"DIE KLEINEN TEUFEL"
CHRISTMAS was followed by a week of small calamities. Some of them would
have been laughable, counted singly, but taken all together they assumed
a seriousness not to be considered lightly.
In the first place, Mary, attempting to tie the boat at the usual
landing, slipped on the muddy bank and dropped the chain. In her effort
to recover it she stepped into the water. Her shoes were soaking wet
when she reached home, and as they were her only good ones she stuffed
them carefully with paper and hung them over the little drum stove in
the living room to dry. That evening Jack read aloud while they washed
the dishes, so they were all in the kitchen when the smouldering log in
the drum stove, having reached the blazing point, suddenly burst into
flame.
Presently a smell of burning leather made them all begin to sniff
inquiringly, and Mary rushed in to find that one of her shoes had
dropped from the string to which she had tied it by the laces, and was
scorching to a crisp on the red-hot stove. Her old shoes were so shabby
that the immediate need of new ones, left her figuring over the family
accounts until bed-time. It was hard to cut down a list of expenses
already reduced to low water mark.
The next day a wet "Norther" blew up, bringing the first cold weather of
the winter. After weeks of almost summer-like heat, the mercury dropped
to freezing point in just a few hours, and roaring fires in both the
kitchen and drum stoves failed to warm the little cottage. Like most
houses in that section it had not been built with a view to excluding
the cold. The wind blew in under the north door, lifting the rugs until
they shifted with a wave-like motion across the floor. Jack had to have
a blanket hung behind his chair, and when Mrs. Ware sat down to write
her weekly letter to Joyce the draughts that rattled the windows set her
to sneezing as if she never could stop.
Mary, full of resources, brought her pink sunbonnet and perched it on
her mother's head, pulling its ruffled cape well down on her shoulders.
"There!" she exclaimed, laughing at the jaunty effect. "That will keep
'the cauld blasts' from giving you a stiff neck. Do look in the mirror
and then draw a picture of yourself for Joyce. Tell her that the Sunny
South is a delusion. The mercury is only down to freezing, but I am sure
that there isn't an Esquimau in all the Arctic Circle as cold as we are
this blessed minute. That wind goes through a body like a fine-pointed
needle."
"These little stoves fairly eat up the wood," she grumbled a few minutes
later, glancing into the empty wood-box which Norman had piled to the
top before he left that morning.
"Norman will be back soon," said Mrs. Ware, looking out from her aureole
of pink ruffles, which she had found such a comfortable shield from the
draughts that she left it as Mary had placed it. "He'll fill the box
again as soon as he comes."
But Mary had slipped into a coat and was tying a veil over her ears. "It
isn't safe to wait," she answered. "We'd be stiff and stark as icicles
in no time if we were to let the fires go out. I don't mind being
stoker. It's good exercise."
She skipped out to the wood-pile gaily enough, but the tune she was
whistling changed to a long-drawn note of surprise and dismay when she
saw what inroads they had made on it since the last time she had noticed
it.
"We'll have to have another cord right away," she thought. "I never
dreamed that fuel would be such a big item of expense, away down here so
far South. But if we have much more weather like this it will be a very
serious item."
The discovery sent her back to her account book again, but this time she
took it to her own room where Jack could not see her figuring. The
butcher raised the price of meat that week. Both butter and eggs went
higher, and Jack's rubber air-cushion sprung such a leak that it
collapsed hopelessly. A new one was a necessity. Then the cold Norther
made Jack's rheumatism so much worse that he had to stay in bed, and
several visits from the doctor and a druggist's bill had to be added to
the list of the week's calamities.
The last straw was reached when Joyce's letter came, deploring the fact
that the check which she was enclosing was only half the size which she
usually sent. She had some unexpected expenses at the studio which she
was obliged to meet, but she hoped to send the customary amount next
month. This information was not in the letter which Mrs. Ware promptly
sent in to Jack by Norman, but in a separate postscript, folded inside
the check. Mary read it with startled eyes.
"Whatever are we going to do?" she asked in a despairing whisper.
Mrs. Ware shook her head and sat folding and unfolding the check in an
absent-minded way for several minutes. Then she went into her room for
pen and ink to endorse it, so that Mary, who was going down into the
town that afternoon, could cash it. She was gone a long time and when
she came back she had two letters ready to post.
As Mary went down the road a while later, she glanced at the first
envelope which was addressed to Joyce, admiring as she always did her
mother's penmanship.
"It's just like her," she thought, "so fine and even and ladylike." Then
she gave an exclamation of surprise as she saw that the second envelope
was addressed to Mrs. Barnaby.
"Whatever can she be writing to _her_ about?" she wondered. "It's queer
she never said anything about it, when we always talk over everything
together, even the tiniest trifles."
She puzzled over it nearly all the way to the post-office till she
remembered that she had heard her mother say that she was not altogether
satisfied with the new doctor's treatment for Jack, and that she wanted
to ask Mrs. Barnaby whom to call in consultation. Satisfied with that
solution, Mary thought no more about the matter till the following
Friday, when she came back from a short call at the rectory, to find
that Mrs. Barnaby had just driven away from the house. She was
disappointed, for these visits were always hailed as joyful events by
the entire household.
"I wouldn't have missed her for _anything_!" exclaimed Mary, following
her mother into their bedroom. "She's so diverting. What particularly
funny things did she say this time? _What's that?_"
Her glance and question indicated a bundle that her mother had brought
in from the back doorstep and laid on the bed. Mrs. Ware shook her head
meaningly, and closed the door into Jack's room before she answered.
Then she said in a low tone:
"It's some linen and lace that Mrs. Barnaby brought this afternoon. I
wrote to her asking her if she had any fine hand-sewing that I could do.
Sh!" she whispered, lifting a warning finger, as Mary's cry of "Why,
Mamma Ware!" interrupted her.
"Jack will hear you, and he is not to know. That's why I had Pedro take
the bundle to the back door. Mrs. Barnaby understands. Something had to
be done, and under the circumstances sewing is the only thing I can turn
my hand to at home."
"But mamma!" exclaimed Mary, so distressed that she was almost crying.
"Your eyes are not strong enough for that any more. You nearly wore
yourself out trying to support us when we were little, and I'm very sure
we're not going to allow it now. Joyce would be terribly distressed, and
as for Jack--I know perfectly well that he'd just rather lie down and
die than have you do it. We'll bundle that stuff right back to Mrs.
Barnaby, and I'll go down town and see if I can't get a position in one
of the stores."
Mrs. Ware's answer was in such a low voice that it went no farther than
the closed door, but it silenced Mary's protests. Only a few times in
her remembrance had the gentle little woman used that tone of authority
with her children, but on those rare occasions they recognized the force
of her determination and the uselessness of opposing it. Mary turned
away distressed and sore over the situation. She said nothing more, but
as she went about her work she kept wiping away the tears, and a fierce
rebellion raged inwardly.
There would have been little said at the supper-table that night if
Norman had not come home in a talkative mood. He was to start to the
public High School the following Monday, at the beginning of the new
term, and had recently made the acquaintance of a boy lately come to
Bauer, who would enter with him.
"Ed Masters is his name," Norman reported, raising his voice a trifle,
so that Jack, who was taking his supper at the same time from a bedside
table in the next room, might be included in the conversation.
"I like him first rate, and it will make it lots easier for me at
school, not to be the only new boy. The only trouble is, he doesn't know
whether his folks are going to stay in Bauer long enough to make it
worth while for him to start or not. They came for the whole winter, but
they say that they can't stand it at the hotel many more days if
something isn't done to those Mallory kids. Ed says they're regular
little imps for mischief. They've been here only two weeks, but they're
known all over Bauer as 'die kleinen teufel.'"
"Which being interpreted," laughed Jack from the next room, "means the
little devils. What have they done to earn such a name?"
"It might be easier to tell what they haven't done," answered Norman.
"There's two of them, the boy seven and the girl eight, but they're
exactly the same size, and look so much alike everybody takes them for
twins. They put a puppy in the ice-cream freezer yesterday morning, Ed
says, and Miss Edna, the landlady's daughter, almost had a spasm when
she went to make ice-cream for dinner and found it in the can.
"Yesterday afternoon the delivery wagon stopped at the side entrance of
the hotel (it's the Williams House where Ed is staying), and those
children waited until the boy had gone in with a basket of groceries.
Then they climbed up into the delivery wagon and changed the things all
around in the other baskets so that the orders were hopelessly mixed up,
and nobody got what he had bought. There was a ten gallon can of
kerosene in the wagon, the kind that has a pump attachment. The boy
stopped to talk a minute to Mrs. Williams, and by the time he got back
they had pumped all the kerosene out into the road, and were making
regular gatling guns of themselves with a bushel of potatoes. They were
firing them out of the basket as fast as they could throw, in a wild
race to see which would be first to grab the last potato.
"Ed says they ride up and down the hotel galleries on their tricycles
till it sounds like thunder, when the other boarders are trying to take
a nap, or they'll chase up and down hooting and slashing the air with
switches. If people don't dodge and scrooge back against the wall
they'll get slashed too.
"I suppose every merchant on Main Street has some grievance against
them, for they haven't the slightest regard for other people's rights or
property, and they're not afraid of anything. The little girl went into
the livery stable the other day and swung onto the tail of one of those
big white 'bus horses, and pulled a handful of hairs out of it. It's a
favorite trick of theirs to climb into any automobile left at the
curbstone, and honk the horn till the owner comes out. Then they calmly
sit still and demand a ride."
"They must be the children that Doctor Mackay was telling me about,"
spoke up Jack. "He came in here one day, furious with them. He had
caught them smearing soap over the glass wind shield of his new machine.
They had climbed all over the cushions with their muddy feet, and
tinkered with the clock till it couldn't run. He threatened to tell
their father, and all they did was to put their thumbs to their noses
and say: 'Yah! Tattle-tale! You _can't_ tell! He's a thousand miles
away!'"
"Isn't any one responsible for them?" asked Mrs. Ware.
"Yes," said Norman, "there is a colored girl at their heels whenever
they don't give her the slip. But their mother is ill--came here for her
health, Ed says, and their grandmother who tries to look after them is
so deaf that she can't hear their noise and their saucy speeches.
They're so quick that she never sees them making faces and sticking
their tongues out at people. They do it behind her back. She thinks they
are little angels, but she'll find out when they're asked to leave the
Hotel. Ed says it's coming to that very soon--either the Mallorys will
have to go, or everybody else will. They got into his box of fishing
tackle, and you never saw such a mess as they made. He is furious."
With her mind intent on her own troubles, Mary did not listen to the
recital of other people's with her usual interest, although what she
heard that night was recalled very clearly afterward. All evening she
brooded over her grievance, trying to discover some remedy. She could
not take the sewing away from her mother and do it herself, for while
fairly skilful with her needle, she had not learned to make a fine art
of her handiwork. The garments Mrs. Ware made were as beautifully
wrought as those fashioned and embroidered by the French nuns.
"I _know_ Mrs. Barnaby never would order anything so fine and
expensive," thought Mary bitterly, "if she didn't know that we need the
money so badly. She did it because mamma asked her, and felt that she
couldn't refuse. That is a sort of charity that kills me to accept, and
I sha'n't do it one minute longer than I have to."
It was easier to make such a resolution, however, than to carry it out.
A short call on Mrs. Metz next morning, showed her that her first plan
was not feasible. The old woman being related to nearly half of Bauer by
birth or marriage, and knowing the other half with the intimacy of an
"oldest inhabitant," was in a position to know each merchant's needs and
requirements, also what wages he paid each employee. Most of them had no
occasion to hire outside help. Their own families furnished enough. It
was a necessary requirement of course, that any one applying for a
position must speak German. That one thing alone barred Mary out, and
she went home anxious and disheartened. Still, even if she could have
spoken a dozen tongues, the position she had coveted did not seem so
desirable, after she learned the small amount the clerks received.
All that day and the next she worried over the matter, and finally
decided to go to Mrs. Rochester and ask her advice. On the way up to the
rectory she stopped at the post-office. The mail was being distributed,
and while she stood waiting for the delivery window to open, the rector
himself came in. As he turned away from his locked box, in which only
papers had been deposited so far, he saw Mary and went over to her with
a cordial greeting.
"I'm looking for something," he said with a twinkle of fun in his eyes.
"Maybe you can help me. It is as hard to find as the proverbial needle
in the haystack, but I must have it before sundown if possible. Some one
as patient as Job, as tactful as a diplomat, with the nerve of a
lion-tamer and the resources of a sleight-of-hand performer--the kind
who can draw rabbits out of a silk hat if necessary."
Mary laughed. "What are you going to do with such a wonderful creature
when you find it?"
"Turn it loose on those Mallory children," answered Mr. Rochester,
lowering his tone. "I was sent for yesterday, presumably to see their
mother who is an invalid, but I found that the real reason was to give
some advice to Mr. Mallory about the children. The hotel refused to
harbor them any longer, and he had been summoned hastily by telegraph.
He has moved his family to a furnished cottage near the hotel. Their
meals will be sent in to them, and his mother can look after his wife,
but he is desperate about the children.
"He acknowledges he could not cope with them even if he could stay here
all the time away from his business. His wife has never allowed them to
be punished, and has foolishly humored them till they are past being
controlled. He besought me to find some one who could take them in hand
for a part of the day at least."
"But what could an outsider do with them if their own family has
failed?" queried Mary.
"Ah, that's where the lion-tamer and the sleight-of-hand performer
combination gets in his work. He must quell them with his eye, and draw
ways and means out of his silk hat. Mrs. Mallory would like to have them
taught to read and write if it can be done without crossing the little
dears, but I inferred that their father would be glad simply to have
them taken in hand and tamed sufficiently to keep them from being public
nuisances."
Mary's pulses began to pound with the excitement of a daring thought,
but she managed to appear unconcerned, and asked him in a joking way,
"And if you can't find this Job-like, diplomatic lion-tamer they want,
they'll have to take some ordinary person?"
"They'll be obliged to. But I'm afraid that a quest even in that
direction will prove fruitless. It's a field for real missionary effort,
though. Some one might be willing to approach it in that spirit."
The delivery window flew up, and as the waiting line began moving along
towards it, Mr. Rochester lifted his hat and turned away. But before he
could fit his key in the lock of his box, Mary was at his side.
"One moment, please," she exclaimed, her face flushing. She spoke very
fast. "If you think that _I_ can fill that position will you tell them
about me? I've really got lots of patience with children, and"--laughing
nervously--"last summer I partly tamed a young wild-cat. I could at
least tell the children stories, and teach them all sorts of wood-lore
that would keep them busy and interested out of doors. Besides," she
flushed still deeper, "I _must_ find some way to earn some money soon.
My very need of it would make me try all the harder to fill the place.
I am on my way now to see Mrs. Rochester and ask her advice about what
to do."
A few minutes later she and Mr. Rochester were walking rapidly along the
road in the direction of the Williams House. As they crossed the wide
foot-bridge which spans the creek, and climbed the hill on the other
side, she told him of the work she had done the previous summer under
the noted naturalist, Professor Carnes.
"He had arranged to send his fifteen-year-old niece to Lone Rock this
winter," she added, "but her physicians decided at the last moment that
she needed a milder climate. She was to have boarded near us, and I had
promised to devote my mornings to keeping her out of doors and teaching
her in an indirect way that would not suggest books or study hours.
Maybe the fact that such a man as Professor Carnes thought me competent
to do that, and was willing to pay me a grown teacher's salary, might
have some weight with the Mallorys. Oh, I _hope_ they won't think
seventeen and a half is too young," she exclaimed, with an anxious
glance at her companion, as if to discover his opinion.
"If I'd only known such an important interview was ahead of me I'd have
worn my blue suit. I look lots older in that because it's longer than
this one."
"I don't think you need worry about that," the rector answered. He spoke
gravely, but the face he turned away from her twitched with suppressed
amusement.
They passed the Williams House, and turned in at the gate of a gray
cottage, where Mr. Mallory himself met them at the door. He was a
prosperous young broker with an affable manner and the self-confident
air that some people acquire from the carrying of a fat bank-book. He
ushered them into the room where Mrs. Mallory was lying on a couch. She
was very young and blue-eyed and soft-haired. Curled up among the
cushions under a blue and white afghan, she made Mary think of a kitten.
She seemed so helpless and incapable, as if she had never known anything
but cushions and cream, all her life.
Two children were playing quietly under a table, in the corner. Mary
could not see what they were doing, for they were lying on their
stomachs with their heads towards the wall. Only their little
black-stockinged legs and slippered feet protruded from under the table,
and they were waving back and forth in mid-air above their backs.
When Mr. Rochester introduced Mary as the young lady they were so
desirous of finding, one pair of small legs stopped waving, and their
owner backed hastily out into the room. Humping along on all fours until
she reached her mother's couch, she sat on the floor beside it and began
studying the visitors with a quiet intense gaze. She was an attractive
child, with rather a wistful little face. Her hair was cut short in
Buster Brown fashion, and she was remarkably strong and sturdy looking
for a girl. Otherwise there was nothing in her appearance to justify
one's belief that she had done all the tom-boy things ascribed to her.
To Mary's surprise Mrs. Mallory discussed the children as freely as if
they were not present, repeating their pranks and smart sayings as if
they were too young to understand what was being said, and frankly
admitting her inability to control them.
"Mr. Mallory and I agree on every subject but the proper way to rear
children, and we almost come to blows over that," she said, smiling up
at him till the dimples in her cheeks made her seem more childish and
appealing than ever.
"I believe in letting children do exactly as they please as far as
possible. The time will come soon enough when they can't, poor little
dears. We have not imposed our wishes on them even in the matter of
names. It has been a life-long regret with me that my mother burdened me
with a name that I despised, and I made up my mind that _my_ children
should be allowed to choose their own. Little brother, there, has chosen
his father's name, Herbert. But we're slow about adopting it. We've
called him Brud so long, his sister's baby name for him, when she was
learning to talk, that it is hard to break the habit."
"And the little girl?" asked Mary politely, beginning to feel that she
had hastened to shoulder a load which she might not be able to carry.
"Really it's too cunning the way Little Sister does," exclaimed Mrs.
Mallory. "One week she announces she's Genevive and the next that she's
Bessie or Maud or Irma--whatever happens to strike her fancy, and she
gets simply furious if we don't remember every time she changes. That
was one thing that Miss Edna fell out with us about. She kept calling
her Bessie the week that she wished to be known as Marion. Of course the
child naturally resented it, and Miss Edna actually caught her and shook
her, when she hadn't done a thing but throw a biscuit or some little
article like that in her direction."
Mary cast a half-frightened glance at Mr. Rochester, aghast at the
prospect before her. The soft voice went on.
"_We_ don't believe in being harsh with children, _do_ we, Beautiful?"
She reached down to stroke the little head nestled against her couch. "I
want my children to have it to remember of their mother that she never
scolded or punished them. _You_ can say that. _Can't_ you, pet?"
Pet only nodded in reply, but she caught the slim white hand in both her
own and pressed it lovingly against her cheek. It made a pretty tableau,
and Mary found it hard to realize that this affectionate little creature
was one of the "kleinen teufel" of Norman's report. But she noticed the
satisfied gleam in the child's eyes when her mother went on to retail
other instances of Miss Edna's harshness.
Mr. Rochester saw the expression also, and the shrewd, knowing glance
that followed when he finally broached the terms of a settlement, asking
them to specify exactly what would be expected of Mary and what salary
would be paid in return. He mildly suggested that it might be wiser to
dispense with a juvenile audience at this point.
He had chosen words that he thought far beyond Little Sister's
comprehension, and there was something startling as well as uncanny in
the way she spoke up for the first time since his entrance.
"_I aren't a-going to leave this room! Nobody can make me!_"
Mrs. Mallory looked up at her husband with an amused simper and shook
her head as if to say, "Now, isn't that the smartest thing you _ever_
saw?" and Mr. Rochester's suggestion was ignored.
When they rose to go it had been arranged that Mary was to take the
children in charge every afternoon, except Sundays, from one o'clock
till five, at the same salary Professor Carnes had offered her. She was
to teach them anything she could in any way she chose, provided her
methods did not conflict with their happiness. The chief thing was that
they should be kept interested and amused.
"Then to-morrow at one," said Mr. Mallory, rising with them, "they will
take their first lesson. Come out from under that table, Brud, and get
acquainted with your new teacher."
Brud waved one leg in token that he heard, but made no further response.
Suddenly Sister found her voice again.
"_What you going to teach us first? 'Cause if we don't like it we won't
go._"
Taken thus suddenly, without having had a moment in which to form any
plan of action, Mary groped wildly around in her mind for an answer. She
recognized this as a crucial moment. She could not hesitate long, for
Mrs. Mallory's appealing blue eyes were fixed on her also, the while she
patted the child's cheek and purred, "Why, of _course_ little Sister
will go when the nice lady is planning to give her such a happy time."
"Happy time adoing _what_?" was the persistent question.
Just then, Meliss, the colored nurse-girl, opened the side door, and
there floated in from the hotel kitchen the appetizing smell of
pies--hot mince pies just being lifted from the oven. Mary caught
eagerly at the straw of suggestion which the odor offered. At the same
time some instinct prompted her that it was foolishness to address this
child of eight as if she were an infant, or to talk down to her as her
family made a practise of doing. So speaking directly to her as if she
were addressing an intelligent and reasonable being she said gravely:
"The kind of school we are going to have is so different from any you've
ever heard of, that I can't explain it beforehand. I can only tell you
this,--it is somewhat like a Jack Horner pie. Each day you'll put in
your thumb and pull out a plum. But what that particular plum will be
depends on so many things that I could not possibly give it a name
before it actually happens. It will be a surprise school."
At the mention of pies the legs under the table hastily came down out of
the air, and the small boy attached hastily backed out into general
view. Planting himself in front of Mary with a swaggering air, his feet
wide apart, he announced aggressively:
"I'll bring my new hatchet if I want to, and nobody can make me leave it
at home!"
There was something so impertinent in his manner that Mary longed to
shake him and say, "Don't be so sure of that, Mr. Smarty!" But
remembering the dignified position she now had to maintain, she only
remarked in a matter of fact tone:
"If your hatchet has a good sharp edge it will probably be one of the
first things you'll need. And you'll find use for a pocket full of
medium sized nails, too."
"What for?" he demanded, drawing a little closer to begin a thorough
cross examination. But Mary, who had turned to listen to a question of
Mr. Mallory's, paid no heed.
"I say," Brud repeated, calling as if she were deaf. "What for? _What
for?_ WHAT FOR?"
Mary paid not the slightest attention until she had answered his father,
then said deliberately, "I've already explained that in a surprise
school you can't know what is going to happen till the time comes."
"Why?" he whined.
"Because," she said, pausing impressively, and then lowering her voice
as if she were imparting a mysterious secret, "_it's the Law of the
Jungle_."
The unexpectedness of this mystifying answer and the sepulchral voice in
which she gave it, was so different from anything Brud had ever
encountered before, that it took him some seconds to recover, and she
was gone before he could think of another question.
Mr. Mallory walked to the gate with them. "You've certainly started out
well, Miss Ware," he remarked admiringly. "At first I thought we might
have some difficulty in getting their consent to go, but they'll be on
hand to-morrow all right. You've aroused their curiosity to such a pitch
that a regiment armed to the teeth couldn't keep them from satisfying
it now." After an instant's pause he added a trifle awkwardly, seeming
to feel some explanation was due, "Their mother never sees a fault in
them, and my business keeps me away from them so much that--well, you
see yourself how it is."
On the way home neither Mary nor Mr. Rochester spoke till they were
halfway down the hill. Then they looked at each other and laughed.
"I hope I haven't got you into _too_ deep water, Miss Mary," he said.
"It's a big undertaking. I must confess to a curiosity as great as
Brud's. What _are_ you going to do with them?"
"Oh, I don't know!" exclaimed Mary desperately. "Did you see me fencing
for time when Little Sister demanded to be told what I'd teach them
first? Things had happened so fast that I hadn't had a moment to think,
so I had to say the first thing that came into my head. I tremble to
think what a long pause there might have been if the smell of those pies
had not suggested an answer. I think the first week I'll just play with
them as hard as I can. Play Indian maybe, so that if they get too
obstreperous it will be part of the game to tie them to a tree and
torture them. But after all I can't help being sorry for the little
things after hearing their mother talk to them and about them."
At the end of the foot-bridge where she turned to take the lower road
which was the short cut home, she started to thank him, but he stopped
her earnest words with an uplifted hand and an amused protest.
"Wait and see how it turns out before you thank me. You may want to
wreak dire vengeance on me before the week's over, for getting you into
such a predicament."
With a cordial word of parting Mary hurried down the road, and burst
into the house with the breathless announcement that she'd consented to
go as a missionary; that Mr. Rochester had persuaded her to take the
step. She waited a moment to give them a chance to guess what special
field it was she was about to enter, but was so eager to tell that she
had to burst out with the answer herself:
"It's to the heathen at home I am going, I'm to be an apostle to 'die
kleinen teufel'!"
Jack gave a loud whistle of surprise and then burst out laughing, but
Mrs. Ware looked across at him soberly, with a triumphant nod of the
head.
"There! What did I tell you?" she asked. "Didn't I say that she'd soon
adjust herself--find something to amuse herself and all the rest of us
as well?"
Mary, who had been wondering all the way home how her news would be
received, had never imagined this--that her venture would be looked upon
merely as an outlet for her surplus energy, but after one gasp of
surprise she was glad that her mother had put it that way.
"She did it on purpose," Mary thought. "So that Jack need not have added
to his other ills the tormenting thought that he had driven his little
sister to a disagreeable task, in order that she might help support
him."
An understanding glance from her mother, full of approval and tender
appreciation, flashed on her as she drew her chair up to the stove, but
all she said was, "I'm sure you had an amusing interview." Then Mary
proceeded to recount it, giving a graphic and laughable description of
her half hour in the gray cottage. But all the time she was talking and
mimicking she was looking forward to the moment when she could escape to
a corner of the kitchen, and calculate with pencil and paper what she
could never do in her head, the height of prosperity to which this tidal
wave of a salary would lift them.