Miss Gibbie Gault Part 3

"And that's what governs us--that!

"Oh, august body of a.s.sembled men, The G.o.ds in thee have come to earth again!"

She bit into the sandwich and again skimmed the paper. "These are the individuals who make our local laws and do with our taxes what they will. Listen:

"'1. Josiah Chinn, Undertaker.' Deals with the dead. An eye single to the grave.

"'2. Franklin Semph, Machine Agent.' Travels. Sleeps home two nights in the week. Drinks.

"'3. Richard Moon, President Woolen Mills.' In council as matter of conscience. Only attends when Mary Cary makes him.

"'4. Jefferson Mowry. Chewer and spitter.' Livery business. Reads less than he writes--never writes.

"'5. Jacob Walstein, born p.a.w.nbroker, now Banker.' Rich and rising.

"'6. Williamson Brent, General Merchandise.' Votes as he's told by the last person who tells. Putty man.

"'7. Blacker Ash, Secretary and Treasurer of Yorkburg Shoe Factory.'

Sensible and good worker. Bachelor. Does as Miss Cary tells him.

"'8. John Armitage. Soap-box politician.' Clerk in Mr. Blick's grocery store. Salary eight dollars per week. When it's ten he will marry; told me so.

"'9. Robertson Grey, Lawyer.' Well born and lazy.

"'10. Patrick Milligan.' Whiskey business and good talker. Slippery."

She crumpled the paper and threw it at the girl standing in front of her. "There," she said, "there's the list of your Yorkburg Fathers. I hope Hedwig will fumigate you when you get home to-night."

"She will if necessary." The crumpled paper was smoothed and folded carefully. "But I don't believe it will be. I've taken tea with most of their families."

"You've taken /what?/" Miss Gibbie bounced half-way out of her chair.

"Tea." Mary Cary's head nodded affirmatively. "That's what I said, tea--I mean supper. I invited myself to some of the places, but some of the people invited me themselves. I'm afraid I did hint a little. But we had a good time, and I've got my little piece of paper--see!"

She held a note-book toward Miss Gibbie, but the latter waved it back.

"Do you mean you sat down at the table and ate with them?"

"That's what I did. It would have been better could they have sat down at my table and eaten with me, for then I could have selected the things to eat, and food makes such a difference in a man's feelings. But there isn't such a great difference in people when you know them through and through, and I had a lovely time taking supper with them. I really did.

I told you about the Milligans. Don't you remember I was sick the next day?"

Miss Gibbie shook her head. "Never told me. Glad you were sick."

"Not sick enough to hurt, or to keep me from the Mowrys the next night.

The Mowrys didn't have but four kinds of bread and three kinds of cake and two kinds of meats and some other things, but you couldn't see a piece of Mrs. Milligan's table-cloth as big as a salt-cellar, it was so full of food. I took some of everything on the table. Mr. Milligan kept handing me things from his end and Mrs. Milligan from her end, and the little Milligans from the sides, and we laughed so much and I tried so hard to eat I got really excited about it, and of course I was sick the next day. But it didn't matter. We had a beautiful time, and I learned things I never knew before."

She dropped on her knees by the older woman and crossed her arms on her lap. "When I was a little girl, Miss Gibbie, and lived here in the asylum, I used to wish I was a fairy or a witch or a wizard, or something that could make great changes, could turn things round and upside down; could put poor people where were rich, put sad ones where were happy, put the lowly where were the high, and see what they would do. And in the years I have been away, almost ten years, I have been thinking and watching and wondering if half the trouble in the world is not from misunderstanding, from not knowing each other better. And how can we know if each stays in his own little world, never touches the other's life?" She laughed, nodding her head. "I wouldn't discuss Flaubert with Mr. Milligan or Greek Art with Mr. Chinn, but they can tell me a good deal about Yorkburg's needs; and, after all, a person's heart is more important than his head. We are educating people at a terrible rate, but what are we going to do about it if we're not friends when we're through? Of course you can't see my way. You hate dirty people to come near you, but how get them clean if we keep from them?"

Miss Gibbie took up her fan and used it as if already the atmosphere were affected, then she tapped the face in front of her. "I used to be young once and dreamed dreams, but I dreamed them in my own house.

I might understand how you could eat with any sort of sinner--I've eaten with all sorts--but with people who put their knives in their mouths and don't clean their finger-nails!"

She lay back in her chair, chin up and eyebrows lifted, and Mary Cary, getting on her feet, laughed, then leaned over and kissed her.

"To-morrow night I am going to the McDougals'. Susie McDougal's beau, Mr. John Armitage, the soap-box politician, is to be there. You don't mind, do you?"

Miss Gibbie's mouth, eyes, and nose all screwed together, and the turkey-wing fan was held at arm's-length. "He uses hair-oil. Yes, I mind, but I remember I was not to interfere."

Chapter IV

THE COUNCIL CHAMBER

Miss Gibbie would not stay to dinner. "I am fond of you, my dear," she said, tying the ribbon strings loosely under her chin, "but I might not be if I had to talk to you after a full meal. And that's the trouble--you make me talk too much. If you prefer this middle-cla.s.s custom of a mid-day dinner, follow it, but don't ask me to join you."

Mary Cary laughed. "I don't think it's middle-cla.s.s. I think it's nice; it's Southern." Miss Gibbie's broad-brimmed hat was straightened, the crumpled ribbons smoothed, the plump cheeks kissed. "And if I didn't have dinner at two o'clock I couldn't have supper at seven. Thin ham and beaten biscuits and salads and iced tea and summer things like that are much nicer then meats and vegetables and desserts on warm nights. I'm not stylish. I'm just Mary Cary, who loves old-fas.h.i.+oned ways and things."

"Old-fas.h.i.+oned /ways/ and /things!/" Miss Gibbie's hands went up. "To-morrow all Yorkburg will be calling you a young woman of shocking ideas, one who actually knows something about business, about the town's financial condition and the things it needs and should have. You will be served at breakfast, dinner, and supper; held up as an example of the pernicious effects of higher education followed by foreign travel. To-night you are going to do what has never been done here before, and who is going to imagine you love old-fas.h.i.+oned ways and things? A woman has never crossed the threshold of Yorkburg's Council Chamber--"

"A good many are going to cross it to-night."

Miss Gibbie, who had started to the door, turned. "You mean a good many have promised. A very different thing. Women are cowards when it comes to a change of custom. They like their little cages. They would rather stay in and look on than come out and help. Don't expect too much of them. They have so long thought as men told them G.o.d intended them to think that it will take time for them to realize the Almighty may not object to their inquiring if they're thinking right or not.

Good-bye, child. If any fireworks go off, keep your head and send up a few yourself. Heavens, if I were young!"

As she drove off, Mary Cary waved to her, then turned and stood a moment in the wide, cool hall, looking first in the library on the right, the dining-room on the left, at the broad, winding staircase in front, and through the open door at the end to the orchard, which in the distance could be glimpsed, and her hands clasped as if to press closely the happiness that filled her.

It was hers, all hers. The dream of her starved little heart, when, as a child, she had lived in the Yorkburg Orphan Asylum, had come true. She had a home of her own.

"And I didn't have to take a husband to get it," she said, nodding her head. "That's such a satisfaction."

She dropped in the big chintz-covered chair and, with elbows on its arms and finger-tips pressed to cheeks, surveyed critically the size and shape and furnis.h.i.+ngs of the rooms, then sighed in happy content.

"It's such a pity so many people still think a home /must/ have a man in it. If a man belongs to you and is nice he might make the home nicer, but"--she shook her head--"Mrs. McDougal says there are times when a husband is a great trial. I haven't any brothers or a father, and I don't want to risk a trial yet. The reason most homes need men is because men mean money, I suppose. You can't sneeze without needing money. And yet"--she looked around--"everything in this house didn't cost as much as the rug Mrs. Maxwell has on her drawing-room floor. I don't wonder John loathes his house. You can't really see the price-tags on the things in it, but you're certain you could find them if you had the chance to look. I wonder where John's letter is?" She got up and went into the library, turned over papers and magazines on desk and tables, then rang for Hedwig.

"The mail?" she said. "Where did you put the letters this morning?"

Hedwig shook her head. "There no letters were this morning, mein Fraulein. Not one at all."

"That's queer! All right." Hedwig was waved away. "I wonder if anything is the matter? Of course there isn't--only--there haven't been three Mondays since I left here that John's letter didn't come on the early mail." She straightened a rose that was falling out of a jar and stood off to watch the effect. "n.o.body but John would write every week, when I don't write once in four--don't even read his letters for days after they come, sometimes. But I like to know they're here. I believe"--she clasped her hands behind her head--"I believe I wish I had let him come down to-night. No, I don't. But why didn't he write? He ought to have known--" She turned away. "It would serve me right if he never wrote again."

By seven o'clock she was on her way to the monthly meeting of the town council, which meeting was always held on the second Monday evening in the month, and as she started off she waved to Hedwig, standing in the door.

"Telephone Miss Gibbie not to sit up for me," she called back. "I'm going to stay all night with her, but it may be late before I get there.

Don't forget!" And again the hand was waved; and as she drove down the dusty road, Ephraim beside her, the uncertainty of the morning faded and her spirits rose at the prospect of the experience awaiting.

"You see," she thought to herself, "I've had the advantage of being poor and not expecting things to go just as I want them, so it takes a great deal to discourage me. When you're dealing with human nature it's the unexpected you must expect. 'Human nature are a rascal,' Mrs.

McDougal says, and Mrs. McDougal's observations come terribly near being true." She laughed and whistled softly, but at Ephraim's discreet cough stopped and turned toward him.

"I oughtn't to do it, ought I, Ephraim? It isn't nice. I am afraid I forget sometimes I am really and truly grown up."