Books: Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories

K >> Kathleen Norris >> Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories

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"He DOESN'T say that?" ejaculated the listener, incredulously.

"'She doesn't know I am writing you,'" Mr. Fox read on grimly,
"'because I don't want her to worry about your objecting. But you
won't object when you know her. She doesn't care anything about
money, and says she will stick by me if we have to begin on an
eighty-dollar-a-month job. You don't know how I love her, dad; it
has changed my whole life. It's not just because she's beautiful,
and all that. You will say that I am pretty young, but I know I can
count on you for some sort of job to begin with, and things will
work out all right.'"

"H-m!" said Mrs. Fox. "Yes, you're right, Tony. This is serious!"

"All worked out, you see," said the man, gloomily, as he drummed
absently on the letter.

"Oh, Anthony, I can't help thinking of the Page boy, and that awful
woman! Anthony, shall I go? Could I do any good if I went?"

"No," he said thoughtfully. "No, I'll go myself. Don't worry, Fanny,
there's still time. Isn't it a curious thing that it's a quiet
little fellow like Bud that--well, we'll see what can be done. I'll
talk to this woman. She may think he has money of his own, you know.
I'll buy her off if I can. Perhaps I can get him to go off somewhere
with me for a trip. I'll see. Barker can look me up a train, and
things here will have to wait. You'll see about my things, will you,
Fanny--have 'em packed? Oh, and here's the letter--pretty sick
reading you'll find it!"

"Be gentle with him!" said Mrs. Fox, deep in the boy's letter.
"Thirty-two! Why, she might be his mother--in some countries she
might, anyway. Anthony!"--her voice stopped him at the door--"IS her
name Sally Mix?"

"Apparently," he said. "Can you beat it? It sounds like a drink!"

"Well," said Mrs. Fox, firmly, as if the name clenched the matter,
"it must be STOPPED, that's all! Sally Mix! I hope she's WHITE!"

II

Just a week later, in Palo Alto, California, Anthony Fox slammed the
gate of Miss Mix's garden loudly behind him, and eyed the Mix
homestead with disapproval. The house was square and white, with
doors and windows open to spring sunlight and air, and was
surrounded by a garden space of flowers and trees and trim brick
walks. The click of the gate brought a maid to the doorway.

"Mr. Fox won't be here until noon," said the maid, in answer to his
question.

"Does Miss--could I see Miss Mix?" substituted Anthony, after a
moment's thought.

He took a porch chair while she departed to find out.

"If you please," said the maid, suddenly reappearing, "Miss Mix is
setting a Plymouth, and will you step right down?"

"Setting a--" scowled Anthony.

"Plymouth," supplied the maid, mildly.

Anthony eyed her suspiciously, but there was evidently nothing
concealed behind her innocence of manner. Finally he followed the
path she indicated as leading to Miss Mix. He followed it past the
house, past clothes drying on lines, past scattered apple trees with
whitewashed trunks, and down a board walk to the chicken yard.

No one was in sight. Anthony rattled the gate tentatively. A slim,
neat, black Minorca fowl made an insulting remark about him to
another hen. Both chuckled.

"Come in--come in and shut it!" called a clear voice from the
interior of the chicken house.

Anthony's jaw stiffened.

"May I speak to you?" he called, with as much dignity as a person
shouting at an utter stranger across an unfamiliar chicken yard may
command.

"Certainly! Come right in!" called the voice, briskly.

Seeing nothing else to do, Anthony unwillingly crossed the yard, and
stepped into the pleasant, whitewashed gloom of the chicken house.
Loose chaff was scattered on the floor, and whitewashed boxes lined
the walls. An adjoining shed held the roosts, which a few murmuring
fowls were looping with heavy flights.

As he entered, a young woman in blue linen shut a gray hen into a
box, and turned a pleasantly inquiring glance upon him.

"Good morning!" she said, smiling. "I knew you would want to see the
thing sooner or later, so I asked Statia to show you right down
here. Now, there's the trap"--she indicated a mass of loose chains
and metal teeth on the floor--"and here's the key; but it simply
WON'T work!"

Anthony was not following. He was staring at her. She was extremely
pretty; that he had expected. But he had not expected that she--she-
-well, he was not prepared for this sort of a woman at all! He must
go slow here. He--she--Bud--

"I beg your pardon," he interrupted himself to stammer
apologetically, "I didn't catch--you were saying--"

"The trap!" she said, smiling.

"Ah, the trap!" repeated Anthony, inanely.

"Certainly!" she said, with a hint of impatience. Then, as he still
stared, she added quickly: "You're the man from Peterson's? From San
Mateo? You came to fix it, didn't you?"

"Not at all," said Anthony, smiling. "I came from New York."

Light dawned in the girl's eyes. She gave a horrified laugh.

"Well, how stupid of me!" she ejaculated. "Of course, I thought you
were. I'm expecting a man to fix the trap, any day, and you sent no
name. I bought this affair a week ago; there's a coon, or a fox, or
something, that's been coming down from the hills after my pullets;
but it won't work."

"I don't know anything about traps," said Anthony.

He was wondering how he had best introduce himself. The vague
campaign that he had outlined on those restless nights in the train
would be useless here, he had decided. As he spoke, he absently
touched the tangled chains and bolts with his foot.

"Don't do that!" screamed Miss Mix.

At the same second there was a victorious convulsion of metal teeth,
and Anthony found himself frantically jerking at his foot, which was
fast in the trap.

"Oh, you're caught! You are caught!" cried the girl, distressedly.
"Oh, please don't hurt yourself tugging that way--you can't do it!"

Her eyes, full of concern and sympathy, met his for a second; then,
suddenly, she broke into laughter.

"Why, confound the thing!" said Anthony, in pained surprise, as he
struggled and twisted. "How does it open?"

"It DOESN'T!" choked Miss Mix, her mirth quite beyond control, as
she gave various futile little tugs and twitches at the trap.
"That's the trouble! The key never has had the slightest effect. Oh,
I will NOT laugh this way!" she upbraided herself sternly. "Bu--bu--
but you did look so--" She abruptly turned her back upon him for a
moment, facing him again with perfect calm, although with lashes
still wet, and suspicious little dimples about her mouth. "Now, I'll
get you out of it immediately, "she assured him gravely; "and
meanwhile I can't tell you how sorry I am that--just sit on this
box, you'll be more comfortable. I'll run and telephone a plumber,
or some one." She paused in the doorway. "But I don't know your
name?"

"Appropriately enough, it's Fox," said he, briefly; "Anthony Fox."

Miss Mix gasped, opened her mouth, shut it without speaking, and
gasped again. Then she sat down heavily on a box.

"Of New York--I see!" said she, but more as if speaking to herself
than to him. "Tony's father; he's written to you, and you've come
all the way from New York to break it off. I see!" Desperation
seemed to seize her. "Oh, my heavenly day!" she ejaculated. "Why
didn't I think of this? This serves me right, you know," she said
seriously, bringing her attention to bear fully upon Anthony; "but
let me tell you, Mr. Fox, that this is about the worst thing you
could have done!"

"The worst!" said Anthony, dully.

He felt utterly stupefied.

"Absolutely," said she, calmly. "You know you only hasten a thing
like this by making an out-and-out fight of it. That's no way to
stop it!"

"Are you Miss Mix?" said Anthony, feebly.

"I am." She nodded impatiently. "Sarah Mix."

"Then you and my son--" Anthony pursued patiently. "Didn't he write?
Aren't you--"

"Engaged? Certainly we are," admitted the lady, with dignity. "And
it would no more than serve you right if we got married, after all!"
she added, with a sudden smile.

Anthony liked the smile. He smiled broadly in return.

"IF you got married! Do you mean you don't intend to?"

"I see I'll have to tell you," said Miss Mix, suddenly casting
hesitation to the winds. "Then we can talk. Yes, we're engaged, Mr.
Fox. What else could I do? Anthony's twenty; one can't treat him
quite as if he were six. He's absolutely unable to take care of
himself; and I've always liked him--always! How COULD I see a girl
like Mollie Temple--but of course you don't know her. She's with the
'Giddy Middy' company, playing in San Francisco now."

"No, I don't know her," said Mr. Fox, stiffly.

"Well," continued Miss Mix, "her mother lives here in Palo Alto, and
Mollie came home for September. Tony was just what she was looking
for. A secret marriage, a sensational divorce, and alimony--Mollie
asks nothing more of Fate! She made him her slave."

"Lord!" said Anthony.

"Every one was talking about it," continued Miss Mix; "but I never
dreamed of interfering until Thanksgiving, when the Temples planned
a week's house-party in Santa Cruz, and asked Tony to go. That
would have settled it; so I managed to see Tony, and from that day
on I may say I never let go of him. I took him about, I accompanied
him when he sang--just big-sistered him generally! I'm thirty-two,
you know, and I never dreamed he would--but he DID. New Year's
night, Mr. Fox. Well, then I either had to say no, and let him go
again, or say yes, and hold him. So I said yes. I couldn't stop him
from planning, and I never dreamed he'd write you! Now, do you begin
to see?"

"I see," said Anthony, huskily.

He cleared his throat.

"Meanwhile," pursued Miss Mix, glowing delightedly in the sympathy
of her listener, "I introduced him to the Rogerses and the Peppers,
and lots of jolly people, who are doing him a world of good. He goes
about--he's developing. And now, just as I began to hope that the
time had come when we could quietly break off our engagement, here
YOU are, to make him feel in honor bound to stick to it!"

"Well, I am--" Anthony left it unfinished. "What can I do?" he asked
meekly.

"We'll find a plan somehow," said Miss Mix, approvingly. "But you
must be got out first!"

"And meanwhile," said Anthony, awkwardly, "I don't really know how
to thank you--"

"Oh, nonsense!" she said lightly. "You forget how fond I am of him!
Now, I'll go up to the house, and--" Her confident voice faltered,
and Anthony was astonished to see a look of dismay cross her face.
"Oh, my goodness gracious heavenly day!" she ejaculated softly.
"Whatever shall we do now? Now we never can get you out!"

"Then I'll stay in," laughed Anthony, philosophically.

Miss Mix echoed his laugh nervously. She glanced across the yard.

"It's that disgusting newspaper contest!" she said.

"That WHAT?"

"Please don't shout!" she begged, sitting down on her box again,
"I'll explain. You see, the San Francisco CALL, one of the big city
dailies, has offered the job of being its local press representative
to the college man who brings in the best newspaper story between
now and the first of May--that's less than ten days. Of course, all
the boys have gone crazy over it. It's a job that a boy could easily
hold down with his regular class work, and it might lead to a
permanent position on the paper's staff after graduation. About ten
boys are working furiously for it, and all their friends are working
for them. Tony's helping Jerry Billings, and Jerry has already taken
in a couple of good stories, and has a good chance. This, of course,
would land it!"

"What would?"

"Why, THIS!" She was laughing again. "Can't you see? Think of the
head-lines! Even your New York papers would play it up. Think of the
chance to get funny! 'Old Fox in a Trap!' 'Goes to Bed with the
Chickens!' 'Iron King Plays Chanticleer!'"

"Thunder!" said Anthony, uncomfortably.

"There'd be no end of it, for you or me," said Miss Mix. "I know
this town."

"Yes, you're right!" agreed Anthony. "The idea is for me to sit here
until after the first of May, eh?" he continued uncertainly.

Her eyes danced.

"Oh, we MAY think of some other way!"

"Tony's not to be trusted, you think?"

"No-o! I wouldn't dare. He's simply mad to have Jerry win. He'd let
it out involuntarily."

"The maid can go for a plumber?"

"Statia? She's working for Joe Bates. And both the boys in the
plumber's shop are in college, anyway."

"You might telephone for a plumber from San Francisco?" suggested
Anthony, afterthought.

"Yes, I could do that." Miss Mix brightened. "No, I can't, either,"
she lamented. "Elsie White, the long-distance operator, is working
for Joe Bates, too." She meditated again for a space, then raised
her head, listening. "They're calling me!" she whispered.

With a gesture for silence, she sprang to the door. Outside, some
one shouted:

"O Sally!"

"Hello, Tony!" she called hardily, in answer. "Lunch, is it? No,
don't come down! I'm just coming up!"

With a warning glance over her shoulder for Anthony, she closed the
door and was gone.

III

A long hour followed, the silence broken only by occasional low
comments from the chickens, and by voices and footsteps coming and
going on the side of the chicken house where the street lay.
Anthony, his back against the rough wall, his hands in his pockets,
had fallen into a smiling revery when Miss Mix suddenly returned.
She carried a plate of luncheon, and two files.

"We are safe!" she reassured him. "The boys think I am playing
bridge, and I've locked the gate on the inside. Now, files on
parade!"

She tucked the filmy skirts of her white frock about her, sat down
on a box, and began to grate away his bonds without an instant's
delay. Her warm, smooth hands he found very charming to watch. Loose
strands of hair fell across her flushed, smooth cheek. Anthony
attacked his lunch with sudden gayety.

"How much we have to talk about!" he said, observing contentedly
that five minutes' filing made almost no impression upon his chains.
She colored suddenly, but met his eyes with charming gravity.

"Haven't we?" she assented simply.

"Why, no, it won't break his heart, Mr. Fox. I think he'll even be a
little relieved to be able to go on serenely with the Peppers and
the Rogerses. He's having lovely times there!"

"Oh, if his mother had lived, of course I should have written to
her; but I knew you were a very busy man, Mr. Fox. Tony hardly ever
speaks of his Aunt Fanny. She's a great club woman, I know. So I had
to do the best I could."

"Why, I didn't think much about it, I suppose. But I certainly
should have said that Tony's father was more than forty-five!"

"Ye-es, I suppose it might. But--but what a very funny subject for
us to get on! I suppose--look at that white hen coming in, Mr. Fox!
She's my prize winner. Isn't she a beauty?"

"Yes, indeed, he's all of that, dear old Tony! And then, as I say,
he reminded me of--of that other, you know, years ago. I was only
nineteen, hardly more than a child, but the memory is very sweet,
and it made me want to be a good friend to Tony!"

"There's the six o'clock bell, and you're all but free! Now, I'll
let you out by this door, on the street side, and you can find your
hotel? Then, when you call this evening, we needn't say anything of
this. It hasn't been such a long afternoon, has it?"

Just after dinner, as Miss Mix and her youthful fiance were sitting
on the porch in the spring twilight, a visitor entered the garden
from the street. At sight of him, the boy sprang to his feet with a
cry of "Dad!"

Miss Mix was introduced, and to young Tony's delight, she and his
father chatted as comfortably as old friends. Presently, when Jerry
Billings appeared with an invitation for the lady to accompany him
to the post office for possible mail, father and son were left alone
together.

Young Anthony beamed at his father's praise of his choice, but his
comments seemed to come more easily on other matters. He told his
father of the Rogers boys, of the Pepper girls, and of tennis and
theatricals, and spoke hopefully of a possible camping trip with
these friends.

"When did you think of announcing your engagement, Bud?"

The boy shifted in his chair, and laughed uneasily.

"Sally doesn't want to," he temporized, adding shyly, after a
minute's silence, "and I didn't think you'd be in any hurry, dad!"

"But look here, son, you wrote that you planned being married in
June!"

There was a pause. Then the boy said:

"I did think so; but now I don't see how we can. Sally sees that,
too. I can't get married until I have a good job, and I've got
another year here. We don't want to tell every one and then have to
wait two or three years, do we, sir?"

"H-m!" said his father. "And yet you don't want to ask me to support
you and your wife for indefinite years, Bud?"

Bud squeezed his father's hand.

"I'll never ask you to do that!" he promised promptly.

IV

A week drifted pleasantly over the college town, and still no
definite step had been taken in the matter that had carried Anthony
Fox over so many weary miles of country. If business matters in the
Eastern city gave him any concern, he gave no sign of it to young
Anthony or Sally, seeming entirely content with the passing moment.

The three were constantly together, except when the boy was in the
class-room. During these intervals Miss Mix piloted her friend's
father over lovely Palo Alto; they visited museum and library
together, took drives and walks. One long evening was spent at the
Peppers', where young Anthony was the centre of a buzzing and
hilarious group, and where Sally, with her black evening gown and
her violin, presented an entirely new phase.

On the evening of a certain glorious day, to young Anthony, sitting
in silence on the porch steps, came Sally, who seated herself beside
him.

"Tony," said she, firmly, "what have we decided about our
engagement?"

Young Anthony eyed her expectantly, almost nervously, but he did not
speak.

"We must either announce it or NOT announce it, Tony!"

"Why, you see, Sally," said Anthony, after a pause, "I wanted to, a
while back, but--" "I know you did," she said heartily, to his
great relief.

"But now, he pursued slowly," it would look pretty funny to the
Rogerses, and the Peppers, and all, you know. JUST now, I mean. I've
been up there all the time, right in things, and I've never said a
word--"

"Well, well!" said a voice behind them; and to the unspeakable
confusion of both, Jerry Billings rose from a porch chair and came
down to them.

"I couldn't help hearing," explained that gentleman, joyously. "I
was there first. I wish you joy, children. Miss Sally, here's my
best wishes! I never dreamed you two--and yet I knew SOMETHING had
brought father all the way from New York. But I never dreamed of
this! This ought to land me the Call job, all right! Hasn't that
occurred to either of you? Why, nobody has turned in anything to
touch it!" He looked at his watch. "I had better be getting down
there, too," he said excitedly. "Tomorrow's the first of May, by
George! and I've got to get any stuff in by ten. And there I've been
sitting, cursing my luck for an hour! Here goes!"

"Look here, Jerry," began Sally and Anthony together, "look here--"

"You mean you don't want it announced?" said Mr. Billings, blankly.
A pained look clouded the radiance of his face. "Isn't it TRUE?"

"We don't wish it announced yet," said Sally, feebly, as Anthony was
silent.

"I call that pretty mean!" ejaculated Mr. Billings, after a pause.
"It's TRUE," he went on aggrievedly. "I landed it--every old woman
in town will be on to it in a few weeks--it's a corking job for me--
every one's wondering what Mr. Fox is doing here--and now you two
hang back, just because you've not had time to tell your friends!
Aw, be sports," he said ingratiatingly. "PLEASE, Miss Sally! I'd do
as much for you two. You know I may not be able to make it at all,
next year, if I haven't a job! I can have it, can't I? I get it,
don't I, Tony? What do you two care--you've got what YOU want--"

"Oh, take your scoop!" half groaned young Anthony Fox.

Sally began to laugh, but it was curiously shaken laughter. Mr.
Billings wisely seized this moment for a rapid departure. Mr. Fox,
coming to the door a moment later, found the others silent on the
steps.

"Now we are in for it!" said Sally, ruefully, as they made room for
him between them. "What shall we do? Jerry's got it for the Call--we
couldn't LIE about it! And, oh, we CAN'T have it in print to-morrow!
Can you--can't you stop it?"

"Too late now!" said young Anthony, with a bad attempt at unconcern.

"Tell me what happened," said his father.

The recent developments were rapidly reviewed, and then Sally,
removing herself and her wide-spreading ruffles to young Anthony's
side of the steps, so that she might from time to time give his hand
an affectionate and enlightening squeeze, confessed the deception of
her engagement to him, and, with her blue eyes very close to his,
asked him meekly to forgive her.

Young Anthony's forgiveness was a compound of boyish hurt and
undisguised relief. It is probable that at no moment of their
friendship had she seemed more dear to him.

"But--there's Jerry!" said Sally, suddenly, smitten with unpleasant
recollection in the midst of this harmonious readjustment. "He--he
heard, you know. And we can't deny THAT, and it means so much to
him! He'll have telephoned up to town by this time, and the Call
will run it anyway--newspaper editors are such beasts about those
things!"

And again she and young Anthony drooped, and clung to each other's
hands.

"I have been thinking," said the other Anthony, slowly, "that I see
a way out of this. I HOPE I see one! I'd like--I'd like to discuss
it with Miss Sally. If you'll just step down to the--the chicken
yard, Bud, for five minutes, say. We'll call you. And it's just
possible that we can--can arrange matters."

Half an hour later, Jerry Billings succeeded a second time in
getting the city editor of the Call on the long-distance wire.

"Hello, Mr. Watts! Say, about that engagement of young Fox, Mr.
Watts," he began.

"Well, what's the matter with it?" came back the editor's voice,
sharply.

"Nothing's the matter with it," said Jerry, "only it's better than I
thought! It's--it's old Fox that Miss Mix is going to marry! Old
A.F. himself!"

"Who said so?" snapped the other.

"Fox did."

"FOX?"

"Yes, sir. He just telephoned to me. Gave me the whole thing. Said
he wanted it to be published straight."

There was a pregnant silence for a few moments, then:

"This is no jolly, Billings? It's big stuff if it's true, you know."

"Oh, it's true enough," said Jerry, trying to control his voice.

"Well, we've got his picture--I'm sure!" said Mr. Watts, calmly.
Then in obedience to Mr. Watts' curt "Hold the wire!" Jerry, with
the receiver pressed to his ear, heard the city editor's voice on
another telephone on his desk talking presumably to the make-up man
on the next floor.

"Hello, Frank!" said Watts. "Tell Mike Williams to run that
suffragette stuff on the third page. I've got a big story. I want
room for a double cut and a column on the front!"

Then: "Hello, Billings! You telephone me six hundred words on this
thing inside of an hour. No frills you understand. Just give me the
straight facts. We'll fix the yarn up here."

SHANDON WATERS

"For mercy's sakes, here comes Shandon Waters!" said Jane Dinwoodie,
of the post-office, leaving her pigeonholes to peer through the one
small window of that unpretentious building. "Mother, here's Shandon
Waters driving into town with the baby!" breathed pretty Mary
Dickey, putting an awed face into the sitting-room. "I declare that
looks terrible like Shandon!" ejaculated Johnnie Larabee,
straightening up at her wash-tubs and shading her eyes with her
hand. "Well, what on earth brought her up to town!" said all
Deaneville, crowding to the windows and doorways and halting the
march of the busy Monday morning to watch a mud-spattered cart come
bumping up and down over the holes in the little main street.

The woman--or girl, rather, for she was but twenty--who sat in the
cart was in no way remarkable to the eye. She had a serious, even
sullen face, and a magnificent figure, buttoned just now into a tan
ulster that looked curiously out of keeping with her close, heavy
widow's bonnet and hanging veil. Sprawled luxuriously in her lap,
with one fat, idle little hand playing above her own gauntleted one
on the reins, was a splendid child something less than a year old,
snugly coated and capped against the cool air of a California
February. She watched him closely as she drove, not moving her eyes
from his little face even for a glance at the village street.

Poor Dan Waters had been six months in his grave, now, and this was
the first glimpse Deaneville had had of his widow. For an unbroken
half year she had not once left the solitude of the big ranch down
by the marsh, or spoken to any one except her old Indian woman
servant and the various "hands" in her employ.

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