Embury was glad to get home again. He thought Millersville a jolly
place to live in after Sorgo, Oklahoma, with its constant smell and
feel of oil. He enjoyed his old room again and the new car and being
with the crowd.
He was not an especially brilliant fellow, nor a rapid thinker, nor
much of a reader. He liked a good time, in a quiet way. He wore good
clothes and liked to be with others who did. He thought girls were
awfully jolly, but hard to get acquainted with. He found the girls in
Millersville unusually pleasant. But, of course, that was as it should
be; they were home-town girls.
Sophie Redding—she was jolly and cute and had a way of making him feel
awfully at home. It was pleasant at the Reddings, sitting out on the
big porch and drinking lemonade, with Sophie ready to laugh at his
jokes and some of the others of the crowd likely to drop in at any
time. Yes, Sophie was a pretty fine girl. His folks liked her, too,
always awfully glad when he called on her, kept telling him what a fine
girl she was and how much they liked the family. Now, if he showed her
a good time all summer and autumn, did all he could for her, maybe
Sophie would care for him.
Embury was driving down Hill Street four or five days later when a
pretty girl nodded to him, just a formal, pleasant little nod.
Embury couldn’t place her, exactly, but he spoke, of course. He even
took his eyes off the road ahead long enough to glance back at her.
She was pretty, and he liked little girls who wore plain blue dresses
in summer. Some one, probably, he’d met out at the Country Club and
didn’t remember. Still, she seemed prettier than most of the girls he
had met there. Maybe some one he used to know. He tried to conjure up a
childhood acquaintance who might have blossomed into this little blonde
girl, but he couldn’t. Anyhow, she was pretty.
Two weeks later, walking up Elm Street after leaving the office—he
frequently walked home and always went that way when he did—the same
little figure overtook him, passed ahead. His heart palpitated quite
pleasantly. But this time the nod was even cooler, more formal. He
returned it as cordially as he could. That night there was a dance
at the club and Embury watched each new arrival, but there was no
pretty little blonde with big eyes and radiant hair. Sophie found him
preoccupied and told him so. He tried his best to be more courteous to
her. After all, why worry about a strange girl? You couldn’t tell who
she might turn out to be.
He saw her again, a week later, when he was driving. Again he received
a cool little nod. He’d ask some of the boys about her—she might be
good fun—evidently wasn’t one of the crowd. Millersville was a slow
place, not much to do, a little affair on the side—by another year he
might be married and settled down—might as well have a good time while
he could.
He didn’t have to ask any of the boys, for the very next day, on Elm
Street, the little figure in blue held out her hand as he overtook her.
“I don’t believe you know me,” she laughed prettily, shyly. “You’ve
looked—so amazed, when I’ve spoken. Don’t tell me your years out of
town have made you forget old acquaintances altogether. I’m Mamie
Carpenter.”
“Why, of course, Miss Carpenter, I’m delighted,” he stammered.
“Oh, I’m so ashamed,” she said, then hurriedly, with embarrassed little
pauses between the words: “Here, I’ve stopped you to tell you how—how
glad Millersville is to have you back—and—I’m afraid you don’t remember
me, after all. I don’t blame you—I was such a little girl when you
left—and I’m not—important. But I remember when I went to Grant School,
and you were in High, I used to stop every day and watch you practise
football. You wore a red sweater, I remember. You—you were one of my
youthful heroes, you see.”
He thought, then, that he did remember her, and said so. Little girls
change—he knew that. It was pleasant for him to think that, after all
these years, she remembered him. He had worn a red sweater—still,
wasn’t the school colour red; hadn’t all the other boys worn them, too?
Well, anyhow, he had played football. No one else had said anything
about those days. How pretty she was—a wonderful complexion! Why, in
comparison, it made Sophie’s seem almost pasty. Of course, Sophie was a
Redding—that was different—a serious thing, a bully girl, too. Mamie—he
liked the name—it was like her, simple, plain, pretty. She might be
great fun. To think of her remembering him all these years! What a
plain little dress she wore! Poor people, evidently. Oh, well—
Two weeks later, in Elm Street—it was a quiet street, tree-lined—he met
Mamie again. She was walking ahead of him, as he turned up from Hill.
He caught up with her.
“You live near here?” he asked.
She told him, very seriously, that she lived in Gillen Row and that her
parents were awfully poor.
“I—I work, you know—in the Busy Bee, the candy store. It makes things
a little easier for mother—and my father. I stopped school before my
junior year—to—to help them. Of course I’ve kept up with reading—but—I
didn’t mind stopping—my father had an accident and they needed me. It
isn’t bad—it’s rather pleasant at the Busy Bee—interesting to watch
people.”
“I’m sure you’re the sweetest thing there,” said Embury, and was
surprised at his own boldness and a bit ashamed when he saw how Mamie
blushed and dropped her eyes. What a dear little thing she was, leaving
school to help her folks and not even complaining about it—and not
ashamed, either, didn’t try to conceal it. It never occurred to him
that he probably would have seen her in the Busy Bee any day and so
discovered her position for himself.
“You always walk home in Elm Street?” he asked, to cover her
confusion—she was still blushing.
“Yes, it’s so quiet and peaceful, the trees and all.”
“That’s funny. That’s why _I_ go this way, when I don’t take the car to
the office.”
“You do?” Mamie showed great surprise. “Isn’t it funny, our tastes in
streets?”
Perhaps even more remarkable, if she had mentioned it, would have been
the fact that Mamie had never honoured Elm Street with her presence
until—investigating by little scurries after leaving the shop in the
evening—she had found that Embury usually chose it when walking home.
V
Two days later, Embury walked up Elm Street with Mamie again. He had
looked for her the day before, and had been disappointed when he did
not see her. Hadn’t she said she walked there every day?
“I didn’t see you yesterday,” he said with a smile, as he joined her.
Mamie explained—not the real fact, that she had taken her old route
home so as not to appear too eager for his acquaintance—but that she
had gone a shorter way so that she could hurry home to cook dinner—her
mother wasn’t well.
“Poor little girl,” thought Embury, “working all day and then cooking
dinner at night, too.”
“I missed you,” he said.
Mamie blushed again. She was rather good at it. Many people are.
“Are you going to stay here in Millersville?” Mamie asked.
No use getting excited, working hard over him, if he wasn’t. Embury was
the first real opportunity she had had—if she could only get him before
the others poisoned his mind against her or before the Reddings made
his escape impossible—if he were going to leave Millersville, there
wouldn’t be any use bothering about him.
Embury told her that he was to stay in town, and she showed pleasure
and blushed again. She asked him about his work and his plans.
To his surprise, Embury found himself telling her about himself. Here
was a girl, intelligent, interesting. The other girls didn’t know
anything about business. But, of course, thrown on her own resources
as she had been, she’d learned to take a real interest in the business
world.
They walked together until a block before the street down which Embury
usually turned.
“I go this way,” said Mamie.
She could have continued on Elm Street, but she thought it best to be
the first to break their walk together.
“Wait a minute; don’t go away so quickly,” said Embury.
He felt as if he were on a delightful adventure.
Quietly, Mamie waited.
“When am I going to see you again?” he asked.
She started to say something, blushed then; “Why, I don’t know—I mean,
any evening, walking home this way. I’m at the Busy Bee all day, you
know.”
“At night. Can’t I call? Can’t you go for a drive?”
Mamie knew how her home would look to Embury, the porch with its
sagging floor, the living-room with its clutter of ugly chairs, her
parents quarrelling, more than likely. She couldn’t receive him at
home. It didn’t seem fair—she had to fight against so many odds—and
Sophie Redding had the whole Redding home, with its great porches,
its big living rooms for entertaining. How she hated Sophie Redding
with her giggles, her light stringy hair. Still, if she were smart
enough—there might be ways....
“I’m afraid I can’t let you call at all,” she said, modestly. “You
see, I’m not one of the society girls. It—it wouldn’t look right, I’m
afraid. You know how—how careful a girl has got to be.”
What a dear little thing she was! Modest and shy and good. Each second
Embury felt himself more and more a man of the world. This little
thing, so fragile and dainty—and awfully pretty. Of course she was
right. People would talk—and yet....
He didn’t know that Millersville would not talk about Mamie, no matter
how many men called on her, that they had talked when she was a little
girl and dismissed her, carelessly, as “Joe Carpenter’s daughter, a bad
egg.” Mamie knew. It didn’t make her feel any happier. Still, this was
no time to worry about it.
“Couldn’t we go for a ride some evening?” he asked. “No one would see
us, honestly they wouldn’t.”
“I really couldn’t. Really. You know how it is. I’d love to—but—it
wouldn’t be right. I can’t go.”
She appeared to want to yield to him. She knew how society in
Millersville regarded girls who went automobiling with young men,
alone. Embury would find out, if he didn’t know already, and his
opinions would be moulded by the others.
“You’re the funniest girl I ever saw,” he smiled at her.
She was just small enough so that he looked down into her face when he
stood close to her. Embury liked little girls. He was glad Mamie was
small.
“Other girls would go with me, honestly they would.”
“You’d better take them, then,” she pouted, prettily.
“I don’t mean that. I don’t want to sound conceited. Only I would like
to take you, honestly I would. I know a little road house, ‘Under Two
Flags,’ where they make awfully good things to eat, French cooking. We
could ride out there some night, if you’ll go.”
Mamie knew the road house. She used to think it great fun. She had
slapped the faces of six commercial travellers driving home from it and
finally had given it up as a dangerous place. It was, nevertheless,
a fairly decent resort, with only a slightly sporty reputation, but,
after all, the ride there and the supper weren’t worth the trouble of
keeping her escort in his place all the way back. Why did men expect
such big rewards for a ride and a bite to eat?
Mamie smiled wistfully.
“I’m afraid not,” she said. “I wish you wouldn’t—tempt me so. You see,
I never go driving—I—I don’t have many good times.”
Embury’s conscience hurt him. She was such a dear. Of course she
shouldn’t go. He felt more wicked than ever.
“But look here,” he said, “can’t I see you at all?”
Mamie was thoughtful.
“I don’t know,” she said; then, “next Friday I have a holiday—I work
every second Sunday, the Busy Bee is open on Sundays too.”
Embury was supposed to be at the office every day but he knew he was
not indispensable.
“Fine,” he told her, “that’s awfully good. Can we go in my car and make
a picnic of it?”
Mamie thought that would be a lot of fun. They made plans for the
meeting. That was Wednesday. On Thursday, Mamie avoided Elm Street.