Mrs. Donovan looked with admiration at the sheer linen blouse that Miss Thorley handed her.
"Sure, I'll do it up for you the very best I know how an' seems if you can't expect a body to do more than that. If all of us who are in the world just did our best it would be a different place than it is, now wouldn't it? What's ailin' you, Miss Thorley? Seems if you don't look so hearty as you did. Don't you work too hard. It's what you have in your heart more'n what you have in your pocketbook that makes happiness. A pretty young thing like you hain't no business to be thinkin' of jam all the time. I hear you're makin' oodles of money drawin' pictures for Mr. Bingham Henderson but let me tell you, my girl, you can't make good red blood no matter how much money you have. There's only one can do that."
"Who's that, Aunt Kate?" Mary Rose hungered for the information, as she leaned against the table. "Who can make good red blood?"
"God Almighty, honey, an' he's the only one. Land, I remember Jim Peaslie took a dozen raw eggs a day, a quart of cream an' beefsteak so raw it dripped blood but he couldn't make none of those red corpuskles an' so there wasn't nothin' for him to do but die an' he died. A body can't live without plenty of red corpuskles an' by that same token, a girl has got to have somethin' beside work. That's gospel true, Miss Thorley. My ol' father used to say you robbed the ol' when you took pleasures from the young an', seems if, that's gospel true, too. Land, if I hadn't had good times when I was a girl to remember sometimes I'd go crazy. Layin' up pleasant memories is what everyone can do an' it means as much as money in the bank. This is pretty lace on your waist, Miss Thorley. I dunno as I ever saw just this pattern."
"It's imported," Miss Thorley told her listlessly as she lingered in the cosy kitchen. She was pale and her eyes were dull. She was tired, she told herself impatiently. The summer had been hot and she had worked hard. It irritated her that the keen eyes of Mrs. Donovan saw that she was not happy but how could she be happy when she had so many things to annoy her? She should be happy, she was independent, she had work, the two things that had seemed so necessary to happiness but recently she had been conscious of a desire for something more. It made her furious to be restless and discontented and so listless and colorless that people noticed it.
Mrs. Donovan snorted at the imported lace. "That's it. Girls nowadays think 't fine clothes 'll make 'em happy. An imported waist costs more'n one made in Waloo an' it keeps a girl strong enough to work for the silk stockin's she's got to have," she said with scorn. "I don't wonder there's so many bach'lors when I figure how much money it costs now to dress a girl."
"Is that why men are bachelors?" asked astonished Mary Rose. "Mr. Jerry is a bachelor, his Aunt Mary told him so right in front of me. She doesn't like it in him. And Mr. Strahan's one and Jimmie Bronson and Mr. Wells and Mr. Jarvis. Why, what a lot of bachelors are right under this very roof!"
"That's just it," laughed Mrs. Donovan. "'Stead of havin' so many bach'lor flats in Waloo there oughta be more fam'ly cottages."
"There's Mr. Jerry now." Mary Rose ran to the window to wave her hand to her friend as he drove his car up the alley. Solomon was with him and he looked quite as well on the front seat as Mr. Jerry had hoped he would. "I could have asked him if that was why he was a bachelor if he hadn't gone away."
Miss Thorley crossed the kitchen and stood beside her. She saw the automobile turn the corner and disappear down the cross street.
"Mary Rose," she suddenly put her arm around the small shoulders beside her. "Do you know I've never seen George Washington."
"You haven't?" Mary Rose twisted around and looked up into her face. "Oh, you must see him. He's such a wonderful cat. But I can't bring him here. It's against the law, you know. Would you—Oh, would you!—come across the alley and see him in his boarding house? You know he's only a cat," she explained slowly as if she were afraid that Miss Thorley might expect to find George Washington something more. "But he's wonderful just the same. He earns his own board, every single drop. Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary said so."
Miss Thorley and Aunt Kate smiled at each other above Mary Rose's yellow head.
"I've never seen a self-supporting cat," Miss Thorley laughed. "I should love to meet George Washington." She did not understand why she would love to meet him now, why she wished to go across to Jerry Longworthy's back yard, when until that afternoon nothing could have induced her to go there.
"Come on." Mary Rose put out an eager hand and Miss Thorley took it in hers. They were halfway across the alley when Mary Rose stopped. "I forgot," she said, and her face was troubled. "I promised to let Mr. Jerry know when you'd come."
"It's too late to tell him now. We saw him go off in the car." Miss Thorley did not explain that that was the reason she was willing to call on George Washington. "I shall be very busy after today, Mary Rose. I might not be able to come again for several weeks."
"Is that so?" Mary Rose looked less doubtful. "Perhaps I can explain that to Mr. Jerry." She led the way into Mr. Jerry's spacious yard. "I expect George Washington's inside," she said when they failed to find him outside.
"Run in and bring him out," suggested Miss Thorley, sitting down in one of the wicker chairs that were under the big apple tree that had lived there ever since Waloo had been some man's farm.
Mary Rose disappeared but before Miss Thorley had looked half over the yard she was back. "He's asleep," she said in a loud whisper. "Do come in and see him. He looks perfectly beautiful with a fern at his head and a bunch of asters at his feet. Please, come." She took Miss Thorley's hand and tried to pull her to her feet.
Miss Thorley did not wish to go into the house. She had had no intention of doing more than to slip into the yard for a moment. Now that she was there she felt uncomfortably conscious. But Mr. Jerry was away, she had seen him go with her own eyes. It would be interesting to see his home. Or perhaps the picture Mary Rose had described, a sleeping cat with a fern at his head and asters at his feet, was alluring. Whichever it was she allowed Mary Rose to lead her in at the side door, through the dining-room that seemed far too large for only Mr. Jerry and his Aunt Mary, into the big living-room that had begun life as a front and back parlor. There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting cat, George Washington himself, with a fern spreading its feathery fronds above his head and a cluster of red asters in a brass bowl at his tall. George Washington had calculated the amount of space between the jardinière and the bowl to a nicety. There was not the fraction of an inch to spare.
"There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting cat.""There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting cat."
"There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting cat.""There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting cat."
"There!" Mary Rose pointed a proud finger as she stopped before the window.
"He is a beauty," Miss Thorley was honest enough to say. Her sense of color was delighted at the play of sunshine on George Washington's gray overcoat which had caught a warm glow from the red asters. "Wake him up, Mary Rose. You really can't see a cat asleep any more than you can a baby."
"Shall I?" Mary Rose would never in the world have disturbed a sleeping baby and for the same reason she hesitated before a sleeping cat. And while she hesitated Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary came in and their voices woke George Washington. He sprang up, artfully eluding bowl and ferns, and stood in the sunlight stretching himself. He looked at Mary Rose and at Miss Thorley and at Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary with his calm yellow eyes.
"That's a lot better than waking him," Mary Rose clapped her hands. "I can't bear to waken anyone for fear of interrupting a dream. Sometimes," she went on thoughtfully, "I'd give most anything to know what's inside of George Washington's mind. He looks so wise. Isn't he splendid?" she asked Miss Thorley, who had flushed uncomfortably when Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary came in and who now was standing rather stiffly conscious, wishing with all her heart she had never come. Mary Rose caught her cat and brought him to Miss Thorley. "You tell her how self-supporting he is?" she asked Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary in a voice that reeked with pride.
"I think I can tell that story better than Aunt Mary." And lo and behold, there was Mr. Jerry himself in the doorway, an unusual color in his brown cheeks, a reproachful look in his eye.
Miss Thorley's face had more color than usual, also, as she bowed coldly, but Mary Rose flew to take his hand.
"I'm so glad you came back. We saw you drive away but we had to come now for Miss Thorley's going to be so awfully busy that she couldn't come for weeks and weeks."
"Is she?" Mr. Jerry looked oddly at Miss Thorley, but Miss Thorley refused to look at him. "The best laid plans of mice and men," he said meaningly and paused until Mary Rose squeezed his hand.
"Are you telling her about George Washington?" she whispered.
He laughed and after a moment a faint smile lifted the corners of Miss Thorley's lips. Mr. Jerry drew a sigh of relief and sat down.
"That's better," he said. "No, Mary Rose, I was not just then referring to George Washington, but I can assure you that he is untiringly on the job. He brought a dead mouse to me at six o'clock this morning. At six o'clock!" impressively. "I thought I had the nightmare when I opened my eyes and saw old George standing there with a mouse in his mouth. He's working overtime. He should take a rest. He'll injure his health if he attends too strictly to business, Mary Rose."
"I know." Mary Rose nodded a wise head. "Too much work doesn't make good red blood. Aunt Kate was just telling us, wasn't she, Miss Thorley, that all the money you make won't buy good times nor red blood. She was telling us that very thing not ten minutes ago." Mary Rose was overjoyed to hear Mr. Jerry confirm what Aunt Kate had said. Now, of course, Miss Thorley would have to believe that it was true.
"Your Aunt Kate is a very wise, wise woman. It's a pity others can't see it." He sighed and looked at Miss Thorley, who stroked George Washington's gray overcoat and refused to lift her eyes to meet his.
"If they could they'd have old heads on young shoulders, perhaps," suggested Mary Rose. "You wouldn't like that, would you? Just suppose Mrs. Schuneman's head was on Miss Thorley's shoulders. How would you like that?"
"I shouldn't like it at all. I shouldn't want any head on Miss Thorley's shoulders but her very own. It suits me there—perfectly." Mr. Jerry eyed Miss Thorley rather critically and screwed his eyes half shut as Miss Thorley did when she was looking at the model she was painting, and his voice was as firm as a voice could be. "Even to have her as wise as your Aunt Kate I shouldn't want her to have Mrs. Schuneman's head."
"And just suppose you had Mr. Wells' head and he had yours?" giggled Mary Rose.
Mr. Jerry tweaked her pink ear. "Mr. Wells wouldn't keep my head for a minute. Perhaps it is just as well to leave heads where they are."
"I used to want to change mine," Mary Rose confided to them soberly. "You know I've millions of freckles and my hair's as straight as a string. Nobody ever thinks I'm pretty like Gladys. One day Mrs. Evans told me that pretty is as pretty does and for almost a week I did my best to do pretty, the very prettiest I knew how. But no one ever stopped and said, 'What a beautiful child,' as they do when they see Gladys. Gladys is afraid of dogs and she screams when she sees a mouse. She's even afraid of her tables. So I tried to think I had more real good times by being brave instead of beautiful. Oh!" she broke off with a squeal of delight, for Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary brought in a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of little cakes gay with white and pink frosting. "Oh, Miss Thorley! aren't you glad now that you came?"
Long before school began Mary Rose had established an acquaintance, if not a friendship, with all the people who lived in the Washington. Not only did she know them herself, but she was the means of many of them knowing others. Mrs. Schuneman and Mrs. Johnson often went to the park together now to feed the squirrels which Mary Rose was firmly convinced the Lord had placed there for those who could not have pets in their homes. Mrs. Matchan had promised to play at one of Mrs. Bracken's club meetings and Mrs. Rawson and her machine were making garments for the children's ward of the new hospital in which Mrs. Willoughby had become interested.
Until Mary Rose came neither Miss Adams nor Mrs. Smith knew that the other was a slave to the crochet hook. Mary Rose arranged an exchange of patterns and when a pineapple border proved too complicated to be worked out alone she brought expert aid and Miss Adams no longer hated the Washington. It was Mary Rose who discovered that old Mr. Jarvis and young Mr. Wilcox were graduates of the same college and that Mr. Blake's grandfather and Mrs. Bracken's grandmother had once sung in the same church choir. Miss Carter and Bob Strahan were often seen strolling together and more than once they had transported Mary Rose to the seventh heaven of delight by taking her to a moving picture show.
Mary Rose's friendliness had had an effect with the maids as well as the mistresses. When she had found Mrs. Johnson's Hilda crying because she didn't know anyone in Waloo and was so homesick and lonesome she didn't think she'd stay, Mary Rose went down and asked Mrs. Schuneman's Mina if she wouldn't please be a little friendly to a new friend of hers.
Mina had stared at her with her big china blue eyes and said she wouldn't do it for anyone else, but since Mary Rose had come Mrs. Schuneman had let up a little on her everlasting nagging, so she felt she owed her a favor and she'd go up that very evening.
It was Mary Rose who soothed Ida at Mrs. Rawson's when she took it into her head that she could not work in the same building with a Japanese.
"You're a Norwegian, aren't you, Ida? So you're a foreigner just as Mr. Sako is. I suppose he thinks Norwegians are just as strange as you think Japanese. Countries are like families, I guess; you think your own is the best in the world. But I don't believe that God was so good to the Norwegians that he made them the best. He had to divide the good things just as I do when I have any candy. I give some to Aunt Kate and some to Uncle Larry and once I gave a chocolate to you, Ida. I wish you'd try and be polite to Mr. Sako. You don't need to be intimate friends if you don't want to. Just think what a splendid chance you have to learn about Japan."
Ida had stared at her as Lena had done, but she told Mrs. Rawson that she'd changed her mind and she wouldn't leave on account of any Jap, she wouldn't be driven away by any yellow man. She guessed that Norwegians were as good as Japanese any day.
There were many things that puzzled Mary Rose but almost as many that pleased her.
"I've enjoyed living in Waloo," she told Mr. Jerry one evening as they sat under the apple tree. "I didn't think I would at first. I thought I'd die to have to live in a place where there couldn't be any children nor any pets, but everyone's so friendly I mean—almost every one. I do think the Lord did just right when he made people instead of stopping, as he might have done, with horses and lions and monkeys. Did you ever think how strange it would be if there wasn't any you nor any Miss Thorley nor any Mrs. Schuneman nor any Mr. Wells," she spoke the last name in a whisper, "but just animals and vegetables and birds? Sometimes I can't understand how the Lord ever did think of making so many different things. I suppose it was just because He was the Lord. That's what Aunt Kate said when I asked her. But I shall be glad to go to school, Mr. Jerry, because then I'll know some children. You know in Mifflin I played almost all the time with children, Gladys and Mary Mallow and Lucy Norris and Harry Mann and lots of others, but here I don't seem to know anyone but grown-ups. They're very nice grown-ups. I just love you, Mr. Jerry, and your Aunt Mary and the enchanted princess! Do you think you'll ever be able to break the spell of that wicked witch Independence?" anxiously. "You know I don't think she's just happy. Aunt Kate doesn't either. She thinks it's red corpuscles but I really believe it's that Independence. We must do something, Mr. Jerry. And I love Miss Carter and Mr. Strahan and Mrs. Schuneman and Grandma Johnson and everybody else. Isn't a heart the biggest thing? Mine has room for Jenny Lind and George Washington and Solomon and all the other pets I ever had or ever will have and for all the people that were made. It's—it's—" she frowned—"very elastic, isn't it? You have an elastic one, too, Mr. Jerry, or you'd never have taken in George Washington and Solomon and Jimmie Bronson. You're a bachelor, aren't you?"
Mr. Jerry looked quite dazed as he attempted to keep up with Mary Rose's subjects. He sighed as he acknowledged that he was a bachelor.
"Is it because when you look at a girl you see how much she costs?" Mary Rose had worried over that. "Because really Miss Thorley doesn't cost so much. She told Aunt Kate she didn't. She said appearances were deceitful and the most costly looking girls were often the cheapest. Of course, you needn't tell me if you don't want to," remembering, alas, too late, that Miss Thorley had told her that one should not ask personal questions. She drew a deep sigh. "I'm so full, just so plumb full of questions I've got to spill some of them out once in a while."
"To be sure you have!" Mr. Jerry was the most understanding person. "When I was your age I was nothing but a walking question."
"Weren't you?" admiringly. "And did people answer your questions? They usually say to me, 'Run along, child, I'm busy' or 'Never mind that now, you'll know soon enough.' It's a very, very puzzling world, isn't it, with so many things you don't understand. That's another reason I'm so glad to go to school. The day after the day after the day after tomorrow, Mr. Jerry, my Aunt Kate's going to take me. I've never been to a city school so I can imagine it's just like a palace with gold seats for the children and thrones for the teachers who are all fairy princesses with beautiful golden hair and white satin dresses."
"Mary Rose! Oh, Mary Rose!" Mr. Jerry regarded her sadly. "You are a living proof that anticipation is greater than any old participation. I'm only doing you a kindness when I tell you that there is not a golden seat for any child in the Lincoln School. There isn't even one throne. And if you don't have an old witch for a teacher instead of a golden-haired fairy I'm a goat. I tell you this for your own good, Mary Rose, believe me."
Mary Rose shook her head until her hair refused to stay in the ribbon Aunt Kate had tied on it. "All the same I'm going to believe in the golden seats. They are pleasant things to think of."
It was the next day that she was in the hall with Jenny Lind. They had been calling on Mrs. Schuneman and Germania and had had a pleasant time. Mary Rose had eaten two pieces of coffee cake and drunk a glass of ginger ale and Jenny Lind had had a crumb of coffee cake which seemed to be all she cared for.
Mrs. Schuneman had told Mary Rose a great secret, that Lottie was going to be married to the brother of one of her bridge-playing friends and that Mary Rose might come to the wedding. Mary Rose was so excited she could scarcely speak. She had never been to a wedding in all of her "going on fourteen" years.
"I've been to three funerals and a revival meeting—" ecstasy made her voice tremble—"but I've never been to a wedding. Gladys went to one and she said it was grand. Her grandmother cried all the time and her grandfather blew his nose six times. Gladys counted. Oh, Mrs. Schuneman, will Miss Lottie really invite me? It would be something," and she clasped her hands as she stood in front of Mrs. Schuneman, "for me to remember all of my life!"
"Sure, she'll invite you, you and Jenny Lind. She can hang in the window with Germania and sing for the bride."
Mary Rose threw herself against Mrs. Schuneman. "I wouldn't exchange you for Cinderella's godmother!" she half sobbed. "I'd rather go to a wedding than have a dozen pumpkin coaches. Jenny Lind and I can't tell you how obliged we are."
She was in a whirl of excitement as she shut the door. She heard her name called softly from above and looking up she saw Miss Carter's face smiling down at her from the third floor.
"Oh, Mary Rose, honey," came the soft whisper. "There's a package there for me, parcel post. You know they don't come up. Will you bring it to me? I'm not dressed to go down. Do, there's a love!"
Mary Rose ran into the vestibule and found a parcel addressed to Miss Blanche Carter. It was rather a large package and Mary Rose's arms were not so long as they would be some day. She looked dubiously from the package to Jenny Lind.
"You'll just have to stay by yourself a minute, Jenny Lind. It's lucky for you that the law doesn't let the cats come into this house."
She put the cage on the flat top of the newel post and, taking Miss Carter's package in her arms, she went up as fast as she could. She had to tell Miss Carter of Lottie Schuneman's wedding and of the invitation that she and Jenny Lind were to receive, and Miss Carter had to open the parcel and show the contents to Mary Rose, so that it was several minutes instead of one before Mary Rose ran downstairs.
The newel post was empty. There was no bird cage with a yellow canary, on it. Mary Rose couldn't believe there wasn't and looked again. She was frightened.
"Jenny Lind!" she called. "Jenny Lind!" Perhaps someone had taken the cage to tease her. Perhaps there had been a new law and birds were not allowed in the house. Perhaps a cat had slipped in regardless of the fact that cats were forbidden. But no cat could have carried the cage out of the front door. Mary Rose wrung her hands in horror and ran to knock at Mrs. Schuneman's door. Mrs. Schuneman cried out in dismay.
"Why didn't you leave her with me?"
"I didn't want to bother you when you'd been so kind," faltered Mary Rose. "Where can she be? Perhaps Uncle Larry took her home."
But neither Uncle Larry nor Aunt Kate had taken Jenny Lind to the basement flat. Aunt Kate shook her head when Mary Rose told what had happened and followed her up to look at the empty newel post. She could only suggest feebly that someone must have taken the bird. "For a joke," she added when she saw Mary Rose's frightened face.
"A nice kind of a joke to frighten a child to death," grunted Mrs. Schuneman. "Here, Mary Rose, we'll knock on every door and ask. I'll go with you and if anyone is playing a joke they'll stop when they see me."
She looked quite grim enough to frighten any joker as they went from door to door. But no one had seen Jenny Lind. No one had heard of her. Mrs. Johnson and Grandma Johnson and Mrs. Rawson and Mrs. Willoughby came out on the second-floor landing and said what a shame it was, and on the third floor Mrs. Matchan and Miss Adams and Miss Proctor and Miss Carter talked together and tried to comfort Mary Rose.
But all the talking on all three floors did not bring Jenny Lind back. Mary Rose pressed her face close to Aunt Kate and tried not to cry and to believe the conscience-stricken Miss Carter when she said that Jenny Lind was all right, they'd find her before Mary Rose could say Jack Robinson.
"She's all I had here of my very own," hiccoughed Mary Rose; "I had to board out my cat and loan my dog. I've had her for years and years. It doesn't seem just fair for anyone to take her from me."
"You can have Germania," promised Mrs. Schuneman, to the surprise of all who heard her. "I'll be busy with the wedding and won't have time to take care of her," she added kindly so that Mary Rose would think it was a favor to take her bird.
"But Germania's yours and Jenny Lind was—was mine. They can't ever be the same, though I'm much obliged, Mrs. Schuneman. Oh, where can she be, Aunt Kate? Where can she be?"
"Yes, where can she be?" repeated Grandma Johnson helplessly.
"We'll advertise," promised Bob Strahan, who had come in and heard the sad story of Jenny Lind's disappearance. "Just you keep a stiff upper lip, Mary Rose. We'll find your bird."
They were all talking at once and advising Mary Rose to keep her upper lip stiff when Mr. Wells slammed the door behind him. He stopped when he saw the group around the newel post.
"What's the matter?" he scowled, and his voice was like the bark of a dog to Mrs. Donovan's nervous ear. "What's the matter?"
It was Mrs. Schuneman who told him. She had never dared to speak to him before. He looked oddly from one to the other and last of all at Mary Rose whose upper lip just wouldn't stay stiff.
"It is only what you should expect," he said, as he went on up the stairs. "Pets are not allowed in this building."
"I wish grouches weren't," muttered Bob Strahan to Miss Carter, who was almost as tearful as Mary Rose.
"Brute!" she answered. "If he had been here I should think he had something to do with Jenny Lind's disappearance."
"That Jap of his was here," suggested Bob Strahan, but no one paid any attention to him then.
"Come down with me, dearie," whispered Aunt Kate, whose ruddy cheeks had lost their color under the cold stare of Mr. Wells. "We mustn't make any disturbance here. Come down an' tell Uncle Larry. P'rhaps he can help us."
"It's not—not knowing where she is or what's happened to her," Mary Rose gulped. "If she was well and comfortable I'd—I'd try to be resigned, but when I don't know, Aunt Kate! When I don't know!"
"Nothing has happened to her," Bob Strahan said promptly. "No one would hurt Jenny Lind. She is a valuable bird. I expect she was stolen and we'll find her at a bird store. The thief would be sure to sell her right away, before he was caught. I'll look up the bird shops."
"Do!" begged Miss Carter, who wished from the very bottom of her heart that she had never asked Mary Rose to bring up her parcel post package. "I have half a mind to go with you."
"Be generous and have a whole mind. Poor little kid," he looked after Mary Rose as Aunt Kate half carried her down. "It's a thundering shame. Lord! I'm almost ready to think old grouch Wells did have a hand in this. Did you see his face? He's had it in for Mary Rose ever since she came."
Aunt Kate sat down in the big rocker and drew Mary Rose close to her heart. "Don't you fret yourself, Mary Rose," she said with her lips against Mary Rose's tear-stained face. "We'll find Jenny Lind. Sure, we'll find her. Just you pretend she's gone for a visit. You've loaned her to 'most everyone in the buildin', just you pretend she's loaned now."
"It's easy enough to pretend when you don't have to, Aunt Kate, but it isn't so easy when you know the truth," sobbed Mary Rose.
When Uncle Larry heard what had happened he shut his jaws with a click and a stern look came into his mild blue eyes.
"Of course someone took her," he said, patting Mary Rose's shoulder with a comforting hand. "But don't you worry, Mary Rose. A janitor can go into any flat in this building, so if someone is hiding her for fun or meanness I'll find out. An' if it's anyone outside, well, what are the police for if not to help folks? I'll just speak to Officer Murphy to be on the safe side."
He seemed so helpful and confident that Mary Rose stopped crying and tried to feel confident, also.
"Perhaps someone in the house did take her for company, but I think it would have been more polite if they'd said something to me," she murmured.
"It's more likely that one of the old cranks thought the bird was a nuisance and wrung its neck," frowned Uncle Larry when he spoke to Aunt Kate alone. He did not seem half so confident as when he had spoken to Mary Rose. "There are folks not so many miles away who'd not stop to think whether they broke a kid's heart or not so long as they had their way. I declare, Kate, I'm 'most sorry you didn't leave her in Mifflin. From all she says folks were kind to her there."
"Well, I'm not sorry!" Aunt Kate's voice was emphatic. "It breaks my heart to have her hurt, but we'll just have to keep remindin' her of what she has left, although it seems if it was little enough. First her mother an' then her father, her cat put out to board an' her dog the same as given away, an' now her bird's stolen. You might almost think that Providence was pickin' on the little thing."
Jerry Longworthy went up the steps of the Washington and eyed the long row of mail boxes that ran down two sides of the vestibule, until he came to one whose card read, "Miss Elizabeth Thorley, Miss Blanche Carter." He touched the bell beneath.
"Is Miss Thorley in? This is Jerry Longworthy. I want to speak to you about Mary Rose."
"Oh, do come up!" The voice was very eager and hospitable as it came swiftly down the tube, and Mr. Jerry obeyed it almost as swiftly.
Miss Thorley met him in the hall on the third floor. She wore a little lingerie frock of white voile, tucked and inset with lace and girdled with pink satin. It was collarless and her hair was done high on her head so that little locks escaped from the pins and rested on her white neck. She looked about eighteen as she greeted Mr. Jerry.
He held her hand much longer than she thought was necessary and she flushed as she drew it from him. He looked around the big pleasant room as if he were glad to be in it.
"It's a long time since I was here," he said in a low voice, not as if he meant to say it but as if he had to.
It seemed long to her now, too, and when she answered, it was as Mr. Jerry had spoken, as if the words came of their own will.
"It is a long time." If Aunt Kate had seen her then she would not have worried over any lack of red "corpuskles." A goodly number of them slipped into Miss Thorley's face and dyed it pinker than her girdle.
A flame was lighted in Mr. Jerry's eyes and he stepped quickly forward. She shrank back behind the high morris chair and he stopped suddenly.
"Long enough to prove to you that love is the biggest thing in the world?" he asked gently, but there was a tremble in his voice that thrilled her down to her very heels. "Oh, my dear, has it? Work and independence are all well enough but they can't take the place of love." His eyes watched her hungrily, but as the color left her cheeks as quickly as it had come and she shook her head, he went on more slowly and there was no longer a wistful tremble in his voice to thrill her to her heels. "You remember the night when you offered me friendship instead of love and I scornfully refused the half loaf?" She nodded almost mechanically, her eyes on her fingers as they pleated a fold of her frock. "Well, I've changed my mind. Mary Rose has shown me that friends may have a big place in one's life and if you can't give me anything more I'm going to be satisfied with your friendship. May I have that?" He held out his hand.
"Oh!" It was a startled little gasp and it was a startled little glance that she gave him. "Is—is that what you came for?" If his ears had been sharper he would have caught a tiny note of disappointment in the question as if she had expected him to ask for more.
"It isn't what I came for," he acknowledged honestly. "But I wanted to tell you so you wouldn't keep on avoiding me as if I had the plague. The other afternoon you wouldn't have come over if you had thought I would be back?"
A red banner in each cheek convicted her.
"We're neighbors and friends of Mary Rose," he went on slowly, "so we'll doubtless meet more or less and I'd like to feel that you trust me, that we are friends. But, honestly, I came tonight to talk of Mary Rose."
She would be glad to talk of Mary Rose, glad to talk of anyone but herself, and she left the morris chair that had proved such a safe shelter and took a gaily cushioned wicker one on the other side of the room.
"Isn't it a shame?" she asked a bit breathlessly. "I can't imagine how anyone who has seen that ducky child with her birdcage could have had the heart to steal her canary."
"Surely you don't think anyone who knew her took Jenny Lind?" He was astonished.
"Everyone says that Mr. Wells has acted very oddly. And Mary Rose told me herself that he swore at Jenny Lind. He's as hard as nails, you can see it in his face. I've heard that he has complained to Brown and Lawson that the leases are not lived up to and that there is a child in the house. When you put two and two together you can't make much but four out of the result."
"The old murderer!" scowled Mr. Jerry. "If that's true I'd like—I'd like——"
"So would I!" Miss Thorley agreed with him heartily.
"Jim said something of the sort, but I told him he was crazy. He said he was going up the fire escape and see if he couldn't find the bird in Wells' flat, but I laughed at him. I didn't know the old man had complained of Mary Rose. Of Mary Rose!" he repeated, as if he could not understand how anyone could complain of Mary Rose. Mary Rose had been a joy to him ever since he had looked up from his car and seen her standing there in the boys' blue serge and with George Washington in her arms.
Miss Thorley nodded. "I'd hate to think what this house would be without her. She seems to have warmed it from the top to the basement. Perhaps you won't understand when I say it's as if she had humanized it. I'd hate to have it overrun with children!" hastily as she caught the sudden flash of Mr. Jerry's eyes. "But Mary Rose—Mary Rose is different."
"Why don't you tenants get up a petition of some kind? It wouldn't do any harm to let the owner know that the rest of you are strong for the Donovans and Mary Rose."
"No one knows who the owner is. All business is transacted through the agents."
"The agents know," wisely. "It won't do any harm and it might do some good. The complaints of one tenant won't weigh as much as the requests of a dozen, believe me."
Miss Thorley drew her black brows together until they formed a line across her white forehead.
"I believe you're right," she said after a pause. "I'll ask Mr. Strahan to write one and we'll have all the tenants sign it. But that won't bring back the canary," forlornly.
"No, it won't bring back the canary," he repeated. "We'll have to get another pet for Mary Rose, one that she may have in the flat. No, not a canary. That wouldn't do at all. But I thought perhaps some goldfish. She loves to watch a couple Aunt Mary has. Once she borrowed them."
"I know, for company for Mr. Wells when he was ill."
"Goldfish would give her something to think of until school opens. After that she'll have enough to do to keep her occupied."
Miss Thorley looked at him with surprise. "Do you know, that's really very thoughtful. I've been trying to think what I could do and I couldn't get beyond another bird. I had sense enough to see that that would never do."
"No, another bird wouldn't do. And tomorrow—I wondered if tomorrow you and Mary Rose wouldn't go off for the day in the car with Aunt Mary and me? We might run down to Blue Heron Lake for dinner. Mary Rose loves to motor."
"Why not take your aunt and Mary Rose? I'm afraid I——"
"Nothing doing!" he interrupted firmly. "Can't you trust me?" He looked her straight in the eyes as he asked. "I swear I won't say a word of love. We're friends now, you know, not—not lovers. And Mary Rose adores you. She'd go through fire and water for you. Honest, she wouldn't be contented with me and Aunt Mary, but I know it would be all right if you were along."
She hesitated and bit her lip before she finally shrugged her shoulders and said: "Oh, very well. I'll go for Mary Rose."
"I knew you would. I knew you'd see the big sister, the humanitarian philanthropic friendly side of it." There was more than the hint of a twinkle in his eyes. "And one more thing." Mr. Jerry firmly believed in striking the iron before it had any chance to cool. "They have goldfish for sale over at the drug store on Twenty-eighth Street. Won't you walk over with me and help pick out a few? I'd like Mary Rose to find them when she wakes up in the morning."
She did not hesitate over this request. Perhaps she realized what a very persuasive way he had, for she laughed softly.
"I'll go. I'd do more than that for Mary Rose."
On the way they met Miss Carter and Bob Strahan returning from a fruitless quest among the bird stores. But if they had not found Jenny Lind they had explained the situation to the proprietors of the shops and each of them had promised on his word of honor to telephone to Mr. Strahan the very minute that a canary was offered for sale.
The four went together to the drug store and after the globe had been bought and they had selected the half-dozen fish that were to live in it, they loitered at a little table over their ice cream.
"Gosh!" suddenly exclaimed Bob Strahan. "I'm glad I'm not built on the plans and specifications that produced old Wells. I shouldn't want the theft of a kid's canary on my conscience."
"He will insist that Mr. Wells knows all about it," Miss Carter said mournfully. She could not help but feel that she was to blame. If she hadn't asked Mary Rose to bring up the parcel post package Jenny Lind might never have disappeared.
"Why?" asked Mr. Jerry curiously.
"Because!" Miss Carter and Bob Strahan made the rather unsatisfactory explanation a duet.
When Mary Rose opened her eyes the next morning the very first thing she saw was the glass globe in which flashing sunbeams seemed to dart.
"Why—why!" cried amazed Mary Rose, and she sat bolt upright.
Aunt Kate heard her and came in. "Do you like them, honey? Mr. Jerry and Miss Thorley brought them in last night. Mr. Jerry said you liked his aunt's goldfish, so he was sure you'd like some of your own."
"Did he?" All the gladness slipped from her face and voice as she remembered the pet she had lost. "You know, Aunt Kate, last night I just about decided I'd never have another pet. I'm—I'm so unlucky with them." Her lip quivered. "I don't seem to be able to keep one thing that really belongs to me."
"Nonsense!" Aunt Kate took her in her arms and kissed her. "You'll keep me and your Uncle Larry. You can't lose us. Aren't they pretty?" She tapped the glass globe. "Seems if a body'd never get tired of lookin' at 'em. But get dressed, dearie. Breakfas's most ready an' Mr. Jerry wants you to go out to Blue Heron Lake in his motor car. His aunt an' Miss Thorley are goin' too. You're to be away all day an' have your dinner at a big hotel."
Not eighteen hours before Mary Rose would have danced and clapped her hands at such a delectable prospect, but now she lay back on her pillow and looked at her aunt. Two big tears gathered in her eyes.
"I can't go. Suppose we'd hear something from Jenny Lind."
"As if I wouldn't be here, an' your Uncle Larry. An' Jimmie Bronson's goin' to keep an eye on the cat an' dog. To be sure you're goin', dearie. Put your clothes on. Your breakfas's near ready an' your uncle's starvin'." And to avoid any further argument she bustled away.
Mary Rose lay and watched the goldfish for another sixty seconds and the big tears dropped from her eyes to her pillow. But even if her heart was broken she had to admire those flashes of gold in the clear water.
"They're so—so beautiful." She was surprised to find herself laughing when one fish pushed against another. She had thought she never would laugh again. She turned and hid her face. "No matter how beautiful they are I shan't ever, forget you, Jenny Lind," she promised. "Ever! I'm not the forgetting kind of a person and I'll never stop trying to find you. May the good Lord take care of you now and evermore. Amen." It wasn't exactly a prayer but it comforted Mary Rose as if it had been.
She slipped out of bed and began to dress soberly and slowly instead of singing and hurriedly as usual. When she had combed her hair and washed her face and hands she went into her closet and came out with the detested boys' suit of faded blue serge. Her red lips were pressed into a firm line as she put it on.
"My soul an' body!" exclaimed astonished Aunt Kate when she came in with the coffeepot and saw a boyish little figure in the doorway. Mary Rose ran to her. "I was so proud of wearing girls' clothes that maybe that was the reason Jenny Lind was taken from me," she explained in a whisper. "I just hate these, Aunt Kate. I despise them! But I'm going to wear them. You know proud people are punished, the Bible says so, and I was as proud—as proud as the proudest. That's the way I've thought it out and that's why I put on this hateful suit this morning."
"I think you're wrong, Mary Rose," began Aunt Kate, while Uncle Larry put down the colored supplement that he had been holding out so enticingly to look at his niece, who appeared smaller than ever in the shabby blouse and shrunken knickers. "You haven't had so much to be proud of, a few of Ella's old clothes. But if you feel better in those, why, wear 'em. Where's your goldfish? Don't you want to show 'em to your uncle? Miss Thorley an' Mr. Jerry'll understand," she said as Mary Rose ran to bring the goldfish. "An' I hate to argue with her today. She can wear those now, but tomorrow she'll put on proper girls' clothes to go to school. I don't care what Brown an' Lawson or anyone else says. You hain't heard anythin' from them, have you?"
"Nothin' yet, but it won't be good news when it comes. We'll have to move, Kate. Ol' Wells has seen to that an' after last night I don't care so much. If honest faithful work don't count for anythin' here I dunno as I want to stay. I can find another job. It won't be as easy as this. This was just velvet for a man like me."
"Well, if they have the nerve to fire you just because you're givin' a home to an orphan niece I hope Mr. Strahan writes it all over the front of his paper. I'd like to see it in big red letters an' then maybe the owner an' Mr. Wells'd be ashamed of themselves."
"S-sh! S-sh!" cautioned Uncle Larry but not quickly enough, for Aunt Kate's voice was shrill and excited and Mary Rose in her little room heard every word.
She stood and looked about her bewildered. It wasn't possible that anyone, even the owner of the Washington, would take her Uncle Larry's work from him just because a little girl was living with him? Aunt Kate must be mistaken or perhaps she had misunderstood. She often found herself mistaken in her ideas of what grown people meant. She tried to think she was now as she took the globe and carried it carefully into the dining-room and placed it on the table where the sunlight fell on the fish and polished their golden scales.
"That's what I call a han'some present," admired Uncle Larry in the same hearty voice Mary Rose usually heard from him.
She looked up quickly. He wouldn't speak like that if he were going to lose his work. She hadn't understood. That was it. Children often didn't understand grown people.
"They are beautiful," she said softly. "I wasn't very welcoming to them at first because I was afraid Mr. Jerry meant them to take the place of darling Jenny Lind and nothing can do that—fish nor dogs nor cats nor squirrels nor anything. But when I watched them swim I found they could have a place of their very own and so I'm very glad now to have them."
"Of course you are. But eat your breakfas', child, or Mr. Jerry'll be callin' for you before you're ready."
That was a wonderful Sunday to Mary Rose. She sat on the front seat beside Mr. Jerry and as neither of them felt much like talking they enjoyed the silence. Mile after mile was left behind them and when they began to pass through small towns and villages Mary Rose sat up straighter.
"They're like Mifflin, only different," she murmured vaguely.
When they came to a little white meetinghouse standing all by itself near the road Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary asked him to stop and let them go to church.
"It seems as if it would be rather pleasant to go to a simple service such as they must have here," she suggested.
"I'll put it to a vote," Mr. Jerry offered obligingly. "Mary Rose, what do you say?"
"Oh, let's!" she begged. "And I'll pretend I'm sitting with Gladys in the Evans pew and that Mr. Mann is preaching."
Mr. Jerry stopped the car by the roadside and they all stepped out.
"What a doggone idiot I was," Mr. Jerry whispered to Miss Thorley as they followed his Aunt Mary and Mary Rose; "I might just as well have taken the kid to Mifflin as to Blue Heron Lake, but I never thought of it."
"This is better," Miss Thorley told him with pleasing promptness. "Mifflin would have reminded her of Jenny Lind. You can take her there some other day."
"Will you go, too?" eagerly. "I'll go any day you say."
But she only smiled over her shoulder as she went up the steps and into the meetinghouse. A quiet peaceful hour followed and when the service was over Mary Rose slipped one hand around Mr. Jerry's fingers and gave the other to Miss Thorley.
"I feel a lot better," she said. "I think it was awfully kind of that minister to preach about sparrows. Jenny Lind isn't a sparrow but she's a bird and when the Lord looks after sparrows so carefully I'm sure he'd keep an eye on a canary."
She was more like her old self as they went on, faster now, because, as Mr. Jerry explained, they had to make up the time they had spent in church and if they didn't reach the hotel at Blue Heron Lake in time for dinner all the chicken breasts and legs would be eaten and there would be nothing left for them but backbones and necks.
"That's all Gladys ever has," Mary Rose told him importantly. "You see they have such a big family that all the other pieces are gone before it is her turn to be helped. She used to love to come to dinner at our house so she could have a wishbone. When her grandmother dies she'll have a leg."
"My gracious!" murmured Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary.
"My word!" giggled Miss Thorley.
Fortunately they reached the hotel in time to have their choice of chicken and everyone was glad to see that Mary Rose was hungry and seemed to enjoy her dinner. After dinner they went for a ride on the lake in a launch and then they sat in the shade of a dump of linden trees and watched the bathers.
"Why didn't I tell you to bring your bathing suits?" Mr. Jerry asked suddenly. "What a dolt I was not to think of it."
"You're not a dolt!" Mary Rose said indignantly, although she hadn't the faintest idea what a dolt was. "And I couldn't have brought one for I haven't one. And anyway I wouldn't care to make too merry today." Her face clouded as she remembered why she did not wish to be too merry.
It was long, long after her bedtime when the car stopped in front of the Washington and it was a very sleepy tired little girl who was taken into Uncle Larry's strong arms.
"I've had such a wonderful time," she murmured, half asleep. "Uncle Larry, have you found Jenny Lind? We don't have to worry About her any more because I know now the Lord has his eye on her."
Uncle Larry looked over her head to Mr. Jerry. "I can't thank you, sir," he said in a hushed voice, "but you've been a kind friend to the little girl today."
"She's such a darling one has to be kind to her." Miss Thorley answered for Mr. Jerry and blushed when she realized it. "Don't you bother, Mr. Donovan. I'm like Mary Rose, I know everything will be all right."
"I hope so, Miss Thorley. Thank you again, sir." And he went in with Mary Rose asleep in his arms.
"I can't thank you, either." Miss Thorley held out her hand to Mr. Jerry after she had said good night to his Aunt Mary. "I've had a perfect day and it was mighty good of you to plan it for Mary Rose."
He took her hand in both of his. "It was mighty good of you to come with Mary Rose and me. And we're going to be friends, now, real friends?" he asked gently.
She caught her breath and looked at him quickly. "Y-es," she said slowly. "Of course, we'll be friends. I—I'm glad you are willing to be friends."
Mr. Jerry laughed oddly. "I've learned about the value of that half loaf. Good night."