“Come back to me, sweetheart, and love me as before––
Come back to me, sweetheart, and leave me nevermore!”
Which was perfectly imbecile, a song she had always hated because of its sickly sentimentality. She had no sweetheart, and having none, she certainly did not want him back. But she admitted that there was a certain melodious swing to the tune, and that her fingers had probably strayed into the rhythm of it while she was thinking of something totally different.
The next day she played a little at noontime for the children, and when school was over she played for two hours. And the next day after that slipped away––she really had meant to ride over to the AJ, or send a note by the children, asking Jim Boyle if he could please remove the piano and saying that she felt it was too expensive a gift for the school to accept from the Lorrigans.
On the third day she really did send a prim little note to Jim Boyle, and she received a laconic reply, wholly characteristic of the Black Rim’s attitude toward the Devil’s Tooth outfit.
“Take all you can git and git all you can without going to jale. That’s what the Lorrigans are doing, Yrs truly,
“J. A. Boyle.”
It was useless to ask her father. She had known that all along. When Alexander Douglas slipped the collars up on the necks of his horses, he must see where money would be gained from the labor. And there was no money for the Douglas pocket in hauling a piano down the Devil’s Tooth Ridge.
But the whole Black Rim was talking about it. Mary Hope felt sure that they were saying ill-natured things behind her back. Never did she meet man or woman but the piano was mentioned. Sometimes she was asked, with meaning smiles, how she had come to stand in so well with the Devil’s Tooth. She knew that they were all gossiping of how Lance Lorrigan had taken her home from the dance, with Belle Lorrigan’s bronco team. She had been obliged to return a torn coat to Mrs. Miller, and to receive her own and a long lecture on the wisdom of choosing one’s company with some care. She had been obliged to beg Mrs. Miller not to mention the matter to her parents, and the word had gone round, and had reached Mother Douglas––and you can imagine how pleasant that made home for Mary Hope.
Because she was lonely, and no one seemed willing to take it away, she kept the piano. She played it, and while she played she wept because the Rim folk simply would not understand how little she wanted the Lorrigans to do things for her. And then, one day, she hit upon a plan of redeeming herself, for regaining the self-respect 199 she felt was slipping from her with every day that the piano stood in the schoolhouse.
She would give a series of dances––they would be orderly, well-behaved dances, with no refreshments stronger than coffee and lemonade!––and she would sell tickets, and invite every one she knew, and beg them to come and help to pay for the school piano.