+while."--_Boston Times._
+
+
+THE RIVAL CAMPERS; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY BURNS. By RUEL PERLEY
+SMITH.
+
+    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated       $1.50
+
+A story of a party of typical American lads, courageous, alert, and
+athletic, who spend a summer camping on an island off the Maine coast.
+
+
+THE RIVAL CAMPERS AFLOAT; OR, THE PRIZE YACHT VIKING. By RUEL PERLEY
+SMITH.
+
+    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated       $1.50
+
+This book is a continuation of the adventures of "The Rival Campers" on
+their prize yacht _Viking_.
+
+
+THE RIVAL CAMPERS ASHORE By RUEL PERLEY SMITH.
+
+    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated       $1.50
+
+"As interesting ashore as when afloat."--_The Interior._
+
+
+THE RIVAL CAMPERS AMONG THE OYSTER PIRATES; OR, JACK HARVEY'S
+ADVENTURES.
+
+    By RUEL PERLEY SMITH. Illustrated       $1.50
+
+"Just the type of book which is most popular with lads who are in their
+early teens."--_The Philadelphia Item._
+
+
+PRISONERS OF FORTUNE: A Tale of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. By RUEL
+PERLEY SMITH.
+
+    Cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece    $1.50
+
+"There is an atmosphere of old New England in the book, the humor of the
+born raconteur about the hero, who tells his story with the gravity of a
+preacher, but with a solemn humor that is irresistible."--_Courier-Journal._
+
+
+FAMOUS CAVALRY LEADERS. By CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON.
+
+    Large 12mo, With 24 illustrations                $1.50
+
+Biographical sketches, with interesting anecdotes and reminiscences of
+the heroes of history who were leaders of cavalry.
+
+"More of such books should be written, books that acquaint young readers
+with historical personages in a pleasant informal way."--_N. Y. Sun._
+
+
+FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS. By CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON.
+
+    Large 12mo, illustrated                          $1.50
+
+In this book Mr. Johnston gives interesting sketches of the Indian
+braves who have figured with prominence in the history of our own land,
+including Powhatan, the Indian Cæsar; Massasoit, the friend of the
+Puritans; Pontiac, the red Napoleon; Tecumseh, the famous war chief of
+the Shawnees; Sitting Bull, the famous war chief of the Sioux; Geronimo,
+the renowned Apache Chief, etc., etc.
+
+
+FAMOUS SCOUTS. By CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON.
+
+    Large 12mo, illustrated                           $1.50
+
+Mr. Johnston gives us historical facts and biographical sketches and
+interesting anecdotes of those heroes of early pioneer days who made
+names for themselves among the hardy adventurers who thronged the
+border. There are tales of Gen. Israel Putnam; the celebrated Daniel
+Boone; Kit Carson, the noted scout; Lewis and Clarke, the hardy
+explorers; the world-renowned Buffalo Bill, and of many other famous
+scouts, trappers and pioneers.
+
+
+BEAUTIFUL JOE'S PARADISE: OR, THE ISLAND OF BROTHERLY LOVE. A sequel to
+"Beautiful Joe." By MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful Joe."
+
+    One vol., library 12mo, cloth, illustrated           $1.50
+
+"This book revives the spirit of 'Beautiful Joe' capitally. It is fairly
+riotous with fun, and is about as unusual as anything in the animal book
+line that has seen the light."--_Philadelphia Item._
+
+
+'TILDA JANE. By MARSHALL SAUNDERS.
+
+One vol., 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth decorative, $1.50
+
+"I cannot think of any better book for children than this. I commend it
+unreservedly."--_Cyrus Townsend Brady._
+
+
+'TILDA JANE'S ORPHANS. A sequel to "'Tilda Jane." By MARSHALL SAUNDERS.
+
+One vol., 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth decorative, $1.50
+
+'Tilda Jane is the same original, delightful girl, and as fond of her
+animal pets as ever.
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE GRAVELEYS. By MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful
+Joe's Paradise," "'Tilda Jane," etc.
+
+    Library 12mo, cloth decorative. Illustrated by E. B.
+    Barry                                                $1.50
+
+Here we have the haps and mishaps, the trials and triumphs, of a
+delightful New England family, of whose devotion and sturdiness it will
+do the reader good to hear.
+
+
+BORN TO THE BLUE. By FLORENCE KIMBALL RUSSEL.
+
+    12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated                  $1.25
+
+The atmosphere of army life on the plains breathes on every page of this
+delightful tale. The boy is the son of a captain of U. S. cavalry
+stationed at a frontier post in the days when our regulars earned the
+gratitude of a nation.
+
+
+IN WEST POINT GRAY By FLORENCE KIMBALL RUSSEL.
+
+    12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated                $1.50
+
+"Singularly enough one of the best books of the year for boys is written
+by a woman and deals with life at West Point. The presentment of life in
+the famous military academy whence so many heroes have graduated is
+realistic and enjoyable."--_New York Sun._
+
+
+THE SANDMAN: HIS FARM STORIES By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS. With fifty
+illustrations by Ada Clendenin Williamson.
+
+    Large 12mo, decorative cover                       $1.50
+
+"An amusing, original book, written for the benefit of very small
+children. It should be one of the most popular of the year's books for
+reading to small children."--_Buffalo Express._
+
+
+THE SANDMAN: MORE FARM STORIES By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS.
+
+    Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated    $1.50
+
+Mr. Hopkins's first essay at bedtime stories met with such approval that
+this second book of "Sandman" tales was issued for scores of eager
+children. Life on the farm, and out-of-doors, is portrayed in his
+inimitable manner.
+
+
+THE SANDMAN: HIS SHIP STORIES By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS, author of "The
+Sandman: His Farm Stories," etc.
+
+    Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated    $1.50
+
+"Children call for these stories over and over again."--_Chicago Evening
+Post._
+
+
+THE SANDMAN: HIS SEA STORIES By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS.
+
+    Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated    $1.50
+
+Each year adds to the popularity of this unique series of stories to be
+read to the little ones at bed time and at other times.
+
+
+A TEXAS BLUE BONNET By EMILIA ELLIOTT.
+
+    12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated                $1.50
+
+This is the story of a warm-hearted, impulsive and breezy girl of the
+Southwest, who has lived all her life on a big ranch. She comes to the
+far East for a long visit, and her experiences "up North" are indeed
+delightful reading. Blue Bonnet is sure to win the hearts of all girl
+readers.
+
+
+THE DOCTOR'S LITTLE GIRL By MARION AMES TAGGART, author of "Pussy-Cat
+Town," etc.
+
+    One vol., library 12mo, illustrated                $1.50
+
+A thoroughly enjoyable tale of a little girl and her comrade father,
+written in a delightful vein of sympathetic comprehension of the child's
+point of view.
+
+
+SWEET NANCY THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE DOCTOR'S LITTLE GIRL. By
+MARION AMES TAGGART.
+
+    One vol., library, 12mo, illustrated              $1.50
+
+In the new book, the author tells how Nancy becomes in fact "the
+doctor's assistant," and continues to shed happiness around her.
+
+
+CARLOTA A STORY OF THE SAN GABRIEL MISSION. By FRANCES MARGARET FOX.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated
+    in colors by Ethelind Ridgway                      $1.00
+
+"It is a pleasure to recommend this little story as an entertaining
+contribution to juvenile literature."--_The New York Sun._
+
+
+THE SEVEN CHRISTMAS CANDLES By FRANCES MARGARET FOX.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated
+    in colors by E. B. Barry                           $1.00
+
+Miss Fox's new book deals with the fortunes of the delightful Mulvaney
+children.
+
+
+SEVEN LITTLE WISE MEN By FRANCES MARGARET FOX.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated in colors by
+    E. B. Barry                                         $1.00
+
+In this new story Miss Fox relates how seven little children, who lived
+in Sunny California, prepared for the great Christmas Festival.
+
+
+PUSSY-CAT TOWN By MARION AMES TAGGART.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated
+    in colors                                           $1.00
+
+"Anything more interesting than the doings of the cats in this story,
+their humor, their wisdom, their patriotism, would be hard to
+imagine."--_Chicago Post._
+
+
+THE ROSES OF SAINT ELIZABETH By JANE SCOTT WOODRUFF.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated
+    in colors by Adelaide Everhart                      $1.00
+
+This is a charming little story of a child whose father was caretaker of
+the great castle of the Wartburg.
+
+
+GABRIEL AND THE HOUR BOOK By EVALEEN STEIN.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated
+    in colors by Adelaide Everhart                     $1.00
+
+Gabriel was a loving, patient, little French lad, who assisted the monks
+in the long ago days, when all the books were written and illuminated by
+hand, in the monasteries.
+
+
+A LITTLE SHEPHERD OF PROVENCE By EVALEEN STEIN.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated in colors by
+    Diantha Horne Marlowe                             $1.00
+
+This is the story of Little lame Jean, a goatherd of Provence, and of
+the "golden goat" who is supposed to guard a hidden treasure.
+
+
+THE ENCHANTED AUTOMOBILE Translated from the French by MARY J SAFFORD.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated
+    in colors by Edna M. Sawyer                        $1.00
+
+"An up-to-date French fairy-tale which fairly radiates the spirit of the
+hour,--unceasing diligence."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+
+O-HEART-SAN THE STORY OF A JAPANESE GIRL. By HELEN EGGLESTON HASKELL.
+
+    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated
+    in colors by Frank P. Fairbanks                     $1.00
+
+"The story comes straight from the heart of Japan. From every page
+breathes the fragrance of tea leaves, cherry blossoms and
+chrysanthemums."--_The Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+
+THE YOUNG SECTION-HAND; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF ALLAN WEST. By BURTON E.
+STEVENSON.
+
+    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated         $1.50
+
+Mr. Stevenson's hero is a manly lad of sixteen, who is given a chance as
+a section-hand on a big Western railroad, and whose experiences are as
+real as they are thrilling.
+
+
+THE YOUNG TRAIN DISPATCHER. By BURTON E. STEVENSON.
+
+    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated         $1.50
+
+"A better book for boys has never left an American press."--_Springfield
+Union._
+
+
+THE YOUNG TRAIN MASTER. By BURTON E. STEVENSON.
+
+    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated         $1.50
+
+"Nothing better in the way of a book of adventure for boys in which the
+actualities of life are set forth in a practical way could be devised or
+written."--_Boston Herald._
+
+
+CAPTAIN JACK LORIMER. By WINN STANDISH.
+
+    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated         $1.50
+
+Jack is a fine example of the all-around American high-school boy.
+
+
+JACK LORIMER'S CHAMPIONS; OR, SPORTS ON LAND AND LAKE. By WINN STANDISH.
+
+    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated         $1.50
+
+"It is exactly the sort of book to give a boy interested in athletics,
+for it shows him what it means to always 'play fair.'"--_Chicago
+Tribune._
+
+
+JACK LORIMER'S HOLIDAYS; OR, MILLVALE HIGH IN CAMP. By WINN STANDISH.
+
+    Illustrated                                        $1.50
+
+Full of just the kind of fun, sports and adventure to excite the healthy
+minded youngster to emulation.
+
+
+JACK LORIMER'S SUBSTITUTE; OR, THE ACTING CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM. By WINN
+STANDISH.
+
+    Illustrated                                        $1.50
+
+On the sporting side, this book takes up football, wrestling,
+tobogganing, but it is more of a _school_ story perhaps than any of its
+predecessors.
+
+
+THE RED FEATHERS. By THEODORE ROBERTS
+
+    Cloth decorative, illustrated                      $1.50
+
+"The Red Feathers" tells of the remarkable adventures of an Indian boy
+who lived in the Stone Age, many years ago, when the world was young.
+
+
+FLYING PLOVER. By THEODORE ROBERTS.
+
+    Cloth decorative. Illustrated by Charles Livingston
+    Bull                                               $1.00
+
+Squat-By-The-Fire is a very old and wise Indian who lives alone with her
+grandson, "Flying Plover," to whom she tells the stories each evening.
+
+
+COMRADES OF THE TRAILS. By G. E. THEODORE ROBERTS.
+
+    Cloth decorative. Illustrated by Charles Livingston
+    Bull                                               $1.50
+
+The story of a fearless young English lad, Dick Ramsey, who, after the
+death of his father, crosses the seas and takes up the life of a hunter
+and trapper in the Canadian forests.
+
+
+LITTLE WHITE INDIANS. By FANNIE E. OSTRANDER.
+
+    Cloth decorative, illustrated                      $1.25
+
+"A bright, interesting story which will appeal strongly to the
+'make-believe' instinct in children, and will give them a healthy,
+active interest in 'the simple life.'"
+
+
+THE BOY WHO WON By FANNIE E. OSTRANDER, author of "Little White
+Indians."
+
+    12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by R. Farrington
+    Elwell                                             $1.25
+
+A companion volume to "Little White Indians" continuing the adventures
+of the different "tribes," whose "doings" were so interestingly told in
+the earlier volume.
+
+
+MARCHING WITH MORGAN. HOW DONALD LOVELL BECAME A SOLDIER OF THE
+REVOLUTION. By JOHN V. LANE.
+
+    Cloth decorative, illustrated                      $1.50
+
+This is a splendid boy's story of the expedition of Montgomery and
+Arnold against Quebec.
+
+
+
+COSY CORNER SERIES
+
+
+It is the intention of the publishers that this series shall contain
+only the very highest and purest literature,--stories that shall not
+only appeal to the children themselves, but be appreciated by all those
+who feel with them in their joys and sorrows.
+
+The numerous illustrations in each book are by well-known artists, and
+each volume has a separate attractive cover design.
+
+    Each 1 vol., 16mo, cloth                           $0.50
+
+
+_By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON_
+
+THE LITTLE COLONEL (Trade Mark.)
+
+The scene of this story is laid in Kentucky. Its heroine is a small
+girl, who is known as the Little Colonel, on account of her fancied
+resemblance to an old-school Southern gentleman, whose fine estate and
+old family are famous in the region.
+
+
+THE GIANT SCISSORS
+
+This is the story of Joyce and of her adventures in France. Joyce is a
+great friend of the Little Colonel, and in later volumes shares with her
+the delightful experiences of the "House Party" and the "Holidays."
+
+
+TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF KENTUCKY WHO WERE THE LITTLE COLONEL'S NEIGHBORS.
+
+In this volume the Little Colonel returns to us like an old friend, but
+with added grace and charm. She is not, however, the central figure of
+the story, that place being taken by the "two little knights."
+
+
+MILDRED'S INHERITANCE
+
+A delightful little story of a lonely English girl who comes to America
+and is befriended by a sympathetic American family who are attracted by
+her beautiful speaking voice. By means of this one gift she is enabled
+to help a school-girl who has temporarily lost the use of her eyes, and
+thus finally her life becomes a busy, happy one.
+
+
+CICELY AND OTHER STORIES FOR GIRLS
+
+The readers of Mrs. Johnston's charming juveniles will be glad to learn
+of the issue of this volume for young people.
+
+
+AUNT 'LIZA'S HERO AND OTHER STORIES
+
+A collection of six bright little stories, which will appeal to all boys
+and most girls.
+
+
+BIG BROTHER
+
+A story of two boys. The devotion and care of Stephen, himself a small
+boy, for his baby brother, is the theme of the simple tale.
+
+
+OLE MAMMY'S TORMENT
+
+"Ole Mammy's Torment" has been fitly called "a classic of Southern
+life." It relates the haps and mishaps of a small negro lad, and tells
+how he was led by love and kindness to a knowledge of the right.
+
+
+THE STORY OF DAGO
+
+In this story Mrs. Johnston relates the story of Dago, a pet monkey,
+owned jointly by two brothers. Dago tells his own story, and the account
+of his haps and mishaps is both interesting and amusing.
+
+
+THE QUILT THAT JACK BUILT
+
+A pleasant little story of a boy's labor of love, and how it changed the
+course of his life many years after it was accomplished.
+
+
+FLIP'S ISLANDS OF PROVIDENCE
+
+A story of a boy's life battle, his early defeat, and his final triumph,
+well worth the reading.
+
+
+
+_By EDITH ROBINSON_
+
+A LITTLE PURITAN'S FIRST CHRISTMAS
+
+
+A story of Colonial times in Boston, telling how Christmas was invented
+by Betty Sewall, a typical child of the Puritans, aided by her brother
+Sam.
+
+
+A LITTLE DAUGHTER OF LIBERTY
+
+The author introduces this story as follows:
+
+"One ride is memorable in the early history of the American Revolution,
+the well-known ride of Paul Revere. Equally deserving of commendation is
+another ride,--the ride of Anthony Severn,--which was no less historic
+in its action or memorable in its consequences."
+
+
+A LOYAL LITTLE MAID
+
+A delightful and interesting story of Revolutionary days, in which the
+child heroine, Betsey Schuyler, renders important services to George
+Washington.
+
+
+A LITTLE PURITAN REBEL
+
+This is an historical tale of a real girl, during the time when the
+gallant Sir Harry Vane was governor of Massachusetts.
+
+
+A LITTLE PURITAN PIONEER
+
+The scene of this story is laid in the Puritan settlement at
+Charlestown.
+
+
+A LITTLE PURITAN BOUND GIRL
+
+A story of Boston in Puritan days, which is of great interest to
+youthful readers.
+
+
+A LITTLE PURITAN CAVALIER
+
+The story of a "Little Puritan Cavalier" who tried with all his boyish
+enthusiasm to emulate the spirit and ideals of the dead Crusaders.
+
+
+A PURITAN KNIGHT ERRANT
+
+The story tells of a young lad in Colonial times who endeavored to carry
+out the high ideals of the knights of olden days.
+
+
+
+_By OUIDA_ (_Louise de la Ramee_)
+
+
+A DOG OF FLANDERS A CHRISTMAS STORY
+
+Too well and favorably known to require description.
+
+
+THE NURNBERG STOVE
+
+This beautiful story has never before been published at a popular price.
+
+
+
+_By FRANCES MARGARET FOX_
+
+THE LITTLE GIANT'S NEIGHBOURS
+
+A charming nature story of a "little giant" whose neighbors were the
+creatures of the field and garden.
+
+
+FARMER BROWN AND THE BIRDS
+
+A little story which teaches children that the birds are man's best
+friends.
+
+
+BETTY OF OLD MACKINAW
+
+A charming story of child life.
+
+
+BROTHER BILLY
+
+The story of Betty's brother, and some further adventures of Betty
+herself.
+
+
+MOTHER NATURE'S LITTLE ONES
+
+Curious little sketches describing the early lifetime, or "childhood,"
+of the little creatures out-of-doors.
+
+
+HOW CHRISTMAS CAME TO THE MULVANEYS
+
+A bright, lifelike little story of a family of poor children with an
+unlimited capacity for fun and mischief.
+
+
+THE COUNTRY CHRISTMAS
+
+Miss Fox has vividly described the happy surprises that made the
+occasion so memorable to the Mulvaneys, and the funny things the
+children did in their new environment.
+
+
+
+_By MISS MULOCK_
+
+THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE
+
+A delightful story of a little boy who has many adventures by means of
+the magic gifts of his fairy godmother.
+
+
+ADVENTURES OF A BROWNIE
+
+The story of a household elf who torments the cook and gardener, but is
+a constant joy and delight to the children who love and trust him.
+
+
+HIS LITTLE MOTHER
+
+Miss Mulock's short stories for children are a constant source of
+delight to them, and "His Little Mother," in this new and attractive
+dress, will be welcomed by hosts of youthful readers.
+
+
+LITTLE SUNSHINE'S HOLIDAY
+
+An attractive story of a summer outing. "Little Sunshine" is another of
+those beautiful child-characters for which Miss Mulock is so justly
+famous.
+
+
+
+_By MARSHALL SAUNDERS_
+
+FOR HIS COUNTRY
+
+A sweet and graceful story of a little boy who loved his country;
+written with that charm which has endeared Miss Saunders to hosts of
+readers.
+
+
+NITA, THE STORY OF AN IRISH SETTER
+
+In this touching little book, Miss Saunders shows how dear to her heart
+are all of God's dumb creatures.
+
+
+ALPATOK, THE STORY OF AN ESKIMO DOG
+
+Alpatok, an Eskimo dog from the far north, was stolen from his master
+and left to starve in a strange city, but was befriended and cared for,
+until he was able to return to his owner.
+
+
+
+_By WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE_
+
+THE FARRIER'S DOG AND HIS FELLOW
+
+This story, written by the gifted young Southern woman, will appeal to
+all that is best in the natures of the many admirers of her graceful and
+piquant style.
+
+
+THE FORTUNES OF THE FELLOW
+
+Those who read and enjoyed the pathos and charm of "The Farrier's Dog
+and His Fellow" will welcome the further account 01 the adventures of
+Baydaw and the Fellow at the home of the kindly smith.
+
+
+THE BEST OF FRIENDS
+
+This continues the experiences of the Farrier's dog and his Fellow,
+written in Mr. Dromgoole's well-known charming style.
+
+
+DOWN IN DIXIE
+
+A fascinating story for boys and girls, of a family of Alabama children
+who move to Florida and grow up in the South.
+
+
+
+_By MARIAN W. WILDMAN_
+
+LOYALTY ISLAND
+
+An account of the adventures of four children and their pet dog on an
+island, and how they cleared their brother from the suspicion of
+dishonesty.
+
+
+THEODORE AND THEODORA
+
+This is a story of the exploits and mishaps of two mischievous twins,
+and continues the adventures of the interesting group of children in
+"Loyalty Island."
+
+
+
+_By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS_
+
+THE CRUISE OF THE YACHT DIDO
+
+The story of two boys who turned their yacht into a fishing boat to earn
+money.
+
+
+THE YOUNG ACADIAN
+
+The story of a young lad of Acadia who rescued a little English girl
+from the hands of savages.
+
+
+THE LORD OF THE AIR THE STORY OF THE EAGLE.
+
+
+THE KING OF THE MAMOZEKEL THE STORY OF THE MOOSE.
+
+
+THE WATCHERS OF THE CAMP-FIRE THE STORY OF THE PANTHER.
+
+
+THE HAUNTER OF THE PINE GLOOM THE STORY OF THE LYNX.
+
+
+THE RETURN TO THE TRAILS THE STORY OF THE BEAR.
+
+
+THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SYCAMORE THE STORY OF THE RACCOON.
+
+
+
+_By JULIANA HORATIO EWING_
+
+STORY OF A SHORT LIFE
+
+This beautiful and pathetic story will never grow old. It is a part of
+the world's literature, and will never die.
+
+
+JACKANAPES
+
+A new edition, with new illustrations, of this exquisite and touching
+story, dear alike to young and old.
+
+
+A GREAT EMERGENCY
+
+A bright little story of a happy, mischievous family of children.
+
+
+
+_By OTHER AUTHORS_
+
+
+THE GREAT SCOOP
+
+_By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL_
+
+A capital tale of newspaper life in a big city, and of a bright,
+enterprising, likable youngster employed thereon.
+
+
+JOHN WHOPPER
+
+_By BISHOP CLARK_
+
+The late Bishop Clark's popular story of the boy who fell through the
+earth and came out in China, with a new introduction by Bishop Potter.
+
+
+RAB AND HIS FRIENDS
+
+_By DR. JOHN BROWN_
+
+Doctor Brown's little masterpiece is too well known to need description.
+The dog Rab is already known and loved by all.
+
+
+THE SLEEPING BEAUTY: A MODERN VERSION.
+
+_By MARTHA B. DUNN_
+
+This charming story of a little fishermaid of Maine, intellectually
+"asleep" until she meets the "Fairy Prince," reminds us of "Ouida" at
+her best.
+
+
+SUSANNE
+
+_By FRANCES J. DELANO_
+
+Susanne is a story of a motherless little girl with a wonderful voice
+who is taken to the city to be educated by a rich aunt, but runs away
+from the city and returns home.
+
+
+A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR
+
+_By CHARLES DICKENS_
+
+One of those beautiful, fanciful little allegories which Dickens alone
+knew how to write.
+
+
+THE DOLE TWINS
+
+_By KATE UPSON CLARK_
+
+The adventures of two little people who tried to earn money to buy
+crutches for a lame aunt. An excellent description of child-life about
+1812, which will greatly interest and amuse the children of to-day,
+whose life is widely different.
+
+
+LARRY HUDSON'S AMBITION
+
+_By JAMES OTIS_, author of "Tobey Tyler," etc.
+
+Larry Hudson is a typical American boy, whose hard work and enterprise
+gain him his ambition,--an education and a start in the world.
+
+
+THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS SHOE
+
+_By JANE P. SCOTT WOODRUFF_
+
+A touching story of Yule-tide.
+
+
+WEE DOROTHY
+
+_By LAURA UPDEGRAFF_
+
+A story of two orphan children, the tender devotion of the eldest, a
+boy, for his sister being its theme and setting. With a bit of sadness
+at the beginning, the story is otherwise bright and sunny, and
+altogether wholesome in every way.
+
+
+THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER A LEGEND OF STIRIA. _By JOHN RUSKIN_
+
+
+Written fifty years or more ago, and not originally intended for
+publication, this little fairy-tale soon became known and made a place
+for itself.
+
+
+A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES
+
+_By R. L. STEVENSON_
+
+Mr. Stevenson's little volume is too well known to need description.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE COUSIN SERIES
+
+
+The most delightful and interesting accounts possible of child life in
+other lands, filled with quaint sayings, doings, and adventures.
+
+Each one vol., 12mo, decorative cover, cloth, with six or more full-page
+illustrations in color.
+
+    Price per volume                                $0.60
+
+_By MARY HAZELTON WADE unless otherwise indicated_
+
+    Our Little African Cousin
+    Our Little Alaskan Cousin By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
+    Our Little Arabian Cousin By Blanche McManus
+    Our Little Armenian Cousin
+    Our Little Australian Cousin By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
+    Our Little Brazilian Cousin By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
+    Our Little Brown Cousin
+    Our Little Canadian Cousin By Elizabeth R. Macdonald
+    Our Little Chinese Cousin By Isaac Taylor Headland
+    Our Little Cuban Cousin
+    Our Little Dutch Cousin By Blanche McManus
+    Our Little Egyptian Cousin By Blanche McManus
+    Our Little English Cousin By Blanche McManus
+    Our Little Eskimo Cousin
+    Our Little French Cousin By Blanche McManus
+    Our Little German Cousin
+    Our Little Grecian Cousin By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
+    Our Little Hawaiian Cousin
+    Our Little Hindu Cousin By Blanche McManus
+    Our Little Hungarian Cousin By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
+    Our Little Indian Cousin
+    Our Little Irish Cousin
+    Our Little Italian Cousin
+    Our Little Japanese Cousin
+    Our Little Jewish Cousin
+    Our Little Korean Cousin By H. Lee M. Pike
+    Our Little Mexican Cousin By Edward C. Butler
+    Our Little Norwegian Cousin
+    Our Little Panama Cousin By H. Lee M. Pike
+    Our Little Persian Cousin By E. C. Shedd
+    Our Little Philippine Cousin
+    Our Little Porto Rican Cousin
+    Our Little Russian Cousin
+    Our Little Scotch Cousin By Blanche McManus
+    Our Little Siamese Cousin
+    Our Little Spanish Cousin By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
+    Our Little Swedish Cousin By Claire M. Coburn
+    Our Little Swiss Cousin
+    Our Little Turkish Cousin
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.
+
+This text uses "Weinachtsbaum" instead of "Weihnachtsbaum" many
+times and was left as printed.
+
+Page 21, "Jask" changed to "Jack" ("Well?" queried Jack as)
+
+Page 68, "embarassment" changed to "embarrassment" (my perch with
+embarrassment)
+
+Page 162, "to" changed to "too" (may as well go too)
+
+Page 189, "that's" changed to "that" (and the next that she's)
+
+Page 223, "irridescent" changed to "iridescent" (minutes. The
+iridescent)
+
+Page 232, "palate" changed to "palette" (get out palette and brushes)
+
+Page 246, "role" changed to "rôle" (in the rôle of)
+
+Page 323, "corrider" changed to "corridor" (stood in the corridor)
+
+Page 324, "sea" changed to "seat" (circular seat surrounding)
+
+Advertising Pages:
+
+Page 4, "Ceronimo" changed to "Geronimo" (Geronimo, the renowned Apache)
+
+Page 4, "atc." changed to "etc." (Apache chief, etc.)
+
+Page 14, "d scribing" changed to "describing" (sketches describing the
+early)
+
+Page 20, Our Little Alaskan Cousins, "Nixon-Roule" changed to
+"Nixon-Roulet" (Mary F. Nixon-Roulet)
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40366 ***