Mary Rose of Mifflin | Page 3

I got a good honest hard workin'
Irishman. You've a good job an' a little money in the bank. You don't
owe no man a penny. That's more'n Sam Crocker could ever say an' tell
the truth!"
For two years Larry Donovan had been the proud janitor of the
Washington Apartment House. He had moved in before the building
was fairly completed and felt that it belonged to him quite as much as
to the owner, whose name he did not know, for all business was
transacted through the rental agents, Brown and Lawson.
It was an attractive building. The center of the red brick front, with its
rather ornate entrance, was pushed back some ten feet. The rectangular
space that was left was neatly bisected by the cement walk. On either
side were grassy squares, like pocket handkerchiefs, man's size, with
clumps of shrubbery in the corners for monograms. The Washington
was long and broad and low, not more than three stories high, but it had
an air of comfort and also of pretension that was lacking in many of the
taller apartment houses whose shoulders it could not begin to touch.

Under the low roof were some twenty apartments of different sizes and
the occupant of each was bound by lease not to introduce a child nor a
cat nor a dog. No one showed the least desire to introduce any one of
the three but each went his way and insisted on his full rights with a
selfish disregard of the rights and conveniences of others in a way that
at first had made Larry Donovan's mouth pop wide open in amazement.
Even now that he was used to it he was often surprised.
And to the Washington with its lease forbidding children and pets had
come a letter from Mifflin telling of the sudden death of Mrs.
Donovan's brother-in-law. Samuel Crocker had been an unsuccessful
man, as the world counts success, and had left nothing behind him but
his little daughter, Mary Rose.
"It's her age that's again' her," thought Mrs. Donovan, when she was
alone. "If she were a couple of years older there couldn't be any
objection. Well, for the lan's sakes!" Her face broke into a broad grin.
"There isn't any reason why we should--nobody need ever know," she
murmured cryptically.
Ten minutes later she was busy in the little room at the end of the hall.
When Larry came back he stumbled over the machine she had pushed
out of her way.
"Hullo," he said. "What's up?"
Mrs. Donovan lifted a smiling face. "I'm gettin' ready."
"For what?" he asked stupidly.
"For my niece, Mary Rose Crocker." She turned around and stood
before him, a scrub-cloth in her hand.
Larry frowned. "I thought we'd finished with that, Kate. I told you
about the leases. You'll have to board Mary Rose in Mifflin or send her
to a convent."
"Board!" The scrub-doth, a very banner of defiance, was waved an inch

in front of his nose. "Board out my own niece, a kid of eleven? I think I
see myself, Larry Donovan. An' aren't you ashamed to have such
thoughts, you, a decent man? A little thing that needs a mother's care.
An' who should give it to her but me, her own aunt? The Lord had his
plans when he took away all her other relations an' I ain't one to
interfere."
"It means the loss of my job," objected Larry sullenly.
"It does not." There was another flourish of the scrub-cloth. "Listen to
me, Larry Donovan. Is there anyone in this house 't knows how old
Mary Rose is? Does Mrs. Bracken or that crosspatch Miss Adams or
the weepin' willow, Mrs. Willoughby, know she isn't eleven? Who's to
tell 'em if we keep our mouths shut? It ain't none of their business
though, seems if, there isn't one that'd be beyond makin' it their
business. I'll grant you that. Your old lease, more shame to it, says
childern ain't allowed here. Mary Rose is a child but if she takes after
her mother's fam'ly, an' I know in my heart she does, she'll be a big
up-standin' girl, a girl anyone 'd take for fourteen. Maybe fifteen. Why,
when her mother was twelve she weighed a hundred an' twenty-five
pounds. I've known women of fifty that didn't weigh that!"
triumphantly. "Don't you worry, Larry, dear. I've got it all planned out.
There's the clothes your sister left here when she an' Ella went West las'
fall. Ella was fourteen an' her clothes 'll just fit Mary Rose or I miss my
guess. They'll make her look every minute of fourteen. An' a girl of
fourteen isn't a child. Why, the state that's again' child labor lets a girl
of fourteen go to