Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley Part 34

She opened a desk and took a thick, white square envelope from it, and handed it to the little girl.

Wonderingly Amarilly opened it and took out a folded, engraved sheet of thick paper. She read eagerly, and two little spots of pink came into her cheeks.

"Oh, oh!" she cried, looking up with s.h.i.+ning eyes, which in another moment glistened through tears.

"Why, Amarilly, aren't you glad that I am going to be--"

"Mrs. St. John?" smiled Amarilly. "I think it's beautiful. And,"

anxiously, "you will surely be good to--him?"

"Yes," replied Colette softly "I will be good--very good--to St. John.

Don't fear, Amarilly."

A card had fallen from the envelope. Amarilly picked it up and read:

"To be presented at the church."

"What's that?" she asked curiously.

"You have to show that at the church door. If you didn't have it, you couldn't get in to see us married. It's the same as a ticket to a theatre. And St. John doesn't like it; but if we didn't have them there would be a mob of curious people who don't know us. I shall give all of you tickets to come to the church, the Boarder and Lily Rose, too."

"Oh," cried Amarilly, "that will be lovely, and we shall all come."

"Of course you will all come. Your friend, the bishop, is to marry us, and Bud is going to sing a solo. The choirmaster told me his voice was developing wonderfully."

"I must go home and tell them all about it," said Amarilly excitedly.

"Wait! There's more to hear. I am going to invite you to the reception here at the house, and I am going to have a lovely white dress made for you to wear, and you shall have white silk stockings and slippers and white gloves."

"Oh!" gasped Amarilly, shutting her eyes. "I can't believe it."

The next morning at the studio she announced the wonderful news to Derry.

"I just received an invitation, myself," he replied. "We will go together, Amarilly. I'll send you flowers and call for you with a taxicab."

"Things must stop happening to me," said Amarilly solemnly. "I can't stand much more."

Derry laughed.

"When things once begin to happen, Amarilly, they never stop. You are to go from here now every day after luncheon to this address," handing her a card.

"'Miss Varley,'" Amarilly read. "'1227, Winter Street.' Will she have work for me, too?"

"Yes; work in schoolbooks. She takes a few private pupils, and I have engaged her to teach you. I really think you should have instruction in other branches than English and art and arithmetic."

Amarilly turned pale but said nothing for a moment. Then she held out her hand.

"I will study hard--to pay you," she said simply.

"And can you stand another piece of exciting news, Amarilly? Sunset, which I have dawdled over for so long, drew first prize."

"Oh, Mr. Derry, that is best of all!"

"And do you know what I am going to give Mrs. St. John for a wedding present from you and me? The picture of The Little Scrub-girl."

CHAPTER XXVI

Another spring found the members of the Jenkins Syndicate still banking regularly and flouris.h.i.+ng in their various walks in life. The Boarder had received a "raise"; Lily Rose was spending her leisure time in fas.h.i.+oning tiny garments which she told Cory were for a doll baby; Iry was wearing his first trousers cut over from a pair discarded by Bud; and Amarilly was acquiring book lore with an ease and rapidity which delighted Miss Varley and Derry. Through the medium of Mr. Vedder the attention of the manager of a high cla.s.s vaudeville had been drawn to Bud, and he was now singing every night with a salary that made the neighbors declare that "them Jenkinses was getting to be reg'ler Rockyfellers."

Amarilly coming home one Monday evening found the family grouped about the long table listening with bulging eyes and hectic cheeks to the Boarder, who had before him a sheet of figures. Amarilly was at once alert, although somewhat resentful of this encroachment upon her particular province.

"Oh, come and hear, Amarilly!" "Amarilly, we've bought a farm!"

"Amarilly, we air agoin' to live in the country!"

"Let me explain," said the Boarder, usually slow and easy going, but now alert and enthusiastic of mien and speech. "We've got a chance, Amarilly, to sell this place and make quite a profit. That new factory that's agoin' up acrost the alley has sent real estate scootin'. With what we git fer it, we kin make a big payment on a farm. I took a run down yesterday to look at one we kin git cheap, cause the folks on it hez gotter go west fer the man's health. What we hev all saved up sence we bought the place will keep us agoin' till we git in our fust summer crops."

"Tell her about the house," prompted Mrs. Jenkins, her quick, maternal eye noting the bewilderment and disapproval in her daughter's expressive eyes.

"It's all green meaders and orcherds and lanes," said the Boarder with the volubility of one repeating an oft-told and well-loved tale, while the young Jenkinses with the rapt, intense gaze of moving picture beholders sat in pleased expectancy, "and the house sets on a little rise of ground. It's a white house with a big chimbley and two stoops, and thar's a big barn with two white hosses in it, and a cow and an animal in the paster lot. A big pen of pigs, fifty hens in the henhouse, and a few sheep. Thar's a piece of woods and the river."

"I'm a little fearful of the river on Iry's account," said Mrs. Jenkins, "but we kin spank him up good as soon as we git thar, and then he'll understand he's to keep away."

"We kin git a good dog to keep track of Iry and the cattle," said the Boarder, and then he paused expectantly to listen to Amarilly's approbation. But she was strangely silent.

"It will be a fust cla.s.s investment," he continued sagely.

"Why will it? We don't know anything about farming," objected Amarilly.

"We'll have to hire someone to run it."

"I was brought up on a farm," replied the Boarder. "Thar ain't a thing I don't know about farm work."

"I was raised on a farm, too," said Mrs. Jenkins. "I can make good b.u.t.ter and I know all about raisin' chickens. I'll get some young turkeys and have them ready to sell for Thanksgiving, and I'll set out strawberries and celery plants."

"I kin larn, and I'll work hard and do just what he tells me to," said Flamingus, motioning toward the Boarder.

"I kin have my dairy all right, all right," said Gus joyfully. "I'll have a hull herd of cattle soon."

"I shall go in heavy on hens," said Milt importantly. "The grocer give me a book about raising them. There's money in hens."

"I choose to take keer of the sheep," cried Bobby.

"I'll help ma do the work in the house and the garden," volunteered Cory.

"And I'm strong enough to work outdoors now," said Lily Rose. "I shall help with the garden and with the housework."

"We'll all pitch in and work," said Flamingus authoritatively, "and we're all partners and we won't hire no help. It will be clear profit."