Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings Part 6

Evangeline's Tract Man stood in the doorway, soft felt hat in hand, twinkles in his eyes. Evangeline's Tract Man was the Reformed Doctor! If Miss Theodosia had been eighteen instead of thirty-six she would not have blushed more beautifully, but she continued to patch. She was caught in the act; no help for it now. But she would finish--that--patch.

"So it's you! So that's the work Reformed Doctors do!"

"Madam, yes. When stories appeal to them more than pills and tonics, they reform and write stories. They have to!" he cried, suddenly in earnest, "When one is life, and the other death--"

"Oh, if it was death to them--your patients," she murmured. Then, ashamed of her own flippancy: "Of course, I didn't mean anything as silly as that! I meant--I meant, please sit down while I finish this patch. There, in that easy-chair. There are magazines on the table."

There was one magazine with his own name in the list of contents. He opened it at that page and gazed down upon it quite soberly.

"My name is John Bradford," he said, as if reading. Miss Theodosia started a little, but it was not as he thought, in his innocent vanity.

Miss Theodosia got no farther than the first part of the name--so he was a John! She glanced quickly at the doorway, measuring him in her mind as he had stood against the lintel. He had reached a long way up--a long man. The Shadow Man had been a long shadow. Something told her--

[Ill.u.s.tration: "If you are thinking of putting me anywhere, put me into a story like that."]

"Did you ever carry a child in your arms and lay her on a bed? In the middle of the night? Did you do it last night? Are you the same man?"

"I am the same man I was last night," he answered gravely. "I was John Bradford then, too. Didn't I carry her all right? What was the matter?"

Suddenly he leaned forward in the chair. "Did you kiss her thumbs?" he demanded.

"I kissed her eyes."

They were silent for a little, while Miss Theodosia set small, nervous st.i.tches in John Bradford's shirt, and John Bradford twiddled the edges of the magazine. He stole glances, now and then, at this strange woman with whom he seemed to have come so oddly into contact. He could make a story of her dark hair, straight shoulders, beautiful hands. He could not get a good view of her full face. Bending over a bed, kissing a little sleeper's eyes--he could work her in that way. If he knew her a little better--

"I knew they did it!"

"Did what--who?"

"Women--kissed that way. You have proved it now."

"I'm not women. I'm just one woman, and I never did it in my life before."

"Well, you liked doing it, didn't you? I could put you in, liking it."

The shirt slid to the floor, and Miss Theodosia gave her visitor a full view of her face.

"Are you making 'copy' of me? Because if you are thinking of putting me anywhere, put me into a story like that. I'd like it. I mean, with little children in a bed--and one in a clothes basket! Say I tucked them in--Yes, I liked kissing Stefana's eyes. I should love to have another chance. It's nothing to be ashamed of, is it, to like little children?"

"I like 'em. I always have."

"Well, I always haven't. Only very lately--it's queer. When I came home here and found all those children next door--mercy gracious!"

They both laughed. Laughing together is a great acquaintancer. Miss Thedosia suddenly thought of something and laughed a little more.

"My name is Theodosia Baxter," she said. They rose and shook hands gravely. They were decently introduced. The beautiful shiny bosom of the shirt lay between them like a white mirror and Miss Theodosia caught the man's glance on it.

"Is it anything to be ashamed of--doing up a shirt?" she demanded.

"Not doing it up like that! That's a work of art!"

"A work of heart--I did it for Stefana. I've got quite fond of it now, and shall hate to part with it. It's a friend."

"A bosom friend," he parried. Again they laughed and grew more acquainted. Miss Theodosia made tea in her dainty Sevres cups. The faintest flecks of pink made her face youthful. Miss Theodosia was a good-looking woman always, but, animated, her face was really lovely.

John Bradford was better used to paper women, like paper babies, but his taste recognized flesh-and-blood attractiveness. He had always been a lonely man--until now.

"I'm having a beautiful time," he sighed. "Is it anything to be ashamed of, to have a beautiful time?"

"Or two cups of tea? Please! This is my company tea--warranted good to write stories on!"

"Oh--stories. Are there such things? Did I ever write one? Have I got to write another?"

"It's the twenty-eighth," Miss Theodosia reminded demurely. "But you will need another cup of tea. How long does it take?"

"To drink another cup?"

"To write another story. Tell me about it. Perhaps I could do it. You take a blotter and a pen and plenty of half-sheets of paper--'tracts,'

Evangeline calls them! Then you write 'Good Lord!' That is what Evangeline says you wrote on a tract! She said maybe it was a sermon."

"Oh--Evangeline! And speaking of angels--"

"Mercy gracious! You're here--both o' you! An' somebody's gone an'

spilled a drop of somethin' on that beautiful bosom!"

"A tear-drop, Evangeline, because she wouldn't give it to me."

"Tea drop!" sniffed Evangeline. "Guess I know! After all Stefana's work!

Miss Theodosia, can Elly Precious eat your gra.s.s? He's out there now. He don't really eat it; he just kind of pretends. Mother says Elly Precious ought to be put out to pasture. We haven't got any gra.s.s to speak of, over to our house."

"Don't speak of it! Of course he can eat mine, if you think it is edible. Ask the Reformed Doctor."

"Him a doctor? Mercy gracious--honest? Then he knows if Elly Precious'd ought to eat gra.s.s--not really eat, you know."

"Just graze a little--let him graze." The Reformed Doctor rose to his feet and held out his hand to Miss Theodosia. "I'll go out and see how he does it. It's lucky Evangeline came in, or I might not have known enough to go at all. I've had a beautiful time. I'll put you in with the bedful of kiddies."

"And the clothes basket?"

"And the clothes basket."

"You haven't got your shirt--mercy gracious! I thought that's what you came after," reminded Evangeline.

"Was it?" the Reformed Doctor said. "Give it to me, Evangeline."

"Not naked! Without wrappin' up! I never did see!"

"It's such a good-looking shirt--well, then, wrap it up, wrap it up.

I've got a newspaper in my pocket. Put that round it, Evangeline." He turned again to his hostess. "It will be a good story if I put--the clothes basket--in it. They won't send it back. Good-by."

He was off to inspect Elly Precious' grazing-ground. Evangeline, at the window where she had gone to make sure her darlin' dear was safe, presented to Miss Theodosia a square, bony little back that was curiously like that of a dwarfed old woman.

The trail of innocent Elly Precious was over that stoopy little figure.