The Making of Mary Part 12

"So Axworthy's gone back on you, Mary?"

The fountains played again.

"Yes; and it aint the first time I've got left, neither."

With Mrs. Mason, the Ferguson Family, Lincoln Todd, and young Flaker on the tablets of my mind, I could truthfully a.s.sent to that remark.

"Still, it may be just the making of you in the long run."

"I'm not breakin' my heart over Will Axworthy; didn't care nothing 'tall 'bout him, on'y I'd got used havin' him round, and I'd have married him if he asked me. I think a sight more of his cousin."

"The boy we saw at the Fair?"

"Yes. He's written me a lovely letter. Would you mind reading it aloud to me? Some of the big words I couldn't make out, and neither could Margaret. I wrote him all myself!"

Never before had it fallen to my lot to play father confessor to a lady in love difficulties, but the editorial mind is equal to any emergency, so I let my oars slide and adjusted my reading-gla.s.ses to peruse Mary's precious epistle.

When I had read on to the signature. "Your devoted lover 'Tom,'" Mary's face was radiant.

"Aint he smart? You know he was at the Fair, reporting for a newspaper."

"That explains his glibness. Don't have anything to do with him, Mary.

He's just trying to draw you on. The burnt dog should dread the fire."

"But he admires me, don't he?"

"He says so, but he is much more anxious that you should admire him.

Why, it's part of his business to keep his hand in by being in love, or rather by having some silly little fool of a girl in love with him.

You'll just get left again if you encourage this young scamp."

April showers once more.

"I think the best thing I can do is to jump overboard here into Lake Michigan. It don't seem to me I'm wanted anywheres."

"That might do very well, but you're too good a swimmer to drown easily, and you'd catch on to my boat and upset me. I can't swim a stroke, and there'd be five--six young Gemmells and a widow and a mother cast upon the world. No, we'll have to think of something better than that."

Mary's laughter was always quick an the heels of her tears.

"What do you think I'm good for, anyhow?"

"I can testify that you're not a success as a housekeeper."

"Nor a nursemaid."

"And as a lady's companion you're not all that could be desired, even if there were a demand for the article in West Michigan."

"As a gentleman's companion I am all right," and the girl showed her perfect teeth in a smile.

"It's no joking matter, Mary. You're not very happy in our house, and things will be worse for you next winter, with no Will Axworthy coming to see you, and no engagement to him in prospect. What do you think yourself that you're fit for--putting reciting and cornet playing out of the question?"

The young lady rested her chin on the palm of her hand and composed her face into a bewitching expression of profound meditation.

"I can't teach, and I can't sew, and I can't cook. I couldn't bear sitting still all day at a typewriter, and there's no room in the telephone office. You know quite well that there aint a thing for girls like me to do but to get married. That's why G.o.d made us pretty, so's we'd have a good chance."

"Don't be flippant, miss. How do you think you'd like to be an hospital nurse?"

"I dunno; I wouldn't mind trying. I'm generally good to folks--when they're sick--and I aint a bit scared of dirty nor of dead ones. I laid out an old woman that died in the Refuge."

"You're not particularly thin-skinned, that's a fact; but it's the educational qualification I'd be afraid of. There's some sort of an examination to be pa.s.sed before you can get into any of these Training Schools nowadays. I'll write for some forms of application, and we'll see. If once you were able to support yourself, you'd think very differently about marrying anybody that turned up, just for the sake of a home. Ours mayn't be much of a one for you, but marry to get out of it, and you'll perhaps find yourself out of the frying-pan into the fire."

"I think it would be just lovely to be a nurse! There was one came down from Chicago when Mrs. Wade was sick, and the uniform was awfully pretty. I'm sure it would suit me."

"It would be very becoming, I haven't any doubt of that; and when it's all settled that you are going to an hospital you can write in reply to Will Axworthy's last letter."

"He wanted me to keep on writing to him just the same; said he'd like always to be good friends with me."

"I wouldn't write him but once again, and do it all by yourself. Just say that the reason you wrote the other letter, asking how you stood with him, was that you had been thinking of leaving us altogether, but before taking the decided step of entering an hospital, you had thought it only fair to him to give him the chance to object, if he really had the objections he had led you to take for granted."

We heard a shouting and a blowing of tin horns upon the beach at this juncture. I took the oars and pulled in, seeing Belle and the boys waving their hats in the bright moonlight. My wife's face expressed the blankest astonishment when she saw who was my s.h.i.+pmate.

"We thought you must have fallen asleep out there. Didn't know you had company!"

Mary was still in the black books when I came down the next Sat.u.r.day.

Belle had a bitter complaint.

"She sat there the whole afternoon yesterday and part of the evening, writing and rewriting a letter before my very eyes. 'Are you replying to Will Axworthy?' I asked quite cordially, for I did want to have a hand in answering that letter--had some cutting sentences all ready for him.

'Yes, mawm,' said she very shortly; 'but I guess I can manage to get along by myself.'"

I did not dare own up to the advice I had given, but I saw that matters must be hastened. Having business in Chicago about that time, I visited almost every hospital in the city, telling Mary's story in my most dramatic newspaper style. I made it understood that it was very n.o.ble and self-sacrificing of the young woman, when she might live in the lap of luxury,--for thus did I unblus.h.i.+ngly describe my own modest establishment,--to embrace a nurse's vocation and labor for the good of humanity, including herself, of course. The education--or the lack of it--was the drawback everywhere, and also the youth of the applicant, twenty-five being a more acceptable age than barely twenty-one.

But my perseverance was at last rewarded by finding the superintendent of a training school who still had some imagination left, and who became deeply interested in Mary's "tale of woe."

"Make her study her reading, spelling, and arithmetic as hard as she can for the next few months, and I'll get her in the very first opening."

The prospect roused Belle's old-time vigor, and she had spelling matches for Mary's benefit, made the girl read aloud to her, gave her dictation to write, and heard her the multiplication tables every forenoon--when she did not forget.

One delightful morning in October I had the honor of taking our _protegee_ into Chicago and delivering her up to the lady superintendent. If she could only stand the month of probation, we flattered ourselves that she would be safe.

Three weeks later I met the Rev. Mr. Armstrong on the street.

"I think it is only right to tell you what people are saying," said he.

"It's my business to know," I replied.

"I mean about your adopted daughter. I have just been told by two reputable parties, one after the other, that she has been dismissed from the hospital for flirting, and that you and Mrs. Gemmell are hus.h.i.+ng the matter up as well as you can, but that you don't know at all where she is."

When I reached home my first question was: