She sat down, waving her hand toward the round little man, speechless with amazement, then turned in a half whisper to the girl at her side.
"Let him talk, Miss Cary. Nothing shows the kind of fool you are as quick as your tongue. Balaam's Brickhouse won't hurt you."
"Mr. President"—the interruption was ignored, and only the trembling of the fine, thin voice gave evidence of anger—Mr. President, Yorkburg is no pauper, and does not need the gift which has been offered it to-night, provided it will acknowledge it needs to be cleaned up. Yorkburg is a very clean place. Its streets were good enough for our fathers, and I, for one, protest against the supplanting of the trees they planted by the planting of more! We don't want more! And who is the person who offers this gift? Why is his name withheld? Is he ashamed of it, or is there a string tied to it which we don't see yet? What does the party want of us in return for this sum of money, gotten we know not how? It may be tarnished, sir, it any be tarnished!" His pudgy little hands smote the air with something of vehemence; then remembering that excitement was inelegant he wiped them carefully with his handkerchief, clasped them righteously together, and laid them on his stomach.
"And I would like to ask why this honorable body is called on to pass a measure which will plunge this old and distinguished town in such enormous indebtedness?" he began again, after a pause which he thought impressive. "Why should fifty thousand dollars' worth of bonds be issued? For what purpose will the money be used? Why should this great increase in taxes by made? What is to be done with the money drained from our people, who are not worshippers of Mammon and who set not their hearts on mere material things? I beg this honorable body not to be led astray. It will be a sad day for this city of a precious past—"
He stopped. Mary Cary's eyes, which in the beginning of his speech had been bent on a letter held in her hand lest the laughter in them be seen, were raised, and she was now looking at him with a steadiness which was disconcerting, and the words died upon his lips.
"Are you through, Mr. Brickhouse?"
He sat down, wiping his moist face limply. "Yes, I am through."
This time Mary Cary, who had been standing below the platform, stepped upon it, and the letter she had been holding was laid upon the table.
"I am very much obliged to Mr. Brickhouse for asking the questions he has asked," she began. "Except the name of the person giving this money to Yorkburg there is no one of them that will not be answered readily, as they should be rightly. Whether we are entitled to peculiarities, or not, all of us possess them, and one of this friend of Yorkburg's is that the gift and the giver should not be associated together; therefore, the name of this friend will not be known. Another characteristic of this same person is that before a place can be properly beautiful it should be made sound and solid and healthy. The foundation must come first, and the foundation of any town which would have a future is to know Yorkburg is badly laid out. It isn't laid out at all, and many of its streets start and end as they please. An elemental need of Yorkburg is that it should be laid out anew, and by a competent civil engineer who knows what he is about. This engineer will be provided when you agree to use his services. Mr. Brickhouse says we have a precious past. That is true, but a precious past doesn't make good walking, and, not being dead, our feet have some rights. There is no string tied to this gift of fifty thousand dollars save the restriction that the money be expended for the purposes mentioned.
"You see"—she turned to the councilmen in front and nodded to them— "when the matters brought before you to-night were mentioned to Mr. Brickhouse he was not interested, and did not care to put his name to the list of taxpayers who are willing to increase their taxes in order that Yorkburg may get a new bonnet and gloves and good stout shoes for its feet. He thinks they are not needed, and instead of expenditure, economy should be your keynote." She shook her head. "There are times when too much economy is as ruinous as too great expenditure. Some women die from it every year.
"But before coming here to-night I did try to understand what I was about." She tucked a curl which had slipped from under her hat back in place. "I learned from your mayor that the town is financially able to do what it is asked to do. We need two new school-buildings—one for primary and grammar grades, one for a high-school. The increase of taxes is needed to pay the interest on the new bonds, needed for many more things than it will supply."
For a half moment she looked around the room, then again turned to the men immediately in front, and her hands made a swift, appealing gesture.
"Gentlemen, you have done so splendidly. For so long there was so little to do with. For many years the struggle for life and honor gave your fathers no time for thought of other things, but they held their heads up through it all, and you—you are your fathers' sons! In the years I have been away I never saw anything beautiful or useful or splendid, never saw good streets, schools, libraries, churches, parks, playgrounds, galleries, museums, baths, kindergartens, never saw a good idea in operation, or anything that made life nicer and better that I didn't wish Yorkburg had it. I was always wishing it could be the cleanest, prettiest, happiest of all places on this earth to live in, and when I came back and saw what you had done, saw there was good water, good sewerage, good lights, a few good streets, I was as proud and pleased as if—as if I'd been your mother!"
She joined in the laugh that followed, then shook her head. "But, gentlemen, people who don't do anything keep at it. A big idea means big things, and if everybody pulls together we can do lots for Yorkburg. And you don't really love what you don't work for, don't deny yourself a little bit for, don't take some risk with. Some say there's risk in marriage, but people get married. They want to. We can do anything for Yorkburg we want to if we just want hard enough. Everybody agrees that we need a high-school and a new grammar school. We've needed them for years, and there were few people who pay taxes who didn't sign this petition readily. Nearly everybody wants children to have a chance."
"Did the biggest taxpayer in Yorkburg sign it?" It was Mr. Billisoly who asked the question.
"Who is that?"
"Mr. John Maxwell, owner of the Yorkburg shoe factory, ice factory, electric-light plant; owner of more than any one man in town, if he don't live here."
Mary Cary took up her end of the paper and examined it. "His name is the first on the list. Next is Mr. Moon, then Mr. Walstein, Mr. Ash, Mr. Wilson, Mr.—"
"Is Miss Gibbie Gault's name there?"
"It is."
"Wonder!" Mr. Billisoly blew his nose and turned to the man at his side. "Looks like she's got it all there. If she could land Miss Gibbie the rest were easy."
"Tell me she and Miss Cary are great friends. They say the old lady is as smart as the devil and he'd be much more apt to get out of her way than she out of his if they met. Listen, there goes Sunny Chinn. Ain't he a cheerful thing to look at?"
The latter had risen, and again the table was struck by the gavel, which through the evening his hand had not relinquished. "Are there any further remarks to be made? If not—"
"Yes, sir." Mr. Ranlet, owner and proprietor of the Yorkburg bakery, rose from his seat. "I'd like to ask something about this firm of Bartlett, Cramp & Company, who is willing to buy bonds that only pay 3 per cent. How does Miss Cary know that?"
"I have a letter to that effect." She opened her bag and took from it a letter. "This," she said, holding it up, "is the letter which states that they will make this purchase for a customer, provided it can be done promptly. Mr. Moon, Mr. Walstein, any one doing business in New York can tell you the character and reputation of this company."
"I suppose the name of the customer is not mentioned?"
"Yes. It is a Mr. Black, of Brooklyn."
"The same one who has been buying property around here lately?"
"The same one. I understand he is thinking of coming here to live."
"Must have plenty of money. Not many people jump at 3-per-cent. town bonds."
"Then we ought to jump quick lest he change his mind."
"I move the matter be referred to the finance committee." It was Mr. Mowry who spoke, and instantly Mr. Ash, who had said nothing so far, was on his feet.
"Mr. President, such reference would be a waste of time. As chairman of the finance committee I have called the latter together and talked with them concerning this proposition of an issue of bonds which I knew would be brought before you to-night. We agreed to recommend it heartily, and I move that the question be put at once."
The motion, made and carried quickly, was greeted with deafening applause by the visitors sitting, standing, or balanced in the window- seats, and then some one moved for an executive session, and slowly the crowd began to stir and go out.
"It's going to be all right, Mary." Mr. Moon patted the latter's hands encouragingly. "We are going to increase the taxes, accept the money, and build the schools, and if you will please take Mrs. Moon home I will be obliged. Her face has been like a beet all the evening. Oh, how do you do, Mrs. McDougal?" and he shook kindly the rough red hand held out toward him.
"And I'm glad to see you, Mr. Moon. I tell you this has been a night, ain't it? I've had a fine time, though I'd had a finer if an edjucatid tongue was in my mouth, and I could have mentioned some of the things I know of as Yorkburg needs. What we goin' home for, being you ain't through, they say? I hope you will tell those men who are to act on something that if they don't act right they'll never get a vote from my boys when they turn twenty-one. I ain't sayin' I understood all what Miss Cary said to-night about bonds and things, but I'd follow her in the dark, and ain't anybody such a fool as not to know what fifty thousand dollars could do for a place or a person. Of course, being just a woman—and men think women is just canary birds or dray horses—I don't have no say in things like this, but I've borned five sayers, and I'm goin' to keep my eye on 'em to see what they do when they get a chance. Yes, sir, there's to be a knowin' why if she don't get what she wants. In the four factories there's two hundred and ninety-three voters, John Armitage says, and they're solid to a man for Miss Cary. Just tell 'em that for me, will you? Good-night. Come on, children! I wonder where McDougal is? A dead chicken's got more spirit in company than he has! Good-night, Miss Cary, and don't forget we're expectin' of you to tea to-morrow night. Peggy ain't slept for a week thinkin' about it."
At the door a group of men stood talking. "Regular hunks, weren't they?" said Mr. Jernigan, taking his pipe out of his pocket and knocking the bowl against the palm of his hand. "And she didn't waste words in throwing them out, either. Fifty thousand dollars in bonds asked for as cool as snow, and looking like a blush-rose when she did it. Fifty thousand dollars, too, handed out for a gift like 'twas an every-day thing for Yorkburg to get it. She said she had a surprise for us. 'Twas a cracker-jack. Wish one of that kind would knock me in the head! Taxes increased from $1.25 to $1.35! George, it does you good to hear the stuff called for like that. Them that's got it ought to pay for having!"
"But she believes in everybody paying. Don't you remember the day she come down to the mills at lunch-time and told us we oughtn't to ask for a reading-room where books from the library up on King Street could be got without our goin' for 'em, unless we were willin' to help pay for the keep of the room? Don't you remember? I do." And Mr. Flournoy took the match held out by Mr. Jernigan and passed it on to the man standing next.
"Yes, I remember. She made us all chip in. Right, too. It costs forty dollars a month to run that room, and we don't pay but twenty. Don't know where the other twenty comes from, but she does, and that goes in mill-town."
"She's got a clear head, Miss Cary has. And the reason I like to hear her talk is I can hook on to what she says." Mr. Flournoy walked over to the window and measured the distance to a given spot below with his lips. "No beatin' round to keep you from knowin' what she means. What kind of slush was that Bailly Ass Brickhouse tryin' to get off, anyhow? Any of you catch on?
"Didn't listen. Heard his junk before. He says he traces himself back to Adam in this town, but if he ever give it as much as a ginger-cake it's been kept a secret. Here comes Miss Cary now."
Mr. Jernigan took off his hat, and on his finger twirled it round and round. "My wife's been sick in bed ten weeks come Friday," he said, presently, "and there ain't been a one of 'em Miss Cary hasn't been to bring her some outdoor thing, as well as other kinds. Mollie says when she comes in the room, spring things come with her."
He stood aside, then took the hand held out as she came toward him.
"Didn't we have a grand meeting?" she said, nodding lightly to first one and then the other. "I believe it's going to be all right, and you can tell your wives their children will go to a high-school yet. I'm so glad all you men came. Thank you very much—"
"You didn't need us." The man standing next to the steps laughed. "The work was done before to-night. You had your ducks in a row all right."
"And not a single one quacked wrong! Didn't they do beautifully? Thank everybody for coming. Good-night." And in the darkness they could hear her laughing with Mrs. Moon and Mrs. Corbin as they went together down the street.
A few minutes later in Miss Gibbie's library she was dancing that lady of full figure round and round the room, and not for some seconds would she stop.
"Oh, Miss Gibbie, if you'd just been there! Not a sign of fight from any one, and as to fireworks, there wasn't a pop-cracker! Mr. Benny Brickhouse orated, of course, and Mrs. McDougal was irrepressible, but without them it would have been solemn—/solemn!/ I tried not talk too much. Men don't like it; they like women to listen to them, but to-night they—"
"Like sheep before their shearer, were dumb—as I'll be dead if you don't sit sown. Sit down!"
"I can't." And Miss Gibbie was waltzed around once more. "I don't understand, but it's going to be all right. Men are certainly funny. For weeks every member of the council has pooh-hooded me, thought my audaciousness was outrageousness, shook their heads and waved me out, and didn't begin to listen seriously until a week ago. To-night they were little lambs!"
"If you'll stop butting round like a goat and go to bed I'll hear about these lambkins to-morrow. I sat up to tell you good-night, not to hear you talk. It's nearly twelve o'clock. Of course they came round! Wind-watchers, all of them! That 3 per cent. got them. I told you if you made it 4 it wouldn't go through."
"Some one wanted to know who Mr. Black was, and Mr. Billisoly asked if your name was on the taxpayers' petition. It's like a play with the principal character left out. Suppose—"
"Suppose nothing! Go to bed and go to sleep! Your eyes are as big as saucers, blue saucers at that. I don't want to hear another word," and with a kiss as quick as the look that swept the flushed face was scrutinizing, Miss Gibbie waved her to the door.
"But aren't you coming? It's nearly twelve o'clock!"
"And why do I live alone save to do as I please? No, I'm not coming.Go to bed!"
At the door, hand on knob, Mary Cary turned. "How did Mr. Milligan know about my English grandfather? Who told him he was a chief justice?"
"I did. And for good reasons. I don't tell my reasons. Go to bed!"
"When did you tell him?"
"This morning after I left you. /Are/ you going to bed?"
"I don't see what you told him for. I don't like my grandfathers. I can't imagine—"
"There are many things you can't imagine, and more you don't understand. /Go to bed!/"
In her room Mary Cary stood before the tall, old-fashioned bureau, with its small swinging glass, and brushed her hair mechanically and with thoughts afar off; then putting down her brush laid it on a letter she had not seen before.
"Why, it's John's!" she said. "I wonder how it got here?" She held it up, then put it back again. "It must have come on the last mail and Hedwig brought it in. Silly!"
She braided her hair slowly, tied on its ribbons, then knelt by the big tester bed to say her prayers. Her face rested sideways on the open palms of her hands, crossed one on the other, and her eyes closed sleepily.
"I'm too tired to read it to-night, and to-morrow I will be too busy. But I'm glad it's here. In case of trouble—or anything, John is such— a sure help."
The heat was oppressive. Miss Gibbie turned off all lights save the one on the candle-stand by the high mahogany bed, with its valance of white pique, drew the large wing chair close to the open window and sat down in it. Over her gown she had put on a mandarin coat bought somewhere in China, and on her feet were the slippers embroidered for her by a Japanese girl she had sent to a hospital in Nagasaki.
The moon, coming out of its hiding place, for a moment poised clear and cool in a trough of gray banked by curling clouds of black, sent a thread of pale light upon the golden dragons on the coat, flashed on the slippers, and was lost in the darkness under which it darted. Miss Gibbie, watching, nodded toward it, and tapped the stool on which her feet rested with the tip of her toes.
"The moon is like one's self," she said. "Go where you will you can't get rid of it. Spooky thing, a moon. One big eye. Don't like it!"
She lay back in her chair and rested her hands on its arms. From the garden below the night wind brought soft fragrance of lilacs and crepe-myrtle, of bleeding-heart and wall-flower, of cow-slips and candy-tuft, and as they blew in and out, like the touch of unseen hands, they stirred old memories—made that which was dead, alive again.
"You're a fool, Gibbie Gault—a fool! You are too old to care as you care; too old to take up what you've turned your back on all these years. You are too old—too old!"
Suddenly she sat up. "Too old, am I? I'll see about that! The tail end of anything isn't its valuable part, and of a life it's usually useless, but it is all I have left, and I'll be jammed if I don't do something with it. And were I a man I wouldn't say I'll be jammed. Men have so many advantages over women!"
Again she leaned back in her chair and tapped its arms with her long, slender fingers. "I wonder how long I have to live. One—five—ten years? What puppets we humans are—what puppets! Born without permission, dying when it is neither pleasant nor convenient, we are made to march or crawl through life on the edge of a precipice from which at any moment we may be knocked over. And we're told we should believe the experience is a privilege!" Both hands were lifted. "A privilege! Mary thinks it is, thinks parts of it very pleasant, but Mary never was a field in which she didn't find a four-leaf clover, and I never saw one in which I did. 'Look for it,' she tells me." She shook her head. "It isn't that. The pitiful part of life is when one cares so little for what life gives!"
The tips of her fingers were brought together, then opened and shut mechanically. "And once I cared so much! Who doesn't care when they are young and wonderful things are ahead? Who doesn't care? And now to be caring again after the long, long, useless years! To be caring again!"
She closed her eyes and smiled a queer, twisted little smile. "It's got me!" she said. "Old or not, it's got me! and it's a poor life that it doesn't get! But who would have thought at your age, Gibbie Gault, you would let another life do with yours what it will? And that's what you are doing; you are letting Mary Cary do with you what she will! Well, suppose I am?" The keen gray eyes opened with a snap, and without warning stinging tears sprang in them. "Suppose I am? I've been a selfish old fool and shut out the only thing worth the having in life, and do you think now it's given me I am going to turn my back on it? In all this big world sheis the only person who really loves me—the only one I really love. And do you think?"—she nodded fiercely as if to some one before her, then crumpled in a sudden heap in her chair. "Oh, God, don't let her go out of my life! I'm an old woman and she's all I've got! All I've got!"
For some moments she lay still, then reached out for her handkerchief. "What a variety of fools one female can be! Sit up and behave yourself, Gibbie Gault! You came near making a bargain with the Lord then, and if there's one thing more than another that must be hard for Him to have patience with it's a person who tries to make a deal with Him. 'Prosper me and I'll pray you' is the prayer of many. 'Keep evil from me; hold death back; take care of me, and I'll build a new church, send out a missionary, give my tenth and over! Don't hurt me, and I'll be good!' Who doesn't pray like that some time or other in life? Well, you came near doing it yourself. Propitiation is an instinct, and money is all some have to offer as a bribe. To love mercy, to deal justly, and to walk humbly with one's Maker are terms too hard for most of us. Much easier to dope one's conscience with money. It's the only thing I've got, money is, and there have been times when I'd have given its every dollar for the thing it couldn't get. I came near mentioning it just now!"
She wiped her eyes resentingly, rubbed her cheeks none too gently, then opened her handkerchief and smoothed it into damp folds.
"Tears! Who would believe Gibbie Gault had a tear duct!" She shook her head. "Gibbie Gault has everything every other woman has, and if she chooses to hide a hungry heart under a sharp tongue whose business is it? People may talk about her as much as they please, but they sha'n't feel sorry for her!" She threw her handkerchief on the table. "What idiots we are to go masquerading through life! All playing a part—all! Pretending not to care when we do care. Pretending we do when we don't. What a shabby little sham most of this thing called life is! What a shabby little sham!"
She changed her position, recrossed her feet and folded her arms. "If Mary were here she would say I needed a pill. Perhaps I need two, but not the pink ones already prepared. Everybody has a pill that's hard to swallow. /My/ pill might go down easily with some, and over theirs I might not blink, but—Well, a pill is a pill; facts are facts, and old age is old age. The thing is to face what is, shake your fist at it if necessary, but never meet it, if disagreeable, half-way. I never meet anything half-way. But it's a cruel trick time plays on us, this making of body and brain a withered, wrinkled thing, whimpering for warmth and food and sleep, and babbling of the past. It's a cruel trick!"
Out on the still air the clock in St. John's church steeple struck twelve strokes with clear deliberation. From the hall below they were repeated, and from the mantel behind her the hour chimed softly. She closed her eyes. "Twelve o'clock! Time for ladies of my age to be in bed. Not going to bed! And my age hasn't yet reached the babbling-of-the-past stage. It will never reach that, Gibbie. Never!"
Was it a hundred or a thousand years ago that she used to sit on this same stool at her father's knees and recite Latin verbs to him, and as reward have him read her tales of breathless adventure and impossible happenings, all the more delicious because forbidden by her prosaic mother? She was seven when her mother died, but she barely remembered her, and had she lived they would hardly have been great friends. Her mother's pride was in pickles and preserves and brandy peaches; in parties where the table groaned, the servants also, and in the looking well after the ways of her household. But of a child's heart and imagination she knew little. She was a true woman, but a housekeeper had taken her place, and neither her father nor herself had been seriously affected by her death.
And what splendid comrades she and her father were after her mother left them! He would let no one teach her but himself, and how he loved to show her off to his friends, putting her on top of the dining-room table and making her recite in Latin bits from an ode of Horace, in French a fable of La Fontaine's, in English a sonnet of Shelley or extracts from Shakespeare's plays, and then letting her dance the heel-and-toe shuffle taught her secretly by the darkies on the place. What a selfish little pig she had been allowed to be! How selfish both of them had been! Their books a passion, travel their delight, most people but persons who bored or bothered, they had lived largely apart, come and gone as they chose, cared little for what others said or thought; and yet when the war came they were back, passionate defenders of their cause, and in their hearts hot hate for those who sought to crush it.
And then it was pride measured its lance with love, and won. The awakening of her womanhood and the mockery of life had come together, hand in hand, and henceforth she was another creature.
In her chair Miss Gibbie shivered. It was not the sudden gust of wind that caused the sudden chill, but the scent of the micrafella roses just under the window which the wind had brought; and her arms, interlocked, were pressed closer to her breast. "Gibbie Gault, what a fool you are!" she said, under her breath. "But how much bigger a fool you were nearly fifty years ago!"
Seventeen. Young, vivid, brilliant, beautiful. Yes, beautiful! Nothing is so beautiful as youth, and she had much more than youth. The gods had been good to her up to then, and then they taunted her, made spring in her heart love for one only—love that must be crushed and killed, for the man who alone could inspire it wore the hated blue, was there to fight against her people, and never must she marry him, she told herself. On a visit North she had met him, and it was a whim of fate that he should be captain of one of the companies taking possession of Yorkburg, with headquarters in the Roy house, next to her own. A whim of fate! Friend and foe they met daily, and battle was never waged more hotly than was theirs. On his part, determination that never yields. On hers, pride that never surrenders. And then one day there was a change of orders. His regiment was sent away and to battle. Lest the horror, the terror of it all undo her, she had bid him go, refused to promise in the years to come she would ever be his wife, and the look on his fine, brave face had followed her through life.
A month later he was brought back and by her order to her house. Fatally wounded, in delirium her name was ever on his lips, but in his eyes blankness. And on her knees by his bed she had twisted in an agony of prayer that for one moment, but one moment, light might come into them that she might pray for pardon ere he died. But no light came and he died, not knowing that for her love, too, was dead.
Again Miss Gibbie stirred, for again she seemed to see herself. This time she was by an open grave. White, rigid, erect, she watched with tearless eyes the lowering, not of a mere body in the ground, but the burying of all youth has the right to ask of life. Out of the future were gone for her the dreams of girlhood and a woman's hopes. The bareness and emptiness of coming years froze the blood in her heart, and when she turned away she lifted her head and bid life do its worst. Nothing could matter now.
Darker than the days of battle were the days of peace, and she made her father close the house and go away. For years they wandered where they would, but always were back for the month of June; and no one remembered that the twenty-first was the date of Colleen McMasters's death, or know that on that day his grave was visited, and there alone a woman yielded to the memories that ever filled her heart.
When her father died life in Yorkburg was impossible. With a tilt of her chin at its dulness, a wave of her hand at its narrowness, and eyes closed to its happy content, she had gone back to London and reopened the house which had become known for her sharp wit, her freedom of speech, and her disregard of persons who had for commendation but inherited position; and there for years had what she called headquarters, but never thought of or spoke of as home.
She pulled her chair closer to the window and, with elbows on its sill and chin on her crossed hands, looked out into the soft silence of the night.
"What a time for seeing clearly, seeing things just as they are, this midnight is, Gibbie Gault! In the darkness wasted time stares you in the face and facts refuse to turn their backs. And you thought once the waste was all the other way—thought you were wise to stand off and watch the little comedies and tragedies, the pitiful strivings for place and power, the sordid struggles for bread and meat, the stupid ones for cap and bells! The motives and masques, the small deceptions and the large hypocrisies of life interested you immensely, didn't they? Take the truth out and face it. You tell other people the truth—tell it to yourself. A selfish old pig, that's what you were, and thinking yourself clever all the while. Clever! And why? Because all your life you have been a student of history, of human happenings, and of man's behavior to his fellow-man, and particularly to woman, you thought you knew life, didn't you? You didn't! Because you were an evolutionist and recognized Nature's disregard of human values, the impartial manifestations of her laws, and the reckoning which their violation demands, you thought science must satisfy. Science doesn't satisfy. With ignorance and superstition, with life's cruelties and injustice, with human helplessness, you could quarrel well, but beyond the sending out of checks to serve as a soothing-syrup to your encumbrance of a conscience what did you ever do to give a lift to anything? Nothing! And the pity is there are many like you!
"'Cui-bono-itis.' That's what you had, Gibbie Gault—'cui-bono-itis.' Bad thing! Almost as hard on the people about you as the 'ego-itis' of to-day. Pity people can't die of their own diseases instead of killing other people with them. Great pity!"
The moon was gone. Only in faint lines of light was the blackness of the sky broken, and as she looked out over the trees in the garden below, and down the street, asleep and still, the scene changed, and no longer was she in Yorkburg, but in the little village of Chenonceaux, at the Inn of Le Bon Laboureur. Her friend, Miss Rawley, of Edinborough, was with her. They were taking their coffee outdoors at a table placed where they could best get the breeze and see the roses climbing over the lattice-work of the little hotel, with its pots of red geraniums in the windows. And in the door the young proprietor was smiling happily, for down the long, straight, tree-lined road an automobile which had just left the chateau was coming, and he had visions of what it would mean.
"I didn't." She nodded her head. "It's a way life has, this bringing of somebody across our path, this taking of somebody out of it, as incidentally as if we were flies. Well, that's what I used to think most of us were. Flies! Those who weren't flies were spiders. Some buzzed, some bit, and all in a net—all! And to think of the way I was taken by the shoulders and turned around! Made to see all I'd been doing was squinting at life with my nose turned up. Just that! Because I had seen the just man perish in his righteousness, and the wicked prosper in his wickedness, I thought, with my ancient friend, that time and chance happeneth to all, and people and pigs had much in common. What an old fool you were, Gibbie Gault! Take your pill! You saw life as you wanted to see it, and, giving nothing to it, got nothing out of it. Right!
"Queer what a kiss can do—just one!" She drew in her breath and felt it all again. The automobile had stopped. A party of Americans had gotten out and, slowly drinking her coffee, she watched them. A man and his wife, two children, a nurse, and a young girl, twenty, perhaps. Something about her, something of glow and vividness and warmth, held her, and a faint memory was stirred. A clear, fresh voice called to the chauffeur as she sprang out of the car and came close to the table near which she was sitting, and then she heard her name spoken in joyous surprise.
"It's Miss Gibbie Gault! Oh, Aunt Katherine, it is Miss Gibbie Gault!"
Without warning, two strong young arms were thrown around her neck and on her lips a hearty kiss was pressed. "Oh, Miss Gibbie, I'm so glad to see you! /I'm so glad!/ I'm Mary Cary who used to live in Yorkburg. You don't mind my kissing you, do you? I couldn't help it, I really couldn't! It's /so/ good to see some one from Yorkburg!" And she was hugged again, hugged hard.
"Nearly three years ago!" Her lips quivered. "And a different world you've been living in since. Somebody was really glad to see you. It makes a great difference in life when some one is glad to see you!"
Was it fate, chance, circumstance that had brought the girl to her? She did not know. Once she would have said. Maybe God needed them together, was Mary's view, and she never commented on Mary's views. In that at least she had learned to hold her tongue. But it did not matter. They were here in Yorkburg, lives closely interknit, and here, in the home in which she had been born, she was to live henceforth. And if but close to her she could keep the girl who had warmed her heart and opened her eyes she would ask nothing more of life.
For two years and more they had been together. Instantly she had wanted her, and, never hesitating in efforts to get what she wanted, a month after the meeting at the little Inn of Le Bon Laboureur she invited her to be her guest in a trip around the world. The invitation was blunt. She had long wanted to take this trip, had long been looking for the proper companion. She had a dog, but he wasn't allowed to come to the table. Would she go? Her uncle and aunt would not let her miss the chance. They made her go. Doctor Alden and his wife were sensible people.
And then the night in Cairo when Mary came in her room, sat on the stool at her feet, and, crossing her arms on her lap, looked up in her face and said they must go home. The holiday had been long and happy, but more of it would be loss of time. And home was Yorkburg. A visit to Michigan first, long talks with her uncle and aunt, and then whatever she was to do in life was to be done in Yorkburg. There was a little money, something her uncle had invested for her when she first went to live with him, until she decided on some sort of work. She would teach, perhaps, and she would rather it would be in the little town in which she had found a home when homeless and without a friend. She was not willing to live with anybody or anywhere without work. She was anxious to be about it. When could they start?
"And of course I started. Started just when she said. Did just what she wanted and some things she didn't. Trotted on back to the old pasture-land where old sheep should graze, and here I am to stay until the call comes. Whoever thought you'd come back to Yorkburg, Gibbie Gault! Back to shabby, sleepy, satisfied old Yorkburg! Well, you're here! Mary Cary made you come. She loves it, always wanting to do something for it; helping every broken-down old thing in it; laughing at its funny ways, and keeping straight along in hers. And for what? To-morrow everybody will be talking about the meeting to-night. About other things she's doing. Small thanks she'll get, and if you tell her so she'll say if you do things for thanks you don't deserve them. Bless my soul, if it isn't raining!"
A sudden downpour of rain startled her, and she sat upright; then, at a noise behind, turned and saw Mary Cary coming in the door.
"Oh, Miss Gibbie, I could spank you! I really could! You aren't even five years old at times. It has turned almost cold, and raining hard, and here you are sitting by an open window!" She felt the gown of the older woman anxiously. "I believe it's damp. If you don't get in bed I'm going to—"
"Do what?" Miss Gibbie got out of her chair, threw off the mandarin coat with its golden dragons, and kicked her slippers toward the door. "What are you going to do?"
"Put you in it. Get in and let me cover you up! Are you sure you aren't cold? Sure?"
"Sure." Miss Gibbie mimicked the anxious tones of the girl now bending over and tucking the covering round her warm and tight. "What did you come in here for, anyhow? Go to bed!"
"I knew you'd left the window open, and it has turned so cool. I was afraid there was too much air." She stooped over and kissed her. "Good-night! Don't get up to breakfast. I'll see you during the day." With a swift movement she turned off the light on the candle-stand and was gone, and under the covering Miss Gibbie hid her face in the pillow.
"Dear God," she said. "Dear God, she's all I've got. I'm an old woman, and she's all I've got!"
"Muther say, please, sir, send her four eggs' worth of salt pork, and two eggs' worth of pepper, and five eggs' worth of molasses. And she say I can have pickle with the last egg."
The eyes which had been critically searching the pickle-jar on the counter as the eggs were carefully taken out of a basket looked confidently in Mr. Blick's face, and a red little tongue licked two red lips in quivering expectation of the salty sourness awaiting them.
"Please, sir, I'd like that one." A dirty little fore-finger pointed to a long, fat cucumber lying slightly apart from its fellows. "That's the one, Mr. Blick. No, not that one—/that/ one!" and the finger was pressed resolutely against the jar. "And would you please, sir, give it to me before you weigh out the things?"
"Oh, Peggy dear, what a little pig you are! The very biggest in the jar, and such a wicked-looking pickle, Peggy! Why not get an apple, instead?"
Peggy turned joyously at the sound of the voice behind her. "Oh, MissMary Cary, I'm so glad it's you. I thought it was Miss Lizzie BettiePryor!"
Mr. Blick laughed. The relief in Peggy's voice was so unqualified that the man, standing in the door watching the little group, laughed also. Miss Cary turned toward him. "This is Peggy, John—my little friend, Peggy McDougal. Wipe your hands, Peggy, and speak to Mr. Maxwell, who has come from New York to see Yorkburg, and—and the places he used to know."
Peggy wiped her hands carefully on the handkerchief held out to her, then advanced toward the man, still standing in the doorway, but now with his hat in his hand.
"How do you do, Mr. John Maxwell from New York?" she said, gravely; in her eyes critical inspection of the face before her. "I know about you. Muther says you used to live in Yorkburg, but your muther didn't like it. I hope you like it, and will stay a long time and come again. Miss Mary Cary says it's nicer than New York."
John Maxwell took the offered hand as ceremoniously as it was given. "Thank you! I do like Yorkburg, and I hope to come again." He laughed amusedly in the upturned eyes which were searching his. "It is nicer than New York. Miss Cary is quite right."
"New York's bigger, ain't it?"
"Yes"—hesitatingly—"some bigger. But I don't believe there's anything there like you—"
"Plenty more here like me."
"How many?"
"Hundreds, I reckon. Yorkburg's most all children and old maids, muther says. We've got nine children—four girls and five boys. The last one was a girl, which would have made us even, but it died. Billy give it a piece of watermelon rind to play with and it et it. But, Miss Mary, muther /did/ say I could have a pickle, she did." And Peggy turned to Miss Cary, anxious entreaty in her eyes.
"I don't want an apple—I want a pickle. And it won't make me sick. There's seven of us to have a bite, and one bite wouldn't give anybody's stomach a pain. Oh, Miss Mary, you ain't Miss Lizzie Bettie Pryor. Please don't tell me not to get it. Please don't!" And the little fingers twisted and untwisted in tragic intensity of appeal.
"I ought to tell you." Miss Cary looked doubtfully at the pickle-jar. "But if you get it will you promise not to ask for another for a long, long time? They are almost poisonous. Mr. Blick, I wish you wouldn't keep them. They are such a temptation to the children. Isn't there anything else you could keep instead?"
"Yes'm, plenty of things. But that's all I would do. I'd keep 'em. I tell you times ain't like they was, Mary Cary, and if you don't sell what people want to buy, they'll buy from the man who sells what they want. And then what would Mrs. Blick and the babies do?"
Mr. Blick's bright little black eyes beamed first at Miss Cary and then at the gentleman in the door, but, neither venturing an answer, he cut off a piece of pork and wrapped it carefully. "Not being in the missionary business, I have to meet the times, for if we don't stand up we set down, and folks walk right along over us and don't know we're there. I don't approve of pickle, or cocoanut, either, as for that"—he tapped a jar filled with water, in which soaked broken pieces of the fruit of the tree forbidden by most Yorkburg mothers—"but business is business, which I ain't attendin' to or I'd be takin' your order 'stead of wastin' your time." And again the black little eyes gleamed like polished chinquapins sunk in a round red peach.
"Oh no! Peggy was here first and her mother is waiting for her. You give her what she came for while I look around for what I want."
Mr. Blick, knowing further words were unwise, began patiently to do up the eggs' worth of pork and pepper and molasses, and John Maxwell, watching him to see in what proportions they would be meted out, grew as interested as Peggy, whose shrewd little eyes had so early been trained in weights and measurements that she could tell quickly the number of eggs required for an ounce or quarter of half a pound of the purchase to be made. Putting the packages in a basket, she turned; then, remembering a final order, stood again at the counter.
"I forgot, Mr. Blick. Muther say won't you please send her nine of them little blue-and-red-and-white birthday candles? She wants 'em for the twins' birthday. It comes on the Fourth of July; they will be nine on the Fourth, Washington and Jefferson will, and muther's been wanting ever since they been born to celebrate their birthday, but suppin' always happened; somebody was sick, or Wash and Jeff been fightin', so she couldn't in conscience give 'em a party. But the last time 'twas her fault—she mashed her finger; so she say she thinks she'll have it now if'n it is May 'stead of July, cause there ain't nothing the matter, and she knows there will be if she waits till the right time. She say she'll send the eggs for the candles as soon as Grandpa Duke and Miss Florence Nightingale lays 'em. She knows Mis' Blick likes their eggs best. It will take a dozen, won't it?"
John Maxwell turned toward Miss Cary, his forehead wrinkled in puzzled inquiry. "In the name of chicken-science, what is she talking about? If I oughtn't to ask, don't tell me, but—"
"It's a new world I told you you'd be finding." Mary Cary laughed, running her hand through a peck measure of black-eyed peas. "And where but in Yorkburg will eggs serve for currency?"
"But when Grandpa Duke lays the eggs? What does she mean?"
"That the big black hen was a present from Mr. Duke, Mrs. McDougal's father, and named in honor of him. All Mrs. McDougal's hens are named—honorably named. Her roosters, also. But having few roosters and admiring many men, she bestows on her lady chickens the names of distinguished gentlemen. It's her only way of keeping in touch with great people, she says. You must know Peggy's mother. She is one of my good friends. Would you like to go to the party?"
Before he could answer: "Peggy!" she called—"Peggy, come here and tell us when the party takes place."
Peggy, package-laden, came slowly toward the door near which Miss Cary and John Maxwell were standing. The top end of the precious pickle had been bitten off, and Peggy's face, wrinkled in distorted enjoyment of its salty sourness, was endeavoring to straighten itself before making answer.
"Oh, Miss Mary Cary, /will/ you come to the party? Will you? There's going to be flags and poppers and lemonade and—and a lot of things. Muther say she's been intendin' to give a party ever since she's been married, but she ain't ever had a minute to do it in. The reason she is goin' to give it to the boys is because they was born the same day the United States was. They'll be nine on the Fourth of July and the United States will be—" She shook her head. "I don't know how old the United States is, but muther say being born when they was, and being named for Presidents, she's bound to teach us patriotics, and a party is the best way she knows of. She'd give it to me or Teeny if our birthdays stood for anything, but they don't. I'm ten, goin' on eleven, and ain't anybody yet remembered when my birthday comes."
Peggy was red in the face and out of breath. The eagerness of her invitation had dried her throat, which needed moistening. Ducking her head, she bit off the other end of the pickle and, in an effort to swallow naturally, blinked furiously.
"That's all and no more," she said, nodding explanatorily at Miss Cary. "I always take the two ends. They're toughest, and you can chew 'em longest. The other children get the middle," and she put said middle carefully between the pork and pepper. "If you don't want me to, I won't eat another for—for how long mustn't I eat it, Miss Cary?"
"For six months." Miss Cary's voice made effort to be severe. "They will ruin you. They really will. But run along and tell your mother we are coming to the party. What time did you say it was to be?"
"I didn't say. Muther ain't said herself yet. She say out of nine you can always count on suppin' happenin' that oughtn't, specially when five is boys. But I reckon it will be about four o'clock, and she thinks Friday will be the day. If muther can get 'em all washed and keep the lemonade from being drunk up she will have it at four. If'n she can't she will have it when she can. But please 'm, oh /please 'm/ be sure and come!"
She started down the street, then turned, as if suddenly remembering, and came back to the man still standing in the door, watching her with amused eyes.
"Muther will be glad to have you come, too," she said, nodding gravely,"Mr.—Mr.—what did you say your name was?"
"Maxwell." And again the hat was lifted.
"Maxwell," she repeated. "I hope you will come, too. I don't know whether muther knows you or not, but if you was Satan himself she would be glad to see you—if'n you was a friend of Miss Mary Cary."
"Now, ain't I glad to see you! Come right along in and set down, unless you'd rather set out. I'm that proud to have you here I'm right light in the head, that I am!" and John Maxwell's hand was shaken heartily. "Lord, what a big man you've gone and got to be! Your dotingest grandma wouldn't have believed you would grow into good looks when you was fifteen. You were the ugliest, nicest boy I ever seen at fifteen, and look at you now! Look at you now!"
Mrs. McDougal stood off and gazed with admiring candor at the man before her, and the man, laughing good-naturedly, seated himself on the railing of the little porch and threw his hat on a chair at its far end. "If I've changed it's more than you have. Just as young and gay as ever," he said, nodding toward her, "and still a woman of sense and discrimination. Nobody but you knows I'm handsome."
"I ain't sayin' you're an Appolus Belviderus. You ain't. But you look like a man, and that's what many who wars pants don't. And good clothes is a powerful help to face and figger. I certainly am proud to see you. I certainly am!"
"And I certainly am glad to see you. I certainly am!" He bobbed his head in imitation of Mrs. McDougal, whose words were always emphasized by gestures, and laughed in the puzzled eyes of the girl beside her, pulling off her long gloves. "Miss Cary asked me the other day if I didn't want to know you. She didn't know you were a friend of mine before you were a friend of hers. Remember those apple-jacks I used to get from you? Bully things! Don't have anything like that in New York."
"Don't have the same kind of stomach to put 'em in, I reckon. Anything is good to boys and billy-goats, but edjicated insides is sniffy, they tell me. Set down, Mary Cary. Here, take this rockin'-chair. Ain't anything been spilt on this one, and it's the only one what ain't. I'm that thankful nothin's caught on fire that I was thinkin' of settin' down myself, but 'twon't be no use. Look-a-yonder! If that Bickles boy ain't tied a pop-cracker to Mis' Jepson's chief rooster, and right on to its comb! Hi, there! Don't you light that thing!" And Mrs. McDougal waved vigorously with her apron in the direction of a small group of stooping watchers, hands on knees and eyes eagerly intent.
The warning was too late. An explosion, a frantic crow from a once lordly cock, a scurry to safer quarters, jeering cheers from heartless throats, and then silence as Mrs. McDougal's waving arms were seen.
"Let me go down and see what they are doing," and Mary Cary laid gloves and parasol on the chair, unpinned her hat and put it beside them. "We were so late I was afraid the children would be gone. Look at that little rascal tying two dogs' tails together!" Down the steps she ran and across the yard, and as she approached there was a rush toward her. Instantly she was the centre of a crowding, swarming group of children, all talking at once, and all trying to see what she had come to do, but as she raised her hand there was momentary stillness.
"Now I can set down." With a sigh of relief Mrs. McDougal took the chair offered to Miss Cary, folded her arms, and began to rock, her eyes fastened on the man still on the railing of the little porch, but now with his back against a post and hands clasped over the knee of his right leg.
"I can set down in peace for a few minutes anyhow," she went on, "for as long as Miss Mary is out there things will go right. Some women is born with a way to manage children. She was." She nodded toward the yard. "Remember how she used to do those 'sylum children? Led 'em into more mischief than all the rest put together, but she always led 'em out, and they were like sheep behind her. Loved her. That was it. Ain't it funny the things folks will do for a person just on account of lovin' 'em? And ain't it funny how you can't love some people to save your life? You know you ought to, specially if they're kin, and you try to, but you can't do it. The very sight of some folks makes the old boy rise up in you, and you wish they was in—well, I ain't sayin' where you wish they was. My grandmother always told me you'd better keep some wishes to yourself.
"But there's one person in this town what makes me want to do to her just what Billy Bickles did to that rooster just now. She's that superior, and so twisty in the corners of her mouth, that I'm always wishin' I could fix the kind of fall her pride's goin' to have some day. Bound to have it, pride is. 'Ain't no law to hold it up any more than an apple in the air, and both of 'em is got to come down. When folks pass other folks what they know in the street, and don't any more speak to 'em than if they was worms of the dust, they think it's on account of bein' who they are, and they don't know it's on account of bein' what they is. Of course a person can't be blamed for bein' born a fool, but a fool ought to know better than to be fooler than it's bound to be. I don't mind Mrs. Deford not noticin' me, but Susie, who sells her all her hats, says—"
"Mrs. Deford?" John Maxwell, who was only half listening, and who had been watching the children, turned toward Mrs. McDougal. "You mean Mrs. Walter Deford?"
"That's who I mean, though I don't see what she's called Mrs. Walter Deford for, being as 'tis Mr. Walter Deford don't seem to enjoy her company any more than I do. If he's been in Yorkburg for eight years, nobody's heard of it. When she dies she oughtn't to be res'rected. In heaven there'll be saints, born plain. She couldn't associate with them. In hell there'll be blue-blooded sinners, and she can't mix with sinners. The grave's the place for her, and won't anybody round here weep when she's put in it. But Lord-a-mercy, what am I wastin' time talking about an old teapot like her for? She's hurt Susie's feelin's so often, Susie bein' like her pa, and not havin' much spirit, that I get kinder riled when her name is mentioned. But my grandmother always did say if you didn't like a person, spew them out of your heart and shut your mouth. And here I am talkin' about a nothin', 'stead of askin' you 'bout yourself. It's been a long time since I seen you. Them other times when you've been down I ain't even had a chance to glimpse you on the street, but the children told me, Susie and Hunt did, that you was a New-Yorker all right, and you is that. I tell you good clothes and an easy air don't hurt anybody." She nodded her head. "You look like where you come from."
"Any difference in New-Yorkers and other people? Mind my smoking?" He took a package of cigarettes out of his pocket, lighted one and put the rest back. "In New York I tell people I'm from Yorkburg. Could I have arranged it I would have been born here. Not my fault I'm not a Virginian." He laughed, knocking the ashes from his cigarette. "You've got a bunch of them. All those yours?"
She peered above the railing and counted. "Ain't but five of 'em mine. The four oldest works. Susie stays in Miss Patty Moore's millinery store, Lizzie lives with her grandpa, Hunt is at the woolen mills with his pa, and Teeny helps Mrs. Blick with the children. The youngest is twins, they're seven. The next is twins, too. They will be nine on the Fourth of July, and over who was to be invited that I had to keep 'em in bed all day yesterday, and not let it be their party at all. I told 'em 'twas Peggy's, but I'd do the invitin' myself. I didn't want that Billy Bickles, but if I hadn't asked him there'd been trouble for me as long as life. I know his ma too well. Don't reckon you ever knew Mis' Bickles? She's one of them kind of women who's always seein' she gets what's comin' to her, and takes what ain't. Her husband lives up the country. He warn't much to leave: one of them lazy, good-natured kind what always had a pain handy; and Mis' Bickles says she left him while her family was small. Mis' Bickles says she left him while her family was small. Mis' Bickles's got more sense than you'd think from lookin' at her, and a tongue what tells all it knows and makes up what it don't. It don't do to get that kind of a tongue down on you.
"Them two children over there"—she pointed vaguely toward the now shouting group—"those two with red hair and red ribbons is Mr. Sam Winter's little girls. I don't like 'em, but if there's any one woman in this world I feel sorry for it's Sam Winter's wife, and so I invited 'em. Ain't they the ugliest, freckledest little things you ever saw? Don't reckon you remember their ma, either? She used to stay in Mr. Pat Horston's bakery and confectionery when you lived here. That's been—"
"Ten years ago this October."
"That's so. I remember it now like 'twas yesterday. Never will forget the day your father died so sudden, just like Mr. Pryor, and everything in Yorkburg seemed to stop. He was the kind of man who makes wheels go round, and everybody thought when he died the shoe factory would shut down and the 'lectric-light plant would go out; and people round here say they would if you hadn't put your foot down and told your ma they had to keep up. Sixteen was right young to be buttin' into business matters, but some folks is born older than others, and I reckon you've got right much of your pa in you. And that's what I told McDougal I like about you. You knew what you wanted, and when you made up your mind to do a thing, 'twould be death or you would win. And my grandmother always did say, for winning, will was worth more than anything else on earth.
"But I ain't asked you what kind of business you're in, or how you're gettin' on in it, nor how your ma is. I hope she's well. And your sister, too. They tell me she's married—"
"She is. Living in California. Got two children. Mother is very well, thank you. She's abroad just now. I'm in the law business. I get my bread out of it, but not much jam yet. You were speaking of Sam Winter's wife just now. I remember her; used to sell us cakes and pies, and so afraid she wouldn't get the change right she nearly wore her fingers out counting on them. We used to borrow a big piece of money—a dollar was big in those days—just to watch her face get red when we'd tell her the change was wrong. Little beasts! Somebody ought to have beaten us."
"That they ought. And somebody ought to beat Sam Winter every day in the week. Ain't nothing I would like better than to have a whack at him. I've often wished I was his wife for just five minutes. He'd be jelly or I one when 'twas over. Some men need lickin'. Sam's one of the kind who thinks when the Lord made woman He made her to be man's footstool when she warn't anything else he needed at the time. Certainly is funny how many people talk like they had a private telegraph-wire running right up to the throne of God, and you'd think they had special messages from Him from the cocksure way in which they tell you what He says and means. And specially 'bout women. The Bible is a great stand-by with some men when it comes to women. But I reckon women has brought a lot of it on themselves. They ain't had a chance to fight fair in life. Being mothers has made 'em stand a heap they wouldn't otherwise. A woman will stand most anything for her children."
John Maxwell laughed. "You are looking at me as if I didn't agree with you. I do. I know some men of the Sam Winter kind. And they always get the wrong sort of wife. Now if Sam had married you—"
"He'd be dead or different by this time. There ain't much in life to be sure of, but you can be sure of that. A woman is a human being, if she is a female, and I ain't ever seen a male creature who had any respect for a female one he could step on. And that's what poor, meek little Fanny Winter lets Sam do, and of course he takes advantage. 'Tain't in human nature for a man not to kick something every now and then what sits at his feet all the time."
"Good Lord! He doesn't beat her?" John Maxwell turned suddenly, in his eyes a queer light. "You mean he strikes her?"
Mrs. McDougal brought her chair closer to the railing. "I don't believe those children are ever goin' home. Some come at three, and it's after seven. They've et up all there was to eat, and drunk a washtub full of lemonade, but that Bickles boy and Fuzzy Toone and Mineola Hodgkins will stay till next week if I don't make 'em go. I believe the little Winters is gone. Look at Peggy! Ain't she havin' a grand time? I'm glad you and Miss Mary didn't come till the first rush-round was over. There's been twenty-one of 'em here includin' of my five, and I tell you when you get through feedin' and fillin' of twenty-one hollow stomachs you're ready for rest. How many out there now?"
"Eleven. Let me see." John counted again. "No, ten. Miss Cary makes the eleventh. I believe she's going to tell them a story. They're getting ready to sit down under your mulberry-tree. Yes, that's what they're going to do. Let them alone. They're having a good time."
"And so am I. Certainly am enjoyin' of myself hearin' all about you. I tell you the mother of nine don't often have time to set down and rock in daylight, and at night I'm so tired that if 'twasn't for the basin of cold water I keep on the back porch to put my face in I'd go to sleep before I'd read a page."
A fresh cigarette was lighted. "Like to read? Why didn't you tell me? Got a lot of books I don't know what to do with. Will send them down if you want them—"
"Want them?" Mrs. McDougal sat upright, hands up also. "It's the sin of my life, readin' is. But it's saved me from losin' my mind. When a person gets up at five o-clock three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, except Sundays, when it's six; cooks, washes dishes, cleans, sews, cooks, washes dishes, sews, cooks, washes dishes, and in between times scrambles round doin' dozens of odd jobs that don't count, life ain't true poetry, and if 'twarn't for risin' out the world I live in and gettin' into a book one at night I'd gone crazy long before this. Makes my mouth water just to think of havin' some books of my own. All I read is borrowed, and I have to hide 'em under the mattress to keep the children from gettin' 'em dirty. I thank you hearty, Mr. John; I certainly do."
John Maxwell took a note-book and pencil out of his pocket. "I've a good forgettery and if I don't put that down you'd have to write, perhaps. How about Mr. McDougal? What kind does he like?"
Mrs. McDougal's jolly laugh reached to the mulberry-tree and the children looked up. "Books! McDougal!" Her hands came down on her knees with a resounding smack. "If McDougal has read a book since I've been married to him he's done it in the dark. Books ain't his line. He's a good man, McDougal is, but you couldn't call him lit'rary. You see"—she settled herself back in her chair and again folded her arms— "he hasn't got what you might say was imaginations. He can't understand why some days I'd so much rather use the axe on the kitchen stove than in the wood-house, or why the sight of a dish-pan makes me sick in my stomach. As for my chickens—calling hens and roosters by names of big people is tommy-rot to him, and he don't any more know my longin's for a look at high life and for people who use elegant language and paint pictures and play the pianer than I understand how he can live in a teacup and not smash it. He's one of the kind what believes you ought to stay where you're put, but in my opinion them what believes that, as a rule, ain't got sense or hustle enough to get out. I'm not sayin' McDougal is lazy or lackin', but his own ma couldn't think he had a brain that was lively. He ain't got it. Did you ever see a mule goin' round a cider mill? That's McDougal. In the daytime he's as given to silence as I am to talk, but couldn't anybody beat him snorin'. Sometimes I think the roof has gone."
John Maxwell coughed. The smoke from the cigarette had gone the wrong way and his eyes were watery.
"But he's a good man, McDougal is," his wife continued, "and everything he makes he hands over to me. A woman couldn't ask a man to do more than that, even if she'd like a little more to be handed. But we ain't never had no quarrels about money. Some men is so cussin' mean about money, and some women is so cussin' onreasonable in demandin' of it, that it's caused more trouble between husbands and wives than any one thing on earth, I believe. No, we ain't ever had no words that way. But I know a lot what has. Sam Winter is one of them kind of men who thinks a woman don't need to know the color of cash. When he married his wife you'd think he'd bought her by the pound. She's his. He gives her what he feels like, and his feelin's are few. What'd you ask me about her just now? Did he strike her? No, he don't strike her, not with his fists, but there ain't a day he don't hurt her some way. It don't do to have too tender feelin's, and there ain't much show for a woman born meek and humble. A man can't stand it. I don't blame him much. Nothin' is so wearin' on you as humbleness. Good gracious, if it ain't strikin' seven o'clock!"
She got up, pushed her chair back and started down the steps. "Excuse me, Mr. John, but if I don't send them children home they'll stay to supper. That they will. I'll be back in a moment."
It was ten minutes before she came, and John Maxwell, who had changed his seat and was now on the upper step of the little porch, rose as she and Miss Cary, followed by the five children, approached, and held out his hand.
"Hello, Peggy! Had a good time? Much obliged to you for inviting me.Sorry I missed the fireworks. Miss Cary's fault. She was an hour late."
Peggy shook hands and also her head. "Miss Mary ain't never late. 'Twas you, I reckon. We've had a grand time. Wash and Jeff drank thirteen glasses of lemonade apiece. I counted. Mineola and me didn't drink but five. We couldn't." She turned to her mother. "You sit down, muther; I'll fix supper. Good-bye, Mr. Maxwell. Good-bye, Miss Mary. That was a beautiful story you told, but I don't believe it. There ain't fairies sure 'nough." And marshalling the boys before her she disappeared in the little hall and closed the door behind her.
Mary Cary put on her hat, wiped her face, and handed John her gloves. "Put them in your pocket; it's too warm to wear them." She turned to the woman beside her and laid her hand on her shoulder. "It's been a fine party, Mrs. McDougal. The children had a lovely time and certainly did behave nicely."
"Lor', Miss Mary, you didn't see 'em. Half was gone when you got here. The hour to come was four, but some come by three. Becky Koontz says she always goes early to a party, 'cause if you don't there's just scraps, and she don't like leavin's. I did all the invitin', and when I thought out who I'd ask I felt downright fashionable. That I did. Ain't a child been here this evenin' that I care shucks for, 'cept two; and they tell me that's the way they do now in high society. You don't ask the folks you like or really want, but the folks what's asked you or you think 'twould sound nice to have. I ain't familiar with high life, but you have to do a heap of things for peace and politics, and Milltown and King Street does pretty much the same things in different ways, I reckon. If there's anybody in this town I ain't got any use for it's Mis' Feckles, but Mr. Feckles is my boy's boss, and if her children hadn't been invited she'd never let up till she got even. Some women is like that. And there was that frisky little Mary Lou Simmons. She's a limb of the law, Mary Lou is, and my hands just itch to spank her. But I had to invite her. Her mother invited Peggy to her party, and her mother's right smart of a devil when she gets mad with you. But I certainly am sorry you've got to go. It takes me back to old times to see you, Mr. John. And what a shakin' up there's been since you young people lived here ten years ago! Funny you ain't either one married. I don't blame you. There's a heap to be said both ways, and times when you'd wish you hadn't, no matter which one you went. Good-bye. I certainly have enjoyed hearin' of you talk. Come again. Good-bye." And as long as they could be seen Mrs. McDougal's arm was waving up and down at the backs of the unthinking couple, who forget to turn and wave in reply.