PAGE 5
The Gay Deceiver
by
“Oh, that makes me furious!” said Patricia, passionately. “I’ll see about it to-morrow. Nobody went near her? The poor little thing!”
“Who are they?” said Paul.
“Why, she’s a little blonde, sickly-looking thing of sixteen,” explained Miss Chisholm, “and Len’s a lumberman. They have a little blue-nosed, sickly baby; it was born about six weeks ago, at her father’s ranch, above here. She was–she had no mother, the poor child–“
“And in fact, my sister escorted the benefit of clergy to them about two months ago,” said Alan, “and the ladies of the Company House are very haughty about it.”
“They won’t be long,” predicted Miss Chisholm, confidently. “The idea! I can forgive Mrs. Hopps, because she’s only a kid herself; but Mrs. Tolley ought to have been big enough! However!”
“This place honestly can’t spare you for ten minutes, Pat,” her brother said.
“Well, honestly,” she was beginning seriously, when she saw he was laughing at her, and broke off, with a shamefaced, laughing look for Paul. Then she announced that she was going down to the power-house, and, packing her thin white skirts about her, she started off, and they followed.
Paul was not accustomed to seeing a lady in the power-house, and thought that her enthusiasm was rather nice to watch. She flitted about the great barnlike structure like a contented child, insisted upon displaying the trim stock-room to Paul, demanded a demonstration of the switchboard, spread her pretty hands over the whirling water that showed under the glass of the water-wheels, and hung, fascinated, over the governors.
“I never get used to it,” said Patricia, above the steady roaring of the river. “Do you realize that you are in one of the greatest force factories of the world? Look at it!” She swept with a gesture the monster machinery that shone and glittered all about them. “Do you realize that people miles and miles away are reading by lights and taking street-cars that are moved by this? Don’t talk to me about the subway and the Pennsylvania Terminal!”
“Oh, come, now!” said Paul.
“Well!” she flared. “Do you suppose that anything bigger was ever done in this world than getting these things–these generators and water-wheels and the corrugated iron for the roof, and the door-knobs and tiles and standards and switchboard, and everything else, up to the top of the ridge from Emville and down this side of the ridge? I see that never occurred to you! Why, you don’t KNOW what it was. Struggle, struggle, struggle, day after day–ropes breaking, and tackle breaking, and roads giving way, and rain coming! Suppose one of these had slipped off the trail–well, it would have stayed where it fell. But wait–wait!” she said, interrupting herself with her delightful smile. “You’ll love it as we do one of these days!”
“Not,” said Paul to himself, as they started back to the house.
After that he saw Miss Chisholm every day, and many times a day; and she was always busy and always cheerful. She wanted her brother and Paul to ride with her up to the dam for a swim; she wanted to go to the woods for ferns for Min’s wedding; she was going to make candy and they could come in. She packed delicious suppers, to be eaten in cool places by the creek, and to be followed by their smoking and her careless snatches of songs; she played poker quite as well as they; she played old opera scores and sang to them; she had jig-saw puzzles for slow evenings. She could not begin a game of what Mrs. Tolley called “halmy,” with that good lady, without somehow attracting the boys to the table, where they hung, championing and criticising. Paul was more amused than surprised to find Mrs. Peavy having tea with the other ladies on the porch less than a week later. The little mother looked scared and shamed; but Mrs. Tolley had the baby, and was bidding him “love his Auntie Gussie,” while she kissed his rounding little cheek. One night, some four weeks after his arrival, Patricia decided that Paul’s room must be made habitable; and she and Alan and Paul spent an entire busy evening there, discussing photographs and books, and deciding where to cross the oars, and where to hang the Navajo blanket, and where to put the college colors. Miss Chisholm, who had the quality of grace and could double herself up comfortably on the floor like a child, became thoughtful over the class annual.