Читать книгу Mary Minds Her Business - George Weston - Страница 7

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Mary grew, and grew, and grew.

She never outgrew her aversion to Uncle Stanley, though.

One day, when she was in Josiah's office, a young man entered and was warmly greeted by her father. He carried a walking stick, sported a white edging on his waistcoat and had just the least suspicion of perfumery on him—a faint scent that reminded Mary of raspberry jam.

"He smells nice," she thought, missing nothing of this.

"You've never seen my daughter, have you?" asked Josiah.

"A little queen," said the young man with a brilliant smile. "I hope I'll see her often."

"That's Uncle Stanley's son Burdon," said Josiah when he had left. "He's just through college; he's going to start in the office here."

Mary liked to hear that, and always after that she looked for Burdon and watched him with an interest that had something of fascination in it.

Before she was ten, she and Josiah had become old chums. She knew the factory by the river almost as well as she knew the house on the hill. Not only that but she could have told you most of the processes through which the bearings passed before they were ready for the shipping room.

To show you how her mind worked, one night she asked her father, "What makes a machine squeak?"

"Needs oil," said Josiah, "generally speaking."

The next Saturday morning she not only kept her eyes open, but her ears as well.

Presently her patience was rewarded.

"Squee-e-eak! Squee-e-eak!" complained a lathe which they were passing. Mary stopped her father and looked her very old-fashionedest at the lathe hand.

"Needs oil," said she, "gen'ly speaking."

It was one of the proud moments in Josiah's life, and yet when back of him he heard a whisper, "Chip of the old block," he couldn't repress the well nigh passionate yearning, "Oh, Lord, if she had only been a boy!"

That year an addition was being made to the factory and Mary liked to watch the builders. She often noticed a boy and a dog sitting under the trees and watching, too.

Once they smiled at each other, the boy blushing like a sunset. After that they sometimes spoke while Josiah was talking to the foreman. His name, she learned, was Archey Forbes, his father was the foreman, and when he grew up he was going to be a builder, too. But no matter how often they saw each other, Archey always blushed to the eyes whenever Mary smiled at him.

Occasionally a man would be hurt at the factory. Whenever this happened, Aunt Patty paid a weekly call to the injured man until he was well—an old Spencer custom that had never died out.

Mary generally accompanied her aunts on these visits—which was a part of the family training—and in this way she saw the inside of many a home.

"I wouldn't mind being a poor man," she said one Saturday morning, breaking a long silence, "but I wouldn't be a poor woman for anything."

"Why not?" asked Miss Cordelia.

She couldn't tell them why but for the last half hour she had been comparing the lives of the men in the factory with the lives of their wives at home.

"A man can work in the factory," she tried to tell them, "and everything is made nice for him. But his wife at home-now—nobody cares—nobody cares what happens to her—"

"I never saw such a child," said Miss Cordelia, watching her start with her father down the hill a few minutes later. "And the worst of it is, I think we are partly to blame for it."

"Cordelia!" said Miss Patty. "How?"

"I mean in keeping her surrounded so completely with old people. When everything is said and done, dear, it isn't natural."

"But we would miss her so much if we sent her to school—"

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of sending her to school—"

Miss Patty was quiet for a time.

"If we could find some one of her own age," she said at last, "whom she could play with, and talk with—some one who would lead her thoughts into more natural channels—"

This question of companionship for Mary puzzled the two Miss Spencers for nearly a year, and then it was settled, as so many things are, in an unexpected manner.

In looking up the genealogy of the Spicer family, Miss Patty discovered that a distant relative in Charleston had just died, leaving a daughter behind him—an orphan—who was a year older than Mary. Correspondence finally led Miss Patty to make the journey, and when she returned she brought with her a dark-eyed girl who might have been the very spirit of youthful romance.

"My dear," said Miss Patty, "this is your cousin Helen. She is going to make us a long visit, and I hope you will love each other very much."

The two cousins studied each other. Then in her shy way Mary held out her hand.

"Oh, I love you already!" said Helen impulsively, and hugged her instead. That evening they exchanged confidences and when Miss Cordelia heard about this, she questioned Mary and enjoyed herself immensely.

"And then what did she ask you?" finally inquired Miss Cordelia, making an effort to keep her face straight.

"She asked me if I had a beau, and I told her 'No.'"

"And then what did she say?"

"She asked me if there was anything the matter with the boys around here, and I told her I didn't know."

"And then?"

"And then she said, 'I'll bet you I'll soon find out.' But just then Aunt

Patty came in and we had to stop."

Later Miss Patty came downstairs looking thoughtful and spoke to her sister in troubled secret.

"I've just been in Helen's room," she said, "and what do you think she has on her dresser?"

"I give it up," replied Miss Cordelia in a very rich, voice.

"Three photographs of young men!"

The two sisters gazed at each other, quite overcome, and if you had been there you would have seen that if they had held fans in their hands, they would have fanned themselves with vigour.

"Didn't you hear anything of this—in Charleston?" asked Miss Cordelia at last.

"Not a word, my dear. I heard she was very popular; that was all."

"'Popular' … !"

"The one thing, perhaps, that we have never been."

Miss Cordelia shook her head and made a helpless gesture. "Well," she said at last, "I must confess we were looking for an antidote … but I never thought we'd be quite so successful. … "