"Well--yes, in a way," Sally admitted, adding indulgently, "he's SUCH an idiot!"

"How do you mean?" Martie asked sharply. For Sally to flush and dimple and give herself the airs of a happy woman over the calf-like attentions of this clumsy boy of nineteen was more than absurd, it was painful. "Sally--you couldn't! Why, you oughtn't even to be FRIENDS with Joe Hawkes!" she stammered. "He gets--I suppose he gets twenty dollars a month."

"On, no; more than that!" Sally said, brushing her fine, silky, lifeless hair. "He gets twenty-five from the express company, and when he meets the trains for Beetman he gets half he makes."

Martie stood astounded at her manner. That one of the Monroe girls should be talking thus of Joe Hawkes! What mattered it to Sarah Price Monroe how much Joe Hawkes made, or how? Joe Hawkes--Grace's insignificant younger brother! Sally saw her consternation.

"Now listen, Mart, and don't have a fit," she said, laughing. "I'm not any crazier over Joe than you are. I know what Pa would say. I'm not likely to marry any one on thirty dollars a month, anyway. But listen, Joe has always liked me terribly--"

"I never knew it!" Martie exclaimed.

"No; well, neither did I. But last year when he broke his leg I used to go in and see him with Grace, and one day she left the room for a while, and he sort of--broke out--"

"The GALL!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Martie.

"Oh, no, Mart--he didn't mean it that way. Really he didn't. He just wanted--to hold my hand, you know--and that. And he never thinks of money, or getting married. And, Mart, he's so GRATEFUL, you know, for just a moment's meeting, or if I smile at him, going out of church--"

"I should think he might be!" Martie interpolated in fine scorn.

"Yes, I know how you feel, Martie," Sally went on eagerly, "and that's true, of course. I feel that way myself. But you don't know how miserable he makes himself about it. And does it seem wrong to you, Mart, for me just to be kind to him? I tell him--I was telling him this afternoon--that some day he'll meet some nice sweet girl younger than he, and that he'll be making more money then--you know--"

Her voice faltered. She looked wistfully at her sister.

"But I can't see why you let a big dummy like that talk to you at all!"

Martie said impatiently after a short silence. "What do you care what he thinks? He's got a lot of nerve to DARE to talk to you that way.

I--well, I think Pa would be wild!"

"Oh, of course he would," Sally agreed in a troubled voice. "And I know how you feel, Martie, with Joe's aunt working for the Parkers, and all," she added. "I'll--I'll stop it. Truly I will. I'm only doing it to be considerate to Joe, anyway!"

"You needn't do anything on my account," Martie said gruffly. "But I think you ought to stop it on your own. Joe is only a kid, he doesn't know beans--much less enough to really fall in love!"

She lay awake for a long time that night, in troubled thought. Cold autumn moonlight poured into the room; a restless wind whined about the house. The cuckoo clock struck eleven--struck twelve.

At all events she HAD gone driving with Rodney; she HAD had tea at the Parkers'--

CHAPTER IV

"I honestly think that some of us ought to go down to-night and see Grandma Kelly," said Lydia at luncheon a week later. November had come in bright and sunny, but with late dawns and early twilights. Rodney Parker's college friend having delayed his promised visit, the agitating question of the Friday Fortnightly had been temporarily laid to rest, but Martie saw him nearly every day, and family and friends alike began to change in their att.i.tude to Martie.

"I'll go," she and Sally said together--Martie, because she was in a particularly amiable mood; Sally, perhaps because old Mrs. Kelly was Joe Hawkes's grandmother.

"Well, I wish you would, girls," their mother said in her gentle, complaining voice. "She's a dear old lady--a perfect saint about getting to church in all weathers! And while Pa doesn't care much about having you so intimate with the Hawkeses, he was saying this morning that Grandma Kelly is different. She was my nurse when all four of you were born, and she certainly was interested and kind."

"We can go down about seven," Lydia said, "and not stay too long. But I suppose 'most every one in Monroe will run in to wish her many happy returns. Tom David's wife will come in from Westlake with Grandma's great-grandchildren, I guess, and all the others will be there."

"That houseful alone would kill me, let alone having the whole tribe stream in, if _I_ were seventy-eight!" Martie observed. "But I'd just as soon go. We'll see how we feel after dinner!"

And after dinner, the night being fresh and sweet, and the meal early concluded because Malcolm was delayed in Pittsville and did not return for dinner, the three Monroes pinned on their hats, powdered their noses, and b.u.t.toned on their winter coats. Any excitement added to her present ecstatic mood was enough to give Martie the bloom of a wild rose, and Sally had her own reasons for radiance. Lydia alone, walking between them, was actuated by cool motives of duty and convention and sighed as she thought of the heat and hubbub of the Hawkes's house, and the hour that must elapse before they were back in the cool night again.

The Hawkeses had always lived in one house in Monroe. It was a large, square, cheap house near the bridge, with a bare yard kept shabby by picking chickens, and a fence of struggling pickets. Behind the house, which had not been painted in the memory of man, was a yawning barn which had never been painted at all. In the yard were various odds and ends of broken machinery and old harness; a wagon-seat, on which Grandma sometimes sat sh.e.l.ling beans or peeling potatoes in the summer afternoons; old brooms, old saucepans, and lengths of rope, clotted with mud. Fuchsia and rose-bushes languished in a tipsy wire enclosure near the front door.

To-night, although the yard presented a rather dismal appearance in the early winter dark, the house was bursting with hospitality and good cheer. From every one of the bare high windows raw gushes of light tunnelled the gloom outside, and although the cold outside had frosted all the gla.s.s, dim forms could be seen moving about, and voices and laughter could be heard.

Martie briskly twisted the little rotary bell-handle that was set in the centre of the front door, and before its harsh noise had died away, the door was flung open and the Monroe sisters were instantly made a part of the celebration. Hilarious members of the family and their even more hilarious friends welcomed them in; the bare hallway was swarming with young persons of both s.e.xes; girls were coming down the stairs, girls going up, and the complementary boys lined the wall, or, grinning, looked on from the doorways.

The front room on the left, usually a bedroom, was used for a smoking room to-night; the dining-room door had been locked, but on the right two doors gave entrance to the long parlours, and here were older men, older women--Mrs. Hawkes, big, energetic, perspiring all over her delighted face; Carrie David, wild with hospitable excitement; and Joe Hawkes, Senior, a lean little eager Irishman, quite in his glory to-night. Throned on a sort of dais, in the front bay window, was Grandma Kelly, a little shrivelled beaming old woman, in a crumpled, shining, black satin gown. Her hair was scanty, showing a wide bald parting, and to hear in all the confusion she was obliged occasionally to cup one hand behind her ear, but her snapping eyes were as bright as a monkey's and her lips, over toothless gums, worked constantly with a rotary motion as she talked and laughed. On each side of her were grouped other old ladies--Mrs. Sark, Mrs. Mulkey, Mrs. Hansen, and Mrs.

Mussoo--her friends since the days, fifty years before, when they had crossed the plains in hooded wagons, and fought out their simple and heroic destinies on these strange western prairies.

They had borne children, comforting and caring for each other in the wilderness; they had talked of wolves and of Indians while trusting little hands caught their knees and ignorant little lips pulled at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s; they had known fire and flood and famine, crude offense and cruder punishment; they had seen the Indians and the buffalo go with the Missions and the sheep; they had followed the gold through its sensational rise to its sensational fall, and had held the wheat dubiously in their fingers before ever California's dark soil knew it--had wondered whether the first apple trees really might come to blossom and bear where the pines were cleared away.

And now, with the second and third generation, had come schools and post-offices, cable cars and gaslight; villages were cities; crossroads were towns. At seventy-eight, Grandma Kelly was far from ready for her nunc dimittis. Great days had been, no doubt, but great days were also to be. Children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren kept the house swarming with life, and she could never have enough of it.

The air, never too fresh in the Hawkes's house, was hot and charged with odours of cheap cologne, of powder, of human bodies, and of perspiration-soaked garments. The very gaslights screamed above the din as if they found it contagious. Large crayon portraits decorated the walls, that of the late Mr. Kelly having attached to its frame the sheaf of wheat that had lain on his coffin. On the walls also were the large calendars of insurance companies, and one or two china plaques in plush frames. A bead portiere hung between the two parlours, constantly clicking and catching as the guests swarmed to and fro. All the chairs in the house had been set about the walls, and all were occupied. A disk on the phonograph was duly revolving, in charge of a hysterical girl in blue silk and a flushed, humorous young man, but the music was almost unheard.

Whatever their att.i.tude toward this merrymaking had previously been, the Monroe girls were instantly drawn into the spirit of the occasion.

Martie and Sally were dragged upstairs, where they left hats and coats, were taken downstairs again with affectionate, girlish arms about their waists; and found themselves laughing and shouting with the rest. Towed through the boiling crowd to Grandma, they kissed the cool, soft old face. They greeted the other old women with pretty enthusiasm.

Lydia meanwhile had decorously delivered her message of good wishes and had drifted to a chair against the wall, where matrons greeted her eagerly and where, in her own way, she began to enjoy herself.

Sentiment, hospitality, gaiety filled the air.

"Isn't Grandma wonderful?" said all the voices, over and over. "I think she's wonderful! Mrs. Hawkes had a dinner for just the five old ladies, you know. Wasn't that sweet? The family had to have their dinner earlier--just the five old ladies. Wasn't that a cute idea? Ellen said they looked perfectly dear, all together! Mary Clute couldn't get here from San Francisco, you know, but she sent Grandma a tea-pot cover--the cutest thing! Did you see the Davids' baby? It's upstairs, I guess; it's a darling little thing! Think of it, three great-grandchildren!

Oh, I do, too; I think it's a lovely party--I think the rooms look lovely--I think it was an awfully cute idea!"

The oldest David grandchild, becoming sodden with sleepiness, climbed into Lydia's lap. Sally, after exchanging a conscious undertone with young Joe, slipped through the dining-room door with him, and happily joined the working forces in the kitchen. In her mind Sally knew that the Hawkeses were but homely folk; she knew that any Monroe should shrink from this hot and noisy kitchen. But Sally's heart welcomed the eager bustle, the tasks so imperative that her timid little ent.i.ty was entirely forgotten, the talk that was friendly and affectionate and comprehensible.

Joe and she laughed over piecing tablecloths together for the long table, and kept a jingling ripple of laughter accompanying the jingling of plated spoons and the thick gla.s.ses. Ellen and Grace, as the family debutantes, were inside with the company, but Carrie and Min, the married daughters, were here, with old Mrs. Crowley, who never missed an occasion of this kind, Mrs. Mulkey's daughter Annie Tate, Gertie Hansen, and an excited fringe of children too young to dance and too old to be sent off to bed.

As it was the custom for the more intimate friends to bring a cake, a pan of cookies, or a great jug of strong lemonade to such an affair, there was more food than twice this surging group of men, women, and children could possibly consume, so that the boys and girls could keep their mouths full of oily, nutty, walnut wafers and broken bits of layer cake without any conscientious scruples. One of the large kitchen tables was entirely covered with plates bearing layer cakes, with chocolate, maple, shining white, and streaky orange icings, or topped with a deadly coating of fluffy cocoa-nut. On the floor half a dozen ice cream freezers leaked generously; at the sink, Mrs. Rose, who had been Minnie Hawkes, was black and sticky to the elbows with lemon juice.

Meanwhile Martie, more in tune with the actual jollity than either of her sisters, was warming to her most joyous mood. Her costume of thin white waist and worn serge skirt might have been considered deficient in a more formal a.s.sembly, but here it pa.s.sed without comment; the girls' dresses varied widely, and no one seemed any the less gay. Grace had a long streamer of what appeared to be green window-net tied loosely about a worn pink satin slip; Elsa Prout wore the shepherdess costume she had made for the Elks' Hallowe'en Dance, and Mrs. Cazley, sitting with her back against the wall, wore her widow's bonnet with its limp little veil falling down to touch her fresh white shirtwaist.

Martie improved her own costume by pinning a large pink tissue-paper rose against her high white stock, and fastening another in her bronze hair; the girls laughed appreciatively at her audacity; a vase of the paper roses had been in the parlour for years. Youth and excitement did the rest.

Here, where her motives could not be misunderstood, where her presence indeed was to be construed as adding distinction and dignity to the festivities, Martie could be herself. She laughed, she flirted with the common yet admiring boys, she paid charming attention to the old women.

A rambling musical programme was presently set in motion; Martie's voice led all the voices. She was presently asked to sing alone, and went through "Believe Me" charmingly, putting real power and pathos into the immortal words. Returning, flushed and happy in a storm of clapping, to her place between Al Lunt and Art Carter on the sofa, she kept those appreciative youths in such convulsions of laughter that their entire neighbourhood was sympathetically affected. Carl Polhemus, who played the organ at church, had begun a wandering improvisation on the piano, evidently so taken with certain various chords and runs that he could not resist playing them pa.s.sionately over and over. A dangerous laugh, started among the younger set, began to strangle and stifle his audience. Martie, looking straight ahead of her, gave only an occasional spasmodic heave of shoulders and breast, but her lips were compressed in an agony, and her eyes full of tears. From the writhing boys on each side of her came frequent smothered snorts.

In upon this scene came old Dr. Ben, who had worked hand in hand with Grandma Kelly in the darkened rooms where many of these hilarious youngsters had drawn their first breath. Although the infatuated musician did not stop at this interruption, many of his listeners rose to greet the newcomer, and the tension snapped.

Dr. Ben sat down next to the old lady, and the room, from which the older guests were quietly disappearing, was enthusiastically cleared for dancing. The air, close already, became absolutely insufferable now; the men's collars wilted, the girls' flushed faces streamed perspiration. But the cool side-porch was accessible, and the laughter and noise continued unabated.

Quietly crossing the dark backyard for his horse and buggy at ten o'clock, Dr. Ben came upon Joe Hawkes sitting on the shadowy steps with--he narrowed his eyes to make sure--yes, with little Sally Monroe.

The old man formed his lips into a slow, thoughtful whistle as he busied himself with straps and buckles. Slowly, thoughtfully, he climbed into his buggy.

"Sally!" he called, sitting irresolute with the reins in his hands.