Her Father's Daughter Part 16

"I haven't a doubt of it," said Peter Morrison. "And while you are talking about nice women, we met a mighty fine one at Riverside on Sunday. Her name is Mary Louise Whiting. Do you know her?"

"Not personally," said Linda. "I don't recall that I ever saw her. I know her brother, Donald. He is the high-school boy who is having the wrestle with the j.a.p."

"I liked her too," said Henry Anderson. "And by the way, Miss Linda, haven't bug-catchers any reputation at all as nest builders? Is it true that among feathered creatures the hen builds the home?"

"No, it's not," said Linda promptly. "Male birds make a splendid record carrying nest material. What is true is that in the majority of cases the female does the building."

"Well, what I am getting at," said Henry Anderson, "is this. Is there anything I can do to help you with that billiard room that you're going to convert to a workroom? What do you lack in it that you would like to have? Do you need more light or air, or a fireplace, or what? When you take us to the station, suppose you drive us past your house and give me a look at that room and let me think over it a day or two. I might be able to make some suggestion that would help you."

"Now that is positively sweet of you," said Linda. "I never thought of such a thing as either comfort or convenience. I thought I had to take that room as it stands and do the best I could with it, but since you mention it, it's barely possible that more air might be agreeable and also more light, and if there could be a small fireplace built in front of the chimney where it goes up from the library fireplace, it certainly would be a comfort, and it would add something to the room that nothing else could.

"No workroom really has a soul if you can't smell smoke and see red when you go to it at night."

"You little outdoor heathen," laughed Peter Morrison. "One would think you were an Indian."

"I am a fairly good Indian," said Linda. "I have been scouting around with my father a good many years. How about it, Peter? Does the road go crooked?"

"Yes," said Peter, "the road goes crooked."

"Does the bed of the spring curve and sweep across the lawn and drop off to the original stream below the tree-tobacco clump there?"

"If you say so, it does," said Peter.

"Including the bridge?" inquired Linda.

"Including the bridge," said Peter. "I'll have to burn some midnight oil, but I can visualize the bridge."

"And is this house where you 'set up your rest,' as you so beautifully said the other night at dinner, going to lay its corner stone and grow to its roof a selfish house, or is it going to be generous enough for a gracious lady and a flight of little footsteps?"

Peter Morrison took off his hat. He turned his face toward the length of Lilac Valley and stood, very tall and straight, looking far away before him. Presently he looked down at Linda.

"Even so," he said softly. "My shoulders are broad enough; I have a brain; and I am not afraid to work. If my heart is not quite big enough yet, I see very clearly how it can be made to expand."

"I have been told," said Linda in a low voice, "that Mary Louise Whiting is a perfect darling."

Peter looked at her from the top of her black head to the tips of her brown shoes. He could have counted the freckles bridging her nose. The sunburn on her cheeks was very visible; there was something arresting in the depth of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the lithe slenderness of her young body; she gave the effect of something smoldering inside that would leap at a breath.

"I was not thinking of Miss Whiting," he said soberly.

Henry Anderson was watching. Now he turned his back and commenced talking about plans, but in his heart he said: "So that's the lay of the land. You've got to hustle yourself, Henry, or you won't have the ghost of a show."

Later, when they motored down the valley and stopped at the Strong residence, Peter refused to be monopolized by Eileen. He climbed the two flights of stairs with Henry Anderson and Linda and exhausted his fund of suggestions as to what could be done to that empty billiard room to make an attractive study of it. Linda listened quietly to all their suggestions, and then she said:

"It would be fine to have another window, and a small skylight would be a dream, and as for the fireplace you mention, I can't even conceive how great it would be to have that; but my purse is much more limited than Peter's, and while I have my school work to do every day, my earning capacity is nearly negligible. I can only pick up a bit here and there with my brush and pencil--place cards and Easter cards and valentines, and once or twice magazine covers, and little things like that. I don't see my way clear to lumber and gla.s.s and bricks and chimney pieces."

Peter looked at Henry, and Henry looked at Peter, and a male high sign, ancient as day, pa.s.sed between them.

"Easiest thing in the world," said Peter. "It's as sure as shooting that when my three or four fireplaces, which Henry's present plans call for, are built, there is going to be all the material left that can be used in a light tiny fireplace such as could be built on a third floor, and when the figuring for the house is done it could very easily include the cutting of a skylight and an extra window or two here, and getting the material in with my stuff, it would cost you almost nothing."

Linda's eyes opened wide and dewy with surprise and pleasure.

"Why, you two perfectly nice men!" she said. "I haven't felt as I do this minute since I lost Daddy. It's wonderful to be taken care of. It's better than cream puffs with almond flavoring."

Henry Anderson looked at Linda keenly.

"You're the darndest kid!" he said. "One minute you're smacking your lips over cream puffs, and the next you're going to the bottom of the yellow peril. I never before saw your combination in one girl. What's the explanation?" For the second time that evening Linda's specialty in rapture floated free.

"Bunch all the component parts into the one paramount fact that I am Sat.u.r.day's child," she said, "so I am constantly on the job of working for a living, and then add to that the fact that I was reared by a nerve specialist."

Then they went downstairs, and the men refused both Eileen's and Linda's invitation to remain for dinner. When they had gone Eileen turned to Linda with a discontented and aggrieved face.

"In the name of all that's holy, what are you doing or planning to do?"

she demanded.

"Not anything that will cost you a penny beyond my natural rights," said Linda quietly.

"That is not answering my question," said Eileen. "You're not of age and you're still under the authority of a guardian. If you can't answer me, possibly you can him. Shall I send John Gilman to ask what I want to know of you?"

"When did I ever ask you any questions about what you chose to do?"

asked Linda. "I am merely following the example that you have previously set me. John Gilman and I used to be great friends. It might help both of us to have a family reunion. Send him by all means."

"You used to take pride," suggested Eileen, "in leading your cla.s.s."

"And has anyone told you that I am not leading my cla.s.s at the present minute?" asked Linda.

"No," said Eileen, "but what I want to point out to you is that the minute you start running with the boys you will quit leading your cla.s.s."

"Don't you believe it," said Linda quietly. "I'm not built that way.

I shan't concentrate on any boy to the exclusion of chemistry and geometry, never fear it."

Then she thoughtfully ascended the stairs and went to work.

Eileen went to her room and sat down to think; and the more she thought, the deeper grew her anger and chagrin; and to the indifference that always had existed in her heart concerning Linda was added in that moment a new element. She was jealous of her. How did it come that a lanky, gangling kid in her tees had been paid a visit by the son of possibly the most cultured and influential family of the city, people of prestige, comfortable wealth, and unlimited popularity? For four years she had struggled to gain an entrance in some way into Louise Whiting's intimate circle of friends, and she had ended by shutting the door on the only son of the family. And why had she ever allowed Linda to keep the runabout? It was not proper that a young girl should own a high powered car like that. It was not proper that she should drive it and go racing around the country, heaven knew where, and with heaven knew whom.

Eileen bit her lip until it almost bled. Her eyes were hateful and her hands were nervous as she reviewed the past week. She might think any mean thing that a mean brain could conjure up, but when she calmed down to facts she had to admit that there was not a reason in the world why Linda should not drive the car she had driven for her father, or why she should not take with her Donald Whiting or Peter Morrison or Henry Anderson. The thing that rankled was that the car belonged to Linda. The touring car which she might have owned and driven, had she so desired, lay in an extremely slender string of pearls around her neck at that instant. She reflected that if she had kept her car and made herself sufficiently hardy to drive it, she might have been the one to have taken Peter Morrison to his home location and to have had many opportunities for being with him.

"I've been a fool," said Eileen, tugging at the pearls viciously. "They are nothing but a little bit of a string that looks as if I were trying to do something and couldn't, at best. What I've got to do is to think more of myself. I've got to plan some way to prevent Linda from being too popular until I really get my mind made up as to what I want to do."

CHAPTER XIII. Leavening the Bread of Life

"'A house that is divided against itself cannot stand,'" quoted Linda.

"I must keep in mind what Eileen said, not that there is the slightest danger, but to fall behind in my grades is a thing that simply must not happen. If it be true that Peter and Henry can so easily and so cheaply add a few improvements in my workroom in connection with Peter's building, I can see no reason why they shouldn't do it, so long as I pay for it. I haven't a doubt but that there will be something I can do for Peter, before he finishes his building, that he would greatly appreciate, while, since I'm handy with my pencil, I MIGHT be able to make a few head and tail pieces for some of his articles that would make them more attractive. I don't want to use any friend of mine: I don't want to feel that I am not giving quite as much as I get, but I think I see my way clear, between me and the Bear Cat, to pay for all the favors I would receive in altering my study.

"First thing I do I must go through Father's books and get the money for them, so I'll know my limitation when I come to select furniture. And I don't know that I am going to be so terribly modest when it comes to naming the sum with which I'll be satisfied for my allowance. Possibly I shall exercise my age-old prerogative and change my mind; I may just say 'half' right out loud and stick to it. And there's another thing. Since the editor of Everybody's Home has started my department and promised that if it goes well he will give it to me permanently, I can certainly depend on something from that. He has used my Introduction and two instalments now. I should think it might be fair to talk payments pretty soon. He should give me fifty dollars for a recipe with its perfectly good natural history and embellished with my own vegetable and floral decorations.

"In the meantime I think I might buy my worktable and possibly an easel, so I can have real room to spread out my new material and see how it would feel to do one drawing completely unhampered. I'll order the table tonight, and then I'll begin on the books, because I must have Sat.u.r.day free; and I must be thinking about the most attractive and interesting place I can take Donald to. I just have to keep him interested until he gets going of his own accord, because he shall beat Oka Sayye. I wouldn't let Donald say it but I don't mind saying myself to myself with no one present except myself that in all my life I have never seen anything so masklike as the stolid little square head on that j.a.p. I have never seen anything I dislike more than the oily, stiff, black hair standing up on it like menacing bristles. I have never had but one straight look deep into his eyes, but in that look I saw the only thing that ever frightened me in looking into a man's eyes in my whole life.

And there is one thing that I have to remember to caution Donald about.

He must carry on this contest in a perfectly open, fair, and aboveboard way, and he simply must not antagonize Oka Sayye. There are so many of the j.a.ps. They all look so much alike, and there's a blood brotherhood between them that will make them protect each other to the death against any white man. It wouldn't be safe for Donald to make Oka Sayye hate him. He had far better try to make him his friend and put a spirit of honest rivalry into his heart; but come to think of it, there wasn't anything like that in my one look into Oka Sayye's eyes. I don't know what it was, but whatever it was it was something repulsive."