CHAPTER IX
Lake Nokomis was on the outskirts of Waloo and was a popular pleasure resort for Waloo people from June until September. A band played in the pavilion, there was a moving picture show, a merry-go-round with a wheezy organ, a roller coaster and many other amusement features, as well as several ice-cream parlors. There was always a crowd drifting from one place to another, and Mary Rose fairly danced with delight when she and Miss Thorley became a part of the good-natured throng.
They were standing beside the enclosure in which the fat Shetland ponies waited for the children who were fortunate enough to possess a nickel to pay for a ride on their broad backs or a drive in a roomy carriage, when Mary Rose saw Mr. Jerry. She had sadly refused Miss Thorley's invitation to ride because she did not wish to leave her alone, and Miss Thorley would not ride one of the ponies nor drive in one of the carriages.
"There's Mr. Jerry!" squealed Mary Rose when she saw him. She could scarcely believe her eyes, but she waved her hand. "He's the man who boards my cat, you know," she explained to Miss Thorley. "And he's very pleasant and friendly, just like a Mifflin man."
Miss Thorley looked first surprised and then displeased and then she frowned and shrugged her shoulders as if she did not really care whether Mr. Jerry was there or not. She gave him rather a curt greeting when he joined them with a cheery:
"Hullo, Mary Rose. Are you thinking of a canter in the park?"
There was nothing curt in the greeting Mary Rose gave him. She smiled enchantingly and slipped her hand into his. "We're just watching the ponies. Aren't they loves? Miss Thorley thinks they are too small for her to ride, but I don't see how she can be sure unless she tries. Do you know Mr. Jerry, Miss Thorley? He's making such a comfortable home for George Washington. She didn't feel like painting today," she explained to Mr. Jerry, "so we came out for a change. Oh, I do just love that blackest pony, but no one seems to choose him!" She pointed an eager finger to the corner where the blackest and fattest pony stood neglected.
"Suppose you choose him. I've money to treat a lady friend to a ride." And he made a pleasant jingle with the coins in his pocket.
"Miss Thorley invited me, but I didn't like to leave her alone. Would you stay with her, Mr. Jerry? It would be real friendly of you to me and the pony, for if I don't take him I'm afraid no one will, and he'll feel so sad when he goes home tonight. Will you take good care of Miss Thorley, Mr. Jerry?"
"I will," promised Mr. Jerry emphatically, although Miss Thorley exclaimed hurriedly that she could take care of herself. He found a bench from which they could watch Mary Rose as she made the black pony happy and rode around the ring, prouder than any peacock.
"Funny kid, isn't she?" remarked Mr. Jerry, realizing that if there was to be any conversation between them he would have to begin. "I wish you could have seen her when she came over with her cat to ask if we would take the beast to board. Who's the owner of that joint of yours? I'd like to tell him what I think of him for separating a homesick little girl from her pet."
"It would be rather a nuisance if the place was overrun with cats and dogs and children," Miss Thorley said coldly. "There wouldn't be much peace or comfort in the house."
"The peace and comfort you've had don't seem to agree with all of you," remarked Mr. Jerry pleasantly. "I've seen some of your neighbors who look as if they needed a big dose of noise and discomfort."
"You must mean Mr. Wells. He does have rather a touch-me-not, speak-to-me-never manner. And the fuss he makes if there is any noise in the place after ten o'clock! Imagine him with a cat or a bird." The picture her imagination made was so impossible that she laughed.
Mr. Jerry drew a contented sigh and ventured to move a trifle nearer. He started to say something and then changed his mind. He wouldn't say anything just then that might bring back that distant expression to her face. He knew very well how cold and forbidding she could be. So instead of saying what he wished to say he talked of Mary Rose and George Washington, and she listened and smiled and made holes in the turf with her parasol, but never once did she speak of the conversation she had had with Mary Rose which had caused her to throw down her brushes and treat herself to a holiday.
Mary Rose's face was an incandescent light as, with a good-by pat for the blackest pony, she ran back to them.
"I felt like a queen!" she cried. "It was splendid. Oh, won't you have a ride?" She looked from one to the other. "I'll pay. I'm making lots of money. You needn't worry another minute about George Washington's board," she told Mr. Jerry. "It's as good as paid."
He laughed. "I won't worry and I shan't ride the ponies. My legs are too long. I'd have to tie double knots in them to keep them off the ground. But I'll take a turn on the merry-go-round with you." He nodded toward that attractive circle of animals as it went around and around to the accompaniment of the wheezy organ. "I dare you to come with us." He looked straight at Miss Thorley.
"Oh, please!" Mary Rose clapped her hands. "You will, won't you, Miss Thorley? You needn't be afraid," she whispered. "I'm sure he's strong enough to hold you on."
Miss Thorley looked anything but afraid as she frowned at the merry-go-round and at Mr. Jerry impartially. But when she met Mary Rose's eyes, filled with a great hunger for merry-go-rounds, she laughed softly and told Mr. Jerry that, of course, she wouldn't take a dare, she never had and she never would, and she thought she'd choose the giraffe because his long neck gave a rider so much to cling to.
It was not easy for Mary Rose to choose a mount. Each animal seemed so very desirable that she sighed as she finally selected an ostrich for the same reason that she had taken the black pony. "I haven't seen a single person ride him and I expect he feels neglected."
But when they mounted the merry-go-round Miss Thorley stepped into a gay little sleigh drawn by two fat polar bears. After he had seen Mary Rose properly astride the neglected ostrich Mr. Jerry took the seat beside Miss Thorley.
"I promised Mary Rose that I wouldn't let you fall out," he said, as if that could be the only reason he would ride beside her.
Much to Mary Rose's amazement, Miss Thorley was satisfied with one ride, although Mr. Jerry very handsomely offered them a turn on each animal. Mary Rose could not resist such an invitation and one by one she rode on a giraffe, a camel, and a lion.
"Mercy, mercy, Mary Rose!" Miss Thorley said at last. "You must stop. Your head will be completely turned. And we must go home."
"Won't you ride back with me?" asked Mr. Jerry. "I have the car. If you will, we have time for a sundae first."
Mary Rose's heart all but stopped beating as she waited for Miss Thorley to say they would. It didn't seem possible that anyone, even an independent woman, could refuse such an alluring invitation. But grown-ups were queer. Mary Rose had found that out long, long ago. She did not hesitate for even the fraction of a second when Miss Thorley turned and left the decision to her. A moment later they were in the ice cream parlor that was like a cool green cave after the heat and the light outside.
Mary Rose chose a chocolate sundae and she giggled as she looked at the rich brown sauce. "When I was little, nothing but a baby," she said, "I thought that it was the yellow in the eggs I ate that made my hair yellow. Do you suppose if I ate lots and lots of chocolate, I'd ever have hair as brown as Miss Thorley's. Isn't it beautiful, Mr. Jerry?"
"Very beautiful!" Mr. Jerry agreed as heartily as she could wish.
Miss Thorley flushed uncomfortably under the admiration of Mr. Jerry and Mary Rose. "Mary Rose," she said hurriedly, "don't you know you shouldn't make personal remarks?"
"Eh?" Mary Rose's attention was centered in the well she was making in her ice cream for the chocolate syrup.
"You shouldn't talk of people's hair and eyes." The rebuke was far more feeble than Miss Thorley had meant it to be.
"You shouldn't!" Mary Rose was so surprised that she left the well half made. "Why, in Mifflin when we liked the way a friend looked we always told them."
Miss Thorley pushed away her sundae. "Mary Rose, if you say Mifflin again, I'll scream."
Mary Rose's cheeks turned as pink as Miss Thorley's cheeks had turned. "That's what Aunt Kate says sometimes, but if you like a place the way I like Mifflin you just have to talk about it. It's—it's in your heart."
"Talk about it to me, Mary Rose," Mr. Jerry offered kindly. "It doesn't make me cross to hear of a place where people are kind and friendly. My conscience is perfectly clear." He spoke as if he were very proud of his clear conscience.
Miss Thorley pushed back her chair. "It doesn't make me cross," she said, "only——"
They waited courteously to hear what would follow "only," but nothing ever did. Miss Thorley just jumped up and said instead that really they must go. Mr. Jerry's eyes twinkled as he agreed with her.
It was far more pleasant riding to town in Mr. Jerry's automobile than it would have been in the crowded street car. Mary Rose called Miss Thorley's attention to the crowd as she snuggled close to her in the spacious tonneau.
"I'm playing it's mine," she whispered, "and that Mr. Jerry is my own driver. Wouldn't it be fun to drive with him forever and ever?"
Mr. Jerry heard her and sharpened his ears for the answer.
"You'd get tired riding forever with anyone, Mary Rose. There is only one thing that people never get tired of."
"What's that?" Mary Rose hungered to hear.
"Work." Mr. Jerry sniffed. They could hear him in the tonneau.
Mary Rose shook her head. "Gladys' mother did. She said she had never had enough fun to know whether she would get tired of it or not, but she'd had plenty of chance to know there were some things she never wanted to see again, and one of them was work and the other was the red and black plaid silk dress that the dressmaker spoiled."
Mr. Jerry chuckled on the front seat and after a second Miss Thorley laughed, too.
"Mary Rose," she said very distinctly, "I'll have to give you a broader vision. You have entirely too narrow an outlook."
"What's that, Miss Thorley? What's a broader vision?" Mary Rose couldn't imagine.
It was Mr. Jerry who answered. "In this particular case, Mary Rose, it's seeing far too much for one and not enough for two."
As they rolled up to the Washington Miss Carter came down the street with Bob Strahan whom she had met on the car. It was amazing, now that they were on speaking terms, how often they met. Bob Strahan stopped to open the door of the automobile and help Miss Thorley out, and Mary Rose proudly introduced Mr. Jerry who boarded her cat. They all laughed and talked together for a few minutes and then Mary Rose hopped from the back seat to the front.
"I'll go around and see George Washington, if you don't mind," she said. "Hasn't it been just the loveliest afternoon, the kind you're always hoping for but never really expect to have," with a sigh of rapture. She patted Mr. Jerry's arm lovingly. "Isn't Miss Thorley a darling! She told me all about that Independence. It isn't a witch as you thought, Mr. Jerry, it's something about wanting to pay her own bills and live alone. I don't understand it," she frowned, "but that's what she said."
Mr. Jerry frowned too, as he turned into the alley. "She doesn't know," he said briefly. "Take it from me, Mary Rose, that Independence is an old witch, and she's enchanted more girls than you could count."
Mary Rose looked doubtful. "If Miss Thorley really is enchanted," she suggested, "we must find something to break the spell. I told her she wouldn't have to stop work to make a home for a family, Mr. Jerry," she whispered encouragingly.
"Did you?" Mr. Jerry laughed. "What did she say?"
Mary Rose knit her small brows before she answered. "I don't think she just agreed with me, but I'll explain it to her again."