Miss Gibbie Gault. Kate Langley Bosher
size and shape and furnishings of the rooms, then sighed in happy content.
"It's such a pity so many people still think a home /must/ have a man in it. If a man belongs to you and is nice he might make the home nicer, but"—she shook her head—"Mrs. McDougal says there are times when a husband is a great trial. I haven't any brothers or a father, and I don't want to risk a trial yet. The reason most homes need men is because men mean money, I suppose. You can't sneeze without needing money. And yet"—she looked around—"everything in this house didn't cost as much as the rug Mrs. Maxwell has on her drawing-room floor. I don't wonder John loathes his house. You can't really see the price-tags on the things in it, but you're certain you could find them if you had the chance to look. I wonder where John's letter is?" She got up and went into the library, turned over papers and magazines on desk and tables, then rang for Hedwig.
"The mail?" she said. "Where did you put the letters this morning?"
Hedwig shook her head. "There no letters were this morning, mein
Fraulein. Not one at all."
"That's queer! All right." Hedwig was waved away. "I wonder if anything is the matter? Of course there isn't—only—there haven't been three Mondays since I left here that John's letter didn't come on the early mail." She straightened a rose that was falling out of a jar and stood off to watch the effect. "Nobody but John would write every week, when I don't write once in four—don't even read his letters for days after they come, sometimes. But I like to know they're here. I believe"—she clasped her hands behind her head—"I believe I wish I had let him come down to-night. No, I don't. But why didn't he write? He ought to have known—" She turned away. "It would serve me right if he never wrote again."
By seven o'clock she was on her way to the monthly meeting of the town council, which meeting was always held on the second Monday evening in the month, and as she started off she waved to Hedwig, standing in the door.
"Telephone Miss Gibbie not to sit up for me," she called back. "I'm going to stay all night with her, but it may be late before I get there. Don't forget!" And again the hand was waved; and as she drove down the dusty road, Ephraim beside her, the uncertainty of the morning faded and her spirits rose at the prospect of the experience awaiting.
"You see," she thought to herself, "I've had the advantage of being poor and not expecting things to go just as I want them, so it takes a great deal to discourage me. When you're dealing with human nature it's the unexpected you must expect. 'Human nature are a rascal,' Mrs. McDougal says, and Mrs. McDougal's observations come terribly near being true." She laughed and whistled softly, but at Ephraim's discreet cough stopped and turned toward him.
"I oughtn't to do it, ought I, Ephraim? It isn't nice. I am afraid I forget sometimes I am really and truly grown up."
"I reckon you does." Ephraim touched his hat. "You's right smart of a child yet in some things, 'count of yo' young heart, I reckon. I ain't never seen nobody who could see the sunny side like you kin, but it ain't all sunny, Miss Mary, this worl' ain't, and there's a lot of pesky people in it." He coughed again. "Sometimes folks seem to forgit you is your grandpa's grandchild. Yo' grandpa was the high-steppinist gentleman I ever seen in my life, but since you been goin' down among them mill folks and factory folks and takin' an intrus' in 'em, lookin' into how things is, some of them King Street people seem to think, scusin' of my sayin' it, that maybe it's yo' father's blood what's comin' out in you."
Mary Cary laughed. "I hope it is. My father was a very sensible gentleman, and didn't ask others what he must or must not do. But his people in England would be more shocked than—" She stopped and her lips twisted in a queer little smile. "Put me down here, Ephraim. I am going first to Mrs. Corbin's."
Twenty minutes later she and Mrs. Corbin walked up the stops of the side entrance of the town hall into the room where all public meetings were held, and where all business connected with the town's interest was transacted. As they reached the top the hum of many voices greeted them. The narrow passageway was half filled with men. Some were standing, hands in pockets; some, balancing themselves on the railing, with feet twisted around its spokes, held their hands loosely clasped in front, while others leaned against the wall, scribbled over with pencil-marks and finger-prints of varying sizes, and ahead, through the open door, could be seen both men and women.
As they came nearer, those on the railing jumped down; those leaning against the wall straightened, and those in front made way, while hats came off and spitting ceased.
"Good-evening," she said. "We are going to have a mice meeting, aren't we?" She held out her hand. "How do you do, Mr. Jernigan. Is Jamie better to-night?"
"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am. He's right sharp better to-night. He's pleased as Punch over those drawings things you sent him. Been at 'em all day."
"That's good." She reached the door, them turned, taking off her long, light coat which covered the white dress. "Aren't you men coming in?"
"Yes'm—that is, those of us what can." It was Mr. Flournoy, foreman of the woolen mills, who spoke. "There ain't much room in there left and they say some more ladies is coming, so we thought we might as well stay out as come out. We can hear all right."
"I'm sorry. The women ought not to take the men's places. Can't you—"
"Oh, that's all right." Mr. Jernigan waved his hat toward her. "We done our work before we come here. Ain't a man in the council what don't know how we stand, and what we won't do for them is a plenty if they don't tote square. You just go on in, Miss Cary—you and Mrs. Corbin."
As they entered the room there was much uprising and many seats were offered, but with a nod here and there they made their way toward a window near which Mrs. Webb and Mrs. Moon were sitting and took two chairs which had been kept for them. To the left were Mrs. Brent and Mrs. Burnham, to the right Miss Mittie Muncaster and Mrs. Dunn, while behind was Miss Amelia Taylor, president of the Mother's Club, with Miss Victor Redway, the new kindergarten teacher from Kentucky. A dozen other women, scattered in groups here and there, were whispering as if at a home funeral, and along the walls men, ranged in rows, hats in hands, chewed with something of nervous uncertainty as to the wisdom of the innovation which they were about to witness. In a large chair on a small platform Mr. Chinn, president of the council, sat in solemn silence, gavel in hand, waiting for the hour to strike, and for once in its history all ten of the city fathers were on time and in place.
"You may not mind this, Mary, but I do," said Mrs. Moon half under her breath. "I'm not used to these new-fashioned ways of doing things. I feel like I haven't got on all my clothes. I came because you told me I ought to, and of course women should take interest in things of this sort, but I don't like it. I—"
"Then you were dear to come." And Mary gave the soft, pretty hands a squeeze. "I don't like it either, but neither do I like Yorkburg's not having a high school. Don't look so uneasy. Nobody is going to bite. Have you seen Mr. Milligan? A frog couldn't look more like a frog. He'll pop presently, he's so pleased about something. There—they're going to begin."
She leaned back in her chair, and as Mr. Chinn rose in his seat and rapped on the table the crowd in the passage pressed closer to the door. All who could came inside, but no longer was there standing- room, and the air that might have come through the open windows was kept back by the men who had climbed up in them and were swinging their feet below.
The gavel again sounded. "The meeting will come to order!"
Mr. Chinn, in his long frock-coat and white string tie, stood a moment surveying with mournful eye the crowded room, and in his voice as he repeated "The meeting will come to order!" was the assurance that all flesh is as grass, and though in a field it may flourish it will finally be cut down.
But not yet could the meeting come to order. As Mr. Simson, the clerk, stood up and began to call the roll there was the shuffle of many feet in the hall and the men near the door parted to make way for late but determined arrivals.
"Mrs. McDougal and every blessed member of her family!"
Under her breath Mary Cary laughed, then beckoned, and in pressed Mrs. McDougal and