In spite of Mrs. Kendall's earnest efforts Margaret was not easily
convinced that marriage might be desirable, and that all husbands were
not patterned after Tim Sullivan and Mike Whalen. Nor was this coming
marriage the only thing that troubled Margaret. Life at the Alley was
still too vividly before her eyes to allow her to understand any scheme
of living that did not recognize the supremacy of the sharpest tongue
and the heaviest fist; and this period of adjustment to the new order of
things was not without its trials for herself as well as for her mother.
The beauty, love, and watchful care that surrounded her filled her with
ecstatic rapture; but the niceties of speech and manner daily demanded
of her, terrified and dismayed her. Why "bully" and "bang-up" should be
frowned upon when, after all, they but expressed her pleasure in
something provided for her happiness, she could not understand; and why
the handling of the absurdly large number of knives, forks, and spoons
about her plate at dinner should be a matter of so great moment, she
could not see. As for the big white square of folded cloth that her
mother thought so necessary at every meal--its dainty purity filled
Margaret with dismay lest she soil or wrinkle it; and for her part she
would have much preferred to let it quite alone.
There were the callers, too--beautiful ladies in trailing gowns who
insisted upon seeing her, though why, Margaret could not understand; for
they invariably cried and said, "Poor little lamb!" when they did see
her, in spite of her efforts to convince them that she was perfectly
happy. And there were the children--they, too, were disconcerting. They
came, sometimes alone, and sometimes with their parents, but always they
stared and seemed afraid of her. There were others, to be sure, who were
not afraid of her. But they never "called." They "slipped in" through
the back gate at the foot of the garden, and they were really very nice.
They were Nat and Tom and Roxy Trotter, and they lived in a little house
down by the river. They never wore shoes nor stockings, and their
clothes were not at all like those of the other children. Margaret
suspected that the Trotters were poor, and she took pains that her
mother should see Nat and Tom and Roxy. Her mother, however, did not
appear to know them, which did not seem so very strange to Margaret,
after all; for of course her mother had not known there were any poor
people so near, otherwise she would have shared her home with them long
ago. At first, it was Margaret's plan to rectify this little mistake
immediately; but the more she thought of it, the more thoroughly was she
convinced that the first chance belonged by right to Patty's family and
the Whalens in New York, inasmuch as they had been so good to her. She
determined, therefore, to wait awhile before suggesting the removal of
the Trotter family from their tiny, inconvenient house to the more
spacious and desirable Five Oaks.
Delightful as were the Trotters, however, even they did not quite come
up to Bobby McGinnis for real comradeship. Bobby lived with his mother
and grandmother in the little red farmhouse farther up the hill. It was
he who had found Margaret crying in the streets on that first dreadful
day long ago when she was lost in New York. For a week she had lived in
his attic home, then she had become frightened at his father's drunken
rage, one day, and had fled to the streets, never to return. All this
Margaret knew, though she had but a faint recollection of it. It made a
bond of sympathy between them, nevertheless, and caused them to become
fast friends at once.
It was to Bobby that she went for advice when the standards of
Houghtonsville and the Alley clashed; and it was to Bobby that she went
for sympathy when grievous mismanagement of the knives and forks or of
the folded square of cloth brought disaster to herself and tears to her
mother's eyes. She earnestly desired to--as she expressed it to
Bobby--"come up to the scratch and walk straight"; and it was to Bobby
that she looked for aid and counsel.
"You see, you can tell just what 'tis ails me," she argued earnestly, as
the two sat in their favorite perch in the apple tree. "You don't know
Patty and the Whalens, 'course, but you do know folks just like 'em; and
mother--don't you see?--she knows only the kind that lives here, and
she--she don't understand. But you know both kinds, and you can tell
where 'tis that I ain't like 'em here. And I want to be like 'em, Bobby,
I do, truly. They're just bang-up--I mean, _beautiful_ folks," she
corrected hastily. "And mother's so good to me! She's just----"
Margaret stopped suddenly. A new thought seemed to have come to her.
"Bobby," she cried with sharp abruptness, "did you ever know any
husbands that was--good?"
"'Husbands'? 'Good'? What do ye mean?"
"Did you ever know any that was good, I mean that didn't beat their
wives and bang 'em 'round? Did you, Bobby?"
Bobby laughed. He lifted his chin quizzically, and gazed down from the
lofty superiority of his fourteen years.
"Sure, an' ain't ye beginnin' sort o' early ter worry about husbands?"
he teased. "But, mebbe you've already--er--picked him out! eh?"
Margaret did not seem to hear. She was looking straight through a little
open space in the boughs of the apple tree to the blue sky far beyond.
"Bobby," she began in a voice scarcely above a whisper, "if that man
should be bad to my mother I think I'd--kill him."
Bobby roused himself. He suddenly remembered Joe Bagley and the kitten.
"What man?" he asked.
"Dr. Spencer."
"Dr. Spencer!" gasped Bobby. "Why, Dr. Spencer wouldn't hurt a fly. He's
just bully!"
Margaret stirred restlessly. She turned a grave face on her companion.
"Bobby," she reproved gently, "I don't think I'd oughter hear them words
if I ain't 'lowed to use 'em myself."
Bobby uptilted his chin.
"I've heard your ma say 'ain't' wa'n't proper," he observed virtuously.
"I shouldn't have mentioned it, only--well, seein' as how you're gettin'
so awful particular----!" For the more telling effect he left the sentence
unfinished.
Again Margaret did not seem to hear. Again her eyes had sought the patch
of blue showing through the green leaves.
"Dr. Spencer may be nice now, but he ain't a husband yet," she said,
thoughtfully. "There was Tim Sullivan and Patty's father and Mike
Whalen," she enumerated aloud. "And they was all---- Bobby, was your
father a good husband?" she demanded with a sudden turn that brought her
eyes squarely round to his.
The boy was silent.
"Bobby, was he?"
Slowly the boy's eyes fell.
"Well, of course, sometimes dad would"--he began; but Margaret
interrupted him.
"I knew it--I just knew it--I just knew there wasn't any," she moaned;
"but I can't make mother see it--I just can't!"
This was but the first of many talks between Margaret and Bobby upon the
same subject, and always Margaret was seeking for a possible averting of
the catastrophe. To convince her mother of the awfulness of the fate
awaiting her, and so to persuade her to abandon the idea of marriage,
was out of the question, Margaret soon found. It was then, perhaps, that
the idea of speaking to the doctor himself first came to her.
"If I could only get him to promise things!" she said to Bobby. "If I
could only get him to promise!"
"Promise?"
"Yes; to be good and kind, you know," nodded Margaret, "and not like a
husband."
Bobby laughed; then he frowned and was silent. Suddenly his face
changed.
"I say, you might make him sign a contract," he hazarded.
"Contract?"
"Sure! One of them things that makes folks toe the mark whether they
wants to or not. I'll draw it up for you--that's what they call it," he
explained airily; and as Margaret bubbled over with delight and thanks
he added: "Not at all. 'Tain't nothin'. Glad ter do it, I'm sure!"
For a month now Bobby had swept the floor and dusted the books in the
law office of Burt & Burt, to say nothing of running errands and tending
door. In days gone by, the law, as represented by the policeman on the
corner, was something to be avoided; but to-day, as represented by a
frock coat, a tall hat, and a vocabulary bristling with big words, it
was something that was most alluring--so alluring, in fact, that Bobby
had determined to adopt it as his own. He himself would be a lawyer--tall
hat, frock coat, big words and all. Hence his readiness to undertake
this little matter of drawing up a contract for Margaret, his first
client.
It was some days, nevertheless, before the work was ready for the
doctor's signature. The young lawyer, unfortunately, could not give all
of his time to his own affairs; there were still the trivial duties of
his office to perform. He found, too, that the big words which fell so
glibly from the lips of the great Burt & Burt were anything but easily
managed when he tried to put them upon paper himself. Bobby was
ambitious and persistent, however, and where knowledge failed,
imagination stepped boldly to the front. In the end it was with no
little pride that he displayed the result of his labor to his client,
then, with her gleeful words of approval still ringing in his ears, he
slipped it into its envelope, sealed, stamped, and posted it. Thus it
happened that the next day a very much amazed physician received this in
his mail:
_"To whom it may concern_:
"Whereas, I, the Undersigned, being in my sane Mind do intend to
commit Matremony, I, the said Undersigned do hereby solumly declare
and agree, to wit, not to Beat my aforesaid Wife. Not to Bang her
round. Not to Falsely, Wickedly and Maliciously treat her. Not once.
Moreover, I, the said Undersigned do solumly Swear all this to
Margaret Kendall, the dorter and Lawfull Protectur of the said Wife,
to wit, Mrs. Kendall. And whereas, if I, the aforesaid Undersigned do
break and violate this my solum Oath concerning the said Wife, I do
hereby Swear that she, to wit, Margaret Kendall, may bestow upon me
such Punishmunt as seems eminuntly proper to her at such time as she
sees fit. Whereas and whereunto I have this day set my Hand and Seal."
Here followed a space for the signature, and a somewhat thumbed,
irregular daub of red sealing-wax.