Mary Ware in Texas

wing wood fire in the studio, high up on the top floor of a New York apartment house, had never known such a lonesome Sunday. Th

phasized the luxurious comfort of the big room. She had had a hard week, trying to crowd into it some special orders for Easter cards. A year ago she would not have added them to her regular work, but now she was afraid to turn anything a

nursing her with the care of the traditional hen for its one chicken. Mrs. Boyd had not allowed Lucy to leave her room even for her Sunday dinner, but had carried it in to her with her own

she went into her room and put on a dress of her own designing, soft and trailing and of a warm wine-red. Pushing a great sleepy-hollow chair close enough to the hearth f

moment to look around her. There were several things which gave her keen pleasure every time her attention was called to them, which she felt ought to be enough of themselves to dispel her vague depression: the

e cover next week. She studied the effect, thinking lazily that if it were not her one day of rest, she

e across such a tale of misfortune and misunderstanding. It depressed her strangely, and presently, as she sat lookin

thought, as she stared into the red embers, "but I can't even picture them as they

ackgrounds she had once shared with them. They seemed as far away and out of reach as they had been that winter in France, when she used to climb up in Monsieur Greyville's pear tree and cry for sheer homesi

ating that couple

home faces

irelight pal

le and tired, bending over the sewing which never came to an end; and Jack, charging home from school like a young whirlwind to do his chores and get out to play. She could see Mary, with her dear earnest little freckled face and beribb

as a breadwinner, when she ought to be free to enjoy the best part of her girlhood as other girls were doing. Tears came into Joyce's eyes as she brooded over the pictures she had conjured up. Then she rose, and trailing into her bedroom, came back with a lapful of letters; all that the family had written her since leaving Lone Rock four months ago. Dropping on the hearth-rug, she arranged them in little piles beside her, according to their dates, an

d so far away that she thought it was the bell of the adjoining apartment, and gave it no more than a passing thought. So, too, the sound of an opening door, of an umbr

see you. Ah! I knew you were asleep.

y, caught only a glimpse of Joyce's red dress trailing through the opposite

nd make yourself at home. I'll be out in a minute. I never dreamed of such joy as a calle

one of their home circle so often and so intimately in the old Wigwam days which she had just been crying over. Hastily smoothing her rumpled hair, bathing her eyes and fluffing a powder-puff

she felt that the keen glance he gave her was a

cry-a regular bawl! I don't get a chance to indulge in such an orgy of weeps often,

? Bad news from ho

ident, that Joyce could not trust herself to answer imm

rm being over. You'll have to talk about somet

her gather up the letters. "That suits me, anyhow, for I came on pur

, but she felt their willingness, and his unspoken sympathy steadied her like an outstretched hand. Now with the consideratio

f Greater New York and defied the elements in order to be the bearer of such important tidings, and you needn't think I'm going to give it to you as if it were any common bit of information.

rol by this time. She drew her chair a trifle closer to the fire, and,

must be that the old tangle about your great-aunt Patricia's holdings in Eng

uess a

ace pictures on the sooty background of the chim

erns all

es

hidden by the rapidly deepening twilight. He was smiling while he waited, and humming half under his breath a song that his old English

! lang

hear her brid

e bride-b

n, when it, too, was wide of the mark and she demanded to be told, he began it again; but

seas, a yea

nce then

at the alt

lor at

ing! lan

bride-bells

ing as he finished, and she cried, "Elsie is to

nia, in the Gold-of-Ophir rose-garden you have heard so much about. We are all going-Daddy a

out in the big chair opposite hers, gave

d all the best times of her life. She has always lived with mother's people, you know, since our home was broken up, and even before mother's death, w

ly. Later, he asked her to name all the things she considered the most desirable and unique as wedding gifts, and they were still adding to the list from which he was to make his choice, when t

ime also for me to pay my forfeit to you. How muc

e in the pantry and ice-box," said Phil, rising al

hem, despite the fact that she must leave Lucy to eat alone, in order to do so. It was always a red-letter day in her drab existence when Phil Tremont came into it. She was such a literal little body, that she never joked herself. She was mentally incapabl

mly, I'd like to hear exactly how things are going with Jack and Aunt Emily and that little brick of a Mary. I had one letter from Jack the first of the win

been surprised at the gift she's developed lately for describing he

ned over the letters till she came to the

"But you can fairly see the little town spread out between the spire of St. Peter's and the towe

ll. But when Joyce reached the closing paragraph about its being a good old world after all, and her belief in Grandmother Ware's verse that the crooked should

till he had heard all about her visit to Gay, her first experience at a military hop, their brave attempt to make a merry

ver her account of her "day of rest" at the B

, "but it is especially interesting to me

ordered pile until she fou

lnerable spot in my kleinen teufel. I couldn't think of a thing, but decided to begin telling them Kipling's jungle stories instead o

s on to tell about the last news from Holland, instead of th

ord. They have thrown themselves into the play with a zest which nothing of my proposing has ever called out. For two weeks I have been old Baloo, the Brown Bear, and Father Wolf by turns. There are two little hairless man-cubs in our

er Baloo taught the wood and water laws to Mowgli, how to tell a rotten branch from a sound one, how to speak politely to the wild bees when he came upon a hive of them, etc. But more than all he taught the Master Words of the Jungle, that turned every bird, beast and snake into a friend.

are the laws

and might

and the hoo

ch and the h

ting Kaa's words to Uncle August, "A brave heart and a courteou

when they return to the Man-pack.) They had dropped a live garter snake, a good-sized one, through the slit of the package box, and the postmistress had picked it up with a bundle of newspapers. She was so frightened that she yelled like a Comanc

illiams' garden, and how she had petted and praised him for it. We talked a few minutes about the way Uncle August is belo

ho have no leaders and no laws!" Really, it hurt them dreadfully and I felt almost cruel for saying it. I could see that the shot told when I reminded them how they had been turned out of the hotel and chased ou

of the analogy before-how the same thing that is true in the Jungle holds good in the Man-world; that we must learn the Master Words for each person we meet, so that every heart will understand when we call out, "We be of one blood, ye and I." That just as the elephants and kites and snakes

e blood" with these people they have been tormenting. It is pathetic to watch how hard they have been trying ever since, to convince people that they are not Ban

water, win

rength and

vor go wi

some sort of hoodoo spell which will arm

with the blessedness of giving,-her first real experience of that sort. Brud used his hatchet to split a pine box into kindling, and presented the same, tied in neat bundles, to Mrs. Williams. Her surprise and voluble thanks (also solicited beforehand) were s

Mary! She always manages to find some way out, and it is always a way no one else would think of. But somehow I can't quite place her in

swered Joyce. "That's what makes t

he Mallory cottage and St. Peter's. There is a roundabout road to the top, leading in from a back lane, which is easy to climb, but, of

ys of the town. The whole hilltop is covered with wildflowers; strange, beautiful things I have never seen b

doing St. Valentine honor. I went first in my oldest dress, on account of the climb, my Mexican hat on my head, my alarm-clock, as usual, in one hand and a thermos bottle in the other.

lf for the part with the assistance of Meliss. She looked perfectly ridiculous, spotted all over with turkey-red calico hearts. They were sewed

own way. The white turkey-wings, which she tried to attach to his shoulderblades, he wore bound to his brow like an Indian chieftain's war-bonnet. Long-suffering Uncle August frisked about in a most remarkable

ith an old lace window curtain. Across her bosom, carefully fastened with a gilt paper arrow, was the litho

the heart to suggest a single change. I led on, hoping that we wouldn't meet anyone. Well, we hadn't gone a hundred paces till we h

ayry! Look at the s

redder. Somehow I had no power to move. He didn't recognize me till he was opposite us, but the instant he did, he was off his horse and coming up to shake hands, and I was trying to account for our appearance. It seems he had been with the troops up at Leon Springs for target p

over home, because my time is Mrs. Mallory's. Even if she had excused me, the children would have raised an unstoppable howl, and probab

ll looked so ridiculous and he wanted to see the show a second time that he accepted my invitation with alacrity. As soon as he started on to the Williams House, I stopped under a tree and wrote a scrawl to mamma on

up the side of the hill. The children had been angelic before his arrival and they were good after he came, except-I can't explain it-there was something almost impish in the way they sat and watched us, listening to ev

icent. As the sun began to go down the wind came up, and the veil I had tied around my hat got loose, and streamed out like a comet's tail. I couldn't tie it down and I couldn't find a pin to faste

ers have given them. But Sister pointed her finger at me and shrilled out like a katydid, as if they had been

ace felt as hot as a fiery furnace. He sort of smiled and pretended not to hear, and I couldn't think of a word to break the awful paus

deep breath of thankfulness I drew when I finally left them at their own gate. But I drew it too soon. I should have waited until we were out of earshot. For as they we

f way, "Oh,-'lest we forget'-I'll return this now," and started to take it out of my veil. But he only lau

ople quite such a gentle, gracious reception as mamma can, and much as I had dreaded taking him into such a barely furnished little house, and serving him from o

e evening, and talking over all he had said. Jack said it was like coming across a well in a thirsty desert to meet a fellow like that, and mamma said she was sure he had enjoyed his little taste of simple home life quite as much as we had enjoyed having him. He quite captivated her, especially when he asked permission to come a

ssion on Phil's face as Jo

I'd never before thought of her as being old enough to have 'affairs,' but this seems to give promise of blossomin

, but as he scowled into the fire, h