Part 5 (1/2)

Presently her patience was rewarded.

”Squee-e-eak! Squee-e-eak!” complained a lathe which they were pa.s.sing.

Mary stopped her father and looked her very old-fas.h.i.+onedest at the lathe hand.

”Needs oil,” said she, ”gen'ly speaking.”

It was one of the proud moments in Josiah's life, and yet when back of him he heard a whisper, ”Chip of the old block,” he couldn't repress the well nigh pa.s.sionate yearning, ”Oh, Lord, if she had only been a boy!”

That year an addition was being made to the factory and Mary liked to watch the builders. She often noticed a boy and a dog sitting under the trees and watching, too.

Once they smiled at each other, the boy blus.h.i.+ng like a sunset. After that they sometimes spoke while Josiah was talking to the foreman. His name, she learned, was Archey Forbes, his father was the foreman, and when he grew up he was going to be a builder, too. But no matter how often they saw each other, Archey always blushed to the eyes whenever Mary smiled at him.

Occasionally a man would be hurt at the factory. Whenever this happened, Aunt Patty paid a weekly call to the injured man until he was well--an old Spencer custom that had never died out.

Mary generally accompanied her aunts on these visits--which was a part of the family training--and in this way she saw the inside of many a home.

”I wouldn't mind being a poor man,” she said one Sat.u.r.day morning, breaking a long silence, ”but I wouldn't be a poor woman for anything.”

”Why not?” asked Miss Cordelia.

She couldn't tell them why but for the last half hour she had been comparing the lives of the men in the factory with the lives of their wives at home.

”A man can work in the factory,” she tried to tell them, ”and everything is made nice for him. But his wife at home-now--n.o.body cares--n.o.body cares what happens to her--”

”I never saw such a child,” said Miss Cordelia, watching her start with her father down the hill a few minutes later. ”And the worst of it is, I think we are partly to blame for it.”

”Cordelia!” said Miss Patty. ”How?”

”I mean in keeping her surrounded so completely with old people. When everything is said and done, dear, it isn't natural.”

”But we would miss her so much if we sent her to school--”

”Oh, I wasn't thinking of sending her to school--”

Miss Patty was quiet for a time.

”If we could find some one of her own age,” she said at last, ”whom she could play with, and talk with--some one who would lead her thoughts into more natural channels--”

This question of companions.h.i.+p for Mary puzzled the two Miss Spencers for nearly a year, and then it was settled, as so many things are, in an unexpected manner.

In looking up the genealogy of the Spicer family, Miss Patty discovered that a distant relative in Charleston had just died, leaving a daughter behind him--an orphan--who was a year older than Mary. Correspondence finally led Miss Patty to make the journey, and when she returned she brought with her a dark-eyed girl who might have been the very spirit of youthful romance.

”My dear,” said Miss Patty, ”this is your cousin Helen. She is going to make us a long visit, and I hope you will love each other very much.”

The two cousins studied each other. Then in her shy way Mary held out her hand.

”Oh, I love you already!” said Helen impulsively, and hugged her instead.