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diff --git a/old/rburg10.txt b/old/rburg10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af44c31 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rburg10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5224 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne +by Kathleen Norris +(#3 in our series by Kathleen Norris) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE + + +KATHLEEN NORRIS + + + + + + +TO KATHLEEN MARY THOMPSON + + Lover of books, who never fails to find + Some good in every book, your namesake sends + This book to you, knowing you always kind + To small things, timid and in need of friends. + + + + + + + O friend! I know not which way I must look + For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, + To think that now our life is only drest + For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook, + Or groom!--We must run glittering like a brook + In the open sunshine, or we are unblest; + The wealthiest man among us is the best: + No grandeur now in nature or in book + Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, + This is idolatry; and these we adore: + Plain living and high thinking are no more: + The homely beauty of the good old cause + Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence. + And pure religion breathing household laws. + --WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. + + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"Annie, what are you doing? Polishing the ramekins? Oh, that's +right. Did the extra ramekins come from Mrs. Brown? Didn't! Then as +soon as the children come back I'll send for them; I wish you'd +remind me. Did Mrs. Binney come? and Lizzie? Oh, that's good. Where +are they? Down in the cellar! Oh, did the extra ice come? Will you +find out, Annie? Those can wait. If it didn't, the mousse is ruined, +that's all! No, wait, Annie, I'll go out and see Celia myself." + +Little Mrs. George Carew, flushed and excited, crossed the pantry as +she spoke, and pushed open the swinging door that connected it with +the kitchen. She was a pretty woman, even now when her hair, already +dressed, was hidden under snugly pinned veils and her trim little +figure lost under a flying kimono. Mrs. Carew was expecting the +twenty-eight members of the Santa Paloma Bridge Club on this +particular evening, and now, at three o'clock on a beautiful April +afternoon, she was almost frantic with fatigue and nervousness. The +house had been cleaned thoroughly the day before, rugs shaken, +mirrors polished, floors oiled; the grand piano had been closed, and +pushed against the wall; the reading-table had been cleared, and +wheeled out under the turn of the stairway; the pretty drawing-room +and square big entrance hall had been emptied to make room for the +seven little card-tables that were already set up, and for the +twenty-eight straight-back chairs that Mrs. Carew had collected from +the dining-room, the bedrooms, the halls, and even the nursery, for +the occasion. All this had been done the day before, and Mrs. Carew, +awakening early in the morning to uneasy anticipations of a full +day, had yet felt that the main work of preparation was out of the +way. + +But now, in mid-afternoon, nothing seemed done. There were flowers +still to arrange; there was the mild punch that Santa Paloma +affected at card parties to be finished; there was candy to be put +about on the tables, in little silver dishes; and new packs of +cards, and pencils and score-cards to be scattered about. And in the +kitchen--But Mrs. Carew's heart failed at the thought. True, her own +two maids were being helped out to-day by Mrs. Binney from the +village, a tower of strength in an emergency, and by Lizzie Binney, +a worthy daughter of her mother; but there had been so many stupid +delays. And plates, and glasses, and punch-cups, and silver, and +napkins for twenty-eight meant such a lot of counting and sorting +and polishing! And somehow George and the children must have dinner, +and the Binneys and Celia and Annie must eat, too. + +"Well," thought Mrs. Carew, with a desperate glance at the kitchen +clock, "it will all be over pretty soon, thank goodness!" + +A pleasant stir of preparation pervaded the kitchen. Mrs. Binney, +enormous, good-natured, capable, was opening crabs at one end of the +table, her sleeves rolled up, and her gingham dress, in the last +stage of age and thinness, protected by a new stiff white apron; +Celia, Mrs. Carew's cook, was sitting opposite her, dismembering two +cold roasted fowls; Lizzie Binney, as trim and pretty as her mother +was shapeless and plain, was filling silver bonbon-dishes with +salted nuts. + +"How is everything going, Celia?" said Mrs. Carew, sampling a nut. + +"Fine," said Celia placidly. "He didn't bring but two bunches of +sullery, so I don't know will I have enough for the salad. They sent +the cherries. And Mrs. Binney wants you should taste the punch." + +"It's sweet now," said Mrs. Binney, as Mrs. Carew picked up the big +mixing-spoon, "but there's the ice to go in." + +"Delicious! not one bit too sweet," Mrs. Carew pronounced. "You know +that's to be passed around in the little glasses, Lizzie, while +we're playing; and a cherry and a piece of pineapple in every glass. +Did Annie find the doilies for the big trays? Yes. I got the bowl +down; Annie's going to wash it. Oh, the cakes came, didn't they? +That's good. And the cream for coffee; that ought to go right on +ice. I'll telephone for more celery." + +"There's some of these napkins so mussed, laying in the drawer," +said Lizzie, "I thought I'd put a couple of irons on and press them +out." + +"If you have time, I wish you would," Mrs. Carew said, touching the +frosted top of an angel-cake with a tentative finger. "I may have to +play to-night, Celia," she went on, to her own cook, "but you girls +can manage everything, can't you? Dinner really doesn't matter-- +scrambled eggs and baked potatoes, something like that, and you'll +have to serve it on the side porch." + +"Oh, yes'm, we'll manage!" Celia assured her confidently. "We'll +clear up here pretty soon, and then there's nothing but the +sandwiches to do." + +Mrs. Carew went on her way comforted. Celia was not a fancy cook, +she reflected, passing through the darkened dining-room, where the +long table had been already set with a shining cloth, and where +silver and glass gleamed in the darkness, but Celia was reliable. +And for a woman with three children, a large house, and but one +other maid, Celia was a treasure. + +She telephoned the grocer, her eyes roving critically over the hall +as she did so. The buttercups, in a great bowl on the table, were +already dropping their varnished yellow leaves; Annie must brush +those up the very last thing. + +"So far, so good!" said Mrs. Carew, straightening the rug at the +door with a small heel and dropping wearily into a porch rocker. +"There must be one thousand things I ought to be doing," she said, +resting her head and shutting her eyes. + +It was a warm, delicious afternoon. The little California town lay +asleep under a haze of golden sunshine. The Carews' pretty house, +with its lawn and garden, was almost the last on River Street, and +stood on the slope of a hill that commanded all Santa Paloma Valley. +Below it, the wide tree-shaded street descended between other +unfenced lawns and other handsome homes. + +This was the aristocratic part of the town. The Willard Whites' +immense colonial mansion was here; and the Whites, rich, handsome, +childless, clever, and nearing the forties, were quite the most +prominent people of Santa Paloma. The Wayne Adamses, charming, +extravagant young people, lived near; and the Parker Lloyds, who +were suspected of hiding rather serious money troubles under their +reckless hospitality and unfailing gaiety, were just across the +street. On River Street, too, lived dignified, aristocratic old Mrs. +Apostleman and nervous, timid Anne Pratt and her brother Walter, +whose gloomy, stately old mansion was one of the finest in town. Up +at the end of the street were the Carews, and the shabby comfortable +home of Dr. and Mrs. Brown, and the neglected white cottage where +Barry Valentine and his little son Billy and a studious young +Japanese servant led a rather shiftless existence. And although +there were other pretty streets in town, and other pleasant well-to- +do women who were members of church and club, River Street was +unquestionably THE street, and its residents unquestionably THE +people of Santa Paloma. + +Beyond these homes lay the business part of the town, the railway +station, and post-office, the library, and the women's clubhouse, +with its red geraniums, red-tiled roof, and plaster arches. + +And beyond again were blocks of business buildings, handsome and +modern, with metal-sheathed elevators, and tiled vestibules, and +heavy, plate-glass windows on the street. There was a drug store +quite modern enough to be facing upon Forty-second Street and +Broadway, instead of the tree-shaded peace of Santa Paloma's main +street. At its cool and glittering fountain indeed, a hundred drinks +could be mixed of which Broadway never even heard. And on Broadway, +three thousand miles away, the women who shopped were buying the +same boxed powders, the same bottled toilet waters, the same +patented soaps and brushes and candies that were to be found here. +And in the immense grocery store nearby there were beautifully +spacious departments worthy of any great city, devoted to rare +fruits, and coffees and teas, and every pickle that ever came in a +glass bottle, and every little spiced fish that ever came in a gay +tin. A white-clad young man "demonstrated" a cake-mixer, a blue-clad +young woman "demonstrated" jelly-powders. + +Nearby were the one or two big dry-goods stores, with lovely gowns +in their windows, and milliners' shops, with French hats in their +smart Paris boxes--there was even a very tiny, very elegant little +shop where pastes and powders and shampooing were the attraction; a +shop that had a French name "et Cie" over the door. + +In short, there were modern women, and rich women, in Santa Paloma, +as these things unmistakably indicated. Where sixty years ago there +had been but a lonely outpost on a Spanish sheep-ranch, and where +thirty years after that there was only a "general store" at a +crossroads, now every luxury in the world might be had for the +asking. + +All this part of the town lay northeast of the sleepy little Lobos +River, which cut Santa Paloma in two. It was a pretty river, a +boiling yellow torrent in winter, but low enough in the summer-time +for the children to wade across the shallows, and shaded all along +its course by overhanging maples, and willows, and oaktrees, and an +undergrowth of wild currant and hazel bushes and blackberry vines. +Across the river was Old Paloma, where dust from the cannery +chimneys and soot from the railway sheds powdered an ugly shabby +settlement of shanties and cheap lodging-houses. Old Paloma was +peppered thick with saloons, and flavored by them, and by the odor +of frying grease, and by an ashy waste known as the "dump." Over all +other odors lay the sweet, cloying smell of crushed grapes from the +winery and the pungent odor from the tannery of White & Company. The +men, and boys, and girls of the settlement all worked in one or +another of these places, and the women gossiped in their untidy +doorways. Above the Carew house and Doctor Brown's, opposite, River +Street came perforce to an end, for it was crossed at this point by +an old-fashioned wooden fence of slender, rounded pickets. In the +middle of the fence was a wide carriage gate, with a smaller gate +for foot passengers at each side, and beyond it the shabby, +neglected garden and the tangle of pepper, and eucalyptus, and +weeping willow trees that half hid the old Holly mansion. Once this +had been the great house of the village, but now it was empty and +forlorn. Captain Holly had been dead for five or six years, and the +last of the sons and daughters had gone away into the world. The +house, furnished just as they had left it, was for sale, but the +years went by, and no buyer appeared; and meantime the garden +flowers ran wild, the lawns were dry and brown, and the fence was +smothered in coarse rose vines and rampant wild blackberry vines. +Dry grass and yarrow and hollow milkweed grew high in the gateways, +and when the village children went through them to prowl, as +children love to prowl, about the neglected house and orchard, they +left long, dusty wakes in the crushed weeds. Further up than the +children usually ventured, there was an old bridge across the Lobos, +Captain Holly's private road to the mill town; but it was boarded +across now, and hundreds of chipmunks nested in it, and whisked +about it undisturbed. The great stables and barns stood empty; the +fountains were long gone dry. Only the orchard continued to bear +heavily. + +The Holly estate ran up into the hill behind it, one of the wooded +foothills that encircled all Santa Paloma, as they encircle so many +California towns. Already turning brown, and crowned with dense, low +groves of oak, and bay, and madrona trees, they shut off the world +outside; although sometimes on a still day the solemn booming of the +ocean could be heard beyond them, and a hundred times a year the +Pacific fogs came creeping over them long before dawn, and Santa +Paloma awakened in an enveloping cloud of soft mist. Here and there +the slopes of these hills were checkered with the sharp oblongs and +angles of young vineyards, and hidden by the thickening green of +peach and apple orchards. A few low, brown dairy ranch-houses were +perched high on the ridges; the red-brown moving stream of the +cattle home-coming in mid-afternoon could be seen from the village +on a clear day. And over hill and valley, on this wonderful +afternoon in late spring, the most generous sunlight in the world +lay warm and golden, and across them the shadows of high clouds--for +there had been rain in the night--traveled slowly. + +"I declare," said little Mrs. Carew lazily, "I could go to sleep!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A moment later when a tall man came up the path and dropped on the +top porch step with an air of being entirely at home, Mrs. Carew was +still dreaming, half-awake and half-asleep. + +"Hello, Jeanette!" said the newcomer. "What's new with thee, coz?" + +"Don't smoke there, Barry, and get things mussy!" said Mrs. Carew in +return, smiling to soften the command, and to show Barry Valentine +that he was welcome. + +Barry was usually welcome everywhere, although not at all approved +in many cases, and criticised even by the people who liked him best. +He was a sort of fourth cousin of Mrs. Carew, who sometimes felt +herself called to the difficult task of defending him because of the +distant kinship. He was very handsome, lean, and dark, with a sleepy +smile and with eyes that all children loved; and he was clever, or, +at least, everyone believed him to be so; and he had charm--a charm +of sheer sweetness, for he never seemed to be particularly anxious +to please. Barry was very gallant, in an impersonal sort of way: he +took a keen, elder-brotherly sort of interest in every pretty girl +in the village, and liked to discuss their own love affairs with +them, with a seriousness quite paternal. He never singled any girl +out for particular attention, or escorted one unless asked, but he +was flatteringly attentive to all the middle-aged people of his +acquaintance and his big helpful hand was always ready for stumbling +old women on the church steps, or tearful waifs in the street--he +always had time to listen to other people's troubles. Barry-- +everyone admitted--had his points. But after all-- + +After all, he was lazy, and shiftless, and unambitious: he was +content to be assistant editor of the Mail; content to be bullied +and belittled by old Rogers; content to go on his own idle, sunny +way, playing with his small, chubby son, foraging the woods with a +dozen small boys at his heels, working patiently over a broken +gopher-trap or a rusty shotgun, for some small admirer. Worst of +all, Barry had been intemperate, years ago, and there were people +who believed that his occasional visits to San Francisco, now, were +merely excuses for revels with his old newspaper friends there. + +And yet, he had been such a brilliant, such a fiery and ambitious +boy! All Santa Paloma had taken pride in the fact that Barry +Valentine, only twenty, had been offered the editorship of the one +newspaper of Plumas, a little town some twelve miles away, and had +prophesied a triumphant progress for him, to the newspapers of San +Francisco, of Chicago, of New York! But Barry had not been long in +Plumas when he suddenly married Miss Hetty Scott of that town, and +in the twelve years that had passed since then the golden dreams for +his future had vanished one by one, until to-day found him with no +one to believe in him--not even himself. + +Hetty Scott was but seventeen when Barry met her, and already the +winner in two village contests for beauty and popularity. After +their marriage she and Barry went to San Francisco, and shrewd, +little, beautiful Hetty found herself more admired than ever, and +began to talk of the stage. After that, Santa Paloma heard only +occasional rumors: Barry had a position on a New York paper, and +Hetty was studying in a dramatic school; there was a baby; there +were financial troubles, and Barry was drinking again; then Hetty +was dead, and Barry, fearing the severe eastern winters for the +delicate baby, was coming back to Santa Paloma. So back they came, +and there had been no indication since, that the restless, ambitious +Barry of years ago was not dead forever. + +"No smoking?" said Barry now, good-naturedly. "That's so; you've got +some sort of 'High Jinks' on for to-night, haven't you? I brought up +those hinges for your mixing table, Jen," he went on, "but any time +will do. I suppose the kitchen is right on the fault, as it were." + +"The kitchen DOES look earthquakey," admitted Mrs. Carew with a +laugh, "but the girls would be glad to have the extra table; so go +right ahead. I'll take you out in a second. I have been on the GO," +she added wearily, "since seven this morning: my feet are like balls +of fire. You don't know what the details are. Why, just tying up the +prizes takes a good HOUR!" + +"Anything go wrong?" asked the man sympathetically. + +"Oh, no; nothing particular. But you know how a house has to LOOK! +Even the bathrooms, and our room, and the spare room--the children +do get things so mussed. It all sounds so simple; but it takes such +a time." + +"Well, Annie--doesn't she do these things?" + +"Oh, ordinarily she does! But she was sweeping all morning, we moved +things about so last night, and there was china, and glasses to get +down, and the porches--" + +"But, Jeanette," said Barry Valentine patiently, "don't you keep +this house clean enough ordinarily without these orgies of cleaning +the minute anybody comes in? I never knew such a house for women to +open windows, and tie up curtains, and put towels over their hair, +and run around with buckets of cold suds. Why this extra fuss?" + +"Well, it's not all cleaning," said Mrs. Carew, a little annoyed. +"It's largely supper; and I'm not giving anything LIKE the suppers +Mrs. White and Mrs. Adams give." + +"Why don't they eat at home?" said Mr. Valentine hospitably. "What +do they come for anyway? To see the house or each other's clothes, +or to eat? Women are funny at a card party," he went on, always +ready to expand an argument comfortably. "It takes them an hour to +settle down and see how everyone else looks, and whether there +happens to be a streak of dust under the piano; and then when the +game is just well started, a maid is nudging you in the elbow to +take a plate of hot chicken, and another, on the other side, is +holding out sandwiches, and all the women are running to look at the +prizes. Now when men play cards-- + +"Oh, Barry, don't get started!" his cousin impatiently implored. +"I'm too tired to listen. Come out and fix the table." + +"Wish I could really help you," said Barry, as they crossed the +hall; and as a further attempt to soothe her ruffled feelings, he +added amiably, "The place looks fine. The buttercups came up, didn't +they?" + +"Beautifully! You were a dear to get them," said Mrs. Carew, quite +mollified. + +Welcomed openly by all four maids, Barry was soon contentedly busy +with screws and molding-board, in a corner of the sunny kitchen. He +and Mrs. Binney immediately entered upon a spirited discussion of +equal suffrage, to the intense amusement of the others, who kept him +supplied with sandwiches, cake and various other dainties. The +little piece of work was presently finished to the entire +satisfaction of everyone, and Barry had pocketed his tools, and was +ready to go, when Mrs. Carew returned to the kitchen wide-eyed with +news. + +"Barry," said she, closing the door behind her, "George is here!" + +"Well, George has a right here," said Barry, as the lady cast a +cautious glance over her shoulder. + +"But listen," his cousin said excitedly; "he thinks he has sold the +Holly house!" + +"Gee whiz!" said Barry simply. + +"To a Mrs. Burgoyne," rushed on Mrs. Carew. "She's out there with +George on the porch now; a widow, with two children, and she looks +so sweet. She knows the Hollys. Oh, Barry, if she only takes it; +such a dandy commission for George! He's terribly excited himself. I +can tell by the calm, bored way she's talking about it." + +"Who is she? Where'd she come from?" demanded Barry. + +"From New York. Her father died last year, in Washington, I think +she said, and she wants to live quietly somewhere with the children. +Barry, will you be an angel?" + +"Eventually, I hope to," said Mr. Valentine, grinning, but she did +not hear him. + +"Could you, WOULD you, take her over the place this afternoon, +Barry? She seems sure she wants it, and George feels he must get +back to the office to see Tilden. You know he's going to sign for a +whole floor of the Pratt Building to-day. George can't keep Tilden +waiting, and it won't be a bit hard for you, Barry. George says to +promise her anything. She just wants to see about bathrooms, and so +on. Will you, Barry?" + +"Sure I will," said the obliging Barry. And when Mrs. Carew asked +him if he would like to go upstairs and brush up a little, he +accepted the delicate reflection upon the state of his hair and +hands, and said "sure" again. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Mrs. Burgoyne was a sweet-faced, fresh-looking woman about thirty- +two or-three years old, with a quick smile, like a child's, and blue +eyes, set far apart, with a little lift at the corners, that, under +level heavy brows, gave a suggestion of something almost Oriental to +her face. She was dressed simply in black, and a transparent black +veil, falling from her wide hat and flung back, framed her face most +becomingly in square crisp folds. + +She and Barry presently walked up River Street in the mellow +afternoon sunlight, and through the old wooden gates of the Holly +grounds. On every side were great high-flung sprays of overgrown +roses, dusty and choked with weeds, ragged pepper tassels dragged in +the grass, and where the path lay under the eucalyptus trees it was +slippery with the dry, crescent-shaped leaves. Bees hummed over rank +poppies and tangled honeysuckle; once or twice a hummingbird came +through the garden on some swift, whizzing journey, and there were +other birds in the trees, little shy brown birds, silent but busy in +the late afternoon. Close to the house an old garden faucet dripped +and dripped, and a noisy, changing group of the brown birds were +bathing and flashing about it. The old Hall stood on a rise of +ground, clear of the trees, and bathed in sunshine. It was an ugly +house, following as it did the fashion of the late seventies; but it +was not undignified, with its big door flanked by bay-windows and +its narrow porch bounded by a fat wooden balustrade and heavy +columns. The porch and steps were weather-stained and faded, and +littered now with fallen leaves and twigs. + +Barry opened the front door with some difficulty, and they stepped +into the musty emptiness of the big main hall. There was a stairway +at the back of the house with a colored glass window on the landing, +and through it the sunlight streamed, showing the old velvet carpet +in the hall below, and the carved heavy walnut chairs and tables, +and the old engravings in their frames of oak and walnut mosaic. The +visitors peeped into the old library, odorous of unopened books, and +with great curtains of green rep shutting out the light, and into +the music room behind it, cold even on this warm day, with a muffled +grand piano drawn free of the walls, and near it two piano-stools, +upholstered in blue-fringed rep, to match the curtains and chairs. +They went across the hall to the long, dim drawing room, where there +was another velvet carpet, dulled to a red pink by time, and muffled +pompous sofas and chairs, and great mirrors, and "sets" of +candlesticks and vases on the mantels and what-nots. The windows +were shuttered here, the air lifeless. Barry, in George Carew's +interest, felt bound to say that "they would clear all this up, you +know; a lot of this stuff could be stored." + +"Oh, why store it? It's perfectly good," the lady answered absently. + +Presently they went out to the more cheerful dining-room, which ran +straight across the house, and was low-ceiled, with pleasant square- +paned windows on two sides. + +"This was the old house," explained Barry; "they added on the front +part. You could do a lot with this room." + +"Do you still smell spice, and apples, and cider here?" said Mrs. +Burgoyne, turning from an investigation of the china-closet, with a +radiant face. A moment later she caught her breath suddenly, and +walked across the room to stand, resting her hands on a chair back, +before a large portrait that hung above the fireplace. She stood so, +gazing at the picture--the portrait of a woman--for a full minute, +and when she turned again to Barry, her eyes were bright with tears. + +"That's Mrs. Holly," said she. "Emily said that picture was here." +And turning back to the canvas, she added under her breath, "You +darling!" + +"Did you know her?" Barry asked, surprised. + +"Did I know her!" Mrs. Burgoyne echoed softly, without turning. +"Yes, I knew her," she added, almost musingly. And then suddenly she +said, "Come, let's look upstairs," and led the way by the twisted +sunny back stairway, which had a window on every landing and Crimson +Rambler roses pressing against every window. They looked into +several bedrooms, all dusty, close, sunshiny. In the largest of +these, a big front corner room, carpeted in dark red, with a black +marble fireplace and an immense walnut bed, Mrs. Burgoyne, looking +through a window that she had opened upon the lovely panorama of +river and woods, said suddenly: + +"This must be my room, it was hers. She was the best friend, in one +way, that I ever had--Mrs. Holly. How happy I was here!" + +"Here?" Barry echoed. + +At his tone she turned, and looked keenly at him, a little smile +playing about her lips. Then her face suddenly brightened. + +"Barry, of course!" she exclaimed. "I KNEW I knew you, but the 'Mr. +Valentine' confused me." And facing him radiantly, she demanded, +"Who am I?" + +Barry shook his head slowly, his puzzled, smiling eyes on hers. For +a moment they faced each other; then his look cleared as hers had +done, and their hands met as he said boyishly: + +"Well, I will be hanged! Jappy Frothingham!" + +"Jappy Frothingham!" she echoed joyously. "But I haven't heard that +name for twenty years. And you're the boy whose father was a doctor, +and who helped us build our Indian camp, and who had the frog, and +fell off the roof, and killed the rattlesnake." + +"And you're the girl from Washington who could speak French, and who +put that stuff on my freckles and wouldn't let 'em drown the +kittens." + +"Oh, yes, yes!" she said, and, their hands still joined, they +laughed like happy children together. + +Presently, more gravely, she told him a little of herself, of the +early marriage, and the diplomat husband whose career was so cruelly +cut short by years of hopeless invalidism. Then had come her +father's illness, and years of travel with him, and now she and the +little girls were alone. And in return Barry sketched his own life, +told her a little of Hetty, and his unhappy days in New York, and of +the boy, and finally of the Mail. Her absorbed attention followed +him from point to point. + +"And you say that this Rogers owns the newspaper?" she asked +thoughtfully, when the Mail was under discussion. + +"Rogers owns it; that's the trouble. Nothing goes into it without +the old man's consent." Barry tested the spring of a roller shade, +with a scowl. "Barnes, the assistant editor he had before me, threw +up his job because he wouldn't stand having his stuff cut all to +pieces and changed to suit Rogers' policies," he went on, as Mrs. +Burgoyne's eyes demanded more detail. "And that's what I'll do some +day. In the six years since the old man bought it, the circulation +has fallen off about half; we don't get any 'ads'; we're not paying +expenses. It's a crime too, for it's a good paper. Even Rogers is +sick of it now; he'd sell for a song. I'd borrow the money and buy +it if it weren't for the presses; I'd have to have new presses. +Everything here is in pretty good shape," he finished, with an air +of changing the subject. + +"And what would new presses cost?" Sidney Burgoyne persisted, +pausing on the big main stairway, as they were leaving the house a +few minutes later. + +"Oh, I don't know." Barry opened the front door again, and they +stepped out to the porch. "Altogether," he said vaguely, snapping +dead twigs from the heavy unpruned growth of the rose vines, +"altogether, I wouldn't go into it without ten thousand. Five for +the new presses, say, and four to Rogers for the business and good- +will, and something to run on--although," Barry interrupted himself +with a vehemence that surprised her, "although I'll bet that the old +Mail would be paying her own rent and salaries within two months. +The Dispatch doesn't amount to much, and the Star is a regular back +number!" He stood staring gloomily down at the roofs of the village; + +Mrs. Burgoyne, a little tired, had seated herself on the top step. + +"I wish, in all seriousness, you'd tell me about it," she said. "I +am really interested. If I buy this place, it will mean that we come +here to stay for years perhaps, and I have some money I want to +invest here. I had thought of real estate, but it needn't +necessarily be that. It sounds to me as if you really ought to make +an effort to buy the paper, Barry, Have you thought of getting +anyone to go into it with you?" + +The man laughed, perhaps a little embarrassed. + +"Never here, really. I went to Walter Pratt about it once," he +admitted, "but he said he was all tied up. Some of the fellows down +in San Francisco might have come in--but Lord! I don't want to +settle here; I hate this place." + +"But why do you hate it?" Her honest eyes met his in surprise and +reproof. "I can't understand it, perhaps because I've thought of +Santa Paloma as a sort of Mecca for so many years myself. My visit +here was the sweetest and simplest experience I ever had in my life. +You see I had a wretchedly artificial childhood; I used to read of +country homes and big families and good times in books, but I was an +only child, and even then my life was spoiled by senseless +formalities and conventions. I've remembered all these years the +simple gowns Mrs. Holly used to wear here, and the way she played +with us, and the village women coming in for tea and sewing; it was +all so sane and so sweet!" + +"Our coming here was the merest chance. My father and I were on our +way home from Japan, you know, and he suddenly remembered that the +Hollys were near San Francisco, and we came up here for a night. +That," said Mrs. Burgoyne in a lower tone, as if half to herself, +"that was twenty years ago; I was only twelve, but I've never +forgotten it. Fred and Oliver and Emily and I had our supper on the +side porch; and afterward they played in the garden, but I was shy-- +I had never played--and Mrs. Holly kept me beside her on the porch, +and talked to me now and then, and finally she asked me if I would +like to spend the summer with her. Like to!--I wonder my heart +didn't burst with joy! Father said no; but after we children had +gone to bed, they discussed it again. How Emily and I PRAYED! And +after a while Fred tiptoed down to the landing, and came up +jubilant. 'I heard mother say that what clothes Sidney needed could +be bought right here,' he said. Emily began to laugh, and I to cry--!" +She turned her back on Barry, and he, catching a glimpse of her +wet eyes, took up the conversation himself. + +"I don't remember her very well," he said; "a boy wouldn't. She died +soon after that summer, and the boys went off to school." + +"Yes, I know," the lady said thoughtfully. "I had the news in Rome-- +a hot, bright, glaring day. It was nearly a month after her death, +then. And even then, I said to myself that I'd come back here, some +day. But it's not been possible until now; and now," her voice was +bright and steady again, "here I am. And I don't like to hear an old +friend abusing Santa Paloma." + +"It's a nice enough place," Barry admitted, "but the people are-- +well, you wait until you meet the women! Perhaps they're not much +worse than women everywhere else, but sometimes it doesn't seem as +if the women here had good sense. I don't mean the nice quiet ones +who live out on the ranches and are bringing up a houseful of +children, but this River Street crowd." + +"Why, what's the matter with them?" asked Mrs. Burgoyne with +vivacity. + +"Oh, I mean this business of playing bridge four afternoons a week, +and running to the club, and tearing around in motor-cars all day +Sunday, and entertaining the way they think people do it in New +York, and getting their dresses in San Francisco instead of up +here," Barry explained disgustedly. "Some of them would be nice +enough if they weren't trying to go each other one better all the +time; when one gets a thing the others have all got to have it, or +have something nicer. Take the Browns, now, your neighbors there--" + +"In the shingled house, with the babies swinging on the gate as we +came by?" + +"Yes, that's it. They've got four little boys. Doctor Brown is a +king; everybody worships him, and she's a sweet little woman; but of +course she's got to strain and struggle like the rest of them. +There's a Mrs. Willard White in this town--that big gray-shingled +place down there is their garage--and she runs the whole place. +She's always letting the others know that hobbles are out, and +everything's got to hang from the shoulder--" + +"Very good!" laughed Mrs. Burgoyne, "you've got that very nearly +right." + +"Willard White's a nice fellow," Barry went on, "except that he's a +little cracked about his Packard. They give motoring parties, and of +course they stop at hotels way up the country for lunch, and the +women have got to have veils and special hats and coats, and so on. +Wayne Adams told me it stood him in about thirty dollars every time +he went out with the Whites. Wayne's got his own car now; his wife +kept at him day and night to get it. But he can't run it, so it's in +the garage half the time." + +"That's the worst of motoring," said the lady with a thoughtful nod, +"the people who sell them think they've answered you when they say, +'But you don't run it economically. If you understood it, it +wouldn't cost you half so much!' And the alternative is, 'Get a man +at seventy-five dollars a month and save repairing and replacing +bills.' Nice for business, Barry, but very much overdone for +pleasure, I think. I myself hate those days spent with five people +you hardly know," she went on, "rushing over beautiful roads that +you hardly see, eating too much in strange hotels, and paying too +much for it. I sha'n't have a car. But tell me more about the +people. Who are the Adamses? Didn't you say Adams?" + +"Wayne Adams; nice people, with two nice boys," he supplied; "but +she's like the rest. Wayne lies awake nights worrying about bills, +and she gives silver photograph-frames for bridge prizes. That white +stucco house where they're putting in an Italian garden, is the +Parker Lloyds. Mrs. Lloyd's a clever woman, and pretty too; but she +doesn't seem to have any sense. They've got a little girl, and +she'll tell you that Mabel never wore a stitch that wasn't hand-made +in her life. Lloyd had a nervous breakdown a few months ago--we all +knew it was nothing but money worry--but yesterday his wife said to +me in all good faith that he was too unselfish, he was wearing +himself out. She was trying to persuade him to put Mabel in school +and go abroad for a good rest." + +Mrs. Burgoyne laughed. + +"That's like Jeanette Carew showing me her birthday present," Barry +went on with a grin. "It seems that George gave her a complete set +of bureau ivory--two or three dozen pieces in all, I guess. When I +asked her she admitted that she had silver, but she said she wanted +ivory, everybody has ivory now. Present!" he repeated with scorn, +"why, she just told George what she wanted, and went down and +charged it to him! She's worried to death about bills now, but she +started right in talking motor-cars; and they'll have one yet. I'd +give a good deal," he finished disgustedly, "to know what they get +out of it." + +"I don't believe they're as bad as all that," said the lady. "There +used to be some lovely people here, and there was a whist club too, +and it was very nice. They played for a silver fork and spoon every +fortnight, and I remember that Mrs. Holly had nearly a dozen of the +forks. There was a darling Mrs. Apostleman, and Mrs. Pratt with two +shy pretty daughters--" + +"Mrs. Apostleman's still here," he told her. "She's a fine old lady. +When a woman gets to be sixty, it doesn't seem to matter if she +wastes time. Mrs. Pratt is dead, and Lizzie is married and lives in +San Francisco, but Anne's still here. She and her brother live in +that vault of a gray house; you can see the chimneys. Anne's +another, "his tone was cynical again, "a shy, nervous woman, always +getting new dresses, and always on club reception committees, with +white gloves and a ribbon in her hair, frightened to death for fear +she's not doing the correct thing. They've just had a frieze of +English tapestries put in the drawing-room and hall,--English +TAPESTRIES!" + +"Perhaps you don't appreciate tapestries," said Mrs. Burgoyne, with +her twinkling smile. "You know there is a popular theory that such +things keep money in circulation." + +"You know there's hardly any form of foolishness or vice of which +you can't say that," he reminded her soberly; and Mrs. Burgoyne, +serious in turn, answered quickly: + +"Yes, you're quite right. It's too bad; we American women seem +somehow to have let go of everything real, in the last few +generations. But things are coming around again." She rose from the +steps, still facing the village. "Tell me, who is my nearest +neighbor there, in the white cottage?" she demanded. + +"I am," Barry said unexpectedly. "So if you need--yeast is it, that +women always borrow?" + +"Yeast," she assented laughing. "I will remember. And now tell me +about trains and things. Listen!" Her voice and look changed +suddenly: softened, brightened. "Is that children?" she asked, +eagerly. + +And a moment later four children, tired, happy and laden with +orchard spoils, came around the corner of the house. Barry presented +them as the Carews--George and Jeanette, a bashful fourteen and a +self-possessed twelve, and Dick, who was seven--and his own small +dusty son, Billy Valentine, who put a fat confiding hand in the +strange lady's as they all went down to the gate together. + +"You are my Joanna's age, Jeanette," said Mrs. Burgoyne, easily. "I +hope you will be friends." + +"Who will I be friends with?" said little Billy, raising blue +expectant eyes. "And who will George?" + +"Why, I hope you will be friends with me," she answered laughing; +"and I will be so relieved if George will come up sometimes and help +me with bonfires and about what ought to be done in the stable. You +see, I don't know much about those things." At this moment George, +hoarsely muttering that he wasn't much good, he guessed, but he had +some good tools, fell deeply a victim to her charms. + +Mrs. Carew came out of her own gate as they came up, and there was +time for a little talk, and promises, and goodbyes. Then Barry took +Mrs. Burgoyne to the station, and lifted his hat to the bright face +at the window as the train pulled out in the dusk. He went slowly to +his office from the train and attacked the litter of papers and +clippings on his desk absent-mindedly. Once he said half aloud, his +big scissors arrested, his forehead furrowed by an unaccustomed +frown, "We were only kids then; and they all thought I was the one +who was going to do something big." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Barry appeared at Mrs. Carew's house a little after midnight to find +the card-players enjoying a successful supper, and the one topic of +conversation the possible sale of Holly Hall. Barry, suspected of +having news of it, was warmly welcomed by the tired, bright-eyed +women and the men in their somewhat rumpled evening clothes, and +supplied with salad and coffee. + +"Is she really coming, Barry?" demanded Mrs. Lloyd eagerly. "And how +soon? We have been saying what WONDERS could be done for the Hall +with a little money." + +"The price didn't seem to worry her," said George Carew. + +"Oh, she's coming," Barry assured them; "you can consider it +settled." + +"Good!" said old Mrs. Apostleman in her deep, emphatic voice. +"She'll have to make the house over, of course; but the stable ought +to make a very decent garage. Mark my words, me dears, ye'll see +some very startling changes up there, before the summer's out." + +"The house could be made colonial," submitted Mrs. Adams, "or +mission, for that matter." + +"No, you couldn't make it mission," Mrs. Willard White decided, and +several voices murmured, "No, you couldn't do that." "But colonial-- +it would be charming," the authority went on. "Personally, I'd tear +the whole thing down and rebuild," said Mrs. White further; "but +with hardwood floors throughout, tapestry papers, or the new grass +papers--like Amy's library, Will--white paint on all the woodwork, +white and cream outside, some really good furniture, and the garden +made over--you wouldn't know the place." + +"But that would take months," said Mrs. Carew ruefully. + +"And cost like sixty," added Dr. Brown, at which there was a laugh. + +"Well, she won't wait any six months, or six weeks either," Barry +predicted. "And don't you worry about the expense, Doctor. Do you +know who she IS?" + +They all looked at him. "Who?" said ten voices together. + +"Why, her father was Frothingham--Paul Frothingham, the inventor. +Her husband was Colonel John Burgoyne;--you all know the name. He +was quite a big man, too--a diplomat. Their wedding was one of those +big Washington affairs. A few years later Burgoyne had an accident, +and he was an invalid for about six years after that--until his +death, in fact. She traveled with him everywhere." + +"Sidney Frothingham!" said Mrs. Carew. "I remember Emily Holly used +to have letters from her. She was presented at the English court +when she was quite young, I remember, and she used to visit at the +White House, too. So THAT'S who she is!" + +"I remember the child's visit here perfectly," Mrs. Apostleman said, +"tall, lanky girl with very charming manners. Her husband was at St. +Petersburg for a while; then in London--was it? You ought to know, +Clara, me dear--I'm not sure--Even after his accident they went on +some sort of diplomatic mission to Madrid, or Stockholm, or +somewhere, remember it perfectly." + +"Colonel Burgoyne must have had money," said Mrs. White, +tentatively. + +"Some, I think," Barry answered; "but it was her father who was +rich, of course--" + +"Certainly!" approved Mrs. Apostleman, fanning herself majestically. +"Rich as Croesus; multi-millionaire." + +"Heavens alive!" said Mrs. Lloyd unaffectedly. + +"Yes," Willard White eyed the tip of a cigar thoughtfully, "yes, I +remember he worked his own patents; had his own factories. Paul +Frothingham must have left something in the neighborhood of--well, +two or three millions--" + +"Two or three!" echoed Mrs. Apostleman in regal scorn. "Make it +eight!" + +"Eight!" said Mrs. Brown faintly. + +"Well, that would be about my estimate," Barry agreed. + +"He was a big man, Frothingham," Dr. Brown said reflectively. "Well, +well, ladies, here's a chance for Santa Paloma to put her best foot +forward." + +"What WON'T she do to the Hall!" Mrs. Adams remarked; Mrs. Carew +sighed. + +"It--it rather staggers one to think of trying to entertain a woman +worth eight millions, doesn't it?" said she. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +From the moment of her arrival in Santa Paloma, when she stood on +the station platform with a brisk spring wind blowing her veil about +her face, and a small and chattering girl on each side of her, Mrs. +Burgoyne seemed inclined to meet the friendly overtures of her new +neighbors more than half-way. She remembered the baggage-agent's +name from her visit two weeks before--"thank Mr. Roberts for his +trouble, Ellen"--and met the aged driver of the one available +carriage with a ready "Good afternoon, Mr. Rivers!" Within a week +she had her pew in church, her box at the post-office, her +membership in the library, and a definite rumor was afloat to the +effect that she had invested several thousand dollars in the Mail, +and that Barry Valentine had bought the paper from old Rogers +outright; and had ordered new rotary presses, and was at last to +have a free hand as managing editor. The pretty young mistress of +Holly Hall, with her two children dancing beside her, and her ready +pleased flush and greeting for new friends, became a familiar figure +in Santa Paloma's streets. She was even seen once or twice across +the river, in the mill colony, having, for some mysterious reason, +immediately opened the bridge that led from her own grounds to that +unsavory region. + +She was not formal, not unapproachable, as it had been feared she +might be. On the contrary, she was curiously democratic. And, for a +woman straight from the shops of Paris and New York, her clothes +seemed to the women of Santa Paloma to be surprising, too. She and +her daughters wore plain ginghams for every day, with plain wide +hats and trim serge coats for foggy mornings. And on Sundays it was +certainly extraordinary to meet the Burgoynes, bound for church, +wearing the simplest of dimity or cross-barred muslin wash dresses, +with black stockings and shoes, and hats as plain--far plainer!--as +those of the smallest children. Except for the amazing emeralds that +blazed beside her wedding ring, and the diamonds she sometimes wore, +Mrs. Burgoyne might have been a trained nurse in uniform. + +"It is a pose," said Mrs. Willard White, at the club, to a few +intimate friends. "She's probably imitating some English countess. +Englishwomen affect simplicity in the country. But wait until we see +her evening frocks." + +It was felt that any formal calling upon Mrs. Burgoyne must wait +until the supposedly inevitable session with carpenters, painters, +paper-hangers, carpet-layers, upholsterers, decorators, furniture +dealers, and gardeners was over at the Hall. But although the old +house had been painted and the plumbing overhauled before the new +owner's arrival, and although all day long and every day two or +three Portuguese day-laborers chopped and pruned and shouted in the +garden, a week and then two weeks slipped by, and no further +evidences of renovation were to be seen. + +So presently callers began to go up to the Hall; first Mrs. +Apostleman and Mrs. White, as was fitting, and then a score of other +women. Mrs. Apostleman had been the social leader in Santa Paloma +when Mrs. White was little Clara Peck, a pretty girl in the High +School, whose rich widowed mother dressed her exquisitely, and who +was studying French, and could play the violin. But Mrs. Apostleman +was an old woman now, and had been playing the game a long time, and +she was glad to put the sceptre into younger hands. And she could +have put it into none more competent than those of Mrs. Willard +White. + +Mrs. White was a handsome, clever woman, of perhaps six-or seven- +and-thirty. She had been married now for seventeen years, and for +all that time, and even before her marriage, she had been the most +envied, the most admired, and the most copied woman in the village. +Her mother, an insipid, spoiled, ambitious little woman, whose +fondest hope was realized when her dashing daughter made a +financially brilliant match, had lost no time in warning the bride +that the agonies of motherhood, and the long ensuing slavery, were +avoidable, and Clara had entirely agreed with her mother's ideas, +and used to laughingly assure the few old friends who touched upon +this delicate topic, that she herself "was baby enough for Will!" +Robbed in this way of her natural estate, and robbed by the size of +her husband's income from the exhilarating interest of making +financial ends meet, Mrs. White, for seventeen years, had led what +she honestly considered an enviable and carefree existence. She +bought beautiful clothes for herself, and beautiful things for her +house, she gave her husband and her mother very handsome gifts. She +was a perfect hostess, although it must be admitted that she never +extended the hospitalities of her handsome home to anyone who did +not amuse her, who was not "worth while". She ruled her servants +well, made a fine president for the local Women's Club, ran her own +motor-car very skillfully, and played an exceptionally good game of +bridge. She was an authority upon table-linens, fancy needlework, +fashions in dress, new salads, new methods in serving the table. + +Willard White, as perfect a type in his own way as she was in hers, +was very proud of her, when he thought of her at all, which was +really much less often than their acquaintances supposed. He liked +his house to be nicely managed, spent his money freely upon it, +wanted his friends handsomely entertained, and his wine-cellar +stocked with every conceivable variety of liquid refreshment. If +Clara wanted more servants, let her have them, if she wanted +corkscrews by the gross, why, buy those, too. Only let a man feel +that there was a maid around to bring him a glass when he came in +from golfing or motoring, and a corkscrew with the glass! + +As a matter of fact, his club and his office, and above all, his +motor-cars, absorbed him. His natural paternal instinct had been +diverted toward these latter, and, quite without his knowing it, his +cars were his nursery. Willard White had owned the first electric +car ever seen in Santa Paloma. Later, there had been half-a-dozen +machines, and he loved them all, and spoke of them as separate +entities. He spoke of the runs they had made, of the strains they +had triumphantly sustained, and he and his chauffeur held low-toned +conferences over any small breakage, with the same seriousness that +he might have used had Willard Junior--supposing there to have been +such a little person--developed croup, and made the presence of a +physician necessary. He liked to glance across his lawn at night to +the commodious garage, visible in the moonlight, and think of his +treasures, locked up, guarded, perfect in every detail, and safe. + +He and Mrs. White always spoke of Santa Paloma as a "jay" town, and +compared it, to its unutterable disadvantage, to other and larger +cities, but still, business reasons would always keep them there for +the greater part of the year, and they were both glad to hear that a +fabulously wealthy widow, and a woman prominent in every other +respect as well, had come to live in Santa Paloma. Mrs. White +determined to play her game very carefully with Mrs. Burgoyne; there +should be no indecent hurry, there should be no sudden overtures at +friendship. "But, poor thing! She will certainly find our house an +oasis in the desert!" Mrs. White comfortably decided, putting on the +very handsomest of her afternoon gowns to go and call formally at +the Hall. + +Mrs. Burgoyne and the little girls were always most cordial to +visitors. They spent these first days deep in gardening, great heaps +of fragrant dying weeds about them, and raw vistas through the +pruned trees already beginning to show the gracious slopes of the +land, and the sleepy Lobos down beneath the willows. The Carew +children and the little Browns were often there, fascinated by the +outdoor work, as children always are, and little Billy Valentine +squirmed daily through his own particular gap in the hedge, and took +his share of the fun with a deep and silent happiness. Billy gave +Mrs. Burgoyne many a heartache, with his shock of bright, unbrushed +hair, his neglected grimed little hands, his boyish little face that +was washed daily according to his own small lights, with surrounding +areas of neck and ears wholly overlooked, and his deep eyes, sad +when he was sad, and somehow infinitely more pathetic when he was +happy. Sometimes she stealthily supplied Billy with new garters, or +fastened the buttons on his blue overalls, or even gave him a +spoonful of "meddy" out of a big bottle, at the mere sight of which +Ellen shuddered sympathetically; a dose which was always followed by +two marshmallows, out of a tin box, by way of consolation. But +further than this she dared not go, except in the matter of mugs of +milk, gingerbread, saucer-pies, and motherly kisses for any bump or +bruise. + +The village women, coming up to the Hall, in the pleasant summer +afternoons, were puzzled to find the old place almost unchanged. Why +any woman in her senses wanted to live among those early-Victorian +horrors, the women of Santa Paloma could not imagine. But Mrs. +Burgoyne never apologized for the old walnut chairs and tables, and +the old velvet carpets, and the hopelessly old-fashioned white lace +curtains and gilt-framed mirrors. Even Captain Holly's big clock-- +"an impossibly hideous thing," Mrs. White called the frantic bronze +horses and the clinging tiger, on their onyx hillside--was serenely +ticking, and the pink china vases were filled with flowers. And +there was an air of such homely comfort, after all, about the big +rooms, such a fragrance of flowers, and flood of sunny fresh air, +that the whole effect was not half as bad as it might be imagined; +indeed, when Mammy Curry, the magnificent old negress who was +supreme in the kitchen and respected in the nursery as well, came in +with her stiff white apron and silver tea-tray, she seemed to fit +into the picture, and add a completing touch to the whole. + +Very simply, very unpretentiously, the new mistress of Holly Hall +entered upon her new life. She was a woman of very quiet tastes, +devoted to her little girls, her music, her garden and her books. +With the negress, she had one other servant, a quiet little New +England girl, with terrified, childish eyes, and a passionate +devotion to her mistress and all that concerned her mistress. Fanny +had in charge a splendid, tawny-headed little boy of three, who +played happily by himself, about the kitchen door, and chased +chickens and kittens with shrieks of delight. Mrs. Burgoyne spoke of +him as "Fanny's little brother," and if the two had a history of any +sort, it was one at which she never hinted. She met an embarrassing +question with a readiness which rather amused Mrs. Brown, on a day +when the two younger ladies were having tea with Mrs. Apostleman, +and the conversation turned to the subject of maids. + +"--but if your little girl Fanny has had her lesson, you'll have no +trouble keepin' her," said Mrs. Apostleman. + +"Oh, I hope I shall keep Fanny," said Mrs. Burgoyne, "she comes of +such nice people, and she's such a sweet, good girl." + +"Why, Lord save us!" said the old lady, repentantly, "and I was +almost ready to believe the child was hers!" + +"If Peter was hers, she couldn't be fonder of him!" Mrs. Burgoyne +said mildly, and Mrs. Brown choked on her tea, and had to wipe her +eyes. + +In the matter of Fanny, and in a dozen other small matters, the +independence of the great lady was not slow in showing itself in +Mrs. Burgoyne. Santa Paloma might be annoyed at her, and puzzled by +her, but it had perforce to accept her as she stood, or ignore her, +and she was obviously not a person to ignore. She declined all +invitations for daytime festivities; she was "always busy in the +daytime," she said. No cards, no luncheons, no tea-parties could +lure her away from the Hall, although, if she and the small girls +walked in for mail or were down in the village for any other reason, +they were very apt to stop somewhere for a chat on their way home. +But the children were allowed to go nowhere alone, and not the +smartest of children's parties could boast of the presence of Joanna +and Ellen Burgoyne. + +Santa Paloma children were much given to parties, or rather their +parents were; and every separate party was a separate great event. +The little girls wore exquisite hand-made garments, silken hose and +white shoes. Professional entertainers, in fashionably darkened +rooms, kept the little people amused, and professional caterers +supplied the supper they ate, or perhaps the affair took the shape +of a box-party for a matinee, and a supper at the town's one really +pretty tea-room followed. These affairs were duly chronicled in the +daily and weekly papers, and perhaps more than one matron would have +liked the distinction of having Mrs. Burgoyne's little daughters +listed among her own child's guests. Joanna and Ellen were pretty +children, in a well-groomed, bright-eyed sort of way, and would have +been popular even without the added distinction of their ready +French and German and Italian, their charming manners, their naive +references to other countries and peoples, and their beautiful and +distinguished mother. + +But in answer to all invitations, there came only polite, stilted +little letters of regret, in the children's round script. "Mother +would d'rather we shouldn't go to a sin-gul party until we are young +ladies!" Ellen would say cheerfully, if cross-examined on the +subject, leaving it to the more tactful Joanna to add, "But Mother +thanks you JUST as much." They were always close to their mother +when it was possible, and she only banished them from her side when +the conversation grew undeniably too old in tone for Joanna and +Ellen, and then liked to keep them in sight, have them come in with +the tea-tray, or wave to her occasionally from the river bank. + +"We've been wondering what you would do with this magnificent +drawing-room," said Mrs. White, on her first visit. "The house ought +to take a colonial treatment wonderfully--there's a remarkable man +in San Francisco who simply made our house over for us last year!" + +"It must have been a fearful upheaval," said Mrs. Burgoyne, +sympathetically. + +"Oh, we went away! Mr. White and I went east, and when we came back +it was all done." + +"Well, fortunately," said the mistress of Holly Hall cheerfully, as +she sugared Mrs. Apostleman's cup of tea, "fortunately all these +things of Mrs. Holly's were in splendid condition, except for a +little cleaning and polishing. They used to make things so much more +solid, don't you think so? Why, there are years of wear left in +these carpets, and the chairs and tables are like rocks! Captain +Holly apparently got the very best of everything when he furnished +this place, and I reap the benefit. It's so nice to feel that one +needn't buy a chair or a bed for ten years or more, if one doesn't +want to!" + +"Dear, sweet people, the Hollys," said Mrs. White, pleasantly, +utterly at a loss. Did people of the nicer class speak of furniture +as if it were made merely to be useful? "But what a distinct period +these things belong to, don't they?" she asked, feeling her way. +"So--so solid!" + +"Yes, in a way it was an ugly period," said Mrs. Burgoyne, placidly. +"But very comfortable, fortunately. Fancy if he had selected Louis +Quinze chairs, for example!" + +Mrs. White gave her a puzzled look, and smiled. + +"Come now, Mrs. Burgoyne," said she, good-naturedly, "Confess that +you are going to give us all a surprise some day, and change all +this. One sees," said Mrs. White, elegantly, "such lovely effects in +New York" + +"In those upper Fifth Avenue shops--ah, but don't you see lovely +things!" the other woman assented warmly. "Of course, one could be +always changing," she went on. "But I like associations with things- +-and changing takes so much time! Some day we may think all this +quite pretty," she finished, with a contented glance at the +comfortable ugliness of the drawing-room. + +"Oh, do you suppose we shall REALLY!" Mrs. White gave a little +incredulous laugh. She was going pretty far, and she knew it, but as +a matter of fact, she was entirely unable to believe that there was +a woman in the world who could afford to have what was fashionable +and expensive in household furnishings or apparel, and who +deliberately preferred not to have it. That her own pretty things +were no sooner established than they began to lose their charm for +her, never occurred to Mrs. White: she was a woman of conventional +type, perfectly satisfied to spend her whole life in acquiring +things essentially invaluable, and to use a naturally shrewd and +quick intelligence in copying fashions of all sorts, small and +large, as fast as advanced merchants and magazines presented them to +her. She was one of the great army of women who help to send the +sale of an immoral book well up into the hundreds of thousands; she +liked to spend long afternoons with a box of chocolates and a book +unfit for the touch of any woman; a book that she would review for +the benefit of her friends later, with a shocked wonder that "they +dare print such things!" She liked to tell a man's story, and the +other women could not but laugh at her, for she was undeniably good +company, and nobody ever questioned the taste of anything she ever +said or did. She was a famous gossip, for like all women, she found +the private affairs of other people full of fascination, and, having +no legitimate occupation, she was always at liberty to discuss them. + +Yet Mrs. White was not at all an unusual woman, and, like her +associates, she tacitly assumed herself to be the very flower of +American womanhood. She quoted her distinguished relatives on all +occasions, the White family, in all its ramifications, supplied the +correct precedent for all the world; there was no social emergency +to which some cousin or aunt of Mrs. White's had not been more than +equal. Having no children of her own, she still could silence and +shame many a good mother with references to Cousin Ethel +Langstroth's "kiddies", or to Aunt Grace Thurston's wonderful +governess. + +Personally, Mrs. White vaguely felt that there was something +innately indecent about children anyway, the smaller they were the +less mentionable she found them. The little emergencies, of nose- +bleeds and torn garments and spilled porridge, that were constantly +arising in the neighborhood of children, made her genuinely sick and +faint. And she had so humorous and so assured an air of saying +"Disgusting!" or "Disgraceful!" when the family of some other woman +began to present itself with reasonable promptness, that other women +found themselves laughing and saying "Disgusting!" too. + +Mrs. Burgoyne, like Mrs. White, was a born leader. Whether she made +any particular effort to influence her neighbors or not, they could +not but feel the difference in her attitude toward all the various +tangible things that make a woman's life. She was essentially +maternal, wanted to mother all the little living and growing things +in the world, wanted to be with children, and talk of them and study +them. And she was simple and honest in her tastes, and entirely +without affectation in her manner, and she was too great a lady to +be either laughed at or ignored. So Santa Paloma began to ask itself +why she did this or that, and finding her ways all made for economy +and comfort and simplicity, almost unconsciously copied them. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +When Mrs. Apostleman invited several of her friends to a formal +dinner given especially for Mrs. Burgoyne everyone realized that the +newcomer was accepted, and the event was one of several in which the +women of Santa Paloma tried with more than ordinary eagerness to +outshine each other. Mrs. Apostleman herself never entered into +competition with the younger matrons, nor did they expect it of her. +She gave heavy, rich, old-fashioned dinners in her own way, in which +her servants were perfectly trained. It was a standing joke among +her friends that they always ate too much at Mrs. Apostleman's +house, there were always seven or eight substantial courses, and she +liked to have the plates come back for more lobster salad or roast +turkey. In this, as in all things, she was a law unto herself. + +But for the other women, Mrs. White set the pace, and difficult to +keep they often found it. But they never questioned it. They admired +the richer woman's perfect house-furnishing, and struggled blindly +to accumulate the same number and variety of napkins and +fingerbowls, ramekins and glasses and candlesticks and special forks +and special knives. The first of the month with its bills, became a +horror to them, and they were continually promising their husbands, +in all good faith, that expenses should positively be cut down. + +But what use were good resolves; when one might find, the very next +day, that there were no more cherries for the grapefruit, that one +had not a pair of presentable white gloves for the club, or that the +motor-picnic that the children were planning was to cost them five +dollars apiece? To serve grapefruit without cherries, to wear +colored gloves, or no gloves at all to the club, and to substitute +some inexpensive pleasure for the ride was a course that never +occurred to Mrs. Carew, that never occurred to any of her friends. +Mrs. Carew might have a very vague idea of her daughter's spiritual +needs, she might be an entire stranger to the delicately adjusted +and exquisitely susceptible entity that was the real Jeanette, but +she would have gone hungry rather than have Jeanette unable to wear +white shoes to Sunday School, rather than tie Jeanette's braids with +ribbons that were not stiff and new. She was so entirely absorbed in +pursuit of the "correct thing," so anxious to read what was "being +read," to own what was "right", that she never stopped to seriously +consider her own or her daughter's place in the universe. She was +glad, of course when the children "liked their teacher," just as she +had been glad years before when they "liked their nurse." The +reasons for such likings or dislikings she never investigated; she +had taken care of the children herself during the nurse's regular +days "off", but she always regarded these occasions as so much lost +time. Mrs. Carew kept her children, as she kept her house, well- +groomed, and she gave about as much thought to the spiritual needs +of the one as the other. She had been brought up to believe that the +best things in life are to be had for money, and that earthly +happiness or unhappiness falls in exact ratio with the possession or +non-possession of money. She met the growing demands of her family +as well as she could, and practised all sorts of harassing private +economies so that, in the eyes of the world, the family might seem +to be spending a great deal more money than was actually the case. +Mrs. Carew's was not an analytical mind, but sometimes she found +herself genuinely puzzled by the financial state of affairs. + +"I don't know where the money GOES to!" she said, in a confidential +moment, to Mrs. Lloyd. They had met in the market, where Mrs. Carew +was consulting a long list of necessary groceries. + +"Oh, don't speak of it!" said Mrs. Lloyd, feelingly. "That's so, +your dinner is tomorrow night, isn't it?" she added with interest. +"Are you going to have Lizzie?" + +"Oh, dear me, yes! For eight, you know. Shan't you have her?" For +Mrs. Lloyd's turn to entertain Mrs. Burgoyne followed Mrs. Carew's +by only a few days. + +"Lizzie and her mother, too," said the other woman. "I don't know +what's the matter with maids in these days," she went on, "they +simply can't do things, as my mother's maids used to, for example. +Now the four of them will be working all day over Thursday's dinner, +and, dear me! it's a simple enough dinner." + +"Well, you have to serve so much with a dinner, nowadays," Mrs. +Carew said, in a mildly martyred tone. "Crackers and everything else +with oysters--I'm going to have cucumber sandwiches with the soup--" + +"Delicious!" said Mrs. Lloyd. + +"'Cucumbers, olives, salted nuts, currant jelly'", Mrs. Carew was +reading her list, "'ginger chutney, saltines, bar-le-duc, cream +cheese', those are for the salad, you know, 'dinner rolls, sandwich +bread, fancy cakes, Maraschino cherries, maple sugar,' that's to go +hot on the ice, I'm going to serve it in melons, and 'candy'--just +pink and green wafers, I think. All that before it comes to the +actual dinner at all, and it's all so fussy!" + +"Don't say one word!" said Mrs. Lloyd, sympathetically. "But it +sounds dee-licious!" she added consolingly, and little Mrs. Carew +went contentedly home to a hot and furious session in her kitchen; +hours of baking, boiling and frying, chopping and whipping and +frosting, creaming and seasoning, freezing and straining. + +"I don't mind the work, if only everything goes right!" Mrs. Carew +would say gallantly to herself, and it must be said to her credit +that usually everything did "go right" at her house, although even +the maids in the kitchen, heroically attacking pyramids of sticky +plates, were not so tired as she was, when the dinner was well over. + +But there was a certain stimulus in the mere thought of entertaining +Mrs. Burgoyne, and there was the exhilarating consciousness that one +of these days she would entertain in turn; so the Santa Paloma +housewives exerted themselves to the utmost of their endurance, and +one delightful dinner party followed another. + +But a dispassionate onlooker from another planet might have found it +curious to notice, in contrast to this uniformity, that no two women +dressed alike on these occasions, and no woman who could help it +wore the same gown twice. Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Carew, to be sure, +wore their "little old silks" more than once, but each was secretly +consoled by the thought that a really "smart" new gown awaited Mrs. +White's dinner; which was naturally the climax of all the affairs. +Only the wearers and their dress-makers knew what hours had been +spent upon these costumes, what discouraged debates attended their +making, what muscular agonies their fitting. Only they could have +estimated, and they never did estimate--the time lost over pattern +books, the nervous strain of placing this bit of spangled net or +that square inch of lace, the hurried trips downtown for samples and +linings, for fringes and embroideries and braids and ribbons. The +gown that she wore to her own dinner, Mrs. White had had fitted in +the Maison Dernier Mot, in Paris;--it was an enchanting frock of +embroidered white illusion, over pink illusion, over black illusion, +under a short heavy tunic of silver spangles and threads. The yoke +was of wonderful old lace, and there was a girdle of heavy pink +cords, and silver clasps, to match the aigrette that was held by +pink and silver cords in Mrs. White's beautifully arranged hair. + +Mrs. Burgoyne's gowns, or rather gown, for she wore exactly the same +costume to every dinner, could hardly have been more startling than +Santa Paloma found it, had it gone to any unbecoming extreme. Yet it +was the simplest of black summer silks, soft and full in the skirt, +short-sleeved, and with a touch of lace at the square-cut neck. She +arranged her hair in a becoming loose knot, and somehow managed to +look noticeably lovely and distinguished, in the gay assemblies. To +brighten the black gown she wore a rope of pearls, looped twice +about her white throat, and hanging far below her waist; pearls, as +Mrs. Adams remarked in discouragement later, that "just made you +feel what's the use! She could wear a kitchen apron with those +pearls if she wanted to, everyone would know she could afford cloth +of gold and ermine!" + +With this erratic and inexplicable simplicity of dress she combined +the finish of manner, the poise, the ready sympathies of a truly +cultivated and intelligent woman. She could talk, not only of her +own personal experiences, but of the political, and literary, and +scientific movements of the day. Certain proposed state legislation +happened to be interesting the men of Santa Paloma at this time, and +she seemed to understand it, and spoke readily of it. + +"But, George," said Mrs. Carew, walking home in the summer night, +after the Adams dinner, "you have often said you hated women to talk +about things they didn't understand." + +"But she does understand, dearie. That's just the point." + +"Yes; but you differed with her, George!" + +"Well, but that's different, Jen. She knew what she was talking +about." + +"I suppose she has friends in Washington who keep her informed," +said Mrs. Carew, a little discontentedly, after a silence. And there +was another pause before she said, "Where do men get their +information, George?" + +"Papers, dear. And talking, I suppose. They're interested, you +know." + +"Yes, but--" little Mrs. Carew burst out resentfully, "I never can +make head or tail of the papers! They say 'Aldrich Resigns,' or +'Heavy Blow to Interests,' or 'Tammany Scores Triumph,' and _I_ +don't know what it's about!" + +George Carew's big laugh rang out in the night, and he put his arm +about her, and said, "You're great, Jen!" + +Shortly after Mrs. White's dinner a certain distinguished old artist +from New York, and his son, came to stay a night or two at Holly +Hall, on their way home from the Orient, and Mrs. Burgoyne took this +occasion to invite a score of her new friends to two small dinners, +planned for the two nights of the great Karl von Praag's stay in +Santa Paloma. + +"I don't see how she's going to handle two dinners for ten people +each, with just that colored cook of hers and one waitress," said +Mrs. Willard White, late one evening, when Mr. White was finishing a +book and a cigar in their handsome bedroom, and she was at her +dressing-table. + +"Caterers," submitted Mr. White, turning a page. + +"I suppose so," his wife agreed. After a thoughtful silence she +added, "Sue Adams says that she supposes that when a woman has as +much money as that she loses all interest in spending it! +Personally, I don't see how she can entertain a great big man like +Von Praag in that old-fashioned house. She never seems to think of +it at all, she never apologizes for it, and she talks as if nobody +ever bought new things until the old were worn out!" + +Her eyes went about her own big bedroom as she spoke. Nothing old- +fashioned here! Even eighteen years ago, when the Whites were +married, their home had been furnished in a manner to make the Holly +Hall of to-day look out of date. Mrs. White shuddered now at the +mere memory of what she as a bride had thought so beautiful: the +pale green carpet, the green satin curtains, the white-and-gold +chairs and tables and bed, the easels, the gilded frames! Seven or +eight years later she had changed all this for a heavy brass +bedstead, and dark rugs on a polished floor, and bird's-eye maple +chests and chairs, and all feminine Santa Paloma talked of the +Whites' new things. Six or seven years after that again, two +mahogany beds replaced the brass one, and heavy mahogany bureaus +with glass knobs had their day, with plain net curtains and old- +fashioned woven rugs. But all these were in the guest-rooms now, and +in her own bedroom Mrs. White had a complete set of Circassian +walnut, heavily carved, and ornamented with cunningly inset panels +of rattan. On the beds were covers of Oriental cottons, and the +window-curtains showed the same elementary designs in pinks and +blues. + +"She dresses very prettily, I thought," observed Mr. White, apropos +of his wife's last remark. + +"Dresses!" echoed his wife. "She dresses as your mother might!" + +"Very pretty, very pretty!" said the man absently, over his book. + +There was a silence. Then: + +"That just shows how much men notice," Mrs. White confided to her +ivory-backed brush. "I believe they LIKE women to look like frumps!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +These were busy days in the once quiet and sleepy office of the +Santa Paloma Morning Mail. A wave of energy and vigor swept over the +place, affecting everybody from the fat, spoiled office cat, who +found himself pushed out of chairs, and bounced off of folded coats +with small courtesy, to the new editor-manager and the lady whose +timely investment had brought this pleasant change about. Old Kelly, +the proof-reader, night clerk, Associated Press manager, and +assistant editor, shouted and swore with a vim unknown of late +years; Miss Watson, who "covered" social events, clubs, public +dinners, "dramatic," and "hotels," cleaned out her desk, and took +her fancy-work home, and "Fergy," a freckled youth who delighted in +calling himself a "cub," although he did little more than run +errands and carry copy to the press-room, might even be seen batting +madly at an unused typewriter when actual duties failed, so +inspiring was the new atmosphere. + +Mrs. Burgoyne had a desk and a corner of her own, where her trim +figure might be seen daily for an hour or two, from ten o'clock +until the small girls came in to pick her up on their way home from +school for luncheon. Barry found her brimming with ideas. She +instituted the "Women's Page," the old familiar page of answered +questions, and formulas for ginger-bread, and brief romances, and +scraps of poetry, and she offered through its columns a weekly cash +prize for contributions on household topics. An exquisite doll +appeared in the window of the Mail office, a doll with a flower- +wreathed hat, and a ruffled dress, and a little parasol to match the +dress, and loitering little girls, drawn from all over the village +to study this dream of beauty, learned that they had only to enter a +loaf of bread of their own making in the Mail contest, to stand a +chance of carrying the little lady home. Beside the doll stood a +rifle, no toy, but a genuine twenty-two Marlin. for the boy whose +plans for a vegetable garden seemed the best and most practical, +Mrs. Burgoyne herself talked to the children when they came shyly in +to investigate. "She seems to want to know every child in the +county, the darling!" said Miss Watson to Fergy. + +The Valentines, father and son, came into the Mail office one warm +June morning, to find the editor of the "Women's Page" busy at her +desk, with the sunlight lying in a bright bar across her uncovered +hair, and a vista of waving green boughs showing through the open +window behind her. + +"What are you two doing here at this hour?" said Sidney, laying down +her pen and leaning back in her chair as if glad of a moment's rest. +"Why, Billy!" she added in admiring tones, "let me see you! How +very, VERY nice you look!" + +For the little fellow was dressed in a new sailor suit that was a +full size too large for him, his wild mop had been cut far too +close, and a large new hat and new shoes were much in evidence. + +"D'you think he looks all right?" said Barry with an anxious +wistfulness that went straight to her heart. "He looks better, +doesn't he? I've been fixing him up." + +"And free sailor waists, and stockings, and nighties," supplemented +Billy, also anxious for her approval. + +"He looks lovely!" said Sidney, enthusiastically, even while she was +mentally raising the collar of his waist, and taking an inch or two +off the trousers. She lifted the child up to sit on his father's +desk, and kissed the top of his little cropped head. + +"We may not express ourselves very fluently," said Barry, who was +seated in his own revolving chair and busily opening and shutting +the drawers of his desk, "but we appreciate the interest beautiful +ladies take in our manners and morals, and the new tooth-brushes +they buy us--" + +"My dear!" protested Mrs. Burgoyne, between laughter and tears, +"Ellen used his old one up, cleaning out their paint-boxes!" And she +put her warm hand on his shoulder, and said, "Don't be a goose, +Barry!" as unselfconsciously as a sister might. "Where are you two +boys going, Billy?" she asked, going back to her own desk. + +"'Cool," Billy said. + +"He's going over to the kindergarten. I've got some work I ought to +finish here," Barry supplemented." I'll take you across the street, +Infant, I'll be right back, Sidney." + +"But, Barry, why are you working now?" asked the lady a few minutes +later when he took his place at his desk. + +"Oh, don't you worry," he answered, smiling; "I love it. The thought +of old Rogers' face when he opens his paper every morning does me +good, I'm writing this appeal for the new reservoir now, and I've +got to play up the Flower Festival." + +"I'm not interested in the Flower Festival," said Mrs. Burgoyne +good-naturedly, "and the minute it's over I'm going to start a +crusade for a girls' clubhouse in Old Paloma. Conditions over there +for the girls are something hideous. But I suppose we'll have to go +on with the Festival for the present. It's a great occasion, I +suppose?" + +"Oh, tremendous! The Governor's coming, and thousands of visitors +always pour into town. We'll have nearly a hundred carriages in the +parade, simply covered with flowers, you know. It's lovely! You wait +until things get fairly started!" + +"That'll be Fourth of July," Sidney said thoughtfully, turning back +to her exchanges, "I'll begin my clubhouse crusade on the fifth!" +she added firmly. + +For a long time there was silence in the office, except for the +rustling of paper and the scratch of pens. From the sunny world out- +of-doors came a pleasant blending of many noises, passing wagons, +the low talk of chickens, the slamming of gates, and now and then +the not unmusical note of a fish-horn. Footsteps and laughing voices +went by, and died into silence. The clock from Town Hall Square +struck eleven slowly. + +"This is darned pleasant," said Barry presently, over his work. + +"Isn't it?" said the editor of the "Women's Page," and again there +was silence. + +After a while Barry said "Finished!" with a great breath, and, +leaning back in his chair, wheeled about to find the lady quietly +watching him. + +"Barry, are you working too hard?" said she, quite unembarrassed. + +"Am I? Lord, not I wish the days were twice as long. I"--Barry +rumpled his thick hair with a gesture that was familiar to Sidney +now--"I guess work agrees with me. By George, I hate to eat, and I +hate to sleep; I want to be down here all the time, or else rustling +up subscriptions and 'ads.'," + +"And I thought you were lazy," said Sidney, finding herself, for the +first time in their friendship, curiously inclined to keep the +conversation personal, this warm June morning. It was a thing +extremely difficult to do, with Barry. "You certainly gave me that +impression," she said. + +"Yes; but that was two months ago," said Barry, off guard. A second +later he changed the topic abruptly by asking, "Did your roses +come?" + +"All of them," answered Sidney pleasantly. And vaguely conscious of +mischief in the air, but led on by some inexplicable whim, she +pursued, "Do you mean that it makes such a difference to you, Rogers +being gone?" + +Barry trimmed the four sides of a clipping with four clips of his +shears. + +"Exactly," said he briefly. He banged a drawer shut, closed a book +and laid it aside, and stuck the brush into his glue-pot. "Getting +enough of dinner parties?" he asked then, cheerfully. + +"Too much," said Sidney, wondering why she felt like a reprimanded +child. "And that reminds me: I am giving two dinners for the Von +Praags, you know. I can't manage everybody at once; I hate more than +ten people at a dinner. And you are asked to the first." + +"I don't go much to dinners," Barry said. + +"I know you don't; but I want you to come to this one," said Sidney. +"You'll love old Mr. von Praag. And Richard, the son, is a dear! I +really want you." + +"He's an artist, too, isn't he?" said Barry without enthusiasm. + +"Who, Richard?" she asked, something in his manner putting her a +little at a loss. "Yes; and he's very clever, and so nice! He's like +a brother to me." + +Barry did not answer, but after a moment he said, scowling a little, +and not looking up: + +"A fellow like that has pretty smooth sailing. Rich, the son of a +big man, traveling all he wants to, studio in New York, clubs--" + +"Oh, Richard has his troubles," Sidney said. "His wife is very +delicate, and they lost their little girl... Are you angry with me +about anything, Barry?" she broke off, puzzled and distressed, for +this unresponsive almost sullen manner was unlike anything she had +ever seen in him. + +But a moment later he turned toward her with his familiar sunny +smile. + +"Why didn't you say so before?" he said sheepishly. + +"Say--?" she echoed bewilderedly. Then, with a sudden rush of +enlightenment, "Why, Barry, you're not JEALOUS?" + +A second later she would have given much to have the words unsaid. +They faced each other in silence, the color mounting steadily in +Sidney's face. + +"I didn't mean of ME," she stammered uncomfortably; "I meant of +everything. I thought--but it was a silly thing to say. It sounded-- +I didn't think--" + +"I don't know why you shouldn't have thought it, since I was fool +enough to show it," said Barry after a moment, coming over to her +desk and facing her squarely. Sidney stood up, opposite him, her +heart beating wildly. "And I don't know why I shouldn't be jealous," +he went on steadily, "at the idea that some old friend might come in +here and take you away from Santa Paloma. You asked me if it was old +Rogers' going that made a difference to me--" + +"I know," interrupted Sidney, scarlet-cheeked. "PLEASE"-- + +"But you know better than that," Barry went on, his voice rising a +little. "You know what you have done for me. If ever I try to speak +of it, you say, as you said about the kid just now, 'My dear boy, I +like to do it.' But I'm going to say what I mean now, once and for +all. You loaned me money, and it was through your lending it that I +got credit to borrow more; you gave me a chance to be my own master; +you showed you had faith in me; you reminded me of the ambition I +had as a kid, before Hetty and all that trouble had crushed it out +of me; you came down here to the office and talked and planned, and +took it for granted that I was going to pull myself together and +stop idling, and kicking, and fooling away my time; and all through +these six weeks of rough sailing, you've let me go up there to the +Hall and tell you everything--and then you wonder if I could ever be +jealous!" His tone, which had risen almost to violence, fell +suddenly. He went back to his desk and began to straighten the +papers there, not seeing what he did. "I never can say anything more +to you, Sidney, I've said too much now," he said a little huskily; +"but I'm glad to have you know how I feel." + +Sidney stood quite still, her breath coming and going quickly. She +was fundamentally too honest a woman to meet the situation with one +of the hundred insincerities that suggested themselves to her. She +knew she was to blame, and she longed to undo the mischief, and put +their friendship back where it had been only an hour ago. But the +right words did not suggest themselves, and she could only stand +silently watching him. Barry had opened a book, and, holding it in +both hands, was apparently absorbed in its contents. + +Neither had spoken or moved, and Sidney was meditating a sudden, +wordless departure, when Ellen Burgoyne burst noisily into the room. +Ellen was a square, splendid child, always conversationally +inclined, and never at a loss for a subject. + +"You look as if you wanted to cry, Mother," said she. "Perhaps you +didn't hear the whistle; school's out. We've been waiting ever so +long. Mother, I know you said you hoped Heaven would not send any +more dogs our way for a long while, but Jo and Jeanette and I found +one by the school fence. Mother, you will say it has the most +pathetic face you ever saw when you see it. Its ear was bloody, and +it licked Jo's hand so GENTLY, and it's such a lit-tul dog! Jo has +it wrapped up in her coat. Mother, may we have it? Please, PLEASE--" + +Barry wheeled about with his hearty laugh, and Mrs. Burgoyne, +laughing too, stopped the eager little mouth with a kiss. + +"It sounds as if we must certainly have him, Baby!" said she. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The new mistress of the Hall, in her vigorous young interest in all +things, included naturally a keen enjoyment of the village love +affairs, she liked to hear the histories of the old families all +about, she wanted to know the occupants of every shabby old surrey +that drew up at the post-office while the mail was being "sorted." +But if the conversation turned to mere idle talk and speculation, +she was conspicuously silent. And upon an occasion when Mrs. Adams +casually referred to a favorite little piece of scandal, Mrs. +Burgoyne gave the conversation a sudden twist that, as Mrs. White, +who was present, said later, "made you afraid to call your soul your +own." + +"Do you tell me that that pretty little Thorne girl is actually +meeting this young man, whoever he is, while her mother thinks she +is taking a music lesson?" demanded Mrs. Burgoyne, suddenly entering +into the conversation. "There's nothing against him, I suppose? She +COULD see him at home." + +"Oh, no, he's a nice enough little fellow," Mrs. White said, "but +she's a silly little thing, and I imagine her people are very severe +with her; she never goes to dances or seems to have any fun." + +"I wonder if we couldn't go see the mother, and hint that there is +beginning to be a little talk about Katherine," mused Mrs. Burgoyne. +"Don't you think so, Mrs. Adams?" + +"Oh, my goodness!" Mrs. Adams said nervously, "I don't KNOW anything +about it! I wouldn't for the world--I never dreamed--one would hate +to start trouble--Mr. Adams is very fond of the Thornes--" + +"But we ought to save her if we can, we married women who know how +mischievous that sort of thing is," Mrs. Burgoyne urged. + +"Why, probably they've not met but once or twice!" Mrs. White said, +annoyed, but with a comfortable air of closing the subject, and no +more was said at the time. But both she and Mrs. Adams were a little +uneasy two or three days later, when, returning from a motor trip, +they saw Mrs. Burgoyne standing at the Thornes' gate, in laughing +conversation with pretty little Katherine and her angular, tall +mother. + +"And there is nothing in that story at all," said Mrs. Burgoyne +later, to Mrs. Carew. + +"I suppose you walked up and said, 'If you are Miss Thorne, you are +clandestinely meeting Joe Turner down by the old mill every week!'" +laughed Mrs. Carew, + +"I managed it very nicely," Mrs. Burgoyne said, "I admired their +yellow rose one day, as I passed the gate. Mrs. Thorne was standing +there, and I asked if it wasn't a Banksia. Then the little girl came +out of the house, and she happened to know who I am--" + +"Astonishingly bright child!" said Mrs. Carew. + +"Well, and then we talked roses, and the father came home--a nice +old man. And I asked him if he'd lend me Miss Thorne now and then to +play duets--and he agreed. So the child's been up to the Hall once +or twice, and she's a nice little thing. She doesn't care tuppence +for the Turner boy, but he's musical, and she's quite music-mad, and +now and then they 'accidentally' meet. Her father won't let anyone +see her at the house. She wants to study abroad, but they can't +afford it, I imagine, so I've written to see if I can interest a +friend of mine in Berlin--But why do you smile?" she broke off to +ask innocently. + +"At the thought of your friend in Berlin!" said Mrs. Carew +audaciously. For she was not at all awed by Mrs. Burgoyne now. + +Indeed, she and Mrs. Brown were growing genuinely fond of their new +neighbor, and the occupants of the Hall supplied them with constant +amusement and interest. Great lady and great heiress Sidney Burgoyne +might be, but she lived a life far simpler than their own, and loved +to have them come in for a few minutes' talk even if she were +cutting out cookies, with Joanna and Ellen leaning on the table, or +feeding the chickens whose individual careers interested her so +deeply. She walked with the little girls to school every morning, +and met them near the school at one o'clock. In the meantime she +made a visit to the Mail office, and perhaps spent an hour or two +there, or in the markets; but at least three times a week she +wandered over to Old Paloma, and spent the forenoon in the dingy +streets across the river. What she did there, perhaps no one but +Doctor Brown, who came to have a real affection and respect for her, +fully appreciated. Mrs. Burgoyne would tell him, when they met in +some hour of life or death, that she was "making friends." It was +quite true. She was the type of woman who cannot pass a small child +in the street. She must stop, and ask questions, decide disputes and +give advice. And through the children she won the big brothers and +sisters and fathers and mothers of Old Paloma. Even a deep-rooted +prejudice against the women of her class and their method of dealing +with the less fortunate could not prevail against her disarming, +friendly manner, her simple gown and hat, her eagerness to get the +new baby into her arms; all these told in her favor, and she became +very popular in the shabby little settlement across the bridge. She +would sit at a sewing-machine and show old Mrs. Goodspeed how to +turn a certain hem, she would prescribe barley-water and whey for +the Barnes baby, she would explain to Mrs. Ryan the French manner of +cooking tough meat, it is true; but, on the other hand, she let pale +little discouraged Mrs. Weber, of the Bakery, show her how to make a +German potato pie, and when Mrs. Ryan's mother, old Mrs. Lynch, +knitted her a shawl, with clean, thin old work-worn hands, the tears +came into her bright eyes as she accepted the gift. So it was no +more than a neighborly give-and-take after all. Mrs. Burgoyne would +fall into step beside a factory girl, walking home at sunset. "How +was it today, Nellie? Did you speak to the foreman about an opening +for your sister?" the rich, interested voice would ask. Or perhaps +some factory lad would find her facing him in a lane. "Tell me, Joe, +what's all this talk of trouble between you and the Lacy boys at the +rink?" + +"I'm a widow, too," she reminded poor little Mrs. Peevy, one day, "I +understand." "Do let me send you the port wine I used to take after +Ellen was born," she begged one little sickly mother, and when she +loaned George Manning four hundred dollars to finish his new house, +and get his wife and babies up from San Francisco, the transaction +was made palatable to George by her encouraging: "Everyone borrows +money for building, I assure you. I know my father did repeatedly." + +When more subtle means were required, she was still equal to the +occasion. It was while Viola Peet was in the hospital for a burned +wrist that Mrs. Burgoyne made a final and effective attempt to move +poor little Mrs. Peet out of the bedroom where she had lain +complaining, ever since the accident that had crippled her and +killed her husband five years before. Mrs. Burgoyne put it as a +"surprise for Viola," and Mrs. Peet, whose one surviving spark of +interest in life centred in her three children, finally permitted +carpenters to come and build a porch outside her dining-room, and +was actually transferred, one warm June afternoon, to the wide, +delicious hammock-bed that Mrs. Burgoyne had hung there. Her eyes, +dulled with staring at a chocolate wall-paper, and a closet door, +for five years, roved almost angrily over the stretch of village +street visible from the porch; the perspective of tree-smothered +roofs and feathery elm and locust trees. + +"'Tisn't a bit more than I'd do for you if I was rich and you poor," +said Mrs. Peet, rebelliously. + +"Oh, I know that!" said Mrs. Burgoyne, busily punching pillows. + +"An', as you say, Viola deserves all I c'n do for her," pursued the +invalid. "But remember, every cent of this you git back." + +"Every cent, just as soon as Lyman is old enough to take a job," +agreed Mrs. Burgoyne. "There, how's that? That's the way Colonel +Burgoyne liked to be fixed." + +"You're to make a note of just what it costs," persisted Mrs. Peet, +"this wrapper, and the pillers, and all." + +"Oh, let the wrapper be my present to you, Mrs. Peet!" + +"No, MA'AM!" said Mrs. Peet, firmly. And she told the neighbors, +later, in the delightfully exciting afternoon and evening that +followed her installation on the porch, that she wasn't an object of +charity, and she and Mrs. Burgoyne both knew it. Mrs. Burgoyne would +not stay to see Viola's face, when she came home from the hospital +to find her mother watching the summer stars prick through the warm +darkness, but Viola came up to the Hall that same evening, and tried +to thank Mrs. Burgoyne, and laughed and cried at once, and had to be +consoled with cookies and milk until the smiles had the upper hand, +and she could go home, with occasional reminiscent sobs still +shaking her bony little chest. + +"What are you trying to do over there?" asked Dr. Brown, coming in +with his wife for a rubber of bridge, as Viola departed. "Whereever +I go, I come across your trail. Are we nursing a socialist in our +bosom?" + +"No-o-o, I don't think I'm that," said Sidney laughing, and pushing +the porch-chairs into comfortable relation. "Let's sit out here +until Mr. Valentine comes. No, I'm not a socialist. But I can't help +feeling that there's SOME solution for a wretched problem like that +over there," a wave of the hand indicated Old Paloma, "and perhaps, +dabbling aimlessly about in all sorts of places, one of us may hit +upon it." + +"But I thought the modern theory was against dabbling," said Mrs. +Brown, a little timidly, for she held a theory that she was not +"smart." "I thought everything was being done by institutions, and +by laws--by legislation." + +"Nothing will ever be done by legislation, to my thinking at least," +Mrs. Burgoyne said. "A few years ago we legislated some thousands of +new babies into magnificent institutions. Nurses mixed their +bottles, doctors inspected them, nurses turned them and washed them +and watched them. Do you know what percentage survived?" + +"Doesn't work very well," said the doctor, shaking a thoughtful head +over his pipe. + +"Just one hundred per cent didn't survive!" said Mrs. Burgoyne. "Now +they take a foundling or an otherwise unfortunate baby, and give it +to a real live mother. She nurses it if she can, she keeps near to +it and cuddles it, and loves it. And so it lives. In all the +asylums, it's the same way. Groups are getting smaller and smaller, +a dozen girls with a matron in a cottage, and hundreds of girls +'farmed out' with good, responsible women, instead of enormous +refectories and dormitories and schoolrooms. And the ideal solution +will be when every individual woman in the world extends her +mothering to include every young thing she comes in contact with; +one doll for her own child and another doll for the ashman's little +girl, one dimity for her own debutante, and another just as dainty +for the seventeen-year-old who brings home the laundry every week." + +"Yes, but that's puttering here and there," asserted Mrs. Brown, +"wouldn't laws for a working wage do all that, and more, too?" + +"In the first place, a working wage doesn't solve it," Mrs. Burgoyne +answered vigorously, "because in fully half the mismanaged and dirty +homes, the working people HAVE a working wage, have an amount of +money that would amaze you! Who buys the willow plumes, and the +phonographs, and the enlarged pictures, and the hair combs and the +white shoes that are sold by the million every year? The poor +people, girls in shops, and women whose babies are always dirty, and +always broken out with skin trouble, and whose homes are hot and +dirty and miserable and mismanaged." + +"Well, make some laws to educate 'em then, if it's education they +all need," suggested the doctor, who had been auditing every clause +of the last remark with a thoughtful nod. + +"No, wages aren't the question," Mrs. Burgoyne reiterated. "Why, I +knew a little Swedish woman once, who raised three children on three +hundred dollars a year." + +"She COULDN'T!" ejaculated Mrs. Brown. + +"Oh, but she did! She paid one dollar a week for rent, too. One son +is a civil engineer, now, and the daughter is a nurse. The youngest +is studying medicine." + +"But what did they EAT, do you suppose?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Potatoes, I suppose, and oatmeal and baked +cabbage, and soup. I know she got a quart of buttermilk every day, +for three cents. They were beautiful children. They went to free +schools, and lectures, and galleries, and park concerts, and free +dispensaries, when they needed them. Laws could do no more for her, +she knew her business." + +"Well, education WOULD solve it then," concluded Mrs. Brown. + +"I don't know." Mrs. Burgoyne answered, reflectively, "Book +education won't certainly. But example might, I believe example +would." + +"You mean for people of a better class to go and live among them?" +suggested the doctor. + +"No, but I mean for people of a better class to show them that what +they are striving for isn't vital, after all. I mean for us to so +order our lives that they will begin to value cleanliness, and +simplicity, and the comforts they can afford. You know, Mary Brown," +said Mrs. Burgoyne, turning suddenly to the doctor's wife, with her +gay, characteristic vehemence, "it's all our fault, all the misery +and suffering and sin of it, everywhere!" + +"Our fault! You and me!" cried Mrs. Brown, aghast. + +"No, all the fault of women, I mean!" Mrs. Burgoyne laughed too as +Mrs. Brown settled back in her chair with a relieved sigh. "We +women," she went on vigorously, "have mismanaged every separate work +that was ever put into our hands! We ought to be ashamed to live. We +cumber--" + +"Here!" said the doctor, smiling in lazy comfort over his pipe, +"that's heresy! I refuse to listen to it. My wife is a woman, my +mother, unless I am misinformed, was another--" + +"Don't mind him!" said Mrs. Brown, "but go on! What have we all +done? We manage our houses, and dress our children, and feed our +husbands, it seems to me." + +"Well, there's the big business of motherhood," began Mrs. Burgoyne, +"the holiest and highest thing God ever let a mortal do. We evade it +and ignore it to such an extent that the nation--and other nations-- +grows actually alarmed, and men begin to frame laws to coax us back +to the bearing of children. Then, if we have them, we turn the +entire responsibility over to other people. A raw little foreigner +of some sort answers the first questions our boys and girls ask, +until they are old enough to be put under some nice, inexperienced +young girl just out of normal school, who has fifty or sixty of them +to manage, and of whose ideas upon the big questions of life we know +absolutely nothing. We say lightheartedly that 'girls always go +through a trying age,' and that we suppose boys 'have to come in +contact with things,' and we let it go at that! We 'suppose there +has always been vice, and always will be,' but we never stop to +think that we ourselves are setting the poor girls of the other +world such an example in the clothes we wear, and the pleasures we +take, that they will sell even themselves for pretty gowns and +theatre suppers. We regret sweat-shops, even while we patronize the +stores that support them, and we bemoan child-labor, although I +suppose the simplest thing in the world would be to find out where +the cotton goes that is worked by babies, and refuse to buy those +brands of cotton, and make our merchants tell us where they DO get +their supply! We have managed our household problem so badly that we +simply can't get help--" + +"You CANNOT do your own work, with children," said Mrs. Brown +firmly. + +"Of course you can't. But why is it that our nice young American +girls won't come into our homes? Why do we have to depend upon the +most ignorant and untrained of our foreign people? Our girls pour +into the factories, although our husbands don't have any trouble in +getting their brothers for office positions. There is always a line +of boys waiting for a possible job at five dollars a week." + +"Because they can sleep at home," submitted the doctor. + +"You know that, other things being equal, young people would much +rather not sleep at home," said Mrs. Burgoyne, "it's the migrating +age. They love the novelty of being away at night." + +"Well, when a boy comes into my office," the doctor reasoned slowly, +"he knows that he has certain unimportant things to do, but he sees +me taking all the real responsibility, he knows that I work harder +than he does." + +"Exactly," said Mrs. Burgoyne. "Men do their own work, with help. We +don't do ours. Not only that, but every improvement that comes to +ours comes from men. They invent our conveniences, they design our +stoves and arrange our sinks. Not because they know anything about +it, but because we're not interested." + +"One would think you had done your own work for twenty years!" said +Mrs. Brown. + +"I never did it," Mrs. Burgoyne answered smiling, "but I sometimes +wish I could. I sometimes envy those busy women who have small +houses, new babies, money cares--it must be glorious to rise to +fresh emergencies every hour of your life. A person like myself is +handicapped. I can't demonstrate that I believe what I say. Everyone +thinks me merely a little affected about it. If I were such a woman, +I'd glory in clipping my life of everything but the things I needed, +and living like one of my own children, as simply as a lot of +peasants!" + +"And no one would ever be any the wiser," said Mrs. Brown. + +"I don't know. Quiet little isolated lives have a funny way of +getting out into the light. There was that little peasant girl at +Domremy, for instance; there was that gentle saint who preached +poverty to the birds; there was Eugenie Guerin, and the Cure of Ars, +and the few obscure little English weavers--and there was the +President who split--" + +"I thought we'd come to him!" chuckled the doctor. + +"Well," Mrs. Burgoyne smiled, a little confused at having betrayed +hero-worship. "Well, and there was one more, the greatest of all, +who didn't found any asylums, or lead any crusade--" She paused. + +"Surely," said the doctor, quietly. "Surely. I suppose that curing +the lame here, and the blind there, and giving the people their fill +of wine one day, and of bread and fishes the next, might be called +'dabbling' in these days. But the love that went with those things +is warming the world yet!" + +"Well, but what can we DO?" demanded Mrs. Brown after a short +silence. + +"That's for us to find out," said Mrs. Burgoyne, cheerfully. + +"A correct diagnosis is half a cure," ended the doctor, hopefully. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Barry was the last guest to reach Holly Hall on the evening of Mrs. +Burgoyne's first dinner-party, and came in to find the great painter +who was her guest the centre of a laughing and talking group in the +long drawing-room. Mrs. Apostleman, with an open book of +reproductions from Whistler on her broad, brocade lap, had the +armchair next to the guest of honor, and Barry's quick look for his +hostess discovered her on a low hassock at the painter's knee, +looking very young and fresh, in her white frock, with a LaMarque +rose at her belt and another in her dark hair. She greeted him very +gravely, almost timidly, and in the new self-consciousness that had +suddenly come to them both it was with difficulty that even the +commonplace words of greeting were accomplished, and it was with +evident relief that she turned from him to ask her guests to come +into the dining-room. + +Warm daylight was still pouring into the drawing-room at seven +o'clock, and in the pleasant dining-room, too, there was no other +light. The windows here were wide open, and garden scents drifted in +from the recently watered flower-beds. The long table, simply set, +was ornamented only by low bowls of the lovely San Rafael roses. + +Guided and stimulated by the hostess, the conversation ran in a gay, +unbroken stream, for the painter liked to talk, and Santa Paloma +enjoyed him. But under it all the women guests were aware of an +almost resentful amazement at the simplicity of the dinner. When, +after nine o'clock, the ladies went into the drawing-room and +settled about a snapping wood fire, Mrs. Lloyd could not resist +whispering to Mrs. Apostleman, "For a COMPANY dinner!" Mrs. Adams +was entirely absorbed in deciding just what position she would take +when Mrs. White alluded to the affair the next day; but Mrs. White +had come primed for special business this evening, and she took +immediate advantage of the absence of the men to speak to Mrs. +Burgoyne. + +"As president of our little club," said she, when they were all +seated, "I am authorized to ask you if I may put your name up for +membership, Mrs. Burgoyne. We are all members here, and in this +quiet place our meetings are a real pleasure, and I hope an +education as well." + +"Oh, really--!" Mrs. Burgoyne began, but the other went on serenely: + +"I brought one of our yearly programs, we have just got them out, +and I'm going to leave it with you. I think Mr. White left it here +on the table. Yes; here it is. You see," she opened a dainty little +book and flattened it with a white, jeweled hand, "our work is all +laid out, up to the president's breakfast in March. I go out then, +and a week later we inaugurate the new president. Let me just run +over this for you, for I KNOW it will interest you. Now here, +Tuesdays. Tuesday is our regular meeting day. We have a program, +music, and books suggested for the week, reports, business, and one +good paper--the topics vary; here's 'Old Thanksgiving Customs,' in +November, then a debate, 'What is Friendship,' then 'Christmas +Spirit,' and then our regular Christmas Tree and Jinks. Once a +month, on Tuesday, we have some really fine speaker from the city, +and we often have fine singers, and so on. Then we have a monthly +reception for our visitors, and a supper; usually we just have tea +and bread-and-butter after the meetings. Then, first Monday, +Directors' Meeting; that doesn't matter. Every other Wednesday the +Literary Section meets, they are doing wonderful work; Miss Foster +has that; she makes it very interesting. 'What English Literature +Owes to Meredith,' 'Rossetti, the Man,'--you see I'm just skimming, +to give you some idea. Then the Dramatic Section, every other +Thursday; they give a play once a year; that's great fun! 'Ibsen-- +Did he Understand Women?' 'Please Explain--Mr. Shaw?'--Mrs. Moore +makes that very amusing. Then alternate Thursdays the Civic and +Political Section--" + +"Ah! What does that do?" said Mrs. Burgoyne. + +"Why," said Mrs. White hesitating, "I haven't been--however, I think +they took up the sanitation of the schools; Miss Jewett, from +Sacramento, read a splendid paper about it. There's a committee to +look into that, and then last year that section planted a hundred +trees. And then there's parliamentary drill." + +"Which we all need," said Mrs. Adams, and there was laughter. + +"Then there's the Art Department once a month," resumed Mrs. White, +"Founders' Day, Old-Timers' Day, and, in February, we think Judge +Lindsey may address us--" + +"Oh, are you doing any juvenile-court work?" said the hostess. + +"We wanted his suggestions about it," Mrs. White said. "We feel that +if we COULD get some of the ladies interested--! Then here's the +French class once a week; German, Spanish, and the bridge club on +Fridays." + +"Gracious! You use your clubhouse," said Mrs. Burgoyne. + +"Nearly every day. So come on Tuesday," said the president +winningly, "and be our guest. A Miss Carroll is to sing, and +Professor Noyesmith, of Berkeley, will read a paper on: 'The City +Beautiful.' Keep that year-book; I butchered it, running through it +so fast." + +"Well, just now," Mrs. Burgoyne began a little hesitatingly, "I'm +rather busy. I am at the Mail office while the girls are in school, +you know, and we have laid out an enormous lot of gardening for +afternoons. They never tire of gardening if I'm with them, but, of +course, no children will do that sort of thing alone; and it's doing +them both so much good that I don't want to stop it. Then they study +German and Italian with me, and on Saturday have a cooking lesson. +You see, my time is pretty full." + +"But a good governess would take every bit of that off your hands, +me dear," said Mrs. Apostleman. + +"Oh, but I love to do it!" protested Mrs. Burgoyne with her wide- +eyed, childish look. "You can't really buy for them what you can do +yourself, do you think so? And now the other children are beginning +to come in, and it's such fun! But that isn't all. I have editorial +work to do, besides the Mail, you know. I manage the 'Answers to +Mothers' column in a little eastern magazine. I daresay you've never +seen it; it is quite unpretentious, but it has a large circulation. +And these mothers write me, some of them factory-workers, or mothers +of child-workers even, or lonely women on some isolated ranch; +you've no idea how interesting it is! Of course they don't know who +I am, but we become good friends, just the same. I have the best +reference books about babies and sickness, and I give them the best +advice I can. Sometimes it's a boy's text-book that is wanted, or a +second-hand crib, or some dear old mother to get into a home, and +they are so self-respecting about it, and so afraid they aren't +paying fair--I love that work! But, of course, it takes time. Then +I've been hunting up a music-teacher for the girls. I can't teach +them that--" + +"I meant to speak to you of that," Mrs. White said. "There's a +Monsieur Posti, Emil Posti, he studied with Leschetizky, you know, +who comes up from San Francisco every other week, and we all take +from him. In between times--" + +"Oh, but I've engaged a nice little Miss Davids from Old Paloma," +said Mrs. Burgoyne. + +"From Old Paloma!" echoed three women together. And Mrs. Apostleman +added heavily, "Never heard of her!" + +"I got a good little Swedish sewing-woman over there," the hostess +explained, "and she told me of this girl. She's a sweet girl; no +mother, and a little sister to bring up. She was quite pleased." + +"But, good heavens! What does she know? What's her method?" demanded +Mrs. White in puzzled disapproval. + +"She has a pretty touch," Mrs. Burgoyne said mildly, "and she's +bristling with ambition and ideas. She's not a genius, perhaps; but, +then, neither is either of the girls. I just want them to play for +their own pleasure, read accompaniments; something of that sort. +Don't you know how popular the girl who can play college songs +always is at a house-party?" + +"Well, really--" Mrs. White began, almost annoyed; but she broke her +sentence off abruptly, and Mrs. Apostleman filled the pause. + +"Whatever made ye go over there for a dress-maker?" she demanded. +"We never think of going there. There's a very good woman here, in +the Bank Building--" + +"Madame Sorrel," supplemented Mrs. Adams. + +"She's fearfully independent," Mrs. Lloyd contributed; "but she's +good. She made your pink, didn't she, Sue? Wayne said she did." + +Mrs. Adams turned pink herself; the others laughed suddenly. + +"Oh, you naughty girl!" Mrs. White said. "Did you tell Wayne you got +that frock in Santa Paloma?" + +"What Wayne doesn't know won't hurt him," said his wife. "Sh! Here +they come!" And the conversation terminated abruptly, with much +laughter. + +Mrs. Burgoyne's dinner-party dispersed shortly after ten o'clock, so +much earlier than was the custom in Santa Paloma that none of the +ordered motor-cars were in waiting. The guests walked home together, +absorbed in an animated conversation; for the gentlemen, who were +delighted to be getting home early, delighted with a dinner that, as +Wayne Adams remarked, "really stood for something to eat, not just +things passed to you, or put down in dabs before you," and delighted +with the pleasant informality of sitting down in daylight, were +enthusiastic in their praise of Mrs. Burgoyne. The ladies differed +with them. + +"She knows how to do things," said Parker Lloyd. "Old Von Praag +himself said that she was a famous dinner-giver." + +"I don't know what you'd say, Wayne," said Mrs. Adams patiently, "if +_I_ asked people to sit down to the dinner we had to-night! Of +course we haven't eight millions, but I would be ashamed to serve a +cocktail, a soup--I frankly admit it was delicious--steaks, plain +lettuce salad, and fruit. I don't count coffee and cheese. No wines, +no entrees; I think it was decidedly QUEER." + +"I wish some of you others would try it," said Willard White +unexpectedly. "I never get dinners like that, except at the club, +down in town. The cocktail was a rare sherry, the steaks were +broiled to a turn, and the salad dressing was a wonder. She had her +cheese just ripe enough, and samovar coffee to wind up with--what +more do you want? I serve wine myself, but champagne keeps you +thirsty all night, and other wines put me to sleep. I don't miss +wine! I call it a bang-up dinner, don't you, Parker?" + +Parker Lloyd, with his wife on his arm, felt discretion his part. + +"Well," he said innocently selecting the one argument most +distasteful to the ladies, "it was a man's dinner, Will. It was just +what a man likes, served the way he likes it. But if the girls like +flummery and fuss, I don't see why they shouldn't have it." + +"Really!" said Mrs. White with a laugh that showed a trace of +something not hilarious, "really, you are all too absurd! We are a +long way from the authorities here, but I think we will find out +pretty soon that simple dinners have become the fad in Washington, +or Paris, and that your marvelous Mrs. Burgoyne is simply following +the fashion like all the rest of us." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Barry had murmured something about "rush of work at the office" when +he came in a few minutes late for Mrs. Burgoyne's dinner, but as the +evening wore on, he seemed in no hurry to depart. Sidney was +delighted to see him really in his element with the Von Praags, +father and son, the awakened expression that was so becoming to him +on his face, and his curiously complex arguments stirring the old +man over and over again to laughter. She had been vexed at herself +for feeling a little shyness when he first came in; the unfamiliar +evening dress and the gravity of his handsome face had made him seem +almost a stranger, but this wore off, and after the other guests had +gone these four still sat laughing and talking like the best of old +friends together. + +When the Von Praags had gone upstairs, she walked with him to the +porch, and they stood at the top of the steps for a moment, the rich +scent of the climbing LaMarque and Banksia roses heavy about them, +and the dark starry arch of the sky above. Sidney, a little tired, +but pleased with her dinner and her guests, and ready for a breath +of the sweet summer night before going upstairs, was confused by +having her heart suddenly begin to thump again. She looked at Barry, +his figure lost in the shadow, only his face dimly visible in the +starlight, and some feeling, new, young, terrifying, and yet +infinitely delicious, rushed over her. She might have been a girl of +seventeen instead of a sober woman fifteen years older, with +wifehood, and motherhood, and widowhood all behind her. + +"A wonderful night!" said Barry, looking down at the dark mass of +tree-tops that almost hid the town, and at the rising circle of +shadows that was the hills. + +"And a good place to be, Santa Paloma," Sidney added, contentedly. +"It's my captured dream, my own home and garden!" With her head +resting against one of the pillars of the porch, her eyes dreamily +moving from the hills to the sky and over the quiet woods, she went +on thoughtfully: "You know I never had a home, Barry; and when I +visited here, I began to realize what I was missing. How I longed +for Santa Paloma, the creek, and the woods, and my little sunny room +after I went away! But even when I was eighteen, and we took a house +in Washington, what could I do? I 'came out,' you know. I loved +gowns and parties then, as I hope the girls will some day; but I +knew all the while it wasn't living." She paused, but Barry did not +speak. "And, then, before I was twenty, I was married," Sidney went +on presently, "and we started off for St. Petersburg. And after +that, for years and years, I posed for dressmakers; I went the round +of jewelers, and milliners, and manicures; I wrote notes and paid +calls. I let one strange woman come in every day and wash my hands +for me, and another wash my hair, and a third dress me! I let men-- +who were in the business simply to make money, and who knew how to +do it!--tell me that my furs must be recut, or changed, and my +jewels reset, and my wardrobe restocked and my furniture carried +away and replaced. And in the cities we lived in it's horrifying to +see how women slave, and toil, and worry to keep up. Half the women +I knew were sick over debts and the necessity for more debts. I felt +like saying, with Carlyle, 'Your chaos-ships must excuse me'; I'm +going back to Santa Paloma, to wear my things as long as they are +whole and comfortable, and do what I want to do with my spare time!" + +"You missed your playtime," Barry said; "now you make the most of +it." + +"Oh, no!" she answered, giving him a glimpse of serious eyes in the +half-dark, "playtime doesn't come back. But, at least, I know what I +want to do, and it will be more fun than any play. One of the wisest +men I ever knew set me thinking of these things. He's a sculptor, a +great sculptor, and he lives in an olive garden in Italy, and eats +what his peasants eat, and befriends them, and stands for their +babies in baptism, and sits with them when they're dying. My father +and I visited him about two years ago, and one day when he and I +were taking a tramp, I suddenly burst out that I envied him. I +wanted to live in an olive garden, too, and wear faded blue clothes, +and eat grapes, and tramp about the hills. He said very simply that +he had worked for twenty years to do it. 'You see, I'm a rich man,' +he said, 'and it seems that one must be rich in this world before +one dare be poor from choice. I couldn't do this if people didn't +know that I could have an apartment in Paris, and servants, and +motor-cars, and all the rest of it. It would hurt my daughters and +distress my friends. There are hundreds and thousands of unhappy +people in the world who can't afford to be poor, and if ever you get +a chance, you try it. You'll never be rich again.' So I wrote him +about a month ago that I had found MY olive garden," finished Sidney +contentedly, "and was enjoying it." + +"Captain Burgoyne was older than you, Sid?" Barry questioned. +"Wouldn't he have loved this sort of life?" + +"Twenty years older, yes; but he wouldn't have lived here for one +DAY!" she answered vivaciously. "He was a diplomat, a courtier to +his finger-tips. He was born to the atmosphere of hothouse flowers, +and salons, and delightful little drawing-room plots and gossip. He +loved politics, and power, and women in full dress, and men with +orders. Of course I was very new to it all, but he liked to spoil +me, draw me out. If it hadn't been for his accident, I never would +have grown up at all, I dare say. As it was, I was more like his +mother. We went to Washington for the season, New York for the +opera, England for autumn visits, Paris for the spring: I loved to +make him happy, Barry, and he wasn't happy except when we were +going, going, going. He was exceptionally popular; he had +exceptional friends, and he couldn't go anywhere without me. My +babies were with his mother--" + +She paused, turning a white rose between her fingers. "And +afterwards," she said presently, "there was Father. And Father never +would spend two nights in the same place if he could help it," + +"I wasn't drawn back here as you were," said Barry thoughtfully, "I +liked New York; I could have made good there if I'd had a chance. It +made me sick to give it up, then; but lately I've been feeling +differently. A newspaper's a pretty influential thing, wherever it +is. I've been thinking about that clubhouse plan of yours; I wish to +the Lord that we could do something for those poor kids over there. +You're right. Those girls have rotten homes. The whole family +gathers in the parlor right after dinner. Pa takes his shoes off, +and props his socks up before the stove; Ma begins to hear a kid his +spelling; and other kids start the graphophone, and Aggie is +expected to ask her young man to walk right in. So after that she +meets him in the street, and the girls begin to talk about Aggie." + +"Oh, Barry, I'm so glad you're interested!" Standing a step above +him, Sidney's ardent face was very close to his own. "Of course we +can do it," she said. + +"We!" he echoed almost bitterly. "YOU'LL do it; you're the one--" He +broke off with a short, embarrassed laugh. "I was going to cut that +sort of thing out," he said gruffly, "but all roads lead to Rome, it +seems. I can't talk to you five minutes without--and I've got to go. +I said I'd look in at the office." + +"You seem to be afraid to be friendly lately, Barry," said Mrs. +Burgoyne in a hurt voice, flinging away the rose she had been +holding, "but don't you think our friendship means something to me, +too? I don't like you to talk as if I did all the giving and you all +the taking. I don't know how the girls and I would get along without +your advice and help here at the Hall. I think," her voice broke +into a troubled laugh, "I think you forget that the quality of +friendship is not strained." + +"Sidney," he said with sudden resolution, turning to face her +bravely, "I can't be just friends with you. You're so much the +finest, so much the best--" He left the sentence unfinished, and +began again: "You have a hundred men friends; you can't realize what +you mean to me. You--but you know what you are, and I'm the editor +of a mortgaged country paper, a man who has made a mess of things, +who can't take care of his kid, or himself, on his job without help- +-" + +"Barry--" she began breathlessly, but he interrupted her. + +"Listen to me," he said huskily, taking both her warm hands in his, +"I want to tell you something. Say that I WAS weak enough to forget +all that, your money and my poverty, your life and my life, +everything that puts you as far above me as the moon and stars; say +that I could do that--although I hope it's not true--even then--even +then I'm not free, Sidney. There is Hetty, you know; there is +Billy's mother--" + +There was a silence. Sidney slowly freed her hands, laid one upon +her heart as unconsciously as a hurt child, and the other upon his +shoulder. Her troubled eyes searched his face. + +"Barry," she said with a little effort, "have I been mistaken in +thinking Billy's mother was dead?" + +"Everyone thinks so," he answered with a quick rush of words that +showed how great the relief of speech was. "Even up in Hetty's home +town, Plumas, they think so. I wrote home that Hetty had left me, +and they drew their own conclusions. It was natural enough; she was +never strong. She was always restless and unhappy, wanted to go on +the stage. She did go on the stage, you know; her mother advised it, +and she--just left me. We were in New York, then; Bill was a little +shaver; I was having a hard time with a new job. It was an awful +time! After a few months I brought Bill back here--he wasn't very +well--and then I found that everyone thought Hetty was dead. Then +her mother wrote me, and said that Hetty had taken a stage-name, and +begged me to let people go on thinking she was dead, and, more for +the kid's sake than Hetty's, I let things stand. But Hetty's in +California now; she and her mother live in San Francisco; she is +still studying singing, I believe. She gets the rent from two flats +I have there. But she never writes. And that," he finished grimly, +"is the last chapter of my history." + +Sidney still stood close to him, earnest, fragrant, lovely, in her +white gown. And even above the troubled tumult of his thoughts Barry +had time to think how honest, how unaffected she was, to stand so, +making no attempt to disguise the confusion in her own mind. For a +long time there was no sound but the vague stir of the night about +them, the faint breath of some wandering breeze, the rustling flight +of some small animal in the dark, the far-hushed, village sounds. + +"Thank you, Barry," Sidney said at length. "I'm sorry. I am glad you +told me. Good-night." + +"Good-night," he said almost inaudibly. He ran down the steps and +plunged into the dark avenue without a backward look. Sidney turned +slowly, and slowly entered the dimly lighted hall, and shut the +door. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +"Come down here--we're down by the river!" called Mrs. Burgoyne, +from the shade of the river bank, where she and Mrs. Lloyd were busy +with their sewing. "The American History section is entertaining the +club." + +"You look studious!" laughed Mrs. Brown, coming across the grass, to +put the Brown baby upon his own sturdy legs from her tired arms, and +sink into a deep lawn chair. The June afternoon was warm, but it was +delightfully cool by the water. "Is that the club?" she asked, +waving toward the group of children who were wading and splashing in +the shallows of the loitering river. + +"That's the American History Club," responded Mrs. Burgoyne, as she +flung her sewing aside and snatched the baby. "Paul," said she, +kissing his warm, moist neck, "do you truly love me a little bit?" + +"Boy ge' down," said Paul, struggling violently. + +"Yes, you shall, darling. But listen, do you want to hear the tick- +tock? Oh, Paul, sit still just one minute!" + +"Awn ge' DOWN," said Paul, distinctly, every fibre of his small +being headed, as it were, for the pebbly shingle where it was daily +his delight to dig. + +"But say 'deck' first, sweetheart, say 'Deck, I love you,'" besought +the mistress of the Hall. + +"Deck!" shouted Paul obediently, eyes on the river. + +"And a sweet kiss!" further stipulated Mrs. Burgoyne, and grabbed it +from his small, red, unresponsive mouth before she let him toddle +away. "Yes," she resumed, going on with the tucking of a small +skirt, "Joanna and Jeanette and the Adams boy have to write an essay +this week about the Battle of Bunker Hill, so I read them Holmes' +poem, and they acted it all out. You never saw anything so +delicious. Mrs. Lloyd came up just in time to see Mabel limping +about as the old Corporal! The cherry tree was the steeple, of +course, and both your sons, you'll be ashamed to hear, were +redcoats. Next week they expect to do Paul Revere, and I daresay +we'll have the entire war, before we're through. You are both +cordially invited." + +"I'll come," said the doctor's wife, smiling. "I love this garden. +And to take care of the boys and have a good time myself is more +than I ever thought I'd do in this life!" + +"I live on this bank," said Mrs. Burgoyne, leaning back luxuriously +in her big chair, to stare idly up through the apple-tree to the +blue sky. "I'm going to teach the children all their history and +poetry and myths, out here. It makes it so real to them, to act it. +Jo and Ellen and I read Barbara Frietchie out here a few weeks ago, +and they've wanted it every day or two, since." + +"We won't leave anything for the schools to do," said little Mrs. +Brown. + +"All the better," Mrs. Burgoyne said, cheerfully. + +"Well, excuse me!" Mrs. Lloyd, holding the linen cuff she was +embroidering at arm's length, and studying it between half-closed +lids. "I am only too glad to turn Mabel over to somebody else part +of the time. You don't know what she is when she begins to ask +questions!" + +"I don't know anything more tiring than being with children day in +and day out," said Mrs. Brown, "it gets frightfully on your nerves!" + +"Oh, I'd like about twelve!" said Mrs. Burgoyne. + +"Oh, Mrs. Burgoyne! You WOULDN'T!" + +"Yes, I would, granted a moderately secure income, and a rather +roomy country home. Although," added Mrs. Burgoyne, temperately, "I +do honestly think twelve children is too big a family. However, one +may be greedy in wishes!" + +"Would you want a child of yours to go without proper advantages," +said Mrs. Lloyd, a little severely, "would you want more than one or +two, if you honestly felt you couldn't give them all that other +children have? Would you be perfectly willing to have your children +feel at a disadvantage with all the children of your friends? I +wouldn't," she answered herself positively, "I want to do the best +by Mabel, I want her to have everything, as she grows up, that a +girl ought to have. That's why all this nonsense about the size of +the American family makes me so tired! What's the use of bringing a +lot of children into the world that are going to suffer all sorts of +privations when they get here?" + +"Privations wouldn't hurt them," said Mrs. Burgoyne, sturdily, "if +it was only a question of patched boots and made-over clothes and +plain food. They could even have everything in the world that's +worth while." + +"How do you mean?" said Mrs. Lloyd, promptly defensive. + +"I'd gather them about me," mused Sidney Burgoyne, dreamily, her +eyes on the sky, a whimsical smile playing about her mouth, "I'd +gather all seven together--" + +"Oh, you've come down to seven?" chuckled Mrs. Brown. + +"Well, seven's a good Biblical number," Mrs. Burgoyne said serenely, +"--and I'd say 'Children, all music is yours, all art is yours, all +literature is yours, all history and all philosophy is waiting to +prove to you that in starting poor, healthy, and born of intelligent +and devoted parents, you have a long head-start in the race of life. +All life is ahead of you, friendships, work, play, tramps through +the green country in the spring, fires in winter, nights under the +summer stars. Choose what you like, and work for it, your father and +I can keep you warm and fed through your childhoods, and after that, +nothing can stop you if you are willing to work and wait." + +"And then suppose your son asks you why he can't go camping with the +other boys in summer school, and your daughter wants to join the +cotillion?" asked Mrs. Lloyd. + +"Why, it wouldn't hurt them to hear me say no," said Mrs. Burgoyne, +in surprise. "I never can understand why parents, who practise every +imaginable self-denial themselves, are always afraid the first +renunciation will kill their child. Sooner or later they are going +to learn what life is. I know a little girl whose parents are multi- +millionaires, and who is going to be told some day soon that her two +older sisters aren't living abroad, as she thinks, but shut up for +life, within a few miles of her. What worse blow could life give to +the poorest girl?" + +"Horrors!" murmured Mrs. Brown. + +"And those are common cases," Mrs. Burgoyne said eagerly, "I knew of +so many! Pretty little girls at European watering-places whose +mothers are spending thousands, and hundreds of thousands of dollars +to get out of their blood what no earthly power can do away with. +Sons of rich fathers whose valets themselves wouldn't change places +with them! And then the fine, clean, industrious middle-classes--or +upper classes, really, for the blood in their veins is the finest in +the world--are afraid to bring children into the world because of +dancing cotillions and motor-cars!" + +"Well, of course I have only four," said Mrs. Brown, "but I've been +married only seven years--" + +Mrs. Burgoyne laughed, came to a full stop, and reddened a little as +she went back busily to her sewing. + +"Why do you let me run on at such a rate; you know my hobbies now!" +she reproached them. "I am not quite sane on the subject of what +ought to be done--and isn't--in that good old institution called +woman's sphere." + +"That sounds vaguely familiar," said Mrs. Lloyd. + +"Woman's sphere? Yes, we hate the sound of it," said Mrs. Burgoyne, +"just as a man who has left his family hates to talk of home ties, +and just as a deserter hates the conversation to come around to the +army. But it's true. Our business is children, and kitchens, and +husbands, and meals, and we detest it all--" + +"I like my husband a little," said Mrs. Brown, in a meek little +voice. + +They all laughed. Then said Mrs. Lloyd, gazing sentimentally toward +the river bank, where her small daughter's twisted curls were +tossing madly in a game of "tag": + +"I shall henceforth regard Mabel as a possible Joan of Arc." + +"One of those boys MAY be a Lincoln, or a Thomas Edison, or a Mark +Twain," Sidney Burgoyne added, half-laughing, "and then we'll feel +just a little ashamed for having turned him complacently over to a +nurse or a boarding school. Of course, it leaves us free to go to +the club and hear a paper on the childhood of Napoleon, carefully +compiled years after his death. Why, men take heavy chances in their +work, they follow up the slightest opening, but we women throw away +opportunities to be great, every day of our lives! Scientists and +theorists are spending years of their lives pondering over every +separate phase of the development of children, but we, who have the +actual material in our hands, turn it over to nursemaids!" + +"Yes, but lots of children disappoint their parents bitterly," said +Mrs. Brown, "and lots of good mothers have bad children!" + +"I never knew a good mother to have a bad child--" began Mrs. +Burgoyne. + +"Well, I have. Thousands," Mrs. Lloyd said promptly. + +"Oh, no! Not a BAD child," her hostess said, quickly. "A +disappointing child perhaps, or a strong-willed child, you mean. But +no good mother--and that doesn't mean merely a good woman, or a +church-going woman!--could possibly have a really bad child. 'By +their fruits,' you know. And then of course we haven't a perfect +system of nursery training yet; we expect angels. We judge by +little, inessential things, we're exacting about unimportant +trifles. We don't want our sons to marry little fluffy-headed dolls, +although the dolls may make them very good wives. We don't want them +to make a success of real estate, if the tradition of the house is +for the bar or the practice of medicine. And we lose heart at the +first suspicion of bad company, or of drinking; although the best +men in the world had those temptations to fight! But, anyway, I +would rather try at that and fail, than do anything else in the +world. My failures at least might save some other woman's children. +And it's just that much more done for the world than guarding the +valuable life of a Pomeranian, or going to New York for new furs!" +They all laughed, for Mrs. Willard White's latest announcement of +her plans had awakened some comment among them. + +"Mother, am I interrupting you?" said a patient voice at this point. +Ellen Burgoyne, rosy, dishevelled, panting, stood some ten feet +away, waiting patiently a chance to enter the conversation. + +"No, my darling." Her mother held out a welcoming hand. "Oh, I see," +she added, glancing at her watch. "It's half-past four. Yes, you can +go up for the gingerbread now. You mustn't carry the milk, you know, +Ellen." + +"Mother," said Ellen, flashing into radiance at the slightest +encouragement, "have you told them about our Flower Festibul plans?" + +"Oh, not yet!" Mrs. Burgoyne heaved a great sigh. "I'm afraid I've +committed myself to an entry for the parade," she told the others +ruefully. + +"Oh, don't tell me you're going to compete!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. + +"Well, we're rather afraid we are!" Mrs. Burgoyne's voice, if +fearful, was hopeful too, for Ellen's face was a study. "Why, is it +such a terrible effort?" + +"Oh, yes, it's an appalling amount of struggle and fuss, there's all +sorts of red tape, and the flowers are so messy," answered the +doctor's wife warningly, "and this year will be worse than ever. The +Women's Club of Apple Creek is going to enter a carriage, and you +know our club is to have the White's motor; it will be perfectly +exquisite! It's to be all pink carnations, and Mr. White's nephew, a +Berkeley boy, and some of his friends, all in white flannels, are +going to run it. Doctor says there'll be a hundred entries this +year." + +"Well, I'm afraid I'm in for it," said Mrs. Burgoyne, with a sigh. +"I haven't the least idea in the world what I'm going to do. It +isn't as if we even had a surrey. But I really was involved before I +had time to think. You know I've been trying, with some of my spare +time," her eyes twinkled, "to get hold of these little factory and +cannery girls over in Old Paloma." + +"You told me," said Mrs. Brown, "but I don't see how that--" + +"Well, you see, their ringleader has been particularly ungracious to +me. A fine, superb, big creature she is, named Alice Carter. This +Alice came up to the children and me in the street the other day, +and told me, in the gruffest manner, that she was interested in a +little crippled girl over there, and had promised to take her to see +the Flower Festival. But it seems the child's mother was afraid to +trust her to Alice in the crowd and heat. Quite simply she asked me +if I could manage it. I was tremendously touched, and we went to see +the child. She's a poor, brave little scrap--twelve years old, did +she say, Baby?" + +"Going on thirteen," said Ellen rapidly; "and her father is dead, +and her mother works, and she takes care of such a fat baby, and she +is very gen-tul with him, isn't she, Mother? And she cried when +Mother gave her books, and she can't eat her lunch because her back +aches, but she gave the baby his lunch, and Mother asked her if she +would let a doctor fix her back, and she said, 'Oh, no!'--didn't +she, Mother? She just twisted and twisted her hands, and said, 'I +can't.' And Mother said, 'Mary, if you will be a brave girl about +the doctor, I will make you a pink dress and a wreath of roses, and +you shall ride with the others in the Flower Festibul!' And she just +said, 'Oo-oo!'--didn't she, Mother? And she said she thought God +sent you, didn't she, Mother?" + +"She did." Mrs. Burgoyne smiled through wet lashes. Mrs. Brown wiped +her own eyes against the baby's fluffy mop. "She's a most pathetic +little creature, this Mary Scott," went on the other woman when +Ellen had dashed away, "and I'm afraid she's not the only one. +There's my Miss Davids' little sister; if I took her in, Miss Davids +would be free for the day; and there's a little deaf-mute whose +mother runs the bakery. And I told Mary we'd manage the baby, too, +and that if she knew any other children who positively couldn't come +any other way, she must let me know. Of course the school children +are cared for, they will have seats right near the grand stand, and +sing, and so on. But I am really terrified about it, you'll have to +help me out." + +"I'll do anything," Mrs. Brown promised. + +"I'll do anything I CAN," said Mrs. Lloyd, modestly, "I loathe and +abominate children unless they're decently dressed and smell of +soap--but I'll run a machine, if some one'll see that they don't +swarm over me." + +"I'll put a barbed wire fence around you!" promised Mrs. Burgoyne, +gaily. + +Mrs. Carew, coming up, as she expressed it, "to gather up some +children," was decidedly optimistic about the plan. "Nobody ever +uses hydrangeas, because you can't make artificial ones to fill in +with," she said, "so you can get barrels of them." Mrs. Burgoyne was +enthusiastic over hydrangeas, "But it's not the fancy touches that +scare me," she confessed; "it's the awful practical side." + +"What does Barry think?" Mrs. Carew presently asked innocently. Mrs. +Burgoyne's suddenly rosy face was not unobserved by any of the +others. + +"I haven't seen him for several days, not since the night of my +dinner," she admitted; "I've been lazy, sending my work down to the +office. But I will see him right away." + +"He's the one really to have ideas," Mrs. Brown assured her. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +So Barry was invited up to the Hall to dinner, and found himself so +instantly swept into the plan that he had no time to be self- +conscious. Dinner was served on the side porch, and the sunlight +filtered across the white cloth, and turned the garden into a place +of enchantment. When Billy and the small girls had seized two +cookies and two peaches apiece, and retired to the lawn to enjoy +them, he and Sidney sat talking on in the pleasant dusk. + +"You've asked eight, so far," he said, as she was departing for the +office an hour or so after dinner was finished, "but do you think +that's all?" + +"Oh, it positively must be!" Sidney said virtuously, but there was a +wicked gleam in her eye that prepared him for her sudden descent +upon the office two days later, with the startling news that now she +had positively STOPPED, but fourteen children had been asked! + +Barry, rather to her surprise, remained calm. + +"Well, I've got an idea," he said presently, "that will make that +all right, fourteen children or twenty, it won't make any +difference. Only, it may not appeal to you." + +"Oh, it will--and you are an angel!" said the lady fervently. + +"I've got a friend up the country here in a lumber-mill," Barry +explained, "Joe Painter--he hauls logs down from the forest to the +river, with a team of eight oxen. Now, if he'd lend them, and you +got a hay-wagon from Old Paloma, you wouldn't have any trouble at +all." + +"Oh, but Barry," she gasped, her face radiant, "would he lend them?" + +"I think he would; he'd have to come too, you know, and drive them. +I'll ride up and see, anyway." + +"Oxen," mused Mrs. Burgoyne, "how perfectly glorious! The children +will go wild with joy. And, you see, my Indian boys--" + +"Your WHAT?" + +"I didn't mention them," said Sidney serenely, "because they'll walk +alongside, and won't count in the load. But, you see, some of those +nice little mill-boys who don't go to school heard the girls talking +about it, and one of them asked me--so wistfully!--if there was +anything THEY could do. I immediately thought of Indian costumes." + +"But how the deuce will you get the costumes made?" said Barry, +drawing a sheet of paper toward him, and beginning some +calculations, with an anxious eye. + +"Why, it's just cheese-cloth for the girls. Mrs. Brown and I have +our machines up in the barn, and Mrs. Carew and Mrs. Adams will come +up and help, there's not much to THAT! Barry, if you will really get +us this--this ox-man--nothing else will worry me at all." + +"You'll have to put the beasts up in your barn." + +"Oh, surely! Ask him what they eat. Oh, Barry, we MUST have them! +Think how picturesque they'll be! I've been thinking my entry would +be a disgrace to the parade, but I don't believe it will be so bad. +Barry, when will we know about it?" + +"You can count on it, I guess. Joe won't refuse," Barry said, with +his lazy smile. + +"Oh, you're an angel! I'm going shopping this instant. Barry, there +will be room now for my Ellen, and Billy, and Dicky Carew, won't +there? It seems their hearts are bursting with the desire. Bunting," +murmured Sidney, beginning a list, "cheese-cloth, pink, blue, and +cream, bolts of it; twine, beads, leather, feathers; some big white +hats; ice-cream, extra milk--" + +"Hold on! What for?" + +"Why, they have to have something to eat afterward," she reproached +him. "We're going to have a picnic up at the Hall. Then those that +can will join their people for the fireworks, and the others will be +taken home to Old Paloma. The little Scott girl will stay with Ellen +and Jo overnight; Mammy Currey will look after them, and they'll +watch the fireworks from my porch. I've written to ask Doctor Young- +-he's the best in San Francisco--to come up from the city next day +to see what he thinks can be done for Mary Scott." + +"You get a lot of fun out of your money, don't you, Sidney?" said +Barry, watching her amusedly, as she tucked the list into her purse +and arose with a great air of business. + +"More than any one woman deserves," she answered soberly. + + "Walter," said Anne Pratt to her brother, one evening about this +time, as she decorously filled his plate from the silver tureen, +"have you heard that Mrs. Burgoyne has gathered up about twenty +children in Old Paloma--cripples, and orphans, and I don't know what +all!--and is getting up a wagon for the Flower Festival? I was up at +the Hall to-day, and they're working like beavers." + +"Carew said something about it," said Walter Pratt. "Seems a good +idea. Those poor little kids over there don't have much fun." + +"You never said so before, Walter," his sister returned almost +resentfully. + +"I don't know why I shouldn't have," said Walter literally. "It's +true." + +"If we did anything for any children, it ought to be Lizzie's," said +Miss Pratt uncomfortably, after a pause. + +"I wish to the Lord we COULD do something for Lizzie's kids," her +brother observed suddenly. "I suppose it would kill you to have 'em +up here?" + +"Kill me!" Miss Anne echoed with painful eagerness, and with a +sudden tremble of her thin, long hand. "I don't know why it should; +there never were better behaved children born. I don't like Lizzie's +husband, and never shall;" she rushed on, "but seeing those children +up at the Hall to-day made me think of Betty, and Hope, and Davy, +cooped up down there in town. They'd love the Flower Festival, and I +could take them up to the Hall, and Nanny would be wild with joy to +have Lizzie's children here; she'd bake cookies and gingerbread--" A +flush had come into her faded, cool cheek. "Wouldn't they be in your +way? You really wouldn't mind--you won't change your mind about it, +Walt?" she said timidly. + +"Change my mind! Why, I'll love to have them running round here," he +answered warmly. "Write Lizzie to-night, and tell her I've got to go +down Tuesday, and I'll bring 'em up," + +"I'll tell her that just the things they have will be quite good +enough," said Miss Pratt. "The Burgoyne children just wear play- +ginghams--I'll get them anything else they need!" + +"It won't interfere with your club work, Anne?" + +"Not in the least!" She was sure of that, "And anyway," she went on +decidedly, "I'm not going to the club so much this summer. Mary +Brown and I went yesterday, and there was--well, I suppose it was a +good paper on 'The Mind of the Child,' by Miss Sarah Rich. But it +seemed so flat. And Mary Brown said, coming away, 'I think Doctor +and I will still come to the monthly receptions, but I believe I +won't listen to any more papers like that. They're all very well for +people who have no children--'" + +"Well, by Tuesday night you'll have three!" said Walter, with what +was for him great gaiety of manner. + +"Walter," his sister suggested nervously, "you'll be awfully +affectionate with Lizzie, won't you? Be sure to tell her that we +WANT them; and tell her that they'll be playing up at the Hall all +summer, as we used to. You know, I've been thinking, Walter," went +on the poor lady, with her nose suddenly growing red and her eyes +watering, "that I've not been a very good sister to Lizzie. She's +the youngest, and Mother--Mother wasn't here to advise her about her +marriage, and--and now I don't write her; and she wrote me that +Betty had a cough, and Davy was so noisy indoors in wet weather--and +I just go to the Club to hear papers upon 'Napoleon' and 'The Mind +of the Child.'" And Miss Anne, beginning to cry outright, leaned +back in her chair, and covered her face with her handkerchief. + +"Well, Anne--well, Anne," her brother said huskily, "we'll make it +up now. Where are you going to put them?" he presently added, with +an inspiration. + +Miss Pratt straightened up, blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and rang +for the maid. + +"Betty and Hope in the big front room--" she began happily. + + Another brief conversation, this time between George Carew and his +wife, was indicative of a certain change of view-point that was +affecting the women of Santa Paloma in these days. Mr. Carew, coming +home one evening, found a very demure and charming figure seated on +the porch. Mrs. Carew's gown was simplicity itself: a thin, dotted, +dark blue silk, with a deep childish lace collar and cuffs. + +"You look terribly sweet, Jen," said Mr. Carew; "you look out of +sight." And when he came downstairs again, and they were at dinner, +he returned to the subject with, "Jen, I haven't seen you look so +sweet for a long time. What is that, a new dress? Is that for the +reception on the Fourth? Jen, didn't you have a dress like that when +we were first married?" + +"Sorrel made this, and it only cost sixty dollars," said Mrs. Carew. + +"Well, get her to make you another," her husband said approvingly. +At which Mrs. Carew laughed a little shakily, and came around the +table, and put her arms about him and said: + +"Oh, George, you dear old BAT! Miss Pomeroy made this, upstairs +here, in three days, and the silk cost nine dollars. I DID have a +dress like this in my trousseau--my first silk--and I thought it was +wonderful; and I think you're a darling to remember it; and I AM +going to wear this on the Fourth. It's nice enough, isn't it?" + +"Nice enough! You'll be the prettiest woman there," stated Mr. Carew +positively. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The earliest daylight of July Fourth found Santa Paloma already +astir. Dew was heavy on the ropes of flowers and greens, and the +flags and bunting that made brilliant all the line of the day's +march; and long scarfs of fog lingered on the hills, but for all +that, and despite the delicious fragrant chill of the morning air, +nobody doubted that the day would be hot and cloudless, and the +evening perfect for fireworks. Lawn-sprinklers began to whir busily +in the sweet shaded gardens long before the sunlight reached them; +windows and doors were flung open to the air; women, sweeping +garden-paths and sidewalks with gay energy, called greetings up and +down the street to one another. Chairs were dragged out-of-doors; +limp flags began to stir in the sunny air; other flags squeakily +mounted their poles. At every window bunting showed; the schoolhouse +was half-hidden in red, white, and blue; the women's clubhouse was +festooned with evergreens and Japanese lanterns; and the Mail +office, the grand stand opposite, the shops, and the bank, all +fluttered with gay colors. Children shouted and scampered +everywhere; gathered in fascinated groups about the ice-cream and +candy and popcorn booths that sprang up at every corner; met +arriving cousins and aunts at the train; ran on last-minute errands. +Occasionally a whole package of exploding firecrackers smote the +warm still air. + +By half-past ten every window on the line of march, every dooryard +and porch, had its group of watchers. Wagons and motor-cars, from +the surrounding villages and ranches, blocked the side streets. It +was very warm, and fans and lemonade had a lively sale. + +From the two available windows of the Mail office, three persons, as +eager as the most eager child, watched the gathering crowds, and +waited for the Flower Parade. They were Mrs. Apostleman, stately in +black lace, and regally fanning, Sidney Burgoyne, looking her very +prettiest in crisp white, with a scarlet scarf over her arm, and +Barry Valentine, who looked unusually festive himself in white +flannels. All three were in wild spirits. + +"Hark, here they come!" said Sidney at last, drawing her head in +from a long inspection of the street. She had been waving and +calling greetings in every direction for a pleasant half-hour. Now +eleven had boomed from the town-hall clock, and a general +restlessness and wiltedness began to affect the waiting crowds. + +Barry immediately dangled almost his entire length across the window +sill, and screwed his person about for a look. + +"H'yar dey come, li'l miss, sho's yo' bawn!" he announced joyfully. +"There's the band!" + +Here they came, sure enough, under the flags and garlands, through +the noonday heat. Only vague brassy notes and the general craning of +necks indicated their approach now; but in another five minutes the +uniformed band was actually in view, and the National Guard after +it, tremendously popular, and the Native Sons, with another band, +and the veterans, thin, silver-headed old men in half a dozen +carriages, and more open carriages. One held the Governor and his +wife, the former bowing and smiling right and left, and saluted by +the rising school children, when he seated himself in the judges' +stand, with the shrill, thrilling notes of the national anthem. + +And then another band, and--at last!--the slow-moving, flower- +covered carriages and motors, a long, wonderful, brilliant line of +them. White-clad children in rose-smothered pony-carts, pretty girls +in a setting of scarlet carnations, more pretty girls half-hidden in +bobbing and nodding daisies--every one more charming than the last. +There were white horses as dazzling as soap and powder could make +them; horses whose black flanks glistened as dark as coal, and there +was a tandem of cream-colored horses that tossed rosettes of pink +Shirley poppies in their ears. The Whites' motor-car, covered with +pink carnations, and filled with good-looking lads flying the colors +of the Women's Club and the nation's flag, won a special round of +applause. Mrs. Burgoyne and Barry loyally clapped for the Pratt +motor-car, from which Joanna Burgoyne and Lizzie Pratt's children +were beaming upon the world. + +"But what are they halting for, and what are they clapping?" Sidney +presently demanded, when a break in the line and a sudden outburst +of cheering and applause interrupted the parade. Barry again hung at +a dangerous angle from the window. Presently he sat back, his face +one broad smile. + +"It's us," he remarked simply. "Wait until you see us; we're the +cream of the whole show!" + +Too excited to speak, Sidney knelt breathless at the sill, her eyes +fixed upon the spot where the cause of the excitement must appear. +She was perhaps the only one of all the watchers who did not +applaud, as the eight powerful oxen came slowly down the sunshiny +street, guided by the tall, lean driver who walked beside them, and +dragging the great wagon and its freight of rapturous children. + +Only an old hay-wagon, after all; only a team of shabby oxen, such +as a thousand lumber-camps in California might supply; only a score +or more of the ill-nourished, untrained children of the very poor; +but what an enchantment of love and hope and summer-time had been +flung over them all! The body of the wagon was entirely hidden by +exquisite hydrangeas; the wheels were moving disks of the pale pink +and blue blossoms; the oxen, their horns gilded, their polished +hoofs twinkling as they moved, wore yokes that seemed solidly made +of the flowers, and great ropes of blossoms hid the swinging chains. +Over each animal a brilliant cover had been flung; and at the head +of each a young Indian boy, magnificent in wampum and fringed +leather, feathers and beads, walked sedately. The children were +grouped, pyramid-fashion, on the wagon, in a nest of hydrangea +blooms, the pink, and cream, and blue of their gowns blending with +the flowers all about them, the sunlight shining full in their happy +eyes. Over their shoulders were garlands of poppies, roses, sweet- +peas, daisies, carnations, lilies, or other blossoms; their hands +were full of flowers. But it was the radiance of their faces that +shone brightest, after all. It was the little consumptive's ecstatic +smile, as she sat resting against an invisible support; it was the +joy in Mary Scott's thin eager face, framed now in her loosened dark +hair, and with the shadow, like her crutch, laid aside for a while, +that somehow brought tears to the eyes that watched. Santa Paloma +cheered and applauded these forgotten children of hers; and the +children laughed and waved their hands in return. + +Youth and happiness and summer-time incarnate, the vision went on +its way, down the bright street; and other carriages followed it, +and were praised as those that had gone before had been. But no +entry in any flower parade that Santa Paloma had ever known, was as +much discussed as this one. Indeed, it began a new era; but that was +later on. When Mrs. Burgoyne's plain white frock appeared among the +elaborate gowns worn at the club luncheon that afternoon, she was +quite overwhelmed by congratulations. She went away very early, to +superintend the children's luncheon at the Hall, and then Mrs. White +had a chance to tell the distinguished guests who she was, and that +she could well afford to play Lady Bountiful to the Santa Paloma +children. + +"One wouldn't imagine it, she seems absolutely simple and +unspoiled," said Mrs. Governor. + +"She is!" said Mrs. Lloyd unexpectedly. + +"I told her how scared most of us had been at the mere idea of her +coming here, Parker," Mrs. Lloyd told her husband later, "and how +friendly she is, and that she always wears little wash dresses, and +that the other girls are beginning to wear checked aprons and +things, because her girls do! Of course, I said it sort of +laughingly, you know, but I don't think Clara White liked it ONE +BIT, and I don't care! Clara is rather mad at me, anyway," she went +on, musingly, "because yesterday she telephoned that she was going +to send that Armenian peddler over here, with some Madeira lunch +cloths. They WERE beauties, and only twenty-three dollars; you'd pay +fifty for them at Raphael Weil's--they're smuggled, I suppose! But I +simply said, 'Clara, I can't afford it!' and let it go at that. She +laughed--quite cattily, Parker!--and said, 'Oh, that's rather +funny!' But I don't care whether Clara White thinks I'm copying Mrs. +Burgoyne or not! I might as well copy her as somebody else!" + +Mrs. Burgoyne and Barry Valentine went down-town on the evening of +the great day, to see the fireworks and the crowds, and to hear the +announcements of prize-winners. Santa Paloma was in holiday mood, +and the two entered into the spirit of the hour like irresponsible +children. It was a warm, wonderful summer night; the sky was close +and thickly spangled with stars. Main Street bobbed with Japanese +lanterns, rang with happy voices and laughter. The jostling, pushing +currents of men in summer suits, and joyous girls in thin gowns, +were all good-natured. Sidney found friends on all sides, and +laughed and called her greetings as gaily as anyone. + +Barry had a rare opportunity to watch her unobserved, as she went +her happy way; the earnest happy brightness in her eyes, when some +shabby little woman from Old Paloma laid a timid hand on her arm, +her adoring interest in the fat babies that slumbered heavily on +paternal shoulders, her ready use of names, "Isn't this fun, +Agnes?"--"You haven't lost Harry, have you, Mrs. O'Brien?"--"Don't +you and your friend want to come and have some ice-cream with us, +Josie?" + +"But we mustn't waste too much time here, Barry," she would say now +and then; for at eight o'clock a "grand concert program and +distribution of prizes" was scheduled to take place at the town +hall, and Sidney was anxious not to miss an instant of it. "Don't +worry, I'll get you there!" Barry would answer reassuringly, amused +at her eagerness. + +And true to his word, he stopped her at the wide doorway of the +concert hall, fully five minutes before the hour, and they found +themselves joining the slow stream of men and women and children +that was pouring up the wide, dingy stairway. Everyone was trying, +in all good humor, to press ahead of everyone else, inspired with +the sudden agonizing conviction that in the next two minutes every +desirable seat would certainly be gone. Even Sidney, familiar as she +was with every grand opera house in the world, felt the infection, +and asked rather nervously if any of the seats were reserved. + +"Don't worry; we'll get seats," said the imperturbable Barry, and +several children in their neighborhood laughed out in sudden +exquisite relief. + +Seats indeed there were, although the front rows were filling fast, +and all the aisle-chairs were taken by squirming, restless small +children. Mrs. Burgoyne sat down, and studied the hall with +delighted eyes. It was ordinarily only a shabby, enormous, high- +ceiled room, filled with rows of chairs, and with an elevated stage +at the far end. But, like all Santa Paloma, it was in holiday trim +to-night. All the windows--wide open to the summer darkness--were +framed in bunting and drooping flowers, and on the stage were potted +palms and crossed flags. Great masses of bamboo and California ferns +were tied with red, white and blue streamers between the windows, +and, beside these decorations, which were new for the occasion, were +purple and yellow banners, left from the night of the Native Sons' +Grand Ball and Reception, a month ago, and, arched above the stage +the single word "Welcome" in letters two feet high, which dated back +to the Ladies of Saint Rose's Parish Annual Fair and Entertainment, +in May. If the combined effect of these was not wholly artistic, at +least it was very gay, and the murmur of voices and laughter all +over the hall was gay, too, and gay almost to intoxication it was to +hear the musicians tentatively and subduedly trying their +instruments up by the piano, with their sleek heads close together. + +Presently every chair in the house had its occupant, and the younger +element began a spasmodic sort of clapping, as a delicate hint to +the agitated managers, who were behind the scenes, running blindly +about with worn scraps of scribbled paper in their hands, +desperately attempting to call the roll of their performers. When +Joe, the janitor, came out onto the stage, he was royally applauded, +although he did no more than move a tin stand on which there were +numbered cards, from one side of the stage to the other, and change +the number in view from "18" to "1." + +Fathers and mothers, perspiring, clean and good-natured, smiled upon +youthful impatience and impertinence to-night, as they sat fanning +and discussing the newcomers, or leaned forward or backward for +hilarious scraps of conversation with their neighbors. Lovers, as +always oblivious of time, sat entirely indifferent to the rise or +fall of the curtain, the girls with demurely dropped lashes, the men +deep in low monotones, their faces close to the lovely faces so +near, their arms flung, in all absent-mindedness, across the backs +of the ladies' chairs. And any motherly heart might have been +stirred with an aching sort of tenderness, as Sidney Burgoyne's was, +at the sight of so much awkward, budding manliness, so many shining +pompadours, and carefully polished shoes and outrageous cravats--so +many silky, filleted little heads, and innocent young bosoms half- +hidden by all sorts of dainty little conspiracies of lace and lawn. +Youth, enchanting, self-absorbed, important, had coolly taken +possession of the hall, as it does of everything, for its own happy +plans, and something of the gossamer beauty of it seemed to be +clouding older and wiser eyes to-night. Sidney found her eyes +resting upon Barry's big, shapely hand, as he leaned forward, deep +in conversation with Dr. Brown, in the chair ahead, and she was +conscious that she wanted to sit back and shut her eyes, and draw a +deep breath of sheer irrational happiness because this WAS Barry +next to her, and that he liked to be there. + +Presently the hall thrilled to see two modest-looking and obviously +embarrassed men come out to seat themselves in the half-circle of +chairs that lined the stage, and a moment later applause broke out +for the Mayor and his wife, and the members of the Flower Parade +Committee of Arrangements, and for the nondescript persons who +invariably fill in such a group, and for the kindly, smiling +Governor, and the ladies of his party, and for the Willard Whites, +who, with the easiest manners in the world, were in actual +conversation with the great people as they came upon the stage. + +At the sight of them, Mrs. Carew, still vigorously clapping, leaned +over to say to Mrs. Burgoyne: + +"Look at Clara White! And we were wondering why they didn't come in! +Wouldn't she make you TIRED!" + +"You might kiss her hand, when you go up to get your prize, Mrs. +Burgoyne," suggested Barry, and a general giggle went the rounds. + +"If I get a prize," said Sidney, in alarm, "you've got to go up, I +couldn't!" + +"We'll see--" Barry began, his voice drowned by the opening crash of +the band. + +There followed what the three papers of Santa Paloma were unanimous +the next day in describing as the most brilliant and enjoyable +concert ever given in Santa Paloma. It was received with immense +enthusiasm, entirely unaffected by the fact that everyone present +had heard Miss Emelie Jeanne Foster sing "Twickenham Ferry" before, +with "Dawn" as an encore, and was familiar also with the selections +of the Stringed Instrument Club, and had listened to young Doctor +Perry's impassioned tenor many times. As for George O'Connor, with +his irresistible laughing song, and the song about the train that +went to Morro to-day, he was more popular every time he appeared, +and was greeted now by mad applause, and shouts of "There's George!" +and "Hello, George!" + +And the Home Boys' Quartette from Emville was quite new, and various +solo singers and a "lady elocutionist" from San Francisco were heard +for the first time. The latter, who was on the program merely for a +"Recitation--Selected," was so successful with "Pauline Pavlovna," +and "Seein' Things at Night" that it was nearly ten o'clock before +the Governor was introduced. + +However, he was at last duly presented to the applauding hundreds, +and came forward to the footlights to address them, and made +everyone laugh and feel friendly by saying immediately that he knew +they hadn't come out that evening to hear an old man make a long +speech. + +He said he didn't believe in speechmaking much, he believed in DOING +things; there were always a lot of people to stand around and make +speeches, like himself--and there was more laughter. + +He said that he knew the business of the evening was the giving out +of these prizes here--he didn't know what was in these boxes--he +indicated the daintily wrapped and tied packages that stood on the +little table in the middle of the stage--but he thought every lady +in the hall would know before she went home, and perhaps some one of +them would tell him--and there was more laughter. He said he hoped +that there was something mighty nice in the largest box, because he +understood that it was to go to a fairy-godmother; he didn't know +whether the good people in the hall believed in fairies or not, but +he knew that some of the children in Old Paloma did, and he had seen +and heard enough that day to make him believe in 'em too! He'd heard +of a fairy years ago who made a coach-and-four out of a pumpkin, but +he didn't think that was any harder than to make a coach-and-six out +of a hay-wagon, and put twenty Cinderellas into it instead of one. +He said it gave him great pride and pleasure to announce that the +first prize for to-day's beautiful contest had been unanimously +awarded to-- + +Sidney Burgoyne, watching him with fascinated eyes, her breath +coming fast and unevenly, her color brightening and fading, heard +only so much, and then, with a desperate impulse to get away, half +rose to her feet. + +But she was too late. Long before the Governor reached her name, a +sudden outburst of laughter and clapping shook the hall, there was a +friendly stir and murmur about her; a hundred voices came to her +ears, "It's Mrs. Burgoyne, of course!--She's got it! She's got the +first prize!--Go on up, Mrs. Burgoyne! You've got it!--Isn't that +GREAT,--she's got it! Go up and get it!" + +"You've got first prize, I guess. You'll have to go up for it," +Barry urged her. + +"He didn't say so!" Sidney protested nervously. But she let herself +be half-pushed into the aisle, and somehow reached the three little +steps that led up to the platform, and found herself facing His +Excellency, in an uproar of applause. + +The Governor said a few smiling words as he put a large box into her +hands; Sidney knew this because she saw his lips move, but the house +had gone quite mad by this time, and not a word was audible. +Everyone in the hall knew that a tall loving-cup was in the box, for +it had been on exhibition in the window of Postag's jewelry store +for three weeks. It was of silver, and lined with gold, both metals +shining with an unearthly and flawless radiance; and there was +"Awarded--as a First Prize--in the Twelfth Floral Parade--of Santa +Paloma, California" cut beautifully into one side, and a scroll all +ready, on the other side, to be engraved with the lucky winner's +name. + +She had been joking for two or three weeks about the possibility of +this very occurrence, had been half-expecting it all day, but now +suddenly all the joke seemed gone out of it, and she was only +curiously stirred and shaken. She looked confusedly down at the sea +of faces below her, smiles were everywhere, the eyes that were upon +her were full of all affection and pride--She had done so little +after all, she said to herself, with sudden humility, almost with +shame. And it was so poignantly sweet to realize that they loved +her, that she was one of themselves, they were glad she had won, she +who had been a stranger to all of them only a few months ago! + +Her eyes full of sudden tears, her lip shaking, she could only bow +and bow again, and then, just as her smile threatened to become +entirely eclipsed, she managed a husky "Thank you all so much!" and +descended the steps rapidly, to slip into her chair between Barry +and George Carew. + +"You know, you oughtn't to make a long tedious speech like that on +an occasion like this, Sid," Barry said, when she had somewhat +recovered her equilibrium, and the silver loving cup was unwrapped, +and was being passed admiringly from hand to hand. + +"Don't!" she said warningly, "or you'll have me weeping on your +shoulder!" + +Instead of which she was her gayest self, and accepted endless +congratulations with joyous composure, as the audience streamed out +into the reviving festivity of Main Street. The tide was turning in +one direction now, for there were to be "fireworks and a stupendous +band concert" immediately following the concert, in a vacant lot not +far away. + +And presently they all found themselves seated on the fragrant +grass, under the stars. George Carew, at Sidney's feet, solemnly +wrapped sections of molasses popcorn in oiled paper, and passed them +to the ladies. Barry's coat made a comfortable seat for Mrs. +Burgoyne and little Mrs. Brown; Barry himself was just behind, and +Mrs. Carew and her big son beside them. All about, in the darkness, +were other groups: mothers and fathers and alert, chattering +children. Alice Carter, the big mill-girl, radiant now, and with a +hoarse, inarticulate, adoring young plumber in tow, went by them, +and stooped to whisper something to Mrs. Burgoyne. "I wish you WOULD +come, Alice!" the lady answered eagerly, as they went on. + +Then the rockets began to hiss up toward the stars, each falling +shower of light greeted with a long rapturous "Ah-h-h!" Catherine- +wheels sputtered nearer the ground; red lights made eerie great +spots of illumination here and there, against which dark little +figures moved. + +"I don't know that I ever had a happier day in my life!" said Sidney +Burgoyne. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +More happy days followed; for Santa Paloma, after the Fourth of +July, felt only friendliness for the new owner of the Hall, and Mrs. +Burgoyne's informal teas on the river bank began to prove a powerful +attraction, even rivaling the club in feminine favor. Sometimes the +hostess enlisted all their sympathies for a newly arrived Old Paloma +baby, and they tore lengths of flannel, and busily stitched at tiny +garments, under the shade of the willow and pepper trees. Sometimes +she had in her care one or more older babies whose busy mother was +taking a day's rest, or whose father was perhaps ill, needing all +the wife's care. Always there was something to read and discuss; an +editorial in some eastern magazine that made them all indignant or +enthusiastic, or a short story worth reading aloud. And almost +always the children were within call, digging great holes in the +pebbly shallows of the river, only to fill them up again, toiling +over bridges and dams, climbing out to the perilous length of the +branches that hung above the water. Little Mary Scott, released from +the fear of an "op'ration," and facing all unconsciously a far +longer journey than the dreaded one to a San Francisco hospital, had +her own cushioned chair near the bank, where she could hear and see, +and laugh at everything that went on, and revel in consolation and +bandages when the inevitable accidents made them necessary. Mary had +no cares now, no responsibility more serious than to be sure her +feet didn't get cold, and to tell Mrs. Burgoyne the minute her head +ached; there was to be nothing but rest and comfort and laughter for +her in life now. "I don't know why we should pity her," little Mrs. +Brown said thoughtfully, one day, as they watched her with the other +children; "we can't ever hope to feel that any of our children are +as safe as she is." + +Mrs. Burgoyne's method of entertaining the children was simple. She +always made them work as hard as possible. One day they begged her +to let them build a "truly dam" that would really stop the Lobos in +its placid course. She consulted gravely with George Carew: should +they attempt it? George, after serious consideration, thought they +should. + +As a result, twenty children panted and toiled through a warm +Saturday afternoon, George and the Adams boys shouting directions as +they handled planks and stones; everybody wet, happy, and excited. +Not the least glorious moment was when the dam was broken at five +o'clock, just before refreshments were served. + +"We'll do that better next Saturday," said George. But a week later +they wanted to clean the barn and organize a club. Mrs. Burgoyne was +sure they couldn't. All that space, she said, and those bins, and +the little rooms, and all? Very well, then, they could try. Later +they longed for a picnic supper in the woods, with an open fire, and +potatoes, and singing. Their hostess was dubious: entreated them to +consider the WORK involved, dragging stones for the fire, and +carrying potatoes and bacon and jam and all the rest of it 'way up +there'. This was at two o'clock, and at six she was formally asked +to come up and inspect the cleared camping ground, and the fireplace +with its broilers, and the mammoth stack of fuel prepared. + +"I knew you'd do it!" said the lady delightedly. "Now we'll really +have a fine supper!" And a memorable supper they had, and Indian +stories, and singing, and they went home well after dusk, to end the +day perfectly. + +"They like this sort of thing much better than white dresses, and a +professional entertainer, and dancing, and too much ice-cream," said +Mrs. Burgoyne to Mrs. Adams. + +"Of course they do," said Mrs. Adams, who had her own reasons for +turning rather red and speaking somewhat faintly. "And it's much +less work, and much less expense," she added. + +"Now it is, when they can be out-of-doors," said Mrs. Burgoyne; "but +in winter they do make awful work indoors. However, there is +tramping for dry weather, and I mean to have a stove set up in the +old billiard-room down-stairs and turn them all loose in there when +it's wet. Theatricals, and pasting things, and singing, and now and +then candy-making, is all fun. And one knows that they're safe, and +piling up happy memories of their home." + +"You make a sort of profession of motherhood," said Mrs. White +dryly. + +"It IS my profession," said the hostess, with her happy laugh. + +But her happiness had a sudden check in mid-August; Sidney found +herself no more immune from heartache than any other woman, no more +philosophical over a hurt. It was, she told herself, only a trifle, +after all. She was absurd to let it cloud the bright day for her and +keep her restless and wakeful at night. It was nothing. Only-- + +Only it was the first time that Barry had failed her. He was gone. +Gone without a word of explanation to anyone, leaving his work at +the Mail unfinished, leaving even Billy, his usual confidant, quite +in the dark. Sidney had noticed for days a certain moodiness and +unresponsiveness about him; had tried rather timidly to win him from +it; had got up uneasily half a dozen times in the night just past to +look across the garden to his house, and wonder why Barry's light +burned on and on. + +She had meant to send for him in the morning, but Billy, artlessly +appearing when the waffles came on at breakfast, remarked that Dad +was gone to San Francisco. + +"To the city, Billy?" Sidney asked. "Didn't he say why?" + +"He didn't even say goodbye," Billy replied cheerfully. "He just +left a note for Hayashi. It said he didn't know how long he would be +gone." + +Sidney tried with small success to deceive herself into thinking +that it was the mere mysteriousness of this that cut her. She +presently went down to see Mrs. Carew, and was fretted because that +lady would for some time discuss nothing but the successful +treatment of insects on the rose-bushes. + +"Barry seems to have disappeared," said Sidney finally, in a casual +tone. + +Mrs. Carew straightened up, forgot hellebore and tobacco juice for +the moment. + +"Did I tell you what Silva told me?" she asked. + +"Silva?" echoed Sidney, at a loss. + +"The milkman. He told me that when he came up at five o'clock this +morning, Barry came out of the gate, and that he looked AWFULLY. He +said he was pale, and that his eyes looked badly, and that he hardly +seemed to know what he was doing. And oh, my dear, I'm afraid that +he's drinking again! I'm sure of it. It's two years now since he has +done this. I think it's too bad. But you know he used to go down to +town every little while for a regular TIME with those newspaper men. +He doesn't like Santa Paloma, you know. He gets very bored here. +He'll be back in a day or two, thoroughly ashamed of himself." + +Sidney did not answer, because she could not. Resentment and +loyalty, shame and heartache, kept her lips dumb. She walked to and +fro in the garden, alone in the sweet early darkness, for an hour. +Then she went indoors, and tried to amuse herself at the piano. +Suddenly her face twisted, she laid her arm along the rack, and her +face on her arm; but it was only for a moment; then she straightened +up resolutely, piled the music, closed the piano, and went upstairs. + +"But perhaps I'm not old enough yet for an olive garden," she told +the stars from her window an hour later. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Another day went by, and still there was no news from Barry. The +early autumn weather was exquisite, and Sidney, with the additional +work for the Mail that the editor's absence left for her, found +herself very busy. But life seemed suddenly to taste flat and +uninteresting to her. The sunlight was glaring, the afternoons dusty +and windy, and under all the day's duties and pleasures--the meeting +of neighbors, the children's confidences, her busy coming and going +up and down the village streets--ran a sick undercurrent of +disappointment and heartache. She went to the post-office twice, in +that first long day, for the arriving mail, and Miss Potter, pleased +at these glimpses of the lady from the Hall, chatted blithely as she +pushed Italian letters, London letters, letters from Washington and +New York, through the little wicket. + +But there was not a line from Barry. On the second day Sidney began +to think of sending him a note; it might be chanced to the Bohemian +Club-- + +But no, she wouldn't do that. If he did not care enough to write +her, she certainly wouldn't write him. + +She began to realize how different Santa Paloma was without his big +figure, his laughter, his joyous comment upon people and things. She +had taken his comradeship for granted, taken it as just one more +element of the old childish days regained, never thought of its rude +interruption or ending. + +Now she felt ashamed and sore, she had been playing with fire, she +told herself severely; she had perhaps hurt him; she had certainly +given herself needless heartache. No romantic girl of seventeen ever +suffered a more unreasoning pang than did Sidney when she came upon +Barry's shabby, tobacco-scented office coat, hanging behind his +desk, or found in her own desk one of the careless notes he so +frequently used to leave there at night for her to find in the +morning. + +However, in the curious way that things utterly unrelated sometimes +play upon each other in this life, these days of bewilderment and +chagrin bore certain good fruit. Sidney had for some weeks been +planning an attack upon the sympathies of the Santa Paloma Women's +Club, but had shrunk from beginning it, because life was running +very smoothly and happily, and she was growing too genuinely fond of +her new neighbors to risk jeopardizing their affection for her by a +move she suspected would be unpopular. + +But now she was unhappy, and, with the curious stoicism that is born +of unhappiness, she plunged straight into the matter. On the third +day after Barry's disappearance she appeared at the regular meeting +of the club as Mrs. Carew's guest. + +"I hope this means that you are coming to your senses, ye bad girl!" +said Mrs. Apostleman, drawing her to the next chair with a fat +imperative hand. + +"Perhaps it does," Sidney answered, with a rather nervous smile. She +sat attentive and appreciative, through the reading of a paper +entitled "Some Glimpses of the Real Burns," and seemed immensely to +enjoy the four songs--Burns's poems set to music--and the clever +recitation of several selections from Burns that followed. + +Then the chairman announced that Mrs. Burgoyne, "whom I'm sure we +all know, although she isn't one of us yet (laughter), has asked +permission to address the club at the conclusion of the regular +program." There was a little applause, and Sidney, very rosy, walked +rapidly forward, to stand just below the platform. She was nervous, +obviously, and spoke hurriedly and in a rather unnatural voice. + +"Your chairman and president," she began, with a little inclination +toward each, "have given me permission to speak to you today for +five minutes, because I want to ask the Santa Paloma Women's Club a +favor--a great favor, in fact. I won't say how much I hope the club +will decide to grant it, but just tell you what it is. It has to do +with the factory girls across the river. I've become interested in +some of them; partly I suppose because some friends of mine are +working for just such girls, only under infinitely harder +circumstances, in some of the eastern cities, I feel, we all feel, I +know, that the atmosphere of Old Paloma is a dangerous one for +girls. Every year certain ones among them 'go wrong,' as the +expression is; and when a girl once does that, she is apt to go very +wrong indeed before she stops. She doesn't care what she does, in +fact, and her own people only make it harder, practically drive her +away. Or even if she marries decently, and tries to live down all +the past it comes up between her and her neighbors, between her and +her children, perhaps, and embitters her whole life. And so finally +she goes to join that terrible army of women that we others try to +pretend we never see or hear of at all. These girls work hard all +day, and their homes aren't the right sort of homes, with hot dirty +rooms,--full of quarreling and crowding; and so they slip out at +night and meet their friends in the dancehalls, and the moving- +picture shows. And we--we can't blame them." Her voice had grown +less diffident, and rang with sudden longing and appeal. "They want +only what we all wanted a few years ago," she said. "They want good +times, lights and music, and pretty gowns, something to look forward +to in the long, hot afternoons--dances, theatricals, harmless +meetings of all sorts. If we could give them safe clean fun--not +patronizingly, and not too obviously instructive--they'd be willing +to wait for it; they'd talk about it instead of more dangerous +things; they'd give up dangerous things for it. They are very nice +girls, some of them, and their friends are very nice fellows, for +the most part, and they are--they are so very young. + +"However, about the club--I am wondering if it could be borrowed for +a temporary meeting-place for them, if we form a sort of club among +them. I say temporary, because I hope we will build them a clubhouse +of their own some day. But meantime there is only the Grand Opera +House, which all the traveling theatrical companies rent; Hansen's +Hall, which is over a saloon, so that won't do; and the Concert +Hall, which costs twenty-five dollars a night. We would, of course, +see that the club was cleaned after every meeting, and pay for the +lights. I--I think that's about all," finished Sidney, feeling that +she had put her case rather ineloquently, and coming to a full stop. +She sat down, her eyes nowhere, her cheeks very red. + +There was the silence of utter surprise in the room. After a pause, +Mrs. White raised a gloved hand. Permission from the chair was given +Mrs. White to speak. + +"Your idea would be to give the Old Paloma girls a dance here, Mrs. +Burgoyne?" + +"Regular dances, yes," said Sidney, standing up. "To let them use +the clubhouse, say, two nights a week. Reading, and singing, and +sewing one night, perhaps, and a dance another. Or we could get good +moving-picture films, or have a concert or play, and ask the mothers +and fathers now and then; charades and Morris dances, something like +that." + +"Dancing and moving-pictures--oh, dear, dear!" said Mrs. White, with +a whimsical smile and a shake of her head, and there was laughter. + +"All those things take costuming, and that takes money," said the +chairman, after a silence, rather hesitatingly. + +"Money isn't the problem," Mrs. Burgoyne rejoined eagerly; "you'll +find that they spend a good deal now, even for the wretched +pleasures they have." + +There was another silence. Then Mrs. White again gained permission +to speak, and rose to do so. + +"I think perhaps Mrs. Burgoyne, being a newcomer here, doesn't quite +understand our feeling toward our little club," she said very +pleasantly. "We built it," she went on, with a slight touch of +emotion, "as a little refuge from everything jarring and unpleasant; +we meant it to stand for something a little BETTER and FINER than +the things of everyday life can possibly be. Perhaps we felt that +there are already too many dances and too many moving-picture shows +in the world; perhaps we felt that if we COULD forget those things +for a little while--I don't mean," said Mrs. White smilingly +reasonable, "that the reform of wayward girls isn't a splendid and +ennobling thing; I believe heartily in the work institutions and +schools are doing along those lines, but--" and with a pretty little +gesture of helplessness she flung out her hands--"but we can't have +a Hull House in every little town, you know, and I'm afraid we +shouldn't find very many Jane Addamses if we did! Good girls don't +need this sort of thing, and bad girls--well, unfortunately, the +world has always had bad girls and always will have! We would merely +turn our lovely clubhouse over to a lot of little romping hoydens." + +"But--" began Mrs. Burgoyne eagerly. + +"Just ONE moment," said the President, sweetly, and Mrs. Burgoyne +sat down with blazing cheeks. "I only want to say that I think this +is outside the purpose for which the club was formed," added Mrs. +White. "If the club would care to vote on this, it seems to me that +would be the wisest way of settling the matter; but perhaps we could +hear from a few more members first?" + +There was a little rustle of applause at this, and Sidney felt her +heart give a sick plunge, and raged within herself because her own +act had placed her at so great a disadvantage. In another moment, +however, general attention was directed to a tall, plainly dressed, +gentle woman, who rose and said rather shyly: + +"Since you suggested our discussing this a little, Mrs. President, I +would like to say that I like this idea very much myself. I've often +felt that we weren't doing very much good, just uplifting ourselves, +as it were, and I hope Mrs. Burgoyne will let me help her in any way +I can, whether the club votes for or against this plan. I--I have +four girls and boys of my own at home, as you know, and I find that +even with plenty of music, and all the library books and company +they want, it's hard enough to keep those children happy at night. +And, ladies, there must be plenty of mothers over there in Old +Paloma who worry about it as we do, and yet have no way of helping +themselves. It seems to me we couldn't put our clubhouse to better +use, or our time either, for that matter. I would vote decidedly +'yes' to such a plan. I've often felt that we--well, that we rather +wasted some of our time here," she ended mildly. + +"Thank you, Mrs. Moore," said Mrs. White politely. + +"I hope it is part of your idea to let our own children have a part +in the entertainments you propose," briskly added another woman, a +clergyman's wife, rising immediately. "I think Doctor Babcock would +thoroughly approve of the plan, and I am sure I do. Every little +while," she went on smilingly, "my husband asks me what GOOD the +club is doing, and I never can answer--" + +"Men's clubs do so much good!" said some loud, cheerful voice at the +back of the hall, and there was laughter. + +"A great many of them do good and have side issues, like this one, +that are all for good," the clergyman's wife responded quickly, "and +personally I would thank God to be able to save even ten--to save +even one--of those Old Paloma girls from a life of shame and +suffering. I wish we had begun before. Mrs. Burgoyne may propose to +build them their own clubhouse entirely herself; but if not, I hope +we can all help in that too, when the time comes." + +"Thank you, Mrs. Babcock," said the President coldly. "What do you +think, Miss Pratt?" + +"Oh, Mrs. Carew, and Mrs. Brown, and I all feel as Mrs. Burgoyne +does," admitted Anne Pratt innocently, a little fluttered. + +It was Mrs. White's turn to color. + +"I didn't know that the matter had been discussed," she said +stiffly. + +"Only generally; not in reference to the club," Mrs. Burgoyne +supplied quickly. + +"I myself will propose an affirmative vote," said Mrs. Apostleman's +rich old voice. Mrs. Apostleman was entirely indifferent to +parliamentary law, and was never in order. "How d'ye do it? The ayes +rise, is that it?" + +She pulled herself magnificently erect by the chair-back in front of +her, and with clapping and laughter the entire club rose to its +feet. + +"This is entirely out of order," said Mrs. White, very rosy. +Everyone sat down suddenly, and the chairman gave two emphatic raps +of her gavel. + +The President then asked permission to speak, and moved, with great +dignity, that the matter be laid before the board of directors at +the next meeting, and, if approved, submitted in due order to the +vote of the club. + +The motion was briskly seconded, and a few minutes later Sidney +found herself freed from the babel of voices and walking home with +nervous rapidity. "Well, that's over!" she said once or twice aloud. +"Thank Heaven, it's over!" + +"Is your head better, Mother?" said Joanna, who had been hanging on +the Hall gate waiting for her mother, and who put an affectionate +arm about her as they walked up the path. "You LOOK better." + +"Jo," said Mrs. Burgoyne seriously, "there's one sure cure for the +blues in this world. I recommend it to you, for it's safer than +cocaine, and just as sure. Go and do something you don't want to-- +for somebody else." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +It was no pleasant prospect of a reunion at the club, or an evening +with his old friends, that had taken Barry Valentine so suddenly to +San Francisco, but a letter from his wife--or, rather, from his +wife's mother, for Hetty herself never wrote--which had stirred a +vague distrust and discomfort in his mind. Mrs. Scott, his mother- +in-law, was a worldly, shrewd little person, but good-hearted, and +as easily moved or stirred as a child. This was one of her +characteristic letters, disconnected, ill-spelled, and scrawled upon +scented lavender paper. She wrote that she and Hetty were sick of +San Francisco, and they wanted Barry's permission to sell the +Mission Street flats that afforded them a living, and go away once +and for all. Het, her mother wrote, had had a fine offer for the +houses; Barry's signature only was needed to close the deal. + +All this might be true; it sounded reasonable enough; but, somehow, +Barry fancied that it was not true, or at least that it was only +partly so. What did Hetty want the money for, he wondered. Why +should her mother reiterate so many times that if Barry for any +possible reason disapproved, he was not to give the matter another +thought; they most especially wanted only his simple yes or no. Why +this consideration? Hetty had always been persistent enough about +the things she wanted before. "I know you would consent if you could +see how our hearts are set on this," wrote Mrs. Scott, "but if you +say 'no,' that ends it." + +"Sure, I'll sell," Barry said, putting the letter in his pocket. But +it came persistently between him and his work. What mischief was +Hetty in, he wondered. Had some get-rich-quick shark got hold of +her; it was extremely likely. He could not shake the thought of her +from his mind, her voice, her pretty, sullen little face, rose again +and haunted him. What a child she had been, and what a boy he was, +and how mistaken the whole bitter experience! + +Walking home late at night, the memory of old days rode him like a +hateful nightmare. He saw the little untidy flat they had had in New +York; the white winter outside, and a deeper chill within; little +Billy coughing and restless; Hetty practising her scales, and he, +Barry, trying to write at one end of the dining-room table. He +remembered how disappointment and restless ambition had blotted out +her fresh, babyish beauty; how thin and sharp her voice had grown as +the months went on. + +Barry tried to read, but the book became mere printed words. He went +softly into Billy's room, and sat down by the tumbled bed and the +small warm sleeper. Billy, even asleep, snuggled his hand +appreciatively into his father's, and brought its little fellow to +lie there too, and pushed his head up against Barry's arm. + +And there the father sat motionless, while the clock outside in the +hall struck two, and three, and four. This was Hetty's baby, and +where was Hetty? Alone with her little fretful mother, moving from +boarding-house to boarding-house. Pretty no longer, buoyed up by the +hope of an operatic career no longer, pinched--as they must be +pinched--in money matters. + +The thought came to him suddenly that he must see her; and though he +fought it as unwelcome and distasteful, it grew rapidly into a +conviction. He must see her again, must have a long talk with her, +must ascertain that nothing he could do for the woman who had been +his wife was left undone. He was no longer the exacting, +unsuccessful boy she had left so unceremoniously; he was a man now, +standing on his own feet, and with a recognized position in the +community. The little fretful baby was a well-brushed young person +who attended kindergarten and Sunday School. A new era of +respectability and prosperity had set in. Hetty, his newly awakened +sense of justice and his newly aroused ambition told him, must +somehow share it. Not that there could ever be a complete +reconciliation between them, but there could be good-will, there +could be a readjustment and a friendlier understanding. + +The thought of Sidney came suddenly upon his idle musings with a +shock that made his heart sick. Gracious, beautiful, and fresh, +although she was older than Hetty, how far she was removed from this +sordid story of his, this darker side of his life! Perhaps months +from now, his troubled thoughts ran on, he would tell her of his +visit to Hetty. For he had determined to visit her. + +Just at dawn he left the house and went out of his own gate. His +face was pale, his eyes deeply ringed and his head ached furiously, +but it was with a sort of content that he took his seat in the early +train for San Francisco. He sank into a reverie, head propped on +hand, that lasted until his journey was almost over; but once in the +city, his old dread of seeing his wife came over him again, and it +was only after a leisurely luncheon at the club that Barry took a +Turk Street car to the dingy region where Hetty lived. + +The row of dirty bay-windowed houses on either side of the street, +and the dust and papers blowing about in the hot afternoon wind, +somehow reminded him forcibly of old days and ways. With a sinking +heart he went up one of the flights of wooden steps and asked at the +door for Mrs. Valentine. A Japanese boy in his shirt-sleeves ushered +him into a front room. This was evidently the "parlor"; hot sunlight +streamed through the bay windows; there was an upright piano against +the closed folding doors, and a graphophone on a dusty cherry table; +wind whined at the window-casing; one or two big flies buzzed +against the glass. + +After a while Mrs. Smiley, the widow who conducted this little +boarding-house, who was a cousin of Hetty and whom Barry had known +years ago, came in. She was a tall, angular blonde, cheerlessly +resigned to a cheerless existence. With her came a keen-faced, +freckled boy of fourteen or fifteen, with his finger still marking a +place in the book he had been reading aloud. + +Hetty and her mother were out, it appeared. Mrs. Smiley didn't think +they would be back to dinner; in fact, she reiterated nervously, she +was sure they wouldn't. She was extremely and maddeningly non- +committal. No, she didn't know why they wanted to sell the Mission +Street flats. She had warned them it was a silly thing to bother +Barry about it. No, she didn't know when he could see them tomorrow; +she guessed, almost any time. + +Barry went away full of uneasy suspicions, and more than ever +convinced that something was wrong. He went back again the next +morning, but nobody but the Japanese boy appeared to be at home. But +a visit in the late afternoon was more successful, for he found Mrs. +Smiley and the tall son again. + +"Hetty IS here, isn't she?" he burst out suddenly, in the middle of +a meaningless conversation. Mrs. Smiley turned pale and tried to +laugh. + +"Where else would she be?" she demanded, and she went back to her +interrupted dissertation upon the unpleasantness of several +specified boarders then under her roof. + +"It is funny," Barry mused. "What did she say when she went out?" + +"Why--" Mrs. Smiley began uncomfortably, "But, my gracious, I wish +you would ask Aunt Ide, Barry!" she interrupted herself +uncomfortably. "She'll tell you. She's the one to ask." Aunt Ide was +Mrs. Scott. + +"Tell me WHAT?" he persisted. "You tell me, Lulu; that's a dear." + +"Auntie 'll tell you," she repeated, adding suddenly, to the boy, +"Russy, wasn't Aunt Ide in her room when you went up? You run up and +see." + +"Nome," said Russell positively; but nevertheless he went. + +"Nice kid, Lulu," said Barry in his idle way, "but he looks thin." + +"He's the finest little feller God ever sent a woman," the mother +answered with sudden passionate pride. Color leaped to her sallow +cheeks. "But this house is no place for him to be cooped up reading +all day," she went on in a worried tone, after a moment, "and I +can't let him run with the boys around here; it's a regular gang. I +don't know what I AM going to do with him. 'Tisn't as if he had a +father." + +"He wouldn't like to come up to me, and get broken on the Mail?" +Barry queried in his interested way. "He'd get lots of fresh air, +and he could sleep at my house. I'll keep an eye on him, if you say +so." + +"Go on the newspaper! I think he'd go crazy with joy," his mother +said. Tears came into her faded eyes. "Barry, you're real good- +hearted to offer it," she said gratefully. "Of all things in the +world, that's the one Russ wants to do. But won't he be in your +way?" + +"He'll fit right in," Barry said. "Pack him up and send him along. +If he doesn't like it, I guess his mother'll let him come home." + +"Like it!" she echoed. Then in a lower tone she added, "You don't +know what a load you're taking off my mind, Barry." She paused, +colored again, and, to his surprise, continued rapidly, with a quick +glance at the door, "Barry, I never did a thing like this before in +my life, and I can't do it now. You know how much I owe Aunt Ide: +she took me in, and did for me just as she did for Het, when I was a +baby; she made my wedding dress, and she came right to me when Gus +died, but I can't let you go back to Santa Paloma not knowing." + +"Not knowing what?" Barry said, close upon the mystery at last. + +"You know what Aunt Ide is," Mrs. Smiley said pleadingly. "There's +not a mite of harm in her, but she just--You know she'd been signing +Hetty's checks for a long time, Barry--" "Go on," Barry said, as +she paused distressedly. + +"And she just went on--" Mrs. Smiley continued simply. + +"Went on WHAT?" Barry demanded. + +"After Het--went. Barry," the woman interrupted herself, "I oughtn't +be the one to tell you, but don't you see--Don't you see Het's--" + +"Dead," Barry heard his own voice say heavily. The cheap little room +seemed to be closing in about him, he gripped the back of the chair +by which he was standing. Mrs. Smiley began to cry quietly. They +stood so for a long time. + +After a while he sat down, and she told him about it, with that +faithfulness to inessential detail that marks her class. Barry +listened like a man in a dream. Mrs. Smiley begged him to stay to +dinner to see "Aunt Ide," but he refused, and in the gritty dusk he +found himself walking down the street, alone in silence at last. He +took a car to the ocean beach, and far into the night sat on the +rocks watching the dark play of the rolling Pacific, and listening +to the steady rush and fall of the water. + +The next day he saw his wife's mother, and at the sight of her +frightened, fat little face, and the sound of the high voice he knew +so well, the last shred of his anger and disgust vanished, and he +could only pity her. He remembered how welcome she had made him to +the little cottage in Plumas, those long years ago; how she had +laughed at his youthful appreciation of her Sunday fried chicken and +cherry pie, and the honest tears she had shed when he went, with the +dimpled Hetty beside him, to tell her her daughter was won. She was +Billy's grandmother, after all, and she had at least seen that Hetty +was protected all through her misguided little career from the +breath of scandal, and that Hetty's last days were made comfortable +and serene. He assured her gruffly that it was "all right," and she +presently brightened, and told him through tears that he was a +"king," when it was finally arranged that she should go on drawing +the rents of the Mission Street property for the rest of her life. +She and Mrs. Smiley persuaded him to dine with them, and he thought +it quite characteristic of "Aunt Ide" to make a little occasion of +it, and take them to a certain favored little French restaurant for +the meal. But Mrs. Smiley was tremulous with gratitude and relief, +Russell's face was radiant, his adoring eyes all for Barry, and +Barry, always willing to accept a situation gracefully, really +enjoyed his dinner. + +He stayed in San Francisco another day and went to Hetty's grave, +high up in the Piedmont Hills, and took a long lonely tramp above +the college town afterward. Early the next morning he started for +home, fresh from a bath and a good breakfast, and feeling now, for +the first time, that he was free, and that it was good to be free-- +free to work and to plan his life, and free, his innermost +consciousness exulted to realize, to go to her some day, the Lady of +his Heart's Desire, and take her, with all the fragrance and beauty +that were part of her, into his arms. And oh, the happy years ahead; +he seemed to feel the sweetness of spring winds blowing across them, +and the glow of winter fires making them bright! What of her +fabulous wealth, after all, if he could support her as she chose to +live, a simple country gentle-woman, in a little country town? + +Barry stared out at the morning fields and hills, where fog and +sunshine were holding their daily battle, and his heart sang within +him. + +Fog held the field at Santa Paloma when he reached it, the station +building dripped somberly. Main Street was but a line of vague +shapes in the mist. No grown person was in sight, but Barry was not +ten feet from the train before a screaming horde of small boys was +upon him, with shouted news in which he recognized the one word, +over and over: "Fire!" + +It took him a few minutes to get the sense of what they said. He +stared at them dully. But when he first repeated it to himself +aloud, it seemed already old news; he felt as if he had known it for +a very long time: "The MAIL office caught fire yesterday, and the +whole thing is burned to the ground." + +"Caught fire yesterday, and the whole thing is burned to the ground: +yes, of course," Barry said. He was not conscious of starting for +the scene, he was simply there. A fringe of idle watchers, obscured +in the fog, stood about the sunken ruins of what had been the MAIL +building. Barry joined them. + +He did not answer when a dozen sympathetic murmurs addressed him, +because he was not conscious of hearing a single voice. He stood +silently, looking down at the twisted great knots of metal that had +been the new presses, the great wave of soaked and half-burned +newspapers that had been the last issue of the MAIL. The fire had +been twenty-four hours ago, but the ruins were still smoking. +Lengths of charred woodwork, giving forth a sickening odor, dripped +water still; here and there brave little spurts of flame still +sucked noisily. A twisted typewriter stood erect in steaming ashes; +a lunch-basket, with a red, fringed napkin in it, had somehow +escaped with only a wetting. Barry noticed that the walls of the +German bakery next door were badly singed, that one show-window was +cracked across, and that the frosted wedding-cake inside stood in a +pool of dirty water. + +He was presently aware that someone was telling him that nobody was +to blame. Details were volunteered, and he listened quietly, like a +dispassionate onlooker. "Hits you pretty hard, Barry," sympathetic +voices said. + +"Ruins me," he answered briefly. + +And it dawned upon him sickly and certainly that it was true. He was +ruined now. All his hopes had been rooted here, in what was now this +mass of wet ashes steaming up into the fog. Here had been his chance +for a livelihood, and a name; his chance to stand before the +community for what was good, and strong, and helpful. He had been +proud because his editorials were beginning to be quoted here and +there; he had been keenly ambitious for Sidney's plans, her hopes +for Old Paloma. How vain it all was now, and how preposterous it +seemed that only an hour ago he had let his thoughts of the future +include her--always so far above him, and now so infinitely removed! + +She would be sympathetic, he knew; she would be all kindness and +generosity. And perhaps, six months ago, he would have accepted more +generosity from her; but Barry had found himself now, and he knew +that she had done for him all he would let her do. + +He smiled suddenly and grimly as he remembered another bridge, just +burned behind him. If he had not promised Hetty's mother that her +income should go on uninterruptedly, he might have pulled something +out of this wreckage, after all. For a moment he speculated: he +COULD sell the Mission Street property now; he might even revive the +MAIL, after a while-- + +But no, what was promised was promised, after all, and poor little +Mrs. Scott must be left to what peace and pleasure the certainty of +an income gave her. And he must begin again, somehow, somewhere, +burdened with a debt, burdened with a heartache, burdened with--His +heart turned with sudden warmth to the thought of Billy; Billy at +least, staunch little partner of so many dark days, and bright, +should not be counted a burden. + +Even as he thought of his son, a small warm hand slid into his with +a reassuring pressure, and lie looked down to see the little figure +beside him. Moment after moment went by, timid shafts of gold +sunshine were beginning to conquer the mist now, and still father +and son stood silent, hand in hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The mischief was done; no use to stand there by the smoking ruins of +what had been his one real hope for himself and his life. After a +while Barry roused himself. There seemed to be nothing to do at the +moment, no more to be said. He and Billy walked up River Street to +their own gate, but when they reached it, Barry, obeying an +irresistible impulse, merely left his coat and suit-case there, and +went on through the Hall gateway, and up to the house. + +The sun was coming out bravely now, and already he felt its warmth +in the garden. Everywhere the fog was rising, was fading against the +green of the trees. He followed a delicious odor of wood smoke and +the sound of voices, to the barnyard, and here found the lady of the +house, with her inevitable accompaniment of interested children. +Sidney was managing an immense brush fire with a long pole; her +gingham skirt pinned back trimly over a striped petticoat, her +cheeks flushed, her hair riotous under a gipsy hat. + +At Barry's first word she dropped her pole, her whole face grew +radiant, and she came toward him holding out both her hands. + +"Barry!" she said eagerly, her eyes trying to read his face, "how +glad I am you've come! We didn't know how to reach you. You've +heard, of course--! You've seen--?" + +"The poor old MAIL? Yes, I'm just from there," he said soberly. "Can +we talk?" + +"As long as you like," she answered briskly. And after some +directions to the children, she led him to the little garden seat +below the side porch, and they sat down. "Barry, you look tired," +she said then. "Do you know, I don't know where you've been all +these days, or what you went for? Was it to San Francisco?" + +"San Francisco, yes," he assented, "I didn't dream I'd be there so +long." He rubbed his forehead with a weary hand. "I'll tell you all +about it presently," he said. "I had a letter from my wife's mother +that worried me, and I started off at half-cock, I got worrying--but +of course I should have written you--" + +"Don't bother about that now, if it distresses you," she said +quickly and sympathetically. "Any time will do for that. I--I knew +it was something serious," she went on, relief in her voice, "or you +wouldn't have simply disappeared that way! I--I said so. Barry, are +you hungry?" + +He tried to laugh at the maternal attitude that was never long +absent in her, but the tears came into his eyes instead. After all +the strain and sleeplessness and despondency, it was too poignantly +sweet to find her so simply cheering and trustful, in her gipsy +dress, with the brightening sunlight and the sweet old garden about +her. Barry could have dropped on his knees to bury his face in her +skirts, and feel the motherly hands on his hair, but instead he +admitted honestly to hunger and fatigue. + +Sidney vanished at once, and presently came back followed by her +black cook, both carrying a breakfast that Barry was to enjoy at +once under the rose vines. Sidney poured his coffee, and sat +contentedly nibbling toast while he fell upon the cold chicken and +blackberries. + +"Now," said her heartening voice, "we'll talk! What is to be done +first about the MAIL?" + +"No insurance, you know," he began at once. "We never did carry any +in the old days and I suppose that's why I didn't. So that makes it +a dead loss. Worse than that--for I wasn't clear yet, you know. The +safe they carried out; so the books are all right, I suppose, +although they say we had better not open it for a few days. Then I +can settle everything up as far as possible. And after that--well, +I've been thinking that perhaps Barker, of the San Francisco +TELEGRAM might give me a start of some sort--" He rumpled his hair +with a desperate gesture. "The thing's come on me like such a +thunderbolt that I really haven't thought it out!" he ended +apologetically. + +"The thing's come on you like such a thunderbolt," she echoed +cheerfully, "that you aren't taking it like yourself at all! The +question, is if we work like Trojans from now on, can we get an +issue of the MAIL out tomorrow?" + +"Get an issue out tomorrow!" he repeated, staring at her. + +"Certainly. I would have done what I could about it," said Sidney +briskly, "but not knowing where you were, or when you were coming +back, my hands were absolutely tied. Now, Barry, LISTEN!" she broke +off, not reassured by his expression, "and don't jump at the +conclusion that it's impossible. What would it mean?" + +"To get an issue of the MAIL out tomorrow? Why, great Scott, Sid, +you don't seem to realize that there's not a stick left standing!" + +"I do realize. I was there until the fire was out," she said calmly. +And for a few minutes they talked of the fire. Then she said +abruptly: "Would Ferguson let you use the old STAR PRESS for a few +weeks, do you think?" + +"I don't see why he should," Barry said perversely. + +"I don't see why he shouldn't. I'll tell you something you don't +know. Night before last, Barry, while I was down in the office, old +Ferguson himself came in, and poked about, and asked various +questions. Finally he asked me what I thought the chances were of +your wanting to buy out the Star. What do you think at THAT?" + +"He's sick of it, is he?" Barry said, with kindling eyes. "Well, +we've seen that coming, haven't we? I will be darned!" He shook his +head regretfully. "That would have been a big thing for the MAIL" he +said, "but it's all up now!" + +"Not necessarily," the lady undauntedly rejoined. "I've been +thinking, Barry," she went on, "if you reordered the presses, they'd +give you plenty of time to pay for them, wouldn't they? Might even +take something off the price, under the circumstances?" + +"I suppose they might." He made an impatient gesture. "But that's +just one--" + +"One item, I know. But it's the main item. Then you could rent the +office and loft over the old station, couldn't you? And move the old +Star press in there this afternoon." + +"This afternoon," said Barry calmly. + +"Well, we don't gain anything by waiting. You can write a manly and +affecting editorial,"--her always irrepressible laughter broke out, +"full of allusions to the phoenix, you know! And my regular Saturday +column is all done, and Miss Porter can send in something, and +there's any amount of stuff about the Folsom lawsuit. And Young, +Mason and Company ought to take at least a page to advertise their +premium day to-morrow. I'll come down as soon as you've moved--" + +Barry reached for his hat. + +"The thing can't be done," he announced firmly, "but, by George, +Sid, you would give a field mouse courage! And what a grandstand +play, if we COULD put it through! There's not a second to be lost, +though. But look here," and with sudden gravity he took both her +hands, "it'll take some more money, you know." + +"I have some more money," she answered serenely. + +"Well, I'll GET some!" he declared emphatically. "It won't be so +much, either, once we get started. And so old Ferguson wanted to +sell, did he?" + +"He did. And we'll buy the STAR yet." They were on the path now. +"Telephone me when you can," she said, "and don't lose a minute now! +Good luck!" + +And Barry's great stride had taken him half-way down River Street, +his hands in his pockets, his mind awhirl with plans, before it +occurred to him that he had not told her the news of Hetty, after +all. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +On that same afternoon, several of the most influential members of +the Santa Paloma Woman's Club met informally at Mrs. Carew's house. +Some of the directors were there, Miss Pratt, Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. +Adams, and of course Mrs. White, who had indeed been instrumental in +arranging the meeting. They had met to discuss Mrs. Burgoyne's plan +of using the clubhouse as a meeting place for the Old Paloma factory +girls. All these ladies were quite aware that their verdict, however +unofficial, would influence the rest of the club, and that what this +group of a dozen or fifteen decided upon to-day would practically +settle the matter. + +Mrs. Willard White, hitherto serenely supreme in this little world, +was curiously upset about the whole thing, openly opposed to Mrs. +Burgoyne's suggestion, and surprised that her mere wish in the +matter was not sufficient to carry a negative vote. Her contention +was that the clubhouse had been built for very different purposes +than those Mrs. Burgoyne proposed, and that charity to the Old +Paloma girls had no part in the club's original reasons for being. +She meant, in the course of the argument, to hint that while so many +of the actual necessities of decent living were lacking in the +factory settlement homes, mere dancing and moving-pictures did not +appeal to her as reasonable or right; and although uneasily aware +that she supported the unpopular argument, still she was confident +of an eventual triumph. + +But despite the usual laughter, and the pleasantries and +compliments, there was an air of deadly earnestness about the +gathered club-women today that bespoke a deeper interest than was +common in the matter up for discussion. The President's color rose +and deepened steadily, as the afternoon wore on, and one voice after +another declared for the new plan, and her arguments became a little +less impersonal and a little more sharp. This was especially +noticeable when, as was inevitable, the name of Mrs. Burgoyne was +introduced. + +"I personally feel," said Mrs. White finally, "that perhaps we Santa +Paloma women are just a little bit undignified when we allow a +perfect stranger to come in among us, and influence our lives so +materially, JUST because she happens to be a multi-millionaire. Are +we so swayed by mere money? I hope not. I hope we all live our lives +as suits US best, not to please--or shall I say flatter, and perhaps +win favor with?--a rich woman. We--some of us, that is!"--her smile +was all lenience--"have suddenly decided we can dress more simply, +have suddenly decided to put our girls into gingham rompers, and +instead of giving them little dancing parties, let them play about +like boys! We wonder why we need spend our money on imported hats +and nice dinners and hand-embroidered underwear, and Oriental rugs, +although we thought these things very well worth having a few months +ago--and why? Just because we are easily led, I'm afraid, and not +quite conscious enough of our own dignity!" + +There had been a decided heightening of color among the listening +women during this little speech, and, as the President finished, +more than one pair of eyes rested upon her with a slightly resentful +steadiness. There was a short silence, in which several women were +gathering their thoughts for speech, but Mrs. Brown, always popular +in Santa Paloma, from the days of her short braids and short +dresses, and quite the youngest among them to-day, was the first to +speak. + +"I daresay that is quite true, Mrs. White," said Mrs. Brown, with +dignity, "except that I don't think Mrs. Burgoyne's money influences +me, or any of us! I admit that she herself, quite apart from her +great fortune, has influenced me tremendously in lots of ways, but I +don't think she ever tried to do it, or realizes that she has. And +as far as copying goes, don't we women always copy somebody, anyway? +Aren't we always imitating the San Francisco women, and don't they +copy New York, and doesn't New York copy London or Paris? We read +what feathers are in, and how skirts are cut, and how coffee and +salads are served, and we all do it, or try to. And when Mrs. +Burgoyne came to the Hall, and never took one particle of interest +in that sort of thing, I just thought it over and wondered why I +should attempt to impress a woman who could buy this whole town and +not miss the money?" + +Laughter interrupted her, and some sympathetic clapping, but she +presently went on seriously: + +"I took all the boys' white socks one day, and dyed them dark brown. +And I dyed all their white suits dark blue. I've gotten myself some +galatea dresses that nothing tears or spoils, and that come home +fresh and sweet from the wash every week. And, as a result, I +actually have some time to spare, for the first time since I was +married. We are going to try some educational experiments on the +children this winter, and, if that leaves any leisure, I am heart +and soul for this new plan. Doctor Brown feels as I do. Of course, +he's a doctor," said the loyal little wife, "and he KNOWS! And he +says that all those Old Paloma girls want is a little mothering, and +that when there are mothers enough to go round, there won't be any +charity or legislation needed in this world." + +"I think you've said it all, for all of us, Mary!" Mrs. Carew said, +when some affectionate applause had subsided. "I think things were +probably different, a few generations ago," she went on, "but +nowadays when fashions are so arbitrary, and change so fast, really +and honestly, some of us, whose incomes are limited, will have to +stop somewhere. Why, the very children expect box-parties, and +motor-trips, and caterers' suppers, in these days. And one wouldn't +mind, if it left time for home life, and reading, and family +intercourse, but it doesn't. We don't know what our children are +studying, what they're thinking about, or what life means to them at +all, because we are too busy answering the telephone, and planning +clothes, and writing formal notes, and going to places we feel we +ought to be seen in. I'm having more fun than I had in years, +helping our children plan some abridged plays from Shakespeare, with +the Burgoyne girls, for this winter, and I'm perfectly astonished, +even though I'm their mother, at their enjoyment of it, and at my +own. Mr. Carew himself, who NEVER takes much interest in that sort +of thing, asked me why they couldn't give them for the Old Paloma +Girls' Club, if they get a club room. I didn't know he even knew +anything about our club plans. I said, 'George, are you willing to +have Jeannette get interested in that crowd?' and he said, 'Finest +thing in the world for her!' and I don't know," finished Mrs. Carew, +thoughtfully, "but what he's right." + +"I'm all for it," said breezy Mrs. Lloyd, "I don't imagine I'd be +any good at actually talking to them, but I would go to the dances, +and introduce people, and trot partners up to the wallflowers--" + +There was more laughter, and then Mrs. Adams said briskly: + +"Well, let's take an informal vote!" + +"I don't think that's necessary, Sue," said Mrs. White, generously, +"I think I am the only one of us who believes in preserving the +tradition of the dear old club, and I must bow to the majority, of +course. Perhaps it will be a little hard to see strangers there; our +pretty floors ruined, and our pretty walls spotted, but--" an +eloquent shrug, and a gesture of her pretty hands finished the +sentence with the words, "isn't that the law?" + +And upon whole-hearted applause for Mrs. White, Mrs. Carew tactfully +introduced the subject of tea. + +They were all chatting amicably enough in the dining-room a few +minutes later when George Carew and Barry Valentine came in. Barry, +who seemed excited, exhilarated and tired, had come to borrow a +typewriter from the Carews. He responded to sympathetic inquiries, +that he had been working like a madman since noon, and that there +would be an issue of the Mail ready for them in the morning. He +said, "everyone had been simply corking about everything," and it +began to look like smooth sailing now. In the few minutes that he +waited for young George Carew to find the typewriter and bring it +down to him, a fresh interruption occurred in the entrance of old +Mrs. Apostleman. + +Mrs. Apostleman, between being out of breath from hurrying up the +hill in the late afternoon heat, and fearful that the gathering +would break up before she could say what she wanted to say, and +entirely unable to control her gasping and puffing, was a sight at +once funny and pitiable. As she sank into a comfortable chair she +held up one fat hand to command attention, and with the other laid +forcible hold upon Barry Valentine. Three or four of the younger +women hurried to her with fans and tea, and in a moment or two she +really could manage disconnected words. + +"Thanks, me dear. No, no cake. Just a mouthful of tea to--there, +that's better! I was afraid ye'd all be gone--that'll do, thank ye, +Susie! Well," she set down her tea-cup, "well! I've a little piece +of news for you all--don't go, Barry, you'll be interested in this, +and I couldn't wait to come up and tell ye!" She began to fumble in +her bag, and presently produced therefrom her eye-glasses and a +letter. The latter she opened with a great crackling of paper. + +"This is from me brother, Alexander Wetherall," said she, with an +impressive glance over her glasses. "As ye know, he's a family +lawyer in New York, he has the histories of half the old families in +the country pigeon-holed away in those old offices of his. He +doesn't write me very often; his wife does now and then--stupid +woman, but nice. However, I wrote him in May, and told him Mrs. +Burgoyne had bought the Hall, and just asked him what he knew about +her and her people. Here--"marking a certain line with a pudgy, +imperative finger, she handed a page of the letter to Barry, "read +from there on," she commanded, "this is what he says." + +Barry took the paper, but hesitated. + +"It's all right!" said the old lady, impatiently, "nobody could say +anything that wasn't good about Sidney Burgoyne." + +Thus reassured, Barry turned obediently to the indicated place. + +"'You ask me about your new neighbor,'" he read, "'I suppose of +course you know that she is Paul Frothingham's only child by his +second marriage. Her mother died while she was a baby, and +Frothingham took her all over the world with him, wherever he went. +She married very young, Colonel John Burgoyne, of the Maryland +family, older than she, but a very fine fellow. As a girl and as his +wife she had an extraordinary opportunity for social success, she +was a great favorite in the diplomatic circle at Washington, and +well known in the best London set, and in the European capitals. She +seems to be quite a remarkable young woman, but you are all wrong +about her money; she is very far from rich. She--'" + +Barry stopped short. Mrs. Apostleman cackled delightedly; no one +else stirred. + +"'She got very little of Frothingham's money,'" Barry presently read +on, '"it came to him from his first wife, who was a widow with two +daughters when he married her. The money naturally reverted to her +girls, Mrs. Fred Senior and Mrs. Spencer Mack, both of this city.'" + +"Ha! D'ye get that?" said Mrs. Apostleman. "Go on!" + +"'Frothingham left his own daughter something considerably less than +a hundred thousand dollars,'" Barry presently resumed, "'not more +than seventy or eighty thousand, certainly. It is still invested in +the estate. It must pay her three or four thousand a year. And +besides that she has only Burgoyne's insurance, twenty or twenty- +five thousand, for those years of illness pretty well used up his +own money. I believe the stepsisters were very anxious to make her a +more generous arrangement, but she seems to have declined it. Alice +says they are quite devoted--'" + +"Alice don't count!" said the old lady "that's his wife. That's +enough." She stopped the reader and refolded the letter, her +mischievous eyes dancing. "Well, what d'ye think of that?" she +demanded. + +Barry's bewildered, "Well, I will be darned!" set loose a babel of +tongues. Mrs. Apostleman had not counted in vain upon a sensation; +everyone talked at once. Mrs. White's high, merry laugh dominated +all the other voices. + +"So there is a very much better reason for this simple-dinner-blue- +gingham existence than we supposed," said the President of the Santa +Paloma Women's Club amusedly when the first rush of comment died +away. "I think that is quite delicious! While all of us were feeling +how superior she was not to get a motor, and not to rebuild the +Hall, she was simply living within her income, and making the best +of it!" + +"I don't know that it makes her any less superior," Mrs. Carew said +thoughtfully. "It--it certainly makes her seem--NICER. I never +suspected her of--well, of preaching, exactly, but I have sometimes +thought that she really couldn't enter into our point of view, with +all that money! I think I'm going to like her more than ever!" she +finished laughingly. + +"Why, it's the greatest relief in the world!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams. +"I've been rather holding back about going up there, and imitating +her, because I honestly didn't want to be influenced by eight +millions, and I was afraid. I WAS. Not a week ago Wayne asked me if +I thought she'd like him to donate a sewing machine to her Girls' +Club for them to run up their little costumes with--he has the +agency, you know--and I said, 'Oh, don't, Wayne, she can buy them a +sewing machine apiece if she wants to, and never know it!' But I'm +going to make him write her, TO-NIGHT," said Mrs. Adams, firmly, +"and I declare I feel as if a weight had dropped off my shoulders. +It MEANS so much more now, if we offer her the club. It means that +we aren't merely giving a Lady Bountiful her way, but that we're all +working together like neighbors, and trying to do some good in the +world." + +"And I don't think there's any question that she would live exactly +this way," Miss Pratt contributed shyly, "and play with the +children, and dress as she does, even if she had fifty millions! +She's simply found out what pays in this life, and what doesn't pay, +and I think a good many of us were living too hard and fast ever to +stop and think whether it was really worth while or not. She's the +happiest woman I ever knew; it makes one happy just to be with her, +and no money can buy that." + +"But it's curious she never has taken the trouble to undeceive us," +said Mrs. White beginning to fit on an immaculate pair of white +gloves, finger by finger. + +"Why--you'll see!--She never dreamed we thought she was anything but +one of ourselves." Mrs. Brown predicted. "Why should she? When did +she ever speak of money, or take the least interest in money? She +never speaks of it. She says 'I can't afford the time, or I can't +afford the effort,' that's what counts with her. Doesn't it, Barry?" + +"Barry, do you really suppose--" Mrs. Carew was beginning, as she +turned to the doorway where he had been standing. + +But Barry had gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Barry went straight up to the Hall, but Sidney was not there. Joanna +and Ellen, busily murmuring over "Flower Ladies" on the wide terrace +steps, told him that Mother was to be late to supper, and, with +obviously forced hospitality and one eye upon their little families +of inverted roses and hollyhocks, asked him to wait. Barry thanked +them, but couldn't wait. + +He went like a man in a dream down River Street, past gardens that +glowed with fragrant beauty, and under the great trees and the warm, +sunset sky. And what a good world it seemed to be alive in, and what +a friendly village in which to find work and love and content. A +dozen returning householders, stopping at their gates, wanted the +news of his venture, a dozen freshly-clad, interested women, +watering lawns in the shade, called out to wish him good fortune. +And always, before his eyes, the thought of the vanished millions +danced like a star. She was not infinitely removed, she was not set +apart by great fortune, she was only the sweetest and best of women, +to be wooed and won like any other. He ran upstairs and flung open +the door of the little bare new office of the MAIL, like an +impetuous boy. There was no one there. But a wide white hat with a +yellow rose pinned on it hung above the new oak desk in the corner, +and his heart rose at the sight. His own desk had an improvised drop +light hung over it; he lowered the typewriter from his cramped arm +upon a mass of clippings and notes. Beyond this room was the great +bare loft, where two or three oily men were still toiling in the +fading light over the establishing of the old STAR press. Sashes had +been taken from one of the big windows to admit the entrance of the +heavier parts; thick pulley ropes dangled at the sill. Great +unopened bundles of gray paper filled the center of the floor, a +slim amused youth was putting the finishing touches to a telephone +on the wall, and Sidney, bare-headed, very business-like and keenly +interested, was watching everybody and making suggestions. She +greeted Barry with a cheerful wave of the hand. + +"There you are!" she said, relievedly. "Come and see what you think +of this. Do you know this office is going to be much nicer than the +old one? How goes everything with you?" + +"Like lightning!" he answered. "At this rate, there's nothing to it +at all. Have the press boys showed up yet?" + +"They are over at the hotel, getting their dinners," she explained. +"And we have borrowed lamps from the hotel to use here this evening. +Did you hear that Martin, of the Press, you know, has offered to +send over the A.P. news as fast as it comes in? Isn't that very +decent of him? Here's Miss Porter's stuff." + +She sat down, and began to assort papers on her desk, quite absorbed +in what she was doing. Barry, at his own desk, opened and shut a +drawer or two noisily, but he was really watching her, with a +thumping heart. Watching the bare brown head, the lowered lashes, +the mouth that moved occasionally in time with her busy thoughts-- + +Suddenly she looked up, and their eyes met. + +Without the faintest consciousness of what he did, Barry crossed the +floor between them, and as, on an equally unconscious impulse, she +stood up, paling and breathless, he laid his hand over hers on the +littered desk, and they stood so, staring at each other, the desk +between them. + +"Sidney," he said incoherently, "who--where--where did your father's +money go--who got it?" + +She looked at him in utter bewilderment. + +"Where did WHAT--father's money? Who got it? Are you crazy, Barry?" +she stammered. + +"Ah, Sidney, tell me! Did it come to you?" + +"Why--why--" She seemed suddenly to understand that there was some +reason for the question, and answered quite readily: "It belonged to +my father's first wife, Barry, most of it. And it went to her +daughters, my step-sisters, they are older than I and both married-- +" + +"Then you're NOT worth eight million dollars?" + +"I--? Why, you know I'm not!" Her eyes were at their widest. "Who +ever said I was? _I_ never said so!" + +"But everyone in town thinks so!" Barry's great sigh of relief came +from his very soul. + +Sidney, pale before, grew very red. She freed her hands, and sat +down. + +"Well, they are very silly, then!" she said, almost crossly. And as +the thought expanded, she added, "But I don't see how anyone COULD! +They must have thought my letting them help me out with the Flower +Show and begging for the Old Paloma girls was a nice piece of +affectation! If I had eight million dollars, or one million, don't +you suppose I'd be DOING something, instead of puttering away with +just the beginning of things!" The annoyed color deepened. "I hope +you're mistaken, Barry," said she. "Why didn't you set them right?" + +"I! Why, I thought so too!" + +"Oh, Barry! What a hypocrite you must have thought me!" She buried +her rosy face in her hand for a moment. Presently she rushed on, +half indignantly, "--With all my talk about the sinfulness of +American women, who persistently attempt a scheme of living that is +far beyond their incomes! And talking of the needs of the poor all +over the world, with all that money lying idle!" + +"I thought of it chiefly as an absolute and immovable barrier +between us," Barry said honestly, "and that was as far as my +thinking went." + +Her eyes met his with that curious courage she had when a difficult +moment had to be faced. + +"There is a more serious barrier than that between us," she reminded +him gravely. + +"Hetty!" he said stupidly. "But I TOLD you--" + +But he stopped short, realizing that he had not yet told her, and +rather at a loss. + +"You didn't tell me anything," she said, eyeing him steadily. + +"Why," Barry's tone was much lower, "I meant to tell you first of +all, but--you know what a day I have had! It seems impossible that I +only left San Francisco this morning." + +He brought his chair from his own desk, and sat opposite her, and, +while the summer twilight outside deepened into dusk, unmindful of +time, he went over the pitiful little story. Sidney listened, her +serious eyes never leaving his face, her fine hands locked idly +before her. The telephone boy and the movers had gone now, and there +was silence all about. + +"You have suffered enough, Barry; thank God it is all over!" she +said, at the end, "and we know," she went on, with one of her rare +revelations of the spiritual deeps that lay so close to the surface +of her life, "we know that she is safe and satisfied at last, in His +care." For a moment her absent eyes seemed to fathom far spaces. +Barry abruptly broke the silence. + +"For one year, Sidney," he said, in a purposeful, steady voice that +was new to her, and that brought her eyes, almost startled, to his +face, "for one year I'm going to show you what I can do. In that +time the Mail will be where it was before the fire, if all goes +well. And then--" + +"Then--" she said, a little unsteadily, rising and gathering hat and +gloves together, "then you shall come to me and tell me anything you +like! But--but not now! All this is so new and so strange--" + +"Ah, but Sidney!" he pleaded, taking her hands again, "mayn't I +speak of it just this one day, and then never again? Let me think +for this whole year that PERHAPS you will marry a country editor, +and that we shall spend the rest of our lives together, writing and +planning, and tramping through the woods, and picnicking with the +kiddies on the river, and giving Christmas parties for every little +rag-tag and bob-tail in Old Paloma!" + +"But you don't want to settle down in this stupid village," she +laughed tremulously, tears on her lashes, "at the ugly old Hall, and +among these superficial empty-headed women?" + +"Just here," he said, smiling at his own words, "in the sweetest +place in the world, among the best neighbors! I never want to go +anywhere else. Our friends are here, our work is here--" + +"And we are here!" she finished it for him, laughing. Barry, with a +great rising breath, put his arms about the white figure, and +crushed her to him, and Sidney laid her hand on his shoulder, and +raised her face honestly for his first kiss. + +"And now let me go home to my neglected girls," she said, after an +interval. "You have a busy night ahead of you, and your press boys +will be here any minute." + +But first she took a sheet of yellow copy paper, and wrote on it, +"One year of silence. August thirtieth to August thirtieth." "Is +this inclusive?" she asked, looking up. + +"Exclusive," said Barry, firmly. + +"Exclusive," she echoed obediently. And when she had added the word, +she folded the sheet and gave it to Barry. "There is a little +reminder for you," said she. + +Barry went down to the street door with her, to watch her start +homeward in the sweet summer darkness. + +"Oh, one more thing I meant to say," she said, as they stood on the +platform of what had been the old station, "I don't know why I +haven't said it already, or why you haven't." + +"And that is, Madam--?" he asked attentively. + +"It's just this," she swayed a little nearer to him--her laughing +voice was no more than a whisper. "I love you, Barry!" + +"Haven't I said that?" he asked a little hoarsely. + +"Not yet." + +"Then I say it," he answered steadily, "I love you, my darling!" + +"Oh, not here, Barry--in the street!" was Mrs. Burgoyne's next +remark. + +But there was no moon, and no witnesses but the blank walls and +shuttered windows of neighboring storehouses. And the silent year +had not, after all, fairly begun. + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne +by Kathleen Norris + diff --git a/old/rburg10.zip b/old/rburg10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d45e48 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rburg10.zip |