THE AMAZING INHERITANCE
THESE YOUNG REBELS
NANCY GOES TO TOWN
REBECCA'S PROMISE
JIMMIE THE SIXTH
WILLIAM AND WILLIAMINA
MARY ROSE OF MIFFLIN
UP THE ROAD WITH SALLIE
THE JAM GIRL
THE AMAZING
INHERITANCE
BY
FRANCES R. STERRETT
AUTHOR OF "THESE YOUNG REBELS,"
"MARY ROSE OF MIFFLIN," "NANCY GOES
TO TOWN," "THE JAM GIRL," ETC.
[Illustration]
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: 1922 :: LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
TO
THE NEW MEMBER OF OUR FAMILY
MIRIAM CONFER MITCHELL
I
Tessie Gilfooly was a queen.
A queen! Just imagine! It was far more unbelievable to Tessie than it
can possibly be to you. She stared at the man who had brought her the
amazing news. A queen!
A minute before and Tessie had been only a big-eyed, dreamy salesgirl in
the hardware department of Waloo's largest department store, the
Evergreen. Mr. Walker, the long, thin head of the department, had just
reprimanded her severely because she had given a customer an aluminum
saucepan when the customer had asked for an aluminum frying-pan.
"You must pay more attention to what customers ask for, Miss Gilfooly,"
scowled Mr. Walker.
"She asked for a saucepan," insisted Tessie stubbornly. Tessie was tired
of being blamed for the mistakes of other people.
"Well, she wanted a frying-pan," Mr. Walker said, and his tone was short
and crisp, like the best pastry. "In the Evergreen, Miss Gilfooly, a
customer is to get what she wants. And the customer is always right! We
have to make that rule so we'll keep our customers. Don't let this
happen again!"
As he walked away two big tears gathered in Miss Gilfooly's blue eyes.
The injustice of the world and especially of long, thin Mr. Walker, who
would stand by an unreasonable customer instead of by a tired salesgirl,
made her sick.
And now she was a queen!
It does sound unbelievable. But after all you need not lift your black
or your brown or your yellow eyebrows and say it is impossible. Far more
impossible stories appear in your newspaper every day. Just this morning
there was a tale of a set of china, one hundred and ten pieces, which
was stolen from a residence on the River Drive and carried across the
Mississippi River into Wisconsin and returned to its owner without one
of the hundred and ten pieces being broken or even nicked. To prove this
surprising story there were statements from Mrs. Joshua Cabot, who had
been robbed, and from Stuttering Jimmie, the robber, who had showed that
he was a quick and expert packer. Without the statement of Mrs. Joshua
Cabot, easily the leader of the Waloo younger matrons, you never would
have believed the tale, but no one could question the word of young Mrs.
Joshua Cabot. Whoever made the phrase that truth is stranger than
fiction knew exactly what he was talking about for nothing could have
been stranger than for a burglar to steal a full set of Wedgewood china
or for Tessie Gilfooly to find herself a queen with a real kingdom and
some thousands of real subjects.
Only that morning Tessie had grumbled and twisted her face into a most
unbecoming scowl because life for her was just a dreary, weary round of
work. She found fault with her oatmeal and skim milk because they were
not strawberries and thick yellow cream and was just as annoying and
disagreeable as a discontented girl of nineteen could possibly be.
"I never have any fun!" she wailed, and her small brother Johnny, who
was eating his oatmeal and skim milk as if they were strawberries and
cream, looked at her in surprise. What was the matter with old Tessie
this morning, anyway? "I never have anything!" went on Tessie
passionately. "It isn't fair for some girls to have so much and for me
to have nothing at all! Look at Ethel Kingley!" she told Granny
fiercely, although she must have known that Granny's eyes, keen as they
were, could never penetrate the hundreds of frame and brick and stucco
houses which separated the shabby little Gilfooly cottage from the big
brick and stucco mansion which housed the Kingleys. "Ethel Kingley has
everything in the world, and I haven't anything at all! It isn't fair!
It isn't fair! Ethel Kingley's shoes cost more than I earn in a week.
She has a new dress every day and I've worn this cheap sateen rag all
spring! Ethel Kingley goes to bridge parties and dances! You can read
about them in the _Gazette_! And I only go to bed! Ethel Kingley's
brother--" The color rushed into her pale face as she spoke of the
lordly Bill Kingley, "is the most wonderful man!" Words failed her as
she thought of Ethel Kingley's wonderful brother.
"I'm a Boy Scout!" interrupted Johnny, eager to remind her that her own
brother, young as he was, was wonderful too.
Tessie sniffed at him and at all Boy Scouts and went on with her
grievances. When a quart measure is full it must overflow if anything
more is poured into it, and Tessie was just full of grievances. "And
Ethel Kingley has heaps of men friends to take her out and give her a
good time!"
"You've got Joe," reminded Granny. "A face is a better guide to what a
man is than clothes, Tessie Gilfooly! You take my word for it. Joe Cary
is one in a thousand. His money's ready the minute it's due, every
Saturday night as regular as the clock." For Joe had occupied the front
room of the shabby little cottage ever since he had returned from
France. "Now look here, my girl!" She regarded Tessie over her
spectacles with kind but firm eyes. "It's plain to be seen that you got
out of the wrong side of bed this morning. You're old enough to know
that there are two kinds of folks in the world, those who have and those
who haven't. The good Lord thought best to put you in with the
'haven'ts' and if he didn't give you the brains to climb up to the
'haves' there isn't any use in complaining and fault-finding to me. Here
you are, young and healthy and with a nice job at the Evergreen----"
"Selling aluminum!" interrupted Tessie passionately.
"Selling aluminum," Granny repeated firmly. "You know very well that
you're a lucky girl to have me and Johnny to look after you and Joe Cary
for a friend to take you to the movies and----"
"One movie in two weeks!" exclaimed Tessie indignantly.
"And one more than you deserve when you act like this! You've done
enough complaining for one morning, my girl. And if you don't want to be
late and have your pay docked you'll take that frown off your face and
put on a smile with your hat and run along. And I'll have some nice
liver and onions for dinner so you'll have something pleasant to look
forward to all day."
A glance at the old clock ticking so patiently on the shelf proved to
Tessie that Granny told the truth. She pushed back her chair and rose to
her feet, a pathetic, shabby little person with her white face in which
the purple shadows made her eyes look big and purple-blue. Her yellow
hair was bunched over her ears in the ugly fashion of the day and was
really responsible for her tirade, for it had proved unmanageable that
morning and almost refused to bunch itself over her little ears. And you
know how irritating it is when your hair is unmanageable.
"Granny," she began, and her lip quivered. She was an honest little
soul, and she could not go away and leave Granny without some word of
apology. "It isn't because I don't appreciate you and all you do for me
but it's--it's--" She stopped and looked at Granny with eyes drowned in
tears.
"I know," exclaimed Granny comfortingly, and she slipped her arm around
the slim figure. "I know! I don't blame you a mite! It isn't fair for
good little things like you to have to go without fun and pretties.
Every girl has a right to be a queen for a while, and it's remembering
the days when she was queening it that help to make the other days
bearable. Yes, my lamb, old Granny understands, and she don't blame you
a mite. But just you wait! The good Lord'll get around to the Gilfoolys
some day, and then see what you'll get. You're a good little girl if you
ain't that wonderful Miss Kingley!" And she hugged the good little girl
and sent her away. "No, it ain't fair," she repeated as she waved her
hand from the door.
"What ain't fair?" asked Johnny, who was eating Tessie's discarded
oatmeal and skim milk.
"Life," Granny told him thoughtfully. "Life never seems fair to young
eyes, Johnny. It's only when you're old and wear glasses that you can
see maybe it isn't as bad as you thought it was."
Life seemed anything but fair to Tessie as she stood among the aluminum,
smarting at the unjustness of Mr. Walker and with her eyes filled with
tears. Before the tears fell on her cheeks she heard a man behind her
black sateen back ask doubtfully:
"I beg your pardon, but can you tell me where I'll find Miss Teresa
Gilfooly?"
Tessie flirted her hand across her eyes and swung around to stare into
the smiling face of a very good-looking young man. She stopped thinking
that the world was unjust and discovered that it was showing a kindly
partiality to one Teresa Gilfooly when such a good-looking young man was
asking for her. What could he want? The only way to hear was to ask.
"I'm Tessie Gilfooly," she said shyly and pinkly, and when Tessie was
pink and shy she was adorable.
The good-looking young man seemed surprised and pleased. Perhaps he had
thought that big fat Mrs. Slawson was Teresa Gilfooly. "No!" he said, as
if he could not believe that she was slim little Tessie. "I've some good
news for you!" And he smiled radiantly. There was some fun in carrying
good news to a pretty girl. And such good news! He gave it to her all
in one piece. He did not believe in breaking the good news into small
portions. "You're a queen!" he exclaimed. "Queen Teresa of the Sunshine
Islands!" And he grinned. It made a pleasant break in the day's work to
tell a big-eyed girl that she was a queen. It turned law into
melodrama--very nice melodrama.
"What--what!" stammered Tessie. She put her hand on the table behind her
for support, and she looked at the messenger suspiciously. Was he making
fun of her? She had studied geography, but she had never heard of any
Sunshine Islands. Have you? No wonder Tessie looked at Gilbert Douglas
with suspicion.
But there was no fun in Bert's face. There was pleasure and importance
and satisfaction and possibly just a wee bit of envy, but there was not
a bit of fun as he went on to explain that the death of Tessie's Uncle
Pete had removed her from the ranks of the proletariat and elevated her
to a throne. Her Uncle Pete had run away to sea when he was sixteen
years old. For several years letters came to Granny with strange stamps
on the upper right-hand corner of the envelopes and then communication
ceased. For twenty-five years there had been no word from Uncle Pete.
And he had been King of the Sunshine Islands! Now he had died and left
his kingdom to the eldest child of his only brother, John Gilfooly. The
oldest child of John Gilfooly was Tessie Gilfooly. A queen! With a
throne and a crown and everything! Tessie's brain reeled. She felt
faint.
"You come over to the office--Marvin, Phelps and Stokes," suggested
Bert, who had come from the office of Marvin, Phelps and Stokes to carry
the good news to Tessie and who had never had an errand he liked any
better. "Mr. Marvin will tell you all about it."
"Oh, I couldn't come now," faltered Tessie, pinching herself to make
sure that she was in the hardware department of the Evergreen and not
dreaming in her bed. "I don't get away until half-past five."
"I guess you could get away all right," laughed Bert. But when Tessie
shook her yellow head and solemnly assured him that Mr. Walker was
awfully strict and never let the girls go a minute before half-past five
he laughed again and said all right. He would tell Mr. Marvin that she
would be over at half-past five. "Queen Teresa," he said in a voice
quite full of admiration and approval, as he went away.
For some time Tessie had been conscious that Mr. Walker had been casting
disapproving glances in her direction. Tessie knew--all the girls in the
Evergreen had been told--that they were not to talk to their gentlemen
friends during working hours. Before nine and after half-past five they
could do as they pleased, but from nine until half-past five they could
only talk to customers. And this man with Tessie Gilfooly had not
bought so much as a dish mop. He had not even asked to see any aluminum.
Mr. Walker knew. It was outrageous!
But before he could swoop down on Tessie and tell her just how
outrageous it was another man approached the table on which aluminum
saucepans were so attractively arranged and behind which Tessie was
standing with a white face and big, unbelieving eyes. If she let go of
the table Tessie knew she would fall right to the floor.
This newcomer was as strange a figure as Mr. Walker had ever seen in the
basement of the Evergreen. He was short and fat and with a skin that was
not brown nor yellow nor red, but an odd blending of the three colors.
He wore a loose blue denim blouse and trousers which flapped about his
bare feet. But it was his head which made Mr. Walker's eyes bulge, for
only in the pages of the _National Geographic Magazine_, which he looked
at every month in the employees' rest-room, had Mr. Walker ever seen
such a head. The coarse black hair was frizzed and stiffened until it
stuck straight out from the scalp and was adorned with shells. The man's
nose was tattooed in red and blue and a string of shells hung around his
neck. Altogether he was the strangest figure Mr. Walker had ever seen in
the department, and he wondered what on earth he would buy. He looked
like a foreigner of some sort. Mr. Walker was taking a course in
business psychology in the Evergreen night school, and he saw the
advantage of the study now as he quickly labeled the stranger a native
of some foreign country.
The native walked up to Tessie and raised his hand authoritatively.
"Miss Teresa Gilfooly?" he said in a lisping voice and with a strange
intonation which made Tessie step back and stare at him.
She nodded. She simply could not speak.
"Queen Teresa!" murmured the native rapturously. He fell on his knees
before Tessie and pressed the hem of her short skirt to his forehead.
"Queen Teresa!" he boomed, and his head touched the floor beside
Tessie's shabby little pumps.
If Tessie was startled you can imagine Mr. Walker's surprise. He started
forward with righteous indignation. He would not have such goings-on in
his department. Not for a minute! But he had to stop and adjust a matter
with a customer, and when at last he reached Tessie the native was
humbly backing away from her into the elevator, and Tessie was staring
after him with a strange look on her face.
"Come, come, Miss Gilfooly!" snapped Mr. Walker. "I can't have this! You
can't have your gentlemen friends down here! I can't have men falling
on their knees before the clerks in my department!"
"What's up, Walker?"
And there stood the hero of Tessie's dreams, young Mr. Bill, the only
son of old Mr. William Kingley, the owner of the Evergreen. Mr. Bill was
learning the business from the ground up and so was in the basement as a
floorwalker. Tessie had never seen a man like Mr. Bill, not even on the
moving-picture screen. She lived in the hope that some day he would
speak to her, would stop and ask, perhaps, how sales were; but never
once had Mr. Bill so much as said good morning or good evening to her.
He had never seemed to see her. And now he was looking--actually
looking--at her! and asking Mr. Walker what was up. It was plain to
everyone in the basement that _something_ was up.
Mr. Bill looked inquiringly from Mr. Walker to Tessie. Mr. Walker's face
was all frowning disapproval, while Tessie's face was all flushed with
unbelieving wonder. Of the two, Tessie's face was by far the more
attractive. Mr. Bill looked at it again.
"Miss Gilfooly, Mr. Bill," began Mr. Walker, sure of his ground, "was
breaking the rules. One of her gentlemen friends was on his knees to her
not five minutes ago in this very department, beside the aluminum
there!" And he pointed out the exact spot to Mr. Bill.
"He said I was a queen," faltered Tessie, eager to explain why the store
rule had been shattered. She could not believe the amazing statement and
so she did not speak firmly, as a queen should speak. She dared to raise
her eyes to the godlike Mr. Bill--at least to Tessie Mr. Bill was
godlike.
"And he was right!" declared Mr. Bill impulsively. Gee! what big blue
eyes the girl had! He had never seen such eyes in the face of any girl,
and he had seen many, many girls. He had never really looked at Tessie
until now. She had been only one of the hundreds of black-gowned figures
which filed into the Evergreen every morning, and filed out of the
Evergreen every night. But now that his attention was focused on Tessie,
he had to see how big and blue her eyes were, how fine her white skin
was, how yellow her hair, and how slim and well poised her little body!
Really, her gentleman friend was right, he thought. She was a queen. He
grinned, although such a shattering of a cherished and important rule
should have been met with a black frown.
"Mr. Bill!" Mr. Walker was shocked. That was no way to reprove a
law-breaking employee.
"I don't mean that kind of a queen," murmured Tessie, tremulously
conscious to her very toes at having Mr. Bill agree that she was a
queen. "But a real queen--of the Sunshine Islands, you know! In the
Pacific Ocean," she added hurriedly, for Mr. Bill had looked at Mr.
Walker with a significance and a regret which were as plain as print.
And she hurriedly told them of Uncle Pete who, unknown to his family,
had reigned over the Sunshine Islands for almost twenty years.
"Well, I'll be darned!" exclaimed Mr. Bill. There was astonishment,
amazement in his voice which made all the customers and all the
salesgirls who heard it turn in his direction, and feel sorry for little
Tessie Gilfooly. It sounded as if Mr. Bill just would not believe the
yellow-haired salesgirl could have committed the awful deed which had
been discovered.
"Upon my word!" stuttered Mr. Walker more elegantly. He did not know how
to treat this situation. There was not a word in all the Evergreen rules
on how to reprimand an employee if she neglected her work when she was
told that she was a queen. Mr. Walker tugged at his mustache and stared
stupidly at the culprit.
"Well, I'll be darned!" cried Mr. Bill again, and he too, stared at
blushing Queen Teresa.
Tessie nodded. "That's the way I felt," she confessed, and again two big
tears gathered in her eyes. Tessie, like long, thin Mr. Walker, felt
quite unequal to the situation.
It was Mr. Bill who took command and showed that he was a true son of
the Evergreen chief. "Come," he said quickly. "We must go and tell
father. Can you believe it? Imagine finding a queen down here in the
basement of the Evergreen! Come along!" And he took Tessie's hand and
led her to the elevator.
Tessie almost swooned. But faint and excited as she was she clung to Mr.
Bill's strong right hand.
"Oh, the poor girl!" murmured the customers, who watched them. "I
suppose she has been impudent or stealing or something. What will they
do to her? Did you say these stewpans were fifty-nine cents?"