These were busy days in the once quiet and sleepy office of the Santa
Paloma Morning Mail. A wave of energy and vigor swept over the place,
affecting everybody from the fat, spoiled office cat, who found himself
pushed out of chairs, and bounced off of folded coats with small
courtesy, to the new editor-manager and the lady whose timely
investment had brought this pleasant change about. Old Kelly, the
proof-reader, night clerk, Associated Press manager, and assistant
editor, shouted and swore with a vim unknown of late years; Miss
Watson, who "covered" social events, clubs, public dinners, "dramatic,"
and "hotels," cleaned out her desk, and took her fancy-work home, and
"Fergy," a freckled youth who delighted in calling himself a "cub,"
although he did little more than run errands and carry copy to the
press-room, might even be seen batting madly at an unused typewriter
when actual duties failed, so inspiring was the new atmosphere.
Mrs. Burgoyne had a desk and a corner of her own, where her trim figure
might be seen daily for an hour or two, from ten o'clock until the
small girls came in to pick her up on their way home from school for
luncheon. Barry found her brimming with ideas. She instituted the
"Women's Page," the old familiar page of answered questions, and
formulas for ginger-bread, and brief romances, and scraps of poetry,
and she offered through its columns a weekly cash prize for
contributions on household topics. An exquisite doll appeared in the
window of the Mail office, a doll with a flower-wreathed hat, and a
ruffled dress, and a little parasol to match the dress, and loitering
little girls, drawn from all over the village to study this dream of
beauty, learned that they had only to enter a loaf of bread of their
own making in the Mail contest, to stand a chance of carrying the
little lady home. Beside the doll stood a rifle, no toy, but a genuine
twenty-two Marlin, for the boy whose plans for a vegetable garden
seemed the best and most practical, Mrs. Burgoyne herself talked to the
children when they came shyly in to investigate. "She seems to want to
know every child in the county, the darling!" said Miss Watson to Fergy.
The Valentines, father and son, came into the Mail office one warm June
morning, to find the editor of the "Women's Page" busy at her desk,
with the sunlight lying in a bright bar across her uncovered hair, and
a vista of waving green boughs showing through the open window behind
her.
"What are you two doing here at this hour?" said Sidney, laying down
her pen and leaning back in her chair as if glad of a moment's rest.
"Why, Billy!" she added in admiring tones, "let me see you! How very,
VERY nice you look!"
For the little fellow was dressed in a new sailor suit that was a full
size too large for him, his wild mop had been cut far too close, and a
large new hat and new shoes were much in evidence.
"D'you think he looks all right?" said Barry with an anxious
wistfulness that went straight to her heart. "He looks better, doesn't
he? I've been fixing him up."
"And free sailor waists, and stockings, and nighties," supplemented
Billy, also anxious for her approval.
"He looks lovely!" said Sidney, enthusiastically, even while she was
mentally raising the collar of his waist, and taking an inch or two off
the trousers. She lifted the child up to sit on his father's desk, and
kissed the top of his little cropped head.
"We may not express ourselves very fluently," said Barry, who was
seated in his own revolving chair and busily opening and shutting the
drawers of his desk, "but we appreciate the interest beautiful ladies
take in our manners and morals, and the new tooth-brushes they buy us--"
"My dear!" protested Mrs. Burgoyne, between laughter and tears, "Ellen
used his old one up, cleaning out their paint-boxes!" And she put her
warm hand on his shoulder, and said, "Don't be a goose, Barry!" as
unselfconsciously as a sister might. "Where are you two boys going,
Billy?" she asked, going back to her own desk.
"'Cool," Billy said.
"He's going over to the kindergarten. I've got some work I ought to
finish here," Barry supplemented. "I'll take you across the street,
Infant, I'll be right back, Sidney."
"But, Barry, why are you working now?" asked the lady a few minutes
later when he took his place at his desk.
"Oh, don't you worry," he answered, smiling; "I love it. The thought of
old Rogers' face when he opens his paper every morning does me good,
I'm writing this appeal for the new reservoir now, and I've got to play
up the Flower Festival."
"I'm not interested in the Flower Festival," said Mrs. Burgoyne
good-naturedly, "and the minute it's over I'm going to start a crusade
for a girls' clubhouse in Old Paloma. Conditions over there for the
girls are something hideous. But I suppose we'll have to go on with the
Festival for the present. It's a great occasion, I suppose?"
"Oh, tremendous! The Governor's coming, and thousands of visitors
always pour into town. We'll have nearly a hundred carriages in the
parade, simply covered with flowers, you know. It's lovely! You wait
until things get fairly started!"
"That'll be Fourth of July," Sidney said thoughtfully, turning back to
her exchanges, "I'll begin my clubhouse crusade on the fifth!" she
added firmly.
For a long time there was silence in the office, except for the
rustling of paper and the scratch of pens. From the sunny world
out-of-doors came a pleasant blending of many noises, passing wagons,
the low talk of chickens, the slamming of gates, and now and then the
not unmusical note of a fish-horn. Footsteps and laughing voices went
by, and died into silence. The clock from Town Hall Square struck
eleven slowly.
"This is darned pleasant," said Barry presently, over his work.
"Isn't it?" said the editor of the "Women's Page," and again there was
silence.
After a while Barry said "Finished!" with a great breath, and, leaning
back in his chair, wheeled about to find the lady quietly watching him.
"Barry, are you working too hard?" said she, quite unembarrassed.
"Am I? Lord, not I wish the days were twice as long. I"--Barry rumpled
his thick hair with a gesture that was familiar to Sidney now--"I guess
work agrees with me. By George, I hate to eat, and I hate to sleep; I
want to be down here all the time, or else rustling up subscriptions
and 'ads.',"
"And I thought you were lazy," said Sidney, finding herself, for the
first time in their friendship, curiously inclined to keep the
conversation personal, this warm June morning. It was a thing extremely
difficult to do, with Barry. "You certainly gave me that impression,"
she said.
"Yes; but that was two months ago," said Barry, off guard. A second
later he changed the topic abruptly by asking, "Did your roses come?"
"All of them," answered Sidney pleasantly. And vaguely conscious of
mischief in the air, but led on by some inexplicable whim, she pursued,
"Do you mean that it makes such a difference to you, Rogers being gone?"
Barry trimmed the four sides of a clipping with four clips of his
shears.
"Exactly," said he briefly. He banged a drawer shut, closed a book and
laid it aside, and stuck the brush into his glue-pot. "Getting enough
of dinner parties?" he asked then, cheerfully.
"Too much," said Sidney, wondering why she felt like a reprimanded
child. "And that reminds me: I am giving two dinners for the Von
Praags, you know. I can't manage everybody at once; I hate more than
ten people at a dinner. And you are asked to the first."
"I don't go much to dinners," Barry said.
"I know you don't; but I want you to come to this one," said Sidney.
"You'll love old Mr. von Praag. And Richard, the son, is a dear! I
really want you."
"He's an artist, too, isn't he?" said Barry without enthusiasm.
"Who, Richard?" she asked, something in his manner putting her a little
at a loss. "Yes; and he's very clever, and so nice! He's like a brother
to me."
Barry did not answer, but after a moment he said, scowling a little,
and not looking up:
"A fellow like that has pretty smooth sailing. Rich, the son of a big
man, traveling all he wants to, studio in New York, clubs--"
"Oh, Richard has his troubles," Sidney said. "His wife is very
delicate, and they lost their little girl... Are you angry with me
about anything, Barry?" she broke off, puzzled and distressed, for this
unresponsive almost sullen manner was unlike anything she had ever seen
in him.
But a moment later he turned toward her with his familiar sunny smile.
"Why didn't you say so before?" he said sheepishly.
"Say--?" she echoed bewilderedly. Then, with a sudden rush of
enlightenment, "Why, Barry, you're not JEALOUS?"
A second later she would have given much to have the words unsaid. They
faced each other in silence, the color mounting steadily in Sidney's
face.
"I didn't mean of ME," she stammered uncomfortably; "I meant of
everything. I thought--but it was a silly thing to say. It sounded--I
didn't think--"
"I don't know why you shouldn't have thought it, since I was fool
enough to show it," said Barry after a moment, coming over to her desk
and facing her squarely. Sidney stood up, opposite him, her heart
beating wildly. "And I don't know why I shouldn't be jealous," he went
on steadily, "at the idea that some old friend might come in here and
take you away from Santa Paloma. You asked me if it was old Rogers'
going that made a difference to me--"
"I know," interrupted Sidney, scarlet-cheeked. "PLEASE"--
"But you know better than that," Barry went on, his voice rising a
little. "You know what you have done for me. If ever I try to speak of
it, you say, as you said about the kid just now, 'My dear boy, I like
to do it.' But I'm going to say what I mean now, once and for all. You
loaned me money, and it was through your lending it that I got credit
to borrow more; you gave me a chance to be my own master; you showed
you had faith in me; you reminded me of the ambition I had as a kid,
before Hetty and all that trouble had crushed it out of me; you came
down here to the office and talked and planned, and took it for granted
that I was going to pull myself together and stop idling, and kicking,
and fooling away my time; and all through these six weeks of rough
sailing, you've let me go up there to the Hall and tell you
everything--and then you wonder if I could ever be jealous!" His tone,
which had risen almost to violence, fell suddenly. He went back to his
desk and began to straighten the papers there, not seeing what he did.
"I never can say anything more to you, Sidney, I've said too much now,"
he said a little huskily; "but I'm glad to have you know how I feel."
Sidney stood quite still, her breath coming and going quickly. She was
fundamentally too honest a woman to meet the situation with one of the
hundred insincerities that suggested themselves to her. She knew she
was to blame, and she longed to undo the mischief, and put their
friendship back where it had been only an hour ago. But the right words
did not suggest themselves, and she could only stand silently watching
him. Barry had opened a book, and, holding it in both hands, was
apparently absorbed in its contents.
Neither had spoken or moved, and Sidney was meditating a sudden,
wordless departure, when Ellen Burgoyne burst noisily into the room.
Ellen was a square, splendid child, always conversationally inclined,
and never at a loss for a subject.
"You look as if you wanted to cry, Mother," said she. "Perhaps you
didn't hear the whistle; school's out. We've been waiting ever so long.
Mother, I know you said you hoped Heaven would not send any more dogs
our way for a long while, but Jo and Jeanette and I found one by the
school fence. Mother, you will say it has the most pathetic face you
ever saw when you see it. Its ear was bloody, and it licked Jo's hand
so GENTLY, and it's such a lit-tul dog! Jo has it wrapped up in her
coat. Mother, may we have it? Please, PLEASE--"
Barry wheeled about with his hearty laugh, and Mrs. Burgoyne, laughing
too, stopped the eager little mouth with a kiss.
"It sounds as if we must certainly have him, Baby!" said she.