The summers and winters came and went and Mary-'Gusta's birthdays
came and went with them. She grew taller and more mature. Her place as
assistant housekeeper was recognized now and even Isaiah consulted her
on matters of household management. As for her uncles, she managed them
whether consulted or not. They took the place of the discarded dolls;
she was too old for dolls now, although David was still mothered and
petted as much as ever. But when Uncle Zoeth had a cold it was she who
insisted upon his wrapping up and saw that the wraps were ready, and if
Uncle Shad was caught wearing socks with holes in them he was scolded
and supplied with fresh ones. She selected the clothes they should wear
and insisted that they black their boots on Sunday. She helped them in
the store and it became occasionally possible for them to leave that
place of business at the same time without engaging the services of
Annabel. At first the partners, Captain Shadrach especially, protested
against the supervision and the innovations, but Mary-'Gusta tactfully
and diplomatically carried each point, and, after a time, the Captain
ceased to protest and accepted the inevitable almost with meekness.
“No use, Zoeth,” he said on one occasion; “I've talked and talked but
I'm wearin' the necktie just the same. I told her 'twas too good to wear
weekdays and it ought to be saved for Sunday, but it ain't Sunday and
I've got it on. She said 'twas becomin' and the one I've been wearin'
wasn't and that she crocheted it for me and I don't know what all. So
here I am. Got so I ain't even boss of my own neck.”
“Well, 'tis becomin',” observed Zoeth. “And she did crochet it for you.
I noticed you didn't stop her tyin' it on you even while you was vowin'
you wouldn't wear it.”
Shadrach sighed. “To think,” he groaned, “that I, Cap'n Shad Gould, a
man that's handled as many fo'mast hands as I have, should come to be
led around by the nose by a slip of a girl! By fire, I--I can't hardly
believe it. It's disgraceful.”
Zoeth smiled. “Oh, be still, Shadrach,” he said. “You bear up under the
disgrace as well as anybody ever I saw. You know perfectly well you was
tickled to death to have her tie that necktie on you. You was grinnin'
like a Chessy cat all the time.”
“I wasn't, neither. I was chokin', not grinnin'. You don't know a grin
from a choke.”
Zoeth changed the subject. “It's a mighty pretty necktie,” he declared.
“There ain't anybody in this town, unless it's Philander Bearse's wife,
that can crochet any better'n that girl of ours.”
Shadrach snorted. “What are you talkin' about?” he demanded. “Etta
Bearse never saw the day she could crochet like that. No, nor do
anything else so well, either. Look at the way our candy trade has
picked up since Mary-'Gusta fixed up the showcase. You cal'lated 'twas
all right the way 'twas afore and thought 'twas foolish to change, but
she changed it and--well, we've sold a third again as much candy.”
Zoeth's smile broadened. “Seems as if I remember your sayin' a few
things about that showcase,” he remarked. “You gave me fits for lettin'
her fuss with it. Annabel was in t'other day and she said folks thought
'twas queer enough our lettin' a thirteen-year-old child run our store
for us.”
“She did, eh? She's jealous, that's what ails her. And to think of HER
sayin' it. That Annabel's all brass, like a ship's spyglass. By the
jumpin' Judas! I'm proud of that showcase and I'm proud of Mary-'Gusta.
She don't make many mistakes: I can't remember of her makin' any.”
“Neither can I, not even in neckties. There, there, Shadrach! I know
you. You talk about disgrace and such, but you're as crazy about
Mary-'Gusta as--as--”
“As you are, eh? Well, maybe I am, Zoeth. When she was first willed to
us, as you might say, I used to wonder how we'd ever get along with her;
now I wonder how we got along without her. If she should be--er--took
away from us, I don't know--”
“Sshh, shh, Shadrach! Don't talk about anything like that.”
Mary-'Gusta was making good progress at school. At fourteen she
graduated from the grammar school and in the fall was to enter the
high school. She was popular among her mates, although she never sought
popularity.
At picnics and church sociables she had always a small circle about
her and the South Harniss boys were prominent in that circle. But
Mary-'Gusta, although she liked boys and girls well enough, never showed
a liking for one more than the other and she was too busy at the house
and in the store to have her young friends hanging about. They bothered
her, she said. As for having a particular friend of the other sex,
which some of the girls in her class no older than she seemed to think
a necessary proof of being in their teens, she laughed at the idea. She
had her adopted uncles and Isaiah to take care of and boy beaux were
silly. Talking about them as these girls did was sillier still.
That summer--the summer preceding Mary-'Gusta's fifteenth birthday--was
the liveliest South Harniss had known. The village was beginning to feel
the first symptoms of its later boom as a summer resort. A number of
cottages had been built for people from Boston and New York and Chicago,
and there was talk of a new hotel. Also there was talk of several new
stores, but Hamilton and Company were inclined to believe this merely
talk and did not worry about it. Their trade was unusually brisk and the
demand for Mary-'Gusta's services as salesgirl interfered considerably
with her duties as assistant housekeeper.
One fine, clear July morning she came up to the store early in order
that the partners might go down to the house for breakfast. They had
gone and she had just finished placing on the counters and in other
likely spots about the store sheets of sticky fly paper. Flies are a
nuisance in South Harniss in midsummer and Captain Shad detested them.
Just as the last sheet was laid in place, a young fellow and a girl
came in. Mary-'Gusta recognized them both. The girl was the
seventeen-year-old daughter of a wealthy summer resident, a Mr. Keith
from Chicago. The Keiths had a fine cottage on the bluff at the other
end of the village. The young chap with her was, so gossip reported,
a college friend of her brother. His surname was prosaic enough, being
Smith, but his first name was Crawford and his home was somewhere in the
Far West. He was big and good-looking, and the Boston papers mentioned
him as one of the most promising backs on the Harvard Freshman eleven.
Next year, so the sporting writers opined, he would almost certainly
make the Varsity team. Most of Mary-'Gusta's feminine friends and
acquaintances rated him “perfectly splendid” and regarded Edna Keith
with envious eyes.
This morning both he and the Keith girl were arrayed in the gayest of
summer regalia. Young Smith's white flannel trousers were carefully
creased, his blue serge coat was without a wrinkle, his tie and socks
were a perfect match, and his cap was of a style which the youth of
South Harniss might be wearing the following summer, but not this one.
Take him “by and large,” as Captain Shadrach would have said, Crawford
Smith was an immaculate and beautiful exhibit; of which fact he, being
eighteen years of age, was doubtless quite aware.
He and the Keith girl were, so Mary-'Gusta learned, a committee of two
selected to purchase certain supplies for a beach picnic, a combination
clambake and marshmallow toast, which was to take place over at Setuckit
Point that day. Sam Keith, Edna's brother, and the other members of the
party had gone on to Jabez Hedges' residence, where Jabez had promised
to meet them with the clams and other things for the bake. Edna and her
escort, having made their purchases at Hamilton and Company's, were to
join them at the “clam-man's.” Then the whole party was to go down to
the wharf and the sailboat.
Miss Edna, who was a talkative damsel, informed Mary-'Gusta of these
facts at once. Also she announced that they must hurry like everything.
“You see,” she said, “we told Sam and the rest we'd be at the clam-man's
in ten minutes, and, if we're not there, Sam will be awfully cross. He
hates to wait for people. And we've been too long already. It's all your
fault, Crawford; you would stop to hear that fruit man talk. I told you
you mustn't.”
The “fruit man” was Mr. Gaius Small, and, although he stammered,
he loved the sound of his own voice. The demand for a dozen oranges
furnished Gaius with subject sufficient for a lengthy monologue--“forty
drawls and ten stutters to every orange,” quoting Captain Shad again.
“I told you you mustn't get him started,” went on Miss Keith, gushingly.
“He'll talk forever if he has a chance. But you would do it. Asking him
if he kept pomegranates and bread-fruit! The idea! I'm sure he doesn't
know what a pomegranate is. You were SO solemn and he was SO ridiculous!
I thought I should DIE. You really are the drollest person, Crawford
Smith! I don't know what I shall do with you.”
It was evident that her opinion of young Smith was not different from
that of other young ladies of her age. Also that Crawford himself was
not entirely unconscious of that opinion. At eighteen, to be set upon
a pedestal and worshiped, to have one's feeblest joke hailed as a
masterpiece of wit, is dangerous for the idol; the effort of sustaining
the elevated position entails the risk of a fall. Crawford was but
eighteen and a good fellow, but he had been worshiped a good deal. He
was quite as sensible as other young chaps of his age, which statement
means exactly that and no more.
“Well,” he said, with a complacent grin, “we learned how to pronounce
'pomegranate' at any rate. You begin with a pup-pup-pup, as if you were
calling a dog, and you finish with a grunt like a pig. I wish I had
asked him for a persimmon; then he'd have made a noise like a cat.”
Miss Keith, when she recovered from her spasm of merriment, declared her
companion “perfectly killing.”
“But we must hurry,” she said. “We really must Crawford, you buy the
things. I should think of that fruit man and laugh all the time, I know
I should.”
She remained by the door and the young gentleman strolled to the
counter. He cast an amused glance about the store; its display of stock
was, thanks to Mary-'Gusta's recent efforts at tidiness, not quite the
conglomerate mass it had been when the partners were solely responsible,
but the variety was still strikingly obvious.
“Humph!” observed Crawford; “I've forgotten what we came to buy, but I'm
sure it is here, whatever it is. Some emporium, this! Introduce me to
the proprietor, will you, Edna?”
Edna giggled.
“She isn't the proprietor,” she said. “She is just the clerk, that's
all. Her name is--I've forgotten your name, dear. What is it?”
“Mary Lathrop,” replied Mary-'Gusta, shortly. She objected to being
addressed as “dear” and she strongly objected to the patronizing tone in
which it was uttered. Edna Keith was older than she, but not old enough
to patronize.
“Oh, yes, so it is,” said the young lady. “But that isn't what everyone
calls you. They call you something else--something funny--Oh, I know!
Mary-'Gusta, that's it. I knew it was funny. Mary-'Gusta, this is Mr.
Smith. He wants to buy some things. And he's in a GREAT hurry.”
“Charmed, Mary-'Gusta,” said Mr. Smith. Mary-'Gusta did not appear
charmed. She asked him what he wanted.
“Search ME,” said the young gentleman, cheerfully. “There was a list,
wasn't there, Edna? You have it, I think.”
Edna produced the list, scrawled in pencil on the back of an envelope.
Crawford looked it over.
“Sam's writing isn't exactly print,” he observed, “but I can guess at
it. Let's see--a pound of butter. Where's the butter department of this
Bon Marche, Edna?”
Edna, after another convulsion, declared she didn't know.
“No doubt Miss--er--Mary Jane knows,” went on her companion. “Why,
yes, of course she does. Right there, behind the oilskin jacket. Remove
jacket, open door--behold, the icebox and the butter. Neat, compact, and
convenient. One pound only, Elizabeth Eliza. Thank you.”
“Her name isn't Elizabeth Eliza,” giggled Miss Keith. “Isn't he awful,
Mary-'Gusta! You mustn't mind him.”
“I don't,” said Mary-'Gusta, promptly. “What else do you want?”
Crawford consulted the list. “The next item,” he said, “appears to be
a--er--certain kind of ham. I blush to mention it, but I must. It is
deviled ham. Have you that kind of ham, Mary-'Gusta?”
Mary-'Gusta took the can of deviled ham from the shelf. Crawford shook
his head.
“To think that one so young should be so familiar with ham of that
kind!” he said. “She didn't speak its name, though. Suppose I had asked
you what kind of ham you had, Miss--er--'Gusta how would you have got
around it?”
Mary-'Gusta did not answer. She was very angry, but she was determined
that her tormentor should not know it.
“A young lady of few words,” commented Mr. Smith. “Next item appears to
be six boxes of marshmallows. Where is the marshmallow department, Mary
Jane?”
Mary-'Gusta hesitated. The tin boxes of marshmallows were on the
shelf behind the counter under the candy case. But there was a fresh
assortment in an unopened packing box in the back room, a box which had
just come from the wholesale confectioner's in Boston. Her Uncle Zoeth
had expressed a fear that those beneath the counter were rather stale.
Miss Keith fidgeted. “Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “This is SO slow. I know
Sam and the rest won't wait for us at the clam-man's much longer.”
Her companion whistled. “Is the word 'hurry' in the South Harniss
dictionary, Edna?” he inquired. “How about it, Mary Jane?”
Mary-'Gusta was determined not to hurry. This superior young man wished
her to do so and that was reason sufficient for delay.
Young Smith sighed resignedly. “Edna,” he said, “suppose we sit down.
The word is NOT in the dictionary.”
There was but one chair, except those behind the counters, in the store.
Miss Keith took that with an exclamation of impatience. Crawford Smith,
whistling a mournful dirge, sauntered to the end of the counter and sat
down upon a nail keg.
Mary-'Gusta also uttered an exclamation. It is well to look before one
leaps, also, occasionally, before one sits. That keg had, spread across
its top, a sheet of the fresh and very sticky fly paper. Before she
could have protested, even if she had wished to do so, the young
gentleman's spotless white flannels and the fly paper came in contact,
close and clinging contact.
Mary-'Gusta put a hand to her mouth. Crawford looked at her, caught the
direction of her look, and looked in that direction himself. His whistle
stopped in the middle of a note and his face immediately became a match
for his socks and tie, a beautiful rich crimson, the chosen color of his
University.
Miss Keith, from her seat by the door, could not see beyond the end of
the counter. Consequently she was unaware of the mishap to the white
flannels. But Mary-'Gusta saw and knew; also she could see that Mr.
Smith knew.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Edna, impatiently. “We are dreadfully late now.
We'll never get there on time. Sam won't wait for us; I know he won't.
Where are those marshmallows? Can't you please hurry, Mary-'Gusta?”
Mary-'Gusta's eyes were sparkling. Her manner was provokingly
deliberate. She took a box of marshmallows from beneath the counter.
“There are some here,” she said, “but I'm afraid they aren't very fresh.
The fresh ones, those that have just come, are in a box in the back
room. That box hasn't been opened yet. If you can wait I'll open it for
you.”
Young Smith said nothing. Miss Keith, however, spoke her mind.
“Of course we can't wait,” she declared. “I'm sure these will do. They
will do, won't they, Crawford?”
And still Crawford remained silent. Mary-'Gusta, who was enjoying this
portion of the interview as much as she had disliked its beginning,
offered a suggestion.
“If you will just come here and look at these,” she said, with
mischievous gravity, addressing the young gentleman on the nail keg,
“perhaps you can tell whether they're fresh enough.”
The young gentleman did not rise. His face retained its brilliant color
and his lips moved, but his answer was not audible. At his age the dread
of appearing ridiculous, especially in the presence of a youthful and
charming female, is above all others hateful. And Edna Keith was not the
only girl in the picnic party; there were others. She would be certain
to tell them. Crawford Smith foresaw a horrible day, a day of disgrace
and humiliation, one in which he was destined to furnish amusement
without sharing the fun. And Sam Keith, who had remarked upon the
splendor of his friend's attire, would gloat--not only here in South
Harniss, but elsewhere--in Cambridge, for instance. An older man would
have risen, laughed whether he felt like laughing or not--and have
expressed his opinion of fly paper. Crawford was not yet a man; he was
in the transition stage, a boy fondly hoping that other people might
think him a man. So he sat still until it was too late to rise, and then
wished he had risen in the first place.
“My goodness!” exclaimed the fidgety Miss Keith, “why don't you look at
them, Crawford? What are you waiting for?”
Mary-'Gusta, the box of marshmallows in her hand, regarded the boy on
the nail keg. His eyes met hers and in them was a look of such utter
misery that the girl relented. Her feeling of satisfied resentment
changed to one almost of pity. She had been made to feel ridiculous
herself at various times in her short life and she remembered the
sensation. Mary-'Gusta, as has been mentioned before in this history,
was old for her years.
She considered a moment. Then she thrust the box beneath the counter.
“I guess I'd better not sell you those, anyway,” she said with decision.
“Uncle Zoeth said they weren't fresh. I'll open the case in the back
room.”
Edna stamped her foot.
“We can't wait for that,” she declared. “We must go without them,
I suppose. Oh, dear! And they depended on us to get them. It's so
provoking. Now we can't have any toast at all and it would have been
such fun.”
Mary-'Gusta glanced once more at the occupant of the keg.
“I was thinking,” she said, slowly, “that you needn't both wait unless
you wanted to. Perhaps Miss Keith might go on and tell the others
and--er--Mr. Smith could stay here until I opened the box. Then he could
meet you at the boat.”
Edna hesitated. “Shall I, Crawford?” she asked.
Her companion did not hesitate. “I think perhaps you'd better, Edna,” he
said. “I--I guess I won't be long.”
Miss Keith hurried out. Mary-'Gusta turned her attention to the
remaining visitor.
“You can get up now,” she said. “Some of it will tear off, anyway,
and if you hurry you will have time to run home and change your--your
clothes.”
Crawford was evidently much surprised, also his embarrassment was not
lessened; but he rose.
“Then--then you knew?” he stammered.
“Of course I knew. I saw you sit down on it, didn't I? If I'd known what
you were going to do I'd have told you to look out. But you did it so
quick I couldn't. Now tear off as much as you can.”
The young gentleman obeyed orders. “Does it show much?” he queried. “I
can't see. Is there much left?”
Mary-'Gusta smiled. His contortions were as violent as they were vain.
“There's enough,” she said simply. “Here are the things you bought. Now
go out of the back door and cut across the fields. It's the shortest way
home.”
Mr. Smith took his various parcels, including the six boxes of
marshmallows which Mary-'Gusta produced from beneath the counter. “I
thought you said these were stale,” he observed, wonderingly.
“I said they weren't real fresh, but they're fresh enough for a toast.
I said that so that the Keith girl wouldn't wait. I didn't think you
wanted her to.”
“You bet your life I didn't! So that's why you said you would have to
open the other box? Just--just to help me out?”
“Yes. Now don't stop any longer. You'll have to run, you know. Go out
the back way.”
Crawford started for the door of the back room, but at that door he
paused.
“Say,” he said, feelingly, “this is mighty white of you, do you know it?
And after the way I guyed you when I first came in! I guess I was rather
fresh, wasn't I?”
“Yes, you were.”
“Yes, yes, I guess I was. I thought you were just a country kid, you
know, and I--say, by George, you WERE white. If I'd been you I'd have
got square. You had the chance; 'twould have served me right for playing
the smart Aleck. I beg your pardon. You're all RIGHT! And I'm awfully
sorry I was such a chump.”
It was a straightforward, honest apology and confession of fault.
Mary-'Gusta was pleased, but she did not show it. He had referred to her
as a kid and she did not like that.
“If you don't hurry--yes, and run like everything,” she said, “you won't
have time to get home and change and meet the others at the boat. And
somebody else will see you, too. You'd better go.”
The young man went without further delay. Mary-'Gusta watching from the
back door saw him racing across the fields in the direction of the Keith
cottage. When her uncles returned she said nothing of the occurrence.
She considered it funny, but she knew Crawford Smith did not, and she
was sure he would prefer to have the secret kept.
The following afternoon the partners of Hamilton and Company entertained
a caller at the store. That evening Shadrach spoke of the call to
Mary-'Gusta.
“That young Smith feller that's been visitin' the Keiths was in today,”
said the Captain. “Didn't want to buy nothin'; said he just happened
in, that's all. Asked where you was, he did. I didn't know he knew you,
Mary-'Gusta.”
Mary-'Gusta, who was busy clearing the supper table, answered without
looking round. “He and Edna Keith bought some things at the store
yesterday,” she said.
“Yes, so he said. He said tell you everything was all right and he had
a fine time at the picnic. Seemed to cal'late you was a pretty bright
girl. We knew that afore, of course, but it was nice of him to say so.
He's leavin' on tomorrow mornin's train. Goin' way out West, he is, to
Nevada; that's where he and his dad live. His ma's dead, so he told us.
Must be tough to live so fur off from salt water: I couldn't stand it,
I know that. Funny thing about that young feller, too; his face looked
sort of familiar to me and Zoeth. Seemed as if he looked like somebody
we knew, but of course we didn't know any of his folks; we don't know
any Smiths from way off there.”
The subject was dropped for the time, but two days later the expressman
brought a package to the house. The package was addressed to Miss
Mary Augusta Lathrop and contained a five-pound basket of expensive
chocolates and bonbons. There was a note with it which read as follows:
Hope you'll like these. They are fresh, at least Huyler's people swear
they are, but I don't believe they are as good as those marshmallows.
And I KNOW they are not as fresh as a certain person was at a certain
time. Please eat them and forget the other freshness.
C. S.
You were a perfect little brick not to tell.
Mary-'Gusta was obliged to tell then, but she made her uncles and Isaiah
promise not to do so. She, with the able assistance of the other members
of the household, ate the contents of the basket in due time. The basket
itself was taken to the parlor, where it was given a place beside the
other curiosities. As for the note, that disappeared. And yet, if one
had investigated the contents of the small drawer of Mary-'Gusta's
bureau, where she kept her most intimate treasures, the mystery of its
disappearance might have been solved.
It was the only epistle of its kind the girl had yet received; and,
after all, good-looking young college men are what they are. And
Mary-'Gusta, in spite of her queerness, was feminine--and human.