Emma Speed Sampson

“ Mary Louise was very sad over her grandfather’s feeling against her beloved Danny. The change had come on gradually, so gradually that Mary Louise could hardly tell when the old man had adopted the critical attitude he now held. In days gone by, he had looked at his grandson-in-law with kindly benevolent eyes and had always seemed glad to see him. He had taken pride in the young man’s power of attracting friends and keeping them, in his ability in the automobile factory, and his rapid advancement. ”

“ I am as glad as glad can be, and, while I am going to put my wits to work as a friend first and as a detective second, I am hoping I will take a long time to find the lost treasure.”
“Well I never!” declared Irene in quite the tone Aunt Hannah might have used. “I am no worshiper of money, but I must say one can do so much with money that the having of it must be very pleasant. I shall never forget the wonderful things Colonel Hathaway and Mary Louise have done for me and it was because they had money that they could do them. ”

“ Oh!” was all poor Mary Louise could trust herself to say.
“I am also glad your husband has gone on a business trip. His presence might irritate Colonel Hathaway. This may be only a phase and he may get over all his feeling against Mr. Dexter. I am sure I hope it will be so. In the meantime, if I were you, I should see that he is kept quiet but amused; make him eat simple nourishing food; have plenty of air but do not let him take too much exercise.” ”

“ You know, it is hard for persons who never have spent money to begin and, when one has been accustomed to the best, it is an easy matter to supply others with what you have been used to yourself. I’ll wager within a month you are going to feel that, to do your customers credit, you must take a trip to New York to get the latest styles and, in not such a dim distant future you will be running across to Paris to get in touch with the last cry in the way of millinery. I tell you, Mary Louise, you are going to be a fine business woman before we know it. ”

“ Irene said to Josie, who stopped by her for a moment, her arms loaded with books that were too precious to be entrusted to any possible tenant no matter how worthy he or she might prove.
“No, but Mary Louise could never sell them.134 That’s the pleasure of owning things like that. They are priceless and still worthless because one could never part with them. A cabinet like that always makes me think of honest love, something quite intangible when one tries to count its value in dollars and cents.” ”

“ It seemed to Irene that Mary Louise had had jolt enough and now she might be let down easily without having to hit this much vaunted rock bottom with so much force. When she suggested this, Josie was ready with an answer to her argument.
“A ball can’t bounce back until it hits something but will go on falling and we are more or less like balls, my dear Irene. We can’t bounce until we hit—we can’t regain our footing until we have something to stand on. You wait until our poor little rich girl turns into a rich little poor girl and you are going to see wonders.” ”

“ Why, honey, you are going to be the successful business woman of Dorfield.”
“Oh Josie!”
“Certainly you are! You have it in you to be a success. Whatever you have undertaken, you have pushed through with sureness until you have reached the goal. Of course you have been spoiled in a way by having money come too easily but that isn’t going to hurt your business career any. ”

“ Mary Louise did not understand that her Danny was the rascal and worthless fellow and had asked in some astonishment “What rascal, Grandpa Jim?”
And he had answered sadly, “You poor child, I mean your husband.”
She had burst out crying and Colonel Hathaway28 had taken her action as proof that she was being abused by Danny and had continued his invectives against that innocent and long suffering young man. Vainly Mary Louise had endeavored to stem the flow of his abuse.
“Women always take up the defense for their worthless husbands,” he had said, “but it makes no impression on me. ”

“ Yes, so it would, but because persons are strangers is no sign they are not pretty nice. I myself would rather have my things used by persons who could enjoy them than have them stored in heartless warehouses where, no doubt, the rats would gnaw holes in them and they would do nobody any good. I’d rent the house furnished for a goodly sum if possible and be careful about the tenant. Don’t take one who is not responsible. Storing furniture is like pouring money down rat holes. ”

“ It will be everything to dear little Mary Louise that she must actually begin to think about where her next meal is coming from.”
113 “Josie! How can you say such a thing?” demanded Elizabeth, shocked wonderment in her voice and countenance.
“Easy!” laughed Josie. “Aren’t you a million times happier since you are taking care of yourself? Why shouldn’t it make Mary Louise happier, especially now that she has so much sorrow to overcome? ”

“ Don’t you realize that this poor old man who is deliberately wounding you every moment of the day—because he would ordinarily know that there can be no wound deeper than the one he is inflicting when he says hard things about your husband—don’t you know that this is not your real grandfather but a sick man, your grandfather with his brain not functioning properly? ”

“ There was one rule the great detective, O’Gorman, had tried to instill in the mind of his daughter Josie, and that was, if possible, never to meddle in other folks’ affairs, but if, by any chance, Fate so ordained it that you must meddle, stick to it until those affairs were settled and the meddling was no longer necessary. Josie felt that, from the beginning, she had put her finger in Mary Louise’s pie and she must not draw it out until she could extract some kind of plum for her little friend. ”

“ I am anxious to get Mary Louise out of the house and tonight she will be safely moved to my quarters. She must not be made more nervous than she is already.”
“Poor child! Poor child!” murmured the chief. “I’ll see that the place is looked after. Don’t have the telephone taken out. My men may need it.”
“I’ll see to that, but I think it wisest not to let Mary Louise know that her home is in danger of marauders. She must rest in security for a while at least.”
“Good girl! Is there no certainty of how much Jim Hathaway put in those wild-cat gold mines? ”

“ I don’t want to blame a soul but myself for my shortcomings.” She put a book back in place with a vigorous push.
Mary Louise had come to the Higgledy Piggledy Shop to try to throw off some of the misery and gloom she felt enveloping her. She longed to tell Josie about her predicament, but Elizabeth Wright was present and Irene had just come gliding in her wheel chair from the dumb waiter, an arrangement Danny had perfected so that the lame girl could come to the shop whenever she wanted to and not be dependent on anyone to be carried up stairs. ”

“ Of course, I did it just for the fun of doing it,” blushed Mary Louise.
“Oh, that would never do,” put in Josie, sternly. “Such a thing would ruin our trade. In the first place, the little old lady won’t think it is done right if it is free, and then she would tell other persons that we do work for nothing but it is not good and, before you know it, we’d be overrun with charity practice. No indeed, my dear Mary Louise, the bonnet must be paid for and it must be well paid for. ”

“ I appreciate my father’s working as he did to leave me some money, but I appreciate a lot more his trying to teach me a trade.”
“But Josie, while you have been philosophizing about the most satisfactory methods of obtaining happiness through lack of wealth, have you thought of anything Mary Louise can do to earn her living?” asked Irene. “Uncle Peter and Aunt Hannah want her to come live with us and Uncle Peter says what he has is as much hers as his. He had a mighty strong feeling for the Colonel and Aunt Hannah simply adores Mary Louise—she always has. ”

“ She turned on both flashlights to examine more thoroughly the footprints in the dust.
“I bet Slater doesn’t know it, but I fancy he has let up lately or will let up now that there is a tenant coming in tomorrow.” She followed the foot prints along the hall and into the dining room. They led straight to where Mary Louise lay in the little heap on the floor, the telephone, with the receiver out, fallen beside her.
“God bless my soul!” exclaimed Josie. “She was faint and tried to call some one. Poor child! She shouldn’t have come here alone. The place has proved too much for her.” ”

“ The house must be gone over from attic to cellar, all useless and superfluous articles disposed of, all of the rarest pictures, rugs, and ornaments packed and sent to storage. What Mary Louise needed in the way of furnishings for the simple life she was to lead henceforth in the room that was to be partitioned off for her in the Higgledy Piggledy Shop, must be carefully and judiciously selected. There was a mountain of labor ahead of them but the girls pitched in with a will and, at night Mary Louise found herself sleeping better than she had for many weeks. ”

“ Conant find any money at all?” asked Josie.
“Nothing! Of course, the house is there and all of its furnishings. It is on a huge lot which may be valuable in time, but, just now, that part of Dorfield is not so fashionable as it used to be and Uncle Peter thinks it would be a pity to sell it, as there is a chance of its being in demand a little later for office buildings. Business is slowly creeping that way. He is going to hold on to his property until he can get his price.”
“In the meantime, what will Mary Louise live on?” asked Elizabeth. ”

“ I must write him a wonderful letter to San Francisco to speed him on his way. I must face the fact that Grandpa Jim is cra—, no not that awful word—but just a little peculiar. I must even forgive him for being so horribly cruel to my dear, dear boy. He didn’t know what he was doing. I must be brave! I must be worthy of Danny! I must be worthy of poor Grandpa Jim, who has been so wonderful all his life. Maybe Dr. Coles can cure him.”
The determination to be brave worked wonders for Mary Louise. ”

“ It will give you a larger outlook and keep you from being so all-fired particular about small bits of money. I think that is the trouble with so many women who go into business. They have heard so much about ‘taking care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves’ that they spend too much time and thought over unimportant sums and forget the other saying ‘Penny wise and pound foolish.’”
126 Josie was mounted on one of her hobbies and she rode gaily on, clucking to her nag and switching his flanks with proverbs and arguments until Mary Louise was in a gale of merriment. ”

“ You won’t need the money sorely at all, not if you get busy and ship the dear old darkeys and come stay with me at the Higgledy Piggledy and begin to earn your salt and plenty of good beefsteaks to sprinkle it on, to say nothing of butter gravy and bread to sop in it.”
“Oh Josie, you are so funny!”
“Well, settle with the faithful retainers this very night. Call them now and let them know you are going to break up housekeeping tomorrow and they must pack up and start for their farm in Virginia. There is no use in dragging the thing out. ”

“ Money is all right in its place, but it is a better115 thing to work for than to have and I, for one, am glad Mary Louise is going to have to work for it for a while. It will do her good, poor dear child! I know how good it was for me, after my father died, to open up this shop and get busy. It didn’t lessen my loss any, but it gave me strength to bear it.”
Elizabeth and Irene were silent. They agreed with Josie that it might be good for their friend to have something to take her mind off her terrible sorrow, but they did not feel that losing all her worldly goods was necessary. ”

“ I believe it will be better for Mary Louise to get down to rock bottom and have to begin to think about the actual earning of every necessity. If she has a lot of left-overs to begin on, the bare bones of living will still be an unknown skeleton to her and she might just as well get down to plain, hard, ossified facts.”
Irene smiled. She could not help thinking137 that for a person who prided herself on being practical, Josie certainly did let her theories run away with her. ”

“ He said he might have got angry and knocked a man down and killed him that way, but a man who walked so straight without running his heels down at all and who wore out his shoe in a little round ring under the ball of his foot, evidently not trying to walk on his tip toes nor yet taking the precaution to have rubber heels to walk easy, was not a man to deliberately plan a foul, sneaking murder. ”

“ If she had only told him and not told some one else, even anyone as close and dear as her grandfather! He did not blame her though. He loved her so supremely and trusted her so implicitly that he knew she could do no wrong.
At this point in the letter Mary Louise felt she could bear life no longer.
“It is my own fault! My own fault!” she wailed. “I have not been truthful. I have done the worst thing a person can do—I have lied to myself. I have known all the time that60 Grandpa Jim was not himself and I have refused to admit it. I have wronged him and I have wronged Danny. ”

“ Danny then told the chief of the shower of gold that had greeted him when he shook the automobile tire.
“Well, by golly, all of us missed it!” exclaimed Lonsdale. “Little O’Gorman made a thorough search and some treasure hunters went through the garage and I sent two of my best men to go over the whole place again and here you come hastening back from a watery grave and the stuff knocks you down. I’ll send immediately and have it gathered up. You must go along too, Danny.” ”

“ She had an idea there were some men in Dorfield who were pushing them, but she never saw the men. Her grandfather would come home every few days quite jubilant over his wonderful and safe investments. Mary Louise knows nothing about business beyond being able to cash a check and keep her stubs written up so that things balance more or less at the end of the month. Her grandfather kept her well supplied with cash and put a goodly sum in the bank for her each month. She is going to learn though.”
She told the chief of her plan for Mary Louise to open a bonnet shop and he applauded the scheme. ”

“ Danny Dexter. You have to pay us a fifteen per cent commission besides for letting you do the work. That would only leave you three dollars and forty cents.”
“Oh, what a funny Josie!” laughed Mary Louise. “You know I’m not going to take any of the money. It would be absurd when I’ve had such a good time doing the little bonnet.”
“A good workman always has a good time doing his work,” asserted Josie, who was quite like her father in getting off wise little saws.44 “You needn’t keep the money, but you are obliged to take it and give us sixty cents. ”