"I think I'll go, too," suggested Bob Strahan who scented a story.

"Have you seen George Washington, the self-supporting cat?" he asked Miss Thorley and Miss Carter.

"All of you come," begged Mary Rose, glowing happily again. "Mr.

Jerry'd be glad to have you and there's plenty of room in the back yard. I'd like to have you see my cat. Isn't it wonderful that George Washington and Solomon are self-supporting? That's being independent, isn't it, Miss Thorley? Will you come?" she caught her hand and drew her to her feet.

Miss Thorley hesitated. If George Washington had been boarding with anyone but Jerry Longworthy she would have gone at once but Jerry Longworthy was very apt to forget that she preferred work to love. If she went to his back yard he would be sure to think that her coming was an inch and proceed to make an ell out of it. It would be far wiser to stay away. So she shook her head. "Not now, Mary Rose," she said gently. "Some other time."

After a quick glance at her face Mary Rose did not tease but went off with the others. They found Mr. Jerry in the back yard. He looked beyond them as if he found the party too small but as no one followed to complete it he gave his attention to Solomon and p.r.o.nounced him something of a dog. When Jimmie had put him through his tricks again Mr. Jerry gravely shook hands with both boy and dog.

"You've been a fine teacher," he said to Jimmie. "I congratulate you."

Jimmie's face was as scarlet as the poppies in Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary's garden. "Oh, go on!" he murmured in delighted embarra.s.sment.

"Just think, they walked all the way from Mifflin!" exclaimed Mary Rose in a voice of awe. "It took an automobile and a train and a taxicab to bring me."

"Well, I didn't have money for an auto nor a train nor a taxi," grinned Jimmie, "so Sol and I walked. Not all the way. Folks gave us a lift now and then."

"Of course they did. You'd be sure to find friends," Mary Rose told him jubilantly. "That's the beautiful part of traveling. You find friends everywhere."

"Sure!" Jimmie winked at Mr. Jerry and Bob Strahan. "I found one friend so glad to see me that he had me arrested."

"Why, Jimmie Bronson!" Mary Rose's eyes were as large as the largest kind of saucers. "What for? Was Solomon arrested, too?" She looked reprovingly at her dog.

Jimmie chuckled. "I told you I had more than one chance to sell the brute," with a loving kick at Solomon. "And one man was so mad when I told him 'nothing doing' that he had me arrested. Said I had stolen the dog from him. You see there's some cla.s.s to old Sol but there isn't much to me. The judge didn't know which of us was lying until I told him that Sol was a trick dog and would the man who was trying to put one over on me run through his tricks to show they had worked together. The cuss turned green and stammered that he wasn't no animal tamer. The judge gave me a chance and we had a great performance in the courtroom. When it was over the judge said he guessed if I'd had Solomon long enough to teach him so much the man, if he was the owner, should have found him before. He fined the other chap a greenback and gave it to me. We had beefsteak and potatoes for supper instead of going to jail, didn't we, old sport?"

"Good for you!" Mr. Jerry gave him a comradely slap on the shoulder.

Bob Strahan nodded significantly to Miss Carter. "Didn't I say I'd get a story out of this?" he whispered.

"What are you going to do now, Jimmie?" asked Mary Rose. "You aren't going back to Mifflin?"

No, Jimmie wasn't going back to Mifflin. He thought, rather vaguely, he'd stay in Waloo and see the world. There must be something there for a boy to do if he were strong and willing.

"Oh, there is! Isn't there?" Mary Rose looked appealingly from Mr.

Jerry to Bob Strahan.

"Sure, there is," Mr. Jerry told her heartily. He asked for further particulars. Just what would Jimmie like to do? Had he any plans?

Jimmie hadn't any plans just at present beyond food and shelter but in ten years or so he hoped to be an electrician. Of course, that couldn't be until he was a man. In the meantime he'd take anything and if he could get a job that would let him go to school he'd be about the happiest kid in the world.

"You can get that kind of job," Bob Strahan told him easily. "I'll write a little story about your trip and your arrest for the _Gazette_ and I'll bet you'll have a lot of jobs offered you."

"And until you do you can stay here. There's a little room up there,"

Mr. Jerry nodded toward his attic, "that would just about fit a boy of your size. Do you know anything about autos? Have you ever met a lawn mower? I guess I can find work for you until you get a regular job."

Every freckle on Jimmie's freckled face glowed gratefully. Mary Rose jumped up and down.

"Mr. Jerry!" she began in a choked voice. She ran to him and hid her face against his hand. "First you took my cat," she gasped chokingly, "and then you took my dog and now my friend from Mifflin. I--I don't believe a friendlier man ever lived!"

"Mary Rose!" It was Aunt Kate's voice from the back door of the Washington. "Bring your friend in to supper." Aunt Kate knew that, under the circ.u.mstances, she had no business to ask a boy into the house but she felt desperately that now it did not matter what she did and it would please Mary Rose.

"Well, Mary Rose," Bob Strahan pulled her hair as they trooped back to the Washington, leaving Solomon jumping frantically at Mr. Jerry's snapping fingers, "are you happy now?"

Mary Rose's face clouded. "Half of me's happy and half of me isn't,"

she confessed in a low voice. "It makes me mad not to be friends with everybody and I can't honestly feel that Mr. Wells and I are friends."

CHAPTER XII

Mr. Bracken found one morning, when he had reached his office, that he had forgotten some important papers. He went home at noon to get them.

He let himself into the apartment and walked directly into the living-room. He stopped with an exclamation of surprise for on the broad davenport was a little girl fast asleep. One of her arms was thrown protectingly about a bra.s.s cage in which a bird swung lazily.

"Well, upon my word!" muttered Mr. Bracken. He looked about to be sure he was in the right apartment. He had been away from home and had not met Mary Rose.

The words, low as they were uttered, reached Mary Rose's ear and she opened her eyes. When she saw a tall man staring somewhat frowningly at her she sat up suddenly.

"I--I hope you're Mr. Bracken, Mrs. Bracken's husband?" she said.

There was a tremble in her voice as she slipped from the davenport and bobbed a curtsy. There was a shake in her knees, also. Suppose this strange man should be a burglar? The thought was enough to make the voice and knees of any little girl tremble and shake. But the strange man nodded curtly and Mary Rose laughed tremulously. "I thought perhaps you were a burglar," she confessed at once. "I never knew a real burglar but I see now you don't look a bit like one. If I hadn't been so sleepy I'd have seen it at once for I've the right kind of an eye, the kind that can see the good in people. I think you have, too, because your eyes are just the same color my daddy's were and he had the right kind. Gracious! I should just think he had!"

"Never mind about eyes," Mr. Bracken said impatiently. "What are you doing here?"

"I'll tell you," she blushed. "I came up to wash the dishes, as I do every morning for Mrs. Bracken, and I left the key on the outside and the wind slammed the door shut. I couldn't open it. I thought I'd have to wait until Mrs. Bracken came home to let me out. I didn't dare make a noise for fear I'd disturb Mr. Wells. I must have gone to sleep for I never heard you come in. I live in the cellar with my Aunt Kate and Uncle Larry. At first I felt like a green cuc.u.mber pickle because in Mifflin, where I used to live, there wasn't anything in our cellar but a swinging shelf for pickles and jellies and a person couldn't ever feel like a gla.s.s of plum jelly, could they? So I felt like a cuc.u.mber pickle but now I don't mind it at all. I love to live in the cellar.

There's everything in getting used to things, isn't there? I like it here now pretty well for I've lots of friends. Mrs. Schuneman and Germania and Mrs. Johnson, the grandma one. We go to the park every day and feed her pet squirrel. The Lord keeps it there because she can't have any pets but canary birds in houses like this. There's a law against it, Uncle Larry said. And there's Miss Thorley, the enchanted princess, who's painting my picture for Mr. Bingham Henderson's jam to tell people how good it is. She gave me some once, apricot. We only had strawberry and raspberry and plum and grape and apple b.u.t.ter in Mifflin. I used to stir the apple b.u.t.ter for Lena.

You have to stir it all the time or it burns. It makes your arm awful tired but it's good for the muscle. Feel mine!" She clenched her small arm and held it out so that Mr. Bracken could feel her muscles.

He murmured: "I'll be darned!" in a dazed sort of a way as he felt her muscle, and Mary Rose went on sociably.

"And there's Mrs. Bracken. She said I washed her dishes better than a full-sized girl. And now there's you. Have you had any lunch?" she demanded suddenly. "Shall I get you some?" she wanted to know when he had admitted that he hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast. "Mrs.

Bracken wouldn't like it if I let you go away hungry. It won't take a minute. You just keep an eye on Jenny Lind." And she put Jenny Lind on the table at his elbow before she flew to the kitchen.

Mr. Bracken stood and stared at Jenny Lind and then at the door through which Mary Rose had disappeared. "Well, I'll be darned!" he said again. He went to his desk and found his important papers. He did not intend to stay for lunch but when Mary Rose flew back to demand hurriedly whether he liked his eggs fried or boiled he told her boiled.

A postponed meeting brought Mrs. Bracken home that day several hours before she had planned. She stopped on the threshold in astonishment when she heard voices and laughter in the rear of her apartment. She hurried back with pursed lips and frowning face for both laugh and voice had sounded young. If Mary Rose were making free with her things she would give Mary Rose a good big piece of her mind and then she would present Mrs. Donovan with an equal portion.

She went through the dining-room and into the kitchen to find Joseph Bracken--_Joseph Bracken_--sitting at the kitchen table eating boiled eggs and drinking tea. Mary Rose was perched on a chair across from him and was telling him of Mifflin. Jenny Lind's cage was between them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Mary Rose was perched on a chair across from him and was telling him of Mifflin."]

"Why--why," gasped Mrs. Bracken. She could not say another word. She forgot all about the big piece of her mind that she was going to give Mary Rose and stood there staring with bulging eyes.

Mary Rose jumped to the floor. "Here's Mrs. Bracken!" she cried in delight. "Isn't it a pity we didn't know she was coming? I could just as well have boiled another egg. But there's plenty of tea. It's like a party, isn't it? Except that we haven't any birthday candles. In Mifflin I always had candles on my birthday cake because daddy said a birthday should be like a candle, a light to guide you into the new year. Shall I boil an egg for you, Mrs. Bracken?"

Mrs. Bracken sat down suddenly in the chair Mary Rose had vacated and murmured helplessly: "Well, upon my word!"

"That's what I said," smiled Mr. Bracken, which wasn't exactly true although the words he had used meant the same thing, "when I came home and found a girl and a bird on the davenport."