Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley Part 24

"I guess you couldn't stand for it."

"Stand for what, Amarilly?"

"Why, you see, I am not ashamed of it, but it's so diff'rent from what you're used to, and you wouldn't like it, and I'd feel uncomfortable like with you there." "Why, Amarilly!" A really pained look came into his boyish eyes. "I thought we were friends. And you let Miss King and your minister come--"

"But you see," argued Amarilly, "it's diff'rent with them. A minister has to go everywhere, and he's used to seeing all kinds of houses; and then Miss King, she's a sort of a--settlement worker."

"I see," said Derry. "But, Amarilly, to be a true artist, or a writer, one must see all sorts and conditions of life. But I am not coming for that. I am coming because I like you and want to meet your family."

"Well," agreed Amarilly, resigned, but playing her last trump, "you haven't had your dinner yet."

"We had a very late luncheon, if you remember, and I am invited to a supper after the theatre to-night, so I am not dining."

Amarilly did not respond to his light flow of chatter on the way home.

She halted on the threshold of her home, and looked at him with despair in her honest young eyes.

"Our house hasn't got any insides or any stairs even. Just a ladder."

"Good! I knew you wouldn't--that you couldn't have a house like anyone's else. It sounds interesting and artistic. Open your door to me, Amarilly."

Slowly she opened the door, and drew a sigh of relief. The big room was "tidied" ("redded" having been censored by Derry some time ago) and a very peaceful, homelike atmosphere prevailed. The Boarder, being an amateur carpenter, had made a very long table about which were grouped the entire family. Her mother was darning socks; the Boarder, reading the paper preliminary to his evening call on Lily Rose; the boys, busy with books and games; Cory, rocking her doll to sleep.

Their entrance made quite a little commotion. There was a scattering of boys from the table until Derry called "Halt" in stentorian tones. "If there's any gap in the circle, I shall go."

Then he joined the group, and described to the boys a prize-fight so graphically that their eyes fastened on him with the gaze of one witnessing the event itself. He praised Amarilly to the mother, gave Cory a "tin penny" which she at once recognized as a silver quarter, and talked politics so eloquently with the Boarder that for once he was loath to leave when the hour of seven-thirty arrived.

"You've gotter go now," reminded Cory sternly. "You see," turning to Derry. "he's gotter go and spend his ev'nin' with Lily Rose. She's his gal."

"Oh! Well, why not bring her here to spend the evening?" suggested Derry. "Then you'll have an excuse for two nice walks and an evening thrown in."

"That's a fine, idee!" acknowledged the Boarder with a sheepish grin.

He at once set out on his quest accompanied by Bobby, whom Derry had dispatched to the corner grocery for a supply of candy and peanuts.

The Boarder and Lily Rose came in laden with refreshments. The Boarder bore a jug of cider "right on the turn," he declared, "so it stings your throat agoin' down."

Lily Rose had brought a bag of sugared doughnuts which she had made that afternoon (a half holiday) in her landlady's kitchen.

When Mrs. Jenkins learned from Amarilly that Derry and she had had nothing to eat since half past one, she brought forth a pan of beans and a pumpkin pie, and they had a genuine New England supper. The Boarder recited thrilling tales of railroad wrecks. Derry listened to a solo by Bud, whose wild-honeyed voice was entrancing to the young artist.

Altogether they were a jolly little party, Lily Rose saying little, but looking and listening with animated eyes. Mrs. Jenkins declared afterwards that it was the time of her life.

"Amarilly," said Derry, as he was taking leave, "I wouldn't have missed this evening for any other engagement I might have made."

"That's because it was something new to you," said Amarilly sagely. "You wouldn't like it for keeps."

CHAPTER XIX

When Cory secured a place as dish-wiper at a new boarding-house near, and Gus realized that he and Iry alone were dependent upon the others for their keep, shame seared his young soul. He had vainly tried to secure steady employment, but had succeeded only in getting occasional odd jobs. He had a distinct leaning towards an agricultural life and coveted the care of cows.

"The grocer has sold his'n," he lugubriously lamented; "thar ain't no one else as wants a caretaker for their critters around here."

After a long rumination on the discouraging problem of his future, he sought his confessor, the corner grocer.

"I'm too big to peddle papers or be runnin' about with telergrafs," he declared. "I'd orter be goin' into business on my own account. I ain't goin' ter be allers workin' fer other folks."

"Well, you'll have to wait a while before you can work for yourself,"

counselled his confidant. "You are young yet."

"This is a hurry-up age," was the sagacious a.s.sertion, "and ef you air agoin' to git any-whar, you've got ter go by wire instead of by mail, and you can't start too soon."

"You can't start nothing without capital," argued the grocer conservatively.

"Oh," admitted the young financier, "a little capital mebby. I've got a dollar I've saved up from odd jobs."

"What line was you thinking of taking up?"

"I'm going into the dairy business. Thar's money in milk and b.u.t.ter, and it's nice, clean work."

"The dairy business on one dollar! How many cows and wagons and horses was you figuring on buying with your dollar?"

"Don't git funny," warned Gus impatiently. "Some day I'll hev a farm of my own and a city office, but I'll begin on one cow in our back lot and peddle milk to the neighbors."

"That wouldn't be a bad beginning, but I reckon you'll find the start will cost you more than a dollar. You can't get a cow at that figure."

"Then I'll start with a calf."

"Well, I guess calves cost more than a dollar."

"Say, you've got that dollar on the brain, I guess," retorted the lad with the easy familiarity that betokened long acquaintance with the lounging barrels and boxes of the corner grocery. "I bet it'll build a shed in our back yard. Thar's the lumber out of our shed that blowed down, and the Boarder can build purty near anything."

"But how are you going to buy a cow?" persisted his inquisitor.

"I ain't got that fer yet," admitted the young dairyman.

"Your dollar'll buy more than the nails for your cow-house. You can put the balance into feed," said the grocer, with an eye to his own trade.

He wanted to add that it wouldn't cost much to feed an imaginary critter, but he was a little fearful of the temper back of the lad's hair, which was the same hue as Amarilly's.

"That's a good idea. Well, the shed starts to-morrow, and of course you won't say nothin' about it."

"Trust me for not talking in this neighborhood. It ain't safe even to think. First you know your thoughts are being megaphoned down the street."

Gus consulted the Boarder who instantly and obligingly began the erection of a building in the farthest corner of the Jenkins's domain.

This structure was a source of mystery and excitement to the neighbors.

"What on airth do you suppose them Jenkinses air aputtin' up now? Mebby it's a wash-house for the surpluses," speculated Mrs. Huce.