Mary Louise - Lyman Frank Baum (the reading strategies book txt) 📗

As Mary Louise approached the home of the Conants, which was a pretty little house set far back in a garden filled with trees and shrubs, she was surprised to hear a joyous ragtime tune being drummed upon the piano—an instrument she remembered Mrs. Conant kept in the house exclusively as an ornament, being unable to play it. Then, as the girl reached the porch, the melody suddenly stopped, a merry laugh rang out and a fresh, sweet voice was heard through the open window talking rapidly and with eager inflection.

“I wonder who that can be?” thought Mary Louise. Everyone had to speak loudly to poor Mrs. Conant, who might be entertaining a visitor. She rang the bell and soon her old friend appeared in the doorway.

“My dear, dear child!” cried the good lady, recognizing the girl instantly and embracing her after a welcoming kiss. “Where on earth have you come from?”

“From Beverly,” said Mary Louise with a smile, for in her depressed state of mind this warm greeting cheered her wonderfully.

“Come right in,” said Mrs. Conant, seizing the suit case. “Have you had breakfast?”

“Yes, indeed; hours ago. And I’ve seen Mr. Conant at his office. He—he wanted me to talk to you.”

She spoke loudly, as she had been accustomed to do, but now Mrs. Conant wore on her ear an instrument similar in appearance to a small telephone receiver, and she seemed to hear quite distinctly through its mechanism. Indeed, she pointed to it with an air of pride and said: “I can hear a whisper, my dear!”

As Mary Louise was ushered into the cosy sitting room she looked for the piano-player and the owner of the merry laugh and cheery voice. Near the center of the room was a wheeled chair in which sat a young girl of about her own age—a rather pretty girl in spite of her thin frame and pallid countenance. She was neatly dressed in figured dimity, with a bright ribbon at her throat. A pair of expressive brown eyes regarded Mary Louise with questioning earnestness. Over her lap lay a coverlet; her slender white fingers rested upon the broad arms of her chair.

“This,” said Mrs. Conant, “is my niece, Irene Macfarlane, who is living with us just now and is the life and joy of our formerly dull household. You’ll have to love her, Mary Louise, because no one can help doing so.”

Mary Louise advanced to the chair and took one of the wan hands in her own. A thrill of pity flooded her heart for the unfortunate girl, who instantly noted her expression and met it with a charmingly spontaneous smile.

“Don’t you dare think of me as a cripple!” she said warningly. “I am not at all helpless and my really-truly friends quickly forget this ugly wheeled chair. We’re to be friends, are we not? And you’re going to stay, because I see your baggage. Also I know all about you, Mary Louise Burrows, for Aunt Hannah never tires of singing your praises.”

This was said so naturally and with such absence of affectation that Mary Louise could not fail to respond to the words and smile.

“I’m glad to find you here, Irene,” she said, “and I don’t know yet whether I’m to stay or not. That will depend on Mrs. Conant’s decision.”

“Then you’re to stay,” promptly decided the hospitable lady, who by turning her mechanical ear toward the speaker seemed able to hear her words clearly.

“But you don’t know all the complications yet,” confessed the girl. “I’ve run away from school and—and there are other things you must know before you decide. Mr. Conant wasn’t at all enthusiastic over my coming here, I assure you, so I must tell you frankly the whole story of my adventures.”

“Very good,” returned Mrs. Conant. “I think I can guess at most of the story, but you shall tell it in your own way. Presently Irene is going out to inspect the roses; she does that every morning; so when she is out of the way we’ll have a nice talk together.”

“I’m going now,” said Irene, with a bright laugh at her dismissal. “Mary Louise won’t be happy till everything is properly settled; nor will I, for I’m anxious to get acquainted with my new friend. So here I go and when you’ve had your talk out just whistle for me, Mary Louise.”

She could propel the chair by means of rims attached to the wheels and, even as she spoke, began to roll herself out of the room. Mary Louise sprang to assist her, but the girl waved her away with a little laugh.

“I’m an expert traveler,” she said, “and everyone lets me go and come as I please. Indeed, I’m very independent, Mary Louise, as you will presently discover.”

Away she went, through the hall, out at the front door and along the broad porch, and when she had gone Mary Louise whispered softly into Mrs. Conant’s mechanical eardrum:

“What is wrong with her?”

“A good many things,” was the reply, “although the brave child makes light of them all. One leg is badly withered and the foot of the other is twisted out of shape. She can stand on that foot to dress herself— which she insists on doing unaided—but she cannot walk a step. Irene has suffered a great deal, I think, and she’s a frail little body; but she has the sweetest temperament in the world and seems happy and content from morn till night.”

“It’s wonderful!” exclaimed Mary Louise. “What caused her affliction?”

“It is the result of an illness she had when a baby. Irene is sixteen and has never known what it is to be well and strong, yet she never resents her fate, but says she is grateful for the blessings she enjoys. Her father died long ago and her mother about a year since; so, the child being an orphan, Peter and I have taken her to live with us.”

“That is very kind of you,” asserted Mary Louise with conviction.

“No; I fear it is pure selfishness,” returned the good woman, “for until she came to us the old home had been dreadfully dull—the result, my dear, of your going away. And now tell me your story, and all about yourself, for I’m anxious to hear what brought you to Dorfield.”

Mary Louise drew a chair close to that of Aunt Hannah Conant and confided to her all the worries and tribulations that had induced her to quit Miss Stearne’s school and seek shelter with her old friends the Conants. Also, she related the episode of Detective O’Gorman and how she had first learned through him that her grandfather and her mother were not living in Dorfield.

“I’m dreadfully worried over Gran’pa Jim,” said she, “for those terrible agents of the Secret Service seem bent on catching him. And he doesn’t wish to be caught. If they arrested him, do you think they would put him in jail, Aunt Hannah?”

“I fear so,” was the reply.

“What do they imagine he has done that is wrong?”

“I do not know,” said Mrs. Conant. “Peter never tells me anything about the private affairs of his clients, and I never ask him. But of one thing I am sure, my dear, and that is that Peter Conant would not act as Colonel Weatherby’s lawyer, and try to shield him, unless he believed him innocent of any crime. Peter is a little odd, in some ways, but he’s honest to the backbone.”

“I know it,” declared Mary Louise. “Also I know that Gran’pa Jim is a good man. Cannot the law make a mistake, Aunt Hannah?”

“It surely can, or there would be no use for lawyers. But do not worry over your grandfather, my child, for he seems quite able to take care of himself. It is nine or ten years since he became a fugitive—also making a fugitive of your poor mother, who would not desert him—and to this day the officers of the law have been unable to apprehend him. Be patient, dear girl, and accept the situation as you find it. You shall live with us until your people again send for you. We have excellent schools in Dorfield, where you will not be taunted with your grandfather’s misfortunes because no one here knows anything about them.”

“Doesn’t Irene know?” asked Mary Louise.

“She only knows that your people are great travelers and frequently leave you behind them as they flit from place to place. She knows that you lived with us for three years and that we love you.”

The girl became thoughtful for a time. “I can’t understand,” she finally said, “why Gran’pa Jim acts the way he does. Often he has told me, when I deserved censure, to ‘face the music’ and have it over with. Once he said that those who sin must suffer the penalty, because it is the law of both God and man, and he who seeks to escape a just penalty is a coward. Gran’pa knows he is innocent, but the government thinks he is guilty; so why doesn’t he face the music and prove his innocence, instead of running away as a coward might do and so allow his good name to suffer reproach?”

Mrs. Conant shook her head