"I don't know them," confessed Miss Adams, mournfully.

"You don't know the people who live right next door to you!" Mary Rose had never heard of such a situation. "Why, when the Jenkses moved from Prairieville Mrs. Mullins, who'd never set eyes on one of them before, took over a pan of hot gingerbread so she could get acquainted right away. Of course the people here are all moved in, but you could borrow an egg or a cup of molasses, couldn't you? And take it back right away. That would give you two excuses to call."

"I couldn't do that." Miss Adams shivered at the mere thought. "It isn't that I care to know any of them, Mary Rose, only—it makes me so mad that I don't!" with a sudden burst of honesty.

"Couldn't you ask about a pattern or what to do for a cold in the head or how to get red ants off of a plant? But you haven't any plants. Wouldn't you feel more friendly if you had a beautiful pink geranium growing in your window?"

"There isn't sun enough in this flat to keep a geranium alive," grumbled Miss Adams, who seemed determined to be lonely and faultfinding.

Mary Rose sighed. "Of course, no one can have the sun all the time," she said gently, as if to excuse old Sol for not lingering longer in Miss Adams' small apartment. "I'll let you have Jenny Lind for a while tomorrow," she suggested after a moment of frowning thought. "She'll cheer you up."

Miss Adams wanted to refuse to be cheered by Jenny Lind, but she had not the courage, and when Mary Rose brought the bird the next morning she brought also a small glass dish filled with pebbles on which rested a little green bulb.

"Inside it is a Japanese lily," she said, and there was both pride and awe in her voice. "Don't you wonder how God ever folded it up in such a small package? Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary was going to throw it away. She said it was too late, that it ought to have been planted months ago, but I said wouldn't she please give it a chance. My daddy used to say that was all people needed, just a chance. Mrs. Mullins had one in Mifflin, I mean a lily, and it didn't need hardly any sun. It just grew and grew. You can sit beside it in the window and pretend you're a Japanese queen. Don't you think it's fun to pretend? And imagine? It's almost the same as having everything you want. I've imagined I was a queen on a throne and the whale that swallowed Jonah—he must have been so surprised—and a circus rider and an angel with a harp and a pussy willow. I don't know which I liked the best. It helps a lot when things go wrong to imagine they're right. You'll like to see the Japanese lily come out of its bulb, won't you?"

Miss Adams was polite enough to say she would, although she frowned at the glass dish as she set it in the window. If Mary Rose had seen as much of the world as she had, she wouldn't think that to imagine a thing was the same as having it.

"I'll tell Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary you're much obliged," Mary Rose suggested when she left.

Another day Miss Proctor found her leaning against the door of the apartment she shared with Mrs. Matchan, listening entranced to the music that Mrs. Matchan was making with her ten fingers and her piano.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Mary Rose looked up with shining eyes, not at all abashed at being discovered listening. "It's better than any circus band I ever heard. It's like Jenny Lind when the sun is shining and she has had a leaf of fresh lettuce. It makes me feel in my heart like soda water feels in my nose, all prickly and light," vaguely. "It's—it's wonderful! Take this place," she moved generously away from the crack that Miss Proctor might put her ear to it. "You can hear better. When I grow up I want to play just like that." Mary Rose always wanted to do what other people could do.

"Do you?" Miss Proctor looked at her and forgot that she had considered children unmitigated nuisances. She actually opened the door. "Come in," she said, "and tell Mrs. Matchan that you like her music."

And the result of Mary Rose's attempt to put in words the feeling she had in her heart that was like soda water in her nose, was that Mrs. Matchan went down to the Donovans' and asked if she might be permitted—permitted—to give Mary Rose music lessons.

"You could have knocked me down with the pin feather of a chicken," Aunt Kate told Uncle Larry. "I supposed, of course, she'd come tearin' down to find fault with Mrs. Rawson for runnin' her sewin' machine last night an' I was all ready to tell her that each of us has some rights, but no, it was to offer to give Mary Rose lessons on her piano. She says the child's got talent an' feelin' an' she'd like to see how she'd express them. She had to tell me twice before I could take it in. It isn't often that folks come down here to give a favor. Seems if they only find the way when they want to complain. I never knew Mrs. Matchan to do anythin' for anybody before an' we've lived under the same roof for most two years now."

She had another surprise when Bob Strahan tramped down the basement stairs with a big box of Annie Keller chocolates under his arm. He solemnly presented the candy to Mary Rose.

"In payment of a debt," he explained gravely when Aunt Kate and Uncle Larry stared and Mary Rose giggled. "She helped me with a very important bit of work," he added, although the addition did not make the matter any clearer to the Donovans nor to Mary Rose.

"You bet she helped me," he told Miss Carter when he went up and met her in the lower hall. They had encountered each other on the stairs several times since the day of Jenny Lind's adventure and had made the amazing discovery that they had formerly lived within fifteen miles of each other and had many mutual friends. "If it hadn't been for Mary Rose, I wouldn't be on the staff of the Waloo Gazette today. They're cutting off heads down there, and I'm sure mine was slated to go, but the chief's strong for human interest stuff, especially kid stuff. He says that every living being, however hard his outside shell is now, was once a kid, and sometime the kid stuff will get to him for the sake of old times. Mary Rose and the cat she's boarding out saved my neck and I'm still a man with a job."

"That's splendid." Miss Carter tried to speak with enthusiasm, but she could not look enthusiastic. She was tired and discontented with life; all the sparkle had gone out of her face.

Bob Strahan saw it and was sorry. "Say," he said impulsively. "I've two tickets for a show in my pocket this minute. You've known me over forty-eight hours. Is that long enough to make it proper for you to go with me? I'll give you the names of the banker and the minister in my old home town and you can call them up on the long distance for references."

"The idea!" A bit of sparkle crept back into Miss Carter's face and she laughed. "Louis Blodgett's chum doesn't need any reference. Louis has told me quite a little about you," significantly. "It seems perfectly ridiculous that you were living right next door and I never knew it."

"And you might not know it now if it hadn't been for Mary Rose and that canary of hers. Gee! I'm glad I took her that box of chocolates."



CHAPTER VIII

With Jenny Lind's cage in her hand, Mary Rose knocked at Miss Thorley's door.

"We've come to have our pictures taken," she told Miss Carter, when she opened it. "The princess, I mean the other lady," she colored pinkly as Miss Carter laughed, "said we were to advertise Mr. Bingham Henderson's jam." Mary Rose always made a careful explanation. "If she would like two birds I'm almost sure that Mrs. Schuneman would loan her Germania."

"Do you want two birds, Bess?" called Miss Carter, and Miss Thorley came in.

She wore a faded blue smock over her crash gown and looked more beautiful than before to Mary Rose's admiring eyes.

"I think I have two birds," she laughed, and patted Mary Rose's head and snapped her fingers at Jenny Lind. "But don't tell me old Lady Grouch is so human as to have a canary."

"Old Lady Grouch?" Mary Rose did not know whom she meant.

"Schuneman, is that her name?" absently. Miss Thorley was studying Mary Rose from behind half shut eyes. Just how should she pose her?

"Oh, but she isn't grouchy!" Mary Rose flew to the defense of her new friend. "She was just lonesome. Now that she has Germania for company, she is very, very pleasant. I go to see her every day."

Miss Thorley shrugged her shoulders. "Every one to their taste. Stand here, Mary Rose, so that the sun will fall on that yellow mop of yours. Would your heart break if I took off that hair ribbon? I'd rather your hair was loose."

"Aunt Kate put it there," doubtfully.

"I'll put it back before Aunt Kate sees you. Now, just hold Jenny Lind's cage under one arm and these under the other." She handed her a couple of blue and white jars, labeled with big letters—"Henderson-Bingham. Jam Manufacturers." "Can you hold another? Don't say yes if you can't, for it is tiresome to pose when you're not used to it. Now then, how is that, Blanche? Isn't she ducky? You know it's moving day, Mary Rose, and you won't trust anyone but yourself to move what you like best, your bird and your jam."

"I just did move," proudly, "from Mifflin to Waloo."

"Exactly. Quaint, isn't she?" Miss Thorley murmured to Miss Carter. "How old are you, Mary Rose?"

Before Mary Rose could stammer that she was going on fourteen Miss Carter broke in to say that she was off.

"Be good to Mary Rose," she begged. "And, Mary Rose, when you are tired, say so. Miss Thorley will forget all about you when she is interested in the picture and she'll let you stand there until you drop. I know. You have a hard pose with your arms like that and when you are tired be sure and say so."

"Oh, run along, Blanche, and leave us alone," Miss Thorley said impatiently as she got her drawing board and brushes and sat down beside the little table that held her paints.

Miss Carter only waited to make a face at Mary Rose before she shut the door and left the artist and her model together. Neither spoke for a few moments. Mary Rose was too interested in watching Miss Thorley's wonderful fingers and Miss Thorley was too intent on her work for conversation. At last Mary Rose could keep still no longer.

"Are you really an enchanted princess?" she asked eagerly.

"I should scarcely call myself that, Mary Rose. A working woman is the way I say it."

"Then what did Mr. Jerry mean? Don't you think he is an awfully nice man? He makes me think of Alvin Lewis in Mifflin, only Alvin isn't quite so stylish. He is a clerk in the drug store in Mifflin and he was real pleasant. When Gladys and I only had a nickel he'd let us have a glass of ice cream soda with two spoons. He was such a pleasant man. But what did Mr. Jerry mean," she returned to her mutton with a suddenness that made Miss Thorley blur a line, "when he said you were under the spell of the wicked witch Independence?"

"How should I know?" And Miss Thorley frowned in a way that made Mary Rose wish she wouldn't. It quite spoiled her face to frown with it.

"What is Independence?" Mary Rose frowned, too. As Aunt Kate had said, frowns were contagious. Mary Rose had caught one now in a flash.

Miss Thorley took up a handful of brushes and regarded them intently before she said slowly: "Independence is the greatest thing in the world, Mary Rose. It means that I can live as I choose, where I choose, that I can pay my own bills, buy my own clothes and food, that I can do exactly as I please and as I think best. The independence of women is the most wonderful thing in this wonderful age."

Mary Rose looked puzzled. Mr. Jerry had not spoken of it as if it were such a wonderful thing. She looked around the pretty room with its simple furnishings and then at Miss Thorley.

"Does it mean you aren't ever going to be married?" she asked doubtfully. In Mifflin all the girls as big as Miss Thorley meant to be married.

"It means exactly that." Miss Thorley's pretty lips were pressed closer together. "Work, Mary Rose, is the most important thing in life."

But Mary Rose was horrified. "Aren't you ever going to make a home for a family?" she cried. She couldn't believe that was what Miss Thorley meant and she dropped a jam jar. "You don't have to stop work to do it," she cried eagerly and helpfully after she had retrieved the jar. "Mrs. Evans, she's Gladys' mother, says she'd think the millennium was here if she didn't have any work to do. She has five children at home and three in the cemetery." Miss Thorley shuddered. "She can cook and sew and sweep and play the piano and she belongs to the Woman's Club and the Missionary Society and the Revolution Daughters and the Presbyterian Church. You don't ever have to stop working to make a home for a family," she repeated with a nod of encouragement to Miss Thorley who looked disgusted instead of pleased as Mary Rose had expected she would look.

"That isn't the kind of work I care for," and she shrugged her shoulders. "I should think your Mrs. Evans would die."

"She hasn't time to die," Mary Rose told her seriously. "She's too busy taking care of Mr. Evans and her family and helping other people. She's a fine woman, everyone said in Mifflin. When I grow up I want to be just like her," emphatically.

"Oh, Mary Rose! You want to be something besides a drudge. Women have other things to do now but cook and sew and look after crying babies."

"Babies don't cry unless there's a pin sticking into them or they have the colic, and, anyway, I think babies are the dearest things God ever made. I'd like to have twelve when I grow up, six boys and six girls. I don't ever want an only child. It's too lonesome. Don't you ever get lonesome, Miss Thorley?"

"I have my work," Miss Thorley told her briefly.

Mary Rose watched her at her work. She admired Miss Thorley's swift, sure strokes, but she drew a sigh that came from the tips of her shabby shoes as she murmured: "All the same I don't understand just what Mr. Jerry meant."

Miss Thorley did not answer, unless a frown could be considered an answer. She painted for perhaps five minutes longer, but her strokes were not so swift nor so sure. At last she threw down her brushes as if she hated herself for doing it, but realized she could do nothing else.

"Mary Rose," she said crossly. Even Mary Rose could see that she was not pleased with something. "I don't feel like painting today. It's too warm or something. If I could find a little girl about," she looked critically at Mary Rose, "about ten years old, I think I'd ask her to go out to the lake with me."

"Oh!" Mary Rose forgot that she was posing and dropped both jam jars. She almost dropped Jenny Lind, too. She remembered Aunt Kate's request as she clung to the cage. "Would one going on fourteen be too old?" Her voice trembled and her heart beat fast for fear Miss Thorley would say that was far too old. "If she should be a long, long time, perhaps three years, before she got to fourteen?"

Miss Thorley's face was as sober as a judge's as she considered this. "Well," she said at last very slowly, "one going on fourteen might do. Run and ask your aunt and I'll meet you downstairs."

Mary Rose obeyed after she had hugged Miss Thorley. "You're an angel," she exclaimed fervently, "a regular seraphim and cherubim angel, if you are independent."

She almost fell down the stairs and made such a racket that a door on the second floor opened promptly. Mary Rose caught her breath. She was afraid to see whose door was ajar. If that cross Mr. Wells should catch her she was afraid to think what he might do. But it was not Mr. Wells' door that had opened, nor Mr. Wells' face that looked at her. An elderly woman stood staring at her impatiently.

"Dearie me!" she was saying, "I thought the house was falling down."

"No, ma'am." Mary Rose was very apologetic. "I just stumbled a teeny bit. You see I'm in such a hurry because Miss Thorley's going to take me to the lake and I must carry Jenny Lind downstairs and tell Aunt Kate and be at the front door in a jiffy." She would have darted on but the elderly lady put out a wrinkled hand and caught Mary Rose's blue and white checked apron.

"Who's Jenny Lind?" she demanded.

"This is Jenny Lind." Mary Rose held up the cage. "The best bird that ever had feathers. She came with me from Mifflin and Miss Thorley's painting our picture for Mr. Henderson Bingham."

The old lady looked at Jenny Lind in a strange way. "I haven't seen a canary bird for years," she murmured, more to herself than to Mary Rose.



Mary Rose answered her impulsively as she usually answered people. "Would you like to have her visit you until I come back? I'm not going to take her with us. She wouldn't be any trouble. She's used to visiting. All you have to do is to let her have a chair or a table to sit on." She offered the cage generously.

The old lady seemed to hesitate. She looked like Gladys' grandmother, only not so comfortable, Mary Rose thought. At last she held out her hand.

"I declare I don't know but I will let you leave it with me. I'm all alone, and even a bird is company."

"Jenny Lind's splendid company. Shall I put her on the table for you? There! I'll run up before supper and get her. And don't you worry, because Uncle Larry said the law doesn't say one word about birds." And before startled Mother Johnson could ask her what she meant by the law, she ran off, stumbling down the two flights of stairs to the basement. Only the special Providence that looks after children saved her.

Aunt Kate was in the kitchen and she exclaimed in surprise when she heard that Mary Rose was going to the lake with Miss Thorley and had left Jenny Lind to spend the afternoon with the grandmother on the second floor.

"My soul an' body!" she said. "Whatever will you do next!"

Mary Rose saw Mr. Jerry in his car in the alley and ran to the open window to tell him of the pleasure that was in store for her.

"Mr. Jerry! Oh, Mr. Jerry! I'm going to the lake with the enchanted princess. Don't you wish you were me?"

Mr. Jerry waved his hand as he smiled and nodded, but Mary Rose did not wait to hear whether he would like to change places with her, for she had to slip out of the plaid skirt and middy blouse into a white frock that Aunt Kate had shortened.

"Isn't it the luckiest thing that Ella had so many beautiful clothes!" she said breathlessly. "I shouldn't want to go out with Miss Thorley in that horrid boys' suit."

She was ready first, and as she waited in the lower hall she talked to Mrs. Schuneman about Germania. Miss Thorley found them together when she came down, looking exactly like a princess to Mary Rose, in her white linen skirt and lingerie blouse and with a big black hat all a-bloom with pink roses on her red-brown head.

"I was ready first," Mary Rose cried happily, "but I didn't mind waiting, for I was talking to a friend, to Mrs. Schuneman. She has Germania, you know. This is my friend, Miss Thorley, Mrs. Schuneman." She introduced them politely.

Miss Thorley nodded carelessly, but even a careless glance told her that there was not the sign of a grouch on Mrs. Schuneman's fat red face that day. Indeed, it quite beamed with friendliness as she hoped that they would have a good time.

"You see, she's very pleasant when you know her," Mary Rose explained as they walked over to the street car. "That's why it's so important to know people. If you don't really know them, you might often think they were grouchy when they aren't."



CHAPTER IX

Lake Nokomis was on the outskirts of Waloo and was a popular pleasure resort for Waloo people from June until September. A band played in the pavilion, there was a moving picture show, a merry-go-round with a wheezy organ, a roller coaster and many other amusement features, as well as several ice-cream parlors. There was always a crowd drifting from one place to another, and Mary Rose fairly danced with delight when she and Miss Thorley became a part of the good-natured throng.

They were standing beside the enclosure in which the fat Shetland ponies waited for the children who were fortunate enough to possess a nickel to pay for a ride on their broad backs or a drive in a roomy carriage, when Mary Rose saw Mr. Jerry. She had sadly refused Miss Thorley's invitation to ride because she did not wish to leave her alone, and Miss Thorley would not ride one of the ponies nor drive in one of the carriages.

"There's Mr. Jerry!" squealed Mary Rose when she saw him. She could scarcely believe her eyes, but she waved her hand. "He's the man who boards my cat, you know," she explained to Miss Thorley. "And he's very pleasant and friendly, just like a Mifflin man."

Miss Thorley looked first surprised and then displeased and then she frowned and shrugged her shoulders as if she did not really care whether Mr. Jerry was there or not. She gave him rather a curt greeting when he joined them with a cheery:

"Hullo, Mary Rose. Are you thinking of a canter in the park?"

There was nothing curt in the greeting Mary Rose gave him. She smiled enchantingly and slipped her hand into his. "We're just watching the ponies. Aren't they loves? Miss Thorley thinks they are too small for her to ride, but I don't see how she can be sure unless she tries. Do you know Mr. Jerry, Miss Thorley? He's making such a comfortable home for George Washington. She didn't feel like painting today," she explained to Mr. Jerry, "so we came out for a change. Oh, I do just love that blackest pony, but no one seems to choose him!" She pointed an eager finger to the corner where the blackest and fattest pony stood neglected.

"Suppose you choose him. I've money to treat a lady friend to a ride." And he made a pleasant jingle with the coins in his pocket.

"Miss Thorley invited me, but I didn't like to leave her alone. Would you stay with her, Mr. Jerry? It would be real friendly of you to me and the pony, for if I don't take him I'm afraid no one will, and he'll feel so sad when he goes home tonight. Will you take good care of Miss Thorley, Mr. Jerry?"

"I will," promised Mr. Jerry emphatically, although Miss Thorley exclaimed hurriedly that she could take care of herself. He found a bench from which they could watch Mary Rose as she made the black pony happy and rode around the ring, prouder than any peacock.

"Funny kid, isn't she?" remarked Mr. Jerry, realizing that if there was to be any conversation between them he would have to begin. "I wish you could have seen her when she came over with her cat to ask if we would take the beast to board. Who's the owner of that joint of yours? I'd like to tell him what I think of him for separating a homesick little girl from her pet."

"It would be rather a nuisance if the place was overrun with cats and dogs and children," Miss Thorley said coldly. "There wouldn't be much peace or comfort in the house."

"The peace and comfort you've had don't seem to agree with all of you," remarked Mr. Jerry pleasantly. "I've seen some of your neighbors who look as if they needed a big dose of noise and discomfort."

"You must mean Mr. Wells. He does have rather a touch-me-not, speak-to-me-never manner. And the fuss he makes if there is any noise in the place after ten o'clock! Imagine him with a cat or a bird." The picture her imagination made was so impossible that she laughed.

Mr. Jerry drew a contented sigh and ventured to move a trifle nearer. He started to say something and then changed his mind. He wouldn't say anything just then that might bring back that distant expression to her face. He knew very well how cold and forbidding she could be. So instead of saying what he wished to say he talked of Mary Rose and George Washington, and she listened and smiled and made holes in the turf with her parasol, but never once did she speak of the conversation she had had with Mary Rose which had caused her to throw down her brushes and treat herself to a holiday.

Mary Rose's face was an incandescent light as, with a good-by pat for the blackest pony, she ran back to them.

"I felt like a queen!" she cried. "It was splendid. Oh, won't you have a ride?" She looked from one to the other. "I'll pay. I'm making lots of money. You needn't worry another minute about George Washington's board," she told Mr. Jerry. "It's as good as paid."

He laughed. "I won't worry and I shan't ride the ponies. My legs are too long. I'd have to tie double knots in them to keep them off the ground. But I'll take a turn on the merry-go-round with you." He nodded toward that attractive circle of animals as it went around and around to the accompaniment of the wheezy organ. "I dare you to come with us." He looked straight at Miss Thorley.

"Oh, please!" Mary Rose clapped her hands. "You will, won't you, Miss Thorley? You needn't be afraid," she whispered. "I'm sure he's strong enough to hold you on."

Miss Thorley looked anything but afraid as she frowned at the merry-go-round and at Mr. Jerry impartially. But when she met Mary Rose's eyes, filled with a great hunger for merry-go-rounds, she laughed softly and told Mr. Jerry that, of course, she wouldn't take a dare, she never had and she never would, and she thought she'd choose the giraffe because his long neck gave a rider so much to cling to.

It was not easy for Mary Rose to choose a mount. Each animal seemed so very desirable that she sighed as she finally selected an ostrich for the same reason that she had taken the black pony. "I haven't seen a single person ride him and I expect he feels neglected."

But when they mounted the merry-go-round Miss Thorley stepped into a gay little sleigh drawn by two fat polar bears. After he had seen Mary Rose properly astride the neglected ostrich Mr. Jerry took the seat beside Miss Thorley.

"I promised Mary Rose that I wouldn't let you fall out," he said, as if that could be the only reason he would ride beside her.

Much to Mary Rose's amazement, Miss Thorley was satisfied with one ride, although Mr. Jerry very handsomely offered them a turn on each animal. Mary Rose could not resist such an invitation and one by one she rode on a giraffe, a camel, and a lion.

"Mercy, mercy, Mary Rose!" Miss Thorley said at last. "You must stop. Your head will be completely turned. And we must go home."

"Won't you ride back with me?" asked Mr. Jerry. "I have the car. If you will, we have time for a sundae first."

Mary Rose's heart all but stopped beating as she waited for Miss Thorley to say they would. It didn't seem possible that anyone, even an independent woman, could refuse such an alluring invitation. But grown-ups were queer. Mary Rose had found that out long, long ago. She did not hesitate for even the fraction of a second when Miss Thorley turned and left the decision to her. A moment later they were in the ice cream parlor that was like a cool green cave after the heat and the light outside.

Mary Rose chose a chocolate sundae and she giggled as she looked at the rich brown sauce. "When I was little, nothing but a baby," she said, "I thought that it was the yellow in the eggs I ate that made my hair yellow. Do you suppose if I ate lots and lots of chocolate, I'd ever have hair as brown as Miss Thorley's. Isn't it beautiful, Mr. Jerry?"

"Very beautiful!" Mr. Jerry agreed as heartily as she could wish.

Miss Thorley flushed uncomfortably under the admiration of Mr. Jerry and Mary Rose. "Mary Rose," she said hurriedly, "don't you know you shouldn't make personal remarks?"

"Eh?" Mary Rose's attention was centered in the well she was making in her ice cream for the chocolate syrup.

"You shouldn't talk of people's hair and eyes." The rebuke was far more feeble than Miss Thorley had meant it to be.

"You shouldn't!" Mary Rose was so surprised that she left the well half made. "Why, in Mifflin when we liked the way a friend looked we always told them."

Miss Thorley pushed away her sundae. "Mary Rose, if you say Mifflin again, I'll scream."

Mary Rose's cheeks turned as pink as Miss Thorley's cheeks had turned. "That's what Aunt Kate says sometimes, but if you like a place the way I like Mifflin you just have to talk about it. It's—it's in your heart."

"Talk about it to me, Mary Rose," Mr. Jerry offered kindly. "It doesn't make me cross to hear of a place where people are kind and friendly. My conscience is perfectly clear." He spoke as if he were very proud of his clear conscience.

Miss Thorley pushed back her chair. "It doesn't make me cross," she said, "only——"

They waited courteously to hear what would follow "only," but nothing ever did. Miss Thorley just jumped up and said instead that really they must go. Mr. Jerry's eyes twinkled as he agreed with her.

It was far more pleasant riding to town in Mr. Jerry's automobile than it would have been in the crowded street car. Mary Rose called Miss Thorley's attention to the crowd as she snuggled close to her in the spacious tonneau.

"I'm playing it's mine," she whispered, "and that Mr. Jerry is my own driver. Wouldn't it be fun to drive with him forever and ever?"

Mr. Jerry heard her and sharpened his ears for the answer.

"You'd get tired riding forever with anyone, Mary Rose. There is only one thing that people never get tired of."

"What's that?" Mary Rose hungered to hear.

"Work." Mr. Jerry sniffed. They could hear him in the tonneau.

Mary Rose shook her head. "Gladys' mother did. She said she had never had enough fun to know whether she would get tired of it or not, but she'd had plenty of chance to know there were some things she never wanted to see again, and one of them was work and the other was the red and black plaid silk dress that the dressmaker spoiled."

Mr. Jerry chuckled on the front seat and after a second Miss Thorley laughed, too.

"Mary Rose," she said very distinctly, "I'll have to give you a broader vision. You have entirely too narrow an outlook."

"What's that, Miss Thorley? What's a broader vision?" Mary Rose couldn't imagine.

It was Mr. Jerry who answered. "In this particular case, Mary Rose, it's seeing far too much for one and not enough for two."

As they rolled up to the Washington Miss Carter came down the street with Bob Strahan whom she had met on the car. It was amazing, now that they were on speaking terms, how often they met. Bob Strahan stopped to open the door of the automobile and help Miss Thorley out, and Mary Rose proudly introduced Mr. Jerry who boarded her cat. They all laughed and talked together for a few minutes and then Mary Rose hopped from the back seat to the front.

"I'll go around and see George Washington, if you don't mind," she said. "Hasn't it been just the loveliest afternoon, the kind you're always hoping for but never really expect to have," with a sigh of rapture. She patted Mr. Jerry's arm lovingly. "Isn't Miss Thorley a darling! She told me all about that Independence. It isn't a witch as you thought, Mr. Jerry, it's something about wanting to pay her own bills and live alone. I don't understand it," she frowned, "but that's what she said."

Mr. Jerry frowned too, as he turned into the alley. "She doesn't know," he said briefly. "Take it from me, Mary Rose, that Independence is an old witch, and she's enchanted more girls than you could count."

Mary Rose looked doubtful. "If Miss Thorley really is enchanted," she suggested, "we must find something to break the spell. I told her she wouldn't have to stop work to make a home for a family, Mr. Jerry," she whispered encouragingly.

"Did you?" Mr. Jerry laughed. "What did she say?"

Mary Rose knit her small brows before she answered. "I don't think she just agreed with me, but I'll explain it to her again."



CHAPTER X

When Mary Rose ran up to get Jenny Lind young Mrs. Johnson met her at the door and smiled pleasantly.

"You're the little girl for the canary?" she said. "I was wondering—Mother Johnson seems to have taken a fancy to you—and I wondered if you would go out for a little walk with her every morning. I'll pay you ten cents a day."

Mary Rose's eyes popped open. In Mifflin little girls were expected to do what they were asked to do and were never paid for such tasks.

"Why, of course, I'd be glad to," she said promptly.

"That will be splendid. You see she won't go by herself and I have my own engagements. The doctor said she must have some exercise," sighed Mrs. Johnson, as if the doctor had made a most unreasonable demand. "Suppose you come up tomorrow about eleven? That will give you time for a good walk before lunch."

"I'll soon be making money enough to send for Solomon," Mary Rose told Mrs. Donovan, her voice trembling with excitement. "There's ten cents a day from Grandma Johnson and ten cents from Mrs. Bracken for washing the breakfast dishes and a quarter from Miss Thorley. Why, Aunt Kate, I never thought there was so much money in the world as what I'm going to earn by myself!"

Aunt Kate laughed as she hugged her. "There's no one in the house can be cross to her," she told Uncle Larry proudly.

Promptly at eleven o'clock the next morning Mary Rose was waiting for Mother Johnson who grumbled and fussed before she could be persuaded to take the walk the doctor had recommended. But, once outside, the sky was so blue, the air so pleasant, and Mary Rose so sociable that her face grew less peevish.

"Where shall we go?" Mary Rose paused at the corner. "You see I'm a stranger here. In Mifflin I knew the way everywhere. Aunt Kate said there was a little park over this street. Perhaps it would be pleasant there?"

Mother Johnson said grumpily that it made little difference to her, all she wanted was to have her walk over and be home again.

"But you'll feel better after your exercise," promised Mary Rose. "I should think you'd love to be outdoors. Your home is very pretty, but it isn't like the outdoors, you know. Did you ever see the sky so blue? It looks as if it was made out of the very silk that was in Miss Lucy Miller's bridesmaid's dress. It was the most beautiful dress Miss Lena Carlson ever made. Miss Lena goes out sewing for a dollar and a half a day." And she described the wedding at which Miss Lucy Miller had worn the frock made by the dollar and a half a day seamstress with an enthusiasm that was undimmed by Mother Johnson's lack of interest. From the wedding and Miss Lucy it was but a step to other Mifflin happenings. They found themselves in the park before they knew it.

"It's something like the cemetery in Mifflin," Mary Rose said after she had looked about. "Of course, there aren't any graves but there is a monument and seats. Do you want to sit down? Oh, do look, grandma! Do look," and she pulled the black sleeve beside her.

Since she had come to Waloo Mother Johnson had not been called grandma and she had missed the grandchildren she had left behind more than she realized. Mary Rose had called most of the older women in Mifflin grandma—Grandma Robinson and Grandma Smith. It was a friendly little custom that was in vogue there and so she had unhesitatingly called old Mrs. Johnson grandma. Mrs. Johnson was so surprised that she had nothing to say when Mary Rose pulled her to a bench and pointed a trembling finger at a little brownish-grayish animal which stood up in the grass and looked at them with bright eyes.

"Do you see what that is?" Mary Rose's voice shook. "It's a squirrel! A really truly squirrel in this big city! Here, squirrelly, squirrelly," she snapped her fingers. "I wish I had something to feed you!" despairingly as the squirrel ran away.



Grandma Johnson had her purse in the bag she carried and she opened it and took out five cents. "Here," she said crossly, "go and get something to feed him with if that's what you're crying for."

Mary Rose straightened herself and threw her arms around Grandma Johnson's knees. "Why—why!" she gasped, "I do think you are a regular fairy godmother!"

Grandma Johnson had been called several names since she had been in the Washington. Once she had heard Hilda in the kitchen speak of her as "the old hen" and had almost had apoplexy. And Larry Donovan had muttered that she was "an old crank" which was what one might expect of a mannerless janitor but no one had ever called her a fairy godmother. It sounded rather pleasant. She actually smiled as Mary Rose ran over to the popcorn wagon on the corner and came back with a bag of peanuts.

"What wouldn't I give if Tom had a girl like that!" she sighed. "But then he'd have to move. Children aren't allowed in the Washington."

Mary Rose insisted on an exact division of the nuts. "You want to feed them just as much as I do." She hadn't a doubt of that. "So you must have half. When the squirrel sees how many we have perhaps he'll bring his brothers and sisters and have a squirrel party," she giggled.

Indeed, it did seem as if the squirrel had sent out invitations when he saw the heap of nuts that Mary Rose and Grandma Johnson had beside them for, one after another, other squirrels came until half a dozen clustered around them. They were very tame. One even climbed up Mary Rose's arm for the nut she held between her lips and Grandma Johnson lured another to her shoulder.

"Aren't they ducks?" Mary Rose demanded. A red poppy blossomed in each of her cheeks and her eyes were lit with candles. "I do believe the Lord sent them here to be pets for people who live in houses where there's a law against dogs and cats and children. I think it was—it was wonderful in Him! Don't you? Shall we come every day and feed them? Then they'll really get acquainted with us and we'll be friends. Oh, I'm so glad that I know you—that we know each other!" She threw her arms around the startled Grandma Johnson and gave her another hug.

They met Mrs. Schuneman on the steps when they went home and Mary Rose had to stop and tell her the wonderful news, that the Lord had put pets in the park for people who couldn't have them in their homes. She introduced Grandma Johnson and Mrs. Schuneman, who had looked at each other furtively when they had met in the halls but who had never spoken until now.

"It's just as well not to make friends with the people who live in the same apartment house you do," young Mrs. Johnson had told Grandma when she came to make her home with her son. "You can't tell who they are."

"You can tell they are human beings," Mother Johnson had muttered but that was not enough for her daughter-in-law and the older woman had been too depressed by the strangeness of everything about her to make friends for herself.

She even hesitated now when Mary Rose's inquiry after the health of Germania brought an invitation to step in and see how much at home Germania was. But in Mary Rose's opinion one could not refuse such an invitation and she drew Grandma Johnson in to admire and to exclaim over Germania, who did seem very contented. They had a very pleasant little visit and Mrs. Schuneman eagerly asked them both to come again. Mother Johnson gathered courage to say she would, she'd be glad to.

"Haven't we had a gorgeous time?" Mary Rose asked as they went up the stairs. "I think it's very kind of you to let me go walking with you. I'm so glad the doctor said you needed exercise."

And Grandma Johnson smiled and patted the small shoulder. There was not a trace of the old peevishness on her face which was like a withered apple. "I don't know but I'm glad, too, Mary Rose. I'll see you tomorrow."

"You certainly will. Won't the squirrels be glad to see us? Good-by." She ran down the stairs with the ten cents in her hand. The coin dropped on the landing and rolled away. She was looking for it when Mr. Wells came up and almost walked over her. Mary Rose was on her feet in a flash.

"Good morning," she said politely. "I'm looking for the dime I dropped. I earned it walking with Grandma Johnson. We had the grandest time in the park. Did you know that there are pets there for people who can't have them in their homes? They're squirrels and the Lord put them there. Oh, here's my dime. Good-by." And she ran on while Mr. Wells stood and stared after her as if he thought he or she had lost their wits and he was not sure which.

He went on up and met Larry Donovan.

"Donovan," he said sharply. "I thought children were not allowed in this building?"

"No more they are, Mr. Wells," Larry tried to speak pleasantly. "There's a clause in every lease that says so."

"Then why do you allow a child to run all over the place?" Mr. Wells wanted to know and he scowled fiercely.

Larry straightened himself and a dull red crept up into his face. "If you mean my niece by your remarks," he said stiffly, "she isn't a child. She's—she's," he stumbled, "she's goin' on fourteen."

"She has a long time to go before she ever reaches fourteen," grimly. "Do Brown and Lawson know you have a child living with you?"

"They do not." Larry's tone was as short and crisp as pie crust.

"H-m," was all Mr. Wells said to that but he looked at Larry before he went into his apartment and slammed the door.

"The ol' chimpanzee 'll tell Brown an' Lawson," Uncle Larry told Aunt Kate when he came down and found her in the bedroom. "That's what he'll do. He's goin' to complain about Mary Rose."

Aunt Kate stared at him. "An' what'll you do, Larry Donovan? What'll you do then?"

"I'll tell them they know what they can do if they don't like it," he answered gruffly. "I've been a good man for the place. I've kept the peace with the tenants though, God knows, it's been no easy job. I've kept the bills down an' made a lot of the repairs myself an' if Brown an' Lawson want to fire me just because my niece, my wife's niece, an inoffensive little kid, is livin' with us why they can fire. That's what they can do. I'd be ashamed to stay an' work for them."

"Larry," Mrs. Donovan put her arms around her husband and kissed him. "Larry Donovan, I'm that proud of you I can't see!" And she put her hand over her wet eyes. "Then you like to have Mary Rose here?"

"I'll tell you the truth, Kate, dear. The little thing has made herself necessary to me. That's what she's done. We got along all right without her but that was because we didn't know what it was to have a kid in the house. No, sir, Mary Rose is one of the fam'ly and she stays with the fam'ly. She's good for the tenants, too. See what she's done for Mrs. Willoughby an' Mrs. Schuneman. The ol' lady called me in to hear her bird sing this very morning. An' Mrs. Bracken, who's so busy club workin' for other folks she hasn't any time for her home, tells me Mary Rose is the biggest kind of a help to her. I thought she was goin' to jaw me about fixin' that back window 't sticks a bit. I should have fixed it before but it clean slipped my mind, an' I up an' asked her how Mary Rose was doing. She forgot the window to talk about the kid. 'Ain't she small for her age?' says she. 'I guess you don't know much about childern,' says I. 'Mary Rose's as big as she should be!' 'When I was fourteen,' says she, 'I weighed a hunderd an' ten poun's.' 'That's a good weight for a growing girl,' says I. 'I don't believe you weigh much more'n that now, Mrs. Bracken,' says I. And that ended it. She weighs a hunderd an' thirty if she weighs a pound. An' then there's the Johnsons. Young Mrs. Johnson said this morning that it would be a blessed relief if Mary Rose'd get the ol' lady out every day. I guess there's a place for her here all right, whether ol' Wells sees it or not."

"Wouldn't it be just as well for you to tell Brown an' Lawson your story first?" asked Mrs. Donovan. "Of course, when it's a tenant again' a janitor the janitor don't stand much show. But if you tell the agents that your wife's niece, a girl goin' on fourteen, is staying with you an' makin' herself useful to the tenants they won't come here with a lot of confusin' questions when Mr. Wells has had his say. Seems if it was the one who spoke first who gets the mos' attention. Haven't you any errand that could take you down there the first thing in the mornin'?"

Larry laughed scornfully. "I have that. I can al'ys find a complaint to carry if I'm so minded. I guess you're right an' it won't do no harm to get our side in first. Where's Mary Rose now?"

"She's gone over to Mr. Jerry's. The cat's board's overdue." Evidently Aunt Kate thought that overdue board was a laughing matter for she chuckled. "Mary Rose was horrified when she remembered she'd forgotten to pay but I said Mr. Jerry 'd understand that she wasn't used to business. So long as she paid in the end a little waiting wouldn't matter."

Mr. Jerry had just driven into the garage when the delinquent Mary Rose slipped in at the back gate.

"Hullo, Mary Rose," he called cheerily.

"I've come to pay George Washington's board," importantly. "I'm ashamed I'm late but I forgot. I'm not used to business," she apologized, mortification dyeing her cheeks pink.

"That's all right. But if it's board you're going to pay we'd better go in and see my Aunt Mary."

His Aunt Mary looked mildly surprised when Mary Rose announced that she had come to pay George Washington's board and she was sorry she was late. Aunt Mary pursed her lips in a way that made Mary Rose quake until she remembered that she was earning a lot of money and it really didn't matter if the board was more than fifty cents. And George Washington did have an awful appetite.

Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary was saying so. "That cat is perfectly hollow. It's amazing the milk he drinks. He has been here a little over a week, Mary Rose," again mortification painted Mary Rose's cheeks, "and in that time he has caught five mice. It is impossible to estimate the damage that five mice would have done if they hadn't been caught so I figure that George Washington has earned his own board."

"Why, George Washington!" Mary Rose could scarcely grasp this but when she did she caught the cat to her in a rapturous hug. "Isn't he the very smartest cat? Why, he's self-supporting, isn't he?" And she hugged him again. "If he keeps on earning his board I can send for Solomon. I don't suppose you would want to board a dog, too? I think I'd almost feel as if I were in Heaven to have my animal friends with me again."

"What kind of dog is Solomon?" Mr. Jerry asked carelessly. "I've been thinking of buying a dog but perhaps I could rent old Sol."

"Mr. Jerry! I'd be glad to let you have him for his board. He's splendid, a real fox terrier, and that clever. He can do lots of tricks. You couldn't help but love him. He's so affectionate and friendly."

"It was a fox terrier that I thought of buying. Then we can consider that settled, Mary Rose. You send for Sol as soon as you please and I'll board him for the use of him. I think he would look well on the front seat of the car."

Mary Rose had jumped to her feet and, with George Washington still in her arms, she threw herself on Mr. Jerry in a perfect spasm of delighted gratitude that brought tears to the eyes of both of them for George Washington was not accustomed to being squeezed between a young man and a little girl.

"What a—what a splendid man you are!" cried Mary Rose. "You're like King Arthur and Robin Hood, always succoring the friendless though I'm not friendless when I have you and your Aunt Mary and all the people over there." She nodded across at the white face of the Washington.

"All the people?" questioned Mr. Jerry. He had heard of some of them who did not act friendly.

"Well, perhaps not all—yet," amended Mary Rose. "I do like to be friends with people, Mr. Jerry. It gives you such a comfortable feeling inside. When you're not friends it's just as if you had the stomachache and the headache at the same time."

Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary brought in some cookies and three glasses of ginger ale, all sparkling and frosty.

"It's a party," beamed Mary Rose. "I've always thought the world was full of nice people and now I know it. Aunt Kate's forever telling me that I'm too little to know the good from the bad but I tell her there isn't any bad, that the Lord wouldn't waste His time and dust, and anyway I have the right kind of an eye. I showed that when I made friends with you and Mr. Jerry."

When she left she hesitated at the gate. "Would it be a bother if I brought a friend over to see George Washington?" she ventured. "I'd like Miss Thorley to meet him and then perhaps she'd paint his picture."

"I should think she would," promptly agreed Mr. Jerry. "He's a cat who deserves to have his portrait painted. Bring over any friends you wish, Mary Rose," hospitably, "but let me know first so George Washington will be home. Sometimes I take him out with me," gravely.

Mary Rose gazed at him with adoration. "I don't believe I could have found a better boarding place for him, not if I had searched all Waloo. I'll let you know, Mr. Jerry, just as soon as I know myself."



CHAPTER XI

But before Mary Rose could write the letter that would tell Jimmie Bronson that she was now financially able to maintain her animal friends she had a big surprise.

The day had been warm and sultry, the sort that makes every nerve disagreeably alive and brings to the surface all the unpleasant little traits that in cooler weather one can keep hidden.

"Old General Humidity hasn't shirked his job a minute to-day," Bob Strahan told Miss Carter as they left the car and walked up the block to the Washington together.

In front of them sauntered a boy with a dog at his heels. The boy was a sturdy young fellow of perhaps fourteen, very shabby as to clothes but very dauntless as to manner. The dog was a fox terrier with one black spot over his left eye like a patch. Bob Strahan whistled and snapped his fingers at him.

"I've always meant to have a fox terrier some day," he told Miss Carter. "They're so intelligent."

But this particular fox terrier, while he wagged his tail and looked around to see who whistled, kept close to the heels of the boy who looked carefully at the houses as if in search of one. When he came to the Washington he stood and stared up at the long brick wall with its many windows peering so curiously down at him, much as Mary Rose had stared less than a month before.

"Well, young man," Bob Strahan said pleasantly, "is there anyone here you wish to see?"

"Gee," exclaimed the boy with a fervor that seemed to come from his dusty heels, "I hadn't any idea it would be such a big place!"

"It isn't a cottage," agreed Bob Strahan amiably, "nor yet a bungalow. But a roof has to be some size to cover a couple of dozen families. What particular family are you interested in, may I ask?" He stooped to pat the black-eyed fox terrier as it sniffed his ankles. "Some dog!" he told the boy.

Down the street came Mary Rose and Miss Thorley. Mary Rose had been to the bakery for rolls for supper and had met Miss Thorley on the corner. The little group by the steps of the Washington could hear her voice before they saw her and the boy swung around and listened.

"I used to think that if I wasn't a human being, made in the image of God, I'd like to be the milkman's horse in Mifflin," he heard Mary Rose say and he chuckled.

"Why, Mary Rose?" laughed Miss Thorley.

"Because it was so friendly to go from house to house every morning with milk for the babies and cream for the coffee. Everyone in Mifflin was a friend to old Whiteface. Why—why!" she broke her story short to stand still and stare at the boy and the dog, who were both staring at her. The boy's face was one broad grin and the dog's tail was wagging frantically. "Why, Solomon Crocker! It's never you! Oh, Solomon!" as he darted to her. "I've missed you more than tongue could tell. It seems a hundred thousand years since we were together. Jimmie Bronson, however did you know that I'd made arrangements for Solomon to come to Waloo?"

"I didn't know but I wanted to leave Mifflin and I couldn't let old Sol stay alone. You know Aunt Nora died just after you left and there wasn't any home for me any more. I wanted to see the world so I thought I'd bring the pup and if you didn't want him I'd be glad to keep him. He's a dandy dog and he's valuable. He's helped to more than pay our way." He jingled the contents of his pocket so that they could hear how Solomon had helped.

"How did he do that, Jimmie? I'm sorry about your Aunt Nora but now you have one more friend in Heaven and you've lots left on earth. He's got heaps of friends right here, hasn't he?" She looked at Bob Strahan and the two girls for confirmation of her words. "We're all friends in Waloo. But how did Solomon help you to earn your way?"

Jimmie laughed sheepishly. "I've taught him a lot of new tricks. He's a smart dog and learned like lightning. Folks were glad to see him perform. I never asked for pay but they always gave me something. I could have sold him half a dozen times for big money but he's your dog, Mary Rose, so I brought him right along."

"Show us his new tricks," begged Mary Rose. "Show them to us this minute."

So Miss Thorley and Miss Carter, with Mary Rose between them, and Bob Strahan sat down on the broad front steps and watched Jimmie Bronson put Solomon through his repertoire. Mrs. Schuneman and Lottie joined them and from their windows Mrs. Bracken and Mrs. Willoughby watched the performance. Solomon really was a clever dog and Jimmie had been an excellent teacher so that the entertainment was very creditable. They were all so interested in it that they never saw an addition to their number until a harsh strident voice sounded beside them. It made Mary Rose jump and Mrs. Bracken and Mrs. Willoughby suddenly left their windows.

"Mein lieber Gott!" Mrs. Schuneman rose involuntarily and heavily to her feet. "It's Mr. Wells!"

"What's this? What's this?" Lightning flashed from Mr. Wells' eyes and thunder rumbled in his voice. No wonder everyone was startled. "Dogs aren't allowed here. Where's Donovan? He shouldn't allow such a nuisance. Run along, boy, and take your dog with you. You aren't allowed here!"

"It isn't his dog." Mary Rose ran in front of him. "It's my dog and he's come all the way from Mifflin. I wish you'd been here earlier so you could see how smart he is," timidly. "He knows such a lot of funny tricks. Jimmie, will you have him do that one—"

"Your dog!" interrupted Mr. Wells, with a snort, and his fiery eyes seemed to bore a hole right through Mary Rose, who was trying desperately to remember that she had the right kind of eye and could see nothing but good in the cross old man in front of her. "You know very well that dogs are not allowed in this house. Take him away, boy, and don't let me see either of you again."

"Oh!" Mary Rose's heart was full of indignation. So were her eyes. She was too hurt to be afraid. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, a great big man like you to talk that way to a poor little dog who has come all the way from Mifflin expecting to find friends here? He's my dog and—"

But Mr. Wells would not let her finish. "You can't keep him here," he snarled. He was furious at being spoken to in such a fashion by a janitor's child and before a group of young people who did their best to look serious. "You haven't any business here yourself. Children and dogs are forbidden in this building."

Mrs. Donovan had come to the basement window just in time to hear this angry outburst and she called hastily: "Mary Rose! Mary Rose!"

Mary Rose never heard her. "Why are you always picking at me?" she demanded of Mr. Wells. "I'm only a little girl and you're a big man but never once since I came to Waloo have you looked as if you wanted to be friends with me. I don't mean to be impudent but you—you do make it very hard for me to like you." Her lip quivered and she turned quickly and hid her face against Miss Thorley's white skirt.

Miss Thorley's arm went around her and a thrill of emotion rarely intense ran over the older girl. When she spoke her voice was strange even to herself:

"Really, Mr. Wells, this is all very unnecessary. You have not been annoyed by Mary Rose or her pets. I think you can trust to her and to the Donovans—"

"Oh, you can!" Mary Rose's face came out again and she was so eager to assure him that he could that she forgot how rude it is to interrupt. "You shan't ever see Solomon unless you look out of one of the windows in the white-faced wall. He's going to live with Mr. Jerry. I've made all the arrangements. I never meant you to be bothered with him. But I do wish you'd like him. He's a very friendly dog," wistfully. "He'd like you to like him."

Mr. Wells looked at the friendly dog who wanted to be liked, and at Mary Rose, before his eyes swept the older group. There was not the faintest trace of a smile on the faces of Miss Thorley and Miss Carter, but there was more than a trace on the countenance of Bob Strahan.

"I don't like dogs!" the grin made him say with a snap. "I won't have one here!" And he went up the steps and slammed the screen door behind him.

"Mercy, mercy!" feebly murmured Mr. Strahan. "You might think he owned the whole works. My rent comes due every month, just as his does."

At her window Aunt Kate wrung her hands and thought sadly how comfortable they were in the basement of the Washington. Mr. Wells would never rest now until he had Larry discharged. She knew he wouldn't. He would never overlook the fact that Mary Rose had talked back to him on the very steps of the Washington. She could not blame Mary Rose, the child had had provocation enough, goodness knows, but she wished—she wished—Oh, how fervently she wished that Mr. Wells had never been born!

Mary Rose looked sadly after the retreating figure which looked as friendly and unbending as a poker.

"He won't ever forget I called him a crosspatch," she said sadly and she blushed.

"What!" There was an astonished chorus. How had she dared? It did not sound like Mary Rose.

"I did!" the color in her cheeks deepened painfully. "I never meant to but the words were in my mind and so they slipped out of my mouth. Come on, Jimmie, we'll take Solomon over to Mr. Jerry's. He'll be glad to see him. He's a human being."

"I think I'll go, too," suggested Bob Strahan who scented a story. "Have you seen George Washington, the self-supporting cat?" he asked Miss Thorley and Miss Carter.

"All of you come," begged Mary Rose, glowing happily again. "Mr. Jerry'd be glad to have you and there's plenty of room in the back yard. I'd like to have you see my cat. Isn't it wonderful that George Washington and Solomon are self-supporting? That's being independent, isn't it, Miss Thorley? Will you come?" she caught her hand and drew her to her feet.

Miss Thorley hesitated. If George Washington had been boarding with anyone but Jerry Longworthy she would have gone at once but Jerry Longworthy was very apt to forget that she preferred work to love. If she went to his back yard he would be sure to think that her coming was an inch and proceed to make an ell out of it. It would be far wiser to stay away. So she shook her head. "Not now, Mary Rose," she said gently. "Some other time."

After a quick glance at her face Mary Rose did not tease but went off with the others. They found Mr. Jerry in the back yard. He looked beyond them as if he found the party too small but as no one followed to complete it he gave his attention to Solomon and pronounced him something of a dog. When Jimmie had put him through his tricks again Mr. Jerry gravely shook hands with both boy and dog.

"You've been a fine teacher," he said to Jimmie. "I congratulate you."

Jimmie's face was as scarlet as the poppies in Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary's garden. "Oh, go on!" he murmured in delighted embarrassment.

"Just think, they walked all the way from Mifflin!" exclaimed Mary Rose in a voice of awe. "It took an automobile and a train and a taxicab to bring me."

"Well, I didn't have money for an auto nor a train nor a taxi," grinned Jimmie, "so Sol and I walked. Not all the way. Folks gave us a lift now and then."

"Of course they did. You'd be sure to find friends," Mary Rose told him jubilantly. "That's the beautiful part of traveling. You find friends everywhere."

"Sure!" Jimmie winked at Mr. Jerry and Bob Strahan. "I found one friend so glad to see me that he had me arrested."

"Why, Jimmie Bronson!" Mary Rose's eyes were as large as the largest kind of saucers. "What for? Was Solomon arrested, too?" She looked reprovingly at her dog.

Jimmie chuckled. "I told you I had more than one chance to sell the brute," with a loving kick at Solomon. "And one man was so mad when I told him 'nothing doing' that he had me arrested. Said I had stolen the dog from him. You see there's some class to old Sol but there isn't much to me. The judge didn't know which of us was lying until I told him that Sol was a trick dog and would the man who was trying to put one over on me run through his tricks to show they had worked together. The cuss turned green and stammered that he wasn't no animal tamer. The judge gave me a chance and we had a great performance in the courtroom. When it was over the judge said he guessed if I'd had Solomon long enough to teach him so much the man, if he was the owner, should have found him before. He fined the other chap a greenback and gave it to me. We had beefsteak and potatoes for supper instead of going to jail, didn't we, old sport?"

"Good for you!" Mr. Jerry gave him a comradely slap on the shoulder.

Bob Strahan nodded significantly to Miss Carter. "Didn't I say I'd get a story out of this?" he whispered.

"What are you going to do now, Jimmie?" asked Mary Rose. "You aren't going back to Mifflin?"

No, Jimmie wasn't going back to Mifflin. He thought, rather vaguely, he'd stay in Waloo and see the world. There must be something there for a boy to do if he were strong and willing.

"Oh, there is! Isn't there?" Mary Rose looked appealingly from Mr. Jerry to Bob Strahan.

"Sure, there is," Mr. Jerry told her heartily. He asked for further particulars. Just what would Jimmie like to do? Had he any plans?

Jimmie hadn't any plans just at present beyond food and shelter but in ten years or so he hoped to be an electrician. Of course, that couldn't be until he was a man. In the meantime he'd take anything and if he could get a job that would let him go to school he'd be about the happiest kid in the world.

"You can get that kind of job," Bob Strahan told him easily. "I'll write a little story about your trip and your arrest for the Gazette and I'll bet you'll have a lot of jobs offered you."

"And until you do you can stay here. There's a little room up there," Mr. Jerry nodded toward his attic, "that would just about fit a boy of your size. Do you know anything about autos? Have you ever met a lawn mower? I guess I can find work for you until you get a regular job."

Every freckle on Jimmie's freckled face glowed gratefully. Mary Rose jumped up and down.

"Mr. Jerry!" she began in a choked voice. She ran to him and hid her face against his hand. "First you took my cat," she gasped chokingly, "and then you took my dog and now my friend from Mifflin. I—I don't believe a friendlier man ever lived!"

"Mary Rose!" It was Aunt Kate's voice from the back door of the Washington. "Bring your friend in to supper." Aunt Kate knew that, under the circumstances, she had no business to ask a boy into the house but she felt desperately that now it did not matter what she did and it would please Mary Rose.

"Well, Mary Rose," Bob Strahan pulled her hair as they trooped back to the Washington, leaving Solomon jumping frantically at Mr. Jerry's snapping fingers, "are you happy now?"

Mary Rose's face clouded. "Half of me's happy and half of me isn't," she confessed in a low voice. "It makes me mad not to be friends with everybody and I can't honestly feel that Mr. Wells and I are friends."



CHAPTER XII

Mr. Bracken found one morning, when he had reached his office, that he had forgotten some important papers. He went home at noon to get them. He let himself into the apartment and walked directly into the living-room. He stopped with an exclamation of surprise for on the broad davenport was a little girl fast asleep. One of her arms was thrown protectingly about a brass cage in which a bird swung lazily.

"Well, upon my word!" muttered Mr. Bracken. He looked about to be sure he was in the right apartment. He had been away from home and had not met Mary Rose.

The words, low as they were uttered, reached Mary Rose's ear and she opened her eyes. When she saw a tall man staring somewhat frowningly at her she sat up suddenly.

"I—I hope you're Mr. Bracken, Mrs. Bracken's husband?" she said. There was a tremble in her voice as she slipped from the davenport and bobbed a curtsy. There was a shake in her knees, also. Suppose this strange man should be a burglar? The thought was enough to make the voice and knees of any little girl tremble and shake. But the strange man nodded curtly and Mary Rose laughed tremulously. "I thought perhaps you were a burglar," she confessed at once. "I never knew a real burglar but I see now you don't look a bit like one. If I hadn't been so sleepy I'd have seen it at once for I've the right kind of an eye, the kind that can see the good in people. I think you have, too, because your eyes are just the same color my daddy's were and he had the right kind. Gracious! I should just think he had!"

"Never mind about eyes," Mr. Bracken said impatiently. "What are you doing here?"

"I'll tell you," she blushed. "I came up to wash the dishes, as I do every morning for Mrs. Bracken, and I left the key on the outside and the wind slammed the door shut. I couldn't open it. I thought I'd have to wait until Mrs. Bracken came home to let me out. I didn't dare make a noise for fear I'd disturb Mr. Wells. I must have gone to sleep for I never heard you come in. I live in the cellar with my Aunt Kate and Uncle Larry. At first I felt like a green cucumber pickle because in Mifflin, where I used to live, there wasn't anything in our cellar but a swinging shelf for pickles and jellies and a person couldn't ever feel like a glass of plum jelly, could they? So I felt like a cucumber pickle but now I don't mind it at all. I love to live in the cellar. There's everything in getting used to things, isn't there? I like it here now pretty well for I've lots of friends. Mrs. Schuneman and Germania and Mrs. Johnson, the grandma one. We go to the park every day and feed her pet squirrel. The Lord keeps it there because she can't have any pets but canary birds in houses like this. There's a law against it, Uncle Larry said. And there's Miss Thorley, the enchanted princess, who's painting my picture for Mr. Bingham Henderson's jam to tell people how good it is. She gave me some once, apricot. We only had strawberry and raspberry and plum and grape and apple butter in Mifflin. I used to stir the apple butter for Lena. You have to stir it all the time or it burns. It makes your arm awful tired but it's good for the muscle. Feel mine!" She clenched her small arm and held it out so that Mr. Bracken could feel her muscles.

He murmured: "I'll be darned!" in a dazed sort of a way as he felt her muscle, and Mary Rose went on sociably.

"And there's Mrs. Bracken. She said I washed her dishes better than a full-sized girl. And now there's you. Have you had any lunch?" she demanded suddenly. "Shall I get you some?" she wanted to know when he had admitted that he hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. "Mrs. Bracken wouldn't like it if I let you go away hungry. It won't take a minute. You just keep an eye on Jenny Lind." And she put Jenny Lind on the table at his elbow before she flew to the kitchen.

Mr. Bracken stood and stared at Jenny Lind and then at the door through which Mary Rose had disappeared. "Well, I'll be darned!" he said again. He went to his desk and found his important papers. He did not intend to stay for lunch but when Mary Rose flew back to demand hurriedly whether he liked his eggs fried or boiled he told her boiled.

A postponed meeting brought Mrs. Bracken home that day several hours before she had planned. She stopped on the threshold in astonishment when she heard voices and laughter in the rear of her apartment. She hurried back with pursed lips and frowning face for both laugh and voice had sounded young. If Mary Rose were making free with her things she would give Mary Rose a good big piece of her mind and then she would present Mrs. Donovan with an equal portion.

She went through the dining-room and into the kitchen to find Joseph Bracken—Joseph Bracken—sitting at the kitchen table eating boiled eggs and drinking tea. Mary Rose was perched on a chair across from him and was telling him of Mifflin. Jenny Lind's cage was between them.



"Why—why," gasped Mrs. Bracken. She could not say another word. She forgot all about the big piece of her mind that she was going to give Mary Rose and stood there staring with bulging eyes.

Mary Rose jumped to the floor. "Here's Mrs. Bracken!" she cried in delight. "Isn't it a pity we didn't know she was coming? I could just as well have boiled another egg. But there's plenty of tea. It's like a party, isn't it? Except that we haven't any birthday candles. In Mifflin I always had candles on my birthday cake because daddy said a birthday should be like a candle, a light to guide you into the new year. Shall I boil an egg for you, Mrs. Bracken?"

Mrs. Bracken sat down suddenly in the chair Mary Rose had vacated and murmured helplessly: "Well, upon my word!"

"That's what I said," smiled Mr. Bracken, which wasn't exactly true although the words he had used meant the same thing, "when I came home and found a girl and a bird on the davenport."

"I locked myself in," Mary Rose explained with a shamed face. "I was careless and left the key on the outside. Mr. Bracken should have scolded me but he didn't. We've been the best friends and had the nicest time together and now it's going to be nicer because you're here."

She beamed on first one and then the other as she bustled about finding a plate and a knife and fork, making the toast that Mrs. Bracken thought she would prefer to bread and all the time talking in a friendly fashion. She never doubted that what interested her would interest others.

At first Mrs. Bracken regarded her helplessly, as Mr. Bracken had done, but gradually the look of irritation disappeared and at last a smile took its place. It was strange to share a lunch of boiled eggs and tea on the kitchen table with Joseph Bracken. She had not done that since they were first married and were moving into their first home. She hadn't thought of it for years but now it was oddly pleasant to remember the little details of a time before she had been absorbed by clubs and he by business. Neither she nor Mr. Bracken had much to say but Mary Rose talked enough for three. She waited on them with a solicitude that forced them to eat and when they had finished she sent them into the other room.

"I'll wash up. It won't take me a minute."

So, because she told them to, Mr. and Mrs. Bracken drifted into the other room and left her alone with Jenny Lind. Mr. Bracken did not take his hat and mutter that he would be back for dinner. He walked over to the window and stood looking down the street. At last he turned around and looked at his wife who was sitting on the davenport as if she were tired.

"Elsie," he said abruptly, "what ever became of your niece?"

She looked up in surprise. "You mean Harriet White? She's living with the Norrises in Prairieville."

"Wouldn't you like to have her here?" he asked suddenly. "It doesn't seem just right—decent—to let strangers look after your own relations."

Her eyes opened wider. He had never seemed to think whether it was decent or not until now. "But we can't have her here. That was the trouble after her mother died. Children aren't allowed in the house and we didn't want to move."

"How old is she?"

"Thirteen or fourteen. I'm not just sure which."

"A girl of thirteen isn't a child. Send for her, Elsie, and if anyone objects, we can move. But I guess a tenant means something to a landlord and there won't be any objections. We need her, Elsie, as much as she needs us. We need someone young with us. That kid," he nodded toward the kitchen where Mary Rose was lustily singing the many verses of "Where Have You Been, Billy Boy?" "has made me realize what we are missing. Why she fussed around me as if—as if," he colored slightly, "as if I were her father. No, it isn't anything new. I've been thinking for some time that we aren't getting all we should out of life. You give your time and strength to clubs and I give mine to business and what does it amount to? What are we working for? Abstract people aren't the same as your own flesh and blood. What we need is something to bring us together and if Hattie White is anything like that kid she'll keep us good and busy."

Mrs. Bracken slipped across the room and put her hand on his arm. "I'll be glad to send for her, Joe. I haven't felt just right to leave her with the Whites but I thought you didn't want her and I told myself that my first duty was to you. I'll write today. No, I'll go for her, if you don't mind."

"That's a good girl." His arm slipped around her waist.

Out in the kitchen Mary Rose brought her song to an abrupt close. She thrust her head in the doorway. "I'm all through. Didn't I say it wouldn't take a jiffy? It's been very pleasant but Aunt Kate'll be wondering where I am and so will Grandma Johnson. Good-by."

"Good-by," they chorused. "Come again," they added, as if they couldn't help but speak the hospitable words.

"I shall," Mary Rose called back. "Sure, I'll come again."



CHAPTER XIII

"And Mr. Jerry said that if you weren't so much of an angel you'd be a splendid artist or if you weren't so much of an artist you'd be a splendid angel. It sounds queer the way I say it but I know he meant it for a compliment." Mary Rose and Jenny Lind were posing for the jam poster. It was almost finished and Mary Rose was sinfully proud of it.

Miss Thorley frowned and refused to say what she thought of Mr. Jerry's compliment. Mary Rose frowned, also.

"You don't like Mr. Jerry very much, do you?" she ventured to ask.

"I'm too busy to know whether I do or not." Miss Thorley half closed her eyes and looked at Mary Rose in the funny way she did when she was painting. "My work takes all of my time. Chin up, Mary Rose."

"Yes'm." Mary Rose tilted her chin a little higher. "You aren't under any obligation to think of him, of course, but if your cat was boarding with him and he had borrowed your dog you'd just have to keep him in your mind and heart. And he's worth thinking of. He's a very fine young man. Everyone says so. Jimmie adores him and he hasn't known him a week. You've known him lots longer than that, haven't you?" She spoke as if she could not understand how Jimmie could be so much more clever. It must be on account of the spell that old Independence had put upon Miss Thorley. There couldn't be any other reason for not liking Mr. Jerry. He was so altogether likeable. Mary Rose sighed at life's complications. "I just love Mr. Jerry myself. I can't help it," she went on more slowly. "I wish you did, too," wistfully. "It's much more pleasant when the people you love will love each other. It gives you such a comfortable feeling as if you didn't care if Heaven was so far away. I do think this world would be almost as wonderful as Heaven if everyone would love everyone else."

"There is no doubt of that," Miss Thorley absently agreed with her.

"Then will you try and love my friends?" eagerly. She almost lost her pose in her eagerness. "I'll love yours. Every one! I will! I can because I have a big heart. Did you know that the more you put into a heart the more it will hold? It's the hearts that haven't anyone in them that are so little and hard. I think hearts must be like balloons. You can blow and blow and blow into balloons and there's always room for some more breath."

"Unless they break. Balloons break, Mary Rose, and so do hearts."

Mary Rose looked incredulous. "Mine never did. And anyway I'd rather have my heart break from being too full than get hard because it didn't have anyone in it. I'd like to have the very biggest heart in the whole world!" she cried ambitiously.

"Big enough to hold Mr. Wells? Did you know he was ill, Mary Rose? His Jap came up last night and asked Miss Carter not to play on the piano because Mr. Wells wasn't well and didn't wish to be disturbed." Miss Thorley's lip curled disdainfully.

"Mr. Wells sick?" Mary Rose was much concerned. "What's the matter?"

Miss Thorley shook her head.

"Haven't you been down to ask?" Mary Rose always had been sent to ask in Mifflin.

"Gracious, no! I shouldn't dare. He'd probably bite my head off."

"He couldn't bite your head off if he was sick. It doesn't seem real neighborly, Miss Thorley. And you are neighbors. You live right over his head. I expect he has dyspepsia and that's the reason he looked so—" she hesitated over a word, "unfriendly. Why when Mr. Lewis, he's the postmaster in Mifflin, had dyspepsia Mrs. Lewis didn't dare say her soul was her own. Mr. Lewis couldn't be cross to people when they came for their mail so he saved it all for Mrs. Lewis. That doesn't seem quite fair, does it, for people to be pleasant to outsiders and save their bad temper for their homes?"

"It isn't fair but I rather think it's human."

Mary Rose shook her head. "Sometimes I think that human and disagreeable mean the same thing because people all say the bad things we do are human. Where did we learn them, Miss Thorley? The Lord made us all good because it wouldn't have paid him to make us bad. Where do you suppose Mr. Lewis learned to snap and Mr. Wells to scold and you to frown?"

Miss Thorley certainly did have a frown. It ran right across her pretty forehead when she said: "Bless me! child, how do I know? That's enough for one day." She put the drawing board on the table and stretched herself luxuriously. "Try and be on time tomorrow, Mary Rose, and I think we can finish it."

"Yes'm." Mary Rose stared at the drawing which was a very wonderful thing to her. "Don't you believe Mr. Bingham Henderson 'll be pleased with it? It's a beautiful picture of Jenny Lind."

"It's a beautiful picture of you, if I do say it," laughed the artist.

Mary Rose drew closer until she could whisper into Miss Thorley's ear. "I wish Mr. Jerry could see it."

Miss Thorley rose abruptly and pushed her away. "He can. He'll have lots of opportunity to see it when it is on the back of a magazine. Run along, now. Skip!" She fairly pushed Mary Rose out of the door before she could say anything more about Mr. Jerry. Sometimes it seemed to Mary Rose that Miss Thorley was afraid to hear about Mr. Jerry.

She went down the stairs slowly and hesitated when she came to Mr. Wells' door. She knew she should stop and inquire how he was. It would have been a terrible breach of good manners in Mifflin not to ask after a sick neighbor, but Mr. Wells had not been like any neighbor Mary Rose had ever known. Nevertheless he was a neighbor. She tossed her head and ventured closer to the door. There was no answer when she knocked timidly and she tried again. The door was slightly ajar and when her second knock brought no response she ventured to push it open an inch. Mr. Wells might be all alone and need someone. She would just slip in and see. If he didn't she could slip out again.

There was a chilly deserted feeling in the hall that made Mary Rose shiver. She hurried through softly as if in the presence of something that oppressed her. When she reached the door of the living-room she stopped and looked across into the amazed eyes of Mr. Wells, who was lying on the broad couch.

"Oh!" Mary Rose refused to be frightened away by his scowl. "I'm so glad you're able to be up. You are better, aren't you? I was worried when Miss Thorley said you were sick and I just stopped to inquire. In Mifflin when anyone was sick we always went with chicken broth or cup custard or a new magazine. Why, when Lily Thompson had tonsilitis she had eleven different things sent in one day. I helped her eat the eating ones."

"How did you get in?" growled Mr. Wells for all the world like the Big Bear in the story of Goldilocks. Mary Rose had to think what a splendid Big Bear he would make.

"The door was open. I knocked but no one came. I was afraid you might want something. Has your Japanese gentleman gone to the drug store? Isn't it lonely for you all by yourself? I was going to ask Aunt Kate to make you some beef tea but perhaps you'd rather have Jenny Lind stay with you. She's splendid company and I'd be glad to loan her to you." She crossed the room to put the cage down beside Mr. Wells. Jenny Lind began to sing immediately as if to show Mr. Wells what splendid company she could be.

Mr. Wells raised himself on his elbow and shook a threatening fist at the canary.

"Take that damn bird away!" he shouted. His face was red and Mary Rose was sure she could see flames darting from his eyes.

"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" She snatched Jenny Lind at once. "I s-suppose she is too noisy for you yet. Mrs. Mason didn't like her when she had the nerves. But you shouldn't be alone. It's bad for you. I'm sure you need friendly company. Oh, I know the very thing!" And before the astonished and indignant invalid could say a word she had dashed out of the room.

He could hear her stumble in the hall but he did not hear her exclaim hurriedly when a door across the way opened: "Oh, Mrs. Rawson, will you take Jenny Lind for a minute? I'll be right back for her." She pushed the hook of the cage into the hands of the startled Mrs. Rawson and flew down the stairs.

She was back in an incredibly short time with a small glass globe that she carried very carefully. Her face shone as she tiptoed in and placed it on the table beside the invalid.

"There!" she said proudly. "There! The perfect pets for the sickroom. When you said Jenny Lind was too disturbing I remembered that Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary had these two little goldfish. Wasn't it lucky? She was glad to loan them to you and hopes you'll find them pleasant friends. They won't be any care at all. I'll come up every day and feed them if you don't feel well enough. I'd like to. Aren't they beautiful? Do you suppose all the fish in Heaven are like that, all gold and glisteny? Won't you just love to watch them? They can't sing or make any noise to annoy you. They'll be splendid company."

"God bless my soul!" murmured Mr. Wells helplessly, when he could find breath to murmur anything. He stared at her as if he really had never seen her before.

An exclamation, like the pop of a gun, made them look at the doorway where Sako was staring at them as if he could not believe his eyes.

"Sako!" shouted Mr. Wells, angrily. "Why did you leave the door open when you went out?"

"Wasn't it lucky he did?" asked Mary Rose, standing before him and rocking on her heels and toes as she often did when she was pleased. "I might never have come in, if he hadn't. If there's anything I can do for you, Mr. Wells, any time, don't you hesitate to ask me. Just send the Japanese gentleman right down. I live in the cellar, I mean the basement, with Aunt Kate and Uncle Larry and we'll all be only too glad to do anything to help you get well. It's horrid to be sick. You look better, I think," critically, and indeed he was not at all pale how. He had so much color in his face that he was almost purple. "I must go now and get Jenny Lind. I left her with Mrs. Rawson. I expect she thought I was crazy," with a giggle as she remembered Mrs. Rawson's amazed face.

"I'll bet she did!" Mr. Wells stared after her as if he, too, thought Mary Rose was crazy. She turned in the doorway to wave her hand to him and he watched her out of sight. Then he looked at the goldfish. He had half a mind to tell Sako to throw them out. What did he want with a couple of damned goldfish? The child was a nuisance, an unmitigated nuisance. Children always were. That was why he lived in the Washington where they were forbidden. He would have to ask the agents what they meant by letting the place be overrun with children when there was a clause in every lease forbidding it. Mary Rose might be a friendly little soul, she might mean well, but she was an unmitigated nuisance. The Lord only knew what she would do next if she remained in the building. And she had dared to talk back to him in front of people. No, he would see that the lease was lived up to. It was his right. If he demanded protection against Mary Rose, an impudent interfering chit, he fumed, the agents would have to protect him.