Mary Rose of Mifflin Part 16

Isn't it lonely for you all by yourself? I was going to ask Aunt Kate to make you some beef tea but perhaps you'd rather have Jenny Lind stay with you. She's splendid company and I'd be glad to loan her to you."

She crossed the room to put the cage down beside Mr. Wells. Jenny Lind began to sing immediately as if to show Mr. Wells what splendid company she could be.

Mr. Wells raised himself on his elbow and shook a threatening fist at the canary.

"Take that d.a.m.n bird away!" he shouted. His face was red and Mary Rose was sure she could see flames darting from his eyes.

"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" She s.n.a.t.c.hed Jenny Lind at once. "I s-suppose she is too noisy for you yet. Mrs. Mason didn't like her when she had the nerves. But you shouldn't be alone. It's bad for you. I'm sure you need friendly company. Oh, I know the very thing!" And before the astonished and indignant invalid could say a word she had dashed out of the room.

He could hear her stumble in the hall but he did not hear her exclaim hurriedly when a door across the way opened: "Oh, Mrs. Rawson, will you take Jenny Lind for a minute? I'll be right back for her." She pushed the hook of the cage into the hands of the startled Mrs. Rawson and flew down the stairs.

She was back in an incredibly short time with a small gla.s.s globe that she carried very carefully. Her face shone as she tiptoed in and placed it on the table beside the invalid.

"There!" she said proudly. "There! The perfect pets for the sickroom.

When you said Jenny Lind was too disturbing I remembered that Mr.

Jerry's Aunt Mary had these two little goldfish. Wasn't it lucky? She was glad to loan them to you and hopes you'll find them pleasant friends. They won't be any care at all. I'll come up every day and feed them if you don't feel well enough. I'd like to. Aren't they beautiful? Do you suppose all the fish in Heaven are like that, all gold and glisteny? Won't you just love to watch them? They can't sing or make any noise to annoy you. They'll be splendid company."

"G.o.d bless my soul!" murmured Mr. Wells helplessly, when he could find breath to murmur anything. He stared at her as if he really had never seen her before.

An exclamation, like the pop of a gun, made them look at the doorway where Sako was staring at them as if he could not believe his eyes.

"Sako!" shouted Mr. Wells, angrily. "Why did you leave the door open when you went out?"

"Wasn't it lucky he did?" asked Mary Rose, standing before him and rocking on her heels and toes as she often did when she was pleased.

"I might never have come in, if he hadn't. If there's anything I can do for you, Mr. Wells, any time, don't you hesitate to ask me. Just send the j.a.panese gentleman right down. I live in the cellar, I mean the bas.e.m.e.nt, with Aunt Kate and Uncle Larry and we'll all be only too glad to do anything to help you get well. It's horrid to be sick. You look better, I think," critically, and indeed he was not at all pale how. He had so much color in his face that he was almost purple. "I must go now and get Jenny Lind. I left her with Mrs. Rawson. I expect she thought I was crazy," with a giggle as she remembered Mrs. Rawson's amazed face.

"I'll bet she did!" Mr. Wells stared after her as if he, too, thought Mary Rose was crazy. She turned in the doorway to wave her hand to him and he watched her out of sight. Then he looked at the goldfish. He had half a mind to tell Sako to throw them out. What did he want with a couple of d.a.m.ned goldfish? The child was a nuisance, an unmitigated nuisance. Children always were. That was why he lived in the Washington where they were forbidden. He would have to ask the agents what they meant by letting the place be overrun with children when there was a clause in every lease forbidding it. Mary Rose might be a friendly little soul, she might mean well, but she was an unmitigated nuisance. The Lord only knew what she would do next if she remained in the building. And she had dared to talk back to him in front of people. No, he would see that the lease was lived up to. It was his right. If he demanded protection against Mary Rose, an impudent interfering chit, he fumed, the agents would have to protect him.

"Sako!" he called sharply. "Take these d.a.m.ned goldfish down to the Donovans. And tell Donovan to keep his niece at home. I won't have her here!"

CHAPTER XIV

Through Bob Strahan, Jimmie obtained a paper route. Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary insisted that was work enough for him at present.

"A growing boy has to have plenty of time to eat and sleep," she said, "and no one is using that attic bedroom."

"You can earn your board taking care of the lawn and lending a hand with the car. The paper route 'll stand you in for clothes and spending money," suggested Mr. Jerry. "Might as well take it easy while you can."

"He's a prince, that's what he is!" Jimmie told Mary Rose somewhat chokingly, when she came over to see how George Washington and Solomon and Jimmie were doing. "I never knew such a man."

"Didn't you?" Mary Rose was surprised. "Mr. Jerry is splendid but there are lots and lots of splendid people in the world, Jimmie Bronson."

"Oh, are there!" snorted Jimmie. "Well, I haven't seen so many of them, and that's straight. Judging from what I saw and heard that first day I was in Waloo, you've run across at least one of the other sort, too."

Mary Rose blushed. Her inability to make friends with Mr. Wells annoyed her. "He's got dyspepsia," she said, as if that were an excuse. "To tell you the truth, Jimmie Bronson, when I first came here I nearly died. I had an awful time remembering that daddy said when there were so many people in the world there were friends for everybody. The people were so different and it was so funny to have them live up and down instead of side by side. At first I thought I'd never get used to it but I did. And I have lots of friends here now.

But Waloo isn't Mifflin." And she sighed because it wasn't.

"Mifflin!" jeered Jimmie. "Mifflin! You can be mighty good and glad it isn't. I don't know where you got your idea of Mifflin, Mary Rose, for it's about the deadest one-horse town I ever ran across. And the people. Huh! A collection of boneheads."

"Why, Jimmie Bronson!" gasped Mary Rose. "Mifflin's the friendliest town--"

"Friendly!" Jimmie elevated his nose at the word. "Prying, interfering, gossiping! That's what it is. I guess I know. You're all wrong, Mary Rose, all wrong. If you should go back you'd see.

You're nothing but a kid. You don't know. But take it from me you've got entirely the wrong idea of your native town. If Mifflin was what you think it was do you imagine Solomon and I would have left? No, siree! We'd have stayed and been part of the happy crowd. But it isn't. Honest! It's dead and narrow and one-horse and the people are boneheads."

Mary Rose could not believe it. She stared at him and her lip quivered.

"Jimmie," she said at last and her voice was very low and shaky, "is that what you want me to think of Mifflin? It's always been a wonderful place to me. You see I was born there and no other city, no matter how grand it is, can be my birthplace. It doesn't seem as if I could be all wrong about it. And the people! Daddy always said people's hearts were friendly and in Mifflin their faces were friendly, too. Yes, they were, Jimmie Bronson, when I lived there. Perhaps they have changed. It's a long time since I left."

Jimmie gave a whoop. "Long time! It isn't two months. And it would take more than sixty days to put that sour look on old Mr. Mallow's face. He nearly ate me up alive when I asked for a job after Aunt Nora died. No, Mary Rose, you're wrong, all wrong, about Mifflin. There isn't any place in this whole world that's like what you think that old burg is."

"Isn't there, Jimmie?" Mary Rose was very troubled. "Is that what I'm really to believe?"

There was a quiver in her voice that made James Bronson turn and look at her. He flushed all over his freckled face, to the very roots of his red hair. He even put out his tanned hand and patted Mary Rose's arm. "No, Mary Rose," he said slowly. "I guess you're right. You're always looking for friends and so you'll find them. You keep on being a silly simp and thinking of Mifflin as the new Jerusalem and perhaps it'll grow into one."

"It would if everyone thought it would," Mary Rose insisted and the troubled look slipped away from her face. "If people feel friendly they'll find friends."

"And she believes it," Jimmie told Mr. Jerry when they were cleaning the car together that evening. "Gosh, aren't girl kids queer! I couldn't tell her the truth but I guess I know Mifflin better than she does."

"I'm glad you didn't tell her the truth, Jim." Mr. Jerry lighted his pipe and gave Jimmie the hose. "She'll learn soon enough."

"Of course she will," agreed Jimmie. "She's just got to find out that folks aren't going up and down the streets holding out the glad hand.

That's what I say, Mr. Jerry, if people feel so friendly inside why don't they show it outside? Gee whiz!" he stopped to squeeze the water out of the big sponge. "Wouldn't it be a great old world if they did, if folks were what Mary Rose thinks they are?"

"It would. And as every little bit added to what there is makes a little bit more you could help the good time along by feeling a bit more friendly to the world yourself, James," advised Mr. Jerry, stepping off to look at the car. "Mary Rose is right when she says that smiles are just as catching as frowns. Take it from me that it never makes a bad thing any worse by thinking that it is better than it is."

Jimmie Bronson's opinion of Mifflin bothered Mary Rose and she discussed it with everyone. It was not until they had all agreed with her that people and places are what you think they are that she felt comfortable again.

"I knew I was right all the time," she told Aunt Kate.

"If folks were really what she thinks they are, what a snap we'd have,"

Aunt Kate said to Uncle Larry, after Mary Rose had gone to bed. "To be honest I'll have to admit that the atmosphere's a mite pleasanter here but whether that's because of Mary Rose or because I haven't seen quite so much of the tenants--I never do in summer--I can't say. Seems if she does have the faculty of bringing out the kind side of folks. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I never would have believed that Mrs.

Rawson would have loaned her machine to Mrs. Matchan or that Mrs.

Matchan would condescend to borrow it. Land, the rows they've had over that machine and that piano! Perhaps there is somethin' in thinkin'

folks are friendly. What do you say, Larry?"

"What's thinkin' done for old Wells?" asked Uncle Larry. "He's worse'n ever. Take my word for it, Kate, he'll make trouble for us. You might as well begin to pack."

CHAPTER XV

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."