The Wishing-Ring Man | Page 9

feel that we are all brothers, and that so little a
thing as bringing it home to a train-hand could move him so
profoundly," finished Mr. Gosport, cheered by the success of his
anecdote. "I make it a point never to neglect such little things--"
He was left with a period in mid-air, for Joy, with a flurry of skirts, was
running toward her grandfather. She didn't care a bit whether men were
all brothers or second cousins; she thought maybe Grandfather would
know the real name of the man she had talked to, the one besides Jack.
"Grandfather, what was the name of the man with curly, fair hair and
big gray eyes, the one who had a little old lady with him?" she
demanded breathlessly, clinging to her grandfather's arm and
interrupting him ruthlessly in the middle of something he was saying to
somebody.
"I haven't the faintest recollection," said Grandfather; and Grandmother
whispered:
"Come away, dear. The lady with him just asked him whether he wrote
under his own name or a nom-de-plume, and you know how irritating
that is."
Joy came obediently away. After all, it didn't matter about Jack's other
name. She knew perfectly well that she should see him again.
Everything was bound to go happily.... And till she saw him again, she
had him to remember.
"I have something pleasant to tell you, dear," said Grandmother, patting
the arm she still held.

"Yes, Grandmother?" she asked, smiling. An hour or so before she
would have been wild to know what it was, but now she was only
serenely glad that it did exist. She knew perfectly well that things had
begun to happen. And now they would go on and on and on till the
fairy-tale ending came. She knew that, too. Somehow, the shut-out
feeling was all gone, ever since the gray-eyed man had sat at her feet in
the hall and given her the wishing ring. The curtain was up--or, rather,
the door was open into things, just as he'd pushed open the door from
her little dark dream-place, the door that had always been there, but
nobody'd thought to use. Of course, things were going to
happen--lovely ones!
"I know I'll like it," she ended, with a happy little laugh.
"You seem better already, dear," said her grandmother happily, and
began: "We have been talking about your health, and we have decided
that you need a change, and some young life. So we are going up to an
inn in the Maine woods for a month or more. There's boating there,
and--and games, I understand, and there's a literary colony near, so
there'll be people for your grandfather. He thinks he may go on holding
small Afternoons. It's a cottage inn."
Joy did not know then what a cottage inn was, but neither did she care.
She clasped her hands happily over the invisible wishing ring.
As Joy helped Grandmother pack, the next week, she wondered a little
about clothes. She did not worry now, because she had a conviction
that if she only knew what she wanted, and hoped as Jack had told her,
she could hope things straight to her. There was a gray taffeta in a
window uptown, together with a big gray chiffon hat, a little pair of
glossy gray strapped slippers, and filmy gray silk stockings. And the
hat, instead of having pink roses on it, as you'd think a normal hat
would, by the mercy of Providence had deep yellow roses, exactly the
color Joy knew she could wear if she got the chance. The chance, to be
sure, was remote. She did not have an allowance, just money when she
asked for it; and her fall wardrobe had been bought only a few weeks
before. Besides the amber satin that the poetry was about, there were
three other frocks, lovely, artistic, but, Joy was certain, no mortal use

for tennis. She didn't know how to play tennis, but she intended to, just
the same.
Now, how, with just seven dollars left from your last birthday's ten,
could you buy a silk frock, with a hat and shoes and stockings to match?
The answer seemed to be that you couldn't, but Joy did not want to look
at it that way yet. And as she gazed around her bedroom in search of
inspiration, her eyes fell on an illuminated sentiment over her bureau. It
had been sent Grandfather by a Western admirer who had done it by
hand herself in three colors, not counting the gilt. Grandfather had one
already, so Joy had helped herself to this, because it matched the color
of her room. She had never read it before, but, reading it today, it
impressed her as excellent advice to the seeker after fine