Mary Rose of Mifflin Part 23

"Yes, I've read it."

"Uncle Larry and Aunt Kate don't know I wrote it. I just had to because if Uncle Larry loses his job it's all my fault. Not all mine really for it wasn't exactly my fault that my mother died when I was six months old and that daddy went to Heaven in June so there was no one left to take care of me but Aunt Kate. I've tried to be good," she resolutely winked back a tear, "and not make trouble. Mrs. Schuneman and Mrs. Bracken and Mr. Bracken and Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Rawson and Miss Thorley and Miss Carter and Mr. Strahan like me awfully. They said so. I wish you'd please speak to them before you give your advice. Will you?" eagerly.

The frown on Mr. Wells' face grew very black and threatening. It made Mary Rose's little heart jump right into her mouth and she shut her white teeth tight so that it wouldn't jump out.

"It's--it's awfully rude of me to speak of it," she went on in a low shamed voice. "I shouldn't remind you, I know, but you are under an obligation to me. I was neighborly when you were sick. I brought you the goldfish. It isn't much that I ask, just for you to speak to the tenements. If they say I'm a nuisance, why I won't say another word because it's the law, but I _am_ getting bigger every day, now.

Please, promise me just that much?"

And Mr. Wells promised. He couldn't very well refuse. Mary Rose caught his hand and hugged it to her thumping little heart.

"You're a kind, kind man," she said. "I know you are. I don't care what people say. And you'll see I'm treated fair? That's all I ask, Mr. Wells, honest it is! Just for the owner to be fair. Good night.

I'm going to tell everyone you didn't steal Jenny Lind."

CHAPTER XXII

There was a short story in the Waloo _Gazette_ the next evening that would have interested Mary Rose very much if she had read it. It was one of the little incidents that have both a pathetic and a humorous appeal and it was very well written. It told of a little black-haired swarthy-skinned girl who had always longed for long yellow curls. When illness robbed her of the hated, black locks she had resolutely set to work to earn money to buy a wig that she might return to school. All summer she worked under the hot sun, picking berries for a neighboring farmer, her bald head covered with a ragged straw hat, and when the last berry was gathered and she had the required sum she had triumphantly purchased the long yellow curls she had craved always.

And now, prouder than any queen, she was attending the Lincoln School.

It was the sort of story that a city editor likes for it brings shoals of letters with offers of help, to the newspaper office, and proves in a most practical way that it has been read.

Usually Mary Rose was home from school by four o'clock for at half-past three her room was dismissed and it never took her more than half an hour to say good-by to her numerous new friends and dawdle home.

But the afternoon after the story of the yellow-curls appeared in the _Gazette_, Mary Rose was not at home at four o'clock. She was not at home at half-past four. Mrs. Donovan looked uneasily at the clock. It was not like Mary Rose to be so dilatory. At a quarter to five Mrs.

Donovan put on her hat and walked up the street. She would go and meet Mary Rose. Perhaps the child had been kept after school, perhaps she had stopped to play in spite of the fact that she had been told she must come straight home from school always.

Mrs. Donovan walked the six blocks to the Lincoln School without seeing as much as the hem of Mary Rose's gingham skirt. The big school building loomed up in front of her silent and forlorn. She stared at it before she went up the steps and tried to open the door. It was locked. Then Mary Rose had not been kept after school. Where could she be? She might have gone home a different way so as to walk with one of her new friends. Of course, she was safe at home by now. Mrs.

Donovan retraced her steps very hurriedly but she found no Mary Rose in the bas.e.m.e.nt flat. It was so strange that she was worried. Where could the child be?

Suddenly she laughed unsteadily. What a fool she was. To be sure, Mary Rose had stopped to see Mrs. Schuneman or to exchange experiences with Harriet White who was now attending the Lincoln School, too. She ran up to the first floor to knock at Mrs. Schuneman's door and say breathlessly that she wanted to speak to Mary Rose at once. Mrs.

Schuneman heard her and followed Mina.

"Mary Rose isn't here, Mrs. Donovan," she said. "Hasn't the little minx come home yet?"

"No, she hasn't!" Mrs. Donovan was most unpleasantly disappointed. "I don't understand it. I've told her again and again that she was to come straight home as soon as school was out. Then she could go out to play. But she was to come home first."

"Perhaps she's over to Mrs. Bracken's?" suggested Mrs. Schuneman and she followed Mrs. Donovan across the hall.

But Mary Rose was not at Mrs. Bracken's. Neither was she in any other apartment in the Was.h.i.+ngton. Mrs. Donovan's ruddy face lost its color.

"She can't be lost," she said, expecting Mrs. Schuneman promptly to agree with her that Mary Rose could not be lost. "She's big enough to know where she lives if she is only ten." She did not care now if everybody knew how old Mary Rose really was.

"Of course, she isn't lost," everyone told her soothingly. "She knows where she belongs. Perhaps she is over at Longworthys'?"

But neither Mr. Jerry nor his Aunt Mary had seen Mary Rose that day.

Jimmie Bronson, who came in while Mrs. Donovan was inquiring, had not seen her since noon. Mrs. Donovan was very uneasy as she went home.

"The little thing's that friendly and honest herself she thinks everyone else is friendly. She don't know anythin' about city folks.

I wish she'd come," she told Mrs. Schuneman who came down to hear if Mary Rose had been found.

"You remember that girl over on Sixth Avenue who was kidnapped last--"

began Mrs. Schuneman and clapped her hand over her mouth, hoping Mrs.

Donovan had not heard.

But she had heard and her face whitened. The minutes dragged slowly by and Mary Rose did not come home. Larry Donovan was downtown and was late, also. When he did come in he could not understand at first that Mary Rose was missing.

"She's in the house somewhere," he insisted, "with Miss Carter or old lady Johnson."

"I've inquired at every flat in the building," half sobbed Mrs.

Donovan. "I can't imagine where she is."

"Who's her teacher?" asked Bob Strahan. "Do you know her name? I'll telephone and ask her if she knows whether Mary Rose went off with any of the kids."

Mrs. Donovan stopped twisting a corner of her white ap.r.o.n.

"Her teacher's name is Choate, Isabel Choate. But I dunno where she lives," she wailed.

"The directory does," Bob Strahan said encouragingly. "And so, I'm sure, does the telephone book."

He had no difficulty in getting Miss Choate on the telephone, but the teacher only remembered that Mary Rose had left the building when the other children did. She had seen her go out of the school yard with a group of boys and girls. Who were they? She was sorry but she did not remember. They had not impressed her. She had noticed no one but Mary Rose, who had such a strong personality one had to notice her. She did hope that nothing had happened to her and she, too, remembered the little girl who had been kidnapped over on Sixth Avenue.

"Of course, nothing has happened to her," Bob Strahan said hurriedly.

"She'll turn up all right."

He told Mrs. Donovan the same thing when he went back and reported the result of his interview.

"What shall I do?" Mrs. Donovan was twisting the corners of her ap.r.o.n into hard knots and her mouth twitched with nervousness. "She's never been out so late as this since she came to Waloo. An' she's all alone!

I'll never forgive myself if anythin's happened to her."

"We'll go over to the police station," suggested Mr. Jerry. "What did she wear, Mrs. Donovan? The police will want a description of her clothes."

Mrs. Donovan sobbed as she described the blue and red and green gingham frock with the white collar and black patent leather belt that had been Mary Rose's pride.

"We'll call up the hospitals, too," Mr. Jerry said to Bob Strahan as they drove to the police station in his car. "It's just possible that she has been hurt, an automobile or something, and taken to a hospital If she was knocked unconscious she couldn't very well tell who she was."

"Gee!" exclaimed big-eyed white-faced Jimmie Bronson, who had jumped into the tonneau and was standing with his hands on the back of the front seat, "I hope Mary Rose wasn't knocked insensible!"

The police had heard nothing of any little girl who answered to the description of Mary Rose but a careful note was made of what Mr. Jerry and Bob Strahan had to say of her disappearance. There had been no report of any accident in the district and no child had been kidnapped so far as the police knew. Mr. Jerry and Bob Strahan were disappointed. They felt baffled. It didn't seem possible that a little girl could have disappeared so completely as Mary Rose had disappeared. When they drove back to the Was.h.i.+ngton, Jimmie was not with them. He was going to make a few inquiries on his own hook, he told the two men.

"No news is good news, Mrs. Donovan," Mr. Jerry insisted. "Mary Rose is all right. No one could harm her."

"I wish I could believe that." Mrs. Donovan had lost control of herself and was sobbing bitterly. "Here it is after ten o'clock an' we don't know where the little thing is. Seems if bad luck was taggin'

her. It isn't a week since her bird was stolen and now--" she shuddered and hid her face in her ap.r.o.n.

"Nothing's happened to her," repeated Mrs. Schuneman with a poor attempt at firmness. "Nothing could happen to a child like Mary Rose.

It's when you're looking for trouble that trouble comes, Mrs. Donovan, and Mary Rose never looked for trouble. She was too busy looking for friends."