Mary Rose of Mifflin | Page 5

"Mary Rose Crocker," repeated the red lips and the knickerbockered
legs jumped up and down.
"My soul an' body!" Mrs. Donovan murmured helplessly. "Will you
come down to my rooms, ma'am," she said to Mrs. Black, as she tried
to remember her manners and not think how she was to tell Larry the
truth. Why, this child was undersized rather than over. Her mother
might have weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds when she was
twelve but Mary Rose couldn't weigh seventy. Dear, dear, why couldn't
she just as well have been bigger? But after one glance at the glowing
little face, Kate Donovan would have lost almost everything rather than
her right to take care of diminutive Mary Rose.
Mrs. Black smiled at her. She liked her honest good-natured face. It
was a shining door-plate for the big heart behind it. She had been rather
worried over Mary Rose's only living relative, for she was fond of
Mary Rose and wanted her to have a real home.
"Thank you, but I fear I must go on. Our train was a little late. I am
glad to have met you and if you like Mary Rose half as much as I do
you will think you are a lucky woman to have her always with you.
Good-by, Mary Rose. Thank you for coming with me."
Mary Rose threw her arms about her friend. "Thank you for bringing
me," she whispered.
"Have you everything? Her trunk is at the station and she has the
check," she explained to Mrs. Donovan. "Good-by." And with another
kiss for Mary Rose she was gone. They could hear the purr of the
taxicab as it dashed up the street.
Mary Rose drew a deep breath. "It's very pleasant to get to the end of a
journey," she began a trifle tremulously. Mary Rose was beginning to
feel a bit forlorn at being left alone with an aunt she had never seen
before. "Mrs. Black's a very kind lady and she brought me here in a
taxicab. It's very pleasant riding in a taxicab."

"I've no doubt it is," remarked Mrs. Donovan, who knew taxicabs only
by sight. "Now, Mary Rose, we'll go down to my rooms. Is this your
canary?" She looked oddly at the bird-cage.
"Yes, that's Jennie Lind. I couldn't leave her behind and Mrs. Black
said you'd be sure to have room for her, for all she needs is a window to
hang in and everybody has at least one window. Your house is very
large, isn't it?" admiringly. "It makes me think of a palace, although it
is something like the new Masonic Temple in Mifflin. Do you live in
the cellar?" she asked in astonishment as her aunt led the way down the
basement stairs. "I've never lived in a cellar before. In Mifflin our cellar
had only room for jellies and pickles and a closet for vegetables,
turnips and parsnips, you know."
"This isn't a cellar," she was told rather sharply. "It's a basement."
"Oh!" Mary Rose tried to see the difference between a cellar and a
basement and had little difficulty, for nothing could have been more
different from the little Mifflin cellar with its swinging shelf for
preserves and pickles, its dark closet for vegetables, than Aunt Kate's
basement apartment. The sun streamed into the windows, only half of
which were below the level of the street, and the rooms looked very
bright and pleasant to tired Mary Rose.
"It's--it's very pleasant," she said. "But do you always live down here?"
She couldn't understand why her aunt should choose rooms in the cellar
when she had such a large house.
Her aunt did not answer her but asked a question of her own. "Mary
Rose, what makes you dress like that, like a boy?" She couldn't imagine
why.
Mary Rose regarded her small person with a blush and a frown. "I
know. Isn't it horrid? I'd lots rather wear girls' clothes, but you see these
saved washing, and Lena, who took care of daddy and me, made a fuss
about the washing almost every week, so daddy said boys' clothes were
pleasanter than arguments. Aunt Kate," her voice was tragic, "I'm 'most
eleven years old and I haven't ever had a white dress with a blue sash in

all my life. I never even had a hair ribbon!"
"My soul an' body!" murmured Aunt Kate, and derived no more
satisfaction from the exclamation than she had the other times she had
used it.
"Don't you think boys should wear boys' clothes and girls girls' clothes,
Aunt Kate? Of course, if you have to think of the washing, too, I won't
say a word and I'll try to be happy in these. But I do hate them. I think
little