MARGARET
Barbara Blair Wente in the Vine Haven Seminary looked up from the
cosy window seat where she was comfortably curled, studying French
verbs, when she heard the door open. It was Margaret Selover, her
room-mate, who entered.
“Megsy,” Babs exclaimed with real concern as she sprang to her feet
and approached her friend with hands outstretched, “what has
happened, dear? Are the algebra reports in and didn’t you pass, or,
is it something else?”
The newcomer looked at Barbara with eyes tear-brimmed. She tried to
speak but her lips quivered; then, flinging herself down upon the
couch, she sobbed as though her heart would break.
Babs, deeply concerned, knelt by the side of her room-mate, and
tenderly smoothing the gold-brown curls, she pleaded. “Tell me,
Megsy darling, can’t I help?”
Impulsively Margaret sat up, and, putting her arms about her friend
she sobbed. “Oh Babs, I can’t do it! I won’t do it! I did think that
my dad loved me too much to punish me so.”
“Can’t, won’t do what?” Barbara sat on the couch and drew her
room-mate comfortingly close. “Megsy, please begin at the
beginning.”
Margaret put her hand in a pocket of her rose-colored sweater-coat
and drew out a crumpled letter.
“It’s from some-one way out on that terrible Arizona desert,” she
said, “and it informs me that my father appointed a Mr. Davis as my
guardian and that the elderly gentleman, having given the matter due
thought, believes that it is time for me to come to his home and
take the place that my father wished me to occupy, that of a
rancher’s adopted daughter.”
Barbara gazed at her friend, almost unable to comprehend. “Megsy,
does this mean that you and I are to be parted? That you are to
leave Vine Haven Seminary forever?”
For a brief moment Margaret sat as though stunned, but her
room-mate’s words roused her to action. Springing up in a sudden
tempest of anger, she tore across the room, threw open the desk and
began to write rapidly.
“There!” she exclaimed a few moments later. “I have written my
answer.”
“Read it,” Barbara begged, and in a hard cold voice, very unlike her
own, that was merry and musical, Margaret read:
“My Dear Mr. Davis:—
“You undoubtedly have written with the kindest of motives, but the
picture you present is not in the least attractive to me. A ranch
house on a desolate desert twenty miles from town is not a home
which I wish to enter.
“It is better for me to be honest and tell you at once that I do not
care to be your adopted daughter. I have a sufficient income on
which to live and I shall remain at Vine Haven Seminary until I have
graduated. Soon after that I will be eighteen and you will no longer
be responsible for my actions.”
Barbara listened and watched, puzzled indeed at this new Margaret.
“Dear,” she said when her friend paused, evidently expecting
comment, “it is very unlike you to hurt anyone. Couldn’t you add a
little something that would soften the sting?”
With a shrug Margaret turned back to the desk and after a thoughtful
moment, she again wrote a few lines. Then in a voice more like her
own, she read:—“Since you were a close friend of my father, I
regret that I must make a decision that may seem defiant, but surely
you would not wish to have in your home a rebellious daughter and
that is what I would be.
“Sincerely yours,
“Margaret Selover.”
Without waiting for further comment, the letter was sealed and
stamped.
“I hope you are doing right, dear,” Barbara said; then, almost
tearfully: “If you do go so far away, Vine Haven will be more
desolate to me than the desert.”
“I’m not going!” Margaret remarked conclusively, then, springing up,
she added. “Three bells! Time for French class and I haven’t even
looked at those verbs.”
Together they left their room and descended the wide flight of
stairs. “I’ll skip ahead and put this letter in the mail pouch,”
Margaret declared; then, somewhat repentantly: “Really, Babs, I am
sorry to hurt the feelings of the old man. Father often told me how
much he admired Mr. Davis who was many years his senior. They owned
some mining property together near Bisbee. In fact, I believe that
my income is derived from that same copper mine even now. Well,
someday soon I’ll send him another and a kindlier letter, but there
isn’t time today, and he will, of course, be watching for an
answer.”
But before the other letter was written, something very unexpected
happened.