CHAPTER X
After giving the invalid his breakfast, and arranging him on his couch where he could see the cars pass, Mrs. Preston hurried over to the Everglade School, which was only two blocks west of Stoney Island Avenue. At noon she slipped out, while the other teachers gathered in one of the larger rooms to chat and unroll their luncheons. These were wrapped in little fancy napkins that were carefully shaken and folded to serve for the next day. As the Everglade teachers had dismissed Mrs. Preston from the first as queer, her absence from the noon gossip was rather welcome, though resented.
The recess hour gave Mrs. Preston enough time to carry upstairs a cold meal, to take a hasty nibble of food, and to hurry back across the vacant lots before the gong should ring for the afternoon session. At the close of school she returned to the cottage more deliberately, to finish her house work before taking her daily walk. Occasionally she found this work already performed; Anna Svenson's robust form would greet her as she entered the cottage, with the apologetic phrase, "My fingers were restless." Mrs. Svenson had an unquenchable appetite for work. The two women would have a silent cup of tea; then Mrs. Svenson would smile in her broad, apathetic manner, saying, "One lives, you see, after all," and disappear through the oak copse. Thus very quickly between the school and the cottage Mrs. Preston's day arranged itself in a routine.
Three days after the unexpected visit from the doctor, Mrs. Preston found on her return from the school a woman's bicycle leaning against the gate. Under the arbor sat the owner of the bicycle, fanning herself with a little "perky" hat. She wore a short plaid skirt, high shoes elaborately laced, and a flaming violet waist. Her eyes were travelling over the cottage and all its premises.
"Miss M'Gann!" Mrs. Preston exclaimed.
"My!" the young woman responded, "but they did send you to kingdom come. You're the next thing, Alves, to Indiana. I do hope you can get out of this soon."
Mrs. Preston sat down beside her in the little arbor, and made polite inquiries about the school where they had taught together, about Jane M'Gann's "beaux," the "cat," and the "house" where she boarded.
"It was good of you to come all this way to see me," she concluded.
"I wanted a ride. We had a half day off—infectious disease in Rosa Macraw's room. Besides, I told the girls I'd hunt you out. How are you? You look rather down. Say, you mustn't shut yourself off here where folks can't get at you. Why don't you live up town, at the house?"
"I can't," Mrs. Preston answered briefly.