Part 18 (1/2)
”If you go up high enough,” observed Mary Louise, ”the suns.h.i.+ne is almost the same as it is in the country, isn't it?”
”I shouldn't wonder,” said Charlie, ”though Calvary cemetery is about as near's I'll ever get to the country. Say, you can set here on this soap box and let your feet hang down. The last janitor's wife used to hang her was.h.i.+n' up here, I guess. I'll leave this door open, see?”
”You're so kind,” smiled Mary Louise.
”Kin you blame me?” retorted the gallant Charles. And vanished.
Mary Louise, perched on the soap box, unwound her turban, draped the damp towel over her shoulders, and shook out the wet ma.s.ses of her hair. Now the average girl shaking out the wet ma.s.ses of her hair looks like a drowned rat. But Nature had been kind to Mary Louise. She had given her hair that curled in little ringlets when wet, and that waved in all the right places when dry.
Just now it hung in damp, s.h.i.+ning strands on either side of her face, so that she looked most remarkably like one of those oval-faced, great-eyed, red-lipped women that the old Italian artists were so fond of painting.
Below her, blazing in the sun, lay the great stone and iron city. Mary Louise shook out her hair idly, with one hand, sniffed her parsley, shut her eyes, threw back her head, and began to sing, beating time with her heel against the soap box, and forgetting all about the letter that had come that morning, stating that it was not from any lack of merit, etc.
She sang, and sniffed her parsley, and waggled her hair in the breeze, and beat time, idly, with the heel of her little boot, when----
”Holy Cats!” exclaimed a man's voice. ”What is this, anyway? A Coney Island concession gone wrong?”
Mary Louise's eyes unclosed in a flash, and Mary Louise gazed upon an irate-looking, youngish man, who wore shabby slippers, and no collar with a full dress air.
”I presume that you are the janitor's beautiful daughter,” growled the collarless man.
”Well, not precisely,” answered Mary Louise, sweetly. ”Are you the scrub-lady's stalwart son?”
”Ha!” exploded the man. ”But then, all women look alike with their hair down. I ask your pardon, though.”
”Not at all,” replied Mary Louise. ”For that matter, all men look like picked chickens with their collars off.”
At that the collarless man, who until now had been standing on the top step that led up to the roof, came slowly forward, stepped languidly over a skylight or two, draped his handkerchief over a convenient chimney and sat down, hugging his long, lean legs to him.
”Nice up here, isn't it?” he remarked.
”It was,” said Mary Louise.
”Ha!” exploded he, again. Then, ”Where's your mirror?” he demanded.
”Mirror?” echoed Mary Louise.
”Certainly. You have the hair, the comb, the att.i.tude, and the general Lorelei effect. Also your singing lured me to your sh.o.r.es.”
”You didn't look lured,” retorted Mary Louise. ”You looked lurid.”
”What's that stuff in your hand?” next demanded he. He really was a most astonis.h.i.+ngly rude young man.
”Parsley.”
”Parsley!” shouted he, much as Charlie had done. ”Well, what the----”
”Back home,” elucidated Mary Louise once more, patiently, ”after you've washed your hair you dry it in the back yard, sitting on the gra.s.s, in the suns.h.i.+ne and the breeze. And the garden smells come to you--the nasturtiums, and the pansies, and the geraniums, you know, and even that clean gra.s.s smell, and the pungent vegetable odor, and there are ants, and bees, and b.u.t.terflies----”
”Go on,” urged the young man, eagerly.