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The Bluebird Books
Mary Louise Stands the Test
[Illustration: Josie and Mary Louise.]
MARY LOUISE STANDS THE TEST
by
EDITH VAN DYNE
Author of
“Mary Louise,” “Mary Louise in the Country,” “Mary
Louise Solves a Mystery,” “Mary Louise and the
Liberty Girls,” “Mary Louise Adopts a
Soldier,” “Mary Louise at Dorfield.”
[Illustration]
Frontispiece by Harry W. Armstrong
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago
Copyright 1921
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved
Made in U. S. A.
Mary Louise Stands the Test
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A SMALL CLOUD 7
II AT THE HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY SHOP 19
III JOSIE INTERVENES 31
IV MARY LOUISE--MILLINER 41
V DANNY IS DRIVEN FROM HOME 49
VI THE DOCTOR CALLS 62
VII A WIRELESS MESSAGE 76
VIII THE PASSING OF THE COLONEL 88
IX MARY LOUISE TOUCHES BOTTOM 100
X A CONFERENCE OF FRIENDS 110
XI PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 119
XII MARY LOUISE MOVES 132
XIII JOSIE VISITS CHIEF CHARLEY 141
XIV AN UNKNOWN ITALIAN 148
XV THE TREATING TRYSTERS 158
XVI A TENANT FROM THE WEST 171
XVII A MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE 178
XVIII CLOSED FOR REPAIRS 184
XIX A MIDNIGHT CALLER 193
XX SLATER MAKES AN ARREST 202
XXI FORTUNE SMILES AND FROWNS 214
Mary Louise Stands the Test
CHAPTER I
A SMALL CLOUD
There were persons in Dorfield who said that Mary Louise’s life was
too easy; that Fortune had smiled on her more than any one mortal had
a right to expect. Why should beauty, charm, intelligence, and riches
all belong to one girl? Why should she have an enormously wealthy
grandfather whose one idea was to gratify her every wish, when any
other girl, if she had any grandfather at all, was, perhaps, forced to
support him or, at any rate, never got even a taste of the breast of
the chicken because of the troublesome old gentleman’s predilection for
that portion of the fowl? Why should Mary Louise marry the best looking
and most promising young man who had settled in Dorfield for many a
year? To be sure, when Danny Dexter first came to Dorfield at the close
of the World War, he was not considered so very desirable by the
mothers of the young women of the town. Not one had cast her nets for
him and Mary Louise was considered quite quixotic to have adopted the
returned soldier with his uncertain fortunes and scarred face. It was
looked upon as another proof of Mary Louise’s unfailing luck that she
should have discerned the true worth of young Dexter through his ragged
uniform and unhealed scars.
Those persons who gave voice to such sentiments concerning Mary Louise
were ignorant of the girl’s past history or they surely would have felt
that she had suffered enough as a child and young girl to deserve some
good fortune from the Fate who is supposed to even up things sooner or
later. What that suffering was and the adventures through which the
young girl had finally come victorious, are well known to the true
friends of Mary Louise. We will not dwell upon them but bring our
history down-to-date.
Colonel Hathaway was palpably failing. Anyone could see it with half
an eye, and poor Mary Louise had to shut both eyes to keep from
acknowledging that her old grandfather had lost not only his physical
vigor, but that his mind was growing feeble. His old friend and
lawyer, Peter Conant, who lived next door, had noticed that there was
something queer about the Colonel. He had mentioned it to his wife
Hannah, and Hannah being very deaf, he had been forced to mention it in
such a loud tone that his niece, Irene Macfarlane, who was in the next
room, could not help overhearing the conversation.
“I heard what you said to Aunt Hannah, Uncle Peter,” Irene said,
wheeling herself into the sitting room where her uncle and aunt had
settled themselves for the evening. Irene, Mary Louise’s best friend,
was a lame girl who went everywhere in a rolling chair. “I heard some
of it and I simply had to come and hear more,” she continued, her sweet
face flushing and her clear steady eyes filling with tears. “I have
noticed too that our dear old neighbor is not quite himself and I’ve
been so worried about it.”
“Does Mary Louise notice it?” asked her uncle.
“I don’t know but she must think he talks strangely,” answered Irene
sadly. “Colonel Hathaway has always been so kindly and genial and now
he seems suspicious and a little bitter. He has taken an unaccountable
dislike to Danny lately. He picks on the poor fellow all the time. You
remember he used to think the world and all of Danny even when he was
so down and out that he hired himself to the Colonel as a chauffeur.
Now he is doing splendidly and being advanced right along at the
automobile factory. Laura Hinton says her father thinks he is the most
promising young man he knows--certainly the best one in the factory.”
“Too bad! Too bad!” sighed Uncle Peter. “We must never forget what
our old friend has been, and we must not deal harshly with him in our
hearts for what he is now. A mind diseased! God grant it is merely a
phase and will pass.”
Aunt Hannah had been listening to the above conversation with two ear
trumpets, a method she employed when anything very interesting was
being discussed.
“It may be a blood clot on the brain and he may be as right as a trivet
again,” suggested Aunt Hannah, who always took a cheerful view of life
and even death when the persons for whom she had prognosticated a
perfect cure finally passed away. “I knew a man once--”
But Irene, who had been busily engaged in the next room on some sewing
for the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, could not wait to hear about the man
Aunt Hannah knew. Aunt Hannah always had known some one who had been
miraculously saved from the calamity that was in question and, as her
stories were long and full of detail, her husband and Irene did not
always have time to listen to them. She had a way of removing her
trumpet from her ear and there was no answering her or holding back the
flood of her discourse. Once started, she talked on until she had freed
her mind.
Irene and her Uncle Peter had a tacit agreement that one of them must
always listen to Aunt Hannah’s long reminiscences beginning with “I
knew a man,” or “I knew a woman,” and, since Irene was busy with her
sewing and Peter was merely reading the paper, it was his duty on this
occasion to give ear to his wife’s exhaustive and exhausting account of
a man who had been seemingly dead from a clot on the brain and was in
his coffin and the funeral under way when he sat up and demanded kidney
hash.
“Well I hope Jim Hathaway will demand kidney hash and stop bedeviling
Mary Louise’s Danny,” sighed Mr. Conant. “Poor old Jim! Poor old Jim!”
Mary Louise was very sad over her grandfather’s feeling against
her beloved Danny. The change had come on gradually, so gradually
that Mary Louise could hardly tell when the old man had adopted the
critical attitude he now held. In days gone by, he had looked at his
grandson-in-law with kindly benevolent eyes and had always seemed glad
to see him. He had taken pride in the young man’s power of attracting
friends and keeping them, in his ability in the automobile factory,
and his rapid advancement. Indeed, he had felt that in Mary Louise’s
marrying Danny Dexter he had not lost a daughter but gained a son. Now
that the old gentleman’s mind was failing, he looked upon the young
man’s every word and action with jealous suspicion. In place of the
kind and benevolent glances were sly, shifting eyes that seemed to
be trying to fathom some unbelievable wickedness the young man was
endeavoring to conceal.
Danny himself was the last to realize that he was heartily disliked
by Colonel Hathaway. He was the least suspicious of mortals and not
at all inclined to think anyone was trying to insult him. He had a
real affection for the grandfather of his darling Mary Louise and was
grateful to the old gentleman for having taken him upon faith. Had the
Colonel not given his consent to his granddaughter’s marrying Danny
before he had proved himself altogether worthy of such an honor? This
confidence in him had added zest to Danny’s determination to make
good and not to betray the trust Colonel Hathaway had imposed in him.
Danny had never wanted to be a financial burden to the Colonel and had
insisted from the beginning that either he and his bride should go to
housekeeping for themselves or he should be allowed to pay board for
both of them. Of course, it was out of the question for Mary Louise to
leave her grandfather in his old age and when the matter of board was
broached the old gentleman had been very much amused.
“My dear Danny,” he had expostulated, “surely you will not take from me
the pleasure and delight of having you young people in my home. As for
board: I should pay you for being willing to live in my big old house
that would be gloomy indeed without you. Say no more about it, my son.
I have money enough and to spare and it is all to be Mary Louise’s
when I die--yours and Mary Louise’s I should say.”
Danny had felt that any further insistence on his part would have
been in bad taste and had let the matter drop, although it had never
been satisfactory to him to feel dependent on anyone, even his wife’s
beloved grandfather. Mary Louise, never having known a father, had
looked upon Grandpa Jim as one and accepted all things from him as
naturally as a child does from father or mother.
What a change had come about in one short year! The first step in the
uncomfortable situation was when Colonel Hathaway became slightly
irritable with Danny. He seemed to begrudge the time Mary Louise spent
with her husband and would say sadly, “I never see my granddaughter
since she married.” This was an exaggeration, since Mary Louise was
ever punctilious in her care for Grandpa Jim and in her anxiety to
entertain him and make him happy.
Then began the gradual growth of this hatred which seemed to be
poisoning the system of the once kindly old gentleman. First he would
not address a remark to Danny, to whom he had hitherto talked freely,
finding much amusement in his long conversations with him. Danny
overlooked this in his old friend and redoubled his efforts to find
topics of interest. From not addressing a remark to Danny, it was an
easy step to not answering him when asked a direct question. At first
Danny thought that Colonel Hathaway was growing deaf and would shout
his questions into an indignant ear.
Then began a kind of sly indirect invective against Danny. Colonel
Hathaway never missed a chance to say something derogatory concerning
his granddaughter’s husband. Loving the old gentleman as they did and
being accustomed to look upon him as well nigh perfect, the young
couple were slow to realize the change in Grandpa Jim. When they did
realize that his feeling for Danny was one of intense hatred, they made
a mistake in not discussing the matter thoroughly with each other. But
Mary Louise was touchy about her grandfather’s peculiar behavior and
Danny’s feelings were hurt, so that the question was the one thing
that they tacitly agreed to hide from sight. The consequence was that
a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand had come in the otherwise perfect
and cloudless firmament of their love.
Once in the early days when Colonel Hathaway had been strangely rude to
Danny and loudly exclaimed, “Pish! Tush! Rot!” when Danny had advanced
some inoffensive theory, the young man had wonderingly remarked to his
wife, “What do you think is eating the Colonel?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mary Louise had answered miserably and a
little haughtily.
But Danny persisted:
“Why, what’s the matter with him? Why did he jump on me so hard? I
merely remarked that, when the returned soldiers have once shed their
uniforms, they are not crazy about getting back in them and parading up
and down like nigger minstrels. I guess I ought to know. Anyhow, even
if he disagreed with me, there was no use in jumping on me so hard,
both feet down and chest extended.”
“You are mistaken. Grandpa Jim could not be rude to you. He merely
hated to have you make fun of your country.”
“Fun of my country! Gee, honey, you are all off, you and the Colonel
both. I was talking about parades, not my country.”
“All right, Danny dear, but please don’t say things about Grandpa
Jim,” and Mary Louise slipped her hand in his.
From that day on, Danny never mentioned the uncomfortable moments that
he was forced to spend in the presence of his host. He made those
moments as short as possible, sometimes not even coming home to his
meals, making the plea of stress of business preventing him.
Poor Mary Louise was torn between two loves, two duties. She adored
Grandpa Jim. Had he not been everything to her from the time she was
a baby? Could she forget the supreme sacrifice he had made to her
poor mother, hounded from city to city, country to country, falsely
accused of having been disloyal to the United States when all the time
it had been her father and mother who had been guilty of treason? No!
Never could she forget the scene at Hillcrest Lodge after her mother’s
death when the knowledge of her grandfather’s wonderful courage and
unselfishness had come upon her with full force. Then there was Danny,
her Danny, the same man to whom she had given her first and last and
only love; Danny with his charming disposition and sweet merry eyes;
Danny, the returned and wounded soldier, who had been the most popular
man in the regiment and looked upon as the bravest and best. It hurt
Mary Louise to the quick that her grandfather should treat Danny as he
did, but she could not face the fact that the old gentleman was not
altogether himself. It would have been better had she realized the
truth and talked the matter over with Danny and her friends, but a
mistaken idea of loyalty to her beloved grandfather sealed her lips and
her ears. She would not discuss it with them nor must they broach the
subject to her.
And so the young couple drifted along, as devoted as ever but with the
small cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, beginning to spread over
their bright sky.