Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and others Part 36

Her father, coming upstairs, wakened her. She lay smiling in the dark.

What had she been thinking of? Oh, yes! And out came the dream horses and their riders again....

The next day she rode over the same bit of road again, and the day after, and the day after that. The rides were absolutely uneventful, but sweet with dreams.

A week later Sammy teased Mrs. Moore into taking her to the Elks'

concert and dance at the Wheatfield Hall over the post-office. When Mrs. Moore protested at this unheard-of proceeding, the girl used her one unfailing threat: "Then I'll tell father I want another governess!"

Mrs. Moore hated governesses. There had been no governess at the doctor's for two years. She looked uneasy. "You've nothing to wear,"

said she.

"I'll wear my embroidered linen," said Sammy, "and Mary's spangled scarf."

"You oughtn't borrow your sister's things without permission," said Mrs. Moore, half-heartedly.

"Mary's in New York," said Sammy, recklessly. "She's not been home for two years, and she may not be back for two more! She won't care. I'm eighteen, and I've never been to a dance, and I'm GOING--that's all there is about it!"

And she burst into tears, and presently laughed herself out of them, and went to her sister's orderly empty room to see what other treasures besides the spangled scarf Mary had left behind her.

Three months later, on a burning July afternoon, the Wheatfield "Terrors" played a team from the neighboring town of Copadoro.

Wheatfield's population was reputedly nine hundred, and certainly almost that number of onlookers had gathered to watch the game. The free seats were packed with perspiring women in limp summer gowns, and restless, crimson-faced children; and a shouting, vociferous line of men fringed the field. But in the "grand stand," where chairs rented for twenty-five cents, there was still some room.

Three late-comers found seats there when the game was almost over--Sammy's sister Mary, an extremely handsome young woman in a linen gown and wide hat, her brother Tom, a correct young man whose ordinary expression indicated boredom, and their aunt, a magnificent personage in gray silk, with a gray silk parasol. Their arrival caused some little stir.

"Well, for pit--!" exclaimed a stout matron seated immediately in front of them. "If it ain't Mary Peneyre--an' Thomas too! An' Mrs. Bond--for goodness' sake! Well, say, you folks ARE strangers. When 'jew all get here? Sammy never told me you was coming!"

"How d'you do, Mrs. Pidgeon?" said Sammy's aunt, cordially. "No, Samantha didn't know it. We came--ah--rather suddenly. Yes, I've not been in Wheatfield for ten years. We got here on the two o'clock train."

"Going to stay long, Mary?" said Mrs. Pidgeon, sociably.

"Only a few days," said Miss Peneyre, distantly. ("That's the worst of growing up in a place," she said to herself. "Every one calls you 'Mary'!") "We are going to take Samantha back to New York with us," she added.

"Look out you don't find you're a little late," said Mrs. Pidgeon, with great archness. "I'm surprised you ain't asked me if there's any news from Sammy. Whole village talking about it."

The three smiles that met her gaze were not so unconcerned as their wearers fondly hoped. Mrs. Bond ended a tense moment when she exclaimed, "There's Sammy now!" and indicated to the others the last row of seats, where a girl in blue, with a blue parasol, was sitting alone. Mrs. Pidgeon delivered a parting shot. "Sammy might do lots worse than Anthony Gayley," said she, confidentially. "Carpenter or no carpenter, he's an elegant fellow. I thought Lizzie Philliber was ace high, an' then folks talked some of Bootsy White. I guess Bootsy'd like to do some hair-pulling."

"I dare say it's just a boy-and-girl friendship," said Mrs. Bond, lightly, but trembling a little and pressing Mary's foot with her own.

When they were climbing over the wooden seats a moment later, on their way to join Sammy, she added:

"Oh, really, it's insufferable! I'd like to spank that girl!"

"Apparently the whole village is on," contributed Tom, bitterly.

A moment later Sammy saw them; and if her welcome was a little constrained, it was merely because of shyness. She settled down radiantly between her sister and aunt, with a hand for each.

"Well, this is FUN!" said Sammy. "Did you get my letter? Were you surprised? Are you all going to stay until September?"

Her happy fusillade of questions distressed them all. Mary said the unwise thing, trying to laugh, as she had always laughed, at Sammy:

"DON'T talk as if you were going to be married, Sammy! It's too awful--you don't know how aunty and I feel about it! Why, darling, we want you to go back with us to New York! Sammy--"

The firm pressure of her aunt's foot against her own stopped her.

"I knew you would feel that way about it, Mary," said Sammy, very quietly, but with blazing cheeks; "but I am of age, and father says that Anthony has as much right to ask for the girl he loves as any other man, and that's all there is to it!"

"You have it all thought out," said Mary, very white; "but, I must say, I am surprised that a sister of mine, and a granddaughter of Judge Peters--a girl who could have EVERYTHING!--is content to marry an ordinary country carpenter! You won't have grandmother's money until you're twenty-one; there's three years that you will have to cook and sweep and get your hands rough, and probably bring up--"

"Mary! MARY!" said Mrs. Bond.

"Well, I don't care!" said Mary, unreproved. "And when she DOES get grandma's money," she grumbled, "what good will it do her?"

"We won't discuss it, if you please, Mary," said little Sammy, with dignity.

There was a silence. Tom lighted a cigarette. They watched the game, Mary fighting tears, Sammy defiant and breathing hard, Mrs. Bond with absent eyes.

"Stunning fellow who made that run!" said the elder woman presently.

"Who is he, dear?"

"That's Anthony!" said Sammy, shortly, not to be won.

"Anthony!" Mrs. Bond's tone was all affectionate interest. She put up her lorgnette. "Well, bless his heart! Isn't he good to look at!" she said.

"He's all hot and dirty now," Sammy said, relenting a little.

"He's MAGNIFICENT," said Mrs. Bond, firmly. She cut Mary off from their conversation with a broad shoulder, and pressed Sammy's hand. "We'll all love him, I'm sure," said she, warmly.

Sammy's lip trembled.

"You WILL, Aunt Anne," said she, a little huskily. Pent up confidence came with a rush. "I know perfectly well how Mary feels!" said Sammy, eagerly. "Why, didn't you yourself feel a little sorry he's a carpenter?"

"Just for a moment," said Aunt Anne.

"I wish MYSELF he wasn't," Sammy pursued; "but he likes it, and he's making money, and he's liked by EVERY one. He's on the team, you know, and sings in all the concerts. Wild horses couldn't drag him away from Wheatfield. And why should he go away and study some profession he hates," she rushed on resentfully, "when I'm PERFECTLY satisfied with him as he is? Father asked him if he wouldn't like to study a profession--I don't see why he SHOULD!"

"Surely," said Mrs. Bond, sympathetically, but quite at a loss. After a thoughtful moment she added seriously: "But, darling, what about your trousseau? Why not make it November, say, and take a flying trip to New York with your old aunty? I want the first bride to have all sorts of pretty things, you know. No delays,--everything ready-made, not a moment lost--?"

Sammy hesitated. "You do like him, don't you, Aunt Anne?" she burst out.

"My dear, I HOPE I'm going to love him!"

"Do--do you mind my talking it over with him before I say I'll go?"

Sammy's eyes shone.

"My darling, no! Take a week to think it over!" Mrs. Bond had never tried fishing, but she had some of the instincts of the complete angler.

A mad burst of applause interrupted her, and ended the game. Strolling from the field in the level, pitiless sunshine, the Peneyres were joined by young Gayley. He was quite the hero of the hour, stalwart in his base-ball suit, nodding and shouting greetings in every direction.

He transferred a bat to his left hand to give Mrs. Bond a cheerfully a.s.sured greeting, and, with the freedom of long-gone days when he had played in the back lot with the Peneyre children, he addressed the young people as "Mary" and "Tom." If three of the party thought him decidedly "fresh," Sammy had no such criticism. She evidently adored her lover.

It was at her suggestion, civilly indorsed by the others, that he came to the house a few hours later for dinner. It was a painful meal. Mr.

Gayley did not hesitate to monopolize the conversation. He was accustomed to admiration--too completely accustomed, in fact, to perceive that on this occasion it was wanting.