This etext was produced by Julie A. Irizarry.
email at jairizarry(at)adelphia.net

Miss Gibbie Gault

   by Kate Langley Bosher
   Author of "Mary Cary," etc.

With Frontispiece
By Harriet Roosevelt Richards

To My Husband

Contents

Chap.
I.        The Guild of Gossips
II.       The Views of Miss Gibbie
III.      Apple-Blossom Land
IV.       The Council Chamber
V.        In Which Mary Cary Speaks
VI.       Midnight
VII.      Peggy
VIII.     Peggy's Party
IX.       John Maxwell and Mary Cary
X.        The Forgotten Engagement
XI.       A Day of Entertainment
XII.      The Bargain
XIII.     A Grateful Convalescent
XIV.      A Morning Talk
XV.       Buzzie
XVI.      Men and Husbands
XVII.     In Which Mary Cary is Puzzled
XVIII.    Pictures in the Fire
XIX.      The Testimony Party
XX.       A Sudden Change
XXI.      The Release
XXII.     The News
XXIII.    The Guild Again
XXIV.     The Piece of Paper
XXV.      The Conclusion of a Matter
XXVI.     The Surrender
XXVII.    A Tie That Binds

MISS GIBBIE GAULT

Chapter I

THE GUILD OF GOSSIPS

The Needlework Guild, which met every Thursday at eleven o'clock, on
this particular Thursday was meeting with Mrs. Tate. It was the last
meeting before adjournment for the summer, and though Mrs. Pryor, the
president, had personally requested a large attendance, the attendance
was small. In consequence, Mrs. Pryor was displeased.

"Mercy, but it's warm in here," said Mrs. Tate, going to a window and
opening wide its shutters. "I had no idea it would be as hot as this
to-day, though you can nearly always look for heat in May." She
slapped her hands together in an attempt to kill a fly that was following
her, then stood a moment at the window looking up and down the street.

"Wish to goodness I could have one of those electric fans like Miss
Gibbie Gault's got," she went on, coming back to her seat and wiping
her face with Mrs. Webb's handkerchief, which happened to be closest
to her; "but wishing and getting are not on speaking terms in our
house. Have any of you seen Miss Gibbie's new hat?"

"I have." Mrs. Moon took up the large braidbound palm-leaf fan lying
on the chair next to her and began to use it in leisurely, rhythmic
strokes. "She has five others exactly like it. She says she would have
ordered ten, but when a person has passed the sixty-fifth birthday the
chances are against ten being used, and six years ahead are sufficient
provision for hats. Five of them are put away in camphor."

"Imagine ordering hats for years ahead just to save trouble! I'm
thankful to have one for immediate use." Mrs. Corbin put down the
work on which she had not been sewing and folded her arms. "Miss
Gibbie may be queer, but there's a lot of sense in deciding on a
certain style and sticking to it. Fashions come and fashions go, but
never is she bothered. Just think of the peace of mind sacrificed to
clothes!"

"Who but Miss Gibbie would wear the same kind year after year, year
after year?" said Mrs. Pryor, who alone was industriously sewing.
"But that's Gibbie Gault. From the time she was born she has snapped
her fingers at other people, and, if it's possible to do a thing
differently from the way others do it, she will do it that way or--"

"Make them do it. I never will forget the day she marched Beth's boys
through the streets and locked them up in her house." Mrs. Tate pointed
her needle, which had been unthreaded all the morning, at Mrs. Moon.
"Funniest thing I ever saw. Remember it, Beth?"

"Remember? I should think I did." Mrs. Moon smiled quietly. "I have
long seen the funny side, but it took me long to see it. Nobody but
Miss Gibbie would have done it."

"Please tell me about it, Mrs. Moon," said Mrs. Burnham, who was still
something of a stranger  in Yorkburg. "Every now and then I hear
references to Miss Gibbie Gault's graveyard, and to the way she once
got ahead of your boys, and I've often wanted to ask about it. Is there
really a graveyard at Tree Hill, and is the gate bricked up so that
no one can get in?"

"It certainly is." Mrs. Moon laughed. There isn't very much to tell.
Everybody knows about the old Bloodgood graveyard at Tree Hill in which
Miss Gibbie's parents and grandparents and great-grandparents are
buried. Her mother was a Bloodgood; and everybody knows, also, that
since the Yankee soldier, who died during the war at Judge Gault's
house, was buried there the gate has been bricked up and nobody has
ever been inside but Miss Gibbie and Jackson who cuts the grass."

"But how does she get in?" Mrs. Burnham's voice was puzzled inquiry.
"If there's no gate, how--

"She climbs up a ladder on the outside of the wall, which is eight
feet high and two feet thick, and down another which is inside,"
interrupted Mrs. Tate, to whom the question had not been asked. "I
wish to goodness I had been there the day she nabbed your boys, Beth.
I don't wonder they were scared."

"They were certainly scared." Mrs. Moon wiped her lips and smiled
reminiscently. "My boys followed her one day, Mrs. Burnham, and the
result was one of the most ridiculous sights ever seen in Yorkburg.

"After finishing what she had to do that day, Miss Gibbie climbed up
the ladder she keeps inside and started to get on the one outside,
and there was none to get on. The boys had taken her ladder and hidden
it, and they themselves were hiding behind an oak-tree some little
distance off.

"At first they doubled up with laughter when they saw Miss Gibbie
straddling the top of the wall, unable to get down either way; but
suddenly, Richard said, she balanced herself on the top of the wall
and sat there with her feet hanging over as if going to spend the day,
and then in a flash she was down on the ground.

"Half a minute later she had each of them by the arm. Dick said his
feet were dead feet, he couldn't budge. Neither could Frederick. The
sudden jump had paralyzed them.

"'Moon boys!' she said--'Moon boys! Fine fun, wasn't it? Well, let's
go home and have some more fun,' and down the hill she marched them
and on into town. All the length of King Street they went, then into
St. Mary's Road, then Fitzhugh Street, and back into King, and finally
into her home in Pelham Place.

"All the time nothing had been said. Everybody who had seen them had
stopped and stared, and some of the boys had started to follow, but
Miss Gibbie had nodded her head backward, and a nod was enough.
When they got in the house she took them up-stairs to a big bedroom
and told them to sit down and cool off; then she locked the door and
left them.

"Five hours later the door was opened and dinner was brought in. It
was a good dinner, and the boys ate it, every bit of it, and, feeling
better, were beginning to look around for means of escape, when in
walked Miss Gibbie with two white things in her hand.

"'Didn't we have lots of fun this morning?' she said. 'Awful lot of
fun to see a lady play Humpty-Dumpty. Pity nobody else could see. When
people look funny everybody ought to see.' And Frederick said, as she
didn't seem mad a bit, he thought she was going to tell them to run on
home, when she turned to the dining-room servant, who had come in
with her, and flung out two big old-fashioned nightgowns of her own.
'Here, Hampton, help these boys take off their hot clothes and put on
something cool,' she said, and she made Hampton undress them and put
on her gowns, and then sent them flying home."

Miss Matoaca Brockenborough threw back her head and laughed
heartily. "I can see them now, as they came running down the street.
They were trying to hold their white robes up in front, but behind
they were trailing in the dust, and following them were boys and dogs
and goats and girls, and I stood still, like all the other grown
people, to see what was the matter. I laughed till I cried. Frederick
stumbled at every other step, and Dick got his feet so tangled that he
fell flat twice. If old Admiral Bloodgood's ghost had been chasing
them, they couldn't have run faster. Nobody but Miss Gibbie would have
dressed them up that way."

"And nobody but Miss Gibbie would have come back at me as she did
when I told her how uneasy I had been by the boys' absence at dinner,"
said Mrs. Moon, who had moved nearer the window. "It was twelve
years ago, but I have never forgotten what she said or the way she
said it. I can see her now." Mrs. Moon sat upright. "'My dear Madam,'
she said, 'my dear Madam, you will have cause not only for uneasiness,
but for shame and sorrow, if you don't let your boys understand early
in life that disrespect to ladies means disaster later on.'"

"That's true; but a lot of true things aren't nice to have on your
mind. Don't you all think it's awful hot in here? I do," and again
Mrs. Tate got up and walked across the room, this time throwing wide
the shutters and letting in a glare of sunshine. "If I'd known it was
going to be as warm as this I would have made some lemonade. There
goes Mary Cary!" and, looking up, the ladies saw her smile and nod and
shake her fan at some one who was passing.

"Is she riding?" asked Mrs. Webb, threading the needle held closely to
her eyes--"or walking?"

"Riding, and without a piece of hat. That little Peggy McDougal is
with her, holding a green parasol over both."

"Mary Cary will ruin that child," said Mrs. Pryor. "She is constantly
taking her about and giving her things. But Mary, of course, does as
she pleases. She always has and always will."

"She pleases a lot of people besides herself, and I always did say if you
could do that you certainly ought to, for there are so few that can.
But I don't think Mary gives herself a thought. Did you all know the
night-school teacher is going to leave?" and Mrs. Tate put down her
fan long enough to again wipe her face with Mrs. Webb's handkerchief.
"Mary is so sorry about it, but, of course, she can't help it."

"I believe she can help it." Mrs. Pryor looked around the room as if
for confirmation. "Everybody knows the reason he's going. I believe
any girl can keep a man from falling in love with her if she wants to.
The trouble with Mary is she doesn't want to. There are my girls. You
don't catch them encouraging attentions they don't want."

Mrs. Moon's foot pressed Mrs. Corbin's. Miss Matoaca Brockenborough's
elbow nudged Mrs. Tazewell, but no one spoke, and Mrs. Pryor went on:
"But Mary Cary has been a law unto herself from childhood, and, now
she is back in Yorkburg, she thinks she can keep it up, can live her
life independently of others, can do her own way, come and go as she
pleases, and not be criticized. Yorkburg isn't used to having a young
woman livein a house alone, except for a white servant whom nobody
knows anything about."

"She's got three servants," chimed Mrs. Tate. "Ephraim and Kezia both
live with her."

"I wasn't speaking of colored servants." Again Mrs. Pryor waved her
fan as if for silence. "Besides, they have their quarters outside, and
both are old. Out West people may do the things she is doing, but in
Virginia we are different. We--"

"Oh, we're nothing of the kind, Lizzie," and Mrs. Webb laid her sewing
in her lap. "Yorkburg is like all the rest of the world, as we would
know if we went about more. The trouble is, we think we are the world."

"I don't see why Mary Cary shouldn't live in the way she wants to,"
said Mrs. Corbin. "We live to suit ourselves, and why shouldn't she?
Heaven knows she's done enough for Yorkburg since she came back. I
think she was mighty good to come and live in a quiet little town like
this, when she could live almost anywhere she wants. And think of the
money she spends here!"

"That is just it! Where does all that money come from? Only yesterday
she chartered the /General Maury/ to take the orphan children on
an all-day picnic to Wayne Beach on the fourteenth of this month, and
all at her expense. It takes money to do things of this kind. She says
she is not rich. Where does the money come from?"

Mrs. Pryor tapped the table on which her hands had rested and looked
around with an answer-that-now-if-you-can air, and several started to
answer. Mrs. Burnham's voice was clearest, however, and as she spoke
those in front turned to hear her.

"We don't know where it comes from," she said, courageously, though
her face flushed, "and I am not sure that it is required of us to know.
If Miss Cary prefers not to discuss her money matters, we have no right
to inquire into them. I have not been here very long, and I don't know
Yorkburg as well as the people who were born here, but if more of us
took interest in the things she--"

"In Yorkburg, Mrs. Burnham, women are not supposed to take interest
in what are conceded to be the affairs of men."

Mrs. Pryor was withering in her disapproval, and this time Mrs. Corbin
touched Miss Matoaca's foot. "I suppose you allude to the streets of
Yorkburg, the schools, and library--and some other things. All these
Western and Northern ideas which Mary Cary has brought back are
very distasteful to the Virginians of historic ancestry. We have gotten
on very well for many centuries without women meddling in men's matters.
I have good authority for what I say. It is unscriptural. St. Paul says,
let the women keep silent and learn of their husbands at home!"

The door behind Mrs. Pryor's back had opened while she was talking,
and Miss Gibbie Gault, listening with her hand on the knob, tilted her
chin and screwed up her left eye so tightly that it seemed but a little
round hole, and at sight of it some of the ladies brightened visibly,
while others fidgeted in nervous apprehension of what might come.

Miss Gibbie came farther in the room, laid her bag and turkey-wing fan
on the table over which Mrs. Pryor was presiding, and, without a
good-morning to the others, took her seat and began the pulling-off of
her white cotton gloves.

"What's all this nonsense about St. Paul and women, Lizzie?" she began,
laying the gloves by the bag and taking up the fan. "I heard that last
remark, but Mr. Pryor didn't. Do you ever tell Mr. Pryor about St.
Paul's opinions? I hope, some of these eternal times, I am going to
know St. Paul. His epistles don't speak of a wife, but I've always
imagined he had one, and of the kind who didn't agree with you, Lizzie,
that women should keep silent and learn of their husbands at home--
like you learn of yours."

The white ribbon strings which tied Miss Gibbie's broad-brimmed white
straw hat under her chin were unfastened and thrown back over her
shoulders, the sprig muslin skirt was spread out carefully, and the
turkey-wing fan lifted from her lap, but for a moment Mrs. Pryor did not
speak.

Her face, not given to flushing, had colored at Miss Gibbie's words. She
pressed her lips firmly together and looked around the room as if asking
for Christian forbearance for so irreverent a speech as had just been
heard; then she rose.

"I do not care to discuss St. Paul. When a woman sits in judgment upon
one of the disciples of the Lord--"

"Don't get your Biblical history mixed, Lizzie. St. Paul was not one of
the twelve. He was an apostle, a writer of epistles. I admire him, but,
from his assertions concerning women, he must have had some in his
family who gave him trouble. Whenever you hear a man in public
insisting on keeping women in their place, keeping them down and under,
not letting them do this or letting them do that, you may be certain he
is a managed man. But if you won't discuss St. Paul with a sinner such
as I, we willgo back to the person you were discussing, and I will
discuss her with Christians such as you. Who was it? If it wasn't Mary
Cary I will give ten dollars to your heathen fund." She looked around
the room and then at Mrs. Webb. "Was it Mary Cary, Virginia?"

Mrs. Webb, biting a strand of cotton held at arm's-length from the
spool, nodded, then threaded her needle.

"Yes, we were talking about her work here in Yorkburg, and Mrs. Pryor
was telling us she had engaged the /General Maury/ to take the
orphan children to Wayne Beach on the fourteenth, and--"

"Lizzie wanted to know where the money was coming from? For a Christian
woman, Lizzie, your curiosity in money matters is unrighteous. If money
is honestly come by, what business is it of ours how it is spent?"

"Why doesn't she tell how it is come by?" Mrs. Pryor's voice was high
and sharp. "Mary Cary has been back in Yorkburg seven months--"

"Seven months and two weeks," corrected Mrs. Tate, pointing her
unthreaded needle at Mrs. Pryor.

"She was a penniless orphan until thirteen"--the interruption was
ignored--"and, so far as we've heard, she has never had a fortune left
her, and yet after nine years' absence she comes back, has a beautiful
home, a horse, and a runabout, keeps three servants, gives to
everything, spends freely, and never tells how she gets the money."

"And that's something good people will never forgive, will they,
Lizzie?"

Miss Gibbie Gault leaned forward and tapped the table on which Mrs.
Pryor's hands were resting with the tip of the turkey-wing fan. "Though
one feeds the hungry and clothes the naked, brings cleanliness out of
dirt, and gladness where was dulness, makes flowers grow where were
weeds, it profiteth nothing--if one's business is not told. Be honest,
Lizzie. Isn't that so?"

Mrs. Moon glanced anxiously at the clock on the mantel just under the
portrait of Mrs. Tate's great-grandfather, and hurriedly folded her
work. She never came to a meeting of the Needlework Guild if she
thought it likely Miss Gibbie would be there. But Miss Gibbie was
even less regular than Miss Honoria Brockenborough, and her attendance
to-day was evidently for a purpose. By herself Miss Gibbie was an
Occasion, a visit to her was an experience that gave color and life to
the dullest of days, and she did not deny her enjoyment of Miss Gibbie's
comments on people and things. But Mrs. Pryor and Miss Gibbie together
made an atmosphere too electrical for her peace-loving nature, and
she was wondering if it were possible to get away when the door opened
and Mrs. Tate's maid put her head inside.

"Mis' Pryor," she said, and her eyes seemed all whites, "somebody at
the telephone say for you to come on home' that Mr. Pryor done took
sick on the street and they've brung him in. Miss Lizzie Bettie say to
come on quick."

Every woman turned in her seat. From some came exclamations of
frightened sympathy. From others a movement to rise, as if the summons
had come to them, but Mrs. Pryor waved them back.

"I don't think it is anything serious," she said, bluntly. "I can't
even go to a meeting in peace. Lizzie Bettie is so excitable. Mr. Pryor
has been having attacks of indigestion for months. He ate sausage this
morning for breakfast. He knows he can't eat sausage."

Chapter II

THE VIEWS OF MISS GIBBIE

Miss Gibbie's carriage was at the gate, and before the others know what
to say she conducted Mrs. Pryor out of the room, put her in the carriage
herself, and gave the order to Jackson to drive her home. "Tell Maria to
telephone me here in half an hour how William is," she called, "and if
you need me let me know," then went back into the house where all were
talking at once.

"Do you reckon he is really ill, Miss Gibbie?" inquired Mrs. Webb, and
"he's so uncomplaining they might not know he was ill," said Mrs.
Moon, while Mrs. Tazewell, full of sympathy, thought they ought to
adjourn and go see if there was not something they could do.

"Which of those questions do you want me to answer first?" Miss
Gibbie, taking Mrs. Pryor's chair, waved the turkey-wing fan back and
forth, but with fingers not so firm as they had been before the message
came, and as she spoke the room became quiet again.

"Do I hope William Pryor is seriously ill?" she began, her keen gray
eyes dim with something rarely seen in them. "Do I hope William is
going to die? I do. For thirty-nine years he has been the husband of
Lizzie Pryor, and he has earned his reward. I don't believe in a
golden-harp heaven. Not being musical, William and I wouldn't know what
to do with a harp. I believe in a heaven where we get away from some
people and get back to others, and God knows I hope William will have a
little respite before Lizzie joins him.

"I don't know Mr. Pryor very well," said Mrs. Brent, who had moved
closer to the table in the general uprising due to Mrs. Pryor's
departure, "but I've always felt sorry for him somehow. He had such
a patient, frightened face, and was so polite."

"That was what ruined him." Miss Gibbie's voice was steady again.
"Many wives are ruined by over-politeness. They take advantage of it,
and make their husbands spend their lives in an eternal effort to
please. That's what poor William was forever attempting to do, and
never succeeding. He was Apology in the flesh. No matter what he
did in the morning he had to explain it at night."

"He had to," broke in Mrs. Tate, who still held her needle between
finger and thumb. "If he didn't, Mrs. Pryor breathed so through her
nose you couldn't say in the house with her. I was there once when she
wanted to go to her sister's in Washington to get new dresses for
Maria and Anna Belle and Sue, and Mr. Pryor had ventured to say he
didn't have the money. You ought to have seen her! She hardly spoke
to me, and Louisa told me afterward they didn't see her teeth for a
week, she kept her lips down on them so tight. Poor Mr. Pryor, I saw
him a day or two afterward on his way home to dinner, and he looked
like he would rather go to--"

"Hell. Speak out. I would, had I been he." Miss Gibbie blew her nose,
put the handkerchief back in the bag hanging from her belt, took out her
spectacles and laid them on the table. "Any kind of woman can be
endured better than a sulking woman. She's worse than a nagger, and
home is a place of perdition with that kind in it. But in a sense
William deserved what he got. He let her marry him."

"Oh, she didn't ask him!" Mrs. Burnham was from the North, and her
voice was astonished interrogation. "Surely she didn't ask him!"

"No. She made him ask her. Made him feel so sorry for her, cried over
herself and her loneliness so persistently that William, being a man,
walked in. Six weeks later they were married."

"I wonder if it was really true the way they say she used to do," and
Mrs. Tate, whose needle was now lost, was again fanning vigorously.

"What way?" Miss Gibbie turned so quickly toward her that Mrs. Tate
jumped.

"Why, I heard when she was first married that if she couldn't have just
what she wanted, or if Mr. Pryor did anything she didn't like, she
would lie flat down on her back and kick her heels on the floor so loud
you could hear it all over the house. I don't believe it was true."

"You don't? Well, it was, with this difference. When she wanted a thing
for herself, she lay on her back and kicked. When she wanted it for the
children, she lay on her stomach and cried. Either way she got what she
wanted."

The turkey-wing fan waved back and forth, then Miss Gibbie got up.
"This is dirty work we are doing. I prefer to make my remarks to
people's faces so they can remark back. And this isn't what I came to
this meeting for. I know the talk that has been going around lately
about Mary Cary. Lizzie Pryor has led it, and I came here this morning
to tell her so. The people in Yorkburg are like all other people. They
pat the fat shoulder, and shake the full hand, and eat of the bounty,
and then, when some jealous-minded, squint-eyed Christian, so-called,
starts questions and speculations, everybody repeats them and some try
to answer."

"But why are you talking to us like this, Miss Gibbie? We are Mary's
friends and oughtn't to be taken to task for what we haven't done and
don't approve of," said Mrs. Corbin. "We--"

"Then if you are Mary's friends you will tell other people what I am
telling you. You will cut short all this twaddle about her great wealth
and Western ways and numberless beaux. It's the last that sticks so in
Puss Jenkins's throat. Puss never had a beau herself, and she can't get
reconciled to Mary's many."

"Oh, she did have one." Mrs. Moon spoke for the first time since Mrs.
Pryor left. "Don't you remember Mr. Thoroughgood?"

"He never courted her. He told me so himself. He thought over it and
prayed over it, and at last decided he'd do it, but he never did. He
bought her a box of candy for which he paid sixty cents--told me that,
too--and went to the house prepared to speak the word. I remember the
night very well. He tiptoed up the front steps and stood on the porch
where he could hear voices in the parlor. Puss and her mother were
talking, and 'Mercy on me,' he said, 'I never had such a narrow escape
in all my life. She was scolding her mother, quarreling with her,
lecturing her for something. I tell you I tiptoed down in a hurry.'"

Miss Gibbie made the mincing steps of Mr. Thoroughgood and so
mimicked his thin, piping voice that all laughed, then she nodded at
Mrs. Moon--"I got the candy.

"But to go back to Mary. She has heard some of the things said about
her, and so have I. Mrs. Deford told her Yorkburg did not need to be
washed and ironed, and Lizzie Bettie Pryor wrote her a note informing
her Southern people had no sympathy with Northern ideas, and if she
wished to keep her old friends in Yorkburg she should be more careful
in making new acquaintances. Now this is what I want understood. She is
my friend. If any one wishes to ask questions about her, come to me.
For statements made against her I will go to them. She has no mother.
I have no child. As long as I am here and she is here, we are to be
reckoned with together. This is what I came here to say. You can repeat
it. I will see that Lizzie Pryor and her daughters hear it, and Mrs.
Deford and Puss Jenkins and Mr. Benny Brickhouse--"

The door opened noisily and again the maid-servant's head was thrust
in. "Mis' Tate," she said, excitedly, "somebody done phone from Mis'
Pryor's and say Mr. Pryor done gone and died. She say please
somebody come on down there quick, that Mis' Pryor is just carryin'
on awful."

The ladies sprang to their feet with shocked and frightened faces, but
it was Miss Gibbie who spoke.

"Poor William!" she said. "Poor William! Lizzie knew he could never eat
sausage, and she had it this morning for breakfast!"

Chapter III

APPLE-BLOSSOM LAND

Several days had passed since gentle William Pryor had at last found
rest. Yorkburg recovering from its shock, took up once more the placid
movement of its life.

Mary Cary opened her shutters and with hands on the window-sill
leaned out and took a deep breath, then she laughed and nodded her
head. "Good-morning sun," she said, "good-morning birds, good-morning
everything!" Her eyes swept the scene before her, adsorbed greedily
its every detail, then rested on the orchard to the right.

"Oh, you beautiful apple blossoms! You beautiful, beautiful apple
blossoms!" She threw them a kiss. "And to think you are mine--mine!"

In her voice was a quivering little catch, and presently she dropped on
her knees by the open window and rested her arms on the sill. Again her
eyes swept sky and field, now glancing at the lawn of velvet green, now
at the upturned earth on the left, the or hard on the right, the thread
of water in the distance winding lazily in and out at the foot of low
hills, and now at the sun, well up from the soft dawning of another day,
and suddenly she stretched out her arms.

"God," she said, "God, I am so glad--so glad!"

For some minutes she knelt, her chin in the palms of her hands, her gaze
wandering down the road to the little town less than a mile away, and
presently she laughed again as if at some dear memory. It was so good
to be among the old loved things, the straggling streets and shabby
houses, the buttercups and dandelions, and the friends of other days.
It was good, and out loud she said again: "I am so glad."

"Your bath, mein Fraulein."

She got up; the soft gown falling from bare shoulders stirred in the
light breeze. She pulled the ribbons from the long braids of hair, and
coiled them round her head, but she did not leave the window.

"All right, I'll be there in a minute." Then: "Hedwig?"

"Yes, mein Fraulein."

"Do you think I could have the day to myself? I have something
important to do, and I can't do it if constantly interrupted. If any
one comes, could you keep me from knowing it?"

"I think so, mein Fraulein."

The shadow of a smile hovered a moment on Hedwig's lips. "Does that
mean all and everybody, or--"

"Everybody! Of course not Miss Gibbie, but everybody else. I shall not
be at home, you see. I will be down in the orchard, and if Miss Gibbie
comes bring her there, but never, never let any one else come there,
Hedwig."

"I understand, mein Fraulein."

The door was closed quietly, and the girl now standing in front of her
mirror looked into it first with unseeing eyes, then suddenly with
critical ones.

"You must look you best to-night, Mary Cary. You don't want to go to
that meeting. You don't like to do a lot of things you've got to do if
you're to be a brave lady, but Martha knows nothing is accomplished by
wanting only, and Martha is going to make you talk to those men
to-night." She leaned closer to the mirror. "I wonder how you happened
to have light eyes when you like dark ones so much better, and brown
hair when black is so much prettier? You should be thankful you don't
have to use curlers, and that you have plenty of color, but every now
and then I wish you were a raging beauty, so men would do what you
want."

Her brow ridged in fine upright folds as if thinking, then she turned,
nodding her head in decision. "I will ear that white embroidered mull
to-night. It is so soft and sweet and silly, and men like things like
that."

Some hours later, household duties having been attended to, fresh
flowers cut and the stable visited, the little vine-draped shelter made
of saplings, stripped of branch but not of bark, and canvas-covered on
the top, was the point of destination; but first she stood on the front
porch and looked up and down the sandy road which could be well seen
from the hilltop. No sign of life upon it, she turned and went through
the hall to the back porch and down the steps to the orchard, in one
hand writing-materials, in the other pieces of stale bread for the
birds; and as she walked she hummed a gay little tune to whose rhythm
she unconsciously kept step.

Many of the trees were old and bent and twisted in fantastic shapes--
some were small and partly dead, but most were fit for some festival of
the gods; and as she went in and out among them, her feet making but
slight impression on the moist springy soil, grass-grown and sprinkled
with petals, pink and white, she stopped now and then and touched first
one and then the other, for a swift moment laid her cheek on the rough
bark as if to send a message to its heart.

From the shelter she drew out a rug, spread it close to her best-loved
tree, then sitting upon it leaned against the trunk, feet crossed and
hands clasped loosely behind her head. The chirp of sparrows and twitter
of small birds, the clear song of robin and the cat-bird's call fell
after a while unheeding on her ears, and the drowsy hum of insects was
lost in the dreaming that possessed her. From the garden of
old-fashioned flowers some distance off the soft breeze flung fragrance
faint and undefined, and for a while she was a child again--the child
who used to run away in the springtime and hide in the orchard, that she
might say her prayers before a shrine of unknown name.

Presently she sat upright and opened her portfolio. "And now to think it
is mine, Aunt Katherine, mine!" she began. "At last everything is ready,
everything is finished, and I am in my own home. I am still full of
wonder and unbelief, still not understanding how Tree Hill is my
property. The quaint old house is not degraded by its changes, and
already I love its every room, its every outlook; and if you and Uncle
Parke and the children do not soon come I shall be of all creatures the
most disappointed and indignant. I want you to see the beautiful things
Miss Gibbie has done. Of course, Yorkburg doesn't understand; doesn't
know why I am back, and why I am living alone save for the servants;
and some don't approve. That the once charity child who lived at the
asylum should now own Tree Hill is something of a trial, and that it
could happen without their knowledge or consent is grievous unto them.
But they have been so good to me, all the old friends; are glad, they
say, to have me back, and I am so happy to be back. There have been
changes, but not many. The mills and factories have brought new people,
some of the old ones have died, the little ones grown up, several have
married and gone away to live, but it is the same sunshiny little place,
and I love it. In the months spent with Miss Gibbie, waiting for Tree
Hill to be made ready to live in, there was the restless feeling that
belongs to temporary arrangement, but now I am home; here to live and
work, and the only shadow is that the big and little Aldens are not
here, too. And what a relief to Miss Gibbie to be once more by herself!
I couldn't keep people away, and I was constantly afraid she would take
a broom and sweep them out. How she does hate to have people in her
house unless she sends for them! Man may not have been meant to live
alone, but Miss Gibbie was--"

The rustle of skirts made her look up, and quickly she was on her feet,
her arms around her visitor's waist, cheek pressed close to cheek.

"Oh, dear, I am so glad you've come. I was going--"

"To choke me, crush me, knock me down and sit on me, were you?
Well, you're to do nothing of the kind. And it's too hot to embrace.
Stand straight and let me look at you. How did you sleep last night?"

"I don't know. Wasn't awake long enough to find out. Oh, Miss Gibbie,
if you were a little girl I'd play all around the green grass with you!
Apple-Blossom Land is the place to play it in, and this is Apple-Blossom
Land! And to think--to think that it is mine!"

"Why not? Why shouldn't what you want be yours? Heaven knows an
old house on a hilltop, with some twisted trees on the side and
cornfields at the back, isn't much to dance over; but things have in
them what we get out of them, and if you will stop hugging me and get me
something to sit on I will be obliged."

"Will the rug do?"

"Rug? How could I get up if I every got down? No. Get me a chair.
What are you out here for, anyhow? Bugs and bees and birds may like
such places, but being a mere human being I prefer indoors."

"Then we will go in. I came out here so as to be not at home if any one
came up to see me."

"Hiding, are you? If you don't want to see people, why see them?" She
waved her turkey-wing fan inquiringly. "Nonsense such as this will force
you on the roof, if you'd say your prayers in private, and you're making
a bad beginning. Have you got that list of the councilmen? I want to see
it again."

Mary Cary picked up her writing-materials, crumbled the bread and
threw it to the birds, and, with arm in Miss Gibbie's, turned toward the
house.

"It's on the library table. I've seen every one of them. I'm sure it's
going to be all right."

"You are? That's because you are yet young. Never be sure a man in
politics is going to do what he says until he does it. When he makes you
a promise, just ask him to kindly put his name to it. I'm like a
darkey--I've more confidence in a piece of paper with some writing on it
than in the spoken word. Men mean well, and they'll promise a woman
heaven or hell to get rid of her, but you can't trust them. How about
Mr. Chinn?"

"Hardest of all. He can't speak correctly, and has never been out of
Yorkburg a week in his life. And yet he says we've got as good streets
as we need, and he doesn't approve of all this education, anyhow."

"Naturally. People are generally opposed to things they know nothing
about. Here, Hedwig, take my hat and bring me some iced tea--and next
time your Fraulein hides in the orchard you can find her and not send
me there."

Blowing somewhat from her walk, Miss Gibbie dropped in a chair in the
hall, unfastened the strings of her broad-brimmed hat and handed it to
Hedwig. Spreading out her ample skirts, she pulled off her white cotton
gloves, opened the bag hanging from her waist, took from it a
handkerchief of finest thread, and with it wiped her face. After a
moment she glanced around. "A house knows when it is occupied. Sleeping
here has given things a different air." She looked at the girl standing
in front of her, hands clasped behind, and the turkey-wing fan stopped
on its backward motion. "You are sure you will not be lonely? Sure you
will not be afraid?"

"Afraid! I'm not just Mary Cary, I'm Martha Cary also. Martha has
never been afraid, and Mary has never been lonely in her life. And I
love it so, my little Harmony House! Oh, Miss Gibbie, you have been so
good, so precious good!" The strong young arms reached down, and on
her warm breast she drew the anxious face of the older woman, kissed it
swiftly, then pushed her back against the cushions. "If only you would
let me tell how good you've been!"

"If only you would behave yourself and get me some tea I would think
more of you. There are many things I might forgive, but never the
telling of my private affairs. Where is that list of City Fathers? Here,
get me another chair. One feels like a kitty puss on a feather-bed in a
thing of this kind. I prefer to sit like a human being."

With an effort she extricated herself from the depths of the big
chintz-covered chair and took a tall straight one near the table on
which Hedwig was placing iced tea and sandwiches, and as she reached for
the tea with her right hand, she held out her left for the paper Mary
Cary was bringing to her.

She glanced down its length, and for some moments drank her tea in
silence save for an occasional grunt which was half sniff, half snort;
then as she put down her glass and took up a sandwich she waved the
paper in good-natured derision.

"And that's what governs us--that!

     "Oh, august body of assembled men,
     The gods in thee have come to earth again!"

She bit into the sandwich and again skimmed the paper. "These are the
individuals who make our local laws and do with our taxes what they
will. Listen:

"'1. Josiah Chinn, Undertaker.' Deals with the dead. An eye single to
the grave.

"'2. Franklin Semph, Machine Agent.' Travels. Sleeps home two nights in
the week. Drinks.

"'3. Richard Moon, President Woolen Mills.' In council as matter of
conscience. Only attends when Mary Cary makes him.

"'4. Jefferson Mowry. Chewer and spitter.' Livery business. Reads less
than he writes--never writes.

"'5. Jacob Walstein, born Pawnbroker, now Banker.' Rich and rising.

"'6. Williamson Brent, General Merchandise.' Votes as he's told by the
last person who tells. Putty man.

"'7. Blacker Ash, Secretary and Treasurer of Yorkburg Shoe Factory.'
Sensible and good worker. Bachelor. Does as Miss Cary tells him.

"'8. John Armitage. Soap-box politician.' Clerk in Mr. Blick's grocery
store. Salary eight dollars per week. When it's ten he will marry; told
me so.

"'9. Robertson Grey, Lawyer.' Well born and lazy.

"'10. Patrick Milligan.' Whiskey business and good talker. Slippery."

She crumpled the paper and threw it at the girl standing in front of
her. "There," she said, "there's the list of your Yorkburg Fathers. I
hope Hedwig will fumigate you when you get home to-night."

"She will if necessary." The crumpled paper was smoothed and folded
carefully. "But I don't believe it will be. I've taken tea with most of
their families."

"You've taken /what?/" Miss Gibbie bounced half-way out of her
chair.

"Tea." Mary Cary's head nodded affirmatively. "That's what I said,
tea--I mean supper. I invited myself to some of the places, but some
of the people invited me themselves. I'm afraid I did hint a little. But
we had a good time, and I've got my little piece of paper--see!"

She held a note-book toward Miss Gibbie, but the latter waved it back.
"Do you mean you sat down at the table and ate with them?"

"That's what I did. It would have been better could they have sat down
at my table and eaten with me, for then I could have selected the things
to eat, and food makes such a difference in a man's feelings. But there
isn't such a great difference in people when you know them through and
through, and I had a lovely time taking supper with them. I really did.
I told you about the Milligans. Don't you remember I was sick the next
day?"

Miss Gibbie shook her head. "Never told me. Glad you were sick."

"Not sick enough to hurt, or to keep me from the Mowrys the next night.
The Mowrys didn't have but four kinds of bread and three kinds of cake
and two kinds of meats and some other things, but you couldn't see a
piece of Mrs. Milligan's table-cloth as big as a salt-cellar, it was so
full of food. I took some of everything on the table. Mr. Milligan kept
handing me things from his end and Mrs. Milligan from her end, and the
little Milligans from the sides, and we laughed so much and I tried so
hard to eat I got really excited about it, and of course I was sick the
next day. But it didn't matter. We had a beautiful time, and I learned
things I never knew before."

She dropped on her knees by the older woman and crossed her arms on
her lap. "When I was a little girl, Miss Gibbie, and lived here in the
asylum, I used to wish I was a fairy or a witch or a wizard, or
something that could make great changes, could turn things round and
upside down; could put poor people where were rich, put sad ones where
were happy, put the lowly where were the high, and see what they would
do. And in the years I have been away, almost ten years, I have been
thinking and watching and wondering if half the trouble in the world is
not from misunderstanding, from not knowing each other better. And how
can we know if each stays in his own little world, never touches the
other's life?" She laughed, nodding her head. "I wouldn't discuss
Flaubert with Mr. Milligan or Greek Art with Mr. Chinn, but they can
tell me a good deal about Yorkburg's needs; and, after all, a person's
heart is more important than his head. We are educating people at a
terrible rate, but what are we going to do about it if we're not friends
when we're through? Of course you can't see my way. You hate dirty
people to come near you, but how get them clean if we keep from them?"

Miss Gibbie took up her fan and used it as if already the atmosphere
were affected, then she tapped the face in front of her. "I used to be
young once and dreamed dreams, but I dreamed them in my own house.
I might understand how you could eat with any sort of sinner--I've eaten
with all sorts--but with people who put their knives in their mouths
and don't clean their finger-nails!"

She lay back in her chair, chin up and eyebrows lifted, and Mary Cary,
getting on her feet, laughed, then leaned over and kissed her.

"To-morrow night I am going to the McDougals'. Susie McDougal's
beau, Mr. John Armitage, the soap-box politician, is to be there. You
don't mind, do you?"

Miss Gibbie's mouth, eyes, and nose all screwed together, and the
turkey-wing fan was held at arm's-length. "He uses hair-oil. Yes, I
mind, but I remember I was not to interfere."

Chapter IV

THE COUNCIL CHAMBER

Miss Gibbie would not stay to dinner. "I am fond of you, my dear," she
said, tying the ribbon strings loosely under her chin, "but I might not
be if I had to talk to you after a full meal. And that's the
trouble--you make me talk too much. If you prefer this middle-class
custom of a mid-day dinner, follow it, but don't ask me to join you."

Mary Cary laughed. "I don't think it's middle-class. I think it's nice;
it's Southern." Miss Gibbie's broad-brimmed hat was straightened, the
crumpled ribbons smoothed, the plump cheeks kissed. "And if I didn't
have dinner at two o'clock I couldn't have supper at seven. Thin ham and
beaten biscuits and salads and iced tea and summer things like that are
much nicer then meats and vegetables and desserts on warm nights. I'm
not stylish. I'm just Mary Cary, who loves old-fashioned ways and
things."

"Old-fashioned /ways/ and /things!/" Miss Gibbie's hands
went up. "To-morrow all Yorkburg will be calling you a young woman of
shocking ideas, one who actually knows something about business,
about the town's financial condition and the things it needs and should
have. You will be served at breakfast, dinner, and supper; held up as an
example of the pernicious effects of higher education followed by
foreign travel. To-night you are going to do what has never been done
here before, and who is going to imagine you love old-fashioned ways and
things? A woman has never crossed the threshold of Yorkburg's Council
Chamber--"

"A good many are going to cross it to-night."

Miss Gibbie, who had started to the door, turned. "You mean a good
many have promised. A very different thing. Women are cowards when
it comes to a change of custom. They like their little cages. They would
rather stay in and look on than come out and help. Don't expect too
much of them. They have so long thought as men told them God intended
them to think that it will take time for them to realize the Almighty
may not object to their inquiring if they're thinking right or not.
Good-bye, child. If any fireworks go off, keep your head and send up
a few yourself. Heavens, if I were young!"

As she drove off, Mary Cary waved to her, then turned and stood a
moment in the wide, cool hall, looking first in the library on the
right, the dining-room on the left, at the broad, winding staircase in
front, and through the open door at the end to the orchard, which in the
distance could be glimpsed, and her hands clasped as if to press
closely the happiness that filled her.

It was hers, all hers. The dream of her starved little heart, when, as a
child, she had lived in the Yorkburg Orphan Asylum, had come true. She
had a home of her own.

"And I didn't have to take a husband to get it," she said, nodding her
head. "That's such a satisfaction."

She dropped in the big chintz-covered chair and, with elbows on its
arms and finger-tips pressed to cheeks, surveyed critically the size and
shape and furnishings of the rooms, then sighed in happy content.

"It's such a pity so many people still think a home /must/ have a
man in it. If a man belongs to you and is nice he might make the home
nicer, but"--she shook her head--"Mrs. McDougal says there are times
when a husband is a great trial. I haven't any brothers or a father,
and I don't want to risk a trial yet. The reason most homes need men
is because men mean money, I suppose. You can't sneeze without needing
money. And yet"--she looked around--"everything in this house didn't
cost as much as the rug Mrs. Maxwell has on her drawing-room floor. I
don't wonder John loathes his house. You can't really see the price-tags
on the things in it, but you're certain you could find them if you had
the chance to look. I wonder where John's letter is?" She got up and
went into the library, turned over papers and magazines on desk and
tables, then rang for Hedwig.

"The mail?" she said. "Where did you put the letters this morning?"

Hedwig shook her head. "There no letters were this morning, mein
Fraulein. Not one at all."

"That's queer! All right." Hedwig was waved away. "I wonder if anything
is the matter? Of course there isn't--only--there haven't been three
Mondays since I left here that John's letter didn't come on the early
mail." She straightened a rose that was falling out of a jar and stood
off to watch the effect. "Nobody but John would write every week, when
I don't write once in four--don't even read his letters for days after
they come, sometimes. But I like to know they're here. I believe"--she
clasped her hands behind her head--"I believe I wish I had let him come
down to-night. No, I don't. But why didn't he write? He ought to have
known--" She turned away. "It would serve me right if he never wrote
again."

By seven o'clock she was on her way to the monthly meeting of the
town council, which meeting was always held on the second Monday
evening in the month, and as she started off she waved to Hedwig,
standing in the door.

"Telephone Miss Gibbie not to sit up for me," she called back. "I'm
going to stay all night with her, but it may be late before I get there.
Don't forget!" And again the hand was waved; and as she drove down
the dusty road, Ephraim beside her, the uncertainty of the morning
faded and her spirits rose at the prospect of the experience awaiting.

"You see," she thought to herself, "I've had the advantage of being poor
and not expecting things to go just as I want them, so it takes a great
deal to discourage me. When you're dealing with human nature it's the
unexpected you must expect. 'Human nature are a rascal,' Mrs.
McDougal says, and Mrs. McDougal's observations come terribly near
being true." She laughed and whistled softly, but at Ephraim's discreet
cough stopped and turned toward him.

"I oughtn't to do it, ought I, Ephraim? It isn't nice. I am afraid I
forget sometimes I am really and truly grown up."

"I reckon you does." Ephraim touched his hat. "You's right smart of a
child yet in some things, 'count of yo' young heart, I reckon. I ain't
never seen nobody who could see the sunny side like you kin, but it
ain't all sunny, Miss Mary, this worl' ain't, and there's a lot of pesky
people in it." He coughed again. "Sometimes folks seem to forgit you is
your grandpa's grandchild. Yo' grandpa was the high-steppinist gentleman
I ever seen in my life, but since you been goin' down among them mill
folks and factory folks and takin' an intrus' in 'em, lookin' into how
things is, some of them King Street people seem to think, scusin' of my
sayin' it, that maybe it's yo' father's blood what's comin' out in you."

Mary Cary laughed. "I hope it is. My father was a very sensible
gentleman, and didn't ask others what he must or must not do. But his
people in England would be more shocked than--" She stopped and her
lips twisted in a queer little smile. "Put me down here, Ephraim. I
am going first to Mrs. Corbin's."

Twenty minutes later she and Mrs. Corbin walked up the stops of the
side entrance of the town hall into the room where all public meetings
were held, and where all business connected with the town's interest
was transacted. As they reached the top the hum of many voices
greeted them. The narrow passageway was half filled with men. Some
were standing, hands in pockets; some, balancing themselves on the
railing, with feet twisted around its spokes, held their hands loosely
clasped in front, while others leaned against the wall, scribbled over
with pencil-marks and finger-prints of varying sizes, and ahead, through
the open door, could be seen both men and women.

As they came nearer, those on the railing jumped down; those leaning
against the wall straightened, and those in front made way, while hats
came off and spitting ceased.

"Good-evening," she said. "We are going to have a mice meeting, aren't
we?" She held out her hand. "How do you do, Mr. Jernigan. Is Jamie
better to-night?"

"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am. He's right sharp better to-night. He's
pleased as Punch over those drawings things you sent him. Been at 'em
all day."

"That's good." She reached the door, them turned, taking off her long,
light coat which covered the white dress. "Aren't you men coming in?"

"Yes'm--that is, those of us what can." It was Mr. Flournoy, foreman
of the woolen mills, who spoke. "There ain't much room in there left
and they say some more ladies is coming, so we thought we might as
well stay out as come out. We can hear all right."

"I'm sorry. The women ought not to take the men's places. Can't you--"

"Oh, that's all right." Mr. Jernigan waved his hat toward her. "We done
our work before we come here. Ain't a man in the council what don't
know how we stand, and what we won't do for them is a plenty if they
don't tote square. You just go on in, Miss Cary--you and Mrs. Corbin."

As they entered the room there was much uprising and many seats were
offered, but with a nod here and there they made their way toward a
window near which Mrs. Webb and Mrs. Moon were sitting and took
two chairs which had been kept for them. To the left were Mrs. Brent
and Mrs. Burnham, to the right Miss Mittie Muncaster and Mrs. Dunn,
while behind was Miss Amelia Taylor, president of the Mother's Club,
with Miss Victor Redway, the new kindergarten teacher from Kentucky.
A dozen other women, scattered in groups here and there, were
whispering as if at a home funeral, and along the walls men, ranged in
rows, hats in hands, chewed with something of nervous uncertainty as to
the wisdom of the innovation which they were about to witness. In a
large chair on a small platform Mr. Chinn, president of the council,
sat in solemn silence, gavel in hand, waiting for the hour to strike,
and for once in its history all ten of the city fathers were on time
and in place.

"You may not mind this, Mary, but I do," said Mrs. Moon half under her
breath. "I'm not used to these new-fashioned ways of doing things. I
feel like I haven't got on all my clothes. I came because you told me I
ought to, and of course women should take interest in things of this
sort, but I don't like it. I--"

"Then you were dear to come." And Mary gave the soft, pretty hands a
squeeze. "I don't like it either, but neither do I like Yorkburg's not
having a high school. Don't look so uneasy. Nobody is going to bite.
Have you seen Mr. Milligan? A frog couldn't look more like a frog.
He'll pop presently, he's so pleased about something. There--they're
going to begin."

She leaned back in her chair, and as Mr. Chinn rose in his seat and
rapped on the table the crowd in the passage pressed closer to the
door. All who could came inside, but no longer was there standing-
room, and the air that might have come through the open windows was
kept back by the men who had climbed up in them and were swinging
their feet below.

The gavel again sounded. "The meeting will come to order!"

Mr. Chinn, in his long frock-coat and white string tie, stood a moment
surveying with mournful eye the crowded room, and in his voice as he
repeated "The meeting will come to order!" was the assurance that all
flesh is as grass, and though in a field it may flourish it will finally
be cut down.

But not yet could the meeting come to order. As Mr. Simson, the clerk,
stood up and began to call the roll there was the shuffle of many feet
in the hall and the men near the door parted to make way for late but
determined arrivals.

"Mrs. McDougal and every blessed member of her family!"

Under her breath Mary Cary laughed, then beckoned, and in pressed
Mrs. McDougal and made her way toward the platform, undismayed by
the gazing, smiling crowd. Behind were her five boys and four girls,
and behind them Mr. McDougal, but in the shelter of Mr. Blick's broad
back Mr. McDougal stopped and was seen no more.

But Mrs. McDougal was seen. Ushering the children ahead, she placed
them one by one on the edge of the platform, at the feet of Mr. Chinn,
all but Susie, who with flaming face had sought refuge on half of Mary
Cary's chair, then she waved to Mr. Simson, the clerk.

"Please hold on a minute, Mr. Simson," she called. "I'm awful sorry
we're late, but them five voters to be was hard to get fixed in time.
They know what they're here for and I don't want 'em to miss a word. Sit
still there, Jeff!" She jabbed the latter, who was wriggling, back in
his place and took from Billy the cap he was nervously chewing, then
seating herself between the younger set of twins she again waved her
hand.

"Now you can go on."

Thus permitted, Mr. Simson began the reading of the minutes of the last
meeting in quick staccato sentences, and as he took his seat Mr. Chinn
again sounded the gavel and in an attitude of resignation asked of there
were corrections.

None being suggested, the minutes were approved. The regular business
of the meeting forthwith began, and the atmosphere, which had been a
little tense, relaxed. As if to show his ease and familiarity with an
unusual situation, Mr. Mowry cut off a large piece of tobacco, crossed
his hands behind his head, and lifted his right leg on the top of the
small oak desk which was supposed to contain pen and paper for personal
use, but which had thus far served only as a footstool; and as he did
so he winked at young Armitage, whose face was a fiery flame, and
whose hands, wet with perspiration, were twisting in nervous knots a
handkerchief of highly colored border.

Little by little routine matters were disposed of, and, finally, there
being no further excuse for delay, the call for new business was made
and Mr. Milligan arose. With fingers in the armholes of his vest, with
shoulders back and chest expanded, he bowed with smiling eyes to the
platform, to the crowded room, to the ladies at his right, and as he
bowed there was stir and rustle and the straining forward of necks and
heads.

"Mr. President"--his heels were lifted from the floor and he balanced
himself on tiptoe--"Mr. President, members of the Yorkburg Council,
fellow-citizens, and ladies"--again he bowed profoundly--"a
distinguished honor has been bestowed upon me to-night, and as long as
life shall last I will look back upon this occasion as the proudest
moment of my life. We have met to-night not only to do our plain duty as
citizens of a noble town, but to look with far-seeing eyes into that
great future which stretches endlessly and forever on, and which can be
made as beautiful as--er, as--er the New Jerusalem or--er, or--er
Richmond or New York. We must show the watching world that we citizens
of old Yorkburg"--his right hand made a wide inclusive sweep--"we
citizens are awake, are up and looking around. We are no longer dead
poor. Money is nine-tenths of much in life, but the other tenth is a
busting big part. It's made of sense and hustle, and it's up to us to
prove it! We've been excusin' of ourselves by saying poverty has
paralyzed us, and we couldn't do this and we couldn't do that, because
we didn't have the cash. Well, I'm here to say it ain't so. What we've
been lackin' ain't so much the money as the spirit, and it's took a
woman to make us find it out."

Back from the windows came a clapping of hands, from the doors a
stamping of feet, and in the enforced pause Mr. Milligan wiped his
shining face and swallowed hastily from the glass of water on the table.

"In my poor way, members of the Yorkburg Council," he began again--
this time fingers interlaced and resting on his breast--"in my poor way
I am here to present this lady to you. She don't need to be introduced
to man, woman, or child in this community. She used to live here, and
when she went away something left Yorkburg that everybody wished
would come back. 'Twas a sort of sunshine. We didn't think she'd ever
find the way back. There was a heap to make her forget, but she didn't
forget. Love found the way, and she's back. Since she left she's seen a
lot of life. She's been around the world, in the big cities and the
little cities, and she's kept her eyes open and her mind open and her
heart open, and there's much she could tell about what's wrong with us,
but that ain't her way. She is here to-night to bring some matters to
your attention which I hope you will consider with intelligence and
appreciation, and just here I'd like to say that even if I didn't know
what they were I would say in advance, 'You could put my vote down for
'em, Mr. Clerk.' I ain't saying all women have business sense. They
ain't got it, but when they have, it's the far-seeingest sense on earth,
and there ain't a star in the heavens a man can't climb to when a woman
of that kind gives him a lift!"

Again a shuffle of feet, but Mr. Chinn's gavel came down heavily. He
turned in his chair and looked first at Mr. Milligan and then at the
clock.

"Oh, I know I'm talking too long, but, being started, it's hard to
stop," and Mr. Milligan wiped his perspiring face and nodded
good-naturedly at solemn Mr. Chinn. "I'm through, but I know I voice
the sentiments of every member of this honorable body when I say it is
highly honored by the presence here to-night of lovely woman! What would
life be without her? As babies, she borns us; as boys, she bosses us;
as men, she owns us; at death, she buries us, and she alone puts flowers
on man's grave! Man was made to do her bidding, Mr. President, and if
he's smart he'll do it quick. Members of the council, ladies, and
gentlemen, I have the honor of presenting to you Miss Mary Cary, the
granddaughter of a once chief justice of England and of Mayor Alden, a
distinguished citizen of Virginia."

Chapter V

IN WHICH MARY CARY SPEAKS

The flourish of Mr. Milligan's hand as Mary Cary rose and came toward
the platform was not to be resisted by Mrs. McDougal, who was
clapping vehemently. She gave the hand a resounding smack.

"Fine words, Mr. Milligan, fine words! But a dead Irishman would make
a good speech if you'd touch his tongue. You're an orationer, you are.
Set down, quick! Miss Cary is going to speak."

"Mr. President, gentlemen of the council." The clear, fresh voice
carried to the far corners of the room and upon the latter fell
vibrating silence. "Yorkburg's fiscal year ending in June in the next
few weeks, the annual budget for the coming twelve months will be fixed
by you. Before this budget is made up I am going to ask you to act upon
three propositions. Last year the total revenue of the town was
$16,907.23, and your expenditures something under one thousand dollars
less than your income. Out of your sinking-fund you retired a large
proportion of your outstanding bonds, with the result that your
indebtedness is now sufficiently small to justify your increasing it. I
am here to-night to ask you to issue, during the next three months,
fifty thousand dollars' worth of city bonds, interest on which is to be
3 per cent., payable semi-annually. If you will agree to do this
promptly, Bartlett, Cramp & Company, of New York, will take the entire
amount at once. At the expiration of twenty years these bonds are to be
retired."

"In the name of glory!"

The words, half smothered, sounded even to the platform, and Mary
Cary, catching them, laughed and nodded toward the source from which
they came.

"Is there anything you wish to say, Mr. Billisoly, before I go on?"

The latter rose to his feet, put his hand to his mouth, coughed, and
looked at Mr. Chinn.

"Yes'm, there is. Fifty thousand dollars is a powerful lot of money to
borrow at one clip, and--"

"Three per cent. interest is powerful little money to pay for its use,"
she answered, smiling. "But that isn't all I am here to say. If you
don't mind and will let me get through it will save time, and then
questions can be asked and answered. Last year the rate of interest on
all taxable property was one dollar and twenty-five cents per one
hundred dollars. This year, Mr. Councilmen, if you really love Yorkburg,
you will raise it to one dollar and thirty-five cents.

"Oh, I know," She laughed and lifted her hand as if to stop the unspoken
protest of certain stirrings. "I know the name of taxes isn't truly
pleasant to any one. But I have with me a list of taxpayers who agree to
the increase asked for, and if you would like to see it, there is no
objection to your doing so."

She opened her bag and took from it a roll of paper, and as she
unwound it she threw one end to Mr. Ash, the chairman of the finance
committee.

"This," she said, "is a list of the people who love their town enough to
put their hands in their pockets to prove it. A truly trying test!" She
held up her end of the paper. "There," she said, "there is the list."

Instinctively many leaned forward to see the paper which for reasons of
her own she had made in one long, narrow ribbon, and as they did so
she laughed again and nodded to the men at the desks. "The will of your
constituents.

"And now"--she stepped back--"there is one thing more. Yorkburg has
a friend who is greatly interested in its welfare. This friend believes
the time has come when the town should take stock of itself, should look
itself in the face and see just what sort of a town it is, and what it
may be. As a friend of this friend of Yorkburg I am authorized to say
that if this issue of fifty thousand dollars' worth of bonds be made
promptly, the like amount of fifty thousand dollars will be at once
deposited by Bartlett, Cramp & Company to the credit of your finance
committee, said amount to be used for the relaying out of the town,
the proper paving of streets, the planting of shade-trees, and the
cleaning up of dirty places."

For a moment there was palpitating silence. No one moved. Eyes were
fixed on her as if ears had not heard aright. The heads of some leaned
forward, the bodies of others leaned back, then the clearing of throats
and the shuffling of feet broke the pause that followed the statement
which had just been heard, and back toward the door Mr. Benny
Brickhouse arose.

"If he ain't the spittin' image of an orange with two peanuts
underneath and one peanut on top, I never seen one," said Mrs. McDougal
in a voice none too low, "and the top peanut ain't got a thing in it.
Just listen at his cambric-needle squeak!"

"Mr. President." The thin, piping tones caused many to look around.
"Mr. President, never before in its history has the council of Yorkburg
heard from its platform such astounding propositions as have been made
before it to-night. The young lady who has made them is doubtless
actuated by high and lofty motives, but it is not to be expected that
she should know what she is doing. It is out of her sphere, sir, the
sphere in which God put woman and meant her to stay--"

"Please, sir, Mr. Chinn, may I ask Mr. Brickhouse if God Almighty told
him He put woman in a sphere, or if a man told him?" and Mrs.
McDougal, on her feet, held up her hand as a child in a classroom who
asks to speak.

Mr. Chinn's gavel came down heavily and squelched the titter which
threatened to be something more. "Mr. Brickhouse has the floor, Mrs.
McDougal."

"And likely to keep it, sir. But go on, Mr. Brickhouse, go on! I
thought maybe you'd just heard from the Lord. Beg your pardon, sir."

She sat down, waving her hand toward the round little man, speechless
with amazement, then turned in a half whisper to the girl at her side.

"Let him talk, Miss Cary. Nothing shows the kind of fool you are as
quick as your tongue. Balaam's Brickhouse won't hurt you."

"Mr. President"--the interruption was ignored, and only the trembling of
the fine, thin voice gave evidence of anger--Mr. President, Yorkburg is
no pauper, and does not need the gift which has been offered it
to-night, provided it will acknowledge it needs to be cleaned up.
Yorkburg is a very clean place. Its streets were good enough for our
fathers, and I, for one, protest against the supplanting of the trees
they planted by the planting of more! We don't want more! And who is the
person who offers this gift? Why is his name withheld? Is he ashamed of
it, or is there a string tied to it which we don't see yet? What does
the party want of us in return for this sum of money, gotten we know not
how? It may be tarnished, sir, it any be tarnished!" His pudgy little
hands smote the air with something of vehemence; then remembering that
excitement was inelegant he wiped them carefully with his handkerchief,
clasped them righteously together, and laid them on his stomach.

"And I would like to ask why this honorable body is called on to pass a
measure which will plunge this old and distinguished town in such
enormous indebtedness?" he began again, after a pause which he
thought impressive. "Why should fifty thousand dollars' worth of bonds
be issued? For what purpose will the money be used? Why should this
great increase in taxes by made? What is to be done with the money
drained from our people, who are not worshippers of Mammon and
who set not their hearts on mere material things? I beg this honorable
body not to be led astray. It will be a sad day for this city of a
precious past--"

He stopped. Mary Cary's eyes, which in the beginning of his speech had
been bent on a letter held in her hand lest the laughter in them be
seen, were raised, and she was now looking at him with a steadiness
which was disconcerting, and the words died upon his lips.

"Are you through, Mr. Brickhouse?"

He sat down, wiping his moist face limply. "Yes, I am through."

This time Mary Cary, who had been standing below the platform,
stepped upon it, and the letter she had been holding was laid upon the
table.

"I am very much obliged to Mr. Brickhouse for asking the questions he
has asked," she began. "Except the name of the person giving this money
to Yorkburg there is no one of them that will not be answered readily,
as they should be rightly. Whether we are entitled to peculiarities, or
not, all of us possess them, and one of this friend of Yorkburg's is
that the gift and the giver should not be associated together;
therefore, the name of this friend will not be known. Another
characteristic of this same person is that before a place can be
properly beautiful it should be made sound and solid and healthy. The
foundation must come first, and the foundation of any town which would
have a future is to know Yorkburg is badly laid out. It isn't laid out
at all, and many of its streets start and end as they please. An
elemental need of Yorkburg is that it should be laid out anew, and by a
competent civil engineer who knows what he is about. This engineer will
be provided when you agree to use his services. Mr. Brickhouse says we
have a precious past. That is true, but a precious past doesn't make
good walking, and, not being dead, our feet have some rights. There is
no string tied to this gift of fifty thousand dollars save the
restriction that the money be expended for the purposes mentioned.

"You see"--she turned to the councilmen in front and nodded to them--
"when the matters brought before you to-night were mentioned to Mr.
Brickhouse he was not interested, and did not care to put his name to
the list of taxpayers who are willing to increase their taxes in order
that Yorkburg may get a new bonnet and gloves and good stout shoes for
its feet. He thinks they are not needed, and instead of expenditure,
economy should be your keynote." She shook her head. "There are
times when too much economy is as ruinous as too great expenditure.
Some women die from it every year.

"But before coming here to-night I did try to understand what I was
about." She tucked a curl which had slipped from under her hat back in
place. "I learned from your mayor that the town is financially able to
do what it is asked to do. We need two new school-buildings--one for
primary and grammar grades, one for a high-school. The increase of
taxes is needed to pay the interest on the new bonds, needed for many
more things than it will supply."

For a half moment she looked around the room, then again turned to the
men immediately in front, and her hands made a swift, appealing gesture.

"Gentlemen, you have done so splendidly. For so long there was so little
to do with. For many years the struggle for life and honor gave your
fathers no time for thought of other things, but they held their heads
up through it all, and you--you are your fathers' sons! In the years I
have been away I never saw anything beautiful or useful or splendid,
never saw good streets, schools, libraries, churches, parks,
playgrounds, galleries, museums, baths, kindergartens, never saw a good
idea in operation, or anything that made life nicer and better that I
didn't wish Yorkburg had it. I was always wishing it could be the
cleanest, prettiest, happiest of all places on this earth to live in,
and when I came back and saw what you had done, saw there was good
water, good sewerage, good lights, a few good streets, I was as proud
and pleased as if--as if I'd been your mother!"

She joined in the laugh that followed, then shook her head. "But,
gentlemen, people who don't do anything keep at it. A big idea means
big things, and if everybody pulls together we can do lots for Yorkburg.
And you don't really love what you don't work for, don't deny yourself
a little bit for, don't take some risk with. Some say there's risk in
marriage, but people get married. They want to. We can do anything for
Yorkburg we want to if we just want hard enough. Everybody agrees that
we need a high-school and a new grammar school. We've needed them for
years, and there were few people who pay taxes who didn't sign this
petition readily. Nearly everybody wants children to have a chance."

"Did the biggest taxpayer in Yorkburg sign it?" It was Mr. Billisoly
who asked the question.

"Who is that?"

"Mr. John Maxwell, owner of the Yorkburg shoe factory, ice factory,
electric-light plant; owner of more than any one man in town, if he
don't live here."

Mary Cary took up her end of the paper and examined it. "His name is
the first on the list. Next is Mr. Moon, then Mr. Walstein, Mr. Ash,
Mr. Wilson, Mr.--"

"Is Miss Gibbie Gault's name there?"

"It is."

"Wonder!" Mr. Billisoly blew his nose and turned to the man at his side.
"Looks like she's got it all there. If she could land Miss Gibbie the
rest were easy."

"Tell me she and Miss Cary are great friends. They say the old lady is
as smart as the devil and he'd be much more apt to get out of her way
than she out of his if they met. Listen, there goes Sunny Chinn. Ain't
he a cheerful thing to look at?"

The latter had risen, and again the table was struck by the gavel, which
through the evening his hand had not relinquished. "Are there any
further remarks to be made? If not--"

"Yes, sir." Mr. Ranlet, owner and proprietor of the Yorkburg bakery,
rose from his seat. "I'd like to ask something about this firm of
Bartlett, Cramp & Company, who is willing to buy bonds that only pay
3 per cent. How does Miss Cary know that?"

"I have a letter to that effect." She opened her bag and took from it
a letter. "This," she said, holding it up, "is the letter which states
that they will make this purchase for a customer, provided it can be
done promptly. Mr. Moon, Mr. Walstein, any one doing business in New
York can tell you the character and reputation of this company."

"I suppose the name of the customer is not mentioned?"

"Yes. It is a Mr. Black, of Brooklyn."

"The same one who has been buying property around here lately?"

"The same one. I understand he is thinking of coming here to live."

"Must have plenty of money. Not many people jump at 3-per-cent.
town bonds."

"Then we ought to jump quick lest he change his mind."

"I move the matter be referred to the finance committee." It was Mr.
Mowry who spoke, and instantly Mr. Ash, who had said nothing so far,
was on his feet.

"Mr. President, such reference would be a waste of time. As chairman
of the finance committee I have called the latter together and talked
with them concerning this proposition of an issue of bonds which I
knew would be brought before you to-night. We agreed to recommend it
heartily, and I move that the question be put at once."

The motion, made and carried quickly, was greeted with deafening
applause by the visitors sitting, standing, or balanced in the window-
seats, and then some one moved for an executive session, and slowly
the crowd began to stir and go out.

"It's going to be all right, Mary." Mr. Moon patted the latter's hands
encouragingly. "We are going to increase the taxes, accept the money,
and build the schools, and if you will please take Mrs. Moon home I will
be obliged. Her face has been like a beet all the evening. Oh, how do
you do, Mrs. McDougal?" and he shook kindly the rough red hand held
out toward him.

"And I'm glad to see you, Mr. Moon. I tell you this has been a night,
ain't it? I've had a fine time, though I'd had a finer if an edjucatid
tongue was in my mouth, and I could have mentioned some of the things I
know of as Yorkburg needs. What we goin' home for, being you ain't
through, they say? I hope you will tell those men who are to act on
something that if they don't act right they'll never get a vote from my
boys when they turn twenty-one. I ain't sayin' I understood all what
Miss Cary said to-night about bonds and things, but I'd follow her in
the dark, and ain't anybody such a fool as not to know what fifty
thousand dollars could do for a place or a person. Of course, being just
a woman--and men think women is just canary birds or dray horses--I
don't have no say in things like this, but I've borned five sayers, and
I'm goin' to keep my eye on 'em to see what they do when they get a
chance. Yes, sir, there's to be a knowin' why if she don't get what she
wants. In the four factories there's two hundred and ninety-three
voters, John Armitage says, and they're solid to a man for Miss Cary.
Just tell 'em that for me, will you? Good-night. Come on, children! I
wonder where McDougal is? A dead chicken's got more spirit in company
than he has! Good-night, Miss Cary, and don't forget we're expectin' of
you to tea to-morrow night. Peggy ain't slept for a week thinkin' about
it."

At the door a group of men stood talking. "Regular hunks, weren't
they?" said Mr. Jernigan, taking his pipe out of his pocket and knocking
the bowl against the palm of his hand. "And she didn't waste words in
throwing them out, either. Fifty thousand dollars in bonds asked for as
cool as snow, and looking like a blush-rose when she did it. Fifty
thousand dollars, too, handed out for a gift like 'twas an every-day
thing for Yorkburg to get it. She said she had a surprise for us. 'Twas
a cracker-jack. Wish one of that kind would knock me in the head! Taxes
increased from $1.25 to $1.35! George, it does you good to hear the
stuff called for like that. Them that's got it ought to pay for having!"

"But she believes in everybody paying. Don't you remember the day she
come down to the mills at lunch-time and told us we oughtn't to ask for
a reading-room where books from the library up on King Street could
be got without our goin' for 'em, unless we were willin' to help pay
for the keep of the room? Don't you remember? I do." And Mr. Flournoy
took the match held out by Mr. Jernigan and passed it on to the man
standing next.

"Yes, I remember. She made us all chip in. Right, too. It costs forty
dollars a month to run that room, and we don't pay but twenty. Don't
know where the other twenty comes from, but she does, and that goes
in mill-town."

"She's got a clear head, Miss Cary has. And the reason I like to hear
her talk is I can hook on to what she says." Mr. Flournoy walked over
to the window and measured the distance to a given spot below with his
lips. "No beatin' round to keep you from knowin' what she means. What
kind of slush was that Bailly Ass Brickhouse tryin' to get off, anyhow?
Any of you catch on?

"Didn't listen. Heard his junk before. He says he traces himself back
to Adam in this town, but if he ever give it as much as a ginger-cake
it's been kept a secret. Here comes Miss Cary now."

Mr. Jernigan took off his hat, and on his finger twirled it round and
round. "My wife's been sick in bed ten weeks come Friday," he said,
presently, "and there ain't been a one of 'em Miss Cary hasn't been to
bring her some outdoor thing, as well as other kinds. Mollie says when
she comes in the room, spring things come with her."

He stood aside, then took the hand held out as she came toward him.

"Didn't we have a grand meeting?" she said, nodding lightly to first one
and then the other. "I believe it's going to be all right, and you can
tell your wives their children will go to a high-school yet. I'm so glad
all you men came. Thank you very much--"

"You didn't need us." The man standing next to the steps laughed. "The
work was done before to-night. You had your ducks in a row all right."

"And not a single one quacked wrong! Didn't they do beautifully? Thank
everybody for coming. Good-night." And in the darkness they could
hear her laughing with Mrs. Moon and Mrs. Corbin as they went
together down the street.

A few minutes later in Miss Gibbie's library she was dancing that lady
of full figure round and round the room, and not for some seconds would
she stop.

"Oh, Miss Gibbie, if you'd just been there! Not a sign of fight from
any one, and as to fireworks, there wasn't a pop-cracker! Mr. Benny
Brickhouse orated, of course, and Mrs. McDougal was irrepressible,
but without them it would have been solemn--/solemn!/ I tried not
talk too much. Men don't like it; they like women to listen to them,
but to-night they--"

"Like sheep before their shearer, were dumb--as I'll be dead if you
don't sit sown. Sit down!"

"I can't." And Miss Gibbie was waltzed around once more. "I don't
understand, but it's going to be all right. Men are certainly funny.
For weeks every member of the council has pooh-hooded me, thought my
audaciousness was outrageousness, shook their heads and waved me
out, and didn't begin to listen seriously until a week ago. To-night
they were little lambs!"

"If you'll stop butting round like a goat and go to bed I'll hear about
these lambkins to-morrow. I sat up to tell you good-night, not to hear
you talk. It's nearly twelve o'clock. Of course they came round!
Wind-watchers, all of them! That 3 per cent. got them. I told you if
you made it 4 it wouldn't go through."

"Some one wanted to know who Mr. Black was, and Mr. Billisoly
asked if your name was on the taxpayers' petition. It's like a play
with the principal character left out. Suppose--"

"Suppose nothing! Go to bed and go to sleep! Your eyes are as big as
saucers, blue saucers at that. I don't want to hear another word,"
and with a kiss as quick as the look that swept the flushed face
was scrutinizing, Miss Gibbie waved her to the door.

"But aren't you coming? It's nearly twelve o'clock!"

"And why do I live alone save to do as I please? No, I'm not coming.
Go to bed!"

At the door, hand on knob, Mary Cary turned. "How did Mr. Milligan
know about my English grandfather? Who told him he was a chief
justice?"

"I did. And for good reasons. I don't tell my reasons. Go to bed!"

"When did you tell him?"

"This morning after I left you. /Are/ you going to bed?"

"I don't see what you told him for. I don't like my grandfathers. I
can't imagine--"

"There are many things you can't imagine, and more you don't
understand. /Go to bed!/"

In her room Mary Cary stood before the tall, old-fashioned bureau,
with its small swinging glass, and brushed her hair mechanically and
with thoughts afar off; then putting down her brush laid it on a letter
she had not seen before.

"Why, it's John's!" she said. "I wonder how it got here?" She held it
up, then put it back again. "It must have come on the last mail and
Hedwig brought it in. Silly!"

She braided her hair slowly, tied on its ribbons, then knelt by the big
tester bed to say her prayers. Her face rested sideways on the open
palms of her hands, crossed one on the other, and her eyes closed
sleepily.

"I'm too tired to read it to-night, and to-morrow I will be too busy.
But I'm glad it's here. In case of trouble--or anything, John is such--
a sure help."

Chapter VI

MIDNIGHT

The heat was oppressive. Miss Gibbie turned off all lights save the one
on the candle-stand by the high mahogany bed, with its valance of white
pique, drew the large wing chair close to the open window and sat
down in it. Over her gown she had put on a mandarin coat bought
somewhere in China, and on her feet were the slippers embroidered for
her by a Japanese girl she had sent to a hospital in Nagasaki.

The moon, coming out of its hiding place, for a moment poised clear and
cool in a trough of gray banked by curling clouds of black, sent a
thread of pale light upon the golden dragons on the coat, flashed on the
slippers, and was lost in the darkness under which it darted. Miss
Gibbie, watching, nodded toward it, and tapped the stool on which her
feet rested with the tip of her toes.

"The moon is like one's self," she said. "Go where you will you can't
get rid of it. Spooky thing, a moon. One big eye. Don't like it!"

She lay back in her chair and rested her hands on its arms. From the
garden below the night wind brought soft fragrance of lilacs and
crepe-myrtle, of bleeding-heart and wall-flower, of cow-slips and
candy-tuft, and as they blew in and out, like the touch of unseen
hands, they stirred old memories--made that which was dead, alive
again.

"You're a fool, Gibbie Gault--a fool! You are too old to care as you
care; too old to take up what you've turned your back on all these
years. You are too old--too old!"

Suddenly she sat up. "Too old, am I? I'll see about that! The tail end
of anything isn't its valuable part, and of a life it's usually useless,
but it is all I have left, and I'll be jammed if I don't do something
with it. And were I a man I wouldn't say I'll be jammed. Men have so
many advantages over women!"

Again she leaned back in her chair and tapped its arms with her long,
slender fingers. "I wonder how long I have to live. One--five--ten
years? What puppets we humans are--what puppets! Born without
permission, dying when it is neither pleasant nor convenient, we are
made to march or crawl through life on the edge of a precipice from
which at any moment we may be knocked over. And we're told we should
believe the experience is a privilege!" Both hands were lifted. "A
privilege! Mary thinks it is, thinks parts of it very pleasant, but Mary
never was a field in which she didn't find a four-leaf clover, and I
never saw one in which I did. 'Look for it,' she tells me." She shook
her head. "It isn't that. The pitiful part of life is when one cares so
little for what life gives!"

The tips of her fingers were brought together, then opened and shut
mechanically. "And once I cared so much! Who doesn't care when they
are young and wonderful things are ahead? Who doesn't care? And
now to be caring again after the long, long, useless years! To be
caring again!"

She closed her eyes and smiled a queer, twisted little smile. "It's got
me!" she said. "Old or not, it's got me! and it's a poor life that it
doesn't get! But who would have thought at your age, Gibbie Gault, you
would let another life do with yours what it will? And that's what you
are doing; you are letting Mary Cary do with you what she will! Well,
suppose I am?" The keen gray eyes opened with a snap, and without
warning stinging tears sprang in them. "Suppose I am? I've been a
selfish old fool and shut out the only thing worth the having in life,
and do you think now it's given me I am going to turn my back on it?
In all this big world sheis the only person who really loves me--the
only one I really love. And do you think?"--she nodded fiercely as if
to some one before her, then crumpled in a sudden heap in her chair.
"Oh, God, don't let her go out of my life! I'm an old woman and she's
all I've got! All I've got!"

For some moments she lay still, then reached out for her handkerchief.
"What a variety of fools one female can be! Sit up and behave yourself,
Gibbie Gault! You came near making a bargain with the Lord then, and
if there's one thing more than another that must be hard for Him to have
patience with it's a person who tries to make a deal with Him. 'Prosper
me and I'll pray you' is the prayer of many. 'Keep evil from me; hold
death back; take care of me, and I'll build a new church, send out a
missionary, give my tenth and over! Don't hurt me, and I'll be good!'
Who doesn't pray like that some time or other in life? Well, you came
near doing it yourself. Propitiation is an instinct, and money is all
some have to offer as a bribe. To love mercy, to deal justly, and to
walk humbly with one's Maker are terms too hard for most of us. Much
easier to dope one's conscience with money. It's the only thing I've
got, money is, and there have been times when I'd have given its every
dollar for the thing it couldn't get. I came near mentioning it just
now!"

She wiped her eyes resentingly, rubbed her cheeks none too gently, then
opened her handkerchief and smoothed it into damp folds.

"Tears! Who would believe Gibbie Gault had a tear duct!" She shook
her head. "Gibbie Gault has everything every other woman has, and if
she chooses to hide a hungry heart under a sharp tongue whose business
is it? People may talk about her as much as they please, but they
sha'n't feel sorry for her!" She threw her handkerchief on the table.
"What idiots we are to go masquerading through life! All playing a
part--all! Pretending not to care when we do care. Pretending we do
when we don't. What a shabby little sham most of this thing called life
is! What a shabby little sham!"

She changed her position, recrossed her feet and folded her arms. "If
Mary were here she would say I needed a pill. Perhaps I need two, but
not the pink ones already prepared. Everybody has a pill that's hard to
swallow. /My/ pill might go down easily with some, and over
theirs I might not blink, but--Well, a pill is a pill; facts are facts,
and old age is old age. The thing is to face what is, shake your fist at
it if necessary, but never meet it, if disagreeable, half-way. I never
meet anything half-way. But it's a cruel trick time plays on us, this
making of body and brain a withered, wrinkled thing, whimpering for
warmth and food and sleep, and babbling of the past. It's a cruel
trick!"

Out on the still air the clock in St. John's church steeple struck
twelve strokes with clear deliberation. From the hall below they were
repeated, and from the mantel behind her the hour chimed softly. She
closed her eyes. "Twelve o'clock! Time for ladies of my age to be in
bed. Not going to bed! And my age hasn't yet reached the
babbling-of-the-past stage. It will never reach that, Gibbie. Never!"

Was it a hundred or a thousand years ago that she used to sit on this
same stool at her father's knees and recite Latin verbs to him, and as
reward have him read her tales of breathless adventure and impossible
happenings, all the more delicious because forbidden by her prosaic
mother? She was seven when her mother died, but she barely
remembered her, and had she lived they would hardly have been great
friends. Her mother's pride was in pickles and preserves and brandy
peaches; in parties where the table groaned, the servants also, and in
the looking well after the ways of her household. But of a child's heart
and imagination she knew little. She was a true woman, but a housekeeper
had taken her place, and neither her father nor herself had been
seriously affected by her death.

And what splendid comrades she and her father were after her mother
left them! He would let no one teach her but himself, and how he loved
to show her off to his friends, putting her on top of the dining-room
table and making her recite in Latin bits from an ode of Horace, in
French a fable of La Fontaine's, in English a sonnet of Shelley or
extracts from Shakespeare's plays, and then letting her dance the
heel-and-toe shuffle taught her secretly by the darkies on the place.
What a selfish little pig she had been allowed to be! How selfish both
of them had been! Their books a passion, travel their delight, most
people but persons who bored or bothered, they had lived largely apart,
come and gone as they chose, cared little for what others said or
thought; and yet when the war came they were back, passionate defenders
of their cause, and in their hearts hot hate for those who sought to
crush it.

And then it was pride measured its lance with love, and won. The
awakening of her womanhood and the mockery of life had come
together, hand in hand, and henceforth she was another creature.

In her chair Miss Gibbie shivered. It was not the sudden gust of wind
that caused the sudden chill, but the scent of the micrafella roses just
under the window which the wind had brought; and her arms,
interlocked, were pressed closer to her breast. "Gibbie Gault, what a
fool you are!" she said, under her breath. "But how much bigger a fool
you were nearly fifty years ago!"

Seventeen. Young, vivid, brilliant, beautiful. Yes, beautiful! Nothing
is so beautiful as youth, and she had much more than youth. The gods had
been good to her up to then, and then they taunted her, made spring in
her heart love for one only--love that must be crushed and killed, for
the man who alone could inspire it wore the hated blue, was there to
fight against her people, and never must she marry him, she told
herself. On a visit North she had met him, and it was a whim of fate
that he should be captain of one of the companies taking possession of
Yorkburg, with headquarters in the Roy house, next to her own. A whim of
fate! Friend and foe they met daily, and battle was never waged more
hotly than was theirs. On his part, determination that never yields. On
hers, pride that never surrenders. And then one day there was a change
of orders. His regiment was sent away and to battle. Lest the horror,
the terror of it all undo her, she had bid him go, refused to promise in
the years to come she would ever be his wife, and the look on his fine,
brave face had followed her through life.

A month later he was brought back and by her order to her house.
Fatally wounded, in delirium her name was ever on his lips, but in
his eyes blankness. And on her knees by his bed she had twisted in an
agony of prayer that for one moment, but one moment, light might come
into them that she might pray for pardon ere he died. But no light
came and he died, not knowing that for her love, too, was dead.

Again Miss Gibbie stirred, for again she seemed to see herself. This
time she was by an open grave. White, rigid, erect, she watched with
tearless eyes the lowering, not of a mere body in the ground, but the
burying of all youth has the right to ask of life. Out of the future
were gone for her the dreams of girlhood and a woman's hopes. The
bareness and emptiness of coming years froze the blood in her heart,
and when she turned away she lifted her head and bid life do its worst.
Nothing could matter now.

Darker than the days of battle were the days of peace, and she made
her father close the house and go away. For years they wandered where
they would, but always were back for the month of June; and no one
remembered that the twenty-first was the date of Colleen McMasters's
death, or know that on that day his grave was visited, and there alone
a woman yielded to the memories that ever filled her heart.

When her father died life in Yorkburg was impossible. With a tilt of
her chin at its dulness, a wave of her hand at its narrowness, and
eyes closed to its happy content, she had gone back to London and
reopened the house which had become known for her sharp wit, her
freedom of speech, and her disregard of persons who had for
commendation but inherited position; and there for years had what
she called headquarters, but never thought of or spoke of as home.

She pulled her chair closer to the window and, with elbows on its sill
and chin on her crossed hands, looked out into the soft silence of the
night.

"What a time for seeing clearly, seeing things just as they are, this
midnight is, Gibbie Gault! In the darkness wasted time stares you in the
face and facts refuse to turn their backs. And you thought once the
waste was all the other way--thought you were wise to stand off and
watch the little comedies and tragedies, the pitiful strivings for place
and power, the sordid struggles for bread and meat, the stupid ones for
cap and bells! The motives and masques, the small deceptions and the
large hypocrisies of life interested you immensely, didn't they? Take
the truth out and face it. You tell other people the truth--tell it to
yourself. A selfish old pig, that's what you were, and thinking yourself
clever all the while. Clever! And why? Because all your life you have
been a student of history, of human happenings, and of man's behavior to
his fellow-man, and particularly to woman, you thought you knew life,
didn't you? You didn't! Because you were an evolutionist and recognized
Nature's disregard of human values, the impartial manifestations of her
laws, and the reckoning which their violation demands, you thought
science must satisfy. Science doesn't satisfy. With ignorance and
superstition, with life's cruelties and injustice, with human
helplessness, you could quarrel well, but beyond the sending out of
checks to serve as a soothing-syrup to your encumbrance of a conscience
what did you ever do to give a lift to anything? Nothing! And the pity
is there are many like you!

"'Cui-bono-itis.' That's what you had, Gibbie Gault--'cui-bono-itis.'
Bad thing! Almost as hard on the people about you as the 'ego-itis' of
to-day. Pity people can't die of their own diseases instead of killing
other people with them. Great pity!"

The moon was gone. Only in faint lines of light was the blackness of the
sky broken, and as she looked out over the trees in the garden below,
and down the street, asleep and still, the scene changed, and no longer
was she in Yorkburg, but in the little village of Chenonceaux, at the
Inn of Le Bon Laboureur. Her friend, Miss Rawley, of Edinborough, was
with her. They were taking their coffee outdoors at a table placed where
they could best get the breeze and see the roses climbing over the
lattice-work of the little hotel, with its pots of red geraniums in the
windows. And in the door the young proprietor was smiling happily, for
down the long, straight, tree-lined road an automobile which had just
left the chateau was coming, and he had visions of what it would mean.

"I didn't." She nodded her head. "It's a way life has, this bringing of
somebody across our path, this taking of somebody out of it, as
incidentally as if we were flies. Well, that's what I used to think most
of us were. Flies! Those who weren't flies were spiders. Some buzzed,
some bit, and all in a net--all! And to think of the way I was taken by
the shoulders and turned around! Made to see all I'd been doing was
squinting at life with my nose turned up. Just that! Because I had seen
the just man perish in his righteousness, and the wicked prosper in his
wickedness, I thought, with my ancient friend, that time and chance
happeneth to all, and people and pigs had much in common. What an old
fool you were, Gibbie Gault! Take your pill! You saw life as you wanted
to see it, and, giving nothing to it, got nothing out of it. Right!

"Queer what a kiss can do--just one!" She drew in her breath and felt
it all again. The automobile had stopped. A party of Americans had
gotten out and, slowly drinking her coffee, she watched them. A man and
his wife, two children, a nurse, and a young girl, twenty, perhaps.
Something about her, something of glow and vividness and warmth, held
her, and a faint memory was stirred. A clear, fresh voice called to the
chauffeur as she sprang out of the car and came close to the table near
which she was sitting, and then she heard her name spoken in joyous
surprise.

"It's Miss Gibbie Gault! Oh, Aunt Katherine, it is Miss Gibbie Gault!"

Without warning, two strong young arms were thrown around her neck
and on her lips a hearty kiss was pressed. "Oh, Miss Gibbie, I'm so
glad to see you! /I'm so glad!/ I'm Mary Cary who used to live in
Yorkburg. You don't mind my kissing you, do you? I couldn't help it,
I really couldn't! It's /so/ good to see some one from Yorkburg!"
And she was hugged again, hugged hard.

"Nearly three years ago!" Her lips quivered. "And a different world
you've been living in since. Somebody was really glad to see you. It
makes a great difference in life when some one is glad to see you!"

Was it fate, chance, circumstance that had brought the girl to her?
She did not know. Once she would have said. Maybe God needed them
together, was Mary's view, and she never commented on Mary's views.
In that at least she had learned to hold her tongue. But it did not
matter. They were here in Yorkburg, lives closely interknit, and here,
in the home in which she had been born, she was to live henceforth. And
if but close to her she could keep the girl who had warmed her heart
and opened her eyes she would ask nothing more of life.

For two years and more they had been together. Instantly she had
wanted her, and, never hesitating in efforts to get what she wanted,
a month after the meeting at the little Inn of Le Bon Laboureur she
invited her to be her guest in a trip around the world. The invitation
was blunt. She had long wanted to take this trip, had long been looking
for the proper companion. She had a dog, but he wasn't allowed to come
to the table. Would she go? Her uncle and aunt would not let her miss
the chance. They made her go. Doctor Alden and his wife were sensible
people.

And then the night in Cairo when Mary came in her room, sat on the
stool at her feet, and, crossing her arms on her lap, looked up in her
face and said they must go home. The holiday had been long and happy,
but more of it would be loss of time. And home was Yorkburg. A visit to
Michigan first, long talks with her uncle and aunt, and then whatever
she was to do in life was to be done in Yorkburg. There was a little
money, something her uncle had invested for her when she first went to
live with him, until she decided on some sort of work. She would teach,
perhaps, and she would rather it would be in the little town in which
she had found a home when homeless and without a friend. She was not
willing to live with anybody or anywhere without work. She was anxious
to be about it. When could they start?

"And of course I started. Started just when she said. Did just what
she wanted and some things she didn't. Trotted on back to the old
pasture-land where old sheep should graze, and here I am to stay until
the call comes. Whoever thought you'd come back to Yorkburg, Gibbie
Gault! Back to shabby, sleepy, satisfied old Yorkburg! Well, you're
here! Mary Cary made you come. She loves it, always wanting to do
something for it; helping every broken-down old thing in it; laughing
at its funny ways, and keeping straight along in hers. And for what?
To-morrow everybody will be talking about the meeting to-night. About
other things she's doing. Small thanks she'll get, and if you tell her
so she'll say if you do things for thanks you don't deserve them. Bless
my soul, if it isn't raining!"

A sudden downpour of rain startled her, and she sat upright; then, at
a noise behind, turned and saw Mary Cary coming in the door.

"Oh, Miss Gibbie, I could spank you! I really could! You aren't even
five years old at times. It has turned almost cold, and raining hard,
and here you are sitting by an open window!" She felt the gown of the
older woman anxiously. "I believe it's damp. If you don't get in bed
I'm going to--"

"Do what?" Miss Gibbie got out of her chair, threw off the mandarin
coat with its golden dragons, and kicked her slippers toward the door.
"What are you going to do?"

"Put you in it. Get in and let me cover you up! Are you sure you aren't
cold? Sure?"

"Sure." Miss Gibbie mimicked the anxious tones of the girl now bending
over and tucking the covering round her warm and tight. "What did you
come in here for, anyhow? Go to bed!"

"I knew you'd left the window open, and it has turned so cool. I was
afraid there was too much air." She stooped over and kissed her.
"Good-night! Don't get up to breakfast. I'll see you during the day."
With a swift movement she turned off the light on the candle-stand and
was gone, and under the covering Miss Gibbie hid her face in the pillow.

"Dear God," she said. "Dear God, she's all I've got. I'm an old woman,
and she's all I've got!"

Chapter VII

PEGGY

"Muther say, please, sir, send her four eggs' worth of salt pork, and two
eggs' worth of pepper, and five eggs' worth of molasses. And she say I
can have pickle with the last egg."

The eyes which had been critically searching the pickle-jar on the
counter as the eggs were carefully taken out of a basket looked
confidently in Mr. Blick's face, and a red little tongue licked two red
lips in quivering expectation of the salty sourness awaiting them.

"Please, sir, I'd like that one." A dirty little fore-finger pointed to
a long, fat cucumber lying slightly apart from its fellows. "That's the
one, Mr. Blick. No, not that one--/that/ one!" and the finger was
pressed resolutely against the jar. "And would you please, sir, give it
to me before you weigh out the things?"

"Oh, Peggy dear, what a little pig you are! The very biggest in the jar,
and such a wicked-looking pickle, Peggy! Why not get an apple,
instead?"

Peggy turned joyously at the sound of the voice behind her. "Oh, Miss
Mary Cary, I'm so glad it's you. I thought it was Miss Lizzie Bettie
Pryor!"

Mr. Blick laughed. The relief in Peggy's voice was so unqualified that
the man, standing in the door watching the little group, laughed also.
Miss Cary turned toward him. "This is Peggy, John--my little friend,
Peggy McDougal. Wipe your hands, Peggy, and speak to Mr. Maxwell,
who has come from New York to see Yorkburg, and--and the places he
used to know."

Peggy wiped her hands carefully on the handkerchief held out to her,
then advanced toward the man, still standing in the doorway, but now
with his hat in his hand.

"How do you do, Mr. John Maxwell from New York?" she said,
gravely; in her eyes critical inspection of the face before her. "I
know about you. Muther says you used to live in Yorkburg, but your
muther didn't like it. I hope you like it, and will stay a long time
and come again. Miss Mary Cary says it's nicer than New York."

John Maxwell took the offered hand as ceremoniously as it was given.
"Thank you! I do like Yorkburg, and I hope to come again." He laughed
amusedly in the upturned eyes which were searching his. "It is nicer
than New York. Miss Cary is quite right."

"New York's bigger, ain't it?"

"Yes"--hesitatingly--"some bigger. But I don't believe there's
anything there like you--"

"Plenty more here like me."

"How many?"

"Hundreds, I reckon. Yorkburg's most all children and old maids,
muther says. We've got nine children--four girls and five boys. The
last one was a girl, which would have made us even, but it died. Billy
give it a piece of watermelon rind to play with and it et it. But,
Miss Mary, muther /did/ say I could have a pickle, she did."
And Peggy turned to Miss Cary, anxious entreaty in her eyes.

"I don't want an apple--I want a pickle. And it won't make me sick.
There's seven of us to have a bite, and one bite wouldn't give anybody's
stomach a pain. Oh, Miss Mary, you ain't Miss Lizzie Bettie Pryor.
Please don't tell me not to get it. Please don't!" And the little
fingers twisted and untwisted in tragic intensity of appeal.

"I ought to tell you." Miss Cary looked doubtfully at the pickle-jar.
"But if you get it will you promise not to ask for another for a long,
long time? They are almost poisonous. Mr. Blick, I wish you wouldn't
keep them. They are such a temptation to the children. Isn't there
anything else you could keep instead?"

"Yes'm, plenty of things. But that's all I would do. I'd keep 'em. I
tell you times ain't like they was, Mary Cary, and if you don't sell
what people want to buy, they'll buy from the man who sells what they
want. And then what would Mrs. Blick and the babies do?"

Mr. Blick's bright little black eyes beamed first at Miss Cary and then
at the gentleman in the door, but, neither venturing an answer, he cut
off a piece of pork and wrapped it carefully. "Not being in the
missionary business, I have to meet the times, for if we don't stand up
we set down, and folks walk right along over us and don't know we're
there. I don't approve of pickle, or cocoanut, either, as for that"--he
tapped a jar filled with water, in which soaked broken pieces of the
fruit of the tree forbidden by most Yorkburg mothers--"but business is
business, which I ain't attendin' to or I'd be takin' your order 'stead
of wastin' your time." And again the black little eyes gleamed like
polished chinquapins sunk in a round red peach.

"Oh no! Peggy was here first and her mother is waiting for her. You give
her what she came for while I look around for what I want."

Mr. Blick, knowing further words were unwise, began patiently to do up
the eggs' worth of pork and pepper and molasses, and John Maxwell,
watching him to see in what proportions they would be meted out, grew
as interested as Peggy, whose shrewd little eyes had so early been
trained in weights and measurements that she could tell quickly the
number of eggs required for an ounce or quarter of half a pound of the
purchase to be made. Putting the packages in a basket, she turned; then,
remembering a final order, stood again at the counter.

"I forgot, Mr. Blick. Muther say won't you please send her nine of them
little blue-and-red-and-white birthday candles? She wants 'em for the
twins' birthday. It comes on the Fourth of July; they will be nine on
the Fourth, Washington and Jefferson will, and muther's been wanting
ever since they been born to celebrate their birthday, but suppin'
always happened; somebody was sick, or Wash and Jeff been fightin', so
she couldn't in conscience give 'em a party. But the last time 'twas her
fault--she mashed her finger; so she say she thinks she'll have it now
if'n it is May 'stead of July, cause there ain't nothing the matter, and
she knows there will be if she waits till the right time. She say she'll
send the eggs for the candles as soon as Grandpa Duke and Miss Florence
Nightingale lays 'em. She knows Mis' Blick likes their eggs best. It
will take a dozen, won't it?"

John Maxwell turned toward Miss Cary, his forehead wrinkled in
puzzled inquiry. "In the name of chicken-science, what is she
talking about? If I oughtn't to ask, don't tell me, but--"

"It's a new world I told you you'd be finding." Mary Cary laughed,
running her hand through a peck measure of black-eyed peas. "And
where but in Yorkburg will eggs serve for currency?"

"But when Grandpa Duke lays the eggs? What does she mean?"

"That the big black hen was a present from Mr. Duke, Mrs. McDougal's
father, and named in honor of him. All Mrs. McDougal's hens are
named--honorably named. Her roosters, also. But having few roosters
and admiring many men, she bestows on her lady chickens the names of
distinguished gentlemen. It's her only way of keeping in touch with
great people, she says. You must know Peggy's mother. She is one of
my good friends. Would you like to go to the party?"

Before he could answer: "Peggy!" she called--"Peggy, come here and
tell us when the party takes place."

Peggy, package-laden, came slowly toward the door near which Miss
Cary and John Maxwell were standing. The top end of the precious
pickle had been bitten off, and Peggy's face, wrinkled in distorted
enjoyment of its salty sourness, was endeavoring to straighten
itself before making answer.

"Oh, Miss Mary Cary, /will/ you come to the party? Will you?
There's going to be flags and poppers and lemonade and--and a lot of
things. Muther say she's been intendin' to give a party ever since
she's been married, but she ain't ever had a minute to do it in. The
reason she is goin' to give it to the boys is because they was born the
same day the United States was. They'll be nine on the Fourth of July
and the United States will be--" She shook her head. "I don't know how
old the United States is, but muther say being born when they was, and
being named for Presidents, she's bound to teach us patriotics, and a
party is the best way she knows of. She'd give it to me or Teeny if our
birthdays stood for anything, but they don't. I'm ten, goin' on eleven,
and ain't anybody yet remembered when my birthday comes."

Peggy was red in the face and out of breath. The eagerness of her
invitation had dried her throat, which needed moistening. Ducking her
head, she bit off the other end of the pickle and, in an effort to
swallow naturally, blinked furiously.

"That's all and no more," she said, nodding explanatorily at Miss Cary.
"I always take the two ends. They're toughest, and you can chew 'em
longest. The other children get the middle," and she put said middle
carefully between the pork and pepper. "If you don't want me to, I
won't eat another for--for how long mustn't I eat it, Miss Cary?"

"For six months." Miss Cary's voice made effort to be severe. "They
will ruin you. They really will. But run along and tell your mother
we are coming to the party. What time did you say it was to be?"

"I didn't say. Muther ain't said herself yet. She say out of nine you
can always count on suppin' happenin' that oughtn't, specially when five
is boys. But I reckon it will be about four o'clock, and she thinks
Friday will be the day. If muther can get 'em all washed and keep the
lemonade from being drunk up she will have it at four. If'n she can't
she will have it when she can. But please 'm, oh /please 'm/ be
sure and come!"

She started down the street, then turned, as if suddenly remembering,
and came back to the man still standing in the door, watching her with
amused eyes.

"Muther will be glad to have you come, too," she said, nodding gravely,
"Mr.--Mr.--what did you say your name was?"

"Maxwell." And again the hat was lifted.

"Maxwell," she repeated. "I hope you will come, too. I don't know
whether muther knows you or not, but if you was Satan himself she
would be glad to see you--if'n you was a friend of Miss Mary Cary."

Chapter VIII

PEGGY'S PARTY

"Now, ain't I glad to see you! Come right along in and set down, unless
you'd rather set out. I'm that proud to have you here I'm right light
in the head, that I am!" and John Maxwell's hand was shaken heartily.
"Lord, what a big man you've gone and got to be! Your dotingest grandma
wouldn't have believed you would grow into good looks when you was
fifteen. You were the ugliest, nicest boy I ever seen at fifteen, and
look at you now! Look at you now!"

Mrs. McDougal stood off and gazed with admiring candor at the man
before her, and the man, laughing good-naturedly, seated himself on the
railing of the little porch and threw his hat on a chair at its far end.
"If I've changed it's more than you have. Just as young and gay as
ever," he said, nodding toward her, "and still a woman of sense and
discrimination. Nobody but you knows I'm handsome."

"I ain't sayin' you're an Appolus Belviderus. You ain't. But you look
like a man, and that's what many who wars pants don't. And good clothes
is a powerful help to face and figger. I certainly am proud to see you.
I certainly am!"

"And I certainly am glad to see you. I certainly am!" He bobbed his
head in imitation of Mrs. McDougal, whose words were always
emphasized by gestures, and laughed in the puzzled eyes of the girl
beside her, pulling off her long gloves. "Miss Cary asked me the
other day if I didn't want to know you. She didn't know you were a
friend of mine before you were a friend of hers. Remember those
apple-jacks I used to get from you? Bully things! Don't have anything
like that in New York."

"Don't have the same kind of stomach to put 'em in, I reckon. Anything
is good to boys and billy-goats, but edjicated insides is sniffy, they
tell me. Set down, Mary Cary. Here, take this rockin'-chair. Ain't
anything been spilt on this one, and it's the only one what ain't. I'm
that thankful nothin's caught on fire that I was thinkin' of settin'
down myself, but 'twon't be no use. Look-a-yonder! If that Bickles boy
ain't tied a pop-cracker to Mis' Jepson's chief rooster, and right on to
its comb! Hi, there! Don't you light that thing!" And Mrs. McDougal
waved vigorously with her apron in the direction of a small group of
stooping watchers, hands on knees and eyes eagerly intent.

The warning was too late. An explosion, a frantic crow from a once
lordly cock, a scurry to safer quarters, jeering cheers from heartless
throats, and then silence as Mrs. McDougal's waving arms were seen.

"Let me go down and see what they are doing," and Mary Cary laid
gloves and parasol on the chair, unpinned her hat and put it beside
them. "We were so late I was afraid the children would be gone. Look at
that little rascal tying two dogs' tails together!" Down the steps she
ran and across the yard, and as she approached there was a rush toward
her. Instantly she was the centre of a crowding, swarming group of
children, all talking at once, and all trying to see what she had come
to do, but as she raised her hand there was momentary stillness.

"Now I can set down." With a sigh of relief Mrs. McDougal took the
chair offered to Miss Cary, folded her arms, and began to rock, her
eyes fastened on the man still on the railing of the little porch,
but now with his back against a post and hands clasped over the knee
of his right leg.

"I can set down in peace for a few minutes anyhow," she went on, "for
as long as Miss Mary is out there things will go right. Some women is
born with a way to manage children. She was." She nodded toward the
yard. "Remember how she used to do those 'sylum children? Led 'em
into more mischief than all the rest put together, but she always led
'em out, and they were like sheep behind her. Loved her. That was it.
Ain't it funny the things folks will do for a person just on account
of lovin' 'em? And ain't it funny how you can't love some people to
save your life? You know you ought to, specially if they're kin, and
you try to, but you can't do it. The very sight of some folks makes
the old boy rise up in you, and you wish they was in--well, I ain't
sayin' where you wish they was. My grandmother always told me you'd
better keep some wishes to yourself.

"But there's one person in this town what makes me want to do to her
just what Billy Bickles did to that rooster just now. She's that
superior, and so twisty in the corners of her mouth, that I'm always
wishin' I could fix the kind of fall her pride's goin' to have some day.
Bound to have it, pride is. 'Ain't no law to hold it up any more than an
apple in the air, and both of 'em is got to come down. When folks pass
other folks what they know in the street, and don't any more speak to
'em than if they was worms of the dust, they think it's on account of
bein' who they are, and they don't know it's on account of bein' what
they is. Of course a person can't be blamed for bein' born a fool, but a
fool ought to know better than to be fooler than it's bound to be. I
don't mind Mrs. Deford not noticin' me, but Susie, who sells her all her
hats, says--"

"Mrs. Deford?" John Maxwell, who was only half listening, and who
had been watching the children, turned toward Mrs. McDougal. "You
mean Mrs. Walter Deford?"

"That's who I mean, though I don't see what she's called Mrs. Walter
Deford for, being as 'tis Mr. Walter Deford don't seem to enjoy her
company any more than I do. If he's been in Yorkburg for eight years,
nobody's heard of it. When she dies she oughtn't to be res'rected. In
heaven there'll be saints, born plain. She couldn't associate with them.
In hell there'll be blue-blooded sinners, and she can't mix with
sinners. The grave's the place for her, and won't anybody round here
weep when she's put in it. But Lord-a-mercy, what am I wastin' time
talking about an old teapot like her for? She's hurt Susie's feelin's
so often, Susie bein' like her pa, and not havin' much spirit, that
I get kinder riled when her name is mentioned. But my grandmother
always did say if you didn't like a person, spew them out of your heart
and shut your mouth. And here I am talkin' about a nothin', 'stead of
askin' you 'bout yourself. It's been a long time since I seen you. Them
other times when you've been down I ain't even had a chance to glimpse
you on the street, but the children told me, Susie and Hunt did, that
you was a New-Yorker all right, and you is that. I tell you good
clothes and an easy air don't hurt anybody." She nodded her head. "You
look like where you come from."

"Any difference in New-Yorkers and other people? Mind my
smoking?" He took a package of cigarettes out of his pocket, lighted
one and put the rest back. "In New York I tell people I'm from
Yorkburg. Could I have arranged it I would have been born here. Not
my fault I'm not a Virginian." He laughed, knocking the ashes from
his cigarette. "You've got a bunch of them. All those yours?"

She peered above the railing and counted. "Ain't but five of 'em mine.
The four oldest works. Susie stays in Miss Patty Moore's millinery
store, Lizzie lives with her grandpa, Hunt is at the woolen mills with
his pa, and Teeny helps Mrs. Blick with the children. The youngest is
twins, they're seven. The next is twins, too. They will be nine on the
Fourth of July, and over who was to be invited that I had to keep 'em
in bed all day yesterday, and not let it be their party at all. I told
'em 'twas Peggy's, but I'd do the invitin' myself. I didn't want that
Billy Bickles, but if I hadn't asked him there'd been trouble for me as
long as life. I know his ma too well. Don't reckon you ever knew Mis'
Bickles? She's one of them kind of women who's always seein' she gets
what's comin' to her, and takes what ain't. Her husband lives up the
country. He warn't much to leave: one of them lazy, good-natured kind
what always had a pain handy; and Mis' Bickles says she left him while
her family was small. Mis' Bickles says she left him while her family
was small. Mis' Bickles's got more sense than you'd think from lookin'
at her, and a tongue what tells all it knows and makes up what it don't.
It don't do to get that kind of a tongue down on you.

"Them two children over there"--she pointed vaguely toward the now
shouting group--"those two with red hair and red ribbons is Mr. Sam
Winter's little girls. I don't like 'em, but if there's any one woman in
this world I feel sorry for it's Sam Winter's wife, and so I invited
'em. Ain't they the ugliest, freckledest little things you ever saw?
Don't reckon you remember their ma, either? She used to stay in Mr. Pat
Horston's bakery and confectionery when you lived here. That's been--"

"Ten years ago this October."

"That's so. I remember it now like 'twas yesterday. Never will forget
the day your father died so sudden, just like Mr. Pryor, and everything
in Yorkburg seemed to stop. He was the kind of man who makes wheels
go round, and everybody thought when he died the shoe factory would
shut down and the 'lectric-light plant would go out; and people round
here say they would if you hadn't put your foot down and told your ma
they had to keep up. Sixteen was right young to be buttin' into business
matters, but some folks is born older than others, and I reckon you've
got right much of your pa in you. And that's what I told McDougal I
like about you. You knew what you wanted, and when you made up your
mind to do a thing, 'twould be death or you would win. And my
grandmother always did say, for winning, will was worth more than
anything else on earth.

"But I ain't asked you what kind of business you're in, or how you're
gettin' on in it, nor how your ma is. I hope she's well. And your
sister, too. They tell me she's married--"

"She is. Living in California. Got two children. Mother is very well,
thank you. She's abroad just now. I'm in the law business. I get my
bread out of it, but not much jam yet. You were speaking of Sam
Winter's wife just now. I remember her; used to sell us cakes and
pies, and so afraid she wouldn't get the change right she nearly
wore her fingers out counting on them. We used to borrow a big piece
of money--a dollar was big in those days--just to watch her face get
red when we'd tell her the change was wrong. Little beasts! Somebody
ought to have beaten us."

"That they ought. And somebody ought to beat Sam Winter every day
in the week. Ain't nothing I would like better than to have a whack at
him. I've often wished I was his wife for just five minutes. He'd be
jelly or I one when 'twas over. Some men need lickin'. Sam's one of
the kind who thinks when the Lord made woman He made her to be man's
footstool when she warn't anything else he needed at the time. Certainly
is funny how many people talk like they had a private telegraph-wire
running right up to the throne of God, and you'd think they had special
messages from Him from the cocksure way in which they tell you what
He says and means. And specially 'bout women. The Bible is a great
stand-by with some men when it comes to women. But I reckon women
has brought a lot of it on themselves. They ain't had a chance to fight
fair in life. Being mothers has made 'em stand a heap they wouldn't
otherwise. A woman will stand most anything for her children."

John Maxwell laughed. "You are looking at me as if I didn't agree
with you. I do. I know some men of the Sam Winter kind. And they
always get the wrong sort of wife. Now if Sam had married you--"

"He'd be dead or different by this time. There ain't much in life to be
sure of, but you can be sure of that. A woman is a human being, if she
is a female, and I ain't ever seen a male creature who had any respect
for a female one he could step on. And that's what poor, meek little
Fanny Winter lets Sam do, and of course he takes advantage. 'Tain't in
human nature for a man not to kick something every now and then what
sits at his feet all the time."

"Good Lord! He doesn't beat her?" John Maxwell turned suddenly, in
his eyes a queer light. "You mean he strikes her?"

Mrs. McDougal brought her chair closer to the railing. "I don't believe
those children are ever goin' home. Some come at three, and it's after
seven. They've et up all there was to eat, and drunk a washtub full of
lemonade, but that Bickles boy and Fuzzy Toone and Mineola
Hodgkins will stay till next week if I don't make 'em go. I believe the
little Winters is gone. Look at Peggy! Ain't she havin' a grand time?
I'm glad you and Miss Mary didn't come till the first rush-round was
over. There's been twenty-one of 'em here includin' of my five, and I
tell you when you get through feedin' and fillin' of twenty-one hollow
stomachs you're ready for rest. How many out there now?"

"Eleven. Let me see." John counted again. "No, ten. Miss Cary makes
the eleventh. I believe she's going to tell them a story. They're
getting ready to sit down under your mulberry-tree. Yes, that's what
they're going to do. Let them alone. They're having a good time."

"And so am I. Certainly am enjoyin' of myself hearin' all about you.
I tell you the mother of nine don't often have time to set down and
rock in daylight, and at night I'm so tired that if 'twasn't for the
basin of cold water I keep on the back porch to put my face in I'd go
to sleep before I'd read a page."

A fresh cigarette was lighted. "Like to read? Why didn't you tell
me? Got a lot of books I don't know what to do with. Will send
them down if you want them--"

"Want them?" Mrs. McDougal sat upright, hands up also. "It's the sin of
my life, readin' is. But it's saved me from losin' my mind. When a
person gets up at five o-clock three hundred and sixty-five days in the
year, except Sundays, when it's six; cooks, washes dishes, cleans, sews,
cooks, washes dishes, sews, cooks, washes dishes, and in between
times scrambles round doin' dozens of odd jobs that don't count, life
ain't true poetry, and if 'twarn't for risin' out the world I live in
and gettin' into a book one at night I'd gone crazy long before this.