Part 13 (1/2)

”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 gla.s.ses 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 Was.h.i.+ngton?” 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 s.h.i.+rked his job a minute to-day,” Bob Strahan told Miss Carter as they left the car and walked up the block to the Was.h.i.+ngton together.

In front of them sauntered a boy with a dog at his heels. The boy was a st.u.r.dy 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 G.o.d, 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.”