Mary Minds Her Business Part 5

Presently her patience was rewarded.

"Squee-e-eak! Squee-e-eak!" complained a lathe which they were pa.s.sing.

Mary stopped her father and looked her very old-fashionedest at the lathe hand.

"Needs oil," said she, "gen'ly speaking."

It was one of the proud moments in Josiah's life, and yet when back of him he heard a whisper, "Chip of the old block," he couldn't repress the well nigh pa.s.sionate yearning, "Oh, Lord, if she had only been a boy!"

That year an addition was being made to the factory and Mary liked to watch the builders. She often noticed a boy and a dog sitting under the trees and watching, too.

Once they smiled at each other, the boy blushing like a sunset. After that they sometimes spoke while Josiah was talking to the foreman. His name, she learned, was Archey Forbes, his father was the foreman, and when he grew up he was going to be a builder, too. But no matter how often they saw each other, Archey always blushed to the eyes whenever Mary smiled at him.

Occasionally a man would be hurt at the factory. Whenever this happened, Aunt Patty paid a weekly call to the injured man until he was well--an old Spencer custom that had never died out.

Mary generally accompanied her aunts on these visits--which was a part of the family training--and in this way she saw the inside of many a home.

"I wouldn't mind being a poor man," she said one Sat.u.r.day morning, breaking a long silence, "but I wouldn't be a poor woman for anything."

"Why not?" asked Miss Cordelia.

She couldn't tell them why but for the last half hour she had been comparing the lives of the men in the factory with the lives of their wives at home.

"A man can work in the factory," she tried to tell them, "and everything is made nice for him. But his wife at home-now--n.o.body cares--n.o.body cares what happens to her--"

"I never saw such a child," said Miss Cordelia, watching her start with her father down the hill a few minutes later. "And the worst of it is, I think we are partly to blame for it."

"Cordelia!" said Miss Patty. "How?"

"I mean in keeping her surrounded so completely with old people. When everything is said and done, dear, it isn't natural."

"But we would miss her so much if we sent her to school--"

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of sending her to school--"

Miss Patty was quiet for a time.

"If we could find some one of her own age," she said at last, "whom she could play with, and talk with--some one who would lead her thoughts into more natural channels--"

This question of companionship for Mary puzzled the two Miss Spencers for nearly a year, and then it was settled, as so many things are, in an unexpected manner.

In looking up the genealogy of the Spicer family, Miss Patty discovered that a distant relative in Charleston had just died, leaving a daughter behind him--an orphan--who was a year older than Mary. Correspondence finally led Miss Patty to make the journey, and when she returned she brought with her a dark-eyed girl who might have been the very spirit of youthful romance.

"My dear," said Miss Patty, "this is your cousin Helen. She is going to make us a long visit, and I hope you will love each other very much."

The two cousins studied each other. Then in her shy way Mary held out her hand.

"Oh, I love you already!" said Helen impulsively, and hugged her instead.

That evening they exchanged confidences and when Miss Cordelia heard about this, she questioned Mary and enjoyed herself immensely.

"And then what did she ask you?" finally inquired Miss Cordelia, making an effort to keep her face straight.

"She asked me if I had a beau, and I told her 'No.'"

"And then what did she say?"

"She asked me if there was anything the matter with the boys around here, and I told her I didn't know."

"And then?"

"And then she said, 'I'll bet you I'll soon find out.' But just then Aunt Patty came in and we had to stop."

Later Miss Patty came downstairs looking thoughtful and spoke to her sister in troubled secret.

"I've just been in Helen's room," she said, "and what do you think she has on her dresser?"

"I give it up," replied Miss Cordelia in a very rich, voice.

"Three photographs of young men!"

The two sisters gazed at each other, quite overcome, and if you had been there you would have seen that if they had held fans in their hands, they would have fanned themselves with vigour.

"Didn't you hear anything of this--in Charleston?" asked Miss Cordelia at last.

"Not a word, my dear. I heard she was very popular; that was all."

"'Popular'...!"

"The one thing, perhaps, that we have never been."

Miss Cordelia shook her head and made a helpless gesture. "Well," she said at last, "I must confess we were looking for an antidote ... but I never thought we'd be quite so successful...."

CHAPTER VI

A few weeks after her arrival, Helen and Mary were walking to the post-office. Helen had a number of letters to mail, her correspondents being active and her answers prompt.

They hadn't gone far when a young man appeared in the distance, approaching them. Mary gave him a look to see who it was, and after saying to Helen, "This is Bob McAllister--one of our neighbours. He's home from school," she continued the conversation and failed to give Sir Robert another thought.

Not so Helen, however.

One hand went to the back of her hair with a graceful gesture, and next she touched her nose with a powdered handkerchief.

A moment before, she had been looking straight ahead with a rather thoughtful expression, but now she half turned to Mary, smiling and nodding. In some manner her carriage, even her walk, underwent a change.

But when I try to tell you what I mean I feel as tongue-tied as a boy who is searching for a word which doesn't exist. As nearly as I can express it, she seemed to "wiggle" a little, although that isn't the word. She seemed to hang out a sign "Oh, look--look at me!"--and that doesn't quite describe it, either.