"And Mr. Jerry said that if you weren't so much of an angel you'd be a
splendid artist or if you weren't so much of an artist you'd be a
splendid angel. It sounds queer the way I say it but I know he meant
it for a compliment." Mary Rose and Jenny Lind were posing for the jam
poster. It was almost finished and Mary Rose was sinfully proud of it.
Miss Thorley frowned and refused to say what she thought of Mr. Jerry's
compliment. Mary Rose frowned, also.
"You don't like Mr. Jerry very much, do you?" she ventured to ask.
"I'm too busy to know whether I do or not." Miss Thorley half closed
her eyes and looked at Mary Rose in the funny way she did when she was
painting. "My work takes all of my time. Chin up, Mary Rose."
"Yes'm." Mary Rose tilted her chin a little higher. "You aren't under
any obligation to think of him, of course, but if your cat was boarding
with him and he had borrowed your dog you'd just have to keep him in
your mind and heart. And he's worth thinking of. He's a very fine
young man. Everyone says so. Jimmie adores him and he hasn't known
him a week. You've known him lots longer than that, haven't you?" She
spoke as if she could not understand how Jimmie could be so much more
clever. It must be on account of the spell that old Independence had
put upon Miss Thorley. There couldn't be any other reason for not
liking Mr. Jerry. He was so altogether likeable. Mary Rose sighed at
life's complications. "I just love Mr. Jerry myself. I can't help
it," she went on more slowly. "I wish you did, too," wistfully. "It's
much more pleasant when the people you love will love each other. It
gives you such a comfortable feeling as if you didn't care if Heaven
was so far away. I do think this world would be almost as wonderful as
Heaven if everyone would love everyone else."
"There is no doubt of that," Miss Thorley absently agreed with her.
"Then will you try and love my friends?" eagerly. She almost lost her
pose in her eagerness. "I'll love yours. Every one! I will! I can
because I have a big heart. Did you know that the more you put into a
heart the more it will hold? It's the hearts that haven't anyone in
them that are so little and hard. I think hearts must be like
balloons. You can blow and blow and blow into balloons and there's
always room for some more breath."
"Unless they break. Balloons break, Mary Rose, and so do hearts."
Mary Rose looked incredulous. "Mine never did. And anyway I'd rather
have my heart break from being too full than get hard because it didn't
have anyone in it. I'd like to have the very biggest heart in the
whole world!" she cried ambitiously.
"Big enough to hold Mr. Wells? Did you know he was ill, Mary Rose?
His Jap came up last night and asked Miss Carter not to play on the
piano because Mr. Wells wasn't well and didn't wish to be disturbed."
Miss Thorley's lip curled disdainfully.
"Mr. Wells sick?" Mary Rose was much concerned. "What's the matter?"
Miss Thorley shook her head.
"Haven't you been down to ask?" Mary Rose always had been sent to ask
in Mifflin.
"Gracious, no! I shouldn't dare. He'd probably bite my head off."
"He couldn't bite your head off if he was sick. It doesn't seem real
neighborly, Miss Thorley. And you are neighbors. You live right over
his head. I expect he has dyspepsia and that's the reason he looked
so--" she hesitated over a word, "unfriendly. Why when Mr. Lewis, he's
the postmaster in Mifflin, had dyspepsia Mrs. Lewis didn't dare say her
soul was her own. Mr. Lewis couldn't be cross to people when they came
for their mail so he saved it all for Mrs. Lewis. That doesn't seem
quite fair, does it, for people to be pleasant to outsiders and save
their bad temper for their homes?"
"It isn't fair but I rather think it's human."
Mary Rose shook her head. "Sometimes I think that human and
disagreeable mean the same thing because people all say the bad things
we do are human. Where did we learn them, Miss Thorley? The Lord made
us all good because it wouldn't have paid him to make us bad. Where do
you suppose Mr. Lewis learned to snap and Mr. Wells to scold and you to
frown?"
Miss Thorley certainly did have a frown. It ran right across her
pretty forehead when she said: "Bless me! child, how do I know? That's
enough for one day." She put the drawing board on the table and
stretched herself luxuriously. "Try and be on time tomorrow, Mary
Rose, and I think we can finish it."
"Yes'm." Mary Rose stared at the drawing which was a very wonderful
thing to her. "Don't you believe Mr. Bingham Henderson 'll be pleased
with it? It's a beautiful picture of Jenny Lind."
"It's a beautiful picture of you, if I do say it," laughed the artist.
Mary Rose drew closer until she could whisper into Miss Thorley's ear.
"I wish Mr. Jerry could see it."
Miss Thorley rose abruptly and pushed her away. "He can. He'll have
lots of opportunity to see it when it is on the back of a magazine.
Run along, now. Skip!" She fairly pushed Mary Rose out of the door
before she could say anything more about Mr. Jerry. Sometimes it
seemed to Mary Rose that Miss Thorley was afraid to hear about Mr.
Jerry.
She went down the stairs slowly and hesitated when she came to Mr.
Wells' door. She knew she should stop and inquire how he was. It
would have been a terrible breach of good manners in Mifflin not to ask
after a sick neighbor, but Mr. Wells had not been like any neighbor
Mary Rose had ever known. Nevertheless he was a neighbor. She tossed
her head and ventured closer to the door. There was no answer when she
knocked timidly and she tried again. The door was slightly ajar and
when her second knock brought no response she ventured to push it open
an inch. Mr. Wells might be all alone and need someone. She would
just slip in and see. If he didn't she could slip out again.
There was a chilly deserted feeling in the hall that made Mary Rose
shiver. She hurried through softly as if in the presence of something
that oppressed her. When she reached the door of the living-room she
stopped and looked across into the amazed eyes of Mr. Wells, who was
lying on the broad couch.
"Oh!" Mary Rose refused to be frightened away by his scowl. "I'm so
glad you're able to be up. You are better, aren't you? I was worried
when Miss Thorley said you were sick and I just stopped to inquire. In
Mifflin when anyone was sick we always went with chicken broth or cup
custard or a new magazine. Why, when Lily Thompson had tonsilitis she
had eleven different things sent in one day. I helped her eat the
eating ones."
"How did you get in?" growled Mr. Wells for all the world like the Big
Bear in the story of Goldilocks. Mary Rose had to think what a
splendid Big Bear he would make.
"The door was open. I knocked but no one came. I was afraid you might
want something. Has your Japanese gentleman gone to the drug store?
Isn't it lonely for you all by yourself? I was going to ask Aunt Kate
to make you some beef tea but perhaps you'd rather have Jenny Lind stay
with you. She's splendid company and I'd be glad to loan her to you."
She crossed the room to put the cage down beside Mr. Wells. Jenny Lind
began to sing immediately as if to show Mr. Wells what splendid company
she could be.
Mr. Wells raised himself on his elbow and shook a threatening fist at
the canary.
"Take that damn bird away!" he shouted. His face was red and Mary Rose
was sure she could see flames darting from his eyes.
"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" She snatched Jenny Lind at once. "I s-suppose
she is too noisy for you yet. Mrs. Mason didn't like her when she had
the nerves. But you shouldn't be alone. It's bad for you. I'm sure
you need friendly company. Oh, I know the very thing!" And before the
astonished and indignant invalid could say a word she had dashed out of
the room.
He could hear her stumble in the hall but he did not hear her exclaim
hurriedly when a door across the way opened: "Oh, Mrs. Rawson, will you
take Jenny Lind for a minute? I'll be right back for her." She pushed
the hook of the cage into the hands of the startled Mrs. Rawson and
flew down the stairs.
She was back in an incredibly short time with a small glass globe that
she carried very carefully. Her face shone as she tiptoed in and
placed it on the table beside the invalid.
"There!" she said proudly. "There! The perfect pets for the sickroom.
When you said Jenny Lind was too disturbing I remembered that Mr.
Jerry's Aunt Mary had these two little goldfish. Wasn't it lucky? She
was glad to loan them to you and hopes you'll find them pleasant
friends. They won't be any care at all. I'll come up every day and
feed them if you don't feel well enough. I'd like to. Aren't they
beautiful? Do you suppose all the fish in Heaven are like that, all
gold and glisteny? Won't you just love to watch them? They can't sing
or make any noise to annoy you. They'll be splendid company."
"God bless my soul!" murmured Mr. Wells helplessly, when he could find
breath to murmur anything. He stared at her as if he really had never
seen her before.
An exclamation, like the pop of a gun, made them look at the doorway
where Sako was staring at them as if he could not believe his eyes.
"Sako!" shouted Mr. Wells, angrily. "Why did you leave the door open
when you went out?"
"Wasn't it lucky he did?" asked Mary Rose, standing before him and
rocking on her heels and toes as she often did when she was pleased.
"I might never have come in, if he hadn't. If there's anything I can
do for you, Mr. Wells, any time, don't you hesitate to ask me. Just
send the Japanese gentleman right down. I live in the cellar, I mean
the basement, with Aunt Kate and Uncle Larry and we'll all be only too
glad to do anything to help you get well. It's horrid to be sick. You
look better, I think," critically, and indeed he was not at all pale
how. He had so much color in his face that he was almost purple. "I
must go now and get Jenny Lind. I left her with Mrs. Rawson. I expect
she thought I was crazy," with a giggle as she remembered Mrs. Rawson's
amazed face.
"I'll bet she did!" Mr. Wells stared after her as if he, too, thought
Mary Rose was crazy. She turned in the doorway to wave her hand to him
and he watched her out of sight. Then he looked at the goldfish. He
had half a mind to tell Sako to throw them out. What did he want with
a couple of damned goldfish? The child was a nuisance, an unmitigated
nuisance. Children always were. That was why he lived in the
Washington where they were forbidden. He would have to ask the agents
what they meant by letting the place be overrun with children when
there was a clause in every lease forbidding it. Mary Rose might be a
friendly little soul, she might mean well, but she was an unmitigated
nuisance. The Lord only knew what she would do next if she remained in
the building. And she had dared to talk back to him in front of
people. No, he would see that the lease was lived up to. It was his
right. If he demanded protection against Mary Rose, an impudent
interfering chit, he fumed, the agents would have to protect him.
"Sako!" he called sharply. "Take these damned goldfish down to the
Donovans. And tell Donovan to keep his niece at home. I won't have
her here!"