When Richard heard that Granny was going to take Rebecca Mary and Joan
to Mifflin in her limousine he discovered that he had to call on the
Mifflin National Bank, and he suggested that they should make the trip
together.
"I'll drive you in my big car," he said. "We could stop at the River
Club for lunch and come home by way of Spirit Lake for dinner. You'll
like the River Club," he told Rebecca Mary. "It's on an island in the
Mississippi and the dining room hangs over the river. You can catch your
lunch from the window."
"What fun!" dimpled Rebecca Mary. "It sounds like a most beautiful pink
plan."
"Pink plan?" Richard didn't understand what she meant, but he thought
she looked rather beautiful and pink herself as she stood beside him.
"Whenever I hear of anything that is absolutely all right," Rebecca Mary
explained, "I seem to see it as the most lovely rose color. And so I
always think of absolutely all right things as pink. How lucky it is
for us that you owe the Mifflin Bank a call."
"It's lucky for me," insisted Richard with a smile.
So on Saturday Richard brought his big car to Rebecca Mary's door, and
Joan and Rebecca Mary ran down from the window where they had been
watching for him for hours. Rebecca Mary wore another portion of Aunt
Ellen's gift, a new motor coat--to tell the truth it was the only motor
coat she had ever had--and a fascinatingly small hat demurely veiled.
She looked just exactly right for a motor trip, and Richard told her so
with his eyes while Granny, who was already in the tonneau, admired her
with her lips as well as her eyes.
"That's a very smart and becoming coat and hat, Rebecca Mary," she said
at once. "Suppose you sit in front with Richard? Riding in an open car
always makes me sleepy and if you are back here you will talk to me and
keep me awake."
"Won't I talk to you?" Joan didn't know how she was going to keep from
talking all the way from Waloo to Mifflin, but she obediently nestled
down beside Granny.
"I rather think you will." Granny smiled at her and patted her fat
little hand. "But before you begin to talk you must help me plan how we
shall persuade Mrs. Wyman to loan us her daughter. That will take a lot
of thinking, and you can't talk very well while you are thinking."
On the front seat Rebecca Mary laughed joyously. "It sounds as if this
was going to be a very important expedition," she said.
"It is," Richard told her with a flash of his eyes. "All ready? Quite
comfortable?"
And when Rebecca Mary had said she was quite ready and comfortable he
took the seat beside her and did something to buttons and levers and
they were off.
Rebecca Mary felt like one of the princesses Joan talked about so
intimately as they rolled down the street, through the suburbs and into
the real country. Richard called her attention to this old house, a
relic of pioneer days, or to that new public library, and to the white
sign boards which told them that they were on the Jefferson Highway. The
name was between a palmetto and a towering pine to show them that New
Orleans was at one end and that Minnesota was at the other end of that
ribbon-smooth road. Richard seemed to know the way and there was nothing
which Rebecca Mary should have seen which he did not show her.
"Want to go faster?" he asked when she leaned forward to look at the
speed indicator. He touched a button again and they went faster.
"It's like flying!" she exclaimed with shining eyes. "Oh, I do think
there are such wonderful things in the world! Aren't you glad that you
are living now!"
He laughed at her enthusiasm. What a jolly little thing she was! And he
told her that he most certainly was glad to be living that moment in a
way which deepened the vivid color in Rebecca Mary's cheeks.
"Of course it's an old story to you," she went on quickly. "But this is
the very first time I ever motored from Waloo to Mifflin. I've always
gone in a stuffy day train and had cinders get into my eyes. Once the
train was held up four hours by a wash-out on the road and an old
Norwegian gave me some cookies. They did taste good," she assured him
for he seemed as interested in the cakes as if he were a baker instead
of a banker.
"Norwegian women are good cooks, and Norway is a beautiful country."
"I suppose you've been there? Every country will be beautiful to me
unless I am so old when I start on my travels that I can't see. My
favorite castle is a railroad ticket. I've never been farther than
Waloo in all my life. I don't know why I tell you that for of course you
know it. Any one can see that I've never been anywhere nor seen
anything."
"Yes." Richard agreed with her so promptly that she felt as if he had
pinched her for naturally she had expected that he would say that any
one to see her would think she had been everywhere and seen everything.
The sting was taken from the pinch when he went on: "If you had been
everywhere you wouldn't be so jolly and enthusiastic as you are. Girls
who have been everywhere and seen everything aren't satisfied with
anything."
"I wonder," meditated Rebecca Mary. "Then you think it's better not to
have and want, than to have and not care for?"
"Much better. Very much better!"
"M-m," murmured Rebecca Mary doubtfully. "I don't believe you know a
thing about it," she exclaimed suddenly. "You've had all of your life!"
"Not everything," Richard insisted. "There is at least one thing I've
never had." But he did not tell her what that one thing was, and she did
not ask him.
The River Club was all that Richard had said it would be. They crossed
a bridge to the island at one end of which was the rambling shingled
club house which really did overhang the river. Richard was quite right,
and Rebecca Mary could easily have fished from the window of the big
dining room, but she preferred to let Richard order her lunch from the
club pantries. A dozen or more men were lunching at the little tables,
and Rebecca Mary heard scraps of their talk--"fifteen pounds"--"the
brute got off with my best fly"--"that darned pike couldn't have weighed
less than six pounds." She looked at Richard and laughed.
"I suppose more lies are told in this room than anywhere in the state,"
she whispered.
"I expect you are right," he whispered back.
They had a most delicious luncheon of black bass fresh from the river,
of new potatoes and peas and salad and strawberries from the club
garden. Many of the fishermen who had nodded to Richard came over to
speak to Granny, and Richard introduced them to Rebecca Mary, and told
her in an undertone that this one was a lumber king and that one was an
iron king and the other one was a flour king. Rebecca Mary had never
been in a room with so many kings in her life, and she looked after them
curiously as she said so.
"Yes," Granny murmured. "They call this the millionaires' retreat, don't
they, Richard?"
"I prefer the River Club, myself," was all Richard would say.
The club with its royal members seemed to make Richard even more
important to Rebecca Mary, and she looked at him a trifle oddly as they
left the island and went on to Mifflin. She had known that Richard was
very clever and important--Granny had told her that old Mr. Simmons
considered Richard Cabot quite the most promising young man in
Waloo--but she hadn't thought these elderly kings of lumber and iron and
flour would listen to him as they had listened. Richard seemed too young
to belong with those bald-headed white-haired pudgy kings and yet they
had greeted him as if they were very glad to see him. Rebecca Mary stole
a shy glance at Richard. He was looking at her instead of twenty feet in
front of his car as a motor driver should look, and he smiled.
"Like it?"
"Love it!" And she smiled, too, and forgot all about kings. How splendid
it was to have Richard for a friend. And if he hadn't been a friend he
never would have smiled at her like that. It gave her such a warm cozy
little feeling to have a man like Richard for a friend. "Oh, isn't this
the most wonderful day that was ever made out of blue sky and golden
sunshine!" she cried suddenly. "And we're coming to Mifflin. There's
Peterson's farm!"
And now it was Rebecca Mary who pointed out the points of interest, the
old mill, the spire of the Episcopal church and the new starch factory,
which was going to make the fortunes of the farmers, she told Richard
with a serious little air which he liked enormously.
"What do you know about starch?" he teased.
"Lots. I know that the farmers have planted loads of potatoes, and they
are going to sell them to the starch factory for enormous prices."
"Farmers always expect to sell for enormous prices, but if they have all
planted enormous crops some of them will be disappointed. There is a
little old law of supply and demand which regulates that sort of thing,
you know."
"That's just it," Rebecca Mary exclaimed triumphantly. "The demand for
Mifflin starch is going to be so great that there will be a huge demand
for potatoes. I have a tiny bit of money that I might invest myself
now," she told him a little proudly as she remembered how much was left
of Aunt Ellen's gift. "I might become a starch queen," she giggled.
"You might. But you might become a starch bankrupt, too. Don't you put
any of your money into anything until I have a chance to look into it,"
he said firmly.
"I never should have dared to ask you for advice," she began, but he
interrupted her.
"You haven't asked, I've offered, and I want you to promise you won't
buy shares in anything until you have talked to me. I've had more
experience in picking out good investments than you have."
Rebecca Mary laughed. "You couldn't have had less. It's awfully good of
you, Mr. Cabot, to be willing to bother about my pennies, and when I
have enough to do anything with I'll remember your very kind offer. Turn
down this street if you want to find my home. Perhaps you would like to
know whom you will see there. There is only my mother and sister. Mother
is a dear, and she has had an awfully hard time. Grace is a dear, too.
She is a year and a half older than I am and looks after the public
library for Mifflin. There is the house, the big frame one on the
corner. Why----" for the big frame house on the corner had just been
treated to a coat of fresh white paint, and Rebecca Mary scarcely knew
it when it shone forth so resplendent with its green-blinded windows.
"What an attractive place!" Granny woke up to lean forward and tell
Rebecca Mary how much she liked her old home. "It looks as if it had
been a home for more than one generation."
"It has!" Rebecca Mary twisted around to tell her its history. "My
grandfather built it when he brought my grandmother here a bride just
after the Civil War. It's grown since then, of course; that wing on the
right and the L. It's really too big for mother and Grace but we
couldn't sell it if we wanted to. I'd hate to sell it if we could."
Rebecca Mary really loved the old house and she loved it more than ever
now that it was repaired and painted. It really looked imposing. She had
no reason to be ashamed of her home, and she was very grateful to Aunt
Ellen as she slipped her arm through Granny's and led her up the bricked
walk as Mrs. Wyman and Grace hurried out to meet them.
Rebecca Mary's eyes widened as she saw the pretty summer frocks which
her mother and Grace were wearing and when she kissed Grace she
whispered in her ear: "Hurrah for Aunt Ellen!" They all stood talking
and laughing on the wide porch.
"So this is where you grew to be such a big girl?" Richard looked at the
ample lawn which the white fence enclosed. He seemed to find it of great
interest.
"Yes," nodded Rebecca Mary. "That is where I made mud pies, and there is
the apple tree I climbed. I pretended it was a ship which was taking me
to the Equator. I had the wildest interest in the Equator when I was
ten. And that is the gate I was always running out of until mother tied
me to the apple tree."
"Why, Miss Wyman!" Joan's very foundations seemed to totter. "Were you
ever a bad little girl?" She couldn't believe it. Miss Wyman was her
teacher and teachers,--could they ever have been bad little girls?
"Very bad!" Rebecca Mary's laughing answer did not sound at all
convincing. "At least that is what my mother said, and she should know."
Joan might have carried her investigation of this startling statement
further if Grace had not called to her to come and see the new brown
cocker puppy and help choose a name for him. Richard and Rebecca Mary
were left alone to talk of the days when Rebecca Mary had to be tied to
the gnarled old apple tree.
"Richard!" It was Granny who interrupted them. "If you are to call on
the Mifflin Bank don't you think you had better go?" Granny's voice
almost sounded as if she didn't quite believe that Richard owed the
Mifflin Bank a call.
Richard jumped up and looked at her in a dazed sort of a way for he had
completely forgotten the business which had brought him to Mifflin.
Rebecca Mary walked to the gate with him and gave him careful directions
as to how he should find the Mifflin Bank. When he had driven away she
went with Grace to the kitchen, where she mixed sprays of mint, fresh
from the garden, with sugar and lemons and ice and ginger ale until she
had a most delicious drink. Grace arranged the little cakes she had made
on one of Grandmother Wyman's old plates.
"A new recipe of Anne Wellman's," she said, giving one to Rebecca Mary
to sample. "An after the war recipe. There is nothing conserved in these
cakes. Rebecca Mary, do you know what mother and I planned last night?
Neither of us has ever seen the Atlantic Ocean. I suppose you will think
we have lost our minds but we are going to take a part of Aunt Ellen's
present and go to the sea shore."
"I don't!" exclaimed Rebecca Mary quickly. "I think you've just found
your minds. As a family we should have lost the art of spending if Aunt
Ellen hadn't sent her present just when she did. I'm glad you and mother
are going to have some fun. Good old Aunt Ellen! You must send her a
post card. Send her two post cards!" And the two girls laughed joyously.
"That's all right," Rebecca Mary went on more soberly, "but just let me
tell you what her present has done for me. I wrote you that I'd met the
wonderful Peter Simmons, didn't I?"
"Seven pages. You do have the luck, Rebecca Mary! Why didn't you bring
the wonderful Peter with you to-day instead of the First National Bank?"
Rebecca Mary chuckled. "The First National Bank is really splendid," she
insisted. "And awfully important. He's been perfectly corking to me. But
Peter Simmons, Grace, Peter Simmons!"
"M-m," murmured Grace enviously.
Granny was enthusiastic over the old mahogany and walnut furniture which
filled the house and which Grandfather Wyman had brought from his
grandfather's old home in Pennsylvania.
"It's beautiful," she exclaimed. "You don't seem to have anything but
old mahogany and walnut, Mrs. Wyman. This is a real museum piece." And
she ran her fingers over the smooth surface of the old Sheraton
sideboard and looked at the old Chippendale chairs.
Rebecca Mary had come in with her big crystal pitcher and she placed the
tray on the old Chippendale table. "And the reason we have nothing but
old stuff," she confessed frankly, "is that we never could buy new. I
suppose it is lucky we couldn't, but it just about broke my heart a few
years ago that we didn't have anything but four post beds and gate
legged tables. I yearned for a davenport upholstered in green velours
instead of that ancient sofa. I wanted less old mahogany and more new
clothes. Is that Mr. Cabot?" The sound of a motor car drew her to the
window. "I hope he found the Mifflin Bank at home."
It was Richard, and when he came in he had a big box of candy under his
arm. He gave it to Mrs. Wyman.
"This isn't Mifflin candy," Grace exclaimed when she saw the tempting
contents. "You never found this in Mifflin!"
And Richard had to confess that he hadn't, that he had brought the box
from Waloo for Mrs. Wyman, and Grace looked at Rebecca Mary
significantly. "Very thoughtful of your First National Bank," she
seemed to say.
Mrs. Wyman drew Rebecca Mary from the little group to ask her if she
wouldn't rather go east and be introduced to the Atlantic Ocean than
accept Granny Simmons' invitation. She and Grace would love to have
Rebecca Mary with them, but they wanted her to do exactly as she wished.
"I think I'll stay with Mrs. Simmons," Rebecca Mary said after a
moment's frowning thought. "You see there is Joan. I couldn't take her
east very well. And, anyway, the Atlantic Ocean will keep. It has been
there for some years, and Mrs. Simmons may never ask me again. I should
like to visit in a big house like hers, and she said she would take us
to her country place, Seven Pines. I can board at a sea shore hotel
whenever I have the money, but I can't always visit an old dear like
Granny Simmons."
"That is true. I hope you don't think we are foolishly extravagant,
Rebecca Mary? Aunt Ellen said we were to use the money for pleasure. And
then you wrote me what Cousin Susan said to you about memories. I do
want Grace and you to have some good times to remember. I hope it isn't
foolish," Mrs. Wyman repeated, for deep down in her heart she was
almost sure it was foolish to spend Aunt Ellen's present for a trip when
she could buy a mortgage with it.
"If I told you what I honestly think we'd never save another cent, and
we'd have to take our memories to the poor house some day. Really,
mother, it is the wisest thing to do. Cousin Susan convinced me that
sometimes you can pay too big a price when you save and scrimp. Do get
some pretty clothes, lots of them. They make you feel all new and--and
efficient," she laughed at her choice of a word. "That's a love you have
on now. You never got it in Mifflin. And if Joan's father comes for her
and Mrs. Simmons gets tired of me I'll come east and join you. I should
like to meet the Atlantic Ocean. I've heard quite a lot about it."
Her mother looked at her and smiled. The last time Rebecca Mary had been
home she had not laughed like that. She had frowned over the bills and
talked of the future as of a barren desert. If taking out a memory
insurance policy would change a girl as Rebecca Mary had changed, Mrs.
Wyman was going to advocate memory insurance policies for every one.
Granny was delighted that no objections were made to her invitation, and
she asked Mrs. Wyman and Grace to spend a few days with her on their
way east. But Mrs. Wyman thanked her and said that they had planned to
do their shopping in Chicago and it would be out of their way to go to
Waloo. Altogether it was a very satisfactory visit, and every one was
sorry when it was over and Granny and Joan were once more in the tonneau
of Richard's big car.
"I like your mother and your sister and your home so much, Rebecca
Mary," Granny said when they had waved a last good-by before they turned
the corner.
"So do I!" exclaimed Richard heartily.
"I do, too," repeated that echo, Joan. "Am I to talk to you on the way
home, Granny, dear?"
"If you think it will make the ride pleasanter," Granny obligingly told
her. "But you must not be surprised if I doze in the middle of your
story. Motor riding does make me sleepy."
The way to Mifflin had led them down the river and the way to Spirit
Lake took them back through a rich farming country. Richard astonished
Rebecca Mary by the ease with which he could distinguish young wheat
from oats and oats from barley or buckwheat when he was passing a field
at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. The fields were only a green
blur to Rebecca Mary. They reached Spirit Lake just at sunset and were
pleasantly surprised to find Stanley Cabot perched on the railing of the
hotel veranda smoking a cigarette. He jumped up and threw his cigarette
away as he came to meet them.
"How pretty it is!" Rebecca Mary looked around with shining eyes. "What
is that down by the lake?" And she nodded toward a screened pavilion
which wore a gay necklace of colored lanterns.
"That's the dancing pavilion," Stanley told her eagerly. "Want to run
over and have a fox trot? There's just time before your dinner will be
ready."
Rebecca Mary's eyes sparkled. "Shall we?" But she said it to Richard
instead of to Stanley.
"Sure. Come along." And Richard held out his hand.
"The dickens!" Stanley looked after them as they ran to the pavilion. "I
thought I issued the invitation. She seems to have made an impression on
old Dick, Granny? I thought he was immune to girls. What is it?"
Granny, comfortably settled in a big rocking chair, looked mysterious.
"I expect it was her scowl. She frowned at Richard, and Richard, you
know, Stanley, isn't used to frowns. Girls have always smiled at him. I
expect Rebecca Mary's scowl interested him."
"That might be. A girl has to offer a man new stuff to interest him. You
may be right."
"Of course I'm right. What are you doing here, Stanley?"
And while Stanley told Granny and Joan about the sketching trip which
had brought him to Spirit Lake, where he had found some corking effects,
Rebecca Mary and Richard danced on a floor which was far from smooth and
to the music of a piano and a violin which were not as harmonious as you
would wish a piano and a violin to be, but both Rebecca Mary and Richard
said that it was the jolliest dance they had ever had when it was over,
and hand in hand they ran back to the hotel and the waiting dinner. It
seemed the most natural thing in the world for them to go hand in hand,
but Rebecca Mary was quite breathless when she came up the steps after
she had pulled her fingers from Richard's hand.
"I hope we haven't kept you waiting," she cried. "But it was such fun."
"Much you care about us when you scorned my invitation and went off with
my brother," Stanley said, as if cut to the very quick. "I don't know
what reparation you can make unless you sit beside me and talk
exclusively to me."
"Oh!" Rebecca Mary was pinkly embarrassed. "I didn't hear you deliver
any invitation," she stammered, but her explanation only made matters
worse.
"Granny heard it and so did Joan." Stanley quite enjoyed teasing Rebecca
Mary into pink embarrassment. Perhaps he wanted to see the scowl which
had interested Richard, but if he did he was disappointed for Rebecca
Mary never frowned once. She was too happy and too contented. She could
only laugh and smile as she promised to sit beside him and talk
exclusively to him. That wasn't so easy to do as to promise for there
were other girls on the screened porch where the dinner tables were
arranged, and they smiled and nodded to Richard until he had to go and
speak to them.
"My brother Richard is very popular with the girls," Stanley told
Rebecca Mary with a twinkle. "He's quite a boy, is my brother Richard."
"M-m," was all that Rebecca Mary would say to that, but she watched his
brother Richard out of the tail of her eye.
Although Stanley was jolly and Richard was as devoted as those other
girls would permit, Rebecca Mary was glad when they were in the car
again and had said good-by to Stanley and the other girls and were
speeding over a road which was quite as perfect as the Jefferson
Highway.
"You drive awfully well!" Rebecca Mary told Richard.
"Want to learn? It wouldn't be any trick at all to teach you."
"You shan't teach her now," exclaimed Granny, who was not so drowsy but
she had overhead him. "This is no time to teach any one. You can hold
your automobile class, Richard Cabot, some time when I'm not with you."
"All right. Miss Wyman, I'll hold a class limited to one, in motor
driving some other time. Want to be the one?" He smiled down at her.
"Do I?" Rebecca Mary was almost speechless. She could only look at
Richard until he flushed and murmured that he knew it would be no
trouble at all to teach her, absolutely no trouble at all.
"It's been the most wonderful day!" Rebecca Mary was almost at a loss to
tell them how wonderful it had been when at last they stopped at her
door again. Words seemed too inadequate.
"As pink as you expected?" asked Richard.
"Pinker. The most beautiful shade imaginable. I'll never forget how pink
it has been."
"If you liked it so much we'll go again," promised Richard, eager to
give Rebecca Mary another good time. Her enthusiasm made him feel very
generous. "And don't forget that motor class of mine!"
"Forget!" Rebecca Mary stared at him. How could she ever forget. She
expected to remember his motor class as long as she lived, but she
didn't tell him that. She just thanked him sedately and told him to let
her know when his motor class would meet and she would try to be on
time. She did dislike tardy scholars.