"And what will you advise?" asked Mary Rose after a breathless silence. Her heart was beating so fast that she was almost choked. "Have you read it?"
"Yes, I've read it."
"Uncle Larry and Aunt Kate don't know I wrote it. I just had to because if Uncle Larry loses his job it's all my fault. Not all mine really for it wasn't exactly my fault that my mother died when I was six months old and that daddy went to Heaven in June so there was no one left to take care of me but Aunt Kate. I've tried to be good," she resolutely winked back a tear, "and not make trouble. Mrs. Schuneman and Mrs. Bracken and Mr. Bracken and Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Rawson and Miss Thorley and Miss Carter and Mr. Strahan like me awfully. They said so. I wish you'd please speak to them before you give your advice. Will you?" eagerly.
The frown on Mr. Wells' face grew very black and threatening. It made Mary Rose's little heart jump right into her mouth and she shut her white teeth tight so that it wouldn't jump out.
"It's—it's awfully rude of me to speak of it," she went on in a low shamed voice. "I shouldn't remind you, I know, but you are under an obligation to me. I was neighborly when you were sick. I brought you the goldfish. It isn't much that I ask, just for you to speak to the tenements. If they say I'm a nuisance, why I won't say another word because it's the law, but I am getting bigger every day, now. Please, promise me just that much?"
And Mr. Wells promised. He couldn't very well refuse. Mary Rose caught his hand and hugged it to her thumping little heart.
"You're a kind, kind man," she said. "I know you are. I don't care what people say. And you'll see I'm treated fair? That's all I ask, Mr. Wells, honest it is! Just for the owner to be fair. Good night. I'm going to tell everyone you didn't steal Jenny Lind."
CHAPTER XXII
There was a short story in the Waloo Gazette the next evening that would have interested Mary Rose very much if she had read it. It was one of the little incidents that have both a pathetic and a humorous appeal and it was very well written. It told of a little black-haired swarthy-skinned girl who had always longed for long yellow curls. When illness robbed her of the hated, black locks she had resolutely set to work to earn money to buy a wig that she might return to school. All summer she worked under the hot sun, picking berries for a neighboring farmer, her bald head covered with a ragged straw hat, and when the last berry was gathered and she had the required sum she had triumphantly purchased the long yellow curls she had craved always. And now, prouder than any queen, she was attending the Lincoln School. It was the sort of story that a city editor likes for it brings shoals of letters with offers of help, to the newspaper office, and proves in a most practical way that it has been read.