Mary Ware's Promised Land Part 3

"Pink asked me to bring it," said Norman with a grin. "He's to send a boy up for an answer at three o'clock. What do you suppose 'K. O. B.'

stands for?"

Mary puzzled over it, shaking her head, then broke the large purple seal.

"Oh, it must mean 'kindness of bearer,' for he begins the note that way. 'By kindness of bearer I am venturing to send this little missive to know if it will be convenient for you to give me the pleasure of your company this evening. A messenger will call for your answer at three P.

M. Trusting that it will accord with my desires, I am yours in friendship's bonds, P. Pinckney Upham.'"

Norman exploded with a loud "whoopee!" of laughter and Mary sniffed again at the strong odor of rose geranium and handed the note to her mother, who had come to the door to see the cause of Norman's mirth.

"The silly boy," exclaimed Mary. "I told him yesterday, when he said that he hoped to call, that we'd all be glad to see him any evening he wanted to drop in. The idea of such formality in a mining camp. And such paper! And such flourishes of purple ink, to say nothing of the strong perfume! Mamma, I don't want him coming to see me."

Mrs. Ware handed the note back with a smile at Mary's disgusted expression. "Don't judge the poor boy too severely. He evidently tried his best to do the proper thing, and probably thinks he has achieved it."

"Yes, Uncle Jerry," added Norman. "Here's your chance. Here's your tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune!

Just cultivate Pink's acquaintance and you'll get enough out of him every week to fill your columns."

Mary ignored his teasing, turning again to her mother to say: "I don't want to answer his note. What did he write for, anyway? Why didn't he just come, as I told him he could?"

"That's the way Sara Downs' beau does," explained Norman. "He always makes an engagement so that she'll be sure to have the best room lighted up and Billy out of the way. He's too bashful to talk to the whole family. They usually go out to the kitchen when he comes, because their house is so small."

"Well, this family won't," declared Mary. "He's no 'beau,' anyway.

You'll all have to help entertain him."

She had not answered the note when Jack came home at noon, and she pa.s.sed it to him without comment. He smiled a little over her evident disgust, and repeated in substance what Mrs. Ware had said, that she must not judge him too severely for his lack of social polish.

"He's a diamond in the rough, Mary," he a.s.sured her gravely, but with a twinkle in his eyes. "He may be one of the leading citizens of the state twenty years from now, and even if he isn't, he's one of the few young fellows of the settlement, and a decent one at that, and you can't afford to snub him because he is green."

"Green Pink is a new kind of color," teased Norman. "Say, Mary, are you going to put a 'K. O. B.' on your answer?"

Mary ignored his question. It irritated her to be teased about Pink as much as it used to annoy her to be teased about the half-witted Peter Finn.

When, in answer to her note, P. Pinckney Upham called that evening, he did not find her sitting up alone in state to receive him. He was ushered in to the cheerful living-room, where the entire family was gathered around the lamp, putting a new dissected puzzle together.

Before he knew how it came about his bashfulness had vanished and he was a part of that circle. When the puzzle was completed Mary brought out a chafing-dish and a bowl of nuts, which she commanded him to "pick out"

while Jack cracked them. She was going to try a new kind of candy.

Later, when he disclosed the fact that he could play a little on the guitar, Norman brought out his mother's, bidding him "tune up and plunk away."

Now if there was one thing Pink was fond of it was sweets, and if there was one thing he was proud of it was his tenor voice, and presently he began to feel that he was having the time of his life. They were all singing with him, and stopping at intervals to pa.s.s the candy and tell funny stories. He was a good mimic and had a keen sense of humor, and he was elated with the consciousness that he had an appreciative audience.

In spite of her certainty that the evening would be a bore, Mary found herself really enjoying it, until she realized that Pink was having such a good time that he didn't want to leave. Later she concluded that he wanted to go but didn't know how to tear himself away gracefully.

"Well, I guess I'd better be going," he said when the clock struck ten.

It struck eleven when he said it the second time, and it was quarter past when he finally pulled himself out of his chair and looked around for his hat. They all rose, and Jack brought it. With that in hand, he still lingered, talking at random in a way that showed his evident inability to take his leave.

Finally Mrs. Ware put out her hand, saying, "We've enjoyed having you with us so much, this evening, Pinckney. You must come often."

Jack echoed the invitation with a handshake, and Mary added gaily, "And after this, whatever you do, don't write first to announce your coming.

We're used to the boys just dropping in informally. We like it so much better that way."

Pink stopped to reply to that, hesitated with his hand on the k.n.o.b, and leaning against the door, made some remark about the weather. It was evident that he was fixed to stay until the clock struck again.

Mary reached up to the match-safe hanging near the door and handed him a match. "I wish you'd scratch this as you go out, and see how the thermometer stands. It's hanging on the post just at the right hand of the porch steps. Call back what it registers, please. Thirty-six? Oh, thank you! I'm sure there'll be frost before morning. Good night."

She closed the door and came back into the room, pretending to swoon against Jack, who shook her, exclaiming laughingly, "I think that was a frost, right now."

Just then, Norman, who had disappeared an hour earlier, cautiously opened the door of his bedroom a crack. He was clad in his pajamas.

Seeing that the coast was clear he thrust out a dishevelled head and recited dramatically:

"'Parting is such sweet sorrow I fain would say goodnight until it be to-morrow.'"

Mary blinked at him sleepily, saying with a yawn, "Let this be a lesson to you, son. You can take this from your Uncle Jerry, that there is no social grace more to be desired than the ability to make a nimble and graceful exit when the proper time comes."

As she turned out her light, later, she said to herself, "I'm glad I don't have to look forward to a whole lifetime in Lone-Rock. One such evening is pleasant enough, but a whole winter of them would be dreadful." Then she went to sleep and dreamed that her little fleet of boats had all come home from sea, each one so heavily laden with treasure that she did not know which cargo to draw in first.

CHAPTER III

A NEW FRIEND

Although some of the applications which Mary sent out did not have as far to travel as the first one, she did not count on hearing from any of them within two weeks. However, it was to no fortnight of patient waiting that she settled down. She threw herself into such an orgy of preparations for leaving home, that the days flew around like the wheels of a squirrel cage.

She could not afford any new clothes, but everything in her wardrobe was rejuvenated as far as possible, and a number of things entirely remodelled. One by one they were folded away in her trunk until everything was so shipshape that she could have finished packing at an hour's notice. Then she insisted on giving some freshening touches to her mother's winter outfit, and on beginning a set of shirts for Norman, saying that she wanted to finish all the work she possibly could before leaving home.

Mrs. Ware used to wonder sometimes at her boundless energy. She would whirl through the housework, help prepare the meals, do a morning's ironing, run the sewing machine all afternoon, and then often, after supper, challenge Norman to some such thing as a bonfire race, to see which could rake up the greatest pile of autumn leaves in the yard, by moonlight.

These days of waiting were filled with a queer sense of expectancy, as the air is sometimes charged with electric currents before a storm. No matter what she did or what she thought about, it was always with the sense of something exciting about to happen. The feeling exhilarated her, deepened the glow in her face, the happy eagerness in her eyes, until every one around her felt the contagion of her high hopefulness.

"I don't know what it is you're always looking so pleased over," the old postmaster said to her one day, "but every time after you've been in here, I catch myself smiling away as broadly as if I'd heard some good news myself."

"Maybe," answered Mary, "it's because I feel all the time as if I'm just _going_ to hear some. It's so interesting wondering what turn things will take. It's like waiting for the curtain to go up on a new play that you've never heard of before. My curtain may go up in any part of the United States. It all depends on which letter it is that brings me a position."

"I should think you'd be a leetle mite anxious," said the Captain, who was in somewhat of a pessimistic mood that day. "They can't all be equally good. You remember what the old hymn says:

"'Should I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease Whilst others fought to win the prize, and sailed through b.l.o.o.d.y seas.'"

"Oh, I'm not expecting any flowery beds of ease," retorted Mary. "I don't mind hard work and all sorts of disagreeable things if they'll only prove to be stepping-stones to carry me through my Red Sea. I don't even ask to go over dry-shod as the Children of the Exodus did. All I want is a chance to wade."

"That's right! That's right!" exclaimed the Captain admiringly. "That's the proper spirit to show. It's a pity, though, that you can't do your wading somewhere around Lone-Rock. We'll miss you dreadfully. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, either. From all I hear there's somebody up the street who would almost rob the mails if doing so would keep you from getting a letter calling you away."

From the twinkle of the eyes which peered at her through the steel-bowed gla.s.ses, Mary knew that he was referring to Pink Upham, but before she could reply the mail carrier dashed up on horseback from the railroad station, with the big leather pouch swung across the horse in front of him. It was the signal for every one along the street, who had seen him, to come sauntering into the office to wait for the distribution of the mail. Mary climbed up on the high stool again. She had started out from home, intending to take a tramp far up the mountain road, but stopping in the office to post a letter had stayed on talking longer than she intended.

Pink Upham was one of the first to come in. He had been at the house several times since his first call, and while some of his mannerisms annoyed Mary even more than they had at first, she liked him better as their acquaintance progressed. She could not help being pleased at the attention he gave her slightest remarks. No girl can be wholly oblivious to the compliment of having every word remembered, every preference noted. Once, when they were looking at some soap advertis.e.m.e.nts, in a most careless off-hand way she had expressed her dislike for strong perfumes. Since then the odor of rose geranium was no longer noticeable in his wake. Once she announced her admiration of a certain kind of scarlet berry which grew a long distance up the mountain. The next day there was a bunch of them left at her door. Pink had taken a tramp before breakfast to get them for her.

There was a family discussion one night about celluloid. n.o.body could answer one of Mary's questions in connection with it about camphor gum, and she forgot it almost as soon as it was asked, although she had a.s.sumed an air of intense curiosity at the time. But Pink remembered. He thought about it, in fact, as one of his chief duties in life to find its answer, until he had time to consult Mr. Moredock's encyclopaedia.

At his last visit to the Wares he had seen a kodak picture of Mary, taken at the Wigwam years before. She was mounted on the Indian pony Washington. She wore short dresses then. Her wide-brimmed Mexican sombrero was on the back of her head, and she was laughing so heartily that one could not look at the picture without feeling the contagion of her enjoyment. There was nothing she liked better than horseback riding, she remarked as she laid the picture aside, but she had not tried it since she was a child. That was one thing she was looking forward to in her promised land, she told him, to owning a beautiful thoroughbred saddle-horse, like Lloyd Sherman's.

Then Pink was shown "The Little Colonel's Corner," for the collection of Lloydsboro Valley pictures were grouped in panels on one wall of the Lone-Rock home as they had been at the Wigwam. First there was Lloyd in her little Napoleon hat, riding on Tarbaby down the long locust avenue, and then Lloyd on the horse that later took the place of the black pony.