Mary Rose of Mifflin Part 20

"Goldfish would give her something to think of until school opens.

After that she'll have enough to do to keep her occupied."

Miss Thorley looked at him with surprise. "Do you know, that's really very thoughtful. I've been trying to think what I could do and I couldn't get beyond another bird. I had sense enough to see that that would never do."

"No, another bird wouldn't do. And tomorrow--I wondered if tomorrow you and Mary Rose wouldn't go off for the day in the car with Aunt Mary and me? We might run down to Blue Heron Lake for dinner. Mary Rose loves to motor."

"Why not take your aunt and Mary Rose? I'm afraid I----"

"Nothing doing!" he interrupted firmly. "Can't you trust me?" He looked her straight in the eyes as he asked. "I swear I won't say a word of love. We're friends now, you know, not--not lovers. And Mary Rose adores you. She'd go through fire and water for you. Honest, she wouldn't be contented with me and Aunt Mary, but I know it would be all right if you were along."

She hesitated and bit her lip before she finally shrugged her shoulders and said: "Oh, very well. I'll go for Mary Rose."

"I knew you would. I knew you'd see the big sister, the humanitarian philanthropic friendly side of it." There was more than the hint of a twinkle in his eyes. "And one more thing." Mr. Jerry firmly believed in striking the iron before it had any chance to cool. "They have goldfish for sale over at the drug store on Twenty-eighth Street.

Won't you walk over with me and help pick out a few? I'd like Mary Rose to find them when she wakes up in the morning."

She did not hesitate over this request. Perhaps she realized what a very persuasive way he had, for she laughed softly.

"I'll go. I'd do more than that for Mary Rose."

On the way they met Miss Carter and Bob Strahan returning from a fruitless quest among the bird stores. But if they had not found Jenny Lind they had explained the situation to the proprietors of the shops and each of them had promised on his word of honor to telephone to Mr.

Strahan the very minute that a canary was offered for sale.

The four went together to the drug store and after the globe had been bought and they had selected the half-dozen fish that were to live in it, they loitered at a little table over their ice cream.

"Gos.h.!.+" suddenly exclaimed Bob Strahan. "I'm glad I'm not built on the plans and specifications that produced old Wells. I shouldn't want the theft of a kid's canary on my conscience."

"He will insist that Mr. Wells knows all about it," Miss Carter said mournfully. She could not help but feel that she was to blame. If she hadn't asked Mary Rose to bring up the parcel post package Jenny Lind might never have disappeared.

"Why?" asked Mr. Jerry curiously.

"Because!" Miss Carter and Bob Strahan made the rather unsatisfactory explanation a duet.

CHAPTER XVIII

When Mary Rose opened her eyes the next morning the very first thing she saw was the gla.s.s globe in which flas.h.i.+ng sunbeams seemed to dart.

"Why--why!" cried amazed Mary Rose, and she sat bolt upright.

Aunt Kate heard her and came in. "Do you like them, honey? Mr. Jerry and Miss Thorley brought them in last night. Mr. Jerry said you liked his aunt's goldfish, so he was sure you'd like some of your own."

"Did he?" All the gladness slipped from her face and voice as she remembered the pet she had lost. "You know, Aunt Kate, last night I just about decided I'd never have another pet. I'm--I'm so unlucky with them." Her lip quivered. "I don't seem to be able to keep one thing that really belongs to me."

"Nonsense!" Aunt Kate took her in her arms and kissed her. "You'll keep me and your Uncle Larry. You can't lose us. Aren't they pretty?"

She tapped the gla.s.s globe. "Seems if a body'd never get tired of lookin' at 'em. But get dressed, dearie. Breakfas's most ready an'

Mr. Jerry wants you to go out to Blue Heron Lake in his motor car. His aunt an' Miss Thorley are goin' too. You're to be away all day an'

have your dinner at a big hotel."

Not eighteen hours before Mary Rose would have danced and clapped her hands at such a delectable prospect, but now she lay back on her pillow and looked at her aunt. Two big tears gathered in her eyes.

"I can't go. Suppose we'd hear something from Jenny Lind."

"As if I wouldn't be here, an' your Uncle Larry. An' Jimmie Bronson's goin' to keep an eye on the cat an' dog. To be sure you're goin', dearie. Put your clothes on. Your breakfas's near ready an' your uncle's starvin'." And to avoid any further argument she bustled away.

Mary Rose lay and watched the goldfish for another sixty seconds and the big tears dropped from her eyes to her pillow. But even if her heart was broken she had to admire those flashes of gold in the clear water.

"They're so--so beautiful." She was surprised to find herself laughing when one fish pushed against another. She had thought she never would laugh again. She turned and hid her face. "No matter how beautiful they are I shan't ever, forget you, Jenny Lind," she promised. "Ever!

I'm not the forgetting kind of a person and I'll never stop trying to find you. May the good Lord take care of you now and evermore. Amen."

It wasn't exactly a prayer but it comforted Mary Rose as if it had been.

She slipped out of bed and began to dress soberly and slowly instead of singing and hurriedly as usual. When she had combed her hair and washed her face and hands she went into her closet and came out with the detested boys' suit of faded blue serge. Her red lips were pressed into a firm line as she put it on.

"My soul an' body!" exclaimed astonished Aunt Kate when she came in with the coffeepot and saw a boyish little figure in the doorway. Mary Rose ran to her. "I was so proud of wearing girls' clothes that maybe that was the reason Jenny Lind was taken from me," she explained in a whisper. "I just hate these, Aunt Kate. I despise them! But I'm going to wear them. You know proud people are punished, the Bible says so, and I was as proud--as proud as the proudest. That's the way I've thought it out and that's why I put on this hateful suit this morning."

"I think you're wrong, Mary Rose," began Aunt Kate, while Uncle Larry put down the colored supplement that he had been holding out so enticingly to look at his niece, who appeared smaller than ever in the shabby blouse and shrunken knickers. "You haven't had so much to be proud of, a few of Ella's old clothes. But if you feel better in those, why, wear 'em. Where's your goldfish? Don't you want to show 'em to your uncle? Miss Thorley an' Mr. Jerry'll understand," she said as Mary Rose ran to bring the goldfish. "An' I hate to argue with her today. She can wear those now, but tomorrow she'll put on proper girls' clothes to go to school. I don't care what Brown an' Lawson or anyone else says. You hain't heard anythin' from them, have you?"

"Nothin' yet, but it won't be good news when it comes. We'll have to move, Kate. Ol' Wells has seen to that an' after last night I don't care so much. If honest faithful work don't count for anythin' here I dunno as I want to stay. I can find another job. It won't be as easy as this. This was just velvet for a man like me."

"Well, if they have the nerve to fire you just because you're givin' a home to an orphan niece I hope Mr. Strahan writes it all over the front of his paper. I'd like to see it in big red letters an' then maybe the owner an' Mr. Wells'd be ashamed of themselves."

"S-s.h.!.+ S-s.h.!.+" cautioned Uncle Larry but not quickly enough, for Aunt Kate's voice was shrill and excited and Mary Rose in her little room heard every word.

She stood and looked about her bewildered. It wasn't possible that anyone, even the owner of the Was.h.i.+ngton, would take her Uncle Larry's work from him just because a little girl was living with him? Aunt Kate must be mistaken or perhaps she had misunderstood. She often found herself mistaken in her ideas of what grown people meant. She tried to think she was now as she took the globe and carried it carefully into the dining-room and placed it on the table where the sunlight fell on the fish and polished their golden scales.

"That's what I call a han'some present," admired Uncle Larry in the same hearty voice Mary Rose usually heard from him.

She looked up quickly. He wouldn't speak like that if he were going to lose his work. She hadn't understood. That was it. Children often didn't understand grown people.

"They are beautiful," she said softly. "I wasn't very welcoming to them at first because I was afraid Mr. Jerry meant them to take the place of darling Jenny Lind and nothing can do that--fish nor dogs nor cats nor squirrels nor anything. But when I watched them swim I found they could have a place of their very own and so I'm very glad now to have them."

"Of course you are. But eat your breakfas', child, or Mr. Jerry'll be callin' for you before you're ready."

That was a wonderful Sunday to Mary Rose. She sat on the front seat beside Mr. Jerry and as neither of them felt much like talking they enjoyed the silence. Mile after mile was left behind them and when they began to pa.s.s through small towns and villages Mary Rose sat up straighter.

"They're like Mifflin, only different," she murmured vaguely.

When they came to a little white meetinghouse standing all by itself near the road Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary asked him to stop and let them go to church.

"It seems as if it would be rather pleasant to go to a simple service such as they must have here," she suggested.

"I'll put it to a vote," Mr. Jerry offered obligingly. "Mary Rose, what do you say?"

"Oh, let's!" she begged. "And I'll pretend I'm sitting with Gladys in the Evans pew and that Mr. Mann is preaching."

Mr. Jerry stopped the car by the roadside and they all stepped out.

"What a doggone idiot I was," Mr. Jerry whispered to Miss Thorley as they followed his Aunt Mary and Mary Rose; "I might just as well have taken the kid to Mifflin as to Blue Heron Lake, but I never thought of it."