There came a day when there seemed to be nothing left to do for Patty.
Maggie was well, and at play again in the tiny yard. The yard itself was
no longer strewn with tin cans and bits of paper, nor did the gate hang
half-hinged in slovenly decrepitude. The house rejoiced in new paper,
paint, and window-glass, and the roof showed a spotted surface that
would defy the heaviest shower. Within, before a cheery fire, Patty
sewed industriously on garments which Miss Kendall no wise needed, but
for which Miss Kendall would pay much money.
Patty did not work in the mills now; Margaret had refused to let her go
back, saying that she wanted lots of sewing done, and Patty could do
that instead. Patty's own wardrobe, as well as that of the child,
Maggie, was supplied for a year ahead; and the pantry and the storeroom
of the little house fairly groaned with good things to eat. Even Sam,
true to Margaret's promise, was not "left out," as was shown by his
appearance. Sam, stirred by the girl's cheery encouragement and tactful
confidence, held up his head sometimes now with a trace of his old
manliness, and had even been known to keep sober for two whole days at a
time.
There did, indeed, seem nothing left to do for Patty, and Margaret found
herself with the old idleness on her hands.
At Hilcrest Mrs. Merideth and her brothers were doing everything in
their power to make Margaret happy. They were frightened and dismayed at
the girl's "infatuation for that mill woman," as they termed Margaret's
interest in Patty; and they had ever before them the haunting vision of
the girl's childhood morbidness, which they so feared to see return.
To the Spencers, happiness for Margaret meant pleasure, excitement,
and--as Ned expressed it--"something doing." At the first hint, then, of
leisure on the part of Margaret, these three vied with each other to
fill that leisure to the brim.
Two or three guests were invited--just enough to break the monotony of
the familiar faces, though not enough to spoil the intimacy and render
outside interests easy. It was December, and too late for picnics, but
it was yet early in the month, and driving and motoring were still
possible, and even enjoyable. The goal now was not a lake or a mountain,
to be sure; but might be a not too distant city with a matinee or a
luncheon to give zest to the trip.
Ned, in particular, was indefatigable in his efforts to please; and
Margaret could scarcely move that she did not find him at her elbow with
some suggestion for her gratification ranging all the way from a
dinner-party to a footstool.
Margaret was not quite at ease about Ned. There was an exclusiveness in
his devotions, and a tenderness in his ministrations that made her a
little restless in his presence, particularly if she found herself alone
with him. Ned was her good friend--her comrade. She was very sure that
she did not wish him to be anything else; and if he should try to
be--there would be an end to the comradeship, at all events, if not to
the friendship.
By way of defense against these possibilities she adopted a playful air
of whimsicality and fell to calling him the name by which he had
introduced himself on that first day when she had seen him at the head
of the hillside path--"Uncle Ned." She did not do this many times,
however, for one day he turned upon her a white face working with
emotion.
"I am not your uncle," he burst out; and Margaret scarcely knew whether
to laugh or to cry, he threw so much tragedy into the simple words.
"No?" she managed to return lightly. "Oh, but you said you were, you
know; and when a man says----"
"But I say otherwise now," he cut in, leaning toward her until his
breath stirred the hair at her temples. "Margaret," he murmured
tremulously, "it's not 'uncle,'--but there's something else--a name
that----"
"Oh, but I couldn't learn another," interrupted Margaret, with nervous
precipitation, as she rose hurriedly to her feet, "so soon as this, you
know! Why, you've just cast me off as a niece, and it takes time for me
to realize the full force of that blow," she finished gayly, as she
hurried away.
In her own room she drew a deep breath of relief; but all day, and for
many days afterward, she was haunted by the hurt look in Ned's eyes as
she had turned away. It reminded her of the expression she had seen once
in the pictured eyes of a dog that had been painted by a great artist.
She remembered, too, the title of the picture: "Wounded in the house of
his friends," and it distressed her not a little; and yet--Ned was her
comrade and her very good friend, and that was what he must be.
Not only this, however, caused Margaret restless days and troubled
nights: there were those children down in the mills--those little
children, nine, ten, twelve years old. It was too cold now to stay long
on the veranda; but there was many a day, and there were some nights,
when Margaret looked out of the east windows of Hilcrest and gazed with
fascinated, yet shrinking eyes at the mills.
She was growing morbid--she owned that to herself. She knew nothing at
all of the mills, and she had never seen a child at work in them; yet
she pictured great black wheels relentlessly crushing out young lives,
and she recoiled from the touch of her trailing silks--they seemed alive
with shrunken little forms and wasted fingers. Day after day she turned
over in her mind the most visionary projects for stopping those wheels,
or for removing those children beyond their reach. Even though her eyes
might be on the merry throngs of a gay city street--her thoughts were
still back in the mill town with the children; and even though her body
might be flying from home at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour
in Frank's big six-cylinder Speeder, her real self was back at Hilcrest
with the mills always in sight.
Once again she appealed to her guardian, but five minutes' talk showed
her the uselessness of anything she could say--it was true, she did not
_know_ anything about it.
It was that very fact, perhaps, which first sent her thoughts in a new
direction. If, as was true, she did not know anything about it, how
better could she remedy the situation than by finding out something
about it? And almost instantly came the memory of her guardian's words:
"I suppose that that altogether too officious young McGinnis has been
asking your help for some of his schemes."
Bobby knew. Bobby had schemes. Bobby was the one to help her. By all
means, she would send for Bobby!
That night, in a cramped little room in one of the mill boarding-houses,
a square-jawed, gray-eyed young man received a note that sent the blood
in a tide of red to his face, and made his hands shake until the paper
in his long, sinewy fingers fluttered like an aspen leaf in a breeze.
Yet the note was very simple. It read:
"Will you come, please, to see me to-morrow night? I want to ask some
questions about the children at the mills."
And it was signed, "Margaret Kendall."