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MARY ROSE OF MIFFLIN
by
FRANCES R. STERRETT
Author of
The "Jam Girl" and "Up the Road with Sallie"
Illustrated by Maginel Wright Enright
[Frontispiece: "'It's an e-normous house, isn't it!' she said in
surprise"]
New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Copyright, 1910, by
D. Appleton and Company
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER
WHO MADE A VERY FRIENDLY
PLACE IN THIS BIG WORLD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'It's an e-normous house, isn't it!' she said
in surprise" . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"'You can't ever know, Aunt Kate, how splendid
it is to wear skirts'"
"Shelves and birdcage had all disappeared"
"'I haven't seen a canary bird for years,' she murmured"
"'It's a squirrel! A really truly squirrel in this big city!'"
"Mary Rose was perched on a chair across from him and was
telling him of Mifflin"
"There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting cat"
"'Why didn't you come home before, Mary Rose?'
Miss Thorley asked"
MARY ROSE OF MIFFLIN
CHAPTER I
"It's there in every lease, plain as print," Larry Donovan insisted.
"No childern, no dogs an' no cats. It's in every lease."
"I don't care if it is!" Kate Donovan's face was as red as a poppy and
she spoke with a determination that exactly matched her husband's.
"You needn't think I'm goin' to turn away my own sister's only child?
Who should take care of her if I don't? Tell me that, Larry Donovan,
an' be ashamed of yourself for askin' me to send her away!"
"Sure, an' I'd like the little thing here as much as you, Kate, dear,"
Larry said soothingly, and in her heart Mrs. Donovan knew that he meant
it. "But it isn't every day that a man picks up a job like this,
janitor of a swell apartmen' buildin', an' if we take in a kid when the
lease says plain as can be, no childern, no dogs an' no cats, I'll lose
the job an' then how'll I put a roof over your heads an' bread in your
stomachs? That's why I'm again' it."
"A clever man like you'll find a way." Mrs. Donovan's confidence was
both flattering and stimulating. If a woman expects her husband to do
things he just has to do them. He has no choice. "Don't you worry.
You haven't been out of work since we were married 'cept the three
months you was laid up with inflamm't'ry rheumatiz. The way I look at
it is this: the good Lord must have meant us to have Mary Rose or he
wouldn't have taken her mother an' her father an' all her relations but
us. Seems if he didn't send us any of our own so we'd have plenty of
room in our hearts an' home for her. She's a present to us straight
from the Lord."
"That may be, Kate," Larry scratched his puzzled head. "But will the
agents, will Brown an' Lawson look at it that way? The lease says----"
"Bother the lease!" Mrs. Donovan interrupted him impatiently. "What's
the lease got to do with a slip of a girl who's been left an orphan
down in Mifflin?"
"That's just what I'm tryin' to tell you." Larry clung to his temper
with all of his ten fingers, for it was irritating to have her refuse
to understand. "If we took Mary Rose in here to live don't you s'pose
all those up above," he jerked his thumb significantly toward the
ceiling, "'d know it an' make trouble? God knows they make enough as
it is. They're a queer lot of folks under this roof, Kate, and that's
no lie. Folks--they're cranks!" explosively. "When one isn't findin'
fault another is. When I've heat enough for ol' Mrs. Johnson it's too
hot for Mrs. Bracken. Mrs. Schuneman on the first floor has too much
hot water an' Miss Adams on the third too little. Mrs. Rawson won't
stand for Mrs. Matchan's piano an' Mrs. Matchan kicks on Mrs. Rawson's
sewin' machine. Mr. Jarvis never gets his newspaper an' Mrs. Lewis
al'ys gets two. Mrs. Willoughby jumps on me if a pin drops in the
hall. She can't stand no noise since her mother died. She don't do
nothin' but cry. I don't blame her man for stayin' away. I'd as soon
be married to a fountain. When they can't find anythin' else to jaw me
about they take the laundries. An' selfish! There isn't one can see
beyond the reach of his fingers. I used to think that folks were put
into the world to be friendly an' helpful to each other but I've
learned different." He sighed and shook his head helplessly. "Mrs.
Bracken on the first floor has lived here as long as we have, two years
nex' October, an' I've yet to hear her give a friendly word to anyone
in the house. When little Miss Smith up on the third was sick las'
winter did her nex' door neighbor lend a hand? She did not. She was
just worried stiff for fear she'd catch somethin'. She gave me no
peace till Miss Smith was out of the house an' into a hospital. Peace!
I've forgot there was such a word. They won't stand for any kid in the
house when the lease says no childern, no dogs an' no cats."
"You can't tell me anythin' about _them_!" Mrs. Donovan agreed with
pleasant promptness. It is always agreeable to have one's estimate of
human nature endorsed. "An' the most of 'em look like thunder clouds
when you meet 'em. Ain't it queer, Larry, how few folks look happy
when a smile's 'bout the cheapest thing a body can wear? An' it never
goes out of style. I know I never get tired seein' one on old or
young. All folks can't be rich nor han'some but most of us could look
pleasant if we thought so, seems if. I want to tell that to little
Miss Macy every time I see her, but I know full well she'd say I was
impudent, so I keep my mouth shut. Maybe the tenants won't stand for a
child in the house. They haven't wit to see that the Lord had his good
reasons when he invented the fam'ly. But there's some way. There must
be! An' we've got to find it, Larry Donovan. Are you goin' to wash
Mrs. Rawson's windows today?" She changed the subject abruptly. "She
called me up twice yesterday to see they needed it, as if I had nothin'
to do but traipse aroun' after her."
Larry understood exactly how she felt. He had been called up more than
twice to see the windows and had promised to clean them within
twenty-four hours. Before he went away he patted his wife's shoulder
and said again: "It isn't that I don't want the little thing here,
Kate. She'd be good for both of us. It's bad for folks to grow old
'thout young ones growin' up around 'em, but a job's a job. It
wouldn't be easy for a man to get another as good as this at this time
of year. See the home it gives you."
He looked proudly around the pleasant basement living-room. Open doors
led into the dining-room and hall from which more doors opened into
kitchen and sleeping-rooms. There was a small room at the end of the
hall in which Mrs. Donovan kept her sewing machine but for which, in
the last twenty-four hours, she had found another use. The apartment
was very comfortable and Mrs. Donovan kept it as neat as wax. There
was never any dust on her floors if the fault-finding tenants did say
there was in the halls.
Mrs. Donovan was proud of her home also, but she frowned as she glanced
about her. "There's plenty of room for one more," she grumbled. "That
little room beyond ours is just the place for a child. But go on,
Larry, we'll think of a way. We've got to! It shan't ever be said
that Kate Donovan turned away her only sister's only child. Do you
mind when Mary married Sam Crocker? It was thought to be a big step up
for the daughter of an Irish carpenter to marry a Crocker, the son of
ol' Judge Crocker an' a lawyer himself. Seems if there never was a
prettier girl than Mary an' she was happy till she died. An' now Sam's
dead, too. He wasn't the man his father was. He couldn't keep money
an' he couldn't earn it. Mary used to feel sorry for me, Larry,
because you weren't a Crocker, but if she could see us now an', seems
if, I believe she can, she mus' be glad I got a good honest hard
workin' Irishman. You've a good job an' a little money in the bank.
You don't owe no man a penny. That's more'n Sam Crocker could ever say
an' tell the truth!"
For two years Larry Donovan had been the proud janitor of the
Washington Apartment House. He had moved in before the building was
fairly completed and felt that it belonged to him quite as much as to
the owner, whose name he did not know, for all business was transacted
through the rental agents, Brown and Lawson.
It was an attractive building. The center of the red brick front, with
its rather ornate entrance, was pushed back some ten feet. The
rectangular space that was left was neatly bisected by the cement walk.
On either side were grassy squares, like pocket handkerchiefs, man's
size, with clumps of shrubbery in the corners for monograms. The
Washington was long and broad and low, not more than three stories
high, but it had an air of comfort and also of pretension that was
lacking in many of the taller apartment houses whose shoulders it could
not begin to touch. Under the low roof were some twenty apartments of
different sizes and the occupant of each was bound by lease not to
introduce a child nor a cat nor a dog. No one showed the least desire
to introduce any one of the three but each went his way and insisted on
his full rights with a selfish disregard of the rights and conveniences
of others in a way that at first had made Larry Donovan's mouth pop
wide open in amazement. Even now that he was used to it he was often
surprised.
And to the Washington with its lease forbidding children and pets had
come a letter from Mifflin telling of the sudden death of Mrs.
Donovan's brother-in-law. Samuel Crocker had been an unsuccessful man,
as the world counts success, and had left nothing behind him but his
little daughter, Mary Rose.
"It's her age that's again' her," thought Mrs. Donovan, when she was
alone. "If she were a couple of years older there couldn't be any
objection. Well, for the lan's sakes!" Her face broke into a broad
grin. "There isn't any reason why we should--nobody need ever know,"
she murmured cryptically.
Ten minutes later she was busy in the little room at the end of the
hall. When Larry came back he stumbled over the machine she had pushed
out of her way.
"Hullo," he said. "What's up?"
Mrs. Donovan lifted a smiling face. "I'm gettin' ready."
"For what?" he asked stupidly.
"For my niece, Mary Rose Crocker." She turned around and stood before
him, a scrub-cloth in her hand.
Larry frowned. "I thought we'd finished with that, Kate. I told you
about the leases. You'll have to board Mary Rose in Mifflin or send
her to a convent."
"Board!" The scrub-doth, a very banner of defiance, was waved an inch
in front of his nose. "Board out my own niece, a kid of eleven? I
think I see myself, Larry Donovan. An' aren't you ashamed to have such
thoughts, you, a decent man? A little thing that needs a mother's
care. An' who should give it to her but me, her own aunt? The Lord
had his plans when he took away all her other relations an' I ain't one
to interfere."
"It means the loss of my job," objected Larry sullenly.
"It does not." There was another flourish of the scrub-cloth. "Listen
to me, Larry Donovan. Is there anyone in this house 't knows how old
Mary Rose is? Does Mrs. Bracken or that crosspatch Miss Adams or the
weepin' willow, Mrs. Willoughby, know she isn't eleven? Who's to tell
'em if we keep our mouths shut? It ain't none of their business
though, seems if, there isn't one that'd be beyond makin' it their
business. I'll grant you that. Your old lease, more shame to it, says
childern ain't allowed here. Mary Rose is a child but if she takes
after her mother's fam'ly, an' I know in my heart she does, she'll be a
big up-standin' girl, a girl anyone 'd take for fourteen. Maybe
fifteen. Why, when her mother was twelve she weighed a hundred an'
twenty-five pounds. I've known women of fifty that didn't weigh that!"
triumphantly. "Don't you worry, Larry, dear. I've got it all planned
out. There's the clothes your sister left here when she an' Ella went
West las' fall. Ella was fourteen an' her clothes 'll just fit Mary
Rose or I miss my guess. They'll make her look every minute of
fourteen. An' a girl of fourteen isn't a child. Why, the state that's
again' child labor lets a girl of fourteen go to work if she can get a
permit, so we've got the law on our side. You see how easy it is,
Larry?" She beamed with pride at the solution she had found for the
problem that had tormented her ever since the letter had come from
Mifflin.
"Do you mean you're goin' to tell lies about your own niece?" demanded
Larry incredulously.
Mrs. Donovan looked at him sadly. "Why should I tell lies?" she asked
sweetly. "Sure, it's no lie to say Mary Rose is goin' on fourteen. I
ain't denyin' it'll be some time before she gets to fourteen but she's
goin' on fourteen more'n she is on ten. If the tenants take a wrong
meaning from my words is it my fault? No, Larry," firmly. "I wouldn't
tell lies for nobody an' I wouldn't let Mary Rose tell lies. We al'ys
had our mouths well scoured out with soft soap when we didn't tell the
truth. But it ain't no lie to say a child's goin' on fourteen when she
is."