Mary Ware in Texas Read online

  CHAPTER VIII

  "DIE KLEINEN TEUFEL"

  CHRISTMAS was followed by a week of small calamities. Some of them wouldhave been laughable, counted singly, but taken all together they assumeda seriousness not to be considered lightly.

  In the first place, Mary, attempting to tie the boat at the usuallanding, slipped on the muddy bank and dropped the chain. In her effortto recover it she stepped into the water. Her shoes were soaking wetwhen she reached home, and as they were her only good ones she stuffedthem carefully with paper and hung them over the little drum stove inthe living room to dry. That evening Jack read aloud while they washedthe dishes, so they were all in the kitchen when the smouldering log inthe drum stove, having reached the blazing point, suddenly burst intoflame.

  Presently a smell of burning leather made them all begin to sniffinquiringly, and Mary rushed in to find that one of her shoes haddropped from the string to which she had tied it by the laces, and wasscorching to a crisp on the red-hot stove. Her old shoes were so shabbythat the immediate need of new ones, left her figuring over the familyaccounts until bed-time. It was hard to cut down a list of expensesalready reduced to low water mark.

  The next day a wet "Norther" blew up, bringing the first cold weather ofthe winter. After weeks of almost summer-like heat, the mercury droppedto freezing point in just a few hours, and roaring fires in both thekitchen and drum stoves failed to warm the little cottage. Like mosthouses in that section it had not been built with a view to excludingthe cold. The wind blew in under the north door, lifting the rugs untilthey shifted with a wave-like motion across the floor. Jack had to havea blanket hung behind his chair, and when Mrs. Ware sat down to writeher weekly letter to Joyce the draughts that rattled the windows set herto sneezing as if she never could stop.

  Mary, full of resources, brought her pink sunbonnet and perched it onher mother's head, pulling its ruffled cape well down on her shoulders.

  "There!" she exclaimed, laughing at the jaunty effect. "That will keep'the cauld blasts' from giving you a stiff neck. Do look in the mirrorand then draw a picture of yourself for Joyce. Tell her that the SunnySouth is a delusion. The mercury is only down to freezing, but I am surethat there isn't an Esquimau in all the Arctic Circle as cold as we arethis blessed minute. That wind goes through a body like a fine-pointedneedle."

  "These little stoves fairly eat up the wood," she grumbled a few minuteslater, glancing into the empty wood-box which Norman had piled to thetop before he left that morning.

  "Norman will be back soon," said Mrs. Ware, looking out from her aureoleof pink ruffles, which she had found such a comfortable shield from thedraughts that she left it as Mary had placed it. "He'll fill the boxagain as soon as he comes."

  But Mary had slipped into a coat and was tying a veil over her ears. "Itisn't safe to wait," she answered. "We'd be stiff and stark as iciclesin no time if we were to let the fires go out. I don't mind beingstoker. It's good exercise."

  She skipped out to the wood-pile gaily enough, but the tune she waswhistling changed to a long-drawn note of surprise and dismay when shesaw what inroads they had made on it since the last time she had noticedit.

  "We'll have to have another cord right away," she thought. "I neverdreamed that fuel would be such a big item of expense, away down here sofar South. But if we have much more weather like this it will be a veryserious item."

  The discovery sent her back to her account book again, but this time shetook it to her own room where Jack could not see her figuring. Thebutcher raised the price of meat that week. Both butter and eggs wenthigher, and Jack's rubber air-cushion sprung such a leak that itcollapsed hopelessly. A new one was a necessity. Then the cold Northermade Jack's rheumatism so much worse that he had to stay in bed, andseveral visits from the doctor and a druggist's bill had to be added tothe list of the week's calamities.

  The last straw was reached when Joyce's letter came, deploring the factthat the check which she was enclosing was only half the size which sheusually sent. She had some unexpected expenses at the studio which shewas obliged to meet, but she hoped to send the customary amount nextmonth. This information was not in the letter which Mrs. Ware promptlysent in to Jack by Norman, but in a separate postscript, folded insidethe check. Mary read it with startled eyes.

  "Whatever are we going to do?" she asked in a despairing whisper.

  Mrs. Ware shook her head and sat folding and unfolding the check in anabsent-minded way for several minutes. Then she went into her room forpen and ink to endorse it, so that Mary, who was going down into thetown that afternoon, could cash it. She was gone a long time and whenshe came back she had two letters ready to post.

  As Mary went down the road a while later, she glanced at the firstenvelope which was addressed to Joyce, admiring as she always did hermother's penmanship.

  "It's just like her," she thought, "so fine and even and ladylike." Thenshe gave an exclamation of surprise as she saw that the second envelopewas addressed to Mrs. Barnaby.

  "Whatever can she be writing to _her_ about?" she wondered. "It's queershe never said anything about it, when we always talk over everythingtogether, even the tiniest trifles."

  She puzzled over it nearly all the way to the post-office till sheremembered that she had heard her mother say that she was not altogethersatisfied with the new doctor's treatment for Jack, and that she wantedto ask Mrs. Barnaby whom to call in consultation. Satisfied with thatsolution, Mary thought no more about the matter till the followingFriday, when she came back from a short call at the rectory, to findthat Mrs. Barnaby had just driven away from the house. She wasdisappointed, for these visits were always hailed as joyful events bythe entire household.

  "I wouldn't have missed her for _anything_!" exclaimed Mary, followingher mother into their bedroom. "She's so diverting. What particularlyfunny things did she say this time? _What's that?_"

  Her glance and question indicated a bundle that her mother had broughtin from the back doorstep and laid on the bed. Mrs. Ware shook her headmeaningly, and closed the door into Jack's room before she answered.Then she said in a low tone:

  "It's some linen and lace that Mrs. Barnaby brought this afternoon. Iwrote to her asking her if she had any fine hand-sewing that I could do.Sh!" she whispered, lifting a warning finger, as Mary's cry of "Why,Mamma Ware!" interrupted her.

  "Jack will hear you, and he is not to know. That's why I had Pedro takethe bundle to the back door. Mrs. Barnaby understands. Something had tobe done, and under the circumstances sewing is the only thing I can turnmy hand to at home."

  "But mamma!" exclaimed Mary, so distressed that she was almost crying."Your eyes are not strong enough for that any more. You nearly woreyourself out trying to support us when we were little, and I'm very surewe're not going to allow it now. Joyce would be terribly distressed, andas for Jack--I know perfectly well that he'd just rather lie down anddie than have you do it. We'll bundle that stuff right back to Mrs.Barnaby, and I'll go down town and see if I can't get a position in oneof the stores."

  Mrs. Ware's answer was in such a low voice that it went no farther thanthe closed door, but it silenced Mary's protests. Only a few times inher remembrance had the gentle little woman used that tone of authoritywith her children, but on those rare occasions they recognized the forceof her determination and the uselessness of opposing it. Mary turnedaway distressed and sore over the situation. She said nothing more, butas she went about her work she kept wiping away the tears, and a fiercerebellion raged inwardly.

  There would have been little said at the supper-table that night ifNorman had not come home in a talkative mood. He was to start to thepublic High School the following Monday, at the beginning of the newterm, and had recently made the acquaintance of a boy lately come toBauer, who would enter with him.

  "Ed Masters is his name," Norman reported, raising his voice a trifle,so that Jack, who was taking his supper at the same time from a bedsidetable in the next room, might be included in the conversation.

&nb
sp; "I like him first rate, and it will make it lots easier for me atschool, not to be the only new boy. The only trouble is, he doesn't knowwhether his folks are going to stay in Bauer long enough to make itworth while for him to start or not. They came for the whole winter, butthey say that they can't stand it at the hotel many more days ifsomething isn't done to those Mallory kids. Ed says they're regularlittle imps for mischief. They've been here only two weeks, but they'reknown all over Bauer as 'die kleinen teufel.'"

  "Which being interpreted," laughed Jack from the next room, "means thelittle devils. What have they done to earn such a name?"

  "It might be easier to tell what they haven't done," answered Norman."There's two of them, the boy seven and the girl eight, but they'reexactly the same size, and look so much alike everybody takes them fortwins. They put a puppy in the ice-cream freezer yesterday morning, Edsays, and Miss Edna, the landlady's daughter, almost had a spasm whenshe went to make ice-cream for dinner and found it in the can.

  "Yesterday afternoon the delivery wagon stopped at the side entrance ofthe hotel (it's the Williams House where Ed is staying), and thosechildren waited until the boy had gone in with a basket of groceries.Then they climbed up into the delivery wagon and changed the things allaround in the other baskets so that the orders were hopelessly mixed up,and nobody got what he had bought. There was a ten gallon can ofkerosene in the wagon, the kind that has a pump attachment. The boystopped to talk a minute to Mrs. Williams, and by the time he got backthey had pumped all the kerosene out into the road, and were makingregular gatling guns of themselves with a bushel of potatoes. They werefiring them out of the basket as fast as they could throw, in a wildrace to see which would be first to grab the last potato.

  "Ed says they ride up and down the hotel galleries on their tricyclestill it sounds like thunder, when the other boarders are trying to takea nap, or they'll chase up and down hooting and slashing the air withswitches. If people don't dodge and scrooge back against the wallthey'll get slashed too.

  "I suppose every merchant on Main Street has some grievance againstthem, for they haven't the slightest regard for other people's rights orproperty, and they're not afraid of anything. The little girl went intothe livery stable the other day and swung onto the tail of one of thosebig white 'bus horses, and pulled a handful of hairs out of it. It's afavorite trick of theirs to climb into any automobile left at thecurbstone, and honk the horn till the owner comes out. Then they calmlysit still and demand a ride."

  "They must be the children that Doctor Mackay was telling me about,"spoke up Jack. "He came in here one day, furious with them. He hadcaught them smearing soap over the glass wind shield of his new machine.They had climbed all over the cushions with their muddy feet, andtinkered with the clock till it couldn't run. He threatened to telltheir father, and all they did was to put their thumbs to their nosesand say: 'Yah! Tattle-tale! You _can't_ tell! He's a thousand milesaway!'"

  "Isn't any one responsible for them?" asked Mrs. Ware.

  "Yes," said Norman, "there is a colored girl at their heels wheneverthey don't give her the slip. But their mother is ill--came here for herhealth, Ed says, and their grandmother who tries to look after them isso deaf that she can't hear their noise and their saucy speeches.They're so quick that she never sees them making faces and stickingtheir tongues out at people. They do it behind her back. She thinks theyare little angels, but she'll find out when they're asked to leave theHotel. Ed says it's coming to that very soon--either the Mallorys willhave to go, or everybody else will. They got into his box of fishingtackle, and you never saw such a mess as they made. He is furious."

  With her mind intent on her own troubles, Mary did not listen to therecital of other people's with her usual interest, although what sheheard that night was recalled very clearly afterward. All evening shebrooded over her grievance, trying to discover some remedy. She couldnot take the sewing away from her mother and do it herself, for whilefairly skilful with her needle, she had not learned to make a fine artof her handiwork. The garments Mrs. Ware made were as beautifullywrought as those fashioned and embroidered by the French nuns.

  "I _know_ Mrs. Barnaby never would order anything so fine andexpensive," thought Mary bitterly, "if she didn't know that we need themoney so badly. She did it because mamma asked her, and felt that shecouldn't refuse. That is a sort of charity that kills me to accept, andI sha'n't do it one minute longer than I have to."

  It was easier to make such a resolution, however, than to carry it out.A short call on Mrs. Metz next morning, showed her that her first planwas not feasible. The old woman being related to nearly half of Bauer bybirth or marriage, and knowing the other half with the intimacy of an"oldest inhabitant," was in a position to know each merchant's needs andrequirements, also what wages he paid each employee. Most of them had nooccasion to hire outside help. Their own families furnished enough. Itwas a necessary requirement of course, that any one applying for aposition must speak German. That one thing alone barred Mary out, andshe went home anxious and disheartened. Still, even if she could havespoken a dozen tongues, the position she had coveted did not seem sodesirable, after she learned the small amount the clerks received.

  All that day and the next she worried over the matter, and finallydecided to go to Mrs. Rochester and ask her advice. On the way up to therectory she stopped at the post-office. The mail was being distributed,and while she stood waiting for the delivery window to open, the rectorhimself came in. As he turned away from his locked box, in which onlypapers had been deposited so far, he saw Mary and went over to her witha cordial greeting.

  "I'm looking for something," he said with a twinkle of fun in his eyes."Maybe you can help me. It is as hard to find as the proverbial needlein the haystack, but I must have it before sundown if possible. Some oneas patient as Job, as tactful as a diplomat, with the nerve of alion-tamer and the resources of a sleight-of-hand performer--the kindwho can draw rabbits out of a silk hat if necessary."

  Mary laughed. "What are you going to do with such a wonderful creaturewhen you find it?"

  "Turn it loose on those Mallory children," answered Mr. Rochester,lowering his tone. "I was sent for yesterday, presumably to see theirmother who is an invalid, but I found that the real reason was to givesome advice to Mr. Mallory about the children. The hotel refused toharbor them any longer, and he had been summoned hastily by telegraph.He has moved his family to a furnished cottage near the hotel. Theirmeals will be sent in to them, and his mother can look after his wife,but he is desperate about the children.

  "He acknowledges he could not cope with them even if he could stay hereall the time away from his business. His wife has never allowed them tobe punished, and has foolishly humored them till they are past beingcontrolled. He besought me to find some one who could take them in handfor a part of the day at least."

  "But what could an outsider do with them if their own family hasfailed?" queried Mary.

  "Ah, that's where the lion-tamer and the sleight-of-hand performercombination gets in his work. He must quell them with his eye, and drawways and means out of his silk hat. Mrs. Mallory would like to have themtaught to read and write if it can be done without crossing the littledears, but I inferred that their father would be glad simply to havethem taken in hand and tamed sufficiently to keep them from being publicnuisances."

  Mary's pulses began to pound with the excitement of a daring thought,but she managed to appear unconcerned, and asked him in a joking way,"And if you can't find this Job-like, diplomatic lion-tamer they want,they'll have to take some ordinary person?"

  "They'll be obliged to. But I'm afraid that a quest even in thatdirection will prove fruitless. It's a field for real missionary effort,though. Some one might be willing to approach it in that spirit."

  The delivery window flew up, and as the waiting line began moving alongtowards it, Mr. Rochester lifted his hat and turned away. But before hecould fit his key in the lock of his box, Mary was at his side.

  "One moment, please,"
she exclaimed, her face flushing. She spoke veryfast. "If you think that _I_ can fill that position will you tell themabout me? I've really got lots of patience with children, and"--laughingnervously--"last summer I partly tamed a young wild-cat. I could atleast tell the children stories, and teach them all sorts of wood-lorethat would keep them busy and interested out of doors. Besides," sheflushed still deeper, "I _must_ find some way to earn some money soon.My very need of it would make me try all the harder to fill the place.I am on my way now to see Mrs. Rochester and ask her advice about whatto do."

  A few minutes later she and Mr. Rochester were walking rapidly along theroad in the direction of the Williams House. As they crossed the widefoot-bridge which spans the creek, and climbed the hill on the otherside, she told him of the work she had done the previous summer underthe noted naturalist, Professor Carnes.

  "He had arranged to send his fifteen-year-old niece to Lone Rock thiswinter," she added, "but her physicians decided at the last moment thatshe needed a milder climate. She was to have boarded near us, and I hadpromised to devote my mornings to keeping her out of doors and teachingher in an indirect way that would not suggest books or study hours.Maybe the fact that such a man as Professor Carnes thought me competentto do that, and was willing to pay me a grown teacher's salary, mighthave some weight with the Mallorys. Oh, I _hope_ they won't thinkseventeen and a half is too young," she exclaimed, with an anxiousglance at her companion, as if to discover his opinion.

  "If I'd only known such an important interview was ahead of me I'd haveworn my blue suit. I look lots older in that because it's longer thanthis one."

  "I don't think you need worry about that," the rector answered. He spokegravely, but the face he turned away from her twitched with suppressedamusement.

  They passed the Williams House, and turned in at the gate of a graycottage, where Mr. Mallory himself met them at the door. He was aprosperous young broker with an affable manner and the self-confidentair that some people acquire from the carrying of a fat bank-book. Heushered them into the room where Mrs. Mallory was lying on a couch. Shewas very young and blue-eyed and soft-haired. Curled up among thecushions under a blue and white afghan, she made Mary think of a kitten.She seemed so helpless and incapable, as if she had never known anythingbut cushions and cream, all her life.

  Two children were playing quietly under a table, in the corner. Marycould not see what they were doing, for they were lying on theirstomachs with their heads towards the wall. Only their littleblack-stockinged legs and slippered feet protruded from under the table,and they were waving back and forth in mid-air above their backs.

  When Mr. Rochester introduced Mary as the young lady they were sodesirous of finding, one pair of small legs stopped waving, and theirowner backed hastily out into the room. Humping along on all fours untilshe reached her mother's couch, she sat on the floor beside it and beganstudying the visitors with a quiet intense gaze. She was an attractivechild, with rather a wistful little face. Her hair was cut short inBuster Brown fashion, and she was remarkably strong and sturdy lookingfor a girl. Otherwise there was nothing in her appearance to justifyone's belief that she had done all the tom-boy things ascribed to her.

  To Mary's surprise Mrs. Mallory discussed the children as freely as ifthey were not present, repeating their pranks and smart sayings as ifthey were too young to understand what was being said, and franklyadmitting her inability to control them.

  "Mr. Mallory and I agree on every subject but the proper way to rearchildren, and we almost come to blows over that," she said, smiling upat him till the dimples in her cheeks made her seem more childish andappealing than ever.

  "I believe in letting children do exactly as they please as far aspossible. The time will come soon enough when they can't, poor littledears. We have not imposed our wishes on them even in the matter ofnames. It has been a life-long regret with me that my mother burdened mewith a name that I despised, and I made up my mind that _my_ childrenshould be allowed to choose their own. Little brother, there, has chosenhis father's name, Herbert. But we're slow about adopting it. We'vecalled him Brud so long, his sister's baby name for him, when she waslearning to talk, that it is hard to break the habit."

  "And the little girl?" asked Mary politely, beginning to feel that shehad hastened to shoulder a load which she might not be able to carry.

  "Really it's too cunning the way Little Sister does," exclaimed Mrs.Mallory. "One week she announces she's Genevive and the next that she'sBessie or Maud or Irma--whatever happens to strike her fancy, and shegets simply furious if we don't remember every time she changes. Thatwas one thing that Miss Edna fell out with us about. She kept callingher Bessie the week that she wished to be known as Marion. Of course thechild naturally resented it, and Miss Edna actually caught her and shookher, when she hadn't done a thing but throw a biscuit or some littlearticle like that in her direction."

  Mary cast a half-frightened glance at Mr. Rochester, aghast at theprospect before her. The soft voice went on.

  "_We_ don't believe in being harsh with children, _do_ we, Beautiful?"She reached down to stroke the little head nestled against her couch. "Iwant my children to have it to remember of their mother that she neverscolded or punished them. _You_ can say that. _Can't_ you, pet?"

  Pet only nodded in reply, but she caught the slim white hand in both herown and pressed it lovingly against her cheek. It made a pretty tableau,and Mary found it hard to realize that this affectionate little creaturewas one of the "kleinen teufel" of Norman's report. But she noticed thesatisfied gleam in the child's eyes when her mother went on to retailother instances of Miss Edna's harshness.

  Mr. Rochester saw the expression also, and the shrewd, knowing glancethat followed when he finally broached the terms of a settlement, askingthem to specify exactly what would be expected of Mary and what salarywould be paid in return. He mildly suggested that it might be wiser todispense with a juvenile audience at this point.

  He had chosen words that he thought far beyond Little Sister'scomprehension, and there was something startling as well as uncanny inthe way she spoke up for the first time since his entrance.

  "_I aren't a-going to leave this room! Nobody can make me!_"

  Mrs. Mallory looked up at her husband with an amused simper and shookher head as if to say, "Now, isn't that the smartest thing you _ever_saw?" and Mr. Rochester's suggestion was ignored.

  When they rose to go it had been arranged that Mary was to take thechildren in charge every afternoon, except Sundays, from one o'clocktill five, at the same salary Professor Carnes had offered her. She wasto teach them anything she could in any way she chose, provided hermethods did not conflict with their happiness. The chief thing was thatthey should be kept interested and amused.

  "Then to-morrow at one," said Mr. Mallory, rising with them, "they willtake their first lesson. Come out from under that table, Brud, and getacquainted with your new teacher."

  Brud waved one leg in token that he heard, but made no further response.Suddenly Sister found her voice again.

  "_What you going to teach us first? 'Cause if we don't like it we won'tgo._"

  Taken thus suddenly, without having had a moment in which to form anyplan of action, Mary groped wildly around in her mind for an answer. Sherecognized this as a crucial moment. She could not hesitate long, forMrs. Mallory's appealing blue eyes were fixed on her also, the while shepatted the child's cheek and purred, "Why, of _course_ little Sisterwill go when the nice lady is planning to give her such a happy time."

  "Happy time adoing _what_?" was the persistent question.

  Just then, Meliss, the colored nurse-girl, opened the side door, andthere floated in from the hotel kitchen the appetizing smell ofpies--hot mince pies just being lifted from the oven. Mary caughteagerly at the straw of suggestion which the odor offered. At the sametime some instinct prompted her that it was foolishness to address thischild of eight as if she were an infant, or to talk down to her as herfamily made a practise of doing. So speakin
g directly to her as if shewere addressing an intelligent and reasonable being she said gravely:

  "The kind of school we are going to have is so different from any you'veever heard of, that I can't explain it beforehand. I can only tell youthis,--it is somewhat like a Jack Horner pie. Each day you'll put inyour thumb and pull out a plum. But what that particular plum will bedepends on so many things that I could not possibly give it a namebefore it actually happens. It will be a surprise school."

  At the mention of pies the legs under the table hastily came down out ofthe air, and the small boy attached hastily backed out into generalview. Planting himself in front of Mary with a swaggering air, his feetwide apart, he announced aggressively:

  "I'll bring my new hatchet if I want to, and nobody can make me leave itat home!"

  There was something so impertinent in his manner that Mary longed toshake him and say, "Don't be so sure of that, Mr. Smarty!" Butremembering the dignified position she now had to maintain, she onlyremarked in a matter of fact tone:

  "If your hatchet has a good sharp edge it will probably be one of thefirst things you'll need. And you'll find use for a pocket full ofmedium sized nails, too."

  "What for?" he demanded, drawing a little closer to begin a thoroughcross examination. But Mary, who had turned to listen to a question ofMr. Mallory's, paid no heed.

  "I say," Brud repeated, calling as if she were deaf. "What for? _Whatfor?_ WHAT FOR?"

  Mary paid not the slightest attention until she had answered his father,then said deliberately, "I've already explained that in a surpriseschool you can't know what is going to happen till the time comes."

  "Why?" he whined.

  "Because," she said, pausing impressively, and then lowering her voiceas if she were imparting a mysterious secret, "_it's the Law of theJungle_."

  The unexpectedness of this mystifying answer and the sepulchral voice inwhich she gave it, was so different from anything Brud had everencountered before, that it took him some seconds to recover, and shewas gone before he could think of another question.

  Mr. Mallory walked to the gate with them. "You've certainly started outwell, Miss Ware," he remarked admiringly. "At first I thought we mighthave some difficulty in getting their consent to go, but they'll be onhand to-morrow all right. You've aroused their curiosity to such a pitchthat a regiment armed to the teeth couldn't keep them from satisfyingit now." After an instant's pause he added a trifle awkwardly, seemingto feel some explanation was due, "Their mother never sees a fault inthem, and my business keeps me away from them so much that--well, yousee yourself how it is."

  On the way home neither Mary nor Mr. Rochester spoke till they werehalfway down the hill. Then they looked at each other and laughed.

  "I hope I haven't got you into _too_ deep water, Miss Mary," he said."It's a big undertaking. I must confess to a curiosity as great asBrud's. What _are_ you going to do with them?"

  "Oh, I don't know!" exclaimed Mary desperately. "Did you see me fencingfor time when Little Sister demanded to be told what I'd teach themfirst? Things had happened so fast that I hadn't had a moment to think,so I had to say the first thing that came into my head. I tremble tothink what a long pause there might have been if the smell of those pieshad not suggested an answer. I think the first week I'll just play withthem as hard as I can. Play Indian maybe, so that if they get tooobstreperous it will be part of the game to tie them to a tree andtorture them. But after all I can't help being sorry for the littlethings after hearing their mother talk to them and about them."

  At the end of the foot-bridge where she turned to take the lower roadwhich was the short cut home, she started to thank him, but he stoppedher earnest words with an uplifted hand and an amused protest.

  "Wait and see how it turns out before you thank me. You may want towreak dire vengeance on me before the week's over, for getting you intosuch a predicament."

  With a cordial word of parting Mary hurried down the road, and burstinto the house with the breathless announcement that she'd consented togo as a missionary; that Mr. Rochester had persuaded her to take thestep. She waited a moment to give them a chance to guess what specialfield it was she was about to enter, but was so eager to tell that shehad to burst out with the answer herself:

  "It's to the heathen at home I am going, I'm to be an apostle to 'diekleinen teufel'!"

  Jack gave a loud whistle of surprise and then burst out laughing, butMrs. Ware looked across at him soberly, with a triumphant nod of thehead.

  "There! What did I tell you?" she asked. "Didn't I say that she'd soonadjust herself--find something to amuse herself and all the rest of usas well?"

  Mary, who had been wondering all the way home how her news would bereceived, had never imagined this--that her venture would be looked uponmerely as an outlet for her surplus energy, but after one gasp ofsurprise she was glad that her mother had put it that way.

  "She did it on purpose," Mary thought. "So that Jack need not have addedto his other ills the tormenting thought that he had driven his littlesister to a disagreeable task, in order that she might help supporthim."

  An understanding glance from her mother, full of approval and tenderappreciation, flashed on her as she drew her chair up to the stove, butall she said was, "I'm sure you had an amusing interview." Then Maryproceeded to recount it, giving a graphic and laughable description ofher half hour in the gray cottage. But all the time she was talking andmimicking she was looking forward to the moment when she could escape toa corner of the kitchen, and calculate with pencil and paper what shecould never do in her head, the height of prosperity to which this tidalwave of a salary would lift them.