Jap looked up as a shadow fell across the door of the composing room.
"Well," he queried quizzically, "what about it?"
"Well," Bill repeated, drawing the girl into the room after him,
"Mabelle thinks that the cottage needs a bathroom and about a wagon
load of plumbing, besides paint and paper. Otherwise, it's all right."
Mabelle slipped past him and approached the case. Standing on tiptoe
beside the high stool, she laid a hand coaxingly on the strong, angular
shoulder.
"Now, Jappie, boy, iron out that worry-frown. I am going to do the
fixing up myself. It shan't cost you a cent."
"No!" Jap exploded.
"Now, dear boy, forget your pride. I have lots and lots of money, and
this is to be my home."
"The firm is not insolvent," suggested Bill.
"It isn't a matter for the firm," Jap said gravely. "The cottage
belongs to me, and we can't allow our finances to get mixed. I'm
willing to have you put in all the repairs that I can afford."
His mind reverted to Flossy, happy and clean without a bathroom.
"Let me take a mortgage on the property for whatever the work costs,"
Mabelle pleaded, her lips puckering irresistibly.
Jap descended from the stool and caught her in his arms. Somehow she
had, all at once, become his baby sister again. The episode of the
straw stack loomed before him. She had puckered her lips just like
that when she fled to him for protection. With little coquettish
touches, she slipped one arm around his neck, while she smoothed his
red locks gently. Bill, looking on, was overcome by an unaccountable
restlessness.
"What a pity Isabel isn't home!" he blurted. And Bill never knew why
he had recourse to Isabel at that moment. The observation bore the
desired fruit. Mabelle freed herself from her brother's embrace, with
the pained exclamation:
"Isabel not at home! Oh, Jappie, I have just been waiting for you to
tell me about her. Ever since we read in the paper--and the one little
reference to her in your letter to Fanny----"
She stopped, her blue eyes filling with tears.
"They went away just after the election was over," Bill explained. "Iz
wouldn't leave Jap while the thing was in doubt, not even for her
mother."
"I don't think that's quite square," Jap interposed. "Mrs. Granger
didn't want to go at all, and only consented when Dr. Hall told her how
ill Isabel was. The rest of us knew that Mrs. Granger couldn't live
through another winter here; but he had to make Isabel's poor health
the pretext when he sent them to Florida for the cold weather."
"Is she--is she seriously sick?" Mabelle asked tremulously. "The
mother, I mean."
"It's a desperate hope, a kind of last resort," Bill vouchsafed. "I
heard Doc Hall talking to Tom Granger in the bank, the morning before
they left. He said he didn't want to scare him, but he wanted to
prepare him for the worst, I thought."
"I'm sure if Isabel were at home, she'd insist on your coming right to
her," Jap said slowly. "Bill and I have been bunking together up
there," he jerked his thumb in the direction of the ceiling. "We have
a bedroom and a little combination living-room, dressing-room and
library. The library's Bill's part. We take our meals at the hotel,
down in the next block. The hotel isn't bad for a town of this size."
"Oh, I've already met the hotel," Mabelle laughed. "Bill--Mr. Bowers
took me there to dinner this evening while we were waiting for you to
come home."
"Aw, chuck that 'Mr. Bowers,'" Bill interrupted. "I'm plain Bill to
everybody in this town, and I guess Jap's sister can call me that."
"The hotel, as I was saying," Jap resumed, "will have to take care of
you for the present till you can get a bathroom attachment for the
cottage. It'll probably be lonely for you, just at first."
"I'll see to it that Mabelle meets all the best people in town," Bill
offered.
The temporary housing problem settled, they returned to the discussion
of repairs necessary and repairs superfluous. After two hours of
parley, Jap consented to let his energetic sister work her will on
Flossy's cottage. It was after midnight when the girl had been
established in her room at the hotel, and Jap and Bill tumbled into
bed. The shank of that night had wrought miracles for unsuspecting
Bloomtown. A vision of blue eyes, red lips and golden tresses kept
floating through Bill's dreams, a vision that bore not the least
resemblance to Rosy Raymond. Meanwhile Jap stalked through one dream
controversy after another with plumbers, painters and the other
defilers of Flossy's home.
By noon on Monday Mabelle had Bloomtown by the ears, and by the end of
the week it was all up with Bill. Jap had to hire a boy to help get
out the _Herald_. It consumed all of Bill's time threatening and
cajoling merchants into the prompt delivery of supplies, and seeing to
it that the workmen were on the job when Mabelle arrived at the cottage
in the morning. Bloomtown carpenters, paper hangers and plumbers
usually took their own sweet time. They had a great awakening when
Mabelle employed them. With Bill to pour oil on the troubled waters,
strikes were narrowly averted.
One morning, soon after the radiant one arrived, Kelly Jones wandered
into the office, where a lively dispute with the boss plumber was under
way. In ten minutes, Kelly had fallen a victim to the little tyrant.
"'Tain't no use talkin' about her gittin' along without a cellar," he
confided to Jap. "I'll dig it myself, and that'll save all this row
about how the pipes is got to run. I ain't got nothin' much to do, now
the corn's all in. And it's lucky we ain't had a hard freeze. The
ground's fine for diggin'," and the following morning he was on the job.
For two months Bloomtown was demoralized. A cellar made possible a
furnace, and the elimination of stoves called for a fireplace in the
living-room, a fireplace framed in by soft blue and yellow tiles. One
by one Mabelle added her receipted bills to the packet of documents
that would go into the making of that mortgage on Jap's property. One
by one the housewives of Bloomtown demanded of their paralyzed husbands
bathrooms, cellars, furnaces, tiled fireplaces.
At last the agony was over. A load of furniture had arrived from the
city, and Bill, as usual, left his stickful of type and hastened to
superintend the transfer of it from the freight depot to the cottage.
The evening shadows were lengthening in the office when he returned.
Jap had gone up-stairs to get out a rush order on the job press, and
there was a little commotion on the stairway just before Bill presented
himself, his brown eyes full of trouble. Jap looked at him, and his
heart sank. Had it come to this? Mabelle, in spite of her scanty
years, was older than Bill. She must have known. The whole town knew.
"For goodness' sake, Bill, don't pi this galley," he shouted, bending
over the imposing stone. "Look where you're going. I wish that
Mabelle would wake to the fact that you have a half-hearted interest in
this office. She thinks you have nothing to do but keep tagging on her
errands."
The office cat rubbed her sleek side against Bill's leg.
"Get out and let me alone!" he screamed, jumping with nervous
irritation.
"Don't do that, Bill," Jap said firmly. "What's the matter with you,
anyway? You are as pernickety as a setting hen, as Kelly said
yesterday. When even Kelly begins to notice your aberrations it's time
for you to get a wake-up. Are you sick? Have things gone wrong?"
Bill walked over to the window and ran his thumb down the pane of glass
absently.
"Jap, have you that mortgage handy--all that business that Mabelle gave
you?"
Jap went to the safe and took out the packet of papers.
"Why?" he asked, as he glanced through the long list of items. "Has my
sister thought of anything else she absolutely needs? In another week,
I'll owe her more than the cottage is worth."
Bill took the documents gingerly. His mobile face flamed.
"I--I--want to take up the deeds," he stammered.
Jap whirled to face him.
"You see," stuttered Bill, "I--that is, we--Mabelle and I, we----"
Jap sprang forward, lithe as a panther, and caught Bill by the arm.
Drawing him to the light, he looked full in the embarrassed face.
"Where is she?" he shouted. "Where is that sister of mine? Where is
she hiding?"
The girl came from the dark hall, her eyes defiant, her head set with
charming insolence on one side. Jap struggled with his self-possession
an instant. Then a great, gurgling laugh shook his shoulders as he
gathered the pair into his long arms.
"Golly Haggins!" the expletive of his boyhood leaped to his lips, "I'm
glad the agony is over. Now perhaps we will be able to get the
_Herald_ to our subscribers on time."