MARY LOUISE MOVES
In the language of Bob Dulaney and Billy McGraw, “Little O’Gorman was a
humdinger when she got started.” Elizabeth was left to run the Higgledy
Piggledy Shop with some help from Irene and Josie took up her abode
with Mary Louise to do what she called “pick rags.” The house must be
gone over from attic to cellar, all useless and superfluous articles
disposed of, all of the rarest pictures, rugs, and ornaments packed
and sent to storage. What Mary Louise needed in the way of furnishings
for the simple life she was to lead henceforth in the room that was
to be partitioned off for her in the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, must be
carefully and judiciously selected. There was a mountain of labor
ahead of them but the girls pitched in with a will and, at night Mary
Louise found herself sleeping better than she had for many weeks. Josie
refused to leave her friend alone.
“I am going to stay right here camped on your trail until you are
safely moved,” she asserted and there was no changing her although Mary
Louise assured her she did not mind staying alone.
Irene helped in many ways. It was wonderful what the lame girl could
do. She would wheel her chair from room to room attending to small
matters that the more active ones had overlooked. To her deft fingers
was given the task of packing the contents of the Colonel’s curio
cabinet; tiny carven figures in ivory and jade, Phoenecian glass vases
that had imprisoned the sunlight of centuries gone by, filigreed silver
and gold ornaments set with rough-hewn jewels, bits of priceless
embroidery from ancient Mexican convents, bronze Buddhas placid in
their unearthly homeliness. There was a little of everything in the way
of treasures in the Colonel’s cabinet.
“The owner of such treasures cannot be classed as poverty-stricken,”
Irene said to Josie, who stopped by her for a moment, her arms loaded
with books that were too precious to be entrusted to any possible
tenant no matter how worthy he or she might prove.
“No, but Mary Louise could never sell them. That’s the pleasure of
owning things like that. They are priceless and still worthless because
one could never part with them. A cabinet like that always makes me
think of honest love, something quite intangible when one tries to
count its value in dollars and cents.”
Irene smiled. No matter how occupied Josie was she could always stop
for a bit of homily.
“You have in mind all the time the possibility of coming across some
clue to the Colonel’s papers, haven’t you?” whispered Irene.
“Yes, indeed, but so far no sign of them! I have even been around to
see the dear old gentleman to whom Irene sent some suits, thinking
something might be found in the pockets, but nothing doing! I have also
been over the things sent to the Salvation Army. When this house is
finally turned over to a tenant, there is not going to be an inch that
I have not personally inspected.”
“I know you are as thorough as can be and I’ll wager anything that you
will find some clue before you have finished,” declared Irene, holding
up to the light a wonderful little twisted vase of porphyry. “Just see
these colors, Josie. It seems almost wrong to wrap it away in tissue
paper so nobody can enjoy it. I wonder if dear Mary Louise will ever
have a suitable home again where she can have her things around her.”
“Sure she will! Mary Louise is not the kind to stay down. She has been
in holes before this and always come out and not a bit of dirt sticking
to her either.”
The most difficult thing to do was to get old Aunt Sally and Uncle
Eben off to Virginia. They were loath to go when the time came in
spite of the fact that they confessed that they were quite set up to
be the owners of an excellent farm with a comfortable house and good
outbuildings, situated in the county where both of them had been born.
“We’ll cut some ice ’mongst them niggers at big meetin’ time,” boasted
Uncle Eben. “Me’n Sally’ll go a drivin’ our own mule an’ maybe it’ll be
two mules, not hitched side by each but one a followin’ arfter tother,
tandem, lak circus parades.”
“You know I ain’t a goin’ ter no big meetin’ lookin’ lak no circus,”
objected Aunt Sally.
“Well we ain’t bought the mules yit so I reckon th’ain’t no use in
disputin’ whicher way we’ll hitch ’em up.”
The old couple finally got off. A whole box car was necessary to hold
their belongings, which were freighted to them. Not only did they have
the furnishings of their own room but many were the gifts from the big
house added by Mary Louise.
“The old house is too full anyhow,” she insisted, “and I am sure no
tenant would expect or want so many things.”
Aunt Sally and Uncle Eben were made happy with barrels of china and
cooking utensils, also quantities of canned vegetables and fruits Aunt
Sally had put up the summer before.
“Why doesn’t she keep some of those things?” Irene asked. “She will
have to buy such things when she starts to housekeeping at the Higgledy
Piggledy.”
“No, let them all go! I believe it will be better for Mary Louise to
get down to rock bottom and have to begin to think about the actual
earning of every necessity. If she has a lot of left-overs to begin on,
the bare bones of living will still be an unknown skeleton to her and
she might just as well get down to plain, hard, ossified facts.”
Irene smiled. She could not help thinking that for a person who prided
herself on being practical, Josie certainly did let her theories run
away with her. It seemed to Irene that Mary Louise had had jolt enough
and now she might be let down easily without having to hit this much
vaunted rock bottom with so much force. When she suggested this, Josie
was ready with an answer to her argument.
“A ball can’t bounce back until it hits something but will go on
falling and we are more or less like balls, my dear Irene. We can’t
bounce until we hit--we can’t regain our footing until we have
something to stand on. You wait until our poor little rich girl turns
into a rich little poor girl and you are going to see wonders.”
Josie had her way and Mary Louise finally moved to the Higgledy
Piggledy with nothing but her trunk and enough simple furniture to fit
in the small space partitioned off at the back of the Higgledy Piggledy
Shop for a sleeping compartment similar to the one Josie occupied.
A tenant for the big house had not been found but it was in perfect
order ready to receive one. The new automobile had been sold and the
welcome cash placed to Mary Louise’s credit at the bank to defray all
expenses in getting the faithful Sally and Eben safe in Virginia with
their household goods and also in putting a few necessary repairs on
the big house, repairs the Colonel had been contemplating for some
time, but had delayed in accomplishing.
The Colonel’s old car was left in the garage at the big house.
“It will be safe enough there, poor old thing,” sighed Mary Louise. “It
looks real lonesome with the new car gone. Grandpa Jim surely did love
his old car. He never enjoyed riding in the new one as much as he did
in his old rattle-trap. The first time I realized that Grandpa Jim was
not getting along so well with Danny was when he got irritated because
Danny teased him about his old car. I always teased him about it and he
used to tease himself at times and had never minded when Danny joined
in. He seemed rather to like it. But one day he suddenly flared up over
the car and said--but never mind what he said--it wasn’t Grandpa Jim
saying those things--I realize it all now and I believe Danny knows
too.”
“Certainly he does,” declared Josie with a tone of conviction.
The big house had been securely closed, one key left with the Conants
in case a tenant might want to see it, one with a real estate agent and
another in Mary Louise’s purse.
The old darkeys were gone and Mary Louise entered into her new life as
a business woman.
How strange it was! How different from what her life had been less than
one short year ago.
At night she lay in her little bed and looked up at the high ceiling
dimly lit by the smouldering fire in the front of the shop. How amusing
it was to sleep in a room with partitions reaching only half way to
the ceiling! It was like living in a beauty parlor where one had
one’s hair shampooed. She felt she would not like to stay all alone
in such a place and wondered if it had not been hard on Josie to be
there by herself. She remembered Josie’s tale of how the Markles had
come and entered the shop by means of a skeleton key, stolen what they
had thought to be Detective O’Gorman’s wonderful thieves’ journal,
replacing it with blank pages neatly inserted in the original covers;
and how they had actually come into her bedroom, thinking she was
safely off spending the night at the Hathaways’. Josie, hiding under
the bed, had heard their incriminating talk and had carefully laid her
net and then left them to entangle themselves in its meshes.
What a clever little person Josie was! Mary Louise, as she thought of
her, had a feeling of security as though all would finally be well if
she could remain under Josie’s wing.
“Grandpa Jim liked her and Danny liked her--they trusted her so
absolutely. I am glad I am here with her.” Mary Louise closed her
eyes and, snuggling down in her little bed, was soon lost to the
world. She did not dream of burglars but that Chinese idols, curiously
carved, and hideous bronze Buddhas were perched in rows on the top of
the partitions forming her bedroom and they looked down on her with
benignant expressions on their quizzical countenances and seemed to
be watching over her and guarding her. One great Buddha wagged his
forefinger at her and told her he would watch over Danny too and she
need have no fear, and, in spite of being a very good little Christian
girl, she found that the heathen deity gave her great comfort in her
loneliness.