Josie O'Gorman and the Meddlesome Major

by Emma Speed Sampson

Mr. Theodore Burnett’s car was a new one, large and elegant, with silver mountings, and painted a midnight blue. Josie could not resist a sly smile at herself when the owner helped her in so carefully. She wondered what Min and Gertie and Jane would say could they see her riding around in such luxury.

“Perhaps you had better let me out at the corner and not take me all the way to my door,” she suggested.

“Nonsense!” insisted Mr. Burnett. “I am not accustomed to dumping young ladies at the corner.”

As it was a well known fact that Mr. Theodore Burnett was not accustomed to driving young ladies around at all, and since young ladies must be driven before they can be dumped, no doubt he was speaking the truth. Nevertheless, Josie insisted on being dumped, if not at the corner, at least not in front of the shabby apartment house. He compromised by bringing the car to a standstill four doors from No. 11.

Had Josie not been so occupied in bidding Mr. Burnett good bye she would have seen that Mrs. Leslie was on the stoop of the apartment house, peering anxiously into the winter twilight. She had seen the handsome car pass and drive up to the curb and then her little lodger alight with the courteous assistance of a very good looking gentleman verging onto middle age.

As the afternoon wore on Mrs. Leslie’s concern for Josie had outweighed her suspicions. Suppose she did not come back—what then would happen to her? She regretted exceedingly that she had permitted herself to be drawn into Major Simpson’s plot to entrap the young girl. Who could tell what temptations she had had? She thought of her own Mary. Her life had been sheltered, her rearing, careful, her training, Christian. Perhaps Josie O’Gorman had never known a mother’s and father’s care. Was it the part of a Christian woman with a daughter of her own to try to catch and bring to justice a poor young thing who trusted her—she might even say loved her? How much better it would be to warn the girl and try to reform her than betray her and have her sent to prison where no doubt she would be taught a lesson but in the teaching might become a hardened criminal. Certainly Josie was no hardened criminal yet. Criminal she might be but there was something very kind and sweet about the poor thing.

“If only I had not promised Major Simpson!” she said to herself over and over. “If only I had not told him about the lace and the gold mesh bag! He is started now and there is no stopping him. It would be different if Josie was the kind of girl that flirted or ran around with men. There is nothing like that about her at all. She is so refined, so circumspect. She may be a kleptomaniac, poor little thing, and not be able to resist stealing. I have a great mind to go in the house this minute and phone the Major that I will no longer aid and abet him in this cruel pursuit of the poor young thing.”

Mrs. Leslie had come out on the stoop for the third time, hoping and yet fearing to see Josie returning. Just as she had come to the conclusion to give her old neighbor and friend an ultimatum concerning her lodger—since she was so refined and was not the kind of girl to flirt or go joy riding with strange men—the large blue car came rolling up the street past No. 11 and stopped a few doors off.

Meadow was a quiet street, shabby and unpretentious. Few handsome automobiles passed that way and if they did they seldom stopped. Mrs. Leslie was attracted by its new and shining splendor and when it came to a full stop close to the curb and no less a person than her abused lodger alighted and stood for a moment talking gaily with the handsome, well dressed owner of the car, Mrs. Leslie’s heart hardened again and she hurried into the house to inform the Major that the prodigal had returned.

“What number? What number?” was all the satisfaction Mrs. Leslie could get from her new telephone. Of course this was most irritating when she wanted to get the message over to Major Simpson before Josie should get in the apartment. The operator was stupid or the line was crossed or something, at any rate Josie was in the hall before the connection was made. Then the distracted lady was sure that Major Simpson at the other end bellowed quite loud enough for Josie to hear him, although she was all the way across the room from the telephone.