Mary Minds Her Business Part 3

"Wasn't there a girl's name which means bitterness?" asked Miss Cordelia, suddenly stopping.

"Yes," said Miss Patty. "That's what 'Mary' means."

The two sisters looked at each other earnestly--looked at each other and nodded.

"We'll call her 'Mary' then," said Miss Cordelia.

And that is how my heroine got her name.

CHAPTER IV

I wish I had time to tell you in the fulness of detail how those two spinsters brought up Mary, but there is so much else to put before you that I dare not dally here. Still, I am going to find time to say that all the love and affection which Miss Cordelia and Miss Patty had ever woven into their fancies were now showered down upon Mary--falling softly and sweetly like petals from two full-blown roses when stirred by a breeze from the south.

When she was a baby, Mary's nose had an upward tilt.

One morning after Miss Cordelia had bathed her (which would have reminded you of a function at the court of the Grand Monarque, with its Towel Holder, Soap Holder, Temperature Taker and all and sundry) she suddenly sent the two maids and the nurse away and, casting dignity to the winds, she lifted Mary in a transport of love which wouldn't be denied any longer, and pretended to bite the end of the poor babe's nose off.

"Oh, I know it's candy," she said, mumbling away and hugging the blessed child. "It's even got powdered sugar on it--"

"That's talc.u.m powder," said Miss Patty, watching with a jealous eye.

"Powdered sugar, yes," persisted Miss Cordelia, mumbling on. "I know. And I know why her nose turns up at the end, too. That naughty Miss Patty washed it with yellow soap one night when I wasn't looking--"

"I never, never did!" protested Miss Patty, all indignation in a moment.

"Washed it with yellow soap, yes," still persisted Miss Cordelia, "and made it shine like a star. And that night, when Mary lay in her bed, the moon looked through the window and saw that little star twinkling there, and the moon said 'Little star! Little star! What are you doing there in Mary's bed? You come up here in the sky and twinkle where you belong!'

And all night long, Mary's little nose tried to get up to the moon, and that's why it turns up at the end--" And then in one grand finale of cannibalistic transport, Miss Cordelia concluded, "Oh, I could eat her up!"

But it was Miss Patty's turn then, because although Cordelia bathed the child, it was the younger sister's part to dress her. So Miss Patty put her arms out with an authority which wouldn't take "No" for an answer, and if you had been in the next room, you would then have heard--

"Oh, where have you been My pretty young thing--?"

Which is a rather active affair, especially where the singer shows how she danced her a dance for the Dauphin of France. By that time you won't be surprised when I tell you that Miss Patty's cheeks had a downright glow on them--and I think her heart had something of the same glow, too, because, seating herself at last to dress our crowing heroine, she beamed over to her sister and said (though somewhat out of breath) "Isn't it nice!"

This, of course, was all strictly private.

In public, Mary was brought up with maidenly deportment. You would never dream, for instance, that she was ever tickled with a turkey feather (which Miss Cordelia kept for the purpose) or that she had ever been atomized all over with Lily of the Valley (which Miss Patty never did again because Ma'm Maynard, the old French nurse, smelled it and told the maids). But always deep down in the child was an indefinable quality which puzzled her two aunts.

As Mary grew older, this quality became clearer.

"I know what it is," said Miss Cordelia one night. "She has a mind of her own. Everything she sees or hears: she tries to reason it out."

I can't tell you why, but Miss Patty looked uneasy.

"Only this morning," continued Miss Cordelia, "I heard Ma'm Maynard telling her that there wasn't a prettier syringa bush anywhere than the one under her bedroom window. Mary turned to her with those eyes of hers--you know the way she does--'Ma'm Maynard,' she said, 'have you seen all the other s'inga bushes in the world?' And only yesterday I said to her, 'Mary, you shouldn't try to whistle. It isn't nice.' She gave me that look--you know--and said, 'Then let us learn to whistle, Aunt T'delia, and help to make it nice.'"

"Imagine you and I saying things like that when we were girls," said Miss Patty, still looking troubled.

"Yes, yes, I know. And yet... I sometimes think that if you and I had been brought up a little differently...."

They were both quiet then for a time, each consulting her memories of hopes long past.

"Just the same," said Miss Patty at last, "there are worse things in the world than being old-fashioned."

In which I think you would have agreed with her, if you could have seen Mary that same evening.

At the time of which I am now writing she was six years old--a rather quiet, solemn child--though she had a smile upon occasions, which was well worth going to see.

For some time back she had heard her aunts speaking of "Poor Josiah!" She had always stood in awe of her father who seemed taller and gaunter than ever. Mary seldom saw him, but she knew that every night after dinner he went to his den and often stayed there (she had heard her aunts say) until long after midnight.

"If he only had some cheerful company," she once heard Aunt Cordelia remark.

"But that's the very thing he seems to shun since poor Martha died,"

sighed Miss Patty, and dropping her voice, never dreaming for a moment that Mary was listening, she added with another sigh, "If there had only been a boy, too!"

All these things Mary turned over in her mind, as few but children can, especially when they have dreamy eyes and often go a long time without saying anything. And on the same night when Aunt Patty had come to the conclusion that there are worse things in the world than being old-fashioned, Mary waited until she knew that dinner was over and then, escaping Ma'm Maynard, she stole downstairs, her heart skipping a beat now and then at the adventure before her. She pa.s.sed through the hall and the library like a determined little ghost and then, gently turning the k.n.o.b, she opened the study door.

Her father was sitting at his desk.

At the sound of the opening door he turned and stared at the apparition which confronted him. Mary had closed the door and stood with her back to it, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her courage for the last stage of her journey.

And in truth it must have taken courage, for there was something in old Josiah's forbidding brow and solitary mien which would have chilled the purpose of any child. It may have been this which suddenly brought the tears to Mary's eyes, or it may have been that her womanly little breast guessed the loneliness in her father's heart. Whatever it was, she unsteadily crossed the room, her sight blurred but her plan as steadfast as ever, and a moment later she was climbing on Josiah's knee, her arms tight around his neck, sobbing as though it would shake her little frame to pieces.

What pa.s.sed between those two, partly in speech but chiefly in silence with their wet cheeks pressed together, I need not tell you; but when Ma'm Maynard came searching for her charge and stood quite open-mouthed in the doorway, Josiah waved her away, his finger on his lip, and later he carried Mary upstairs himself--and went back to his study without a word, though blowing his nose in a key which wasn't without significance.

And nearly every night after that, when dinner was over, Mary made a visit to old Josiah's study downstairs; and one Sat.u.r.day morning when he was leaving for the factory, he heard the front door open and shut behind him and there stood Mary, her little straw bonnet held under her chin with an elastic. In the most matter of fact way she slipped her fingers into his hand. He hesitated, but woman-like she pulled him on. The next minute they were walking down the drive together.

As they pa.s.sed the end of the house, he remembered the words which he had once used to his sisters, "After seven generations you simply can't keep them away. It's bred in the bone."

A thrill ran over him as he looked at the little figure by his side.

"If she had only been a boy!" he breathed.

At the end of the drive he stopped.

"You must go back now, dear."

"No," said Mary and tried to pull him on.

For as long as it might take you to count five, Josiah stood there irresolute, Mary's fingers pulling him one way and the memory of poor Martha's fate pulling him the other.

"And yet," he thought, "she's bound to see it sometime. Perhaps better now--before she understands--than later--"

He lifted her and sat her on his arm.