Lake Nokomis was on the outskirts of Waloo and was a popular pleasure
resort for Waloo people from June until September. A band played in
the pavilion, there was a moving picture show, a merry-go-round with a
wheezy organ, a roller coaster and many other amusement features, as
well as several ice-cream parlors. There was always a crowd drifting
from one place to another, and Mary Rose fairly danced with delight
when she and Miss Thorley became a part of the good-natured throng.
They were standing beside the enclosure in which the fat Shetland
ponies waited for the children who were fortunate enough to possess a
nickel to pay for a ride on their broad backs or a drive in a roomy
carriage, when Mary Rose saw Mr. Jerry. She had sadly refused Miss
Thorley's invitation to ride because she did not wish to leave her
alone, and Miss Thorley would not ride one of the ponies nor drive in
one of the carriages.
"There's Mr. Jerry!" squealed Mary Rose when she saw him. She could
scarcely believe her eyes, but she waved her hand. "He's the man who
boards my cat, you know," she explained to Miss Thorley. "And he's
very pleasant and friendly, just like a Mifflin man."
Miss Thorley looked first surprised and then displeased and then she
frowned and shrugged her shoulders as if she did not really care
whether Mr. Jerry was there or not. She gave him rather a curt
greeting when he joined them with a cheery:
"Hullo, Mary Rose. Are you thinking of a canter in the park?"
There was nothing curt in the greeting Mary Rose gave him. She smiled
enchantingly and slipped her hand into his. "We're just watching the
ponies. Aren't they loves? Miss Thorley thinks they are too small for
her to ride, but I don't see how she can be sure unless she tries. Do
you know Mr. Jerry, Miss Thorley? He's making such a comfortable home
for George Washington. She didn't feel like painting today," she
explained to Mr. Jerry, "so we came out for a change. Oh, I do just
love that blackest pony, but no one seems to choose him!" She pointed
an eager finger to the corner where the blackest and fattest pony stood
neglected.
"Suppose you choose him. I've money to treat a lady friend to a ride."
And he made a pleasant jingle with the coins in his pocket.
"Miss Thorley invited me, but I didn't like to leave her alone. Would
you stay with her, Mr. Jerry? It would be real friendly of you to me
and the pony, for if I don't take him I'm afraid no one will, and he'll
feel so sad when he goes home tonight. Will you take good care of Miss
Thorley, Mr. Jerry?"
"I will," promised Mr. Jerry emphatically, although Miss Thorley
exclaimed hurriedly that she could take care of herself. He found a
bench from which they could watch Mary Rose as she made the black pony
happy and rode around the ring, prouder than any peacock.
"Funny kid, isn't she?" remarked Mr. Jerry, realizing that if there was
to be any conversation between them he would have to begin. "I wish
you could have seen her when she came over with her cat to ask if we
would take the beast to board. Who's the owner of that joint of yours?
I'd like to tell him what I think of him for separating a homesick
little girl from her pet."
"It would be rather a nuisance if the place was overrun with cats and
dogs and children," Miss Thorley said coldly. "There wouldn't be much
peace or comfort in the house."
"The peace and comfort you've had don't seem to agree with all of you,"
remarked Mr. Jerry pleasantly. "I've seen some of your neighbors who
look as if they needed a big dose of noise and discomfort."
"You must mean Mr. Wells. He does have rather a touch-me-not,
speak-to-me-never manner. And the fuss he makes if there is any noise
in the place after ten o'clock! Imagine him with a cat or a bird."
The picture her imagination made was so impossible that she laughed.
Mr. Jerry drew a contented sigh and ventured to move a trifle nearer.
He started to say something and then changed his mind. He wouldn't say
anything just then that might bring back that distant expression to her
face. He knew very well how cold and forbidding she could be. So
instead of saying what he wished to say he talked of Mary Rose and
George Washington, and she listened and smiled and made holes in the
turf with her parasol, but never once did she speak of the conversation
she had had with Mary Rose which had caused her to throw down her
brushes and treat herself to a holiday.
Mary Rose's face was an incandescent light as, with a good-by pat for
the blackest pony, she ran back to them.
"I felt like a queen!" she cried. "It was splendid. Oh, won't you
have a ride?" She looked from one to the other. "I'll pay. I'm
making lots of money. You needn't worry another minute about George
Washington's board," she told Mr. Jerry. "It's as good as paid."
He laughed. "I won't worry and I shan't ride the ponies. My legs are
too long. I'd have to tie double knots in them to keep them off the
ground. But I'll take a turn on the merry-go-round with you." He
nodded toward that attractive circle of animals as it went around and
around to the accompaniment of the wheezy organ. "I dare you to come
with us." He looked straight at Miss Thorley.
"Oh, please!" Mary Rose clapped her hands. "You will, won't you, Miss
Thorley? You needn't be afraid," she whispered. "I'm sure he's strong
enough to hold you on."
Miss Thorley looked anything but afraid as she frowned at the
merry-go-round and at Mr. Jerry impartially. But when she met Mary
Rose's eyes, filled with a great hunger for merry-go-rounds, she
laughed softly and told Mr. Jerry that, of course, she wouldn't take a
dare, she never had and she never would, and she thought she'd choose
the giraffe because his long neck gave a rider so much to cling to.
It was not easy for Mary Rose to choose a mount. Each animal seemed so
very desirable that she sighed as she finally selected an ostrich for
the same reason that she had taken the black pony. "I haven't seen a
single person ride him and I expect he feels neglected."
But when they mounted the merry-go-round Miss Thorley stepped into a
gay little sleigh drawn by two fat polar bears. After he had seen Mary
Rose properly astride the neglected ostrich Mr. Jerry took the seat
beside Miss Thorley.
"I promised Mary Rose that I wouldn't let you fall out," he said, as if
that could be the only reason he would ride beside her.
Much to Mary Rose's amazement, Miss Thorley was satisfied with one
ride, although Mr. Jerry very handsomely offered them a turn on each
animal. Mary Rose could not resist such an invitation and one by one
she rode on a giraffe, a camel, and a lion.
"Mercy, mercy, Mary Rose!" Miss Thorley said at last. "You must stop.
Your head will be completely turned. And we must go home."
"Won't you ride back with me?" asked Mr. Jerry. "I have the car. If
you will, we have time for a sundae first."
Mary Rose's heart all but stopped beating as she waited for Miss
Thorley to say they would. It didn't seem possible that anyone, even
an independent woman, could refuse such an alluring invitation. But
grown-ups were queer. Mary Rose had found that out long, long ago.
She did not hesitate for even the fraction of a second when Miss
Thorley turned and left the decision to her. A moment later they were
in the ice cream parlor that was like a cool green cave after the heat
and the light outside.
Mary Rose chose a chocolate sundae and she giggled as she looked at the
rich brown sauce. "When I was little, nothing but a baby," she said,
"I thought that it was the yellow in the eggs I ate that made my hair
yellow. Do you suppose if I ate lots and lots of chocolate, I'd ever
have hair as brown as Miss Thorley's. Isn't it beautiful, Mr. Jerry?"
"Very beautiful!" Mr. Jerry agreed as heartily as she could wish.
Miss Thorley flushed uncomfortably under the admiration of Mr. Jerry
and Mary Rose. "Mary Rose," she said hurriedly, "don't you know you
shouldn't make personal remarks?"
"Eh?" Mary Rose's attention was centered in the well she was making in
her ice cream for the chocolate syrup.
"You shouldn't talk of people's hair and eyes." The rebuke was far more
feeble than Miss Thorley had meant it to be.
"You shouldn't!" Mary Rose was so surprised that she left the well
half made. "Why, in Mifflin when we liked the way a friend looked we
always told them."
Miss Thorley pushed away her sundae. "Mary Rose, if you say Mifflin
again, I'll scream."
Mary Rose's cheeks turned as pink as Miss Thorley's cheeks had turned.
"That's what Aunt Kate says sometimes, but if you like a place the way
I like Mifflin you just have to talk about it. It's--it's in your
heart."
"Talk about it to me, Mary Rose," Mr. Jerry offered kindly. "It
doesn't make me cross to hear of a place where people are kind and
friendly. My conscience is perfectly clear." He spoke as if he were
very proud of his clear conscience.
Miss Thorley pushed back her chair. "It doesn't make me cross," she
said, "only----"
They waited courteously to hear what would follow "only," but nothing
ever did. Miss Thorley just jumped up and said instead that really
they must go. Mr. Jerry's eyes twinkled as he agreed with her.
It was far more pleasant riding to town in Mr. Jerry's automobile than
it would have been in the crowded street car. Mary Rose called Miss
Thorley's attention to the crowd as she snuggled close to her in the
spacious tonneau.
"I'm playing it's mine," she whispered, "and that Mr. Jerry is my own
driver. Wouldn't it be fun to drive with him forever and ever?"
Mr. Jerry heard her and sharpened his ears for the answer.
"You'd get tired riding forever with anyone, Mary Rose. There is only
one thing that people never get tired of."
"What's that?" Mary Rose hungered to hear.
"Work." Mr. Jerry sniffed. They could hear him in the tonneau.
Mary Rose shook her head. "Gladys' mother did. She said she had never
had enough fun to know whether she would get tired of it or not, but
she'd had plenty of chance to know there were some things she never
wanted to see again, and one of them was work and the other was the red
and black plaid silk dress that the dressmaker spoiled."
Mr. Jerry chuckled on the front seat and after a second Miss Thorley
laughed, too.
"Mary Rose," she said very distinctly, "I'll have to give you a broader
vision. You have entirely too narrow an outlook."
"What's that, Miss Thorley? What's a broader vision?" Mary Rose
couldn't imagine.
It was Mr. Jerry who answered. "In this particular case, Mary Rose,
it's seeing far too much for one and not enough for two."
As they rolled up to the Washington Miss Carter came down the street
with Bob Strahan whom she had met on the car. It was amazing, now that
they were on speaking terms, how often they met. Bob Strahan stopped
to open the door of the automobile and help Miss Thorley out, and Mary
Rose proudly introduced Mr. Jerry who boarded her cat. They all
laughed and talked together for a few minutes and then Mary Rose hopped
from the back seat to the front.
"I'll go around and see George Washington, if you don't mind," she
said. "Hasn't it been just the loveliest afternoon, the kind you're
always hoping for but never really expect to have," with a sigh of
rapture. She patted Mr. Jerry's arm lovingly. "Isn't Miss Thorley a
darling! She told me all about that Independence. It isn't a witch as
you thought, Mr. Jerry, it's something about wanting to pay her own
bills and live alone. I don't understand it," she frowned, "but that's
what she said."
Mr. Jerry frowned too, as he turned into the alley. "She doesn't
know," he said briefly. "Take it from me, Mary Rose, that Independence
is an old witch, and she's enchanted more girls than you could count."
Mary Rose looked doubtful. "If Miss Thorley really is enchanted," she
suggested, "we must find something to break the spell. I told her she
wouldn't have to stop work to make a home for a family, Mr. Jerry," she
whispered encouragingly.
"Did you?" Mr. Jerry laughed. "What did she say?"
Mary Rose knit her small brows before she answered. "I don't think she
just agreed with me, but I'll explain it to her again."