Mary Rose of Mifflin Part 1

Mary Rose of Mifflin.

by Frances R. Sterrett.

CHAPTER I

"It's there in every lease, plain as print," Larry Donovan insisted.

"No childern, no dogs an' no cats. It's in every lease."

"I don't care if it is!" Kate Donovan's face was as red as a poppy and she spoke with a determination that exactly matched her husband's.

"You needn't think I'm goin' to turn away my own sister's only child?

Who should take care of her if I don't? Tell me that, Larry Donovan, an' be ashamed of yourself for askin' me to send her away!"

"Sure, an' I'd like the little thing here as much as you, Kate, dear,"

Larry said soothingly, and in her heart Mrs. Donovan knew that he meant it. "But it isn't every day that a man picks up a job like this, janitor of a swell apartmen' buildin', an' if we take in a kid when the lease says plain as can be, no childern, no dogs an' no cats, I'll lose the job an' then how'll I put a roof over your heads an' bread in your stomachs? That's why I'm again' it."

"A clever man like you'll find a way." Mrs. Donovan's confidence was both flattering and stimulating. If a woman expects her husband to do things he just has to do them. He has no choice. "Don't you worry.

You haven't been out of work since we were married 'cept the three months you was laid up with inflamm't'ry rheumatiz. The way I look at it is this: the good Lord must have meant us to have Mary Rose or he wouldn't have taken her mother an' her father an' all her relations but us. Seems if he didn't send us any of our own so we'd have plenty of room in our hearts an' home for her. She's a present to us straight from the Lord."

"That may be, Kate," Larry scratched his puzzled head. "But will the agents, will Brown an' Lawson look at it that way? The lease says----"

"Bother the lease!" Mrs. Donovan interrupted him impatiently. "What's the lease got to do with a slip of a girl who's been left an orphan down in Mifflin?"

"That's just what I'm tryin' to tell you." Larry clung to his temper with all of his ten fingers, for it was irritating to have her refuse to understand. "If we took Mary Rose in here to live don't you s'pose all those up above," he jerked his thumb significantly toward the ceiling, "'d know it an' make trouble? G.o.d knows they make enough as it is. They're a queer lot of folks under this roof, Kate, and that's no lie. Folks--they're cranks!" explosively. "When one isn't findin'

fault another is. When I've heat enough for ol' Mrs. Johnson it's too hot for Mrs. Bracken. Mrs. Schuneman on the first floor has too much hot water an' Miss Adams on the third too little. Mrs. Rawson won't stand for Mrs. Matchan's piano an' Mrs. Matchan kicks on Mrs. Rawson's sewin' machine. Mr. Jarvis never gets his newspaper an' Mrs. Lewis al'ys gets two. Mrs. Willoughby jumps on me if a pin drops in the hall. She can't stand no noise since her mother died. She don't do nothin' but cry. I don't blame her man for stayin' away. I'd as soon be married to a fountain. When they can't find anythin' else to jaw me about they take the laundries. An' selfis.h.!.+ There isn't one can see beyond the reach of his fingers. I used to think that folks were put into the world to be friendly an' helpful to each other but I've learned different." He sighed and shook his head helplessly. "Mrs.

Bracken on the first floor has lived here as long as we have, two years nex' October, an' I've yet to hear her give a friendly word to anyone in the house. When little Miss Smith up on the third was sick las'

winter did her nex' door neighbor lend a hand? She did not. She was just worried stiff for fear she'd catch somethin'. She gave me no peace till Miss Smith was out of the house an' into a hospital. Peace!

I've forgot there was such a word. They won't stand for any kid in the house when the lease says no childern, no dogs an' no cats."

"You can't tell me anythin' about _them_!" Mrs. Donovan agreed with pleasant promptness. It is always agreeable to have one's estimate of human nature endorsed. "An' the most of 'em look like thunder clouds when you meet 'em. Ain't it queer, Larry, how few folks look happy when a smile's 'bout the cheapest thing a body can wear? An' it never goes out of style. I know I never get tired seein' one on old or young. All folks can't be rich nor han'some but most of us could look pleasant if we thought so, seems if. I want to tell that to little Miss Macy every time I see her, but I know full well she'd say I was impudent, so I keep my mouth shut. Maybe the tenants won't stand for a child in the house. They haven't wit to see that the Lord had his good reasons when he invented the fam'ly. But there's some way. There must be! An' we've got to find it, Larry Donovan. Are you goin' to wash Mrs. Rawson's windows today?" She changed the subject abruptly. "She called me up twice yesterday to see they needed it, as if I had nothin'

to do but traipse aroun' after her."

Larry understood exactly how she felt. He had been called up more than twice to see the windows and had promised to clean them within twenty-four hours. Before he went away he patted his wife's shoulder and said again: "It isn't that I don't want the little thing here, Kate. She'd be good for both of us. It's bad for folks to grow old 'thout young ones growin' up around 'em, but a job's a job. It wouldn't be easy for a man to get another as good as this at this time of year. See the home it gives you."

He looked proudly around the pleasant bas.e.m.e.nt living-room. Open doors led into the dining-room and hall from which more doors opened into kitchen and sleeping-rooms. There was a small room at the end of the hall in which Mrs. Donovan kept her sewing machine but for which, in the last twenty-four hours, she had found another use. The apartment was very comfortable and Mrs. Donovan kept it as neat as wax. There was never any dust on her floors if the fault-finding tenants did say there was in the halls.

Mrs. Donovan was proud of her home also, but she frowned as she glanced about her. "There's plenty of room for one more," she grumbled. "That little room beyond ours is just the place for a child. But go on, Larry, we'll think of a way. We've got to! It shan't ever be said that Kate Donovan turned away her only sister's only child. Do you mind when Mary married Sam Crocker? It was thought to be a big step up for the daughter of an Irish carpenter to marry a Crocker, the son of ol' Judge Crocker an' a lawyer himself. Seems if there never was a prettier girl than Mary an' she was happy till she died. An' now Sam's dead, too. He wasn't the man his father was. He couldn't keep money an' he couldn't earn it. Mary used to feel sorry for me, Larry, because you weren't a Crocker, but if she could see us now an', seems if, I believe she can, she mus' be glad I got a good honest hard workin' Irishman. You've a good job an' a little money in the bank.

You don't owe no man a penny. That's more'n Sam Crocker could ever say an' tell the truth!"

For two years Larry Donovan had been the proud janitor of the Was.h.i.+ngton Apartment House. He had moved in before the building was fairly completed and felt that it belonged to him quite as much as to the owner, whose name he did not know, for all business was transacted through the rental agents, Brown and Lawson.

It was an attractive building. The center of the red brick front, with its rather ornate entrance, was pushed back some ten feet. The rectangular s.p.a.ce that was left was neatly bisected by the cement walk.

On either side were gra.s.sy squares, like pocket handkerchiefs, man's size, with clumps of shrubbery in the corners for monograms. The Was.h.i.+ngton was long and broad and low, not more than three stories high, but it had an air of comfort and also of pretension that was lacking in many of the taller apartment houses whose shoulders it could not begin to touch. Under the low roof were some twenty apartments of different sizes and the occupant of each was bound by lease not to introduce a child nor a cat nor a dog. No one showed the least desire to introduce any one of the three but each went his way and insisted on his full rights with a selfish disregard of the rights and conveniences of others in a way that at first had made Larry Donovan's mouth pop wide open in amazement. Even now that he was used to it he was often surprised.

And to the Was.h.i.+ngton with its lease forbidding children and pets had come a letter from Mifflin telling of the sudden death of Mrs.

Donovan's brother-in-law. Samuel Crocker had been an unsuccessful man, as the world counts success, and had left nothing behind him but his little daughter, Mary Rose.

"It's her age that's again' her," thought Mrs. Donovan, when she was alone. "If she were a couple of years older there couldn't be any objection. Well, for the lan's sakes!" Her face broke into a broad grin. "There isn't any reason why we should--n.o.body need ever know,"

she murmured cryptically.

Ten minutes later she was busy in the little room at the end of the hall. When Larry came back he stumbled over the machine she had pushed out of her way.

"Hullo," he said. "What's up?"

Mrs. Donovan lifted a smiling face. "I'm gettin' ready."

"For what?" he asked stupidly.

"For my niece, Mary Rose Crocker." She turned around and stood before him, a scrub-cloth in her hand.

Larry frowned. "I thought we'd finished with that, Kate. I told you about the leases. You'll have to board Mary Rose in Mifflin or send her to a convent."

"Board!" The scrub-doth, a very banner of defiance, was waved an inch in front of his nose. "Board out my own niece, a kid of eleven? I think I see myself, Larry Donovan. An' aren't you ashamed to have such thoughts, you, a decent man? A little thing that needs a mother's care. An' who should give it to her but me, her own aunt? The Lord had his plans when he took away all her other relations an' I ain't one to interfere."

"It means the loss of my job," objected Larry sullenly.

"It does not." There was another flourish of the scrub-cloth. "Listen to me, Larry Donovan. Is there anyone in this house 't knows how old Mary Rose is? Does Mrs. Bracken or that crosspatch Miss Adams or the weepin' willow, Mrs. Willoughby, know she isn't eleven? Who's to tell 'em if we keep our mouths shut? It ain't none of their business though, seems if, there isn't one that'd be beyond makin' it their business. I'll grant you that. Your old lease, more shame to it, says childern ain't allowed here. Mary Rose is a child but if she takes after her mother's fam'ly, an' I know in my heart she does, she'll be a big up-standin' girl, a girl anyone 'd take for fourteen. Maybe fifteen. Why, when her mother was twelve she weighed a hundred an'

twenty-five pounds. I've known women of fifty that didn't weigh that!"

triumphantly. "Don't you worry, Larry, dear. I've got it all planned out. There's the clothes your sister left here when she an' Ella went West las' fall. Ella was fourteen an' her clothes 'll just fit Mary Rose or I miss my guess. They'll make her look every minute of fourteen. An' a girl of fourteen isn't a child. Why, the state that's again' child labor lets a girl of fourteen go to work if she can get a permit, so we've got the law on our side. You see how easy it is, Larry?" She beamed with pride at the solution she had found for the problem that had tormented her ever since the letter had come from Mifflin.

"Do you mean you're goin' to tell lies about your own niece?" demanded Larry incredulously.

Mrs. Donovan looked at him sadly. "Why should I tell lies?" she asked sweetly. "Sure, it's no lie to say Mary Rose is goin' on fourteen. I ain't denyin' it'll be some time before she gets to fourteen but she's goin' on fourteen more'n she is on ten. If the tenants take a wrong meaning from my words is it my fault? No, Larry," firmly. "I wouldn't tell lies for n.o.body an' I wouldn't let Mary Rose tell lies. We al'ys had our mouths well scoured out with soft soap when we didn't tell the truth. But it ain't no lie to say a child's goin' on fourteen when she is."

CHAPTER II

A taxicab stopped before the Was.h.i.+ngton Apartment House and a slim boyish little figure hopped out and stared up at the roof of the long red brick building that towered so far above.

"It's an e-normous house, isn't it!" she said in surprise.

"Here, Mary Rose." A hand reached out a basket and then a birdcage.

"I'll go in with you."

"You're awfully good, Mrs. Black." Mary Rose looked at her with loving admiration. "Of course, I'd have come here all right by myself for daddy always said there was a special Providence to look after children and fools and that was why we were so well taken care of, but it certainly did make it pleasant for me to have you come all the way."

"It certainly made it pleasant for me," Mrs. Black said, and it had.

Mary Rose was so enthusiastic on this, her first trip away from Mifflin, that she had amused Mrs. Black, who had made the journey to Waloo so many times that it had become nothing but a necessary bore.

She was sorry that they had arrived at Mary Rose's destination. "Now, where do we find your aunt?" She, too, looked up at the red brick building that faced them so proudly.

"My Uncle Larry's the janitor of this splendid mansion!" Mary Rose told her joyously, although there was a trace of awe in her birdlike voice.

The mansion seemed so very, very large to her. "Is janitor the same as owner, Mrs. Black? It's--it's----" she drew a deep breath as if she found it difficult to say what it was. "It's wonderful! There isn't one house in all Mifflin so big and grand, is there? It looks more,"

she c.o.c.ked her head on one side, "like the new Masonic Temple on Main Street than anybody's home."

"So it does," agreed Mrs. Black, leading the way into the vestibule, where she found a bell labeled "Janitor."