Mary Rose of Mifflin Part 11

Mary Rose chose a chocolate sundae and she giggled as she looked at the rich brown sauce. "When I was little, nothing but a baby," she said, "I thought that it was the yellow in the eggs I ate that made my hair yellow. Do you suppose if I ate lots and lots of chocolate, I'd ever have hair as brown as Miss Thorley's. Isn't it beautiful, Mr. Jerry?"

"Very beautiful!" Mr. Jerry agreed as heartily as she could wish.

Miss Thorley flushed uncomfortably under the admiration of Mr. Jerry and Mary Rose. "Mary Rose," she said hurriedly, "don't you know you shouldn't make personal remarks?"

"Eh?" Mary Rose's attention was centered in the well she was making in her ice cream for the chocolate syrup.

"You shouldn't talk of people's hair and eyes." The rebuke was far more feeble than Miss Thorley had meant it to be.

"You shouldn't!" Mary Rose was so surprised that she left the well half made. "Why, in Mifflin when we liked the way a friend looked we always told them."

Miss Thorley pushed away her sundae. "Mary Rose, if you say Mifflin again, I'll scream."

Mary Rose's cheeks turned as pink as Miss Thorley's cheeks had turned.

"That's what Aunt Kate says sometimes, but if you like a place the way I like Mifflin you just have to talk about it. It's--it's in your heart."

"Talk about it to me, Mary Rose," Mr. Jerry offered kindly. "It doesn't make me cross to hear of a place where people are kind and friendly. My conscience is perfectly clear." He spoke as if he were very proud of his clear conscience.

Miss Thorley pushed back her chair. "It doesn't make me cross," she said, "only----"

They waited courteously to hear what would follow "only," but nothing ever did. Miss Thorley just jumped up and said instead that really they must go. Mr. Jerry's eyes twinkled as he agreed with her.

It was far more pleasant riding to town in Mr. Jerry's automobile than it would have been in the crowded street car. Mary Rose called Miss Thorley's attention to the crowd as she snuggled close to her in the s.p.a.cious tonneau.

"I'm playing it's mine," she whispered, "and that Mr. Jerry is my own driver. Wouldn't it be fun to drive with him forever and ever?"

Mr. Jerry heard her and sharpened his ears for the answer.

"You'd get tired riding forever with anyone, Mary Rose. There is only one thing that people never get tired of."

"What's that?" Mary Rose hungered to hear.

"Work." Mr. Jerry sniffed. They could hear him in the tonneau.

Mary Rose shook her head. "Gladys' mother did. She said she had never had enough fun to know whether she would get tired of it or not, but she'd had plenty of chance to know there were some things she never wanted to see again, and one of them was work and the other was the red and black plaid silk dress that the dressmaker spoiled."

Mr. Jerry chuckled on the front seat and after a second Miss Thorley laughed, too.

"Mary Rose," she said very distinctly, "I'll have to give you a broader vision. You have entirely too narrow an outlook."

"What's that, Miss Thorley? What's a broader vision?" Mary Rose couldn't imagine.

It was Mr. Jerry who answered. "In this particular case, Mary Rose, it's seeing far too much for one and not enough for two."

As they rolled up to the Was.h.i.+ngton Miss Carter came down the street with Bob Strahan whom she had met on the car. It was amazing, now that they were on speaking terms, how often they met. Bob Strahan stopped to open the door of the automobile and help Miss Thorley out, and Mary Rose proudly introduced Mr. Jerry who boarded her cat. They all laughed and talked together for a few minutes and then Mary Rose hopped from the back seat to the front.

"I'll go around and see George Was.h.i.+ngton, if you don't mind," she said. "Hasn't it been just the loveliest afternoon, the kind you're always hoping for but never really expect to have," with a sigh of rapture. She patted Mr. Jerry's arm lovingly. "Isn't Miss Thorley a darling! She told me all about that Independence. It isn't a witch as you thought, Mr. Jerry, it's something about wanting to pay her own bills and live alone. I don't understand it," she frowned, "but that's what she said."

Mr. Jerry frowned too, as he turned into the alley. "She doesn't know," he said briefly. "Take it from me, Mary Rose, that Independence is an old witch, and she's enchanted more girls than you could count."

Mary Rose looked doubtful. "If Miss Thorley really is enchanted," she suggested, "we must find something to break the spell. I told her she wouldn't have to stop work to make a home for a family, Mr. Jerry," she whispered encouragingly.

"Did you?" Mr. Jerry laughed. "What did she say?"

Mary Rose knit her small brows before she answered. "I don't think she just agreed with me, but I'll explain it to her again."

CHAPTER X

When Mary Rose ran up to get Jenny Lind young Mrs. Johnson met her at the door and smiled pleasantly.

"You're the little girl for the canary?" she said. "I was wondering--Mother Johnson seems to have taken a fancy to you--and I wondered if you would go out for a little walk with her every morning.

I'll pay you ten cents a day."

Mary Rose's eyes popped open. In Mifflin little girls were expected to do what they were asked to do and were never paid for such tasks.

"Why, of course, I'd be glad to," she said promptly.

"That will be splendid. You see she won't go by herself and I have my own engagements. The doctor said she must have some exercise," sighed Mrs. Johnson, as if the doctor had made a most unreasonable demand.

"Suppose you come up tomorrow about eleven? That will give you time for a good walk before lunch."

"I'll soon be making money enough to send for Solomon," Mary Rose told Mrs. Donovan, her voice trembling with excitement. "There's ten cents a day from Grandma Johnson and ten cents from Mrs. Bracken for was.h.i.+ng the breakfast dishes and a quarter from Miss Thorley. Why, Aunt Kate, I never thought there was so much money in the world as what I'm going to earn by myself!"

Aunt Kate laughed as she hugged her. "There's no one in the house can be cross to her," she told Uncle Larry proudly.

Promptly at eleven o'clock the next morning Mary Rose was waiting for Mother Johnson who grumbled and fussed before she could be persuaded to take the walk the doctor had recommended. But, once outside, the sky was so blue, the air so pleasant, and Mary Rose so sociable that her face grew less peevish.

"Where shall we go?" Mary Rose paused at the corner. "You see I'm a stranger here. In Mifflin I knew the way everywhere. Aunt Kate said there was a little park over this street. Perhaps it would be pleasant there?"

Mother Johnson said grumpily that it made little difference to her, all she wanted was to have her walk over and be home again.

"But you'll feel better after your exercise," promised Mary Rose. "I should think you'd love to be outdoors. Your home is very pretty, but it isn't like the outdoors, you know. Did you ever see the sky so blue? It looks as if it was made out of the very silk that was in Miss Lucy Miller's bridesmaid's dress. It was the most beautiful dress Miss Lena Carlson ever made. Miss Lena goes out sewing for a dollar and a half a day." And she described the wedding at which Miss Lucy Miller had worn the frock made by the dollar and a half a day seamstress with an enthusiasm that was undimmed by Mother Johnson's lack of interest.

From the wedding and Miss Lucy it was but a step to other Mifflin happenings. They found themselves in the park before they knew it.

"It's something like the cemetery in Mifflin," Mary Rose said after she had looked about. "Of course, there aren't any graves but there is a monument and seats. Do you want to sit down? Oh, do look, grandma!

Do look," and she pulled the black sleeve beside her.

Since she had come to Waloo Mother Johnson had not been called grandma and she had missed the grandchildren she had left behind more than she realized. Mary Rose had called most of the older women in Mifflin grandma--Grandma Robinson and Grandma Smith. It was a friendly little custom that was in vogue there and so she had unhesitatingly called old Mrs. Johnson grandma. Mrs. Johnson was so surprised that she had nothing to say when Mary Rose pulled her to a bench and pointed a trembling finger at a little brownish-grayish animal which stood up in the gra.s.s and looked at them with bright eyes.

"Do you see what that is?" Mary Rose's voice shook. "It's a squirrel!

A really truly squirrel in this big city! Here, squirrelly, squirrelly," she snapped her fingers. "I wish I had something to feed you!" despairingly as the squirrel ran away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'It's a squirrel! A really truly squirrel in this big city!'"]

Grandma Johnson had her purse in the bag she carried and she opened it and took out five cents. "Here," she said crossly, "go and get something to feed him with if that's what you're crying for."

Mary Rose straightened herself and threw her arms around Grandma Johnson's knees. "Why--why!" she gasped, "I do think you are a regular fairy G.o.dmother!"