CHAPTER XV
Mrs. Donovan looked with admiration at the sheer linen blouse that Miss Thorley handed her.
"Sure, I'll do it up for you the very best I know how an' seems if you can't expect a body to do more than that. If all of us who are in the world just did our best it would be a different place than it is, now wouldn't it? What's ailin' you, Miss Thorley? Seems if you don't look so hearty as you did. Don't you work too hard. It's what you have in your heart more'n what you have in your pocketbook that makes happiness. A pretty young thing like you hain't no business to be thinkin' of jam all the time. I hear you're makin' oodles of money drawin' pictures for Mr. Bingham Henderson but let me tell you, my girl, you can't make good red blood no matter how much money you have. There's only one can do that."
"Who's that, Aunt Kate?" Mary Rose hungered for the information, as she leaned against the table. "Who can make good red blood?"
"God Almighty, honey, an' he's the only one. Land, I remember Jim Peaslie took a dozen raw eggs a day, a quart of cream an' beefsteak so raw it dripped blood but he couldn't make none of those red corpuskles an' so there wasn't nothin' for him to do but die an' he died. A body can't live without plenty of red corpuskles an' by that same token, a girl has got to have somethin' beside work. That's gospel true, Miss Thorley. My ol' father used to say you robbed the ol' when you took pleasures from the young an', seems if, that's gospel true, too. Land, if I hadn't had good times when I was a girl to remember sometimes I'd go crazy. Layin' up pleasant memories is what everyone can do an' it means as much as money in the bank. This is pretty lace on your waist, Miss Thorley. I dunno as I ever saw just this pattern."
"It's imported," Miss Thorley told her listlessly as she lingered in the cosy kitchen. She was pale and her eyes were dull. She was tired, she told herself impatiently. The summer had been hot and she had worked hard. It irritated her that the keen eyes of Mrs. Donovan saw that she was not happy but how could she be happy when she had so many things to annoy her? She should be happy, she was independent, she had work, the two things that had seemed so necessary to happiness but recently she had been conscious of a desire for something more. It made her furious to be restless and discontented and so listless and colorless that people noticed it.
Mrs. Donovan snorted at the imported lace. "That's it. Girls nowadays think 't fine clothes 'll make 'em happy. An imported waist costs more'n one made in Waloo an' it keeps a girl strong enough to work for the silk stockin's she's got to have," she said with scorn. "I don't wonder there's so many bach'lors when I figure how much money it costs now to dress a girl."
"Is that why men are bachelors?" asked astonished Mary Rose. "Mr. Jerry is a bachelor, his Aunt Mary told him so right in front of me. She doesn't like it in him. And Mr. Strahan's one and Jimmie Bronson and Mr. Wells and Mr. Jarvis. Why, what a lot of bachelors are right under this very roof!"
"That's just it," laughed Mrs. Donovan. "'Stead of havin' so many bach'lor flats in Waloo there oughta be more fam'ly cottages."
"There's Mr. Jerry now." Mary Rose ran to the window to wave her hand to her friend as he drove his car up the alley. Solomon was with him and he looked quite as well on the front seat as Mr. Jerry had hoped he would. "I could have asked him if that was why he was a bachelor if he hadn't gone away."
Miss Thorley crossed the kitchen and stood beside her. She saw the automobile turn the corner and disappear down the cross street.
"Mary Rose," she suddenly put her arm around the small shoulders beside her. "Do you know I've never seen George Washington."
"You haven't?" Mary Rose twisted around and looked up into her face. "Oh, you must see him. He's such a wonderful cat. But I can't bring him here. It's against the law, you know. Would you—Oh, would you!—come across the alley and see him in his boarding house? You know he's only a cat," she explained slowly as if she were afraid that Miss Thorley might expect to find George Washington something more. "But he's wonderful just the same. He earns his own board, every single drop. Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary said so."
Miss Thorley and Aunt Kate smiled at each other above Mary Rose's yellow head.
"I've never seen a self-supporting cat," Miss Thorley laughed. "I should love to meet George Washington." She did not understand why she would love to meet him now, why she wished to go across to Jerry Longworthy's back yard, when until that afternoon nothing could have induced her to go there.
"Come on." Mary Rose put out an eager hand and Miss Thorley took it in hers. They were halfway across the alley when Mary Rose stopped. "I forgot," she said, and her face was troubled. "I promised to let Mr. Jerry know when you'd come."
"It's too late to tell him now. We saw him go off in the car." Miss Thorley did not explain that that was the reason she was willing to call on George Washington. "I shall be very busy after today, Mary Rose. I might not be able to come again for several weeks."
"Is that so?" Mary Rose looked less doubtful. "Perhaps I can explain that to Mr. Jerry." She led the way into Mr. Jerry's spacious yard. "I expect George Washington's inside," she said when they failed to find him outside.
"Run in and bring him out," suggested Miss Thorley, sitting down in one of the wicker chairs that were under the big apple tree that had lived there ever since Waloo had been some man's farm.
Mary Rose disappeared but before Miss Thorley had looked half over the yard she was back. "He's asleep," she said in a loud whisper. "Do come in and see him. He looks perfectly beautiful with a fern at his head and a bunch of asters at his feet. Please, come." She took Miss Thorley's hand and tried to pull her to her feet.
Miss Thorley did not wish to go into the house. She had had no intention of doing more than to slip into the yard for a moment. Now that she was there she felt uncomfortably conscious. But Mr. Jerry was away, she had seen him go with her own eyes. It would be interesting to see his home. Or perhaps the picture Mary Rose had described, a sleeping cat with a fern at his head and asters at his feet, was alluring. Whichever it was she allowed Mary Rose to lead her in at the side door, through the dining-room that seemed far too large for only Mr. Jerry and his Aunt Mary, into the big living-room that had begun life as a front and back parlor. There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting cat, George Washington himself, with a fern spreading its feathery fronds above his head and a cluster of red asters in a brass bowl at his tall. George Washington had calculated the amount of space between the jardinière and the bowl to a nicety. There was not the fraction of an inch to spare.
