Mary Rose of Mifflin | Page 9

any cats in it."
"I know." Mr. Jerry seemed to know everything. "What are you going
to do?"
"If we kept him Uncle Larry would lose the janitor and we wouldn't
have a roof over our heads nor bread for our stomachs, so I thought if I
could find a pleasant place for him to board near by I could see him
often. I couldn't give him away, for Aunt Kate says perhaps the Lord'll
give us a real home some day where we can all be together. When I
saw your house it made me think of Mifflin and I wondered if you had
a cat and if you hadn't if you would like to board one?" Her face was
painfully serious as she lifted It to Jerry Longworthy.
"Well," he considered the question gravely. "Can you pay his board?"
"I've a dollar and forty-three cents. The forty-three cents I saved and
the dollar Mr. Black gave me when he took me to the train in Mifflin.
How much should a cat's board be?" anxiously.
"How much milk does he drink? Milk's seven cents a quart in Waloo."
"Oh, not more than a quart a day," eagerly. "And he's almost too fat
now."
"A quart a day would be seven times seven----"
"I know. I know all my tables up to twelve times twelve. That would be
forty-nine cents. Do you think fifty cents would be enough?"

"I should think fifty cents a week very good board for a cat. Suppose
we go in and see what my Aunt Mary has to say."
His Aunt Mary proved to be a plump lady with a round rosy face, who
agreed with Mary Rose that children and cats and dogs were most
desirable additions to a family. She seemed quite glad to take George
Washington as a boarder and thought that fifty cents a week was
enough to charge as long as Mary Rose solemnly promised to come
over every day and help take care of him. Mary Rose promised most
solemnly.
"I'm so glad." She beamed on Mr. Jerry and his Aunt Mary and hugged
George Washington. "It's a great relief to find a pleasant boarding place.
I can pay for two weeks, almost three weeks now," she offered.
Mr. Jerry started to speak but his Aunt Mary shook her head and he
shut his mouth with the words inside.
"We don't take board in advance for a cat," said his Aunt Mary in a way
that told Mary Rose such a thing was never done. "In fact, we've never
taken a cat to board before. I think it will be more satisfactory if we
wait until the end of the week, when we can tell just how much milk he
will drink," she added soberly.
"He's awfully greedy." Mary Rose looked sadly at the greedy George
Washington. "But he's always had all he wanted. I can't tell you how
much obliged I am and I'll come over every day. It's awfully good of
you to take him when you haven't any other boarders."
"I'd take you, too, if I could," Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary murmured as she
went to get a ginger cooky.
"I'm going to find the beautiful princess," Mary Rose told Mr. Jerry,
when she said good-by to him a few minutes later. "And when I do
shall I tell her that the prince is not going to Jericho?"
"Do," he said and his face went all red again. "Tell her that he's going
to stay right here on the job, that he will never give her up."

"Never give her up," repeated Mary Rose. She tried to say it as firmly
as he had said it and she waved her hand as she went across the alley
and into the back door of the Washington, with a most delicious thrill at
entering such a two-faced building.
Mr. Jerry looked after her and frowned. Then he shook his fist at the
Washington.
"You are an enchanted palace," he told it sternly. "If it weren't for
doggone places like you, girls would have to stay at home. They
couldn't go out in the world and grow so independent that they think
work is the biggest thing in creation. Oh, Godfrey! it isn't normal for
any girl to like a job better than a perfectly good man. When I think of
Elizabeth Thorley wasting herself on advertisements for Bingham and
Henderson's sickening jams when she might be making a Heaven for
me it sends my temperature up until I'm afraid of spontaneous
combustion. She wouldn't care if I did blow up and turn to ashes. She
wouldn't care what happened to me so long as she could send out a new
poster for peach marmalade. She wants to live her own