The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Turn of the Tide, by Eleanor H. Porter,
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Title: The Turn of the Tide
The Story of How Margaret Solved Her Problem
Author: Eleanor H. Porter
Release Date: June 12, 2011 [eBook #36401]
Language: English
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[Illustration: "MRS. KENDALL PLACED IN HER HANDS A GREAT RED ROSE."]
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
The Story of How Margaret Solved Her Problem
by
ELEANOR H. PORTER
Author of
"Pollyanna: The Glad Book,"
Trade Mark Trade Mark
"Cross Currents," "The Story of Marco," Etc.
With Four Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Published by Arrangements with The Page Company
To my husband
whose cordial interest in my work
is always a
source of inspiration
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Mrs. Kendall placed in her hands a great red rose" _Frontispiece_ 13
"For a time Margaret regarded him with troubled eyes" 66
"A mob of small boys had found an object upon which to vent their
wildest mischief" 158
"Margaret crossed the room and touched the man's shoulder" 244
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
CHAPTER I
Margaret had been home two hours--two hours of breathless questions,
answers, tears, and laughter--two hours of delighted wandering about the
house and grounds.
In the nursery she had seen the little woolly dog that lay on the floor
just as she had left it five years before; and out on the veranda steps
she had seen the great stone lions that had never quite faded from her
memory. And always at her side had walked the sweet-faced lady of her
dreams, only now the lady was very real, with eyes that smiled on one so
lovingly, and lips and hands that kissed and caressed one so tenderly.
"And this is home--my home?" Margaret asked in unbelieving wonder.
"Yes, dear," answered Mrs. Kendall.
"And you are my mother, and I am Margaret Kendall, your little girl?"
"Yes."
"And the little dog on the floor--that was mine, and--and it's been there
ever since?"
"Yes, ever since you left it there long ago. I--I could not bear to have
any one move it, or touch it."
"And I was lost then--right then?"
"No, dear. We traveled about for almost a year. You were five when I
lost you." Mrs. Kendall's voice shook. Unconsciously she drew Margaret
into a closer embrace. Even now she was scarcely sure that it was
Margaret--this little maid who had stepped so suddenly out of the great
silence that had closed about her four long years before.
Margaret laughed softly, and nestled in the encircling arms.
"I like it--this," she confided shyly. "You see, I--I hain't had it
before. Even the dream-lady didn't do--this."
"The dream-lady?"
Margaret hesitated. Her grave eyes were on her mother's face.
"I suppose she was--you," she said then slowly. "I saw her nights,
mostly; but she never stayed, and when I tried to catch her, she--she was
just air--and wasn't there at all. And I did want her so bad!"
"Of course you did, sweetheart," choked Mrs. Kendall, tremulously. "And
didn't she ever stay? When was it you saw her--first?"
Margaret frowned.
"I--don't--seem--to know," she answered. She was thinking of what Dr.
Spencer had told her, and of what she herself remembered of those four
years of her life. "You see first I was lost, and Bobby McGinnis found
me. Anyhow, Dr. Spencer says he did, but I don't seem to remember.
Things was all mixed up. There didn't seem to be anybody that wanted me,
but there wouldn't anybody let me go. And they made me sew all the time
on things that was big and homely, and then another man took me and made
me paste up bags. Say, did you ever paste bags?"
"No, dear." Mrs. Kendall shivered.
"Well, you don't want to," volunteered Margaret; and to her thin little
face came the look that her mother had already seen on it once or twice
that afternoon--the look of a child who knows what it means to fight for
life itself in the slums of a great city. "They ain't a mite nice--bags
ain't; and the paste sticks horrid, and smells."
"Margaret, dearest!--how could you bear it?" shuddered Mrs. Kendall, her
eyes brimming with tears.
Margaret saw the tears, and understood--this tender, new-found mother of
hers was grieved; she must be comforted. To the best of her ability,
therefore, Margaret promptly proceeded to administer that comfort.
"Pooh! 'twa'n't nothin'," she asserted stoutly; "besides, I runned away,
and then I had a tiptop place--a whole corner of Mis' Whalen's kitchen,
and jest me and Patty and the twins to stay in it. We divvied up
everythin', and some days we had heaps to eat--truly we did--heaps! And I
went to Mont-Lawn two times, and of course there I had everythin', even
beds with sheets, you know; and----"
"Margaret, Margaret, don't, dear!" interrupted her mother. "I can't bear
even to think of it."
Margaret's eyes grew puzzled.
"But that was bang-up--all of it," she protested earnestly. "Why, I
didn't paste bags nor sew buttons, and nobody didn't strike me for not
doin' 'em, neither; and Mis' Whalen was good and showed me how to make
flowers--for pay, too! And----"
"Yes, dear, I know," interposed Mrs. Kendall again; "but suppose we
don't think any more of all that, sweetheart. You are home now, darling,
right here with mother. Come, we will go out into the garden." To Mrs.
Kendall it seemed at the moment that only God's blessed out-of-doors was
wide enough and beautiful enough to clear from her eyes the pictures
Margaret's words had painted.
Out in the garden Margaret drew a long breath.
"Oh!" she cooed softly, caressing with her cheek a great red rose. "I
knew flowers smelled good, but I didn't find it out for sure till I went
to Mont-Lawn that first time. You see the kind we made was cloth and
stiff, and they didn't smell good a mite--oh, you've picked it!" she
broke off, half-rapturously, half-regretfully, as Mrs. Kendall placed in
her hands the great red rose.
"Yes, pick all you like, dear," smiled Mrs. Kendall, reaching for
another flower.
"But they'll die," stammered Margaret, "and then the others won't see
them."
"The--'others'? What others, dear?"
"Why, the other folks that live here, you know, and walk out here, too."
Mrs. Kendall laughed merrily.
"But there aren't any others, dear. The flowers are all ours. No one
else lives here."
Margaret stopped short in the garden path and faced her mother.
"What, not any one? in all that big house?"
"Why, no, dear, of course not. There is no one except old Mr. and Mrs.
Barrett who keep the house and grounds in order. We have it all to
ourselves."
Margaret was silent. She turned and walked slowly along the path at her
mother's side. On her face was a puzzled questioning. To her eyes was
gradually coming a frightened doubt.
Alone?--just they two, with the little old man and the little old woman
in the kitchen who did not take up any room at all? Why, back in the
Alley there were Patty, the twins, and all the Whalens--and they had only
one room! It was like that, too, everywhere, all through the Alley--so
many, many people, so little room for them. Yet here--here was this great
house all windows and doors and soft carpets and pretty pictures, and
only two, three, four people to enjoy it all. Why had not her mother
asked----
Even to herself Margaret could not say the words. She shut her lips
tight and threw a hurried look into the face of the woman at her side.
This dear dream-lady, this beautiful new mother--as if there could be any
question of her goodness and kindness! Very likely, anyway, there were
not any poor----
Margaret's eyes cleared suddenly. She turned a radiant face on her
mother.
"Oh, I know," she cried in triumph. "There ain't any poor folks here,
and so you couldn't do it!"
Mrs. Kendall looked puzzled.
"'Poor folks'? 'Couldn't do it'?" she questioned.
"Yes; poor folks like Patty and the Whalens, and so you couldn't ask 'em
to live with you."
Mrs. Kendall sat down abruptly. Near her was a garden settee. She felt
particularly glad of its support just then.
"And of course you didn't know about the Whalens and Patty," went on
Margaret, eagerly, "and so you couldn't ask them, neither. But you do
now, and they'd just love to come, I know!"
"Love to--to come?" stammered Mrs. Kendall, gazing blankly into the
glowing young face before her.
"Of course they would!" nodded Margaret, dancing up and down and
clapping her hands. "Wouldn't you if you didn't have nothin' but a room
right down under the sidewalk, and there was such a heap of folks in it?
Why, here there's everythin'--_everythin'_ for 'em, and oh, I'm so glad,
'cause they _was_ good to me--so good! First Mis' Whalen took in Patty
and the twins when the rent man dumped 'em out on the sidewalk, and she
gave 'em a whole corner of her kitchen. And then when I runned away from
the bag-pasting, Patty and the twins took me in. And now I can pay 'em
back for it all--I can pay 'em back. I'm so glad!"
Mrs. Kendall fell back limply against the garden seat. Twice she opened
her lips--and closed them again. Her face flushed, then paled, and her
hands grew cold in her lap.
This dancing little maid with the sunlit hair and the astounding
proposition to adopt into their home two whole families from the slums
of New York, was Margaret, her own little Margaret, lost so long ago,
and now so miraculously restored to her. As if she could refuse any
request, however wild, from Margaret! But this--!
"But, sweetheart, perhaps they--they wouldn't want to go away forever and
leave their home," she remonstrated at last, feebly.
The child frowned, her finger to her lips.
"Well, anyhow, we can ask them," she declared, after a minute, her face
clearing.
"Suppose we--we make it a visit, first," suggested Mrs. Kendall,
feverishly. "By and by, after I've had you all to myself for a little
while, you shall ask them to--to visit you."
"O bully!" agreed Margaret in swift delight. "That will be nicest; won't
it? Then they can see how they like it--but there! they'll like it all
right. They couldn't help it."
"And how--how many are there?" questioned Mrs. Kendall, moistening her
dry lips, and feeling profoundly thankful for even this respite from the
proposed wholesale adoption.
"Why, let's see." Margaret held up her fingers and checked off her
prospective guests. "There's Patty, she's the oldest, and Arabella and
Clarabella--they're the twins an' they're my age, you know--that's the
Murphys. And then there's all the Whalens: Tom, Peter, Mary, Jamie,
and--oh, I dunno, six or eight, maybe, with Mis' Whalen and her husband.
But, after all, it don't make so very much diff'rence just how many
there are; does it?" she added, with a happy little skip and jump,
"'cause there's heaps of room here for any 'mount of 'em. And I never
can remember just how many there are without forgettin' some of 'em.
You--you don't mind if I don't name 'em all--now?" And she gazed earnestly
into her mother's face.
"No, dear, no," assured Mrs. Kendall, hurriedly. "You--you have named
quite enough. And now we'll go down to the brook. We haven't seen half
of Five Oaks yet." And once more she tried to make the joyous present
drive from her daughter's thoughts the grievous past.
CHAPTER II
It was not long before all Houghtonsville knew the story, and there was
not a man, woman, or child in the town that did not take the liveliest
interest in the little maid at Five Oaks who had passed through so
amazing an experience. To be lost at five years of age in a great city,
to be snatched from wealth, happiness, and a loving mother's arms, only
to be thrust instantly into poverty, misery, and loneliness; and then to
be, after four long years, suddenly returned--no wonder Houghtonsville
held its breath and questioned if it all indeed were true.
Bit by bit the little girl's history was related in every house in town;
and many a woman--and some men--wept over the tale of how the little
fingers had sewed on buttons in the attic sweat shop, and pasted bags in
the ill-smelling cellar. The story of the coöperative housekeeping
establishment in one corner of the basement kitchen, where she, together
with Patty and the twins, "divvied up" the day's "haul,"--that, too, came
in for its share of exclamatory adjectives, as did the account of how
she was finally discovered through her finding her own name over the
little cot-bed at Mont-Lawn--the little bed that Mrs. Kendall had endowed
in the name of her lost daughter, in the children's vacation home for
the poor little waifs from the city.
"An' ter think of her findin' her own baby jest by givin' some other
woman's baby a bit of joy!" cried Mrs. Merton of the old red farmhouse,
when the story was told to her. "But, there! ain't that what she's
always doin' for folks--somethin' ter make 'em happy? Didn't she bring my
own child, Sadie, an' the boy, Bobby, back from the city, and ain't
Sadie gettin' well an' strong on the farm here? And it's a comfort ter
me, too, when I remember 'twas Bobby who first found the little Margaret
cryin' in the streets there in New York, an' took her home ter my Sadie.
'Twa'n't much Sadie could do for the poor little lamb, but she did what
she could till old Sullivan got his claws on her and kept her shut up
out o' sight. But there! what's past is past, and there ain't no use
frettin' over it. She's home now, in her own mother's arms, and I'm
thinkin' it's the whole town that's rejoicin'!"
And the whole town did rejoice--and many and various were the ways the
townspeople took to show it. The Houghtonsville brass band marched in
full uniform to Five Oaks one evening and gave a serenade with red fire
and rockets, much to Mrs. Kendall's embarrassment and Margaret's
delight. The Ladies' Aid Society gave a tea with Mrs. Kendall and
Margaret as a kind of pivot around which the entire affair revolved--this
time to the embarrassment of both Mrs. Kendall and her daughter. The
minister of the Methodist church appointed a day of prayer and
thanksgiving in commemoration of the homecoming of the wanderer; and the
town poet published in the _Houghtonsville Banner_ a forty-eight-line
poem on "The Lost and Found."
Nor was this all. To Mrs. Kendall it seemed that almost every man,
woman, and child in the place came to her door with inquiries and
congratulations, together with all sorts of offerings, from flowers and
frosted cakes to tidies and worked bedspreads. She was not ungrateful,
certainly, but she was overwhelmed.
Not only the cakes and the tidies, however, gave Mrs. Kendall food for
thought during those first few days after Margaret's return. From the
very nature of the case it was, of necessity, a period of adjustment;
and to Mrs. Kendall's consternation there was every indication of
friction, if not disaster.
For four years now her young daughter had been away from her tender care
and influence; and for only one of those four years--the last--had she
come under the influence of any sort of refinement or culture, and then
under only such as a city missionary and an overworked schoolteacher
could afford, supplemented by the two trips to Mont-Lawn. To be sure,
behind it all had been Margaret's careful training for the first five
years of her life, and it was because of this training that she had so
quickly yielded to what good influences she had known in the last year.
The Alley, however, was not Five Oaks; and the standards of one did not
measure to those of the other. It was not easy for "Mag of the Alley" to
become at once Margaret Kendall, the dainty little daughter of a
well-bred, fastidious mother.
To the doctor--the doctor who had gone to New York and brought Margaret
home, and who knew her as she was--Mrs. Kendall went for advice.
"What shall I do?" she asked anxiously. "A hundred times a day the dear
child's speech, movements, and actions are not what I like them to be.
And yet--if I correct each one, 'twill be a continual 'don't' all day.
Why, doctor, the child will--hate me!"
"As if any one could do that!" smiled the doctor; and at the look in his
eyes Mrs. Kendall dropped her own--the happiness that had come to her
with this man's love was very new; she had scarcely yet looked it
squarely in the face.
"The child is so good and loving," she went on a little hurriedly, "that
it makes it all the harder--but I must do something. Only this morning
she told the minister that she thought Houghtonsville was a 'bully
place,' and that the people were 'tiptop.' Her table manners--poor child!
I ran away from the table and cried like a baby the first time I saw her
eat; and yet--perhaps the very next thing she does will be so dainty and
sweet that I could declare the other was all a dream. Doctor, what shall
I do?"
"I know, I know," nodded the man. "I have seen it myself. But, dear,
she'll learn--she'll learn wonderfully fast. You'll see. It's in her--the
gentleness and the refinement. She'll have to be corrected, some, of
course; it's out of the question that she shouldn't be. But she'll come
out straight. Her heart is all right."
Mrs. Kendall laughed softly.
"Her heart, doctor!" she exclaimed. "Just there lies the greatest
problem of all. The one creed of her life is to 'divvy up,' and how I'm
going to teach her ordinary ideas of living without shattering all her
faith in me I don't know. Why, Harry,"--Mrs. Kendall's voice was
tragic--"she gazes at me with round eyes of horror because I have two
coats and two hats, and two loaves of bread, and haven't yet 'divvied
up' with some one who has none. So far her horror is tempered by the
fact that she is sure I didn't know before that there were any people
who did not have all these things. Now that she has told me of them, she
confidently looks to me to do my obvious duty at once."
The doctor laughed.
"As if you weren't always doing things for people," he said fondly. Then
he grew suddenly grave. "The dear child! I'm afraid that along with her
education and civilization her altruism _will_ get a few hard knocks.
But--she'll get over that, too. You'll see. At heart she's so gentle
and--why, what"--he broke off with an unspoken question, his eyes widely
opened at the change that had come to her face.
"Oh, nothing," returned Mrs. Kendall, almost despairingly, "only if
you'd seen Joe Bagley yesterday morning I'm afraid you'd have changed
your opinion of her gentleness. She--she fought him!" Mrs. Kendall
stumbled over the words, and flushed a painful red as she spoke them.
"Fought him--Joe Bagley!" gasped the doctor. "Why, he's almost twice her
size."
"Yes, I know, but that didn't seem to occur to Margaret," returned Mrs.
Kendall. "She saw only the kitten he was tormenting, and--well, she
rescued the kitten, and then administered what she deemed to be fit
punishment there and then. When I arrived on the scene they were the
center of an admiring crowd of children,"--Mrs. Kendall shivered
visibly--"and Margaret was just delivering herself of a final blow that
sent the great bully off blubbering."
"Good for her!"--it was an involuntary tribute, straight from the heart.
"Harry!" gasped Mrs. Kendall. "'Good'--a delicate girl!"
"No, no, of course not," murmured the doctor, hastily, though his eyes
still glowed. "It won't do, of course; but you must remember her life,
her struggle for very existence all those years. She _had_ to train her
fists to fight her way."
"I--I suppose so," admitted Mrs. Kendall, faintly; but she shivered
again, as if with a sudden chill.
CHAPTER III
Scarcely had Houghtonsville recovered from its first shock of glad
surprise at Margaret's safe return, when it was shaken again to its very
center by the news of Mrs. Kendall's engagement to Dr. Spencer.
The old Kendall estate had been for more than a generation the "show
place" of the town. Even during the years immediately following the loss
of little Margaret, when the great stone lions on each side of the steps
had kept guard over closed doors and shuttered windows, even then the
place was pointed out to strangers for its beauty, as well as for the
tragedy that had so recently made it a living tomb to its mistress.
Sometimes, though not often, a glimpse might be caught of a slender,
black-robed woman, and always there could be seen the one unshuttered
window on the second floor. Every one knew the story of that window, and
of the sunlit room beyond where lay the little woolly dog just as the
baby hands had dropped it there years before; and every one knew that
the black-robed woman, widow of Frank Kendall and mother of the lost
little girl, was grieving her heart out in the great lonely house.
Not until the last two years of Margaret's absence had there come a
change, and then it was so gradual that the townspeople scarcely noticed
it. Little by little, however, the air of gloom left the house. One by
one the blinds were thrown open to the sunlight, and more and more
frequently Mrs. Kendall was seen walking in the garden, or even upon the
street. Not until the news of the engagement had come, however, did
Houghtonsville people realize the doctor's part in all this. Then they
understood. It was he who had administered to her diseased body, and
still more diseased mind; he who had roused her from her apathy of
despair; and he who had taught her that the world was full of other
griefs even as bitter as her own.
Not twenty-four hours after the news of the engagement became public
property, old Nathan--town gossip, and driver-in-chief to a generation of
physicians, Dr. Spencer included--observed triumphantly:
"And I ain't a mite surprised, neither. It's a good thing, too. They're
jest suited ter each other. Ain't they been traipsin' all over town
tergether, an' ridin' whar 'twas too fur ter foot it?... Ter be sure,
they allers went ter some one's that was sick, an' allers took jellies
an' things ter eat an' read, but I had eyes, an' I ain't a fool. She
done good, though--heaps of it; an' 'tain't no wonder the doctor fell
head over heels in love with her.... An' thar was the little gal, too.
Didn't he go twice ter New York a-huntin' fur her, an' wa'n't it through
him that they finally got her? 'Course 'twas. 'Twas him that told Mis'
Kendall 'bout that 'ere Mont-Lawn whar they sends them poor little city
kids ter get a breath o' fresh air; an' 'twas him that sent on the
twenty-one dollars for her, so's she could name a bed fur little
Margaret; an' 'twas him that at last went ter New York an' fetched her
home. Gorry, 'twas allers him. Thar wa'n't no way out of it, I say. They
jest had ter get engaged!"
It was not long before the most of Houghtonsville--in sentiment, if not
in words--came to old Nathan's opinion: this prospective marriage was an
ideal arrangement, after all, and not in the least surprising. There
remained now only the pleasant task of making the wedding a joyful
affair befitting the traditions of the town and of the honored name of
Kendall.
In all Houghtonsville, perhaps, there was only one heart that did not
beat in sympathy, and that one, strangely enough, belonged to Mrs.
Kendall's own daughter, Margaret.
"You mean you are goin' to marry him, and that he'll be your husband
for--for keeps?" Margaret demanded with some agitation, when her mother
told her of the engagement.
Mrs. Kendall smiled. The red mounted to her cheek.
"Yes, dear," she said.
"And he'll live here--with us?" Margaret's voice was growing in horror.
"Why, yes, dear," murmured Mrs. Kendall; then, quizzically: "Why,
sweetheart, what's the matter? Don't you like Dr. Spencer? It was only
last week that you were begging me to ask some one here to live with
us."
Margaret frowned anxiously.
"But, mother, dear, that was poor folks," she explained, her eyes
troubled. "Dr. Spencer ain't that kind, you know. You--you said he'd be a
husband."
"Yes?"
"And--and husbands--mother!" broke off the little girl, her voice sharp
with anguished love and terror. "He sha'n't come here to beat you and
bang you 'round--he just sha'n't!"
"Beat me!" gasped Mrs. Kendall. "Margaret, what in the world are you
thinking of to say such a thing as that?"
Margaret was almost crying now. The old hunted look had come back to her
eyes, and her face looked suddenly pinched and old. She came close to
her mother's side and caught the soft folds of her mother's dress in
cold, shaking fingers.
"But they do do it--all of 'em," she warned frenziedly. "Tim Sullivan,
an' Mr. Whalen, an' Patty's father--they was all husbands, every one of
'em; and there wasn't one of 'em but what beat their wives and banged
'em 'round. You don't know. You hain't seen 'em, maybe; but they do do
it, mother--they do do it!"
For a moment Mrs. Kendall stared speechlessly into the young-old face
before her; then she caught the little girl in her arms.
"You poor little dear!" she choked. "You poor forlorn little bunch of
misguided pessimism! Come, let me tell you how really good and kind and
gentle the doctor is. Beat me, indeed! Oh, Margaret, Margaret!"
CHAPTER IV
In spite of Mrs. Kendall's earnest efforts Margaret was not easily
convinced that marriage might be desirable, and that all husbands were
not patterned after Tim Sullivan and Mike Whalen. Nor was this coming
marriage the only thing that troubled Margaret. Life at the Alley was
still too vividly before her eyes to allow her to understand any scheme
of living that did not recognize the supremacy of the sharpest tongue
and the heaviest fist; and this period of adjustment to the new order of
things was not without its trials for herself as well as for her mother.
The beauty, love, and watchful care that surrounded her filled her with
ecstatic rapture; but the niceties of speech and manner daily demanded
of her, terrified and dismayed her. Why "bully" and "bang-up" should be
frowned upon when, after all, they but expressed her pleasure in
something provided for her happiness, she could not understand; and why
the handling of the absurdly large number of knives, forks, and spoons
about her plate at dinner should be a matter of so great moment, she
could not see. As for the big white square of folded cloth that her
mother thought so necessary at every meal--its dainty purity filled
Margaret with dismay lest she soil or wrinkle it; and for her part she
would have much preferred to let it quite alone.
There were the callers, too--beautiful ladies in trailing gowns who
insisted upon seeing her, though why, Margaret could not understand; for
they invariably cried and said, "Poor little lamb!" when they did see
her, in spite of her efforts to convince them that she was perfectly
happy. And there were the children--they, too, were disconcerting. They
came, sometimes alone, and sometimes with their parents, but always they
stared and seemed afraid of her. There were others, to be sure, who were
not afraid of her. But they never "called." They "slipped in" through
the back gate at the foot of the garden, and they were really very nice.
They were Nat and Tom and Roxy Trotter, and they lived in a little house
down by the river. They never wore shoes nor stockings, and their
clothes were not at all like those of the other children. Margaret
suspected that the Trotters were poor, and she took pains that her
mother should see Nat and Tom and Roxy. Her mother, however, did not
appear to know them, which did not seem so very strange to Margaret,
after all; for of course her mother had not known there were any poor
people so near, otherwise she would have shared her home with them long
ago. At first, it was Margaret's plan to rectify this little mistake
immediately; but the more she thought of it, the more thoroughly was she
convinced that the first chance belonged by right to Patty's family and
the Whalens in New York, inasmuch as they had been so good to her. She
determined, therefore, to wait awhile before suggesting the removal of
the Trotter family from their tiny, inconvenient house to the more
spacious and desirable Five Oaks.
Delightful as were the Trotters, however, even they did not quite come
up to Bobby McGinnis for real comradeship. Bobby lived with his mother
and grandmother in the little red farmhouse farther up the hill. It was
he who had found Margaret crying in the streets on that first dreadful
day long ago when she was lost in New York. For a week she had lived in
his attic home, then she had become frightened at his father's drunken
rage, one day, and had fled to the streets, never to return. All this
Margaret knew, though she had but a faint recollection of it. It made a
bond of sympathy between them, nevertheless, and caused them to become
fast friends at once.
It was to Bobby that she went for advice when the standards of
Houghtonsville and the Alley clashed; and it was to Bobby that she went
for sympathy when grievous mismanagement of the knives and forks or of
the folded square of cloth brought disaster to herself and tears to her
mother's eyes. She earnestly desired to--as she expressed it to
Bobby--"come up to the scratch and walk straight"; and it was to Bobby
that she looked for aid and counsel.
"You see, you can tell just what 'tis ails me," she argued earnestly, as
the two sat in their favorite perch in the apple tree. "You don't know
Patty and the Whalens, 'course, but you do know folks just like 'em; and
mother--don't you see?--she knows only the kind that lives here, and
she--she don't understand. But you know both kinds, and you can tell
where 'tis that I ain't like 'em here. And I want to be like 'em, Bobby,
I do, truly. They're just bang-up--I mean, _beautiful_ folks," she
corrected hastily. "And mother's so good to me! She's just----"
Margaret stopped suddenly. A new thought seemed to have come to her.
"Bobby," she cried with sharp abruptness, "did you ever know any
husbands that was--good?"
"'Husbands'? 'Good'? What do ye mean?"
"Did you ever know any that was good, I mean that didn't beat their
wives and bang 'em 'round? Did you, Bobby?"
Bobby laughed. He lifted his chin quizzically, and gazed down from the
lofty superiority of his fourteen years.
"Sure, an' ain't ye beginnin' sort o' early ter worry about husbands?"
he teased. "But, mebbe you've already--er--picked him out! eh?"
Margaret did not seem to hear. She was looking straight through a little
open space in the boughs of the apple tree to the blue sky far beyond.
"Bobby," she began in a voice scarcely above a whisper, "if that man
should be bad to my mother I think I'd--kill him."
Bobby roused himself. He suddenly remembered Joe Bagley and the kitten.
"What man?" he asked.
"Dr. Spencer."
"Dr. Spencer!" gasped Bobby. "Why, Dr. Spencer wouldn't hurt a fly. He's
just bully!"
Margaret stirred restlessly. She turned a grave face on her companion.
"Bobby," she reproved gently, "I don't think I'd oughter hear them words
if I ain't 'lowed to use 'em myself."
Bobby uptilted his chin.
"I've heard your ma say 'ain't' wa'n't proper," he observed virtuously.
"I shouldn't have mentioned it, only--well, seein' as how you're gettin'
so awful particular----!" For the more telling effect he left the sentence
unfinished.
Again Margaret did not seem to hear. Again her eyes had sought the patch
of blue showing through the green leaves.
"Dr. Spencer may be nice now, but he ain't a husband yet," she said,
thoughtfully. "There was Tim Sullivan and Patty's father and Mike
Whalen," she enumerated aloud. "And they was all---- Bobby, was your
father a good husband?" she demanded with a sudden turn that brought her
eyes squarely round to his.
The boy was silent.
"Bobby, was he?"
Slowly the boy's eyes fell.
"Well, of course, sometimes dad would"--he began; but Margaret
interrupted him.
"I knew it--I just knew it--I just knew there wasn't any," she moaned;
"but I can't make mother see it--I just can't!"
This was but the first of many talks between Margaret and Bobby upon the
same subject, and always Margaret was seeking for a possible averting of
the catastrophe. To convince her mother of the awfulness of the fate
awaiting her, and so to persuade her to abandon the idea of marriage,
was out of the question, Margaret soon found. It was then, perhaps, that
the idea of speaking to the doctor himself first came to her.
"If I could only get him to promise things!" she said to Bobby. "If I
could only get him to promise!"
"Promise?"
"Yes; to be good and kind, you know," nodded Margaret, "and not like a
husband."
Bobby laughed; then he frowned and was silent. Suddenly his face
changed.
"I say, you might make him sign a contract," he hazarded.
"Contract?"
"Sure! One of them things that makes folks toe the mark whether they
wants to or not. I'll draw it up for you--that's what they call it," he
explained airily; and as Margaret bubbled over with delight and thanks
he added: "Not at all. 'Tain't nothin'. Glad ter do it, I'm sure!"
For a month now Bobby had swept the floor and dusted the books in the
law office of Burt & Burt, to say nothing of running errands and tending
door. In days gone by, the law, as represented by the policeman on the
corner, was something to be avoided; but to-day, as represented by a
frock coat, a tall hat, and a vocabulary bristling with big words, it
was something that was most alluring--so alluring, in fact, that Bobby
had determined to adopt it as his own. He himself would be a lawyer--tall
hat, frock coat, big words and all. Hence his readiness to undertake
this little matter of drawing up a contract for Margaret, his first
client.
It was some days, nevertheless, before the work was ready for the
doctor's signature. The young lawyer, unfortunately, could not give all
of his time to his own affairs; there were still the trivial duties of
his office to perform. He found, too, that the big words which fell so
glibly from the lips of the great Burt & Burt were anything but easily
managed when he tried to put them upon paper himself. Bobby was
ambitious and persistent, however, and where knowledge failed,
imagination stepped boldly to the front. In the end it was with no
little pride that he displayed the result of his labor to his client,
then, with her gleeful words of approval still ringing in his ears, he
slipped it into its envelope, sealed, stamped, and posted it. Thus it
happened that the next day a very much amazed physician received this in
his mail:
_"To whom it may concern_:
"Whereas, I, the Undersigned, being in my sane Mind do intend to
commit Matremony, I, the said Undersigned do hereby solumly declare
and agree, to wit, not to Beat my aforesaid Wife. Not to Bang her
round. Not to Falsely, Wickedly and Maliciously treat her. Not once.
Moreover, I, the said Undersigned do solumly Swear all this to
Margaret Kendall, the dorter and Lawfull Protectur of the said Wife,
to wit, Mrs. Kendall. And whereas, if I, the aforesaid Undersigned do
break and violate this my solum Oath concerning the said Wife, I do
hereby Swear that she, to wit, Margaret Kendall, may bestow upon me
such Punishmunt as seems eminuntly proper to her at such time as she
sees fit. Whereas and whereunto I have this day set my Hand and Seal."
Here followed a space for the signature, and a somewhat thumbed,
irregular daub of red sealing-wax.
CHAPTER V
It was a particularly warm July evening, but a faint breeze from the
west stirred the leaves of the Crimson Rambler that climbed over the
front veranda at Five Oaks, and brought the first relief from the
scorching heat. The great stone lions loomed out of the shadows and
caught the moonlight full on their shaggy heads. To the doctor, sitting
alone on the veranda steps, they seemed almost alive, and he smiled at
the thought that came to him.
"So you think you, too, are guarding her," he chuckled quietly. "Pray,
and are you also her 'Lawfull Protectur'?"
A light step sounded on the floor behind him, and he sprang to his feet.
"She's asleep," said Mrs. Kendall softly. "She dropped asleep almost as
soon as she touched the pillow. Dear child!"
"Yes, children are apt---- Amy, dearest!" broke off the doctor, sharply,
"you are crying!"
"No, no, it is nothing," assured Mrs. Kendall, as the doctor led her to
a chair. "It is always this way, only to-night it was a--a little more
heart-breaking than usual."
"'Always this way'! 'Heart-breaking'! Why, Amy!"
Mrs. Kendall smiled, then raised her hand to brush away a tear.
"You don't understand," she murmured. "It's the bedtime
prayer--Margaret's;" then, at the doctor's amazed frown, she added: "The
dear child goes over her whole day, bit by bit, and asks forgiveness for
countless misdemeanors, and it nearly breaks my heart, for it shows how
many times I have said 'don't' to the poor little thing since morning.
And as if that were not piteous enough, she must needs ask the dear
Father to tell her how to handle her fork, and how to sit, walk, and
talk so's to please mother. Harry, what _shall_ I do?"
"But you are doing," returned the doctor. "You are loving her, and you
are surrounding her with everything good and beautiful."
"But I want to do right myself--just right."
"And you are doing just right, dear."
"But the results--they are so irregular and uneven," sighed the mother,
despairingly. "One minute she is the gentle, loving little girl I held
in my arms five years ago; and the next she is--well, she isn't Margaret
at all."
"No," smiled the doctor. "She isn't Margaret at all. She is Mag of the
Alley, dependent on her wits and her fists for life itself. Don't worry,
sweetheart. It will all come right in time; it can't help it!--but it
will take the time."
"She tries so hard--the little precious!--and she does love me."
A curious smile curved the doctor's lips.
"She does," he said dryly.
"Why, Harry, what----" Mrs. Kendall's eyes were questioning.
The doctor hesitated. Then very slowly he drew from his pocket a large,
somewhat legal-looking document.
"I hardly know whether to share this with you or not," he began; "still,
it _is_ too good to keep to myself, and it concerns you intimately;
moreover, you may be able to assist me with some advice in the matter,
or at least with some possible explanation." And he held out the paper.
Mrs. Kendall turned in her chair so that the light from the open
hall-door would fall upon the round, cramped handwriting.
"'To whom it may concern,'" she read aloud. "'Whereas, I, the
Undersigned, being in my sane Mind do intend to commit Matremony.' Why,
Harry, what in the world is this?" she demanded.
"Go on,--read," returned the doctor, with a nonchalant wave of his hand;
and Mrs. Kendall dropped her eyes again to the paper.
"Harry, what in the world does this mean?" she gasped a minute later as
she finished reading, half laughing, half crying, and wholly amazed.
"But that is exactly what I was going to ask you," parried the doctor.
"You don't mean that Margaret wrote--but she couldn't; besides, it isn't
her writing."
"No, Margaret didn't write it. For that part I think I detect the
earmarks of young McGinnis. At all events, it came from him."
"Bobby?"
"Yes."
"But who----" Mrs. Kendall stopped abruptly. A dawning comprehension came
into her eyes. "You mean--Harry, she _was_ at the bottom of it! I
remember now. It was only a week or two ago that she used those same
words to me. She insisted that you would beat me and--and bang me 'round.
Oh, Margaret, Margaret, my poor little girl!"
The doctor smiled; then he shook his head gravely.
"Poor child! She hasn't seen much of conjugal felicity; has she?" he
murmured; then, softly: "It is left for us, sweetheart, to teach
her--that."
The color deepened in Mrs. Kendall's cheeks. Her eyes softened, then
danced merrily.
"But you haven't signed--this, sir, yet!" she challenged laughingly, as
she held out the paper.
He caught both paper and hands in a warm clasp.
"But I will," he declared. "Wait and see!"
Not twenty hours later Bobby McGinnis halted at the great gate of the
driveway at Five Oaks and gave a peculiar whistle. Almost instantly
Margaret flew across the lawn to meet him.
"Oh, it's jest a little matter of business," greeted Bobby, with
careless ease. "I've got that 'ere document here all signed. I reckoned
the doctor wouldn't lose no time makin' sure ter do his part."
"Bobby, not the contract--so soon!" exulted Margaret.
"Sure! Why not? I told him ter please sign to once an' return. An' he
did, 'course. I reckoned he meant business in this little matter, an' he
reckoned I did, too. There wa'n't nothin' for him ter do but sign,
'course."
Margaret drew her brows together in a thoughtful frown.
"But he might have--refused," she suggested.
Bobby gave her a scornful glance.
"Refused--an' lost the chance of marryin' at all? Not much!" he asserted
with emphasis.
"Well, anyhow, I'm glad he didn't," sighed Margaret, as she clutched the
precious paper close to her heart. "I should 'a' hated to have refused
outright to let him marry her when mother--Bobby, mother actually seems
to _want_ to have him!"
CHAPTER VI
Margaret had been at home four weeks when the invitation for Patty,
Arabella, Clarabella, and three of the Whalens to visit her, finally
left her mother's hands. There had not been a day of all those four
weeks that Margaret had not talked of the coming visit. At first, to be
sure, she had not called it a visit; she had referred to it as the time
when "Patty and the Whalens come here to live." Gradually, however, her
mother had persuaded her to let them "try it and see how they liked it";
and to this compromise Margaret finally gave a somewhat reluctant
consent.
Mrs. Kendall herself was distinctly uneasy over the whole affair; and on
one pretext and another had put off sending for the proposed guests
until Margaret's importunities left her no choice in the matter. Not but
that she was grateful to the two families that had been so good to
Margaret in her hour of need, but she would have preferred to show that
gratitude in some way not quite so intimate as taking them into her
house and home for an indefinite period. Margaret, however, was still
intent on "divvying up," and Mrs. Kendall could not look into her
daughter's clear blue eyes, and explain why Patty, Arabella, Clarabella,
and the Whalens might not be the most desirable guests in the world.
It had been Margaret's intention to invite all of the Whalen family. She
had hesitated a little, it is true, over Mike Whalen, the father.
"You see he drinks, and when he ain't asleep he's cross, mostly," she
explained to her mother; "but we can't leave just him behind, so we'll
have to ask him, 'course. Besides, if he's goin' to live here, why, he
might as well come right now at the first."
"No, certainly we couldn't leave Mr. Whalen behind alone," Mrs. Kendall
had returned with dry lips. "So suppose we don't take any of the Whalens
this time--just devote ourselves to Patty and the twins."
To this, however, Margaret refused to give her consent. What, not take
any of the Whalens--the Whalens who had been so good as to give them one
whole corner of their kitchen, rent free? Certainly not! She agreed,
however, after considerable discussion, to take only Tom, Mary, and
Peter of the Whalen family, leaving the rest of the children and Mrs.
Whalen to keep old Mike Whalen company.
"For, after all," as she said to her mother, "if Tom and Mary and Peter
like it here, the rest will. They always like what Tom does--he makes
'em."
Mrs. Kendall never thought of that speech afterward without a shudder.
She even dreamed once of this all-powerful Tom--he stood over her with
clinched fists and flashing eyes, demanding that she "divvy up" to the
last cent. Clearly as she understood that this was only a dream, yet the
vision haunted her; and it was not without some apprehension that she
went with Margaret to the station to meet her guests, on the day
appointed.
A letter from Margaret had gone to Patty, and one from Mrs. Kendall to
Miss Murdock, the city missionary who had been so good to Margaret.
Houghtonsville was on a main line to New York, and but a few hours' ride
from the city. Mrs. Kendall had given full instructions as to trains,
and had sent the money for the six tickets. She had also asked Miss
Murdock to place the children in care of the conductor, saying that she
would meet them herself at the Houghtonsville station.
Promptly in return had come Miss Murdock's letter telling of the
children's delighted acceptance of the invitation; and almost
immediately had followed Patty's elaborately flourished scrawl:
"Much obliged for de invite an wes Acomin. Tanks.
"Clarabella, Arabella, an
"Patty at yer service."
Mrs. Kendall thought of this letter and of Tom as she stood waiting for
the long train from New York to come to a standstill; then she looked
down at the sweet-faced daintily-gowned little maid at her side, and
shuddered--it is one thing to carry beef-tea and wheel-chairs to our
unfortunate fellow men, and quite another to invite those same fellow
men to a seat at our own table or by our own fireside.
Margaret and her mother had not long to wait. Tom Whalen, in spite of
the conductor's restraining hand, was on the platform before the wheels
had ceased to turn. Behind him tumbled Peter, Mary, and Clarabella,
while Patty, carefully guiding Arabella's twisted feet, brought up the
rear. There was an instant's pause; then Tom spied Margaret, and with a
triumphant "Come on--here she is!" to those behind, he dashed down the
platform.
"My, but ain't you slick!" he cried admiringly, stopping short before
Margaret, who had unconsciously shrunk close to her mother's side. "Hi,
thar, Patty," he called, hailing the gleeful children behind him, "what
would the Alley say if they could see her now?"
There was a moment's pause. Eagerly as the children had followed Tom's
lead, they stood abashed now before the tall, beautiful woman and the
pretty little girl they had once known as "Mag of the Alley." Almost
instantly Margaret saw and understood; and with all the strength of her
hospitable little soul she strove to put her guests at their ease. With
a glad little cry she gave one after another a bear-like hug; then she
stood back with a flourish and prepared for the introductions.
Unconsciously her words and manner aped those of her mother in sundry
other introductions that had figured in her own experience during the
last four weeks; and before Mrs. Kendall knew what was happening she
found herself being ceremoniously presented to Tom Whalen, late of the
Alley, New York.
"Tom, this is my dear mother that I lost long ago," said Margaret.
"Mother, dear, can't you shake hands with Tom?"
Tom advanced. His face was a fiery red, and the freckles shone luridly
through the glow.
"Proud ter know ye, ma'am," he stammered, clutching frantically at the
daintily-gloved, outstretched hand.
Margaret sighed with relief. Tom did know how to behave, after all. She
had feared he would not.
"And this is Mary Whalen, and Peter," she went on, as Mrs. Kendall
clasped in turn two limp hands belonging to a white-faced girl and a
frightened boy. "And here's Patty and the twins, Clarabella and
Arabella; and now you know 'em all," finished Margaret, beaming joyously
upon her mother who was leaning with tender eyes over the little lame
Arabella.
"My dear, how thin your poor little cheeks are," Mrs. Kendall was
saying.
"Yes, she is kind o' peaked," volunteered Patty. "Miss Murdock says as
how her food don't 'similate. Ye see she ain't over strong, anyhow, on
account o' dem," pointing to the little twisted feet and legs. "Mebbe
Maggie told ye, ma'am, how Arabella wa'n't finished up right, an' how
her legs didn't go straight like ours," added Patty, giving her usual
explanation of her sister's misfortune.
"Yes," choked Mrs. Kendall, hurriedly. "She told me that the little girl
was lame. Now, my dears, we--we'll go home." Mrs. Kendall hesitated and
looked about her. "You--you haven't any bags or--or anything?" she asked
them.
"Gee!" cried Tom, turning sharply toward the track where had stood a
moment before the train that brought them. "An' if 'tain't gone so
soon!"
"Gone--the bag?" chorused five shrill voices.
"Sure!" nodded Tom. Then, with a resigned air, he thrust both hands into
his trousers pockets. "Gone she is, bag and baggage."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," murmured Mrs. Kendall.
"Pooh! 'tain't a mite o' matter," assured Patty, quickly. "Ye see, dar
wa'n't nothin' in it, anyhow, only a extry ribb'n fur Arabella's hair."
Then, at Mrs. Kendall's blank look of amazement, she explained: "We only
took it 'cause Katy Sovrensky said folks allers took 'em when they went
trav'lin'. So we fished dis out o' de ash barrel an' fixed it up wid
strings an' tacks. We didn't have nothin' ter put in it, 'course. All
our clo's is on us."
"We didn't need nothin' else, anyhow," piped up Arabella, "for all our
things is span clean. We went ter bed 'most all day yisterday so's Patty
could wash 'em."
"Yes, yes, of course, certainly," agreed Mrs. Kendall, faintly, as she
turned and led the way to the big four-seated carryall waiting for them.
"Then we'll go home right away."
To Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, Arabella, and Clarabella, it was all so
wonderful that they fairly pinched themselves to make sure they were
awake. The drive through the elm-bordered streets with everywhere
flowers, vine-covered houses, and velvety lawns--it was all quite
unbelievable.
"It's more like Mont-Lawn than anythin' I ever see," murmured Arabella.
"Seems 'most as though 'twas heaven." And Mrs. Kendall, who heard the
words, reproached herself because for four long weeks she had stood
jealous guard over this "heaven" and refused to "divvy up" its
enjoyment. The next moment she shuddered and unconsciously drew Margaret
close to her side. Patty had said:
"Gee whiz, Mag, ain't you lucky? Wis't I was a lost an' founded!"
The house with its great stone lions was hailed with an awed "oh-h!" of
delight, as were the wide lawns and brilliant flower-beds. Inside the
house the children blinked in amazement at the lace-hung windows, and
gold-framed pictures; and Clarabella, balancing herself on her toes,
looked fearfully at the woven pinks and roses at her feet and demanded:
"Don't walkin' on 'em hurt 'em?
"Seems so 'twould," she added, her eyes distrustfully bent on Margaret
who had laughed, and by way of proving the carpet's durability, was
dancing up and down upon it.
The matter of choosing beds in the wide, airy chambers was a momentous
one. In the boys' room, to be sure, it was a simple matter, for there
were only two beds, and Tom settled the question at once by
unceremoniously throwing Peter on to one of them, and pommeling him with
the pillow until he howled for mercy.
The girls had two rooms opening out of each other, and in each room were
two dainty white beds. Here the matter of choosing was only settled
amicably at last by a rigid system of "counting out" by "Eeny, meany,
miny, mo"; and even this was not accomplished without much shouting and
laughter, and not a few angry words.
Margaret was distressed. For a time she was silent; then she threw
herself into the discussion with all the ardor of one who would bring
peace at any cost; and it was by her suggestion that the "Eeny, meany,
miny, mo," finally won the day. In her own room that night, as she went
to bed, she apologized to her mother.
"I'm sorry they was so rude, mother. I had forgot they was quite so
noisy," she confessed anxiously. "But I'll tell 'em to-morrow to be more
quiet. Maybe they didn't know that little ladies and little gentlemen
don't act like that."
CHAPTER VII
Five oaks awoke to a new existence on the first morning after the
arrival of its guests from New York--an existence of wild shouts, gleeful
laughter, scampering feet and confusion. In the kitchen and the garden
old Mr. and Mrs. Barrett no longer held full sway. For some time there
had been a cook, a waitress, a laundress, and an experienced gardener as
well. In the barn, too, there was now a stalwart fellow who was coachman
and chauffeur by turns, according to whether the old family carriage or
the new four-cylinder touring car was wanted.
Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, and the twins had not been at Five Oaks
twenty-four hours before they were fitted to new clothing throughout.
Mrs. Kendall had not slept until she had interviewed the town clothier
as to ways and means of immediately providing two boys and four girls
with shoes, stockings, hats, coats, trousers, dresses, and
undergarments.
"'Course 'tain't 'zactly necessary," Patty had said, upon being
presented with her share of the new garments, "but it's awful nice,
'cause now we don't have ter go ter bed when ours is washed--an' they be
awful nice! Just bang-up!"
No wonder Five Oaks awoke to a new existence! The wide-spreading lawns
knew now what it was to be pressed by a dozen little scampering feet at
once: and the great stone lions knew what it was to have two yelling
boys mount their carven backs, and try to dig sharp little heels into
their stone sides. Within the house, the attic, sacred for years to
cobwebs and musty memories, knew what it was to yield its treasured
bonnets, shawls, and quilted skirts to a swarm of noisy children who
demanded them for charades.
Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, Arabella, and Clarabella had been at Five Oaks
two weeks when one day Bobby McGinnis found Margaret crying all alone in
the old summerhouse down in the garden.
"Gorry, what's up?" he questioned; adding cheerily: "'Soldiers'
daughters don't cry'!"--it was a quotation from Margaret's own
childhood's creed, and one which in the old days seldom failed to dry
her tears. Even now it was not without its effect, for her head came up
with a jerk.
"I--I know it," she sobbed; "and I ain't--I mean, I _are_ not going to.
There, you see," she broke off miserably, falling back into her old
despondent attitude. "'Ain't' should be 'are not' always, and I never
can remember."
"Pooh! Is that all?" laughed Bobby. "'Twould take more'n a 'are not' ter
make me cry."
"But that ain't all," wailed Margaret, and she did not notice that at
one of her words Bobby chuckled and parted his lips only to close them
again with a snap. "There's heaps more of 'em; 'bully' and 'bang-up' and
'gee' and 'drownded' and 'g' on the ends of things, and--well, almost
everything I say, seems so."
"Well, what of it? You'll get over it. You're a-learnin' all the time;
ain't ye?"
"'Are not you,' Bobby," sighed Margaret.
"Well, 'are not you,' then," snapped Bobby.
Margaret shook her head. A look that was almost terror came to her eyes.
She leaned forward and clutched the boy's arm.
"Bobby, that's just it," she whispered, looking fearfully over her
shoulder to make sure that no one heard. "That's just it--I'm not
a-learnin'!"
"Why not?"
"Because of them--Tom, and Patty, and the rest"
Bobby looked dazed, and Margaret plunged headlong into her explanation.
"It's them. They do 'em--all of 'em. Don't you see? They say 'ain't' and
'gee' and 'bully' all the time, and I see now how bad 'tis, and I want
to stop. But I can't stop, Bobby. I just can't. I try to, but it just
comes before I know it. I tried to stop them sayin' 'em, first," went on
Margaret, feverishly, "just as I tried to make 'em act ladylike with
their feet and their knives and forks; but it didn't do a mite o' good.
First they laughed at me, then they got mad. You know how 'twas, Bobby.
You saw 'em."
Bobby whistled.
"Yes, I know," he said soberly. "But when they go away----"
"That's just it," cut in Margaret, tragically. "I wa'n't goin' to have
them go away. I was goin' to keep 'em always; and now I--Bobby, I _want_
them to go!" she paused and let the full enormity of her confession sink
into her hearer's comprehension. Then she repeated: "I want them to go!"
"Well, what of it?" retorted Bobby, with airy unconcern.
"What of it!" wept Margaret. "Why, Bobby, don't you see? I was goin' to
divvy up, and I ought to divvy up, too. I've got trees and grass and
flowers and beds with sheets on 'em and enough to eat, and they hain't
got anything--not anything. And now I don't want to divvy up, I don't
want to divvy up, because I don't want them--here!"
Margaret covered her face with her hands and rocked herself to and fro.
Bobby was silent. His hands were in his pocket, and his eyes were on an
ant struggling with a burden almost as large as itself.
"Don't you see, Bobby, it's wicked that I am--awful wicked," resumed
Margaret, after a minute. "I want to be nice and gentle like mother
wants me to be. I don't want to be Mag of the Alley. I--I hate Mag of the
Alley. But if Tom and Patty and the rest stays I shall be just like
them, Bobby, I know I shall; and--and so I don't want 'em to stay."
Bobby stirred uneasily, changing his position.
"Well, you--you hain't asked 'em to, yet; have ye?" he questioned.
"No. Mother 'spressly stip'lated that I shouldn't say anything about
their stayin' always till their visit was over and they saw how they
liked things."
"Shucks!" rejoined Bobby, his face clearing. "Then what ye cryin' 'bout?
You ain't bound by no contract. You don't have ter divvy up."
"But I ought to divvy up."
"Pooh! 'Course ye hadn't," scoffed Bobby. "Hain't folks got a right ter
have their own things?"
Margaret frowned doubtfully.
"I don't know," she began with some hesitation. "If I've got nice things
and more of 'em than Patty has, why shouldn't she have some of mine?
'Tain't fair, somehow. Somebody ain't playin' straight. I--I'm goin' to
ask mother." And she turned slowly away and began to walk toward the
house.
Not once, but many times during the next few days, did Margaret talk
with her mother on this subject that so troubled her. The result of
these conferences Bobby learned not five days later when Margaret ran
down to meet him at the great driveway gate. Back on the veranda Patty
and the others were playing "housekeeping," and Margaret spoke low so
that they might not hear.
"I _am_ goin' to divvy up," she announced in triumph, "but not here."
"Huh?" frowned Bobby.
"I _am_ goin' to divvy up--give 'em some of my things, you know,"
explained Margaret; "then when they go back, mother's goin' with 'em and
find a better place for 'em to live in."
"Oh, then they are _goin'_ back--eh?"
Margaret flushed a little and threw a questioning look into Bobby's
face. There seemed to be a laugh in Bobby's voice, though there was none
on his lips.
"Yes," she nodded hurriedly. "You see, mother thinks it's best. She says
that they hadn't ought to be here now--with me; that it's my form'tive
period, and that everything about me ought to be just right so as to
form me right. See?"
"Yes, I see," said Bobby, so crossly that Margaret opened her eyes in
wonder.
"Why, Bobby, you don't care 'cause they're goin' away; do you?"
"Don't I?" he growled. "Humph! I s'pose 'twill be me next that'll be
sent flyin'."
"You? Why, you live here!"
"Well, I say 'ain't' an' 'bully'; don't I?" he retorted aggressively.
Margaret stepped back. Her face changed.
"Why--so--you--do!" she breathed. "And I never once thought of it."
Bobby said nothing. He was standing on one foot, digging the toe of the
other into the graveled driveway. For a time Margaret regarded him with
troubled eyes; then she sighed:
"Well, anyhow, you don't live here all the time, right in the house,
same's Patty and the rest would if they stayed. I--I don't want to give
_you_ up, Bobby."
Bobby flushed red under the tan. His eyes sparkled with pleasure--but his
chin went up, and his hands executed the careless flourish that a boy of
fourteen is apt to use when he wishes to hide the fact that his heart is
touched.
[Illustration: "FOR A TIME MARGARET REGARDED HIM WITH TROUBLED EYES."]
"Don't trouble yerself," he shrugged airily. "It don't make a mite o'
diff'rence ter me, ye know. There's plenty I _can_ be with." And he
turned and hurried up the road with long strides, sending back over his
shoulder a particularly joyous whistle--a whistle that broke and wheezed
into silence, however, the minute that the woods at the turn of the road
were reached.
"I don't care," he blustered, glaring at the chipmunk that eyed him from
the top rail of the fence. "Bully--gee--ain't--hain't--bang-up! There!"
Then, having demonstrated his right to whatever vocabulary he chose to
employ, he went home to the little red farmhouse on the hill and spent
an hour hunting for a certain book of his mother's in the attic. When he
had found it he spent another hour poring over its contents. The book
was old and yellow and dog-eared, and bore on the faded pasteboard cover
the words: "A work on English Grammar and Composition."
CHAPTER VIII
Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, and the twins stayed at Five Oaks until the
first of September, then, plump, brown, and happy they returned to New
York. With them went several articles of use and beauty which had
hitherto belonged to Five Oaks. Mrs. Kendall, greatly relieved at
Margaret's somewhat surprising willingness to let the visitors go, had
finally consented to Margaret's proposition that the children be allowed
to select something they specially liked to take back with them. In
giving this consent, Mrs. Kendall had made only such reservation as
would insure that certain valuable (and not easily duplicated) treasures
of her own should remain undisturbed.
She smiled afterward at her fears. Tom selected an old bugle from the
attic, and Peter a scabbard that had lost its sword. Mary chose a string
of blue beads that Margaret sometimes wore, and Clarabella a pink sash
that she found in a trunk. Patty, before telling her choice, asked
timidly what would happen if it was "too big ter be tooked in yer
hands." Upon being assured that it would be sent, if it could not be
carried, she unhesitatingly chose the biggest easy-chair the house
afforded, with the announcement that it was "a Christmas present fur
Mis' Whalen."
For a moment Mrs. Kendall had felt tempted to remonstrate, and to ask
Patty if she realized just how a green satin-damask Turkish chair would
look in Mrs. Whalen's basement kitchen; but after one glance at Patty's
radiant face, she had changed her mind, and had merely said:
"Very well, dear. It shall be sent the day you go."
Arabella only, of all the six, delayed her choice until the final
minute. Even on that last morning she was hesitating between a marble
statuette and a harmonica. In the end she took neither, for she had
spied a huge chocolate-frosted cake that the cook had just made; and it
was that cake which finally went to the station carefully packed in a
pasteboard box and triumphantly borne in Arabella's arms.
Mrs. Kendall herself went to New York with the children, taking Margaret
with her. In the Grand Central Station she shuddered a little as she
passed a certain seat. Involuntarily she reached for her daughter's
hand.
"And was it here that I stayed and stayed that day long ago when you got
hurt and didn't come?" asked Margaret.
"Yes, dear--right here."
"Seems 'most as if I remembered," murmured the little girl, her eyes
fixed on one of the great doors across the room. "I stayed and stayed,
and you never came at all. And by and by I went out there to look for
you, and I walked and walked and walked. And I was so tired and hungry!"
"Yes, yes, dear, I know," faltered Mrs. Kendall, tightening her clasp on
the small fingers. "But we won't think of all that now, dear. It is past
and gone. Come, we're going to take Patty and the others home, you know,
then to-morrow we are going to see if we can't find a new home for
them."
"Divvy up!" cried Margaret, brightening. "We're goin' to divvy up!"
"Yes, dear."
"Oh!" breathed Margaret, ecstatically. "I like to divvy up!" And the
mother smiled content, for the last trace of gloomy brooding had fled
from her daughter's face, and left it glowing with the joy of a
care-free child.
Not two hours later a certain alley in the great city was thrown into
wild confusion. Out of every window leaned disheveled heads, and in
every doorway stood a peering, questioning throng. Down by the Whalens'
basement door, the crowd was almost impassable; and every inch of space
in the windows opposite was filled with gesticulating men, women, and
children.
Mag of the Alley had come back. And, as if that were not excitement
enough for once, with her had come Tom, Mary, Peter, Patty, and the
twins, to say nothing of the beautiful lady with the golden hair, and
the white wings on her hat.
"An' she's all dressed up fit ter kill--Maggie is," Katy Goldburg was
calling excitedly over her shoulder. Katy, and Tony Valerio had the
advantage over the others, for they were down on their knees before the
Whalens' window on a level with the sidewalk. The room inside was almost
in darkness, to be sure, for the crowd outside had obscured what little
daylight there was left, and there was only the sputtering kerosene lamp
on the table for illumination. Even this, however, sufficed to show Katy
and Tony wonders that unloosed their tongues and set them to giving
copious reports.
"She's got a white dress on, an' a hat with posies, an' shoes an'
stockings," enumerated Katy.
"An' de lady's got di'monds on her--I seen 'em sparkle," shouted Tony.
"An' de Whalen kids is all fixed up, too," he added. "An', say, dey've
bringed home stuff an' is showin' 'em. Gee! look at that sw-word!"
"An' thar's cake," gurgled Katy. "Tony, they're eatin' choc'late cake.
Say, I _am_ a-goin' in!"
There was a sudden commotion about the Whalens' door. An undersized
little body was worming its way through the crowd, and thrusting sharp
little elbows to the right and to the left. The next minute, Margaret
Kendall, standing near the Whalens' table, felt an imperative tug at her
sleeve.
"Hullo! Say, Mag, give us a bite; will ye?"
"Katy! Why, it's Katy Goldburg," cried Margaret in joyous recognition.
"Mother, here's Katy."
The first touch of Margaret's hand on Katy's shoulder swept like an
electric shock through the waiting throng around the door. It was the
signal for a general onslaught. In a moment the Whalen kitchen swarmed
with boys, girls, and women, all shouting, all talking at once, and all
struggling to reach the beautiful, blue-eyed, golden-haired little girl
they had known as "Mag of the Alley."
Step by step Margaret fell back until she was quite against the wall.
Her eyes grew wide and terror-filled, yet she made a brave attempt to
smile and to respond politely to the noisy greetings. Across the room
Mrs. Kendall struggled to reach her daughter's side, but the onrushing
tide of humanity flung her back and left her helpless and alone.
It was then that Mrs. Whalen's powerful fist and strident voice came to
the rescue. In three minutes the room was cleared, and Margaret was
sobbing in her mother's arms.
"You see, mother, you see how 'tis," she cried hysterically, as soon as
she could speak. "There's such lots and lots of them, and they're all so
poor. Did you see how ragged and bad their clothes were, and how they
grabbed for the cake? We've got to divvy up, mother, we've got to divvy
up!"
"Yes, dear, I know; and we will," soothed Mrs. Kendall, hurriedly.
"We'll begin right away to-morrow, darling. But now we'll go back to the
hotel and go to bed. My little girl is tired and needs rest."
CHAPTER IX
Dr. Spencer met Mrs. Kendall and her daughter at the Houghtonsville
station on the night they returned from New York. His lips were smiling,
and his eyes were joyous as befitted a lover who is to behold for the
first time in nine long days his dear one's face. The eager words of
welcome died on his lips, however, at sight of the weariness and misery
in the two dear faces before him.
"Why, Amy, dearest," he began anxiously: but her upraised hand silenced
him.
"To-night--not now," she murmured, with a quick glance at Margaret. Then
aloud to her daughter she said: "See, dear, here's Dr. Spencer, and he's
brought the ponies to carry us home. What a delightful drive we will
have!"
"Oh, has he?" For an instant Margaret's face glowed with animation; then
the light died out as suddenly as it had come. "But, mother, I--I think
I'd rather walk," she said. "You know Patty and the rest can't ride."
The doctor frowned, and gave a sudden exclamation under his breath. Mrs.
Kendall paled a little and turned to her daughter.
"Yes, I know," she said gently. "But you are very tired, and mother
thinks it best you should ride. After all, dearie, you know it won't
make Patty and the rest ride, even if you do walk. Don't you see?"
"Yes, I--I suppose so," admitted Margaret; but she sighed as she climbed
into the carriage, and all the way home her eyes were troubled.
Not until after Margaret had gone to bed that night did Mrs. Kendall
answer the questions that had trembled all the evening on the doctor's
lips; then she told him the story of those nine days in New York,
beginning with Margaret's visit to the Alley, and her overwhelming
"reception" in the Whalens' basement home.
"I'm afraid the whole thing has been a mistake," she said despondently,
when she had finished. "Instead of making Margaret happy, it has made
her miserable."
"But I don't see," protested the doctor. "As near as I can make out you
did just what she wanted; you--er--'divvied up.'"
Mrs. Kendall sighed.
"Why, of course, to a certain extent: but even Margaret, child though
she is, saw the hopelessness of the task when once we set about it.
There were so many, so pitifully many. Her few weeks of luxurious living
here at home have opened her eyes to the difference between her life and
theirs, and I thought the child would cry herself sick over it all."
"But you helped them--some of them?"
Again Mrs. Kendall sighed.
"Yes, oh, yes, we helped them. I think if Margaret could have had her
way we should have marched through the streets to the tune of 'See the
conquering hero comes,' distributing new dresses and frosted cakes with
unstinted hands; but I finally convinced her that such assistance was
perhaps not the wisest way of going about what we wanted to do. At last
I had to keep her away from the Alley altogether, it affected her so. I
got her interested in looking up a new home for the Whalens, and so
filled her mind with that."
"Oh, then the Whalens have a new home? Well, I'm sure Margaret must have
liked that."
Mrs. Kendall smiled wearily.
"_Margaret_ did," she said; and at the emphasis the doctor raised his
eyebrows.
"But, surely the Whalens----"
"Did not," supplied Mrs. Kendall.
"Did not!" cried the doctor.
"Well, 'twas this way," laughed Mrs. Kendall. "It was my idea to find a
nice little place outside the city where perhaps Mr. Whalen could raise
vegetables, and Mrs. Whalen do some sort of work that paid better than
flower-making. Perhaps Margaret's insistence upon 'grass and trees'
influenced me. At any rate, I found the place, and in high feather told
the Whalens of the good fortune in store for them. What was my surprise
to be met with blank silence, save only one wild whoop of glee from the
children.
"'An' sure then, an' it's in the country; is it?' Mrs. Whalen asked
finally.
"'Yes,' I said. 'With a yard, some flower beds, and a big garden for
vegetables.' I was just warming to my subject once more when Mr. Whalen
demanded, 'Is it fur from the Alley?'
"Well, to make a long story short, they at last kindly consented to view
the place; but, after one glance, they would have none of it."
"But--why?" queried the doctor.
"Various reasons. 'Twas lonesome; too far from the Alley; they didn't
care to raise vegetables, any way, and Mr. Whalen considered it quite
too much work to 'kape up a place like that.' According to my private
opinion, however, the man had an eye out for a saloon, and he didn't see
it; consequently--the result!
"Well, we came back to town and the basement kitchen. Margaret was
inconsolable when she heard the decision. The Whalen children, too, were
disappointed; but Mr. Whalen and his wife were deaf to their entreaties.
In the end I persuaded them to move to rooms that at least had the sun
and air--though they were still in the Alley--and there I left them with a
well-stocked larder and wardrobe, and with the rent paid six months in
advance. I shall keep my eye on them, of course, for Margaret's sake,
and I hope to do something really worth while for the children. Patty
and the twins are still with them at present."
"But wasn't Margaret satisfied with that?" asked the doctor.
"Yes, so far as it went: but there were still the others. Harry, that
child has the whole Alley on her heart. I'm at my wits' end to know what
to do. You heard her this afternoon--she didn't want to ride home because
Patty must walk in New York. She looks askance at the frosting on her
cake, and questions her right to wear anything but rags. Harry, what can
I do?"
The man was silent.
"I don't know, dear," he said slowly, at last. "We must think--and think
hard. Hers is not a common case. There is no precedent to determine our
course. Small girls of five that have been reared in luxury are not
often thrust into the streets and sweat shops of a great city and there
forced to spend four years of their life--thank God! That those four
years should have had a tremendous influence is certain. She can't be
the same girl she would have been had she spent those years at her
mother's knee. One thing is sure, however, seems to me. In her present
nervous condition, if there is such a thing as getting her mind off
those four years of her life and everything connected with it, it should
be done."
The doctor paused, and at that instant a step sounded on the graveled
driveway. A moment later a boy's face flashed into the light that
streamed through the open door.
"Why, Bobby, is that you?" cried Mrs. Kendall.
"Yes, ma'am, it's me, please. Did Mag--I mean Margaret come home,
please?"
"Yes, she came to-night."
Bobby hesitated. He stood first on one foot, then on the other. At last,
very slowly he dragged his right hand from behind his back.
"I been makin' it for her," he said, presenting a small, but very
elaborate basket composed of peach-stones. "Mebbe if she ain't--er--_are_
not awake, you'll give it to her in the mornin'. Er--thank ye. Much
obliged. Good-evenin', ma'am." And he turned and fled down the walk.
For a time there was silence on the veranda. Mrs. Kendall was turning
the basket over and over in her hands. Suddenly she raised her head.
"You are right, Harry," she sighed. "Her mind must be taken off those
four years of her life, and off everything connected with it; everything
and--everybody."
"Yes," echoed the doctor; "everything and--everybody. Er--let me see his
basket, please."
Four days later Mrs. Kendall and her daughter Margaret left
Houghtonsville for a month's stay in the White Mountains. From the rear
window of a certain law office in town a boy of fourteen disconsolately
watched the long train that was rapidly bearing them out of sight.
"An' I hain't seen her but once since I give her the basket," he was
muttering; "an' then I couldn't speak to her--her mother whisked her off
so quick. Plague take that basket--wish't I'd never see it! An' I worked
so hard over it, 'cause she said she liked 'em made out o' peach-stones!
She said she did."
CHAPTER X
It was the day before Christmas. For eight weeks Margaret had been at
Elmhurst, Miss Dole's school in the Berkshires. School--Miss Dole's
school--had been something of a surprise to Margaret; and Margaret had
been decidedly a surprise to the school. Margaret was not used to young
misses who fared sumptuously every day, and who yet complained because a
favorite ice cream or a pet kind of cake was not always forthcoming; and
Miss Dole's pupils were not used to a little girl who questioned their
right to be well-fed and well-clothed, and who supplemented this
questioning with distressing stories of other little girls who had
little to wear and less to eat day after day, and week after week.
Margaret had not gone to Elmhurst without a struggle on the part of her
mother. To Mrs. Kendall it seemed cruel to be separated so soon from the
little daughter who had but just been restored to her hungry arms after
four long years of almost hopeless waiting. On the other hand, there
were Margaret's own interests to be thought of. School, certainly, was a
necessity, unless there should be a governess at home; and of this last
Mrs. Kendall did not approve. She particularly wished Margaret to have
the companionship of happy, well-bred girls of her own age. The
Houghtonsville public school was hardly the place, in Mrs. Kendall's
opinion, for a little maid with Margaret's somewhat peculiar ideas as to
matters and things. There was Bobby, too--Bobby, the constant reminder in
word and deed of the city streets and misery that Mrs. Kendall
particularly wished forgotten. Yes, there certainly was Bobby to be
thought of--and to be avoided. It was because of all this, therefore,
that Margaret had been sent to Elmhurst. She had gone there straight
from the great hotel in the mountains, where she and her mother had been
spending a few weeks; so she had not seen Houghtonsville since
September. It was the Christmas vacation now, and she was going
back--back to the house with the stone lions and the big play room where
had lain for so long the little woolly dog of her babyhood.
It was not of the stone lions, nor the play room that Margaret was
thinking, however; it was of something much more important and
more--delightful, the girls said. At all events, it was wonderfully
exciting, and promised all sorts of charming possibilities in the way of
music, pretty clothes, and good things to eat--again according to the
girls.
It was a wedding.
Margaret's idea of marriage had undergone a decided change in the last
few weeks. The envious delight of the girls over the fact that she was
to be so intimately connected with a wedding, together with their
absorbing interest in every detail, had been far more convincing than
all of Mrs. Kendall's anxious teachings: marriage might not be such a
calamity, after all.
It had come as somewhat of a shock to Margaret--this envious delight of
her companions. She had looked upon her mother's marriage as something
to be deplored; something to be tolerated, to be sure, since for some
unaccountable reason her mother wanted it; but, still nevertheless an
evil. There was the contract, to be sure, and the doctor had signed it
without a murmur; but Margaret doubted the efficacy of even that at
times--it would take something more than a contract, certainly, if the
doctor should prove to be anything like Mike Whalen for a husband.
The doctor would not be like Mike Whalen, however--so the girls said.
They had never seen any husbands that were like him, for that matter.
They knew nothing whatever about husbands that shook and beat their
wives and banged them around. All this they declared unhesitatingly, and
with no little indignation in response to Margaret's somewhat doubting
questions. There were the story-books, too. The girls all had them, and
each book was full of fair ladies and brave knights, and of beautiful
princesses who married the king--and who wanted to marry him, too, and
who would have felt very badly if they could not have married him!
In the face of so overwhelming an array of evidence, Margaret almost
lost her fears--marriage might be very desirable, after all. And so it
was a very happy little girl that left Elmhurst on the day before
Christmas and, in care of one of the teachers, journeyed toward
Houghtonsville, where were waiting the play room, the great stone lions,
and the wonderful wedding, to say nothing of the dear loving mother
herself.
It was not quite the same Margaret that had left Houghtonsville a few
months before. Even those short weeks had not been without their
influence.
Margaret, in accordance with Mrs. Kendall's urgent request, had been the
special charge of every teacher at Elmhurst; and every teacher knew the
story of the little girl's life, as well as just what they all had now
to battle against. Everything that was good and beautiful was kept
constantly before her eyes, and so far as was possible, everything that
was the reverse of all this was kept from her sight, and from being
discussed in her presence. She learned of wonderful countries across the
sea, and of the people who lived in them. She studied about high
mountains and great rivers, and she was shown pictures of kings and
queens and palaces. Systematically and persistently she was led along a
way that did not know the Alley, and that did not recognize that there
was in the world any human creature who was poor, or sick, or hungry.
It is little wonder, then, that she came to question less and less the
luxury all about her; that she wore the pretty dresses and dainty shoes,
and ate the food provided, with a resignation that was strangely like
content; and that she talked less and less of Patty, the twins, and the
Alley.
CHAPTER XI
Christmas was a wonderful day at Five Oaks, certainly to Margaret. First
there was the joy of skipping, bare-toed, across the room to where the
long black stockings hung from the mantel. In the gray dawn of the early
morning its bulging knobbiness looked delightfully mysterious; and never
were presents half so entrancing as those drawn from its black depths by
Margaret's small eager fingers.
Later in the morning came the sleigh-ride behind the doctor's span of
bays, and then there was the delicious dinner followed by the games and
the frolics and the quiet hour with mother. Still later the house began
to fill with guests and then came the wedding, with Mrs. Kendall all in
soft gray and looking radiantly happy on the doctor's arm.
It was a simple ceremony and soon over, and then came the long line of
beaming friends and neighbors to wish the bride and groom joy and
God-speed. Margaret, standing a little apart by the dining-room door,
felt a sudden pull at her sleeve. She turned quickly and looked straight
into Bobby McGinnis's eyes.
"Bobby, why, Bobby!" she welcomed joyously; but Bobby put his finger to
his lips.
"Sh-h!" he cautioned; then, peremptorily, "Come." And he led the way
through the deserted dining-room to a little room off the sidehall where
the gloom made his presence almost indiscernible. "There!" he sighed in
relief. "I fetched ye, didn't I?"
Margaret frowned.
"But, Bobby," she remonstrated, "why--what are you doing out here, all in
the dark?"
"Seein' you."
"Seeing me! But I was in there, where 'twas all light and pretty, and
you could see me lots better there!"
"Yes, but I wa'n't there," retorted Bobby, grimly; then he added:
"'Twa'n't my party, ye see, an' I wa'n't invited. But I wanted ter see
ye--an' I did, too."
Margaret was silent.
"Mebbe ye want ter go back now yerself," observed Bobby, gloomily, after
a time. "'Tain't so pretty here, I'll own."
Margaret did want to go back, and she almost said so, but something in
the boy's voice silenced the words on her lips.
"Oh, I'll stay, 'course," she murmured, shifting about uneasily on her
little white-slippered feet.
Bobby roused himself.
"Here, take a chair," he proposed, pushing toward her a low stool; "an'
I'll set here on the winder sill. Nice night; ain't it?"
"Yes, 'tis." Margaret sat down, carefully spreading her skirts.
There was a long silence. Through the half-open door came a shaft of
light and the sound of distant voices. Bobby was biting his finger
nails, and Margaret was wondering just how she could get back to the
drawing-room without hurting the feelings of her unbidden guest. At last
the boy spoke.
"Mebbe when we're grown up we'll get married, too," he blurted out,
saying the one thing he had intended not to say. He bit his tongue
angrily, but the next minute he almost fell off the window sill in his
amazement--the little girl had sprung to her feet and clapped her hands.
"Bobby, could we?" she cried.
"Sure!" rejoined Bobby with easy nonchalance. "Why not?"
"And there'd be flowers and music and lots of people to see us?"
"Heaps!" promised Bobby.
"Oh-h!" sighed Margaret ecstatically. "And then we'll go traveling 'way
over to London and Paris and Egypt and see the Alps."
"Huh?" The voice of the prospective young bridegroom sounded a little
uncertain.
"We'll go traveling to see things, you know," reiterated Margaret.
"There's such a lot of things I want to see."
"Oh, yes, we'll go travelin'," assured Bobby, promptly, wondering all
the while if he could remember just where his mother's geography was. He
should have need of it after he got home that night. London, Paris,
Egypt, and the Alps--it might be well to look up the way to get there, at
all events.
"I think maybe now I'll go back," said Margaret, with sudden stiffness.
"They might be looking for me. Good-bye."
"Oh, I say, Maggie," called Bobby, eagerly, "when folks is engaged
they----" But only the swish of white skirts answered him, and there was
nothing for him to do but disconsolately to let himself out the side
door before any one came and found him.
"And I'm going to get married, too," said Margaret to her mother half an
hour later.
"You're going to get married!"
"Yes; to Bobby, you know."
The newly-made bride sat down suddenly, and threw a quick look at her
husband.
"To Bobby!" she exclaimed. "Why, when--where--Bobby wasn't here."
"No," smiled Margaret. "He said he wasn't invited, but he came. We fixed
it all up a little while ago. We're going to London and Paris and Egypt
and see the Alps."
CHAPTER XII
The great dining-room at Hilcrest, the old Spencer homestead, was
perhaps the pleasantest room in the house. The house itself crowned the
highest hill that overlooked the town, and its dining-room windows and
the veranda without, commanded a view of the river for miles, just where
the valley was the greenest and the most beautiful. On the other side of
the veranda which ran around three sides of the house, one might see the
town with its myriad roofs and tall chimneys; but although these same
tall chimneys represented the wealth that made possible the great
Spencer estate, yet it was the side of the veranda overlooking the green
valley that was the most popular with the family. It was said, to be
sure, that old Jacob Spencer, who built the house, and who laid the
foundations for the Spencer millions, had preferred the side that
overlooked the town; and that he spent long hours gloating over the
visible results of his thrift and enterprise. But old Jacob was dead
now, and his son's sons reigned instead; and his son's sons, no matter
how much they might value the whiz and whir and smoke of the town,
preferred, when at rest, to gaze upon green hills and far-reaching
meadows. This was, indeed, typical of the Spencer code--the farther away
they could get from the oil that made the machinery of life run easily
and noiselessly, the better pleased they were.
The dining-room looked particularly pleasant this July evening. A gentle
breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows, and the setting sun
peeped through the vines outside and glistened on the old family plate.
Three generations of Spencers looked down from the walls on the two men
and the woman sitting at the great mahogany table. The two men and the
woman, however, were not looking at the sunlight, the vines, or the
swaying curtains; they were looking at each other, and their eyes were
troubled and questioning.
"You say she is coming next week?" asked the younger man, glancing at
the letter in the other's hand.
"Yes. Tuesday afternoon."
"But, Frank, this is so--sudden," remonstrated the young fellow, laughing
a little as he uttered the trite phrase. "How does it happen that I've
heard so little of this young lady who is to be so unceremoniously
dropped into our midst next Tuesday?"
Frank Spencer made an impatient gesture that showed how great was his
perturbation.
"Come, come, Ned, don't be foolish," he protested. "You know very well
that your brother's stepdaughter has been my ward for a dozen years."
"Yes, but that is all I know," rejoined the young man, quietly. "I have
never seen her, and scarcely ever heard of her, and yet you expect me to
take as a matter of course this strange young woman who is none of our
kith nor kin, and yet who is to be one of us from henceforth
forevermore!"
"The boy is right," interposed the low voice of the woman across the
table. "Ned doesn't know anything about her. He was a mere child himself
when it all happened, and he's been away from home most of the time
since. For that matter, we don't know much about her ourselves."
"We certainly don't," sighed Frank Spencer; then he raised his head and
squared his shoulders. "See here, good people, this will never do in the
world," he asserted with sudden authority. "I have offered the
hospitality of this house to a homeless, orphan girl, and she has
accepted it. There is nothing for us to do now but to try to make her
happy. After all, we needn't worry--it may turn out that she will make us
happy."
"But what is she? How does she look?" catechized Ned.
His brother shook his head.
"I don't know," he replied simply.
"You don't know! But, surely you have seen her!"
"Yes, oh, yes, I have seen her, once or twice, but Margaret Kendall is
not a girl whom to see is to know; besides, the circumstances were such
that--well, I might as well tell the story from the beginning,
particularly as you know so little of it yourself."
Frank paused, and looked at the letter in his hand. After a minute he
laid it gently down. When he spoke his voice was not quite steady.
"Our brother Harry was a physician, as you know, Ned. You were twelve
years old when he married a widow by the name of Kendall who lived in
Houghtonsville where he had been practising. As it chanced, none of us
went to the wedding. You were taken suddenly ill, and neither Della nor
myself would leave you, and father was in Bermuda that winter for his
health. Mrs. Kendall had a daughter, Margaret, about ten years old, who
was at school somewhere in the Berkshires. It was to that school that I
went when the terrible news came that Harry and his new wife had lost
their lives in that awful railroad accident. That was the first time
that I saw Margaret.
"The poor child was, of course, heartbroken and inconsolable; but her
grief took a peculiar turn. The mere sight of me drove her almost into
hysterics. She would have nothing whatever to do with me, or with any of
her stepfather's people. She reasoned that if her mother had not
married, there would have been no wedding journey; and if there had been
no wedding journey there would have been no accident, and that her
mother would then have been alive, and well.
"Arguments, pleadings, and entreaties were in vain. She would not listen
to me, or even see me. She held her hands before her face and screamed
if I so much as came into the room. She was nothing but a child, of
course, and not even a normal one at that, for she had had a very
strange life. At five she was lost in New York City, and for four years
she lived on the streets and in the sweat shops, enduring almost
unbelievable poverty and hardships."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Ned under his breath.
"It was only seven or eight months before the wedding that she was
found," went on Frank, "and of course the influence of the wild life she
had led was still with her more or less, and made her not easily subject
to control. There was nothing for me to do but to leave the poor little
thing where she was, particularly as there seemed to be no other place
for her. She would not come with me, and she had no people of her own to
whom she could turn for love and sympathy.
"As you know, poor Harry was conscious for some hours after the
accident, long enough to make his will and dictate the letter to me,
leaving Margaret to my care--boy though I was. I was only twenty, you
see; but, really, there was no one else to whom he could leave her. That
was something over thirteen years ago. Margaret must be about
twenty-three now."
"And you've not seen her since?" There was keen reproach in Ned's voice.
Frank smiled.
"Yes, I've seen her twice," he replied. "And of course I've written to
her many times, and have always kept in touch with those she was with.
She stayed at the Berkshire school five years; then--with some fear and
trembling, I own--I went to see her. I found a grave-eyed little miss who
answered my questions with studied politeness, and who agreed without
comment to the proposition that I place her in a school where she might
remain until she was ready for college--should she elect to go to
college."
"But her vacations--did she never come then?" questioned Ned.
"No. At first I did not ask her, of course. It was out of the question,
as she was feeling. Some one of her teachers always looked out for her.
They all pitied her, and naturally did everything they could for her, as
did her mates at school. Later, when I did dare to ask her to come here,
she always refused. She wrote me stiff little notes in which she
informed me that she was to spend the holidays with some Blanche or
Dorothy or Mabel of her acquaintance.
"She was nineteen when I saw her again. I found now a charming, graceful
girl, with peculiarly haunting blue eyes, and heavy coils of bronze-gold
hair that kinked and curled about her little pink ears in a most
distracting fashion. Even now, though, she would not come to my home.
She was going abroad with friends. The party included an irreproachable
chaperon, so of course I had nothing to say; while as for money--she had
all of her mother's not inconsiderable fortune besides everything that
had been her stepfather's; so of course there was no question on that
score.
"In the fall she entered college, and there she has been ever since,
spending her vacations as usual with friends, generally traveling. When
she came of age she specially requested me to make no change in her
affairs, but to regard herself as my ward for the present, just as she
had been. So I still call myself her guardian. This June was her
graduation. I had forgotten the fact until I received the little
engraved invitation a week or two ago. I thought of running down for it,
but I couldn't get away very well, and--well, I didn't go, that's all.
But I did write and ask her to make this house her home, and here is her
reply. She thanks me, and will come next Tuesday. There! now you have
it. You know all that I do." And Frank Spencer leaned back in his chair
with a long sigh.
"But I don't know yet what she's like," objected Ned.
"Neither do I."
"Oh, but you've seen her."
"Yes; and how? Do you suppose that those two or three meetings were very
illuminating? No. I've been told this, however," he added. "It seems
that immediately after her return to her mother's home she had the most
absurd quixotic notions about sharing all she had with every ragamuffin
in New York. She even carried her distress over their condition to such
an extent that her mother really feared for her reason. All her
teachers, therefore, were instructed to keep from her all further
knowledge of poverty and trouble; and particularly to instil into her
mind the fact that there was really in the world a great deal of
pleasure and happiness."
Over across the table Mrs. Merideth shivered a little.
"Dear me!" she sighed. "I do hope the child is well over those notions.
I shouldn't want her to mix up here with the mill people. I never did
quite like those settlement women, anyway, and only think what might
happen with one in one's own family!"
"I don't think I should worry, sister sweet," laughed Frank. "I haven't
seen much of the young lady, but I think I have seen enough for that. I
fancy the teachers succeeded in their mission. As near as I can judge,
Miss Margaret Kendall does not resemble your dreaded 'settlement worker'
in the least. However, we'll wait and see."
CHAPTER XIII
There was something of the precision of clockwork in matters and things
at Hilcrest. A large corps of well-trained servants in charge of an
excellent housekeeper left Mrs. Merideth free to go, and come, and
entertain as she liked. For fifteen years now she had been mistress of
Hilcrest, ever since her mother had died, in fact. Widowed herself at
twenty-two after a year of married life, and the only daughter in a
family of four children, she had been like a second mother to her two
younger brothers. Harry, the eldest brother, had early left the home
roof to study medicine. Frank, barely twenty when his brother Harry lost
his life, had even then pleased his father by electing the mills as his
life-work. And now, five years after that father's death, Ned was
sharing his brother Frank's care and responsibility in keeping the great
wheels turning and the great chimneys smoking in the town below.
Della Merideth was essentially a woman who liked--and who usually
obtained--the strawberries and cream of life. Always accustomed to
luxury, she demanded as a matter of course rich clothing and dainty
food. That there were people in the world whose clothing was coarse and
whose food was scanty, she well knew; and knowing this she was careful
that her donations to the Home Missionary Society and the Woman's Guild
were prompt and liberal. Beyond this her duty did not extend, she was
sure. As for any personal interest in the recipients of her alms, she
had none whatever; and would, indeed, have deemed it both unnecessary
and unladylike that she should have had such interest. Her eyes were
always on the hills and meadows on the west side of the house, and even
her way to and from Hilcrest was carefully planned so that she might
avoid so far as was possible, the narrow, ill-smelling streets of the
town on the other side of the hill.
Frank Spencer was a hard-headed, far-seeing man of business--inside the
office of Spencer & Spencer; outside, he was a delightful gentleman--a
little grave, perhaps, for his thirty-three years, but none the less a
favorite, particularly with anxious mothers having marriageable, but
rather light-headed, daughters on their hands. His eyes were brown, his
nose was straight and long, and his mouth firm and clean-cut. His whole
appearance was that of a man sure of himself--and of others. To Frank
Spencer the vast interests of Spencer & Spencer, as represented by the
huge mills that lined the river bank, were merely one big machine; and
the hundreds of men, women, and children that dragged their weary way in
and out the great doors were but so many cogs in the wheels. That the
cogs had hearts that ached and heads that throbbed did not occur to him.
He was interested only in the smooth and silent running of the wheels
themselves.
Ned was the baby of the house. In spite of his length of limb and
breadth of shoulder he was still looked upon by his brother and sister
as little more than a boy. School, college, and a year of travel had
trained his brain, toughened his muscles, and browned his skin, and left
him full of enthusiasm for his chosen work, which just now meant helping
to push Spencer & Spencer to the top notch of power and prosperity.
For five years the two brothers and the widowed sister in the great
house that crowned Prospect Hill, had been by themselves save for the
servants and the occasional guests--and the Spencers were a clannish
family, so people said. However that might have been, there certainly
was not one of the three that was not conscious of a vague fear and a
well-defined regret, whenever there came the thought of this strange
young woman who was so soon to enter their lives.
To be a Spencer was to be hospitable, however, and the preparations for
the expected guest were prompt and generous. By Tuesday the entire
house, even to its inmates, was ready with a cordial welcome for the
orphan girl.
In his big touring car Frank Spencer went to the station to meet his
ward. With him was Mrs. Merideth, and her eyes, fully as anxiously as
his, swept the crowd of passengers alighting from the long train. Almost
simultaneously they saw the tall young woman in gray; and Mrs. Merideth
sighed with relief as Frank gave a quick exclamation and hurried
forward.
"At least she looks like a lady," Mrs. Merideth murmured, as she
followed her brother.
"You are Margaret Kendall, I am sure," Frank was saying; and Mrs.
Merideth saw the light leap to the girl's eyes as she gave him her hand.
"And you are Mr. Spencer, my guardian--'Uncle Frank.' Am I still to call
you 'Uncle Frank'?" Mrs. Merideth heard a clear voice say. The next
moment she found herself looking into what she instantly thought were
the most wonderful eyes she had ever seen.
"And I am Mrs. Merideth, my dear--'Aunt Della,' I hope," she said gently,
before her brother could speak.
"Thank you; and it will be 'Aunt Della,' I'm sure," smiled the girl; and
again Mrs. Merideth marveled at the curious charm of the eyes that met
her own.
CHAPTER XIV
The big touring car skirted the edge of the town, avoiding as usual the
narrower streets, and turning as soon as possible into a wide,
elm-bordered avenue.
"We have to climb to reach Hilcrest," called Frank over his shoulder, as
the car began a steep ascent.
"Then you must have a view as a reward," rejoined Margaret.
"We do," declared Mrs. Merideth,--"but not here," she laughed, as the car
plunged into the depths of a miniature forest.
It was a silent drive, in the main. The man in front had the car to
guide. The two women in the tonneau dropped an occasional word, but for
the most part their eyes were fixed on bird or flower, or on the
shifting gleams of sunlight through the trees. The very fact that there
was no constraint in this silence argued well for the place the orphan
girl had already found in the hearts of her two companions.
Not until the top of the hill was reached, and the car swung around the
broad curve of the driveway, did the full beauty of the panorama before
her burst on Margaret's eyes. She gave a low cry of delight.
"Oh, how beautiful--how wonderfully, wonderfully beautiful!" she
exclaimed.
Her eyes were on the silver sheen of the river trailing along the green
velvet of the valley far below--she had turned her back on the red-roofed
town with its smoking chimneys.
The sun was just setting when a little later she walked across the lawn
to where a rustic seat marked the abrupt descent of the hill. Far below
the river turned sharply. On the left it flowed through a cañon of
many-windowed walls, and under a pall of smoke. On the right it washed
the shores of flowering meadows, and mirrored the sunset sky in its
depths.
So absorbed was Margaret in the beauty of the scene that she did not
notice the figure of a man coming up the winding path at her left. Even
Ned Spencer himself did not see the girl until he was almost upon her.
Then he stopped short, his lips breaking into a noiseless "Well, by
Jove!"
A twig snapped under his foot at his next step, and the girl turned.
"Oh, it's you," she said absorbedly. "I couldn't wait. I came right out
to see it," she finished, her eyes once more on the valley below. The
brothers, at first glance, looked wonderfully alike, and Margaret had
unhesitatingly taken Ned to be Frank.
Ned did not speak. He, too, like his sister an hour before, had fallen
under the spell of a pair of wondrous blue eyes.
"It seems to me," said the girl, slowly, "that nothing in the world
would ever trouble me if I had that to look at."
"It seems so to me, too," agreed Ned--but he was not looking at the view.
The girl turned sharply. She gave a little cry of dismay. The
embarrassed red flew to her cheeks.
"Oh, you--you are not Uncle Frank at all!" she stammered.
A sudden light of comprehension broke over Ned's face. And so this was
Margaret. How stupid of him not to have known at once!
He laughed lightly and made a low bow.
"I have not that honor," he confessed. "But you--you must be Miss
Kendall."
"And you?"
"I?" Ned smiled quizzically. "I? Oh, I am--your _Uncle_ Ned!" he
announced; and his voice and his emphasis told her that he fully
appreciated his privilege in being twenty-five--and uncle to a niece of
twenty-three.
CHAPTER XV
By the end of the month the family at Hilcrest wondered how they had
ever lived before they saw the world and everything in it through the
blue eyes of Margaret Kendall--the world and everything in it seemed so
much more beautiful now!
Never were the long mornings in the garden or on the veranda so
delightful to Mrs. Merideth as now with a bright, sympathetic girl to
laugh, chat, or keep silent as the whim of the moment dictated; and
never were the summer evenings so charming to Frank as now when one
might lie back in one's chair or hammock and listen to a dreamy nocturne
or a rippling waltz-song, and realize that the musician was no bird of
passage, but that she was one's own beloved ward and was even now at
home. As for Ned--never were the golf links in so fine a shape, nor the
tennis court and croquet ground so alluring; and never had he known
before how many really delightful trips there were within a day's run
for his motor-car.
And yet----
"Della, do you think Margaret is happy?" asked Frank one day, as he and
his sister and Ned were watching the sunset from the west veranda.
Margaret had gone into the house, pleading a headache as an excuse for
leaving them.
Della was silent. It was Ned who answered, indignantly.
"Why, Frank, of course she's happy!"
"I'm not so--sure," hesitated Frank. Then Mrs. Merideth spoke.
"She's happy, yes; but she's--restless."
Frank leaned forward.
"That's it exactly," he declared with conviction. "She's restless--and
what's the matter? That's what I want to know."
"Nonsense! it's just high spirits," cut in Ned, with an impatient
gesture. "Margaret's perfectly happy. Doesn't she laugh and sing and
motor and play tennis all day?"
"Yes," retorted his brother, "she does; but behind it all there's a
curious something that I can't get at. It is as if she were--were trying
to get away from something--something within herself."
Mrs. Merideth nodded her head.
"I know," she said. "I've seen it, too."
"Ah, you have!" Frank turned to his sister with a troubled frown. "Well,
what is it?"
"I don't know." Mrs. Merideth paused, her eyes on the distant sky-line.
"I have thought--once or twice," she resumed slowly, "that Margaret might
be--in love."
"In love!" cried two voices in shocked amazement.
Had Mrs. Merideth been observant she might have seen the sudden paling
of a smooth-shaven face, and the quick clinching of a strong white hand
that rested on the arm of a chair near her; but she was not observant--in
this case, at least--and she went on quietly.
"Yes; but on the whole I'm inclined to doubt that now."
"Oh, you are," laughed Ned, a little nervously. His brother did not
speak.
"Yes," repeated Mrs. Merideth; "but I haven't decided yet what it is."
"Well, I for one don't believe it's anything," declared Ned, stubbornly.
"To me she seems happy, and I believe she is."
Frank shook his head.
"No," he said. "By her own confession she has been flitting from one
place to another all over the world; and, though perhaps she does not
realize it herself, I believe her coming here was merely another effort
on her part to get away from this something--this something that while
within herself, perhaps, is none the less pursuing her, and making her
restless and unhappy."
"But what can it be?" argued Ned. "She's not so different from other
girls--only nicer. She likes good times and pretty clothes, and is always
ready for any fun that's going. I'm sure it isn't anything about those
socialistic notions that Della used to worry about," he added
laughingly. "She's got well over those--if she ever had them, indeed. I
don't believe she's looked toward the mills since she's been here--much
less wanted to know anything about the people that work in them!"
"No, it isn't that," agreed Frank.
"Perhaps it isn't anything," broke in Della, with sudden cheeriness.
"Maybe it is a little dull here for her after all her gay friends and
interesting travels. Perhaps she is a little homesick, but is trying to
make us think everything is all right, and she overdoes it. Anyway,
we'll ask some nice people up for a week or two. I fancy we all need
livening up. We're getting morbid. Come, whom shall we have?"
CHAPTER XVI
It had been a particularly delightful day with the Hilcrest house-party.
They had gone early in the morning to Silver Lake for a picnic. A sail
on the lake, a delicious luncheon, and a climb up "Hilltop" had filled
every hour with enjoyment until five o'clock when they had started for
home.
Two of the guests had brought their own motor-cars to Hilcrest, and it
was in one of these that Miss Kendall was making the homeward trip.
"And you call this a 'runabout,' Mr. Brandon?" she laughed gaily, as the
huge car darted forward. "I should as soon think of having an elephant
for an errand boy."
Brandon laughed.
"But just wait until you see the elephant get over the ground," he
retorted. "And, after all, the car isn't so big when you compare it with
Harlow's or Frank's. It only seats two, you know, but its engine is
quite as powerful as either of theirs. I want you to see what it can
do," he finished, as he began gradually to increase their speed.
For some time neither spoke. The road ran straight ahead in a narrowing
band of white that lost itself in a thicket of green far in the
distance. Yet almost immediately--it seemed to Margaret--the green was at
their right and their left, and the road had unwound another white
length of ribbon that flung itself across the valley and up the opposite
hill to the sky-line.
Houses, trees, barns, and bushes rushed by like specters, and the soft
August air swept by her cheeks like a November gale. Not until the
opposite hill was reached, however, did Brandon slacken speed.
"You see," he exulted, "we can just annihilate space with this!"
"You certainly can," laughed Margaret, a little hysterically. "And you
may count yourself lucky if you don't annihilate anything else."
Brandon brought the car almost to a stop.
"I was a brute. I frightened you," he cried with quick contrition.
The girl shook her head. A strange light came to her eyes.
"No; I liked it," she answered. "I liked it--too well. Do you know? I
never dare to run a car by myself--very much. I learned how, and had a
little runabout of my own at college, and I run one now sometimes. But
it came over me one day--the power there was under my fingers. Almost
involuntarily I began to let it out. I went faster and faster--and yet I
did not go half fast enough. Something seemed to be pushing me on,
urging me to even greater and greater speed. I wanted to get away,
away----! Then I came to myself. I was miles from where I should have
been, and in a locality I knew nothing about. I had no little difficulty
in getting back to where I belonged, besides having a fine or two to
pay, I believe. I was frightened and ashamed, for everywhere I heard of
stories of terrified men, women, children, and animals, and of how I had
narrowly escaped having death itself to answer for as a result of my mad
race through the country. And yet--even now--to-day, I felt that wild
exhilaration of motion. I did not want to stop. I wanted to go on and
on----" She paused suddenly, and fell back in her seat. "You see," she
laughed with a complete change of manner, "I am not to be trusted as a
chauffeur."
"I see," nodded Brandon, a little soberly; then, with a whimsical smile:
"Perhaps I should want the brakes shifted to my side of the car--if I
rode with you!... But, after all, when you come right down to the solid
comfort of motoring, you can take it best by jogging along like this at
a good sensible rate of speed that will let you see something of the
country you are passing through. Look at those clouds. We shall have a
gorgeous sunset to-night."
It was almost an hour later that Brandon stopped his car where two roads
crossed, and looked behind him.
"By George, where are those people?" he queried.
"But we started first, and we came rapidly for a time," reminded the
girl.
"I know, but we've been simply creeping for the last mile or two,"
returned the man. "I slowed up purposely to fall in behind the rest. I'm
not so sure I know the way from here--but perhaps you do." And he turned
his eyes questioningly to hers.
"Not I," she laughed. "But I thought you did."
"So did I," he grumbled. "I've been over this road enough in times past.
Oh, I can get back to Hilcrest all right," he added reassuringly. "It's
only that I don't remember which is the best way. One road takes us
through the town and is not so pleasant. I wanted to avoid that if
possible."
"Never mind; let's go on," proposed the girl. "It's getting late, and we
might miss them even if we waited. They may have taken another road
farther back. If they thought you knew the way they wouldn't feel in
duty bound to keep track of us, and they may have already reached home.
I don't mind a bit which road we take."
"All right," acquiesced Brandon. "Just as you say. I think this is the
one. Anyhow, we'll try it." And he turned his car to the left.
The sun had dipped behind the hills, and the quick chill of an August
evening was in the air. Margaret shivered and reached for her coat. The
road wound in and out through a scrubby growth of trees, then turned
sharply and skirted the base of a steep hill. Beyond the next turn it
dropped in a gentle descent and ran between wide open fields. A house
appeared, then another and another. A man and a woman walked along the
edge of the road and stopped while the automobile passed. The houses
grew more frequent, and children and small dogs scurried across the road
to a point of safety.
"By George, I believe we've got the wrong road now," muttered Brandon
with a frown. "Shall we go back?"
"No, no," demurred the girl. "What does it matter? It's only another way
around, and perhaps no longer than the other."
The road turned and dropped again. The hill was steeper now. The air
grew heavy and fanned Margaret's cheek with a warm breath as if from an
oven. Unconsciously she loosened the coat at her throat.
"Why, how warm it is!" she exclaimed.
"Yes. I fancy there's no doubt now where we are," frowned Brandon. "I
thought as much," he finished as the car swung around a curve.
Straight ahead the road ran between lines of squat brown houses with
men, women, and children swarming on the door-steps or hanging on the
fences. Beyond rose tier upon tier of red and brown roofs flanked on the
left by the towering chimneys of the mills. Still farther beyond and a
little to the right, just where the sky was reddest, rose the terraced
slopes of Prospect Hill crowned by the towers and turrets of Hilcrest.
"We can at least see where we want to be," laughed Brandon. "Fine old
place--shows up great against that sky; doesn't it?"
The girl at his side did not answer. Her eyes had widened a little, and
her cheeks had lost their bright color. She was not looking at the pile
of brick and stone on top of Prospect Hill, but at the ragged little
urchins and pallid women that fell back from the roadway before the car.
The boys yelled derisively, and a baby cried. Margaret shrank back in
her seat, and Brandon, turning quickly, saw the look on her face. His
own jaw set into determined lines.
"We'll be out of this soon, Miss Kendall," he assured her. "You mustn't
mind them. As if it wasn't bad enough to come here anyway but that I
must needs come now just when the day-shift is getting home!"
"The day-shift?"
"Yes; the hands who work days, you know."
"But don't they all work--days?"
Brandon laughed.
"Hardly!"
"You mean, they work _nights_?"
"Yes." He threw a quizzical smile into her startled eyes. "By the way,"
he observed, "you'd better not ask Frank in that tone of voice if they
work nights. That night-shift is a special pet of his. He says it's one
great secret of the mills' prosperity--having two shifts. Not that his
are the only mills that run nights, of course--there are plenty more."
Margaret's lips parted, but before she could speak there came a hoarse
shout and a quick cry of terror. The next instant the car under
Brandon's skilful hands swerved sharply and just avoided a collision
with a boy on a bicycle.
"Narrow shave, that," muttered Brandon. "He wasn't even looking where he
was going."
Margaret shuddered. She turned her gaze to the right and to the left.
Everywhere were wan faces and sunken eyes. With a little cry she
clutched Brandon's arm.
"Can't we go faster--faster," she moaned. "I want to get away--away!"
For answer came the sharp "honk-honk" of the horn, and the car bounded
forward. With a shout the crowd fell back, and with another "honk-honk"
Brandon took the first turn to the right.
"I think we're out of the worst of it," he cried in Margaret's ear. "If
we keep to the right, we'll go through only the edge of the town." Even
as he spoke, the way cleared more and more before them, and the houses
grew farther apart.
The town was almost behind them, and their speed had considerably
lessened, when Margaret gave a scream of horror. Almost instantly
Brandon brought the car to a stop and leaped to the ground. Close by one
of the big-rimmed wheels lay a huddled little heap of soiled and ragged
pink calico; but before Brandon could reach it, the heap stirred, and
lifted itself. From beneath a tangled thatch of brown curls looked out
two big brown eyes.
"I reckon mebbe I felled down," said a cheery voice that yet sounded a
little dazed. "I reckon I did."
"Good heavens, baby, I reckon you did!" breathed the man in glad relief.
"And you may thank your lucky stars 'twas no worse."
"T'ank lucky stars. What are lucky stars?" demanded the small girl,
interestedly.
"Eh? Oh, lucky stars--why, they're--what are lucky stars, Miss Kendall?"
Margaret did not answer. She did not seem to hear. With eyes that
carried a fascinated terror in their blue depths, she was looking at the
dirty little feet and the ragged dress of the child before her.
"T'ank lucky stars," murmured the little girl again, putting out a
cautious finger and just touching the fat rubber tire of the wheel that
had almost crushed out her life.
Brandon shuddered involuntarily and drew the child away.
"What's your name, little girl?" he asked gently.
"Maggie."
"How old are you?"
"I'm 'most five goin' on six an' I'll be twelve ter-morrer."
Brandon smiled.
"And where do you live?" he continued.
A thin little claw of a finger pointed to an unpainted, shabby-looking
cottage across the street. At that moment a shrill voice called:
"Maggie, Maggie, what ye doin'? Come here, child." And a tall, gaunt
woman appeared in the doorway.
Maggie turned slowly; but scarcely had the little bare feet taken one
step when the girl in the automobile stirred as if waking from sleep.
"Here--quick--little girl, take this," she cried, tearing open the little
jeweled purse at her belt, and thrusting all its contents into the
small, grimy hands.
Maggie stared in wonder. Then her whole face lighted up.
"Lucky stars!" she cried gleefully, her eyes on the shining coins.
"T'ank lucky stars!" And she turned and ran with all her small might
toward the house.
"Quick--come--let us go," begged Margaret, "before the mother sees--the
money!" And Brandon, smiling indulgently at the generosity that was so
fearful of receiving thanks, lost no time in putting a long stretch of
roadway between themselves and the tall, gaunt woman behind them.
CHAPTER XVII
"Stars--t'ank lucky stars," Maggie was still shouting gleefully when she
reached her mother's side.
Mrs. Durgin bent keen eyes on her young daughter's face.
"Maggie, what was they sayin' to ye?" she began, pulling the little girl
into the house. Suddenly her jaw dropped. She stooped and clutched the
child's hands. "Why, Maggie, it's money--stacks of it!" she exclaimed,
prying open the small fingers.
"Stars--lucky stars!" cooed Maggie. Maggie liked new words and phrases,
and she always said them over and over until they were new no longer.
Mrs. Durgin shook her daughter gently, yet determinedly. Her small black
eyes looked almost large, so wide were they with amazement.
"Maggie, Maggie, tell me--what did they say to ye?" she demanded again.
"Why did they give ye all this money?"
Maggie was silent. Her brow was drawn into a thoughtful frown.
"But, Maggie, think--there must 'a' been somethin'. What did ye do?"
"There wa'n't," insisted the child. "I jest felled down an' got up, an'
they said it."
"Said what?"
"'T'ank lucky stars.'"
A sudden thought sent a quick flash of fear to Mrs. Durgin's eyes.
"Maggie, they didn't hurt ye," she cried, dropping on her knees and
running swift, anxious fingers over the thin little arms and legs and
body. "They didn't hurt ye!"
Maggie shook her head. At that moment a shadow darkened the doorway, and
the kneeling woman glanced up hastily.
"Oh, it's you, Mis' Magoon," she said to the small, tired-looking woman
in the doorway.
"Yes, it's me," sighed the woman, dragging herself across the room to a
chair. "What time did Nellie leave here?"
"Why, I dunno--mebbe four o'clock. Why?"
The woman's face contracted with a sharp spasm of pain.
"She wa'n't within half a mile of the mill when I met her, yet she was
pantin' an' all out o' breath then. She'll be late, 'course, an' you
know what that means."
"Yes, I know," sighed Mrs. Durgin, sympathetically. "She--she hadn't
orter gone."
Across the room Mrs. Magoon's head came up with a jerk.
"Don't ye s'pose I know that? The child's sick, an' I know it. But what
diff'rence does that make? She works, don't she?"
For a moment Mrs. Durgin did not speak. Gradually her eyes drifted back
to Maggie and the little pile of coins on the table.
"Mis' Magoon, see," she cried eagerly, "what the lady give Maggie. They
was in one o' them 'nauty-mobiles,' as Maggie calls 'em, an' Maggie
felled down in the road. She wa'n't hurt a mite--not even scratched, but
they give her all this money."
The woman on the other side of the room sniffed disdainfully.
"Well, what of it? They'd oughter give it to her," she asserted.
"But they wa'n't ter blame, an' they didn't hurt her none--not a mite,"
argued the other.
"No thanks ter them, I'll warrant," snapped Mrs. Magoon. "For my part, I
wouldn't tech their old money." Then, crossly, but with undeniable
interest, she asked: "How much was it?"
Mrs. Durgin laughed.
"Never you mind," she retorted, as she gathered up the coins from the
table; "but thar's enough so's I'm goin' ter get them cough-drops fur
Nellie, anyhow. So!" And she turned her back and pretended not to hear
the faint remonstrances from the woman over by the window. Later, when
she had bought the medicine and had placed it in Mrs. Magoon's hands,
the remonstrances were repeated in a higher key, and were accompanied
again with an angry snarl against the world in general and automobiles
in particular.
"But why do ye hate 'em so?" demanded Mrs. Durgin, "--them autymobiles?
They hain't one of 'em teched ye, as I knows of."
There was no answer.
"I don't believe ye knows yerself," declared the questioner then; and at
the taunt the other raised her head.
"Mebbe I don't," she flamed, "an' 'tain't them I hate, anyway--it's the
folks in 'em. It's rich folks. I've allers hated 'em anywheres, but
'twa'n't never so bad as now since them things came. They look so--so
comfortable--the folks a-leanin' back on their cushions; an' so--so
_free_, as if there wa'n't nothin' that could bother 'em. 'Course I knew
before that there was rich folks, an' that they had fine clo's an' good
things ter eat, an' shows an' parties, an' spent money; but I didn't
_see_ 'em, an' now I do. I _see_ 'em, I tell ye, an' it makes me realize
how I ain't comfortable like they be, nor Nellie ain't neither!"
"But they ain't all bad--rich folks," argued the thin, black-eyed woman,
earnestly. "Some of 'em is good."
The other shook her head.
"I hain't had the pleasure o' meetin' that kind," she rejoined grimly.
"Well, I have," retorted Maggie's mother with some spirit. "Look at that
lady ter-night what give Maggie all that money."
There was no answer, and after a moment Mrs. Durgin went on. Her voice
was lower now, and not quite clear.
"Thar was another one, too, an' she was jest like a angel out o' heaven.
It was years ago--much as twelve or fourteen, when I lived in New York.
She was the mother of the nicest an' prettiest little girl I ever
see--the one I named my Maggie for. An' she asked us ter her home an' we
stayed weeks, an' rode in her carriages, an' ate ter her table, an'
lived right with her jest as she did. An' when we come back ter New York
she come with us an' took us out of the cellar an' found a beautiful
place fur us, all sun an' winders, an' she paid up the rent fur us 'way
ahead whole months. An' thar was all the Whalens an' me an' the twins."
"Well," prompted Mrs. Magoon, as the speaker paused. "What next? You
ain't in New York, an' she ain't a-doin' it now, is she? Where is she?"
Mrs. Durgin turned her head away.
"I don't know," she said.
The other sniffed.
"I thought as much. It don't last--it never does."
"But it would 'a' lasted with her," cut in Mrs. Durgin, sharply. "She
wa'n't the kind what gives up. She's sick or dead, or somethin'--I know
she is. But thar's others what has lasted. That Mont-Lawn I was tellin'
ye of, whar I learned them songs we sings, an' whar I learned 'most
ev'rythin' good thar is in me--_that's_ done by rich folks, an' that's
lasted! They pays three dollars an' it lets some poor little boy or girl
go thar an' stay ten whole days jest eatin' an' sleepin' an' playin'.
An' if I was in New York now my Maggie herself'd be a-goin' one o' these
days--you'd see! I tell ye, rich folks ain't bad--all of 'em, an' they do
do things 'sides loll back in them autymobiles!"
Mrs. Magoon stared, then she shrugged her shoulders.
"Mebbe," she admitted grudgingly. "Say--er--Mis' Durgin, how much was that
money Maggie got--eh?"
CHAPTER XVIII
Margaret Kendall did not sleep well the night after the picnic at Silver
Lake. She was restless, and she tossed from side to side finding nowhere
a position that brought ease of mind and body. She closed her eyes and
tried to sleep, but her active brain painted the dark with a panorama of
the day's happenings, and whether her eyes were open or closed, she was
forced to see it. There were the lake, the mountain, and the dainty
luncheon spread on the grass; and there were the faces of the merry
friends who had accompanied her. There were the shifting scenes of the
homeward ride, too, with the towers of Hilcrest showing dark and
clear-cut against a blood-red sky. But everywhere, from the lake, the
mountain, and even from Hilcrest itself, looked out strange wan faces
with hollow cheeks and mournful eyes; and everywhere fluttered the
ragged skirts of a child's pink calico dress.
It was two o'clock when Margaret arose, thrust her feet into a pair of
bed-slippers and her arms into the sleeves of a long, loose
dressing-gown. There was no moon, but a starlit sky could be seen
through the open windows, and Margaret easily found her way across the
room to the door that led to the balcony.
Margaret's room, like the dining-room below, looked toward the west and
the far-reaching meadows; but from the turn of the balcony where it
curved to the left, one might see the town, and it was toward this curve
that Margaret walked now. Once there she stopped and stood motionless,
her slender hands on the balcony rail.
The night was wonderfully clear. The wide dome of the sky twinkled with
a myriad of stars, and seemed to laugh at the town below with its puny
little lights blinking up out of the dark where the streets crossed and
recrossed. Over by the river where the mills pointed big black fingers
at the sky, however, the lights did not blink. They blazed in tier upon
tier and line upon line of windows, and they glowed with a never-ending
glare that sent a shudder to the watching girl on the balcony.
"And they're working now--_now_!" she almost sobbed; then she turned with
a little cry and ran down the balcony toward her room where was waiting
the cool soft bed with the lavender-scented sheets.
In spite of the restless night she had spent, Margaret arose early the
next morning. The house was very quiet when she came down-stairs, and
only the subdued rustle of the parlor maid's skirts broke the silence of
the great hall which was also the living-room at Hilcrest.
"Good-morning, Betty."
"Good-morning, Miss," courtesied the girl.
Miss Kendall had almost reached the outer hall door when she turned
abruptly.
"Betty, you--you don't know a little child named--er--'Maggie'; do you?"
she asked.
"Ma'am?" Betty almost dropped the vase she was dusting.
"'Maggie,'--a little girl named 'Maggie.' She's one of the--the mill
people's children, I think."
Betty drew herself erect.
"No, Miss, I don't," she said crisply.
"No, of course not," murmured Miss Kendall, unconsciously acknowledging
the reproach in Betty's voice. Then she turned and went out the wide
hall door.
Twice she walked from end to end of the long veranda, but not once did
she look toward the mills; and when she sat down a little later, her
chair was so placed that it did not command a view of the red and brown
roofs of the town.
Miss Kendall was restless that day. She rode and drove and sang and
played, and won at golf and tennis; but behind it all was a feverish
gayety that came sometimes perilously near to recklessness. Frank
Spencer and his sister watched her with troubled eyes, and even Ned gave
an anxious frown once or twice. Just before dinner Brandon came upon her
alone in the music room where she was racing her fingers through the
runs and trills of an impromptu at an almost impossible speed.
"If you take me motoring with you to-night, Miss Kendall," he said
whimsically, when the music had ceased with a crashing chord, "if you
take me to-night, I shall make sure that the brakes _are_ on my side of
the car!"
The girl laughed, then grew suddenly grave.
"You would need to," she acceded; "but--I shall not take you or any one
else motoring to-night."
In the early evening after dinner Margaret sought her guardian. He was
at his desk in his own special den out of the library, and the door was
open.
"May I come in?" she asked.
Spencer sprang to his feet.
"By all means," he cried as he placed a chair. "You don't often honor
me--like this."
"But this is where you do business, when at home; isn't it?" she
inquired. "And I--I have come to do business."
The man laughed.
"So it's business--just plain sordid business--to which I am indebted for
this," he bemoaned playfully. "Well, and what is it? Income too small
for expenses?" He chuckled a little, and he could afford to. Margaret
had made no mistake in asking him still to have the handling of her
property. The results had been eminently satisfactory both to his pride
and her pocketbook.
"No, no, it's not that; it's the mills."
"The mills!"
"Yes. Is it quite--quite necessary to work--nights?"
For a moment the man stared wordlessly; then he fell back in his chair.
"Why, Margaret, what in the world----" he stopped from sheer inability to
proceed. He had suddenly remembered the stories he had heard of the
early life of this girl before him, and of her childhood's horror at the
difference between the lot of the rich and the poor.
"Last night we--we came through the town," explained Margaret, a little
feverishly; "and Mr. Brandon happened to mention that they
worked--nights."
The man at the desk roused himself.
"Yes, I see," he said kindly. "You were surprised, of course. But don't
worry, my child, or let it fret you a moment. It's nothing new. They are
used to it. They have done it for years."
"But at night--all night--it doesn't seem right. And it must be so--hard.
_Must_ they do it?"
"Why, of course. Other mills run nights; why shouldn't ours? They expect
it, Margaret. Besides, they are paid for it. Come, come, dear girl, just
look at it sensibly. Why, it's the night work that helps to swell your
dividends."
Margaret winced.
"I--I think I'd prefer them smaller," she faltered. She hesitated, then
spoke again. "There's another thing, too, I wanted to ask you about.
There was a little girl, Maggie. She lives in one of those shabby,
unpainted houses at the foot of the hill. I want to do something for
her. Will you see that this reaches her mother, please?" And she held
out a fat roll of closely folded bills. "Now don't--please don't!" she
cried, as she saw the man's remonstrative gesture. "Please don't say you
can't, and that indiscriminate giving encourages pauperism. I used to
hear that so often at school whenever I wanted to give something, and
I--I hated it. If you could have seen that poor little girl
yesterday!--you will see that she gets it; won't you?"
"But, Margaret," began the man helplessly, "I don't know the child--there
are so many----" he stopped, and Margaret picked up the dropped thread.
"But you can find out," she urged. "You must find out. Her name's
Maggie. You can inquire--some one will know."
"But, don't you see----" the man's face cleared suddenly. "I'll give it to
Della," he broke off in quick relief. "She runs the charity part, and
she'll know just what to do with it. Meanwhile, let me thank you----"
"No, no," interrupted Margaret, rising to go. "It is you I have to thank
for doing it for me," she finished as she hurried from the room.
"By George!" muttered the man, as he looked at the denominations of the
bills in his fingers. "I'm not so sure but we may have our hands full,
after all--certainly, if she keeps on as she's begun!"
CHAPTER XIX
It was after eight o'clock. The morning, for so early in September, was
raw and cold. A tall young fellow, with alert gray eyes and a square
chin hurried around the corner of one of the great mills, and almost
knocked down a small girl who was coming toward him with head bent to
the wind.
"Heigh-ho!" he cried, then stopped short. The child had fallen back and
was leaning against the side of the building in a paroxysm of coughing.
She was thin and pale, and looked as if she might be eleven years old.
"Well, well!" he exclaimed as soon as the child caught her breath. "I
reckon there's room for both of us in the world, after all." Then,
kindly: "Where were you going?"
"Home, sir."
He threw a keen look into her face.
"Are you one of the mill girls?"
"Yes, sir."
"Night shift?"
She nodded.
"But it's late--it's after eight o'clock. Why didn't you go home with the
rest?"
The child hesitated. Her eyes swerved from his gaze. She looked as if
she wanted to run away.
"Come, come," he urged kindly. "Answer me. I won't hurt you. I may help
you. Let us go around here where the wind doesn't blow so." And he led
the way to the sheltered side of the building. "Now tell us all about
it. Why didn't you go home with the rest?"
"I did start to, sir, but I was so tired, an'--an' I coughed so, I
stopped to rest. It was nice an' cool out here, an' I was so hot in
there." She jerked her thumb toward the mill.
"Yes, yes, I know," he said hastily; and his lips set into stern lines
as he thought of the hundreds of other little girls that found the raw
morning "nice and cool" after the hot, moist air of the mills.
"But don't you see," he protested earnestly, "that that's the very time
you mustn't stop and rest? You take cold, and that's what makes you
cough. You shouldn't be----" he stopped abruptly. "What's your name?" he
asked.
"Nellie Magoon."
"How old are you?"
The thin little face before him grew suddenly drawn and old, and the
eyes met his with a look that was half-shrewd, half-terrified, and
wholly defiant.
"I'm thirteen, sir."
"How old were you when you began to work here?"
"Twelve, sir." The answer was prompt and sure. The child had evidently
been well trained.
"Where do you live?"
"Over on the Prospect Hill road."
"But that's a long way from here."
"Yes, sir. I does get tired."
"And you've walked it a good many times, too; haven't you?" said the
man, quietly. "Let's see, how long is it that you've worked at the
mills?"
"Two years, sir."
A single word came sharply from between the man's close-shut teeth, and
Nellie wondered why the kind young man with the pleasant eyes should
suddenly look so very cross and stern. At that moment, too, she
remembered something--she had seen this man many times about the mills.
Why was he questioning her? Perhaps he was not going to let her work any
more, and if he did not let her work, what would her mother say and do?
"Please, sir, I must go, quick," she cried suddenly, starting forward.
"I'm all well now, an' I ain't tired a mite. I'll be back ter-night.
Jest remember I'm thirteen, an' I likes ter work in the mills--I likes
ter, sir," she shouted back at him.
"Humph!" muttered the man, as he watched the frail little figure
disappear down the street. "I thought as much!" Then he turned and
strode into the mill. "Oh, Mr. Spencer, I'd like to speak to you,
please, sir," he called, hurrying forward, as he caught sight of the
younger member of the firm of Spencer & Spencer.
Fifteen minutes later Ned Spencer entered his brother's office, and
dropped into the nearest chair.
"Well," he began wearily, "McGinnis is on the war-path again."
Frank smiled.
"So? What's up now?"
"Oh, same old thing--children working under age. By his own story the
girl herself swears she's thirteen, but he says she isn't."
Frank shrugged his shoulders.
"Perhaps he knows better than the girl's parents," he observed dryly.
"He'd better look her up on our registers, or he might ask to see her
certificate."
Ned laughed. He made an impatient gesture.
"Good heavens, Frank," he snapped; "as if 'twas our fault that they lie
so about the kids' ages! They'd put a babe in arms at the frames if they
could. But McGinnis--by the way, where did you get that fellow? and how
long have you had him? I can't remember when he wasn't here. He acts as
if he owned the whole concern, and had a personal interest in every
bobbin in it."
"That's exactly it," laughed Frank. "He _has_ a personal interest, and
that's why I keep him, and put up with some of his meddling that's not
quite so pleasant. He's as honest as the daylight, and as faithful as
the sun."
"Where did you get him? He must have been here ages."
"Ages? Well, for twelve--maybe thirteen years, to be exact. He was a mere
boy, fourteen or fifteen, when he came. He said he was from
Houghtonsville, and that he had known Dr. Harry Spencer. He asked for
work--any kind, and brought good references. We used him about the office
for awhile, then gradually worked him into the mills. He was bright and
capable, and untiring in his efforts to please, so we pushed him ahead
rapidly. He went to night school at once, and has taken one or two of
those correspondence courses until he's acquired really a good
education.
"He's practically indispensable to me now--anyhow, I found out that he
was when he was laid up for a month last winter. He stands between me
and the hands like a strong tower, and takes any amount of
responsibility off my shoulders. You'll see for yourself when you've
been here longer. The hands like him, and will do anything for him.
That's why I put up with some of his notions. They're getting pretty
frequent of late, however, and he's becoming a little too meddlesome. I
may have to call him down a peg."
"You'd think so, I fancy, if you had heard him run on about this
mill-girl half an hour ago," laughed Ned. "He said he should speak to
you."
"Very good. Then I can speak to him," retorted the other, grimly.
CHAPTER XX
Early in the second week of September the houseful of guests at Hilcrest
went away, leaving the family once more alone.
"It seems good; doesn't it--just by ourselves," said Margaret that first
morning at breakfast. As she spoke three pairs of eyes flashed a message
of exultant thankfulness to each other, and three heads nodded an "I
told you so!" when Margaret's gaze was turned away. Later, Mrs. Merideth
put the sentiment into words, as she followed her brothers to the door.
"You see, I was right," she declared. "Margaret only needed livening up.
She's all right now, and will be contented here with us."
"Sure!" agreed Ned, as he stepped out on to the veranda. Frank paused a
moment.
"Has she ever been to you again, Della, with money, or--or anything?" he
asked in a low voice.
"No, never," replied Mrs. Merideth. "She asked once if I'd found the
child, Maggie, to give the money to, and I evaded a direct reply. I told
her I had put the money into the hands of the Guild, and that they were
in constant touch with all cases of need. I got her interested in
talking of something else, and she did not say anything more about it."
"Good! It's the best way. You know her history, and how morbid she got
when she was a child. It won't do to run any chances of that happening
again; and I fear 'twouldn't take much to bring it back. She was not a
little excited when she brought the money in to me that night. We must
watch out sharp," he finished as he passed through the door, and hurried
down the steps after his brother.
Back in the dining-room Margaret had wandered listlessly to the window.
It had been some weeks since she had seen a long day before her with no
plans to check off the time into hours and half-hours of expected
happenings. She told herself that it was a relief and that she liked
it--but her fingers tapped idly upon the window, and her eyes gazed
absent-mindedly at a cloud sailing across a deep blue sky.
After a time she turned to the door near by and stepped out upon the
veranda. She could hear voices from around the corner, and aimlessly she
wandered toward them. But before she had reached the turn the voices had
ceased; and a minute later she saw Frank and Ned step into the waiting
automobile and whir rapidly down the driveway.
Mrs. Merideth had disappeared into the house, and Margaret found herself
alone. Slowly she walked toward the railing and looked at the town far
below. The roofs showed red and brown and gray in the sunlight, and were
packed close together save at the outer edges, where they thinned into a
straggling fringe of small cottages and dilapidated shanties.
Margaret shivered with repulsion. How dreadful it must be to live like
that--no air, no sun, no view of the sky and of the cool green valley!
And there were so many of them--those poor creatures down there, with
their wasted forms and sunken eyes! She shuddered again as she thought
of how they had thronged the road on the day of the picnic at Silver
Lake--and then she turned and walked with resolute steps to the farther
side of the veranda where only the valley and the hills met her eyes.
It had been like this with Margaret every day since that memorable ride
home with Mr. Brandon. Always her steps, her eyes, and her thoughts had
turned toward the town; and always, with uncompromising determination,
they had been turned about again by sheer force of will until they
looked toward the valley with its impersonal green and silver. Until now
there had been gay companions and absorbing pastimes to make this
turning easy and effectual; now there was only the long unbroken day of
idleness in prospect, and the turning was neither so easy nor so
effectual. The huddled roofs and dilapidated shanties of the town looked
up at her even from the green of the valley; and the wasted forms and
hollow eyes of the mill workers blurred the sheen of the river.
"I'll go down there," she cried aloud with sudden impulsiveness. "I'll
go back through the way we came up; then perhaps I'll be cured." And she
hurried away to order the runabout to be brought to the door for her
use.
To Margaret it was all very clear. She needed but a sane, daylight ride
through those streets down there to drive away forever the morbid
fancies that had haunted her so long. She told herself that it was the
hour, the atmosphere, the half-light, that had painted the picture of
horror for her. Under the clear light of the sun those swarming
multitudes would be merely men, women, and children, not haunting ghosts
of misery. There was the child, Maggie, too. Perhaps she might be found,
and it would be delightful, indeed, to see for herself the comforting
results of the spending of that roll of money she had put into her
guardian's hands some time before.
Of all this Margaret thought, and it was therefore with not unpleasant
anticipations that she stepped into the runabout a little later, and
waved a good-bye to Mrs. Merideth, with a cheery: "I'm off for a little
spin, Aunt Della. I'll be back before luncheon."
Margaret was very sure that she knew the way, and some distance below
the house she made the turn that would lead to what was known as the
town road. The air was fresh and sweet, and the sun flickered through
the trees in dancing little flecks of light that set the girl's pulses
to throbbing in sympathy, and caused her to send the car bounding
forward as if it, too, had red blood in its veins. Far down the hill the
woods thinned rapidly, and a house or two appeared. Margaret went more
slowly now. Somewhere was the home of little Maggie, and she did not
want to miss it.
Houses and more houses appeared, and the trees were left behind. There
was now only the glaring sunlight showing up in all their barrenness the
shabby little cottages with their dooryards strewn with tin cans and
bits of paper, and swarming with half-clothed, crying babies.
From somewhere came running a saucy-faced, barefooted urchin, then
another and another, until the road seemed lined with them.
"Hi, thar, look at de buz-wagon wid de gal in it!" shrieked a gleeful
voice, and instantly the cry was taken up and echoed from across the
street with shrill catcalls and derisive laughter.
Margaret was frightened. She tooted her horn furiously, and tried to
forge ahead; but the children, reading aright the terror in her eyes,
swarmed about her until she was forced to bring the car almost to a stop
lest she run over the small squirming bodies.
With shrieks of delight the children instantly saw their advantage, and
lost no time in making the most of it. They leaped upon the low step and
clung to the sides and front of the car like leeches. Two larger boys
climbed to the back and hung there with swinging feet, their jeering
lips close to Miss Kendall's shrinking ears. A third boy, still more
venturesome, had almost reached the vacant seat at Miss Kendall's side,
when above the din of hoots and laughter, sounded an angry voice and a
sharp command.
CHAPTER XXI
It had been young McGinnis's intention to look up the home and the
parents of the little mill-girl, Nellie Magoon, at once, and see if
something could not be done to keep--for a time, at least--that frail bit
of humanity out of the mills. Some days had elapsed, however, since he
had talked with the child, and not until now had he found the time to
carry out his plan. He was hurrying with frowning brow along the lower
end of Prospect Hill road when suddenly his ears were assailed by the
unmistakable evidence that somewhere a mob of small boys had found an
object upon which to vent their wildest mischief. The next moment a turn
of the road revealed the almost motionless runabout with its living
freight of shrieking urchins, and its one white-faced, terrified girl.
With a low-breathed "Margaret!" McGinnis sprang forward.
[Illustration: "A MOB OF SMALL BOYS HAD FOUND AN OBJECT UPON WHICH TO
VENT THEIR WILDEST MISCHIEF."]
It was all done so quickly that even the girl herself could not have
told how it happened. Almost unconsciously she slipped over into the
vacant seat and gave her place to the fearless, square-jawed man who
seemingly had risen from the ground. An apparently impossible number of
long arms shot out to the right and to the left, and the squirming
urchins dropped to the ground, sprawling on all fours, and howling
with surprise and chagrin. Then came a warning cry and a sharp
"honk-honk-honk" from the horn. The next moment the car bounded forward
on a roadway that opened clear and straight before it.
Not until he had left the town quite behind him did McGinnis bring the
car to a halt in the shade of a great tree by the roadside. Then he
turned an anxious face to the girl at his side.
"You're not hurt, I hope, Miss Kendall," he began. "I didn't like to
stop before to ask. I hope you didn't mind being thrust so
unceremoniously out of your place and run away with," he finished, a
faint twinkle coming into his gray eyes.
Margaret flushed. Before she spoke she put both hands to her head and
straightened her hat.
"No, I--I'm not hurt," she said faintly; "but I _was_ frightened. You--you
were very good to run away with me," she added, the red deepening in her
cheeks. "I'm sure I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't."
The man's face darkened.
"The little rascals!" he cried. "They deserve a sound thrashing--every
one of them."
"But I'd done nothing--I'd not spoken to them," she protested. "I don't
see why they should have molested me."
"Pure mischief, to begin with, probably," returned the man; "then they
saw that you were frightened, and that set them wild with delight. All
is--I'm glad I was there," he concluded, with grim finality.
Margaret turned quickly.
"And so am I," she said, "and yet I don't even know whom to thank,
though you evidently know me. You seemed to come from the ground, and
you handled the car as if it were your own."
With a sudden exclamation the man stepped to the ground; then he turned
and faced her, hat in hand.
"And I'm acting now as if it were my own, too," he said, almost
bitterly. "I beg your pardon, Miss Kendall. I have run it many times for
Mr. Spencer; that explains my familiarity with it."
"And you are----" she paused expectantly.
The man hesitated. It was almost on his tongue's end to say, "One of the
mill-hands"; then something in the bright face, the pleasant smile, the
half-outstretched hand, sent a strange light to his eyes.
"I am--Miss Kendall, I have half a mind to tell you who I am."
She threw a quick look into his face and drew back a little; but she
said graciously:
"Of course you will tell me who you are."
There was a moment's silence, then slowly he asked:
"Do you remember--Bobby McGinnis?"
"Bobby? Bobby McGinnis?" The blue eyes half closed and seemed to be
looking far into the past. Suddenly they opened wide and flashed a glad
recognition into his face. "And are you Bobby McGinnis?"
"Yes."
"Why, of course I remember Bobby McGinnis," she cried, with outstretched
hand. "It was you that found me when I was a wee bit of a girl and lost
in New York, though _that_ I don't remember. But we used to play
together there in Houghtonsville, and it was you that got me the
contract----" She stopped abruptly and turned her face away. The man saw
her lips and chin tremble. "I can't speak of it--even now," she said
brokenly, after a moment. Then, gently: "Tell me of yourself. How came
you here?"
"I came here at once from Houghtonsville." McGinnis's voice, too, was
not quite steady. She nodded, and he went on without explaining the "at
once"--he had thought she would understand. "I went to work in the mills,
and--I have been here ever since. That is all," he said simply.
"But how happened it that you came--here?"
A dull red flushed the man's cheeks. His eyes swerved from her level
gaze, then came back suddenly with the old boyish twinkle in their
depths.
"I came," he began slowly, "well, to look after your affairs."
"_My_ affairs!"
"Yes. I was fifteen. I deemed somehow that I was the one remaining
friend who had your best interests at heart. I _couldn't_ look after
you, naturally--in a girls' school--so I did the next best thing. I looked
after your inheritance."
"Dear old Bobby!" murmured the girl. And the man who heard knew, in
spite of a conscious throb of joy, that it was the fifteen-year-old lad
that Margaret Kendall saw before her, not the man-grown standing at her
side.
"I suppose I thought," he resumed after a moment, "that if I were not
here some one might pick up the mills and run off with them."
"And now?" She was back in the present, and her eyes were merry.
"And now? Well, now I come nearer realizing my limitations, perhaps," he
laughed. "At any rate, I learned long ago that your interests were in
excellent hands, and that my presence could do very little good, even if
they had not been in such fine shape.... But I am keeping you," he broke
off suddenly, backing away from the car. "Are you--can you--you do not
need me any longer to run the machine? You'll not go back through the
town, of course."
"No, I shall not go back through the town," shuddered the girl. "And I
can drive very well by myself now, I am sure," she declared. And he did
not know that for a moment she had been tempted to give quite the
opposite answer. "I shall go on to the next turn, and then around home
by the other way.... But I shall see you soon again?--you will come to
see me?" she finished, as she held out her hand.
McGinnis shook his head.
"Miss Kendall, in the kindness of her heart, forgets," he reminded her
quietly. "Bobby McGinnis is not on Hilcrest's calling list."
"But Bobby McGinnis is my friend," retorted Miss Kendall with a bright
smile, "and Hilcrest always welcomes my friends."
Still standing under the shadow of the great tree, McGinnis watched the
runabout until a turn of the road hid it from sight.
"I thought 'twould be easier after I'd met her once, face to face, and
spoken to her," he was murmuring softly; "but it's going to be harder,
I'm afraid--harder than when I just caught a glimpse of her once in a
while and knew that she was here."
CHAPTER XXII
Margaret's morning ride through the town did not have quite the effect
she had hoped it would. By daylight the place looked even worse than by
the softening twilight. But she was haunted now, not so much by the wan
faces of the workers as by the jeering countenances of a mob of
mischievous boys. To be sure, the unexpected meeting with Bobby McGinnis
had in a measure blurred the vision, but it was still there; and at
night she awoke sometimes with those horrid shouts in her ears. Of one
thing it had cured her, however: she no longer wished to see for herself
the shabby cottages and the people in them. She gave money, promptly and
liberally--so liberally, in fact, that Mrs. Merideth quite caught her
breath at the size of the bills that the young woman stuffed into her
hands.
"But, my dear, so much!" she had remonstrated.
"No, no--take it, do!" Margaret had pleaded. "Give it to that society to
do as they like with it. And when it's gone there'll be more."
Mrs. Merideth had taken the money then without more ado. The one thing
she wished particularly to avoid in the matter was controversy--for
controversy meant interest.
There had been one other result of that morning's experience--a result
which to Frank Spencer was perhaps quite as startling as had been the
roll of bills to his sister.
"I met your Mr. Robert McGinnis when I was out this morning," Margaret
had said that night at dinner. "What sort of man is he?"
Before Frank could reply Ned had answered for him.
"He's a little tin god on wheels, Margaret, that can do no wrong. That's
what he is."
"Ned!" remonstrated Mrs. Merideth in a horror that was not all playful.
Then to Margaret: "He is a very faithful fellow and an efficient
workman, my dear, who is a great help to Frank. But how and where did
_you_ see him?"
Margaret laughed.
"I'll tell you," she promised in response to Mrs. Merideth's question;
"but I haven't heard yet from the head of the house."
"I can add little to what has been said," declared Frank with a smile.
"He is all that they pictured him. He is the king-pin, the
keystone--anything you please. But, why?"
"Nothing, only I know him. He is an old friend."
"You know him!--a _friend_!" The three voices were one in shocked
amazement.
"Yes, long ago in Houghtonsville," smiled Margaret. "He knew me still
longer ago than that, but that part I remember only as it has been told
to me. He was the little boy who found me crying in the streets of New
York, and took me home to his mother."
There was a stunned silence around the table. It was the first time the
Spencers had ever heard Margaret speak voluntarily of her childhood, and
it frightened them. It seemed to bring into the perfumed air of the
dining-room the visible presence of poverty and misery. They feared,
too, for Margaret: this was the one thing that must be guarded
against--the possible return to the morbid fancies of her youth. And this
man--
"Why, how strange!" murmured Mrs. Merideth, breaking the pause. "But
then, after all, he'll not annoy you, I fancy."
"Of course not," cut in Ned. "McGinnis is no fool, and he knows his
place."
"Most assuredly," declared Frank, with a sudden tightening of his lips.
"You'll not see him again, I fancy. If he annoys you, let me know."
"Oh, but 'twon't be an annoyance," smiled Margaret. "I _asked_ him to
come and see me."
"You--asked--him--to come!" To the Spencers it was as if she had taken one
of the big black wheels from the mills and suggested its desirability
for the drawing-room. "You asked him to come!"
Was there a slight lifting of the delicately moulded chin opposite?--the
least possible dilation of the sensitive nostrils? Perhaps. Yet
Margaret's voice when she answered, was clear and sweet.
"Yes. I told him that Hilcrest would always welcome my friends, I was
sure. And--wasn't I right?"
"Of course--certainly," three almost inaudible voices had murmured. And
that had been the end of it, except that the two brothers and the sister
had talked it over in low distressed voices after Margaret had gone
up-stairs to bed.
Two weeks had passed now, however, since that memorable night, and the
veranda of Hilcrest had not yet echoed to the sound of young McGinnis's
feet. The Spencers breathed a little more freely in consequence. It
might be possible, after all, thought they, that _McGinnis_ had some
sense!--and the emphasis was eloquent.
CHAPTER XXIII
Miss Kendall was sitting alone before the great fireplace in the hall at
Hilcrest when Betty, the parlor maid, found her. Betty's nose, always
inclined to an upward tilt, was even more disdainful than usual this
morning. In fact, Betty's whole self from cap to dainty shoes radiated
strong disapproval.
"There's a young person--a very impertinent young person at the side
door, Miss, who insists upon seeing you," she said severely.
"Me? Seeing me? Who is it, Betty?"
"I don't know, Miss. She looks like a mill girl." Even Betty's voice
seemed to shrink from the "mill" as if it feared contamination.
"A mill girl? Then it must be Mrs. Merideth or Mr. Spencer that she
wants to see."
"She said you, Miss. She said she wanted to see----" Betty stopped,
looking a little frightened.
"Yes, go on, Betty."
"That--that she wanted to see Miss _Maggie_ Kendall," blurted out the
horrified Betty. "'Mag of the Alley.'"
Miss Kendall sprang to her feet.
"Bring the girl here, Betty," she directed quickly. "I will see her at
once."
Just what and whom she expected to see, Margaret could not have told.
For the first surprised instant it seemed that some dimly remembered
Patty or Clarabella or Arabella from the past must be waiting out there
at the door; the next moment she knew that this was impossible, for
time, even in the Alley, could not have stood still, and Patty and the
twins must be women-grown now.
Out at the side door the "impertinent young person" received Betty's
order to "come in" with an airy toss of her head, and a jeering "There,
what'd I tell ye?" but once in the subdued luxury of soft rugs and
silken hangings, and face to face with a beauteous vision in a trailing
pale blue gown, she became at once only a very much frightened little
girl about eleven years old.
At a sign from Miss Kendall, Betty withdrew and left the two alone.
"What is your name, little girl?" asked Miss Kendall gently.
The child swallowed and choked a little.
"Nellie Magoon, ma'am, if you please, thank you," she stammered.
"Where do you live?"
"Down on the Prospect Hill road."
"Who sent you to me?"
"Mis' Durgin."
Miss Kendall frowned and paused a moment. As yet there had not been a
name that she recognized, nor could she find in the child's face the
slightest resemblance to any one she had ever seen before.
"But I don't understand," she protested. "Who is this Mrs. Durgin? What
did she tell you to say to me?"
"She said, 'Tell her Patty is in trouble an' wants ter see Mag of the
Alley,'" murmured the child, as if reciting a lesson.
"'Patty'? 'Patty'? Not Patty Murphy!" cried Miss Kendall, starting
forward and grasping the child's arm.
Nellie drew back, half frightened.
"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. I don't know, ma'am," she stammered.
"But how came she to send for me? Who told her I was here?"
"The boss."
"The--boss!"
"Yes. Mr. McGinnis, ye know. He said as how you was here."
"Bobby!" cried Miss Kendall, releasing the child's arm and falling back
a step. "Why, of course, it's Patty--it must be Patty! I'll go to her at
once. Wait here while I dress." And she hurried across the hall and up
the broad stairway.
Back by the door Nellie watched the disappearing blue draperies with
wistful eyes that bore also a trace of resentment. "Go and dress"
indeed! As if there could be anything more altogether to be desired than
that beautiful trailing blue gown! She was even more dissatisfied ten
minutes later when Miss Kendall came back in the trim brown suit and
walking-hat--it would have been so much more delightful to usher into
Mrs. Durgin's presence that sumptuous robe of blue! She forgot her
disappointment, however, a little later, in the excitement of rolling
along at Miss Kendall's side in the Hilcrest carriage, with the
imposing-looking coachman in the Spencer livery towering above her on
the seat in front.
It had been Miss Kendall's first thought to order the runabout, but a
sudden remembrance of her morning's experience a few weeks before caused
her to think that the stalwart John and the horses might be better; so
John, somewhat to his consternation, it must be confessed, had been
summoned to take his orders from Nellie as to roads and turns. He now
sat, stern and dignified, in the driver's seat, showing by the very
lines of his stiffly-held body his entire disapproval of the whole
affair.
Nor were John and Betty the only ones at Hilcrest who were conscious of
keen disapproval that morning. The mistress herself, from an upper
window, watched with dismayed eyes the departure of the carriage.
"I've found Patty, the little girl who was so good to me in New York,"
Margaret had explained breathlessly, flying into the room three minutes
before. "She's in trouble and has sent for me. I'm taking John and the
horses, so I'll be all right. Don't worry!" And with that she was gone,
leaving behind her a woman too dazed to reply by so much as a word.
Hilcrest was not out of sight before Margaret turned to the child at her
side.
"You said she was in trouble--my friend, Patty. What is it?" she
questioned.
"It's little Maggie. She's sick."
"Maggie? Not _the_ Maggie, the little brown-eyed girl in the pink calico
dress, who fell down almost in front of our auto!"
Nellie turned abruptly, her thin little face alight.
"Gee! Was that you? Did you give her the money? Say, now, ain't that
queer!"
"Then it is Maggie, and she's Patty's little girl," cried Margaret. "And
to think I was so near and didn't know! But tell me about her. What is
the matter?"
CHAPTER XXIV
Down in the shabby little cottage on the Hill road Mrs. Durgin walked
the floor, vibrating between the window and the low bed in the corner.
By the stove sat Mrs. Magoon, mending a pair of trousers--and talking. To
those who knew Mrs. Magoon, it was never necessary to add that last--if
Mrs. Magoon was there, so also was the talking.
"It don't do no good ter watch the pot--'twon't b'ile no quicker," she
was saying now, her eyes on the woman who was anxiously scanning the
road from the window.
"Yes, I know," murmured Mrs. Durgin, resolutely turning her back on the
window and going over to the bed. Sixty seconds later, however, she was
again in her old position at the window, craning her neck to look far up
the road.
"How's Maggie doin' now?" asked Mrs. Magoon.
"She's asleep."
"Well, she better be awake," retorted Mrs. Magoon, "so's ter keep her ma
out o' mischief. Come, come, Mis' Durgin, why don't ye settle down an'
do somethin'? Jest call it she ain't a-comin', then 'twill be all the
more happyfyin' surprise if she does."
"But she is a-comin'."
"How do ye know she is?"
"'Cause she's Maggie Kendall, an' she was Mag of the Alley: an' Mag of
the Alley don't go back on her friends."
"But she's rich now."
"I know she is, an' you don't think rich folks is any good; but I do,
an' thar's the diff'rence. Mr. McGinnis has seen her, an' he says she's
jest as nice as ever."
"Mebbe she is nice ter folks o' her sort, but even Mr. McGinnis don't
know that you've sent fur her ter come 'way off down here."
"I know it, but--Mis' Magoon, she's come!" broke off Mrs. Durgin; and
something in her face and voice made the woman by the stove drop her
work and run to the window.
Drawn up before the broken-hinged, half-open gate, were the Spencers'
famous span of thoroughbreds, prancing, arching their handsome necks,
and apparently giving the mighty personage on the driver's seat all that
he wanted to do to hold them. Behind, in the luxurious carriage, sat a
ragged little girl, and what to Patty Durgin was a wonderful vision in
golden brown.
Mrs. Durgin was thoroughly frightened. She, _she_ had summoned this
glorious creature to come to her, because, indeed, her little girl,
Maggie, was sick! And where, in the vision before her, was there a trace
of Mag of the Alley? Just what she had expected to see, Mrs. Durgin did
not know--but certainly not this; and she fairly shook in her shoes as
the visible evidence of her audacity, in the shape of the vision in
golden brown, walked up the little path from the gate.
It was Mrs. Magoon who had to go to the door.
The young woman on the door-step started eagerly forward, but fell back
with a murmured, "Oh, but you can't be--Patty!"
Over by the window the tall, black-eyed woman stirred then, as if by
sheer force of will.
"No, no, it's me that's Patty," she began hurriedly. "An' I hadn't
oughter sent fur ye; but"--her words were silenced by a pair of
brown-clad arms that were flung around her neck.
"Patty--it is Patty!" cried an eager voice, and Mrs. Durgin found herself
looking into the well-remembered blue eyes of the old-time Mag of the
Alley.
Later, when Mrs. Magoon had taken herself and her amazed ejaculations,
together with her round-eyed daughter, home--which was, after all, merely
the other side of the shabby little house--Patty and Margaret sat down to
talk. In the bed in the corner little Maggie still slept, and they
lowered their voices that they might not wake her.
"Now, tell me everything," commanded Margaret. "I want to know
everything that's happened."
Patty shook her head.
"Thar ain't much, an' what thar is ain't interestin'," she said. "We
jest lived, an' we're livin' now. Nothin' much happens."
"But you married."
Patty flushed. Her eyes fell.
"Yes."
"And your husband--he's--living?"
"Yes."
Margaret hesitated. This was plainly an unpleasant subject, yet if she
were to give any help that _was_ help--
Patty saw the hesitation, and divined its cause.
"You--you better leave Sam out," she said miserably. "He has ter be left
out o' most things. Sam--drinks."
"Oh, but we aren't going to leave Sam out," retorted Margaret, brightly;
and at the cheery tone Patty raised her head.
"He didn't used ter be left out, once--when I married him eight years
ago," she declared. "We worked in the mill--both of us, an' done well."
"Here?"
Patty turned her eyes away. All the animation fled from her face and
left it gray and pinched.
"No. We hain't been here but two years. We jest kind of drifted here
from the last place. We don't never stay long--in one place."
"And the twins--where are they?"
A spasm of pain tightened Patty's lips.
"I don't know," she said.
"You--don't--know!"
"No. They lived with us at first, an' worked some in the mill. Arabella
couldn't much; you know she was lame. After Sam got--worse, he didn't
like ter have 'em 'round, an' 'course they found it out. One night
he--struck Arabella, an' 'course that settled things. Clarabella wouldn't
let her stay thar another minute, an'--an' I wouldn't neither. Jest
think--an' her lame, an' we always treatin' her so gentle! I give 'em
what little money I had, an' they left 'fore mornin'. I couldn't go. My
little Maggie wa'n't but three days old."
"But you heard from them--you knew where they went?"
"Yes, once or twice. They started fur New York, an' got thar all right.
We was down in Jersey then, an' 'twa'n't fur. They found the Whalens an'
went back ter them. After that I didn't hear. You know the twins wa'n't
much fur writin', an'--well, we left whar we was, anyhow. I've wrote
twice, but thar hain't nothin' come of it.... But I hadn't oughter run
on so," she broke off suddenly. "You was so good ter come. Mis' Magoon
said you--you wouldn't want to."
"Want to? Of course I wanted to!"
"I know; but it had been so long, an' we hadn't never heard from you
since you got the Whalens their new--that is----" she stopped, a painful
red dyeing her cheeks.
"Yes, I know," said Margaret, gently. "You thought we had forgotten you,
and no wonder. But you know now? Bobby told you that----" her voice broke,
and she did not finish her sentence.
Patty nodded, her eyes averted. She could not speak.
"Those years--afterward, were never very clear to me," went on Margaret,
unsteadily. "It was all so terrible--so lonely. I know I begged to go
back--to the Alley; and I talked of you and the others constantly. But
they kept everything from me. They never spoke of those years in New
York, and they surrounded me with all sorts of beautiful, interesting
things, and did everything in the world to make me happy. In time they
succeeded--in a way. But I think I never quite forgot. There was always
something--somewhere--behind things; yet after a while it seemed like a
dream, or like a life that some one else had lived."
Margaret had almost forgotten Patty's presence. Her eyes were on the
broken-hinged gate out the window, and her voice was so low as to be
almost inaudible. It was a cry from little Maggie that roused her, and
together with Patty she sprang toward the bed.
"My--lucky--stars!" murmured the child, a little later, in dim
recollection as she gazed into the visitor's face.
"You precious baby! And it shall be 'lucky stars'--you'll see!" cried
Margaret.
CHAPTER XXV
It was, indeed, "lucky stars," as little Maggie soon found out. Others
found it out, too; but to some of these it was not "lucky" stars.
At the dinner table on that first night after the visit to Patty's
house, Margaret threw the family into no little consternation by
abruptly asking:
"How do you go to work to get men and things to put houses into livable
shape?... I don't suppose I did word it in a very businesslike manner,"
she added laughingly, in response to Frank Spencer's amazed ejaculation.
"But what--perhaps I don't quite understand," he murmured.
"No, of course you don't," replied Margaret; "and no wonder. I'll
explain. You see I've found another of my friends. It's the little girl,
Patty, with whom I lived three years in New York. She's down in one of
the mill cottages, and it leaks and is in bad shape generally. I want to
fix it up."
There was a dazed silence; then Frank Spencer recovered his wits and his
voice.
"By all means," he rejoined hastily. "It shall be attended to at once.
Just give me your directions and I will send the men around there right
away."
"Thank you; then I'll meet them there and tell them just what I want
done."
Frank Spencer moistened his lips, which had grown unaccountably dry.
"But, my dear Margaret," he remonstrated, "surely it isn't necessary
that you yourself should be subjected to such annoyance. I can attend to
all that is necessary."
"Oh, but I don't mind a bit," returned Margaret, brightly. "I _want_ to
do it. It's for Patty, you know." And Frank Spencer could only fall back
in his chair with an uneasy glance at his sister.
Before the week was out there seemed to be a good many things that were
"for Patty, you know." There was the skilled physician summoned to
prescribe for Maggie; and there was the strong, capable woman hired to
care for her, and to give the worn-out mother a much needed rest. There
were the large baskets of fruit and vegetables, and the boxes of
beautiful flowers. In fact there seemed to be almost nothing throughout
the whole week that was not "for Patty, you know."
Even Margaret's time--that, too, was given to Patty. The golf links and
the tennis court were deserted. Neither Ned nor the beautiful October
weather could tempt Margaret to a single game. The music room, too, was
silent, and the piano was closed.
Down in the little house on the Prospect Hill road, however, a radiant
young woman was superintending the work that was fast putting the
cottage into a shape that was very much "livable." Meanwhile this same
radiant young woman was getting acquainted with her namesake.
"Lucky Stars," as the child insisted upon calling her, and Maggie were
firm friends. Good food and proper care were fast bringing the little
girl back to health; and there was nothing she so loved to do as to
"play" with the beautiful young lady who had never yet failed to bring
toy or game or flower for her delight.
"And how old are you now?" Margaret would laughingly ask each day, just
to hear the prompt response:
"I'm 'most five goin' on six an' I'll be twelve ter-morrow."
Margaret always chuckled over this retort and never tired of hearing it,
until one day Patty sharply interfered.
"Don't--please don't! I can't bear it when you don't half know what it
means."
"When I don't know what it means! Why, Patty!" exclaimed Margaret.
"Yes. It's Sam. He learned it to her."
"Well?" Margaret's eyes were still puzzled.
"He likes it. He _wants_ her ter be twelve, ye know," explained Patty
with an effort. Then, as she saw her meaning was still not clear, she
added miserably:
"She can work then--in the mills."
"In the mills--at twelve years old!"
"That's the age, ye know, when they can git their papers--that is, if
it's summer--vacation time: an' they looks out that 'tis summer, most
generally, when they does gits 'em. After that it don't count; they jest
works, lots of 'em, summer or winter, school or no school."
"The age! Do you mean that they let mere children, twelve years old,
work in those mills?"
For a moment Patty stared silently. Then she shook her head.
"I reckon mebbe ye don't know much about it," she said wearily. "They
don't wait till they's twelve. They jest says they's twelve. Nellie
Magoon's eleven, an' Bess is ten, an' Susie McDermot ain't but nine--but
they's all twelve on the mill books. Sam's jest a-learnin' Maggie ter
say she's twelve even now, an' the minute she's big enough ter work she
will be twelve. It makes me jest sick; an' that's why I can't bear ter
hear her say it."
Margaret shuddered. Her face lost a little of its radiant glow, and her
hand trembled as she raised it to her head.
"You are right--I did not know," she said faintly. "There must be
something that can be done. There _must_ be. I will see."
And she did see. That night she once more followed her guardian into the
little den off the library.
"It's business again," she began, smiling faintly; "and it's the mills.
May I speak to you a moment?"
"Of course you may," cried the man, trying to make his voice so cordial
that there should be visible in his manner no trace of his real dismay
at her request. "What is it?"
Margaret did not answer at once. Her head drooped forward a little. She
had seated herself near the desk, and her left hand and arm rested along
the edge of its smooth flat top. The man's gaze drifted from her face to
the arm, the slender wrist and the tapering fingers so clearly outlined
in all their fairness against the dark mahogany, and so plainly all
unfitted for strife or struggle. With a sudden movement he leaned
forward and covered the slim fingers with his own warm-clasping hand.
"Margaret, dear child, don't!" he begged. "It breaks my heart to see you
like this. You are carrying the whole world on those two frail shoulders
of yours."
"No, no, it's not the whole world at all," protested the girl. "It's
only a wee small part of it--and such a defenseless little part, too.
It's the children down at the mills."
Unconsciously the man straightened himself. His clasp on the
outstretched hand loosened until Margaret, as if in answer to the stern
determination of his face, drew her hand away and raised her head until
her eyes met his unfalteringly.
"It is useless, of course, to pretend not to understand," he began
stiffly. "I suppose that that altogether too officious young McGinnis
has been asking your help for some of his pet schemes."
"On the contrary, Mr. McGinnis has not spoken to me of the mill
workers," corrected Margaret, quietly, but with a curious little thrill
that resolved itself into a silent exultation that there was then at
least one at the mills on whose aid she might count. "I have not seen
him, indeed, since that first morning I met him," she finished coldly.
Though Margaret would not own it to herself, the fact that she had not
seen the young man, Robert McGinnis, had surprised and disappointed her
not a little--Margaret Kendall was not used to having her presence and
her gracious invitations ignored.
"Oh, then you haven't seen him," murmured her guardian; and there was a
curious intonation of relief in his voice. "Who, then, has been talking
to you?"
"No one--in the way you mean. Patty inadvertently mentioned it to-day,
and I questioned her. I was shocked and distressed. Those little
children--just think of it--twelve years old, and working in the mills!"
The man made a troubled gesture.
"But, my dear Margaret, I did not put them there. Their parents did it."
"But you could refuse to take them."
"Why should I?" he shrugged. "They would merely go into some other man's
mill."
"But you don't know the worst of it," moaned the girl. "They've lied to
you. They aren't even twelve, some of them. They're babies of nine and
ten!"
She paused expectantly, but he did not speak. He only turned his head so
that she could not see his eyes.
"You did not know it, of course," she went on feverishly. "But you do
now. And surely now, _now_ you can do something."
Still he was silent. Then he turned sharply.
"Margaret, I beg of you to believe me when I say that you do not
understand the matter at all. Those people are poor. They need the
money. You would deprive some of the families of two-thirds of their
means of support if you took away what the children earn. Help them,
pity them, be as charitable as you like. That is well and good; but,
Margaret, don't, for heaven's sake, let your heart run away with your
head when it comes to the business part of it!"
"Business!--with babies nine years old!"
The man sprang to his feet and walked twice the length of the room; then
he turned about and faced the scornful eyes of the girl by the desk.
"Margaret, don't look at me as if you thought I was a fiend incarnate. I
regret this sort of thing as much as you do. Indeed I do. But my hands
are tied. I am simply a part of a great machine--a gigantic system, and I
must run my mills as other men do. Surely you must see that. Just think
it over, and give me the credit at least for knowing a little more of
the business than you do, when I and my father before me, have been here
as many years as you have days. Come, please don't let us talk of this
thing any more to-night. You are tired and overwrought, and I don't
think you realize yourself what you are asking."
"Very well, I will go," sighed Margaret, rising wearily to her feet.
"But I can't forget it. There must be some way out of it. There must be
some way out of it--somehow--some time."
CHAPTER XXVI
There came a day when there seemed to be nothing left to do for Patty.
Maggie was well, and at play again in the tiny yard. The yard itself was
no longer strewn with tin cans and bits of paper, nor did the gate hang
half-hinged in slovenly decrepitude. The house rejoiced in new paper,
paint, and window-glass, and the roof showed a spotted surface that
would defy the heaviest shower. Within, before a cheery fire, Patty
sewed industriously on garments which Miss Kendall no wise needed, but
for which Miss Kendall would pay much money.
Patty did not work in the mills now; Margaret had refused to let her go
back, saying that she wanted lots of sewing done, and Patty could do
that instead. Patty's own wardrobe, as well as that of the child,
Maggie, was supplied for a year ahead; and the pantry and the storeroom
of the little house fairly groaned with good things to eat. Even Sam,
true to Margaret's promise, was not "left out," as was shown by his
appearance. Sam, stirred by the girl's cheery encouragement and tactful
confidence, held up his head sometimes now with a trace of his old
manliness, and had even been known to keep sober for two whole days at a
time.
There did, indeed, seem nothing left to do for Patty, and Margaret found
herself with the old idleness on her hands.
At Hilcrest Mrs. Merideth and her brothers were doing everything in
their power to make Margaret happy. They were frightened and dismayed at
the girl's "infatuation for that mill woman," as they termed Margaret's
interest in Patty; and they had ever before them the haunting vision of
the girl's childhood morbidness, which they so feared to see return.
To the Spencers, happiness for Margaret meant pleasure, excitement,
and--as Ned expressed it--"something doing." At the first hint, then, of
leisure on the part of Margaret, these three vied with each other to
fill that leisure to the brim.
Two or three guests were invited--just enough to break the monotony of
the familiar faces, though not enough to spoil the intimacy and render
outside interests easy. It was December, and too late for picnics, but
it was yet early in the month, and driving and motoring were still
possible, and even enjoyable. The goal now was not a lake or a mountain,
to be sure; but might be a not too distant city with a matinée or a
luncheon to give zest to the trip.
Ned, in particular, was indefatigable in his efforts to please; and
Margaret could scarcely move that she did not find him at her elbow with
some suggestion for her gratification ranging all the way from a
dinner-party to a footstool.
Margaret was not quite at ease about Ned. There was an exclusiveness in
his devotions, and a tenderness in his ministrations that made her a
little restless in his presence, particularly if she found herself alone
with him. Ned was her good friend--her comrade. She was very sure that
she did not wish him to be anything else; and if he should try to
be--there would be an end to the comradeship, at all events, if not to
the friendship.
By way of defense against these possibilities she adopted a playful air
of whimsicality and fell to calling him the name by which he had
introduced himself on that first day when she had seen him at the head
of the hillside path--"Uncle Ned." She did not do this many times,
however, for one day he turned upon her a white face working with
emotion.
"I am not your uncle," he burst out; and Margaret scarcely knew whether
to laugh or to cry, he threw so much tragedy into the simple words.
"No?" she managed to return lightly. "Oh, but you said you were, you
know; and when a man says----"
"But I say otherwise now," he cut in, leaning toward her until his
breath stirred the hair at her temples. "Margaret," he murmured
tremulously, "it's not 'uncle,'--but there's something else--a name
that----"
"Oh, but I couldn't learn another," interrupted Margaret, with nervous
precipitation, as she rose hurriedly to her feet, "so soon as this, you
know! Why, you've just cast me off as a niece, and it takes time for me
to realize the full force of that blow," she finished gayly, as she
hurried away.
In her own room she drew a deep breath of relief; but all day, and for
many days afterward, she was haunted by the hurt look in Ned's eyes as
she had turned away. It reminded her of the expression she had seen once
in the pictured eyes of a dog that had been painted by a great artist.
She remembered, too, the title of the picture: "Wounded in the house of
his friends," and it distressed her not a little; and yet--Ned was her
comrade and her very good friend, and that was what he must be.
Not only this, however, caused Margaret restless days and troubled
nights: there were those children down in the mills--those little
children, nine, ten, twelve years old. It was too cold now to stay long
on the veranda; but there was many a day, and there were some nights,
when Margaret looked out of the east windows of Hilcrest and gazed with
fascinated, yet shrinking eyes at the mills.
She was growing morbid--she owned that to herself. She knew nothing at
all of the mills, and she had never seen a child at work in them; yet
she pictured great black wheels relentlessly crushing out young lives,
and she recoiled from the touch of her trailing silks--they seemed alive
with shrunken little forms and wasted fingers. Day after day she turned
over in her mind the most visionary projects for stopping those wheels,
or for removing those children beyond their reach. Even though her eyes
might be on the merry throngs of a gay city street--her thoughts were
still back in the mill town with the children; and even though her body
might be flying from home at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour
in Frank's big six-cylinder Speeder, her real self was back at Hilcrest
with the mills always in sight.
Once again she appealed to her guardian, but five minutes' talk showed
her the uselessness of anything she could say--it was true, she did not
_know_ anything about it.
It was that very fact, perhaps, which first sent her thoughts in a new
direction. If, as was true, she did not know anything about it, how
better could she remedy the situation than by finding out something
about it? And almost instantly came the memory of her guardian's words:
"I suppose that that altogether too officious young McGinnis has been
asking your help for some of his schemes."
Bobby knew. Bobby had schemes. Bobby was the one to help her. By all
means, she would send for Bobby!
That night, in a cramped little room in one of the mill boarding-houses,
a square-jawed, gray-eyed young man received a note that sent the blood
in a tide of red to his face, and made his hands shake until the paper
in his long, sinewy fingers fluttered like an aspen leaf in a breeze.
Yet the note was very simple. It read:
"Will you come, please, to see me to-morrow night? I want to ask some
questions about the children at the mills."
And it was signed, "Margaret Kendall."
CHAPTER XXVII
With a relief which she did not attempt to hide from herself, Margaret
saw the male members of the family at Hilcrest leave early the next
morning on a trip from which they could not return until the next day;
and with a reluctance which she could not hide from either herself or
Mrs. Merideth, she said that afternoon:
"Mr. McGinnis is coming to see me this evening, Aunt Della. I sent for
him. You know I am interested in the children at the mills, and I wanted
to ask him some questions."
Mrs. Merideth was dumb with dismay. For some days Margaret's apparent
inactivity had lulled her into a feeling of security. And now, with her
brothers away, the blow which they had so dreaded for weeks had
fallen--McGinnis was coming. Summoning all her strength, Mrs. Merideth
finally managed to murmur a faint remonstrance that Margaret should
trouble herself over a matter that could not be helped; then with an
earnest request that Margaret should not commit herself to any foolish
promises, she fled to her own room, fearful lest, in her perturbation,
she should say something which she would afterward regret.
When Miss Kendall came down-stairs at eight o'clock that night she found
waiting for her in the drawing-room--into which McGinnis had been shown
by her express orders--a young man whose dress, attitude, and expression
radiated impersonality and business, in spite of his sumptuous
surroundings.
In directing that the young man should be shown into the drawing-room
instead of into the more informal library or living-room, Margaret had
vaguely intended to convey to him the impression that he was a
highly-prized friend, and as such was entitled to all honor; but she had
scarcely looked into the cold gray eyes, or touched the half-reluctantly
extended fingers before she knew that all such efforts had been without
avail. The young man had not come to pay a visit: he was an employee who
had obeyed the command of one in authority.
McGinnis stood just inside the door, hat in hand. His face was white,
and his jaw stern-set. His manner was quiet, and his voice when he spoke
was steady. There was nothing about him to tell the girl--who was vainly
trying to thaw the stiff frigidity of his reserve--that he had spent all
day and half the night in lashing himself into just this manner that so
displeased her.
"You sent for me?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," smiled the girl. "And doesn't your conscience prick you, sir,
because I _had_ to send for you, when you should have come long ago of
your own accord to see me?" she demanded playfully, motioning him to a
seat. Then, before he could reply, she went on hurriedly: "I wanted to
see you very much. By something that Mr. Spencer said the other evening
I suspected that you were interested in the children who work in the
mills--particularly interested. And--you are?"
"Yes, much interested."
"And you know them--lots of them? You know their parents, and how they
live?"
"Yes, I know them well--too well." He added the last softly, almost
involuntarily.
The girl heard, and threw a quick look of sympathy into his eyes.
"Good! You are just the one I want, then," she cried. "And you will help
me; won't you?"
McGinnis hesitated. An eager light had leaped to his eyes. For a moment
he dared not speak lest his voice break through the lines of stern
control he had set for it.
"I shall be glad to give you any help I can," he said at last, steadily;
"but Mr. Spencer, of course, knows----" he paused, leaving his sentence
unfinished.
"But that is exactly it," interposed Margaret, earnestly. "Mr. Spencer
does not know--at least, he does not know personally about the mill
people, I mean. He told me long ago that you stood between him and them,
and had for a long time. It is you who must tell me."
"Very well, I will do my best. Just what--do you want to know?"
"Everything. And I want not only to be told, but to see for myself. I
want you to take me through the mills, and afterward I want to visit
some of the houses where the children live."
"Miss Kendall!" The distressed consternation in the man's voice was
unmistakable.
"Is it so bad as that?" questioned the girl. "You don't want me to see
all these things? All the more reason why I should, then! If conditions
are bad, help is needed; but before help can be effectual, or even given
at all, the conditions must be understood. That is what I mean to
do--understand the conditions. How many children are there employed in
the mills, please?"
McGinnis hesitated.
"Well, there are some--hundreds," he acknowledged. "Of course many of
them are twelve and fourteen and fifteen, and that is bad enough; but
there are others younger. You see the age limit of this state is lower
than some. Many parents bring their children here to live, so that they
can put them into the mills."
Margaret shuddered.
"Then it is true, as Patty said. There are children there nine and ten
years old!"
"Yes, even younger than that, I fear. Only last week I turned away a man
who brought a puny little thing with a request for work. He swore she
was twelve. I'd hate to tell you how old--or rather, how young, she
really looked. I sent him home with a few remarks which I hope he will
remember. She was only one, however, out of many. I am not always able
to do what I would like to do in such cases--I am not the only man at the
mills. You must realize that."
"Yes, I realize it, and I understand why you can't always do what you
wish. But just suppose you tell me now some of the things you would like
to do--if you could." And she smiled encouragement straight into his eyes
until in spite of his stern resolve he forgot himself and his
surroundings, and began to talk.
Robert McGinnis was no silver-tongued orator, but he knew his subject,
and his heart was in it. For long months he had been battling alone
against the evils that had little by little filled his soul with horror.
Accustomed heretofore only to rebuffs and angry denunciations of his
"officious meddling," he now suddenly found a tenderly sympathetic ear
eagerly awaiting his story, and a pair of luminous blue eyes already
glistening with unshed tears.
No wonder McGinnis talked, and talked well. He seemed to be speaking to
the Maggie of long ago--the little girl who stood ready and anxious to
"divvy up" with all the world. Then suddenly his eyes fell on the rich
folds of the girl's dress, and on the velvety pile of the rug beneath
her feet.
"I have said too much," he broke off sharply, springing to his feet. "I
forgot myself."
"On the contrary you have not said half enough," declared the girl,
rising too; "and I mean to go over the mills at once, if you'll be so
good as to take me. I'll let you know when. And come to see me again,
please--without being sent for," she suggested merrily, adding with a
pretty touch of earnestness: "We are a committee of two; and to do good
work the committee must meet!"
McGinnis never knew exactly how he got home that night. The earth was
beneath him, but he did not seem to touch it. The sky was above him--he
was nearer that. But, in spite of this nearness, the stars seemed dim--he
was thinking of the light in a pair of glorious blue eyes.
McGinnis told himself that it was because of his mill people--this
elation that possessed him. He was grateful that they had found a
friend. He did not ask himself later whether it was also because of his
mill people that he sat up until far into the morning, with his eyes
dreamily fixed on the note in his hand signed, "Margaret Kendall."
CHAPTER XXVIII
Frank Spencer found the mental atmosphere of Hilcrest in confusion when
he returned from his two days' trip. Margaret had repeated to Mrs.
Merideth the substance of what McGinnis had told her, drawing a vivid
picture of the little children wearing out their lives in plain sight of
the windows of Hilcrest. Mrs. Merideth had been shocked and dismayed,
though she hardly knew which she deplored the more--that such conditions
existed, or that Margaret should know of them. At Margaret's avowed
determination to go over the mills, and into the operatives' houses, she
lifted her hands in horrified protest, and begged her to report the
matter to the Woman's Guild, and leave the whole thing in charge of the
committee.
"But don't you see that they can't reach the seat of the trouble?"
Margaret had objected. "Why, even that money which I intended for little
Maggie went into a general fund, and never reached its specified
destination." And Mrs. Merideth could only sigh and murmur:
"But, my dear, it's so unnecessary and so dreadful for you to mix
yourself up personally with such people!"
When her brother came home, Mrs. Merideth went to him. Frank was a man:
surely Frank could do something! But Frank merely grew white and stern,
and went off into his own den, shutting himself up away from everybody.
The next morning, after a fifteen minute talk with Margaret, he sought
his sister. His face was drawn into deep lines, and his eyes looked as
if he had not slept.
"Say no more to Margaret," he entreated. "It is useless. She is her own
mistress, of course, in spite of her insistence that I am still her
guardian; and she must be allowed to do as she likes in this matter.
Make her home here happy, and do not trouble her. We must not make her
quite--hate us!" His voice broke over the last two words, and he was gone
before Mrs. Merideth could make any reply.
Some twenty-four hours later, young McGinnis at the mills was summoned
to the telephone.
"If you are not too busy," called a voice that sent a quick throb of joy
to the young man's pulse, "the other half of the committee would like to
begin work. May she come down to the mills this afternoon at three
o'clock?"
"By all means!" cried McGinnis. "Come." He tried to say more, but while
he was searching for just the right words, the voice murmured, "Thank
you"; and then came the click of the receiver against the hook at the
other end of the line.
The clock had not struck three that afternoon when Margaret was ushered
into the inner office of Spencer & Spencer. Only Frank was there, for
which Margaret was thankful. She avoided Ned these days when she could.
There was still that haunting reproach in his eyes whenever they met
hers.
Frank was expecting her, and only a peculiar tightening of his lips
betrayed his disquietude as he turned to his desk and pressed the button
that would summon McGinnis to the office.
"Miss Kendall would like to go over one of the mills," he said quietly,
as the young man entered, in response to his ring. "Perhaps you will be
her escort."
Margaret gave her guardian a grateful look as she left the office. She
thought she knew just how much the calm acceptance of the situation had
cost him, and she appreciated his unflinching determination to give her
actions the sanction of his apparent consent. It was for this that she
gave him the grateful glance--but he did not see it. His head was turned
away.
"And what shall I show you?" asked McGinnis, as the office door closed
behind them.
"Everything you can," returned Margaret; "everything! But particularly
the children."
From the first deafening click-clack of the rattling machines she drew
back in consternation.
"They don't work there--the children!" she cried.
For answer he pointed to a little girl not far away. She was standing on
a stool, that she might reach her work. Her face was thin and drawn
looking, with deep shadows under her eyes, and little hollows where the
roses should have been in her cheeks. Her hair was braided and wound
tightly about her small head, though at the temples and behind her ears
it kinked into rebellious curls that showed what it would like to do if
it had a chance. Her ragged little skirts were bound round and round
with a stout cord so that the hungry jaws of the machine might not snap
at any flying fold or tatter. She did not look up as Margaret paused
beside her. She dared not. Her eyes were glued to the whizzing,
whirring, clattering thing before her, watching for broken threads or
loose ends, the neglect of which might bring down upon her head a
snarling reprimand from "de boss" of her department.
Margaret learned many things during the next two hours. Conversation was
not easy in the clattering din, but some few things her guide explained,
and a word or two spoke volumes sometimes.
She saw what it meant to be a "doffer," a "reeler," a "silk-twister."
She saw what it might mean if the tiny hand that thrust the empty bobbin
over the buzzing spindle-point should slip or lose its skill. She saw a
little maid of twelve who earned two whole dollars a week, and she saw a
smaller girl of ten who, McGinnis said, was with her sister the only
support of an invalid mother at home. She saw more, much more, until her
mind refused to grasp details and the whole scene became one blurred
vision of horror.
Later, after a brief rest--she had insisted upon staying--she saw the
"day-shift" swarm out into the chill December night, and the
"night-shift" come shivering in to take their places; and she grew faint
and sick when she saw among them the scores of puny little forms with
tired-looking faces and dragging feet.
"And they're only beginning!" she moaned, as McGinnis hurried her away.
"And they've got to work all night--all night!"
CHAPTER XXIX
Margaret did not sleep well in her lavender-scented sheets that night.
Always she heard the roar and the click-clack of the mills, and
everywhere she saw the weary little workers with their closely-bound
skirts, and their strained, anxious faces.
She came down to breakfast with dark circles under her eyes, and she ate
almost nothing, to the great, though silent, distress of the family.
The Spencers were alone now. There would be no more guests for a week,
then would come a merry half-dozen for the Christmas holidays. New
Year's was the signal for a general breaking up. The family seldom
stayed at Hilcrest long after that, though the house was not quite
closed, being always in readiness for the brothers when either one or
both came down for a week's business.
It was always more or less of a debatable question--just where the family
should go. There was the town house in New York, frequently opened for a
month or two of gaiety; and there were the allurements of some Southern
resort, or of a trip abroad, to be considered. Sometimes it was merely a
succession of visits that occupied the first few weeks after New Year's,
particularly for Mrs. Merideth and Ned; and sometimes it was only a
quiet rest under some sunny sky entirely away from Society with a
capital S. The time was drawing near now for the annual change, and the
family were discussing the various possibilities when Margaret came into
the breakfast-room. They appealed to her at once, and asked her opinion
and advice--but without avail. There seemed to be not one plan that
interested her to the point of possessing either merits or demerits.
"I am going down to Patty's," she said, a little hurriedly, to Mrs.
Merideth, when breakfast was over. "I got some names and addresses of
the mill children yesterday from Mr. McGinnis; and I shall ask Patty to
go with me to see them. I want to talk with the parents."
"But, my dear, you don't know what you are doing," protested Mrs.
Merideth. "They are so rough--those people. Miss Alby, our visiting home
missionary, told me only last week how dreadful they were--so rude and
intemperate and--and ill-odored. She has been among them. She knows."
"Yes; but don't you see?--those are the very people that need help,
then," returned Margaret, wearily. "They don't know what they are doing
to their little children, and I must tell them. I _must_ tell them. I
shall have Patty with me. Don't worry." And Mrs. Merideth could only
sigh and sigh again, and hurry away up-stairs to devise an altogether
more delightful plan for the winter months than any that had yet been
proposed--a plan so overwhelmingly delightful that Margaret could not
help being interested. Of one thing, however, Mrs. Merideth was
certain--if there was a place distant enough to silence the roar of the
mills in Margaret's ears, that place should be chosen if it were Egypt
itself.
Patty Durgin hesitated visibly when Margaret told her what she wanted to
do, until Margaret exclaimed in surprise, and with a little reproach in
her voice:
"Why, Patty, don't you want to help me?"
"Yes, yes; you don't understand," protested Patty. "It ain't that. I
want ter do it all. If you have money for 'em, let me give it to 'em."
Margaret was silent. Her eyes were still hurt, still rebellious.
"I--I don't want you ter see them," stammered Patty, then. "I don't want
you ter feel so--so bad."
Margaret's face cleared.
"Oh, but I'm feeling bad now," she asserted cheerily; "and after I see
them I'll feel better. I want to talk to them; don't you see? They don't
realize what they are doing to their children to let them work so, and I
am going to tell them."
Patty sighed.
"Ye don't understand," she began, then stopped, her eyes on the
determined young face opposite. "All right, I'll go," she finished, but
she shivered a little as she spoke.
And they did go, not only on that day, but on the next and the next.
Margaret almost forgot the mills, so filled was her vision with drunken
men, untidy women, wretched babies, and cheerless homes.
Sometimes her presence and her questions were resented, and always they
were looked upon with distrust. Her money, if she gave that, was
welcome, usually; but her remonstrances and her warnings fell upon deaf,
if not angry, ears. And then Margaret perceived why Patty had said she
did not understand--there was no such thing as making a successful appeal
to the parents. She might have spared herself the effort.
Sometimes she did not understand the words of the dark-browed men and
the slovenly women--there were many nationalities among the
operatives--but always she understood their black looks and their almost
threatening gestures. Occasionally, to be sure, she found a sick woman
or a discouraged man who welcomed her warmly, and who listened to her
and agreed with what she had to say; but with them there was always the
excuse of poverty--though their Sue and Bess and Teddy might not earn but
twenty, thirty, forty cents a day; yet that twenty, thirty, and forty
cents would buy meat and bread, and meant all the difference between a
full and an empty stomach, perhaps, for every member of the family, at
times.
Margaret did what she could. She spent her time and her money without
stint, and went from house to house untiringly. She summoned young
McGinnis to her aid, and arranged for a monster Christmas tree to be
placed in the largest hall in town; and she herself ordered the books,
toys, candies, and games for it, besides the candles and tinsel stars to
make it a vision of delight to the weary little eyes all unaccustomed to
such glory. And yet, to Margaret it seemed that nothing that she did
counted in the least against the much there was to be done. It was as if
a child with a teaspoon and a bowl of sand were set to filling up a big
chasm: her spoonful of sand had not even struck bottom in that pit of
horror!
CHAPTER XXX
The house-party at Hilcrest was not an entire success that Christmas.
Even the guests felt a subtle something in the air that was not
conducive to ease; while Mrs. Merideth and her brothers were plainly
fighting a losing contest against a restlessness that sent a haunting
fear to their eyes.
Margaret, though scrupulously careful to show every attention to the
guests that courtesy demanded, was strangely quiet, and not at all like
the merry, high-spirited girl that most of them knew. Brandon, who was
again at the house, sought her out one day, and said low in her ear:
"If it were June and not December, and if we were out in the auto
instead of here by the fire, I'm wondering; would I need to--watch out
for those brakes?"
The girl winced.
"No, no," she cried; "never! I think I should simply crawl for fear that
under the wheels somewhere would be a child, a dog, a chicken, or even a
helpless worm--something that moved and that I might hurt. There is
already so much--suffering!"
Brandon laughed uneasily and drew back, a puzzled frown on his face. He
had not meant that she should take his jest so seriously.
It was on the day after New Year's, when all the guests had gone, that
Margaret once more said to her guardian that she wished to speak to him,
and on business. Frank Spencer told himself that he was used to this
sort of thing now, and that he was resigned to the inevitable; but his
eyes were troubled, and his lips were close-shut as he motioned the girl
to precede him into the den.
"I thought I ought to tell you," she began, plunging into her subject
with an abruptness that betrayed her nervousness, "I thought I ought to
tell you at once that I--I cannot go with you when you all go away next
week."
"You cannot go with us!"
"No. I must stay here."
"Here! Why, Margaret, child, that is impossible!--here in this great
house with only the servants?"
"No, no, you don't understand; not here at Hilcrest. I shall be down in
the town--with Patty."
"Margaret!" The man was too dismayed to say more.
"I know, it seems strange to you, of course" rejoined the girl, hastily;
"but you will see--you will understand when I explain. I have thought of
it in all its bearings, and it is the only way. I could not go with you
and sing and laugh and dance, and all the while remember that my people
back here were suffering."
"Your people! Dear child, they are not your people nor my people; they
are their own people. They come and go as they like. If not in my mills,
they work in some other man's mills. You are not responsible for their
welfare. Besides, you have already done more for their comfort and
happiness than any human being could expect of you!"
"I know, but you do not understand. It is in a peculiar way that they
are my people--not because they are here, but because they are poor and
unhappy." Margaret hesitated, and then went on, her eyes turned away
from her guardian's face. "I don't know as I can make you understand--as
I do. There are people, lots of them, who are generous and kind to the
poor. But they are on one side of the line, and the poor are on the
other. They merely pass things over the line--they never go themselves.
And that is all right. They could not cross the line if they wanted to,
perhaps. They would not know how. All their lives they have been
surrounded with tender care and luxury; they do not know what it means
to be hungry and cold and homeless. They do not know what it means to
fight the world alone with only empty hands."
Margaret paused, her eyes still averted; then suddenly she turned and
faced the man sitting in silent dismay at the desk.
"Don't you see?" she cried. "I _have_ crossed the line. I crossed it
long ago when I was a little girl. I do know what it means to be hungry
and cold and homeless. I do know what it means to fight the world with
only two small empty hands. In doing for these people I am doing for my
own. They are my people."
For a moment there was silence in the little room. To the man at the
desk the bottom seemed suddenly to have dropped out of his world. For
some time it had been growing on him--the knowledge of how much the
presence of this fair-haired, winsome girl meant to him. It came to him
now with the staggering force of a blow in the face--and she was going
away. To Frank Spencer the days suddenly stretched ahead in empty
uselessness--there seemed to be nothing left worth while.
"But, my dear Margaret," he said at last, unsteadily, "we tried--we all
tried to make you forget those terrible days. You were so keenly
sensitive--they weighed too heavily on your heart. You--you were morbid,
my dear."
"I know," she said. "I understand better now. Every one tried to
interest me, to amuse me, to make me forget. I was kept from everything
unpleasant, and from everybody that suffered. It comes to me very
vividly now, how careful every one was that I should know of only
happiness."
"We wanted you to forget."
"But I never did forget--quite. Even when years and years had passed, and
I could go everywhere and see all the beautiful things and places I had
read about, and when I was with my friends, there was always something,
somewhere, behind things. Those four years in New York were vague and
elusive, as time passed. They seemed like a dream, or like a life that
some one else had lived. But I know now; they were not a dream, and they
were not a life that some one else lived. They were my life. I lived
them myself. Don't you see--now?" Margaret's eyes were luminous with
feeling. Her lips trembled; but her face glowed with a strange
exaltation of happiness.
"But what--do you mean--to do?" faltered the man.
Margaret flushed and leaned forward eagerly.
"I am going to do all that I can, and I hope it will be a great deal. I
am going down there to live."
"To live--not to live, child!"
"Yes. Oh, I _know_ now," she went on hurriedly. "I have been among them.
Some are wicked and some are thoughtless, but all of them need teaching.
I am going to live there among them, to show them the better way."
The man at the desk left his chair abruptly. He walked over to the
window and looked out. The moon shone clear and bright in the sky. Down
in the valley the countless gleaming windows and the tall black chimneys
showed where the mill-workers still toiled--those mill-workers whom the
man had come almost to hate: it was because of them that Margaret was
going! He turned slowly and walked back to the girl.
"Margaret," he began in a voice that shook a little, "I had not thought
to speak of this--at least, not now. Perhaps it would be better if I
never spoke of it; but I am almost forced to say it now. I can't let you
go like this, and not--know. I must make one effort to keep you.... If
you knew that there was some one here who loved you--who loved you with
the whole strength of his being, and if you knew that to him your going
meant everything that was loneliness and grief, would you--could
you--stay?"
Margaret started. She would not look into the eyes that were so
earnestly seeking hers. It was of Ned, of course, that he was speaking.
Of that she was sure. In some way he had discovered Ned's feeling for
her, had perhaps even been asked to plead his cause with her.
"Did you ever think," began Spencer again, softly, "did you ever think
that if you did stay, you might find even here some one to whom you
could show--the better way? That even here you might do all these things
you long to do, and with some one close by your side to help you?"
Margaret thought of Ned, of his impulsiveness, his light-heartedness,
his utter want of sympathy with everything she had been doing the last
few weeks; and involuntarily she shuddered. Spencer saw the sensitive
quiver and drew back, touched to the quick. Margaret struggled to her
feet.
"No, no," she cried, still refusing to meet his eyes. "I--I cannot stay.
I am sorry, believe me, to give you pain; but I--I cannot stay!" And she
hurried from the room.
The man dropped back in his chair, his face white.
"She does not love me, and no wonder," he sighed bitterly; and he went
over word by word what had been said, though even then he did not find
syllable or gesture that told him the truth--that she supposed him merely
to be playing John Alden to his brother's Miles Standish.
CHAPTER XXXI
The household at Hilcrest did not break up as early as usual that year.
A few days were consumed in horrified remonstrances and tearful
pleadings on the part of Mrs. Merideth and Ned when Margaret's plans
became known. Then several more days were needed for necessary
arrangements when the stoical calm of despair had brought something like
peace to the family.
"It is not so dreadful at all," Margaret had assured them. "I have taken
a large house not far from the mills, and I am having it papered and
painted and put into very comfortable shape. Patty and her family will
live with me, and we are going to open classes in simple little things
that will help toward better living."
"But that is regular settlement work," sighed Mrs. Merideth.
"Is it?" smiled Margaret, a little wearily. "Well, perhaps it is.
Anyway, I hope that just the presence of one clean, beautiful home among
them will do some good. I mean to try it, at all events."
"But are you going to do nothing but that all the time--just teach those
dreadful creatures, and--and live there?"
"Certainly not," declared Margaret, with a bright smile. "I've planned a
trip to New York."
"To New York?" Mrs. Merideth sat up suddenly, her face alight. "Oh, that
will be fine--lovely! Why didn't you tell us? Poor dear, you'll need a
rest all right, I'm thinking, and we'll keep you just as long as we can,
too." With lightning rapidity Mrs. Merideth had changed their plans--in
her mind. They would go to New York, not Egypt. Egypt had seemed
desirable, but if Margaret was going to New York, that altered the case.
"Oh, but I thought you weren't going to New York," laughed Margaret.
"Besides--I'm going with Patty."
"With Patty!" If it had not been tragical it would have been
comical--Mrs. Merideth's shocked recoil at the girl's words.
"Yes. After we get everything nicely to running--we shall have teachers
to help us, you know--Patty and I are going to New York to see if we
can't find her sisters, Arabella and Clarabella."
"What absurd names!" Mrs. Merideth spoke sharply. In reality she had no
interest whether they were, or were not absurd; but they chanced at the
moment to be a convenient scapegoat for her anger and discomfiture.
"Patty doesn't think them absurd," laughed Margaret. "She would tell you
that she named them herself out of a 'piece of a book' she found in the
ash barrel long ago when they were children. You should hear Patty say
it really to appreciate it. She used to preface it by some such remark
as: 'Names ain't like measles an' relations, ye know. Ye don't have ter
have 'em if ye don't want 'em--you can change 'em.'"
"Ugh!" shuddered Mrs. Merideth. "Margaret, how can you--laugh!"
"Why, it's funny, I think," laughed Margaret again, as she turned away.
Even the most urgent entreaties on the part of Margaret failed to start
the Spencers on their trip, and not until she finally threatened to make
the first move herself and go down to the town, did they consent to go.
"But that absurd house of yours isn't ready yet," protested Mrs.
Merideth.
"I know, but I shall stay with Patty until it is," returned Margaret. "I
would rather wait until you go, as you seem so worried about the
'break,' as you insist upon calling it; but if you won't, why I must,
that is all. I must be there to superintend matters."
"Then I suppose I shall have to go," moaned Mrs. Merideth, "for I simply
will not have you leave us here and go down there to live; and I shall
tell everybody, _everybody_," she added firmly, "that it is merely for
this winter, and that we allowed you to do it only on that one
condition."
Margaret smiled, but she made no comment--it was enough to fight present
battles without trying to win future ones.
On the day the rest of the family left Hilcrest, Margaret moved to
Patty's little house on the Hill road. Her tiny room up under the eaves
looked woefully small and inconvenient to eyes that were accustomed to
luxurious Hilcrest; and the supper--which to Patty was sumptuous in the
extravagance she had allowed herself in her visitor's honor--did not
tempt her appetite in the least. She told herself, however, that all
this was well and good; and she ate the supper and laid herself down
upon the hard bed with an exaltation that rendered her oblivious to
taste and feeling.
In due time the Mill House, as Margaret called her new home, was ready
for occupancy, and the family moved in. Naming the place had given
Margaret no little food for thought.
"I want something simple and plain," she had said to Patty; "something
that the people will like, and feel an interest in. But I don't want any
'Refuges' or 'Havens' or 'Rests' or 'Homes' about it. It is a home, but
not the kind that begins with a capital letter. It is just one of the
mill houses."
"Well, why don't ye call it the 'Mill House,' then, an' done with it?"
demanded Patty.
"Patty, you're a genius! I will," cried Margaret. And the "Mill House"
it was from that day.
Margaret's task was not an easy one. Both she and her house were looked
upon with suspicion, and she had some trouble in finding the two or
three teachers of just the right sort to help her. Even when she had
found these teachers and opened her classes in sewing, cooking, and the
care of children, only a few enrolled themselves as pupils.
"Never mind," said Margaret, "we shall grow. You'll see!"
The mill people, however, were not the only ones that learned something
during the next few months. Margaret herself learned much. She learned
that while there were men who purposely idled their time away and drank
up their children's hard-earned wages, there were others who tramped the
streets in vain in search of work.
"I hain't got nothin' ter do yit, Miss," one such said to Margaret, in
answer to her sympathetic inquiries. "But thar ain't a boss but what
said if I'd got kids I might send them along. They was short o' kids. I
been tryin' ter keep Rosy an' Katy ter school. I was cal'latin' ter make
somethin' of 'em more'n their dad an' their mammy is: but I reckon as
how I'll have ter set 'em ter work."
"Oh, but you mustn't," remonstrated Margaret. "That would spoil
everything. Don't you see that you mustn't? They must go to school--get
an education."
The man gazed at her with dull eyes.
"They got ter eat--first," he said.
"Yes, yes, I know," interposed Margaret, eagerly. "I understand all
that, and I'll help about that part. I'll give you money until you get
something to do."
A sudden flash came into the man's eyes. His shoulders straightened.
"Thank ye, Miss. We be n't charity folks." And he turned away.
A week later Margaret learned that Rosy and Katy were out of school.
When she looked them up she found them at work in the mills.
This matter of the school question was a great puzzle to Margaret. Very
early in her efforts she had sought out the public school-teachers, and
asked their help and advice. She was appalled at the number of children
who appeared scarcely to understand that there was such a thing as
school. This state of affairs she could not seem to remedy, however, in
spite of her earnest efforts. The parents, in many cases, were
indifferent, and the children more so. Some of the children in the
mills, indeed, were there solely--according to the parents'
version--because they could not "get on" in school. Conscious that there
must be a school law, Margaret went vigorously to work to find and
enforce it. Then, and not until then, did she realize the seriousness of
even this one phase of the problem she had undertaken to solve.
There were other phases, too. It was not always poverty, Margaret found,
that was responsible for setting the children to work. Sometimes it was
ambition. There were men who could not even speak the language of their
adopted country intelligibly, yet who had ever before them the one end
and aim--money. To this end and aim were sacrificed all the life and
strength of whatever was theirs. The minute such a man's boys and girls
were big enough and tall enough to be "sworn in" he got the papers and
set them to work; and never after that, as long as they could move one
dragging little foot after the other, did they cease to pour into the
hungry treasury of his hand the pitiful dimes and pennies that
represented all they knew of childhood.
CHAPTER XXXII
The winter passed and the spring came. The Mill House, even to the most
skeptical observer, showed signs of being a success. Even already a
visible influence had radiated from its shining windows and orderly
yard; and the neighboring houses, with their obvious attempt at
"slickin' up," reminded one of a small boy who has been told to wash his
face, for company was coming. The classes boasted a larger attendance,
and the stomachs and the babies of many a family in the town were
feeling the beneficial results of the lessons.
To Margaret, however, the whole thing seemed hopelessly small: there was
so much to do, so little done! She was still the little girl with the
teaspoon and the bowl of sand; and the chasm yawned as wide as ever. To
tell the truth, Margaret was tired, discouraged, and homesick. For
months her strength, time, nerves, and sympathies had been taxed to the
utmost; and now that there had come a breathing space, when the
intricate machinery of her scheme could run for a moment without her
hand at the throttle, she was left weak and nerveless. She was, in fact,
perilously near a breakdown.
Added to all this, she was lonely. More than she would own to herself
she missed her friends, her home life at Hilcrest, and the tender care
and sympathetic interest that had been lavished upon her for so many
years. Here she was the head, the strong tower of defense, the one to
whom everybody came with troubles, perplexities, and griefs. There was
no human being to whom she could turn for comfort. They all looked to
her. Even Bobby McGinnis, when she saw him at all--which was
seldom--treated her with a frigid deference that was inexpressibly
annoying to her.
From the Spencers she heard irregularly. Earlier in the winter the
letters had been more frequent: nervously anxious epistles of some
length from Mrs. Merideth; stilted notes, half protesting, half
pleading, from Ned; and short, but wonderfully sympathetic
communications from Frank. Later Frank had fallen very ill with a fever
of some sort, and Mrs. Merideth and Ned had written only hurried little
bulletins from the sick-room. Then had come the good news that Frank was
out of danger, though still far too weak to undertake the long journey
home. Their letters showed unmistakably their impatience at the delay,
and questioned her as to her health and welfare, but could set no date
for their return. Frank, in particular, was disturbed, they said. He had
not planned to leave either herself or the mills so long, it being his
intention when he went away merely to take a short trip with his sister
and brother, and then hurry back to America alone. As for Frank
himself--he had not written her since his illness.
Margaret was thinking of all this, and was feeling specially forlorn as
she sat alone in the little sitting-room at the Mill House one evening
in early April. She held a book before her, but she was not reading; and
she looked up at once when Patty entered the room.
"I'm sorry ter trouble ye," began Patty, hesitatingly, "but Bobby
McGinnis is here an' wanted me ter ask ye----"
Margaret raised an imperious hand.
"That's all right, Patty," she said so sharply that Patty opened wide
her eyes; "but suppose you just ask Bobby McGinnis to come here to me
and ask his question direct. I will see him now." And Patty, wondering
vaguely what had come to her gentle-eyed, gentle-voiced mistress--as she
insisted upon calling Margaret--fled precipitately.
Two minutes later Bobby McGinnis himself stood tall and straight just
inside the door.
"You sent for me?" he asked.
Margaret sprang to her feet. All the pent loneliness of the past weeks
and months burst forth in a stinging whip of retort.
"Yes, I sent for you." She paused, but the man did not speak, and in a
moment she went on hurriedly, feverishly. "I always send for you--if I
see you at all, and yet you know how hard I'm trying to help these
people, and that you are the only one here that can help me."
She paused again, and again the man was silent.
"Don't you know what I'm trying to do?" she asked.
"Yes." The lips closed firmly over the single word.
"Didn't I ask you to help me? Didn't I appoint us a committee of two to
do the work?" Her voice shook, and her chin trembled like that of a
grieved child.
"Yes." Again that strained, almost harsh monosyllable.
Margaret made an impatient gesture.
"Bobby McGinnis, why don't you help me?" she demanded, tearfully. "Why
do you stand aloof and send to me? Why don't you come to me frankly and
freely, and tell me the best way to deal with these people?"
There was no answer. The man had half turned his face so that only his
profile showed clean-cut and square-chinned against the close-shut door.
"Don't you know that I am alone here--that I have no friends but you and
Patty?" she went on tremulously. "Do you think it kind of you to let me
struggle along alone like this? Sometimes it seems almost as if you were
afraid----"
"I am afraid," cut in a voice shaken with emotion.
"Bobby!" breathed Margaret in surprised dismay, falling back before the
fire in the eyes that suddenly turned and flashed straight into hers.
"Why, Bobby!"
If the man heard, he did not heed. The bonds of his self-control had
snapped, and the torrent of words came with a force that told how great
had been the pressure. He had stepped forward as she fell back, and his
eyes still blazed into hers.
"I _am_ afraid--I'm afraid of myself," he cried. "I don't dare to trust
myself within sight of your dear eyes, or within touch of your dear
hands--though all the while I'm hungry for both. Perhaps I do let you
send for me, instead of coming of my own free will; but I'm never
without the thought of you, and the hope of catching somewhere a glimpse
of even your dress. Perhaps I do stand aloof; but many's the night I've
walked the street outside, watching the light at your window, and many's
the night I've not gone home until dawn lest some harm come to the woman
I loved so--good God! what am I saying!" he broke off hoarsely, dropping
his face into his hands, and sinking into the chair behind him.
Over by the table Margaret stood silent, motionless, her eyes on the
bowed figure of the man before her. Gradually her confused senses were
coming into something like order. Slowly her dazed thoughts were taking
shape.
It was her own fault. She had brought this thing upon herself. She
should have seen--have understood. And now she had caused all this sorrow
to this dear friend of her childhood--the little boy who had befriended
her when she was alone and hungry and lost.... But, after all, why
should he not love her? And why should she not--love him? He was good and
true and noble, and for years he had loved her--she remembered now their
childish compact, and she bitterly reproached herself for not thinking
of it before--it might have saved her this.... Still, did she want to
save herself this? Was it not, after all, the very best thing that could
have happened? Where, and how could she do more good in the world than
right here with this strong, loving heart to help her?... She loved him,
too--she was sure she did--though she had never realized it before.
Doubtless that was half the cause of her present restlessness and
unhappiness--she had loved him all the time, and did not know it! Surely
there was no one in the world who could so wisely help her in her dear
work. Of course she loved him!
Very softly Margaret crossed the room and touched the man's shoulder.
"Bobby, I did not understand--I did not know," she said gently. "You
won't have to stay away--any more."
"Won't have to--stay--away!" The man was on his feet, incredulous wonder
in his eyes.
"No. We--we will do it together--this work."
"But you don't mean--you can't mean----" McGinnis paused, his breath
suspended.
"But I do," she answered, the quick red flying to her cheeks. Then, half
laughing, half crying, she faltered: "And--and I shouldn't think you'd
make--_me_ ask--_you_!"
"Margaret!" choked the man, as he fell on his knees and caught the
girl's two hands to his lips.
[Illustration: "MARGARET CROSSED THE ROOM AND TOUCHED THE MAN'S
SHOULDER."]
CHAPTER XXXIII
Ned Spencer returned alone to Hilcrest about the middle of April. In
spite of their able corps of managers, the Spencers did not often leave
the mills for so long a time without the occasional presence of one or
the other of the firm, though Ned frequently declared that the mills
were like a clock that winds itself, so admirably adjusted was the
intricate machinery of their management.
It was not without some little embarrassment and effort that Ned sought
out the Mill House, immediately upon his return, and called on Margaret.
"I left Della and Frank to come more slowly," he said, after the
greetings were over. "Frank, poor chap, isn't half strong yet, but he
was impatient that some one should be here. For that matter, I found
things in such fine shape that I told them I was going away again. We
made more money when I wasn't 'round than when I was!"
Margaret smiled, but very faintly. She understood only too well that
behind all this lay the reasons why her urgent requests and pleas
regarding some of the children, had been so ignored in the office of
Spencer & Spencer during the last few months. She almost said as much to
Ned, but she changed her mind and questioned him about Frank's health
and their trip, instead.
The call was not an unqualified success--at least it was not a success so
far as Margaret was concerned. The young man was plainly displeased with
the cane-seated chair in which he sat, and with his hostess's simple
toilet. The reproachful look had gone from his eyes, it was true, but in
its place was one of annoyed disapproval that was scarcely less
unpleasant to encounter. There were long pauses in the conversation,
which neither participant seemed able to fill. Once Margaret tried to
tell her visitor of her work, but he was so clearly unsympathetic that
she cut it short and introduced another subject. Of McGinnis she did not
speak; time enough for that when Frank Spencer should return and the
engagement would have to be known. She did tell him, however, of her
plans to go to New York later in search of the twins.
"I shall take Patty with me," she explained, "and we shall make it a
sort of vacation. We both need the change and the--well, it won't be
exactly a rest, perhaps."
"No, I fear not," Ned returned grimly. "I do hope, Margaret, that when
Della gets home you'll take a real rest and change at Hilcrest. Surely
by that time you'll be ready to cut loose from all this sort of thing!"
Margaret laughed merrily, though her eyes were wistful.
"We'll wait and see how rested New York makes me," she said.
"But, Margaret, you surely are going to come to Hilcrest then," appealed
Ned, "whether you need rest or not!"
"We'll see, Ned, we'll see," was all she would say, but this time her
voice had lost its merriment.
Ned, though he did not know it, and though Margaret was loth to
acknowledge it even to herself, had touched upon a tender point. She did
long for Hilcrest, its rest, its quiet, and the tender care that its
people had always given her. She longed for even one day in which she
would have no problems to solve, no misery to try to alleviate--one day
in which she might be the old care-free Margaret. She reproached herself
bitterly for all this, however, and accused herself of being false to
her work and her dear people; but in the next breath she would deny the
accusation and say that it was only because she was worn out and "dead
tired."
"When the people do get home," she said to Bobby McGinnis one day, "when
the people do get home, we'll take a rest, you and I. We'll go up to
Hilcrest and just play for a day or two. It will do us good."
"To Hilcrest?--I?" cried the man.
"Certainly; why not?" returned Margaret quickly, a little disturbed at
the surprise in her lover's voice. "Surely you don't think that the man
I'm expecting to marry can stay away from Hilcrest; do you?"
"N-no, of course not," murmured McGinnis; but his eyes were troubled,
and Margaret noticed that he did not speak again for some time.
It was this, perhaps, that set her own thoughts into a new channel.
When, after all, had she thought of them before together--Bobby and
Hilcrest? It had always been Bobby and--the work.
CHAPTER XXXIV
It was on a particularly beautiful morning in June that Margaret and
Patty started for New York--so beautiful that Margaret declared it to be
a good omen.
"We'll find them--you'll see!" she cried.
Little Maggie had been left at the Mill House with the teachers, and for
the first time for years Patty found herself care-free, and at liberty
to enjoy herself to the full.
"I hain't had sech a grand time since I was a little girl an' went ter
Mont-Lawn," she exulted, as the train bore them swiftly toward their
destination. "Even when Sam an' me was married we didn't stop fur no
play-day. We jest worked. An' say, did ye see how grand Sam was doin'
now?" she broke off jubilantly. "He wa'n't drunk once last week! Thar
couldn't no one made him do it only you. Seems how I never could thank
ye fur all you've done," she added wistfully.
"But you do thank me, Patty, every day of your life," contended
Margaret, brightly. "You thank me by just helping me as you do at the
Mill House."
"Pooh! As if that was anything compared ter what you does fur me,"
scoffed Patty. "'Sides, don't I git pay--money, fur bein' matron?"
In New York Margaret went immediately to a quiet, but conveniently
located hotel, where the rooms she had engaged were waiting for them. To
Patty even this unpretentious hostelry was palatial, as were the service
and the dinner in the great dining-room that evening.
"I don't wonder folks likes ter be rich," she observed after a silent
survey of the merry, well-dressed throng about her. "I s'pose mebbe Mis'
Magoon'd say this was worse than them autymobiles she hates ter see so;
an' it don't look quite--fair; does it? I wonder now, do ye s'pose any
one of 'em ever thought of--divvyin' up?"
A dreamy, far-away look came into the blue eyes opposite.
"Perhaps! who knows?" murmured Margaret. "Still, _they_ haven't
ever--crossed the line, perhaps, so they don't--_know_."
"Huh?"
Margaret smiled.
"Nothing, Patty. I only meant that they hadn't lived in Mrs. Whalen's
kitchen and kept all their wealth in a tin cup."
"No, they hain't," said Patty, her eyes on the sparkle of a diamond on
the plump white finger of a woman near by.
Margaret and Patty lost no time the next morning in beginning their
search for the twins. There was very little, after all, that Patty knew
of her sisters since she had last seen them; but that little was
treasured and analyzed and carefully weighed. The twins were at the
Whalens' when last heard from. The Whalens, therefore, must be the first
ones to be looked up; and to the Whalens--as represented by the address
in Clarabella's last letter--the searchers proposed immediately to go.
"An' ter think that you was bein' looked fur jest like this once,"
remarked Patty, as they turned the corner of a narrow, dingy street.
"Poor dear mother! how she must have suffered," murmured Margaret, her
eyes shrinking from the squalor and misery all about them. "I think
perhaps never until now did I realize it--quite," she added softly, her
eyes moist with tears.
"Ye see the Whalens ain't whar they was when you left 'em in that nice
place you got fur 'em," began Patty, after a moment, consulting the
paper in her hand. "They couldn't keep that, 'course; but Clarabella
wrote they wa'n't more'n one or two blocks from the Alley."
"The Alley! Oh, how I should love to see the Alley!" cried Margaret.
"And we will, Patty; we'll go there surely before we return home. But
first we'll find the Whalens and the twins."
The Whalens and the twins, however, did not prove to be so easily found.
They certainly were not at the address given in Clarabella's letter. The
place was occupied by strangers--people who had never heard the name of
Whalen. It took two days of time and innumerable questions to find
anybody in the neighborhood, in fact, who had heard the name of Whalen;
but at last patience and diligence were rewarded, and early on the third
morning Margaret and Patty started out to follow up a clew given them by
a woman who had known the Whalens and who remembered them well.
Even this, however, promising as it was, did not lead to immediate
success, and it was not until the afternoon of the fifth day that
Margaret and Patty toiled up four flights of stairs and found a little
bent old woman sitting in a green satin-damask chair that neither
Margaret nor Patty could fail to recognize.
"Do I remember 'Maggie'? 'Mag of the Alley'?" quavered the old woman
excitedly in response to Margaret's questions. "Sure, an' of course I
do! She was the tirror of the hull place till she was that turned about
that she got ter be a blissed angel straight from Hiven. As if I could
iver forgit th' swate face of Mag of the Alley!"
"Oh, but you have," laughed Margaret, "for I myself am she."
"Go 'way wid ye, an' ye ain't that now!" cried the old woman, peering
over and through her glasses, and finally snatching them off altogether.
"But I am. And this is Mrs. Durgin, who used to be Patty Murphy. Don't
you remember Patty Murphy?"
Mrs. Whalen fell back in her chair.
"Saints of Hiven, an' is it the both of yez, all growed up ter be sich
foine young ladies as ye be? Who'd 'a' thought it!"
"It is, and we've come to you for help," rejoined Margaret. "Do you
remember Patty Murphy's sisters, the twins? We are trying to find them,
and we thought perhaps you could tell us where they are."
Mrs. Whalen shook her head.
"I knows 'em, but I don't know whar they be now."
"But you did know," interposed Patty. "You must 'a' known four--five
years ago, for my little Maggie was jest born when the twins come ter
New York an' found ye. They wrote how they was livin' with ye."
The old woman nodded her head.
"I know," she said, "I know. We was livin' over by the Alley. But they
didn't stay. My old man he died an' we broke up. Sure, an' I'm nothin'
but a wanderer on the face of the airth iver since, an' I'm grown old
before my time, I am."
"But, Mrs. Whalen, just think--just remember," urged Margaret. "Where did
they go? Surely you can tell that."
Again Mrs. Whalen shook her head.
"Mike died, an' Tom an' Mary, they got married, an' Jamie, sure an' he
got his leg broke an' they tuk him ter the horspital--bad cess to 'em!
An' 'twas all that upsettin' that I didn't know nothin' what did happen.
I seen 'em--then I didn't seen 'em; an' that's all thar was to it. An'
it's the truth I'm a-tellin' yez."
It was with heavy hearts that Margaret and Patty left the little attic
room half an hour later. They had no clew now upon which to work, and
the accomplishment of their purpose seemed almost impossible.
In the little attic room behind them, however, they left nothing but
rejoicing. Margaret's gifts had been liberal, and her promises for the
future even more than that. The little bent old woman could look
straight ahead now to days when there would be no bare cupboards and
empty coal scuttles to fill her soul with apprehension, and her body
with discomfort.
Back to the hotel went Margaret and Patty for a much-needed night's
rest, hoping that daylight and the morning sun would urge them to new
efforts, and give them fresh courage, in spite of the unpromising
outlook. Nor were their hopes unfulfilled. The morning sun did bring
fresh courage; and, determined to make a fresh start, they turned their
steps to the Alley.
The Alley never forgot that visit, nor the days that immediately
followed it. There were men and women who remembered Mag of the Alley
and Patty Murphy; but there were more who did not. There were none,
however, that did not know who they were before the week was out, and
that had not heard the story of Margaret's own childhood's experience in
that same Alley years before.
As for the Alley--it did not know itself. It had heard, to be sure, of
Christmas. It had even experienced it, in a way, with tickets for a
Salvation Army tree or dinner. But all this occurred in the winter when
it was cold and snowy; and it was spring now. It was not Christmas, of
course; and yet--
The entire Alley from one end to the other was flooded with good things
to eat, and with innumerable things to wear. There was not a child that
did not boast a new toy, nor a sick room that did not display fruit and
flowers. Even the cats and the dogs stopped their fighting, and lay
full-stomached and content in the sun. No wonder the Alley rubbed its
eyes and failed to recognize its own face!
The Alley received, but did not give. Nowhere was there a trace of the
twins; and after a two weeks' search, and a fruitless following of clews
that were no clews at all, even Margaret was forced sorrowfully to
acknowledge defeat.
On the evening before the day they had set to go home, Patty timidly
said:
"I hadn't oughter ask it, after all you've done; but do ye s'pose--could
we mebbe jest--jest go ter Mont-Lawn fur a minute, jest ter look at it?"
"Mont-Lawn?"
"Yes. We was so happy thar, once," went on Patty, earnestly. "You an' me
an' the twins. I hain't never forgot it, nor what they learnt me thar.
All the good thar was in me till you come was from them. I thought mebbe
if I could jest see it once 'twould make it easier 'bout the other--that
we can't find the twins ye know."
"See it? Of course we'll see it," cried Margaret. "I should love to go
there myself. You know I owe it--everything, too."
It was not for home, therefore, that Margaret and Patty left New York
the next morning, but for Mont-Lawn. The trip to Tarrytown and across
the Hudson was soon over, as was the short drive in the fresh morning
air. Almost before the two travelers realized where they were, the
beautiful buildings and grounds of Mont-Lawn appeared before their eyes.
Margaret had only to tell that they, too, had once been happy little
guests in the years gone by, to make their welcome a doubly cordial one;
and it was not long before they were wandering about the place with eyes
and ears alert for familiar sights and sounds.
In the big pavilion where their own hungry little stomachs had been
filled, were now numerous other little stomachs experiencing the same
delight; and in the long dormitories where their own tired little bodies
had rested were the same long rows of little white beds waiting for
other weary little limbs and heads. Margaret's eyes grew moist here as
she thought of that dear mother who years before had placed over just
such a little bed the pictured face of her lost little girl, and of how
that same little girl had seen it and had thus found the dear mother
arms waiting for her.
It was just as Margaret and Patty turned to leave the grounds that they
saw a young woman not twenty feet away, leading two small children.
Patty gave a sudden cry. The next moment she bounded forward and caught
the young woman by the shoulders.
"Clarabella, Clarabella--I jest know you're Clarabella Murphy!"
It was a joyous half-hour then, indeed--a half-hour of tears, laughter,
questions, and ejaculations. At the end of it Margaret and Patty hurried
away with a bit of paper on which was the address of a certain city
missionary.
All the way back to New York they talked it over--the story of the twins'
life during all those years; of how after months of hardship, they had
found the good city missionary, and of how she had helped them, and they
had helped her, until now Clarabella had gone to Mont-Lawn as one of the
caretakers for the summer, and Arabella had remained behind at the
missionary's home to help what she could in the missionary's daily work.
"And we'll go now and see Arabella!" cried Patty, as they stepped from
the train at New York. "An' ain't it jest wonderful--wonderful ter think
that we are a-goin' ter see Arabella!"
CHAPTER XXXV
When Margaret and Patty went home three days later they were accompanied
by a beautiful girl, whose dark eyes carried a peculiar appeal in their
velvety depths. Some of the passengers in the car that day wondered at
such an expression on the face of one so young and so lovely, but when
the girl rose and moved down the aisle, they wondered no longer. She was
lame, and in every movement her slender form seemed to shrink from
curious eyes.
Margaret had found her little friend far from strong. Arabella had been
taxing her strength to the utmost, assisting the missionary through the
day, and attending night school in the evening. She had worked and
studied hard, and the strain was telling on her already frail
constitution. All this Margaret saw at once and declared that Arabella
must come home with them to the Mill House.
"But I couldn't," the girl had objected. "I couldn't be a burden to you
and Patty."
"Oh, but you won't be," Margaret had returned promptly. "You're going to
be a help to Patty and me. The Mill House needs you. The work is
increasing, and we haven't teachers enough."
"Oh, then I'll come," the girl had sighed contentedly--nor did she know
that before night Margaret had found and engaged still another teacher,
lest Arabella, when she joined the Mill House family, should find too
much to do.
Almost the first piece of news that Margaret heard upon her return was
that the family were back at Hilcrest, and that Mrs. Merideth had
already driven down to the Mill House three times in hopes to get
tidings of Margaret's coming. When Mrs. Merideth drove down the fourth
time Margaret herself was there, and went back with her to Hilcrest.
"My dear child, how dreadfully you look!" Mrs. Merideth had exclaimed.
"You are worn out, and no wonder. You must come straight home with me
and rest." And because Mrs. Merideth had been tactful enough to say
"rest" and not "stay," Margaret had gone, willingly and thankfully. She
was tired, and she did need a rest: but she was not a little concerned
to find how really hungry she was for the cool quiet of the west
veranda, and how eagerly she listened to the low, sweet voices of her
friends in pleasant chat--it had been so long since she had heard low
sweet voices in pleasant chat!
The thin cheeks and hollow eyes of Frank Spencer shocked her greatly.
She had not supposed a few short months could so change a strong man
into the mere shadow of his former self. There was a look, too, in his
eyes that stirred her curiously; and, true to her usual sympathetic
response to trouble wherever she found it, she set herself now to the
task of driving that look away. To this end, in spite of her own
weariness, she played and sang and devoted herself untiringly to the
amusement of the man who was not yet strong enough to go down to the
mills.
It had been planned that immediately upon Frank Spencer's return,
McGinnis should go to him with the story of his love for Margaret. This
plan was abandoned, however, when Margaret saw how weak and ill her
guardian was.
"We must wait until he is better," she said to Bobby when he called, as
had been arranged, on the second evening after her arrival. "He may not
be quite pleased--at first, you know," she went on frankly; "and I don't
want to cause him sorrow just now."
"Then 'twill be better if I don't come up--again--just yet," stammered
Bobby, miserably, his longing eyes on her face.
"Yes. I'll let you know when he's well enough to see you," returned
Margaret; and she smiled brightly. Nor did it occur to her that for a
young woman who has but recently become engaged, she was accepting with
extraordinary equanimity the fact that she should not see her lover
again for some days. It did occur to Bobby, however, and his eyes were
troubled. They were still troubled as he sat up far into the night,
thinking, in the shabby little room he called home.
One by one the days passed. At Hilcrest Margaret was fast regaining her
old buoyant health, and was beginning to talk of taking up her "work"
again, much to the distress of the family. Frank Spencer, too, was
better, though in spite of Margaret's earnest efforts the curiously
somber look was not gone from his eyes. It even seemed deeper and more
noticeable than ever sometimes, Margaret thought.
Never before had Margaret known quite so well the man who had so
carefully guarded her since childhood. She suddenly began to appreciate
what he had done for her all those years. She realized, too, with almost
the shock of a surprise, how young he had been when the charge was
intrusted to him, and what it must have meant to a youth of twenty to
have a strange, hysterical little girl ten years old thrust upon him so
unceremoniously. She realized it all the more fully now that the
pleasant intercourse of the last two weeks had seemed to strip from him
the ten years' difference in their ages. They were good friends,
comrades. Day after day they had read, and sung and walked together; and
she knew that he had exerted every effort to make her happy.
More keenly than ever now she regretted that she must bring sorrow to
him in acknowledging her engagement to Bobby. She knew very well that he
would not approve of the marriage. Had he not already pleaded with her
to stay there at Hilcrest as Ned's wife? And had he not always
disapproved of her having much to say to McGinnis? It was hard, indeed,
in the face of all this, to tell him. But it must be done. In two days
now he was going back to the mills. There was really no excuse for any
further delay. She must send for Bobby.
There was a thunder-storm on the night Bobby McGinnis came to Hilcrest.
The young man arrived just before the storm broke, and was ushered at
once by Margaret herself to the little den where Frank Spencer sat
alone. Mrs. Merideth had gone to bed with a headache, and Ned was out of
town, so Margaret had the house to herself. For a time she wandered
aimlessly about the living-room and the great drawing-room; then she sat
down in a shadowy corner which commanded a view of the library and of
the door of the den. She shivered at every clap of thunder, and sent a
furtive glance toward that close-shut door, wondering if the storm
outside were typical of the one which even then might be breaking over
Bobby's head.
It was very late when McGinnis came out of the den and closed the door
behind him--so late that he could stop for only a few words with the girl
who hurried across the room to meet him. His face was gray-white, and
his whole appearance showed the strain he had been under for the last
two hours.
"Mr. Spencer was very kind," he said huskily in response to the question
in Margaret's eyes. "At first, of course, he--but never mind that
part.... He has been very kind; but I--I can't tell you now--all that he
said to me. Perhaps--some other time." McGinnis was plainly very much
moved. His words came brokenly and with long pauses.
For some time after her lover had gone Margaret waited for Frank Spencer
to come out and speak to her. But the door of the den remained fast
shut, and she finally went up-stairs without seeing him.
The next few days at Hilcrest were hard for all concerned. Before
Margaret had come down stairs on the morning following McGinnis's call,
Frank Spencer had told his sister of the engagement; and after the first
shock of the news was over, he had said constrainedly, and with averted
eyes:
"There is just one thing for us to do, Della--or rather, for us not to
do. We must not drive Margaret away from us. She has full right to marry
the man she loves, of course, and if--if we are too censorious, it will
result only in our losing her altogether. It isn't what we want to do,
but what we must do. We must accept him--or lose her. I--I'm afraid I
forgot myself at first, last night," went on Frank, hurriedly, "and said
some pretty harsh things. I didn't realize _what_ I was saying until I
saw the look on his face. McGinnis is a straightforward, manly young
fellow--we must not forget that, Della."
"But think of his po-position," moaned Mrs. Merideth.
Frank winced.
"I know," he said. "But we must do our best to remedy that. I shall
advance him and increase his pay at once, of course, and eventually he
will become one of the firm, if Margaret--marries him."
Mrs. Merideth burst into tears.
"How can you take it so calmly, Frank," she sobbed. "You don't seem to
care at all!"
Frank Spencer's lips parted, then closed again. Perhaps it was just as
well, after all, that she should not know just how much he did--care.
"It may not be myself I'm thinking of," he said at last, quietly. "I
want Margaret--happy." And he turned away.
Margaret was not happy, however, as the days passed. In spite of
everybody's effort to act as if everything was as usual, nobody
succeeded in doing it; and at last Margaret announced her determination
to go back to the Mill House. She agreed, however, to call it a "visit,"
for Mrs. Merideth had cried tragically:
"But, Margaret, dear, if we are going to lose you altogether by and by,
surely you will give us all your time now that you can!"
CHAPTER XXXVI
Bobby McGinnis wondered sometimes that summer why he was not happier.
Viewed from the standpoint of an outsider, he surely had enough to make
any man happy. He was young, strong, and in a position of trust and
profit. He was, moreover, engaged to the girl he loved, and that girl
was everything that was good and beautiful, and he saw her almost every
day. All this Bobby knew--and still he wondered.
He saw a good deal of Margaret these days. Their engagement had come to
be an accepted fact, and the first flurry of surprise and comment had
passed. The Mill House, with Patty in charge, was steadily progressing.
Margaret had taken up her work again with fresh zest, but, true to her
promise to Mrs. Merideth, she spent many a day, and sometimes two or
three days at Hilcrest. All this, however, did not interfere with
Bobby's seeing her--for he, too, went to Hilcrest in accordance with
Margaret's express wishes.
"But, Bobby," Margaret had said in response to his troubled
remonstrances, "are you not going to be my husband? Of course you are!
Then you must come to meet my friends." And Bobby went.
Bobby McGinnis found himself in a new position then. He was Mr. Robert
McGinnis, the accepted suitor of Miss Margaret Kendall, and as such, he
was introduced to Margaret's friends.
It was just here, perhaps, that misery began for Bobby. He was not more
at ease in his new, well-fitting evening clothes than he would have been
in the garb of Sing Sing; nor did he feel less conspicuous among the gay
throng about Margaret's chair than he would if he had indeed worn the
prison stripes.
As Bobby saw it, he _was_ in prison, beyond the four walls of which lay
a world he had never seen--a world of beautiful music and fine pictures;
a world of great books and famous men; a world of travel, ease, and
pleasure. He could but dimly guess the meaning of half of what was said;
and the conversation might as well have been conducted in a foreign
language so far as there being any possibility of his participating in
it. Big, tall, and silent, he stood as if apart. And because he was
apart--he watched.
He began to understand then, why he was unhappy--yet he was not watching
himself, he was watching Margaret. She knew this world--this world that
was outside his prison walls; and she was at home in it. There was a
light in her eye that he had never brought there, though he had seen it
sometimes when she had been particularly interested in her work at the
Mill House. As he watched her now, he caught the quick play of color on
her cheeks, and heard the ring of enthusiasm in her voice. One subject
after another was introduced, and for each she had question, comment, or
jest. Not once did she appeal to him. But why should she, he asked
himself bitterly. They--those others near her, knew this world. He did
not know it.
Sometimes the mills were spoken of, and she was questioned about her
work. Then, indeed, she turned to him--but he was not the only one to
whom she turned: she turned quite as frequently to the man who was
seldom far away from the sound of her voice when she was at
Hilcrest--Frank Spencer.
McGinnis had a new object for his brooding eyes then; and it was not
long before he saw that it was to this same Frank Spencer that Margaret
turned when subjects other than the mills were under discussion. There
seemed to be times, indeed, when she apparently heard only his voice,
and recognized only his presence, so intimate was the sympathy between
them. McGinnis saw something else, too--he saw the look in Frank
Spencer's eyes; and after that he did not question again the cause of
his own misery.
Sometimes McGinnis would forget all this, or would call it the silly
fears of a jealous man who sees nothing but adoration in every eye
turned upon his love. Such times were always when Margaret was back at
the Mill House, and when it seemed as if she, too, were inside his
prison walls with him, leaving that hated, unknown world shut forever
out. Then would come Hilcrest--and the reaction.
"She does not love me," he would moan night after night as he tossed in
sleepless misery. "She does not love me, but she does not know it--yet.
She is everything that is good and beautiful and kind; but I never,
never can make her happy. I might have known--I might have known!"
CHAPTER XXXVII
The Spencers remained at Hilcrest nearly all summer with only a short
trip or two on the part of Mrs. Merideth and Ned. The place was
particularly cool and delightful in summer, and this season it was more
so than usual. House-parties had always been popular at Hilcrest, and
never more so than now. So popular, indeed, were they that Margaret
suspected them to be sometimes merely an excuse to gain her own presence
at Hilcrest.
There were no guests, however, on the Monday night that the mills caught
fire. Even Margaret was down at the Mill House. Mrs. Merideth, always a
light sleeper, was roused by the first shrill blast of the whistle. From
her bed she could see the lurid glow of the sky, and with a cry of
terror she ran to the window. The next moment she threw a bath-robe over
her shoulders and ran to Frank Spencer's room across the hall.
"Frank, it's the mills--they're all afire!" she called frenziedly. "Oh,
Frank, it's awful!"
From behind the closed door came a sudden stir and the sound of bare
feet striking the floor; then Frank's voice.
"I'll be out at once. And, Della, see if Ned's awake, and if you can
call up Peters, please. We shall want a motor car."
Mrs. Merideth wrung her hands.
"Frank--Frank--I can't have you go--I can't have you go!" she moaned
hysterically; yet all the while she was hurrying to the telephone that
would give the alarm and order the car that would take him.
In five minutes the house was astir from end to end. Lights flashed here
and there, and terrified voices and hurried footsteps echoed through the
great halls. Down in the town the whistles were still shrieking their
frenzied summons, and up in the sky the lurid glow of the flames was
deepening and spreading. Then came a hurried word from McGinnis over the
telephone.
The fire had caught in one of the buildings that had been closed for
repairs, which accounted for the great headway it had gained before it
was discovered. There was a strong east wind, and the fire was rapidly
spreading, and had already attacked the next building on the west. The
operatives were in a panic. There was danger of great loss of life, and
all help possible was needed.
Mrs. Merideth, who heard, could only wring her hands and moan again: "I
can't have them go--I can't have them go!" Yet five minutes later she
sent them off, both Frank and Ned, with a fervid "God keep you" ringing
in their ears.
Down in the Mill House all was commotion. Margaret was everywhere,
alert, capable, and untiring.
"We can do the most good by staying right here and keeping the house
open," she said. "We are so near that they may want to bring some of the
children here, if there should be any that are hurt or overcome. At all
events, we'll have everything ready, and we'll have hot coffee for the
men."
Almost immediately they came--those limp, unconscious little forms borne
in strong, tender arms. Some of the children had only fainted; others
had been crushed and bruised in the mad rush for safety. Before an hour
had passed the Mill House looked like a hospital, and every available
helper was pressed into service as a nurse.
Toward morning a small boy, breathless and white-faced, rushed into the
main hall.
"They're in there--they're in there--they hain't come out yet--an' the roof
has caved in!" he panted. "They'll be burned up--they'll be burned up!"
Margaret sprang forward.
"But I thought they were all out," she cried. "We heard that every one
was out. Who's in there? What do you mean?"
The boy gasped for breath.
"The boss, Bobby McGinnis an' Mr. Spencer--Mr. Frank Spencer. They
went----"
With a sharp cry Margaret turned and ran through the open door to the
street, nor did she slacken her pace until she had reached the surging
crowds at the mills.
From a score of trembling lips she learned the story, told in sobbing,
broken scraps of words.
Frank and Ned Spencer, together with McGinnis, had worked side by side
with the firemen in clearing the mills of the frightened men, women, and
children. It was not until after word came that all were out that Frank
Spencer and McGinnis were reported to be still in the burning building.
Five minutes later there came a terrific crash, and a roar of flames as
a portion of the walls and the roof caved in. Since then neither one of
the two men had been seen.
There was more--much more: tales of brave rescues, and stories of
children restored to frantically outstretched arms; but Margaret did not
hear. With terror-glazed eyes and numbed senses she shrank back from the
crowd, clasping and unclasping her hands in helpless misery. There Ned
found her.
"Margaret, you! and here? No, no, you must not. You can do no good. Let
me take you home, do, dear," he implored.
Margaret shook her head.
"Ned, he can't be dead--not dead!" she moaned.
Ned's face grew white. For an instant he was almost angry with the girl
who had so plainly shown that to her there was but one man that had gone
down into the shadow of death. Then his eyes softened. After all, it was
natural, perhaps, that she should think of her lover, and of him only,
in this first agonized moment.
"Margaret, dear, come home," he pleaded.
"Ned, he isn't dead--not dead," moaned the girl again. "Why don't you
tell me he isn't dead?"
Ned shuddered. His eyes turned toward the blackened, blazing pile before
him--as if a man could be there, and live! Margaret followed his gaze and
understood.
"But he--he may not have gone in again, Ned. He may not have gone in
again," she cried feverishly. "He--he is out here somewhere. We will find
him. Come! Come--we must find him!" And she tugged at his arm.
Ned caught at the straw.
"No, no, not you--you could do nothing here; but I'll go," he said. "And
I'll promise to bring you the very first word that I can. Come, now
you'll go home, surely!"
Margaret gazed about her. Everywhere were men, confusion, smoke and
water. The fire was clearly under control, and the flames were fast
hissing into silence. Over in the east the sun was rising. A new day had
begun, a day of---- She suddenly remembered the sufferers back at the Mill
House. She turned about sharply.
"Yes, I'll go," she choked. "I'll go back to the Mill House. I _can_ do
something there, and I can't do anything here. But, Ned, you will bring
me word--soon; won't you?--soon!" And before Ned could attempt to follow
her, she had turned and was lost in the crowd.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Tuesday was a day that was not soon forgotten at the mills. Scarcely
waiting for the smoking timbers to cool, swarms of workmen attacked the
ruins and attempted to clear their way to the point where Spencer and
McGinnis had last been seen. Fortunately, that portion of the building
had only been touched by the fire, and it was evident that the floors
and roof had been carried down with the fall of those nearest to it. For
this reason there was the more hope of finding the bodies unharmed by
fire--perhaps, even, of finding a spark of life in one or both of them.
This last hope, however, was sorrowfully abandoned when hour after hour
passed with no sign of the missing men.
All night they worked by the aid of numerous electric lights hastily
placed to illuminate the scene; and when Wednesday morning came, a new
shift of workers took up the task that had come to be now merely a
search for the dead. So convinced was every one of this that the men
gazed with blanched faces into each other's eyes when there came a
distinct rapping on a projecting timber near them. In the dazed silence
that followed a faint cry came from beneath their feet.
With a shout and a ringing cheer the men fell to work--it was no ghost,
but a living human voice that had called! They labored more cautiously
now, lest their very zeal for rescue should bring defeat in the shape of
falling brick or timber.
Ned Spencer, who had not left the mills all night, heard the cheer and
hurried forward. It was he who, when the men paused again, called:
"Frank, are you there?"
"Yes, Ned." The voice was faint, but distinctly audible.
"And McGinnis?"
There was a moment's hesitation. The listeners held their
breath--perhaps, after all, they had been dreaming and there was no
voice! Then it came again.
"Yes. He's lying beside me, but he's unconscious--or dead." The last word
was almost inaudible, so faint was it; but the tightening of Ned's lips
showed that he had heard it, none the less. In a moment he stooped
again.
"Keep up your courage, old fellow! We'll have you out of that soon."
Then he stepped aside and gave the signal for the men to fall to work
again.
Rapidly, eagerly, but oh, so cautiously, they worked. At the next pause
the voice was nearer, so near that they could drop through a small hole
a rubber tube four feet long, lowering it until Spencer could put his
mouth to it. Through this tube he was given a stimulant, and a cup of
strong coffee.
They learned then a little more of what had happened. The two men were
on the fourth floor when the crash came. They had been swept down and
had been caught between the timbers in such a way that as they lay where
they had been flung, a roof three feet above their heads supported the
crushing weight above. Spencer could remember nothing after the first
crash, until he regained consciousness long afterward, and heard the
workmen far above him. It was then that he had tapped his signal on the
projecting timber. He had tapped three times before he had been heard.
At first it was dark, he said, and he could not see, but he knew that
McGinnis was near him. McGinnis had spoken once, then had apparently
dropped into unconsciousness. At all events he had said nothing since.
Still, Spencer did not think he was dead.
Once more the rescuers fell to work, and it was then that Ned Spencer
hurried away to send a message of hope and comfort to Mrs. Merideth, who
had long since left the great house on the hill and had come down to the
Mill House to be with Margaret. To Margaret Ned wrote the one word
"Come," and as he expected, he had not long to wait.
"You have found him!" cried the girl, hurrying toward him. "Ned, he
isn't dead!"
Ned smiled and put out a steadying hand.
"We hope not--and we think not. But he is unconscious, Margaret. Don't
get your hopes too high. I had to send for you--I thought you ought to
know--what we know."
"But where is he? Have you seen him?"
Ned shook his head.
"No; but Frank says----"
"_Frank!_ But you said Frank was unconscious!"
"No, no--they aren't both unconscious--it is only McGinnis. It is Frank
who told us the story. He--why, Margaret!" But Margaret was gone; and as
Ned watched her flying form disappear toward the Mill House, he wondered
if, after all, the last hours of horror had turned her brain. In no
other way could he account for her words, and for this most
extraordinary flight just at the critical moment when she might learn
the best--and the worst--of what had come to her lover. To Ned it seemed
that the girl must be mad. He could not know that in Margaret's little
room at the Mill House some minutes later, a girl went down on her knees
and sobbed:
"To think that 'twasn't Bobby at all that I was thinking of--'twasn't
Bobby at all! 'Twas never Bobby that had my first thought. 'Twas
always----" Even to herself Margaret would not say the name, and only her
sobs finished the sentence.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Robert McGinnis was not dead when he was tenderly lifted from his
box-like prison, but he was still unconscious. In spite of their
marvelous escape from death, both he and his employer were suffering
from breaks and bruises that would call for the best of care and nursing
for weeks to come; and it seemed best for all concerned that this care
and nursing should be given at the Mill House. A removal to Hilcrest in
their present condition would not be wise, the physicians said, and the
little town hospital was already overflowing with patients. There was
really no place but the Mill House, and to the Mill House they were
carried.
At the Mill House everything possible was done for their comfort. Two
large airy rooms were given up to their use, and the entire household
was devoted to their service. The children that had been brought there
the night of the fire were gone, and there was no one with whom the two
injured men must share the care and attention that were lavished upon
them. Trained nurses were promptly sent for, and installed in their
positions. Aside from these soft-stepping, whitecapped women, Margaret
and the little lame Arabella were the most frequently seen in the
sickrooms.
"We're the ornamental part," Margaret would say brightly. "We do the
reading and the singing and the amusing."
Arabella was a born nurse, so both the patients said. There was
something peculiarly soothing in the soft touch of her hands and in the
low tones of her voice. She was happy in it, too. Her eyes almost lost
their wistful look sometimes, so absorbed would she be in her
self-appointed task.
As for Margaret--Margaret was a born nurse, too, and both the patients
said that; though one of the patients, it is true, complained sometimes
that she did not give him half a chance to know it. Margaret certainly
did not divide her time evenly. Any one could see that. No one,
however--not even Frank Spencer himself--could really question the
propriety of her devoting herself more exclusively to young McGinnis,
the man she had promised to marry.
Margaret was particularly bright and cheerful these days; but to a close
observer there was something a little forced about it. No one seemed to
notice it, however, except McGinnis. He watched her sometimes with
somber eyes; but even he said nothing--until the day before he was to
leave the Mill House. Then he spoke.
"Margaret," he began gently, "there is something I want to say to you. I
am going to be quite frank with you, and I want you to be so with me.
Will you?"
"Why, of--of course," faltered Margaret, nervously, her eyes carefully
avoiding his steady gaze. Then, hopefully: "But, Bobby, really I don't
think you should talk to-day; not--not about anything that--that needs
that tone of voice. Let's--let's read something!"
Bobby shook his head decidedly.
"No. I'm quite strong enough to talk to-day. In fact, I've wanted to say
this for some time, but I've waited until to-day so I could say it.
Margaret, you--you don't love me any longer."
"Oh--Bobby! Why, _Bobby_!" There was dismayed distress in Margaret's
voice. When one has for some weeks been trying to lash one's self into a
certain state of mind and heart for the express sake of some other one,
it is distressing to have that other one so abruptly and so positively
show that one's labor has been worse than useless.
"You do not, Margaret--you know that you do not."
"Why, Bobby, what--what makes you say such a dreadful thing," cried the
girl, reaching blindly out for some support that would not fail. "As
if--I didn't know my own mind!"
Bobby was silent. When he spoke again his voice shook a little.
"I will tell you what makes me say it. For some time I've suspected
it--that you did not love me; but after the fire I--I knew it."
"You knew it!"
"Yes. When a girl loves a man, and that man has come back almost from
the dead, she goes to him first--if she loves him. When Frank Spencer and
I were brought into the hall down-stairs that Wednesday morning, the jar
or something brought back my senses for a moment, just long enough for
me to hear your cry of 'Frank,' and to see you hurry to his side."
Margaret caught her breath sharply. Her face grew white.
"But, Bobby, you--you were unconscious, I supposed," she stammered
faintly. "I didn't think you could answer me if--if I did go to you."
"But you did not--come--to--see." The words were spoken gently, tenderly,
sorrowfully.
Margaret gave a low cry and covered her face with her hands. A look that
was almost relief came to the man's face.
"There," he sighed. "Now you admit it. We can talk sensibly and
reasonably. Margaret, why have you tried to keep it up all these weeks,
when it was just killing you?"
"I wanted to make--you--happy," came miserably from behind the hands.
"And did you think I could be made happy that way--by your wretchedness?"
There was no answer.
"I've seen it coming for a long time," he went on gently, "and I did not
blame you. I could never have made you happy, and I knew it almost from
the first. I wasn't happy, either--because I couldn't make you so.
Perhaps now I--I shall be happier; who knows?" he asked, with a wan
little smile.
Margaret sobbed. It was so like Bobby--to belittle his own grief, just to
make it easier for her!
"You see, it was for only the work that you cared for me," resumed the
man after a minute. "You loved that, and you thought you loved me. But
it was only the work all the time, dear. I understand that now. You see
I watched you--and I watched him."
"Him!" Margaret's hands were down, and she was looking at Bobby with
startled eyes.
"Yes. I used to think he loved you even then, but after the fire, and I
heard your cry of 'Frank'----"
Margaret sprang to her feet.
"Bobby, Bobby, you don't know what you are saying," she cried
agitatedly. "Mr. Spencer does not love me, and he never loved me. Why,
Bobby, he couldn't! He even pleaded with me to marry another man."
"He pleaded with you!" Bobby's eyes were puzzled.
"Yes. Now, Bobby, surely you understand that he doesn't love me. Surely
you must see!"
Bobby threw a quick look into the flushed, quivering face; then hastily
turned his eyes away.
"Yes, I see," he said almost savagely. And he did see--more than he
wanted to. But he did not understand: how a man _could_ have the love of
Margaret Kendall and not want it, was beyond the wildest flights of his
fancy.
CHAPTER XL
Frank Spencer had already left the Mill House and gone to Hilcrest when
McGinnis was well enough to go back to his place in the mills. The
mills, in spite of the loss of the two buildings (which were being
rapidly rebuilt) were running full time, and needed him greatly,
particularly as the senior member of the firm had not entirely regained
his old health and strength.
For some time after McGinnis went away, Margaret remained at the Mill
House; but she was restless and unhappy in the position in which she
found herself. McGinnis taught an evening class at the Mill House, and
she knew that it could not be easy for him to see her so frequently now
that the engagement was broken. Margaret blamed herself bitterly, not
for the broken engagement, but for the fact that there had ever been any
engagement at all. She told herself that she ought to have known that
the feeling she had for Bobby was not love--and she asked herself
scornfully what she thought of a young woman who could give that love
all unsought to a man who was so very indifferent as to beg her favor
for another! Those long hours of misery when the mills burned had opened
Margaret's eyes; and now that her eyes were opened, she was frightened
and ashamed.
It seemed to Margaret, as she thought of it, that there was no way for
her to turn but to leave both the Mill House and Hilcrest for a time.
Bobby would be happier with her away, and the Mill House did not need
her--Clarabella had come from New York, and had materially strengthened
the teaching force. As for Hilcrest--she certainly would not stay at
Hilcrest anyway--now. Later, when she had come to her senses, perhaps--but
not now.
It did not take much persuasion on the part of Margaret to convince Mrs.
Merideth that a winter abroad would be delightful--just they two
together. The news of Margaret's broken engagement had been received at
Hilcrest with a joyous relief that was nevertheless carefully subdued in
the presence of Margaret herself; but Mrs. Merideth could not conceal
her joy that she was to take Margaret away from the "whole unfortunate
affair," as she expressed it to her brothers. Frank Spencer, however,
was not so pleased at the proposed absence. He could see no reason for
Margaret's going, and one evening when they were alone together in the
library he spoke of it.
"But, Margaret, I don't see why you must go," he protested.
For a moment the girl was silent; then she turned swiftly and faced him.
"Frank, Bobby McGinnis was my good friend. From the time when I was a
tiny little girl he has been that. He is good and true and noble, but I
have brought him nothing but sorrow. He will be happier now if I am
quite out of his sight at present. I am going away."
Frank Spencer stirred uneasily.
"But you will be away--from him--if you are here," he suggested.
"Oh, but if I'm here I shall be there," contested Margaret with a haste
that refused to consider logic; then, as she saw the whimsical smile
come into the man's eyes, she added brokenly: "Besides, I want to get
away--quite away from my work."
Spencer grew sober instantly. The whimsical look in his eyes gave place
to one of tender sympathy.
"You poor child, of course you do, and no wonder! You are worn out with
the strain, Margaret."
She raised a protesting hand.
"No, no, you do not understand. I--I have made a failure of it."
"A failure of it!"
"Yes. I want to get away--to look at it from a distance, and see if I
can't find out what is the trouble with it, just as--as artists do, you
know, when they paint a picture." There was a feverishness in Margaret's
manner and a tremulousness in her voice that came perilously near to
tears.
"But, my dear Margaret," argued the man, "there's nothing the matter
with it. It's no failure at all. You've done wonders down there at the
Mill House."
Margaret shook her head slowly.
"It's so little--so very little compared to what ought to be done," she
sighed. "The Mill House is good and does good, I acknowledge; but it's
so puny after all. It's like a tiny little oasis in a huge desert of
poverty and distress."
"But what--what more could you do?" ventured the man.
Margaret rose, and moved restlessly around the room.
"I don't know," she said at last. "That's what I mean to find out." She
stopped suddenly, facing him. "Don't you see? I touch only the surface.
The great cause behind things I never reach. Sometimes it seems as if it
were like that old picture--where was it? in Pilgrim's Progress?--of the
fire. On one side is the man trying to put it out; on the other, is the
evil one pouring on oil. My two hands are the two men. With one I feed a
hungry child, or nurse a sick woman; with the other I make more children
hungry and more women sick."
"Margaret, are you mad? What can you mean?"
"Merely this. It is very simple, after all. With one hand I relieve the
children's suffering; with the other I take dividends from the very
mills that make the children suffer. A long time ago I wanted to 'divvy
up' with Patty, and Bobby and the rest. I have even thought lately that
I would still like to 'divvy up'; and--well, you can see the way I am
'divvying up' now with my people down there at the mills!" And her voice
rang with self-scorn.
The man frowned. He, too, got to his feet and walked nervously up and
down the room. When he came back the girl had sat down again. Her elbows
were on the table, and her linked fingers were shielding her eyes.
Involuntarily the man reached his hand toward the bowed head. But he
drew it back before it had touched a thread of the bronze-gold hair.
"I do see, Margaret," he began gently, "and you are right. It is at the
mills themselves that the first start must be made--the first beginning
of the 'divvying up.' Perhaps, if there were some one to show us"--he
paused, then went on unsteadily: "I suppose it's useless to say again
what I said that day months ago: that if you stayed here, and showed
him--the man who loves you--the better way----"
Margaret started. She gave a nervous little laugh and picked up a bit of
paper from the floor.
"Of course it is useless," she retorted in what she hoped was a merry
voice. "And he doesn't even love me now, besides."
"He doesn't love you!" Frank Spencer's eyes and voice were amazed.
"Of course not! He never did, for that matter. 'Twas only the fancy of a
moment. Why, Frank, Ned never cared for me--that way!"
"_Ned!_" The tone and the one word were enough. For one moment Margaret
gazed into the man's face with startled eyes; then she turned and
covered her own telltale face with her hands--and because it was a
telltale face, Spencer took a long stride toward her.
"Margaret! And did you think it was Ned I was pleading for, when all the
while it was I who was hungering for you with a love that sent me across
the seas to rid myself of it? Did you, Margaret?"
There was no answer.
"Margaret, look at me--let me see your eyes!" There was a note of
triumphant joy in his voice now.
Still no answer.
"Margaret, it did not go--that love. It stayed with me day after day, and
month after month, and it only grew stronger and deeper until there was
nothing left me in all this world but you--just you. And now--Margaret, my
Margaret," he said softly and very tenderly. "You _are_ my Margaret!"
And his arms closed about her.
CHAPTER XLI
In spite of protests and pleadings Margaret spent the winter abroad.
"As if I'd stay here and flaunt my happiness in poor Bobby's face!" she
said indignantly to her lover. Neither would she consent to a formal
engagement. Even Mrs. Merideth and Ned were not to know.
"It is to be just as it was before," she had declared decidedly,
"only--well, you may write to me," she had conceded. "I refuse to stay
here and--and be just happy--_yet_! I've been unkind and thoughtless, and
have brought sorrow to my dear good friend. I'm going away. I deserve
it--and Bobby deserves it, too!" And in spite of Frank Spencer's efforts
to make her see matters in a different light, she still adhered to her
purpose.
All through the long winter Frank contented himself with writing
voluminous letters, and telling her of the plans he was making to "divvy
up" at the mills, as he always called it.
"I shall make mistakes, of course, dear," he wrote. "It is a big
problem--altogether more so than perhaps you realize. Of course the mills
must still be a business--not a philanthropy; otherwise we should defeat
our own ends. But I shall have your clear head and warm heart to aid me,
and little by little we shall win success.
"Already I have introduced two or three small changes to prepare the way
for the larger ones later on. Even Ned is getting interested, and seems
to approve of my work, somewhat to my surprise, I will own. I'm
thinking, however, that I'm not the only one in the house, sweetheart,
to whom you and your unselfishness have shown the 'better way.'"
Month by month the winter passed, and spring came, bringing Mrs.
Merideth, but no Margaret.
"She has stopped to visit friends in New York," explained Mrs. Merideth,
in reply to her brother's anxious questions. "She may go on west with
them. She said she would write you."
Margaret did "go on west," and it was while she was still in the west
that she received a letter from Patty, a portion of which ran thus:
"Mebbe youd like to know about Bobby McGinnis. Bobby is goin to get
married. She seemed to comfort him lots after you went. Shes that pretty
and sympathizing in her ways you know. I think he was kind of surprised
hisself, but the first thing he knew he was in love with her. I think he
felt kind of bad at first on account of you. But I told him that was all
nonsense, and that I knew youd want him to do it. I think his feelins
for you was more worship than love, anyhow. He didn't never seem happy
even when he was engaged to you. But hes happy now, and Arabella thinks
hes jest perfect. Oh, I told you twas Arabella didn't I? Well, tis. And
say its her thats been learnin me to spell. Ain't it jest grand?"
* * * * *
Not very many days later Frank Spencer at Hilcrest received a small card
on which had been written:
"Mrs. Patty Durgin announces the engagement of her sister, Arabella
Murphy, to Mr. Robert McGinnis."
Beneath, in very fine letters was: "I'm coming home the eighteenth.
Please tell Della; and--you may tell her anything else that you like.
Margaret."
For a moment the man stared at the card with puzzled eyes; then he
suddenly understood.
"Della," he cried joyously, a minute later, "Della, she's coming the
eighteenth!"
"Who's coming the eighteenth?"
Frank hesitated. A light that was half serious, half whimsical, and
wholly tender, came into his eyes.
"My wife," he said.
"Your _wife_!"
"Oh, you know her as Margaret Kendall," retorted Frank with an airiness
that was intended to hide the shake in his voice. "But she will be my
wife before she leaves here again."
"Frank!" cried Mrs. Merideth, joyfully, "you don't mean----" But Frank was
gone. Over his shoulder, however, he had tossed a smile and a reassuring
nod.
Mrs. Merideth sank back with a sigh of content.
"It's exactly what I always hoped would happen," she said.
THE END
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Bronze Bell, The. By Louis Joseph Vance.
Bronze Eagle, The. By Baroness Orczy.
Buck Peters, Ranchman. By Clarence E. Mulford.
Business of Life, The. By Robert W. Chambers.
By Right of Purchase. By Harold Bindloss.
Cabbages and Kings. By O. Henry.
Calling of Dan Matthews, The. By Harold Bell Wright.
Cape Cod Stories. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Cap'n Dan's Daughter. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Cap'n Eri. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Cap'n Warren's Wards. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Cardigan. By Robert W. Chambers.
Carpet From Bagdad, The. By Harold MacGrath.
Cease Firing. By Mary Johnson.
Chain of Evidence, A. By Carolyn Wells.
Chief Legatee, The. By Anna Katharine Green.
Cleek of Scotland Yard. By T. W. Hanshew.
Clipped Wings. By Rupert Hughes.
Coast of Adventure, The. By Harold Bindloss.
Colonial Free Lance, A. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
Coming of Cassidy, The. By Clarence E. Mulford.
Coming of the Law, The. By Chas. A. Seltzer.
Conquest of Canaan, The. By Booth Tarkington.
Conspirators, The. By Robt. W. Chambers.
Counsel for the Defense. By Leroy Scott.
Court of Inquiry, A. By Grace S. Richmond.
Crime Doctor, The. By E. W. Hornung
Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure. By Rex Beach.
Cross Currents. By Eleanor H. Porter.
Cry in the Wilderness, A. By Mary E. Waller.
Cynthia of the Minute. By Louis Jos. Vance.
Dark Hollow, The. By Anna Katharine Green.
Dave's Daughter. By Patience Bevier Cole.
Day of Days, The. By Louis Joseph Vance.
Day of the Dog, The. By George Barr McCutcheon.
Depot Master, The. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Desired Woman, The. By Will N. Harben.
Destroying Angel, The. By Louis Joseph Vance.
Dixie Hart. By Will N. Harben.
Double Traitor, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Drusilla With a Million. By Elizabeth Cooper.
Eagle of the Empire, The. By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
El Dorado. By Baroness Orczy.
Elusive Isabel. By Jacques Futrelle.
Empty Pockets. By Rupert Hughes.
Enchanted Hat, The. By Harold MacGrath.
Eye of Dread, The. By Payne Erskine.
Eyes of the World, The. By Harold Bell Wright.
Felix O'Day. By F. Hopkinson Smith.
50-40 or Fight. By Emerson Hough.
Fighting Chance, The. By Robert W. Chambers.
Financier, The. By Theodore Dreiser.
Flamsted Quarries. By Mary E. Waller.
Flying Mercury, The. By Eleanor M. Ingram.
For a Maiden Brave. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
Four Million, The. By O. Henry.
Four Pool's Mystery, The. By Jean Webster.
Fruitful Vine, The. By Robert Hichens.
Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford. By George Randolph Chester.
Gilbert Neal. By Will N. Harben.
Girl From His Town, The. By Marie Van Vorst.
Girl of the Blue Ridge, A. By Payne Erskine.
Girl Who Lived in the Woods, The. By Marjorie Benton Cook.
Girl Who Won, The. By Beth Ellis.
Glory of Clementina, The. By Wm. J. Locke.
Glory of the Conquered, The. By Susan Glaspell.
God's Country and the Woman. By James Oliver Curwood.
God's Good Man. By Marie Corelli.
Going Some. By Rex Beach.
Gold Bag, The. By Carolyn Wells.
Golden Slipper, The. By Anna Katharine Green.
Golden Web, The. By Anthony Partridge.
Gordon Craig. By Randall Parrish.
Greater Love Hath No Man. By Frank L. Packard.
Greyfriars Bobby. By Eleanor Atkinson.
Guests of Hercules, The. By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
Halcyone. By Elinor Glyn.
Happy Island (Sequel to Uncle William). By Jeannette Lee.
Havoc. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Heart of Philura, The. By Florence Kingsley.
Heart of the Desert, The. By Honoré Willsie.
Heart of the Hills, The. By John Fox, Jr.
Heart of the Sunset. By Rex Beach.
Heart of Thunder Mountain, The. By Elfrid A. Bingham.
Heather-Moon, The. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
Her Weight in Gold. By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
Hidden Children, The. By Robert W. Chambers.
Hoosier Volunteer, The. By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
Hopalong Cassidy. By Clarence E. Mulford.
How Leslie Loved. By Anne Warner.
Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker. By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
Husbands of Edith, The. By George Barr McCutcheon.
I Conquered. By Harold Titus.
Illustrious Prince, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Idols. By William J. Locke.
Indifference of Juliet, The. By Grace S. Richmond.
Inez. (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
Infelice. By Augusta Evans Wilson.
In Her Own Right. By John Reed Scott.
Initials Only. By Anna Katharine Green.
In Another Girl's Shoes. By Berta Ruck.
Inner Law, The. By Will N. Harben.
Innocent. By Marie Corelli.
Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The. By Sax Rohmer.
In the Brooding Wild. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Intrigues, The. By Harold Bindloss.
Iron Trail, The. By Rex Beach.
Iron Woman, The. By Margaret Deland.
Ishmael. (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.
Island of Regeneration, The. By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
Island of Surprise, The. By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
Japonette. By Robert W. Chambers.
Jean of the Lazy A. By B. M. Bower.
Jeanne of the Marshes. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Jennie Gerhardt. By Theodore Dreiser.
Joyful Heatherby. By Payne Erskine.
Jude the Obscure. By Thomas Hardy.
Judgment House, The. By Gilbert Parker.
Keeper of the Door, The. By Ethel M. Dell.
Keith of the Border. By Randall Parrish.
Kent Knowles: Quahaug. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
King Spruce. By Holman Day.
Kingdom of Earth, The. By Anthony Partridge.
Knave of Diamonds, The. By Ethel M. Dell.
Lady and the Pirate, The. By Emerson Hough.
Lady Merton, Colonist. By Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
Landloper, The. By Holman Day.
Land of Long Ago, The. By Eliza Calvert Hall.
Last Try, The. By John Reed Scott.
Last Shot, The. By Frederick N. Palmer.
Last Trail, The. By Zane Grey.
Laughing Cavalier, The. By Baroness Orczy.
Law Breakers, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Lighted Way, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Lighting Conductor Discovers America, The. By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
Lin McLean. By Owen Wister.
Little Brown Jug at Kildare, The. By Meredith Nicholson.
Lone Wolf, The. By Louis Joseph Vance.
Long Roll, The. By Mary Johnson.
Lonesome Land. By B. M. Bower.
Lord Loveland Discovers America. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
Lost Ambassador. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Lost Prince, The. By Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Lost Road, The. By Richard Harding Davis.
Love Under Fire. By Randall Parrish.
Macaria. (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
Maids of Paradise, The. By Robert W. Chambers.
Maid of the Forest, The. By Randall Parrish.
Maid of the Whispering Hills, The. By Vingie E. Roe.
Making of Bobby Burnit, The. By Randolph Chester.
Making Money. By Owen Johnson.
Mam' Linda. By Will N. Harben.
Man Outside, The. By Wyndham Martyn.
Man Trail, The. By Henry Oyen.
Marriage. By H. G. Wells.
Marriage of Theodora, The. By Mollie Elliott Seawell.
Mary Moreland. By Marie Van Vorst.
Master Mummer, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Max. By Katherine Cecil Thurston.
Maxwell Mystery, The. By Caroline Wells.
Mediator, The. By Roy Norton.
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle.
Mischief Maker, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Miss Gibbie Gault. By Kate Langley Bosher.
Miss Philura's Wedding Gown. By Florence Morse Kingsley.
Molly McDonald. By Randall Parrish.
Money Master, The. By Gilbert Parker.
Money Moon, The. By Jeffery Farnol.
Motor Maid, The. By C. N and A. M. Williamson.
Moth, The. By William Dana Orcutt.
Mountain Girl, The. By Payne Erskine.
Mr. Bingle. By George Barr McCutcheon.
Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Mr. Pratt. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Mr. Pratt's Patients. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Mrs. Balfame. By Gertrude Atherton.
Mrs. Red Pepper. By Grace S. Richmond.
My Demon Motor Boat. By George Fitch.
My Friend the Chauffeur. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
My Lady Caprice. By Jeffery Farnol.
My Lady of Doubt. By Randall Parrish.
My Lady of the North. By Randall Parrish.
My Lady of the South. By Randall Parrish.
Ne'er-Do-Well, The. By Rex Beach.
Net, The. By Rex Beach.
New Clarion. By Will N. Harben.
Night Riders, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Night Watches. By W. W. Jacobs.
Nobody. By Louis Joseph Vance.
Once Upon a Time. By Richard Harding Davis.
One Braver Thing. By Richard Dehan.
One Way Trail, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Otherwise Phyllis. By Meredith Nicholson.
Pardners. By Rex Beach.
Parrott & Co. By Harold MacGrath.
Partners of the Tide. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Passionate Friends, The. By H. G. Wells.
Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail, The. By Ralph Connor.
Paul Anthony, Christian. By Hiram W. Hayes.
Perch of the Devil. By Gertrude Atherton.
Peter Ruff. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
People's Man, A. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Phillip Steele. By James Oliver Curwood.
Pidgin Island. By Harold MacGrath.
Place of Honeymoon, The. By Harold MacGrath.
Plunderer, The. By Roy Norton.
Pole Baker. By Will N. Harben.
Pool of Flame, The. By Louis Joseph Vance.
Port of Adventure, The. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
Postmaster, The. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Power and the Glory, The. By Grace McGowan Cooke.
Prairie Wife, The. By Arthur Stringer.
Price of Love, The. By Arnold Bennett.
Price of the Prairie, The. By Margaret Hill McCarter.
Prince of Sinners. By A. E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Princes Passes, The. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
Princess Virginia, The. By C. N. and A. N. Williamson.
Promise, The. By J. B. Hendryx.
Purple Parasol, The. By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
Ranch at the Wolverine, The. By B. M. Bower.
Ranching for Sylvia. By Harold Bindloss.
Real Man, The. By Francis Lynde.
Reason Why, The. By Elinor Glyn.
Red Cross Girl, The. By Richard Harding Davis.
Red Mist, The. By Randall Parrish.
Redemption of Kenneth Gait, The. By Will N. Harben.
Red Lane, The. By Holman Day.
Red Mouse, The. By Wm. Hamilton Osborne.
Red Pepper Burns. By Grace S. Richmond.
Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The. By Anne Warner.
Return of Tarzan, The. By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Riddle of Night, The. By Thomas W. Hanshew.
Rim of the Desert, The. By Ada Woodruff Anderson.
Rise of Roscoe Paine, The. By J. C. Lincoln.
Road to Providence, The. By Maria Thompson Daviess.
Robinetta. By Kate Douglas Wiggin.
Rocks of Valpré, The. By Ethel M. Dell.
Rogue by Compulsion, A. By Victor Bridges.
Rose in the Ring, The. By George Barr McCutcheon.
Rose of the World. By Agnes and Egerton Castle.
Rose of Old Harpeth, The. By Maria Thompson Daviess.
Round the Corner in Gay Street. By Grace S. Richmond.
Routledge Rides Alone. By Will L. Comfort.
St. Elmo. (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
Salamander, The. By Owen Johnson.
Scientific Sprague. By Francis Lynde.
Second Violin, The. By Grace S. Richmond.
Secret of the Reef, The. By Harold Bindloss.
Secret History. By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
Self-Raised. (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.
Septimus. By William J. Locke.
Set in Silver. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
Seven Darlings, The. By Gouverneur Morris.
Shea of the Irish Brigade. By Randall Parrish.
Shepherd of the Hills, The. By Harold Bell Wright.
Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Sign at Six, The. By Stewart Edw. White.
Silver Horde, The. By Rex Beach.
Simon the Jester. By William J. Locke.
Siren of the Snows, A. By Stanley Shaw.
Sir Richard Calmady. By Lucas Malet.
Sixty-First Second, The. By Owen Johnson.
Slim Princess, The. By George Ade.
Soldier of the Legion, A. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
Somewhere in France. By Richard Harding Davis.
Speckled Bird, A. By Augusta Evans Wilson.
Spirit in Prison, A. By Robert Hichens.
Spirit of the Border, The. By Zane Grey.
Splendid Chance, The. By Mary Hastings Bradley.
Spoilers, The. By Rex Beach.
Spragge's Canyon. By Horace Annesley Vachell.
Still Jim. By Honoré Willsie.
Story of Foss River Ranch, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Story of Marco, The. By Eleanor H. Porter.
Strange Disappearance, A. By Anna Katharine Green.
Strawberry Acres. By Grace S. Richmond.
Streets of Ascalon, The. By Robert W. Chambers.
Sunshine Jane. By Anne Warner.
Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop. By Anne Warner.
Sword of the Old Frontier, A. By Randall Parrish.
Tales of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle.
Taming of Zenas Henry, The. By Sara Ware Bassett.
Tarzan of the Apes. By Edgar R. Burroughs.
Taste of Apples, The. By Jeannette Lee.
Tempting of Tavernake, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles. By Thomas Hardy.
Thankful Inheritance. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
That Affair Next Door. By Anna Katharine Green.
That Printer of Udell's. By Harold Bell Wright.
Their Yesterdays. By Harold Bell Wright.
The Side of the Angels. By Basil King.
Throwback, The. By Alfred Henry Lewis.
Thurston of Orchard Valley. By Harold Bindloss.
To M. L. G.; or, He Who Passed. By Anon.
Trail of the Axe, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Trail of Yesterday, The. By Chas. A. Seltzer.
Treasure of Heaven, The. By Marie Corelli.
Truth Dexter. By Sidney McCall.
T. Tembarom. By Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Turbulent Duchess, The. By Percy J. Brebner.
Twenty-fourth of June, The. By Grace S. Richmond.
Twins of Suffering Creek, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Two-Gun Man, The. By Charles A. Seltzer.
Uncle William. By Jeannette Lee.
Under the Country Sky. By Grace S. Richmond.
Unknown Mr. Kent, The. By Roy Norton.
"Unto Caesar." By Baroness Orczy.
Up From Slavery. By Booker T. Washington.
Valiants of Virginia, The. By Hallie Erminie Rives.
Valley of Fear, The. By Sir A. Conan Doyle.
Vane of the Timberlands. By Harold Bindloss.
Vanished Messenger, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Vashti. By Augusta Evans Wilson.
Village of Vagabonds, A. By F. Berkley Smith.
Visioning, The. By Susan Glaspell.
Wall of Men, A. By Margaret H. McCarter.
Wallingford in His Prime. By George Randolph Chester.
Wanted--A Chaperon. By Paul Leicester Ford.
Wanted--A Matchmaker. By Paul Leicester Ford.
Watchers of the Plains, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Way Home, The. By Basil King.
Way of an Eagle, The. By E. M. Dell.
Way of a Man, The. By Emerson Hough.
Way of the Strong, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
Way of These Women, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Weavers, The. By Gilbert Parker.
West Wind, The. By Cyrus T. Brady.
When Wilderness Was King. By Randolph Parrish.
Where the Trail Divides. By Will Lillibridge.
Where There's a Will. By Mary R. Rinehart.
White Sister, The. By Marion Crawford.
White Waterfall, The. By James Francis Dwyer.
Who Goes There? By Robert W. Chambers.
Window at the White Cat, The. By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Winning of Barbara Worth, The. By Harold Bell Wright.
Winning the Wilderness. By Margaret Hill McCarter.
With Juliet in England. By Grace S. Richmond.
Witness for the Defense, The. By A. E. W. Mason.
Woman in Question, The. By John Reed Scott.
Woman Haters, The. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
Woman Thou Gavest Me, The. By Hall Caine.
Woodcarver of 'Lympus, The. By Mary E. Waller.
Woodfire in No. 3, The. By F. Hopkinson Smith.
Wooing of Rosamond Fayre, The. By Berta Ruck.
You Never Know Your Luck. By Gilbert Parker.
Younger Set, The. By Robert W. Chambers.
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