MARY 
 
 SUM-HP 
 LOCKE
 
 ^'S 
 
 /
 
 *,
 
 CAUF. UBRAMY.
 
 HE GOT NO FURTHER, FOR MARY WAS AT THE DOOR. [Page 217.]
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 BY 
 
 SUMNER LOCKE 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 JAMES O. CHAPIN
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1916. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 Published February, 1916
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " COUNT your many blessings," said Mary Set- 
 tler, as she swung round from the stove with a 
 dilapidated stocking thrust over her hand. 
 
 " Count them . . . one ... by ... one," she 
 continued, poking her fingers through holes in the 
 toe at the black and yellow cat on the kitchen 
 settee, who, with a number of sleepy kittens snug- 
 gling against her, seemed loth to count anything 
 more a blessing or otherwise. 
 
 " It's a wonder to me she never fell clean through 
 this ventilated bit of hosiery altogether," the good 
 woman went on. " That's one of the blessings, old 
 cat Hannah-Ellen, and the others have come on me 
 like a crop of early chilblains. Nothing like a crop 
 of chilblains or a pair of new boots that's been too 
 familiar to be comfortable to keep you from worry- 
 ing about anything else! . . . And they're what I 
 call blessings . . . you get me? Blessings that 
 come down in showers and nobody looking out for 
 them and feeling them like hailstones till they finds 
 them to be the reverse." 
 
 2130992
 
 2 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 She looked at the stockings again. " Now from 
 what I can make out, this business of a rampageous 
 horse running away with a vegetable cart, and a 
 girl on top like a bobbing five-cents air-ball-give- 
 away-with-the-extra-coupon, and coming down in 
 the dirt of the road as sudden as a punched balloon, 
 is ... that it's a blessing for her, same time as it 
 is for me. One for Miss Spring Roper of Ladybird 
 Farm, as fell off Jerry Grab's cart, and two for 
 Mary Settler that's me, by the precise way I'm 
 saying it. Two for me . . . my land! Haven't 
 I been wishin' good and hard to get a handful of 
 trouble to deal with like this ever since Mrs. Casey 
 five years come Thanksgiving since that poor soul 
 died in my arms and only Benjamin with his 
 operation on his nose to count as anything since. 
 Some folks would feel it uncommon hard to have 
 nothing to do in the service of humanity, and I'm 
 among that same lot. . . . Barring havin' some- 
 body's baby in the house, Hannah-Ellen, and that 
 occurring the once in twelve months to make it a 
 proper deal at all ... there's not much to keep a 
 hungry heart alive. You know that, old cat; you 
 got an installment of four or five at one sitting . . . 
 count your blessings, I say. . . . I'm surprised at 
 you, Hannah-Ellen ! " 
 
 She pulled the stockings off her hands and ob- 
 served them quizzically.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 3 
 
 " Seems like I'll have to be borrowin' a pair of 
 that Benjamin o' the yard's for her if she is of a 
 mind to get up in the morning, and wanted to travel 
 home to her ma, more like a Christian, with a hair- 
 stuffed cushion under her, 'stead of the vegetables 
 she started out on. Well, we'll have to get her 
 clothes somehow . . . and I've got that on me 
 hands too, praise be. ... I've picked a few things 
 off the road, lame dogs run over by motor ma- 
 chinery . . . and tramps with life stories as long 
 as from here to Boston . . . but a nicer-looking, 
 act-like-a-lady-and-do-it-good-and-easy kinder crea- 
 ture I ain't yet had in my house. Maybe Clara 
 Hopkins will look in tonight and loan us. ... " 
 
 She looked up to see a happy, grinning, full, 
 ripe face through the kitchen door. It was " Ben- 
 jamin o' the yard." 
 
 " Say, is Clara Hopkins comin' across? " he asked 
 Mary. 
 
 Mary tossed the dishwater down the sink and 
 looked at him with a fresh expression. 
 
 " 'Course Clara is comin' ! " 
 
 " She didn't say she was ! " 
 
 " She don't have need to say." 
 
 "What's she ... after?" 
 
 " Maybe to see what's happenin' down our place. 
 You're mighty curious about Clara. S'pose she's 
 heard about the accident."
 
 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 "How could she hear? She's on'y gettin' back 
 from work." 
 
 " She don't have need to get back from work 
 to hear we got part of the accident here. Clara 
 can hear things much further than you think, Ben- 
 jamin." 
 
 The boy grinned and scratched one ear. " Say, 
 is she goin' to stop a bit, Mary ? " 
 
 " More'n likely! Was you thinkin' of gettin' 
 cleaned up? " 
 
 " Yep. Gimme the bowl. I got no soap up the 
 shed, Mary." 
 
 The woman handed him a piece of yellow 
 scented soap from the side of the sink. There was 
 a decided twinkle in her eyes. 
 
 " Anybody would think you was makin' a meal 
 off your bath lately, Benjamin, the way you git 
 rid of soap and water. I 'most surely admit you're 
 lookin' better on it." 
 
 " I don't hev need to look better on it if I do 
 make a meal outter it, Mary. What's this you 
 give me? " 
 
 He held up the cake of soap. 
 
 " It's some of my best I uses when I'm expectin' 
 somebody special. You try it." 
 
 "Hev you used it today, Mary?" He was 
 a bit dubious about how far Mary was getting 
 him.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 5 
 
 " I'm not expectin' anybody as I know on that 
 would encourage me to waste that expensive soap, 
 Benjamin." 
 
 "Not Clara? You sed you was expectin' her." 
 
 " I said I knew she was comin'. That ain't any- 
 body special leastways not to me." 
 
 The boy backed from the door and took the bowl 
 and the soap to the tank. He was busy there for 
 quite a long time, and when Mary looked up the 
 yard he had gone into the shed where he slept, and 
 had shut the door. 
 
 She was still looking through the kitchen door, 
 when Clara Hopkins came into the yard. 
 
 Clara was a thin used-up woman, perhaps a good 
 many years younger than Mary Settler, but she took 
 no advantage of that fact. Her movements were 
 direct, her words hammered out rather than re- 
 peated when she was worked up in argument. The 
 nature of a creature, man, woman, child, bird, or 
 beast, came to her in a flash, and she spared no 
 opinion good or bad when she thought that it 
 ought to have an airing. On the other hand, 
 Mary Settler was slower to gauge exact worth be- 
 cause she accepted folk for what of them came 
 to the surface, knowing truly that to err is piti- 
 fully human and to forgive a satisfaction to the 
 soul. 
 
 The elder woman's bosom surged, often restless
 
 6 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 and disturbed, because of the mighty tempest rising 
 to drag pity and sympathy from the roots of her 
 heart. Man and beast, bird and flower, all called 
 up in Mary Settler the same emotion of passionate 
 and protective tenderness a mother gives her child. 
 Benjamin o' the yard once remarked to a neighbor 
 that " Mary Settler wouldn't leave a wheel-barrer 
 out of a cold night; and as to them chickens and 
 poultry, you'd think they was real human the way 
 they takes advantage of her ! " 
 
 " Come right in, Clara," said Mary, walking 
 from the door and concerning herself for a minute 
 with the turning of the washing at the stove. " Just 
 a minute while I move these things off the chair. 
 There's a chicken that got run over be the old 
 horse, hidin' in them bits of flannel there ; and seein' 
 it's half blind be the way it was born, it wouldn't 
 be kinder fair to let you sit down, not meanin' to 
 harm it unknowin'ly." 
 
 " I'll take the rocker," said Clara, making signs 
 of a lengthy visit. 
 
 " Mind Hannah-Ellen then. She's somewhere 
 about with this year's kittens. I 'lowed she could 
 bring them in because a strange dog has been hangin' 
 about with his nose inspectin' trouble. There's a 
 chair now. Set down and rest. I'll be needin' your 
 services perhaps sooner or later, so just you rest 
 yourself while things is quiet."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 7 
 
 " I hear you got Spring Roper of Ladybird; and 
 Miss Hetty, she took the gentleman as was also 
 concerned in the accident." 
 
 " Miss Hetty, she 'most got the whole funeral 
 right in her front yard, I'm thinkin'. Land, Clara, 
 you should've seen that horse tearin' about the place 
 for all the world like a bad storm in my barn- 
 yard." 
 
 " Well, it's considerable of a chore to Miss Hetty 
 to have that ellergint young gentleman in her parlor 
 and all her lilac bushes cluttered about. She won't 
 get over it in a hurry either, and yet her the only 
 person to really see the accident ! Some folks ain't 
 thankful for nothin'. And the ellergint young gen- 
 tleman come from the city I believe though Miss 
 Hetty, she can't get much outter him, an' he ain't 
 up to answerin' questions through happenin' to fall 
 clean on the top of his head for all the world like as 
 if he was mendin' the roof and somebody pushed 
 him overboard. My ! it must hev been a sight. . . ." 
 
 Mary bustled around the kitchen. She found 
 things to do in every corner. She vanished up the 
 passage for a moment, opened the bedroom door, 
 and took a peep at the girl lying in her white bed; 
 then she shut the door quietly and came back and 
 attended to the sick chicken. 
 
 " Speakin' my mind out, Clara, you know as 
 much as I can tell you maybe, as you've had an
 
 8 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 interview with the district, and me been tied here 
 with on'y Benjamin and Hannah-Ellen to help over 
 the mistakes, but ... if Spring's manner of gettin' 
 along behind that horse wasn't a first-class, front- 
 seat, pass-out-check-and-come-in-when-you-please 
 kind of entertainment, then I muster been havin' a 
 spell of second sight without knowin' it. Maybe I 
 wasn't lookin' the right way to be comfortable in 
 my mind, and seen less than Miss Hetty, who 
 never misses as much as a fly on the window 
 screen." 
 
 " Funny things always happen when I'm away 
 workin'," said Clara. 
 
 " But you gets most of the news, Clara, you bein' 
 anxious and ready for anything that comes along." 
 
 " What was Spring Roper doin' on Jerry Grab's 
 vegetable cart? I ain't got that correct so far." 
 
 Mary embedded the sick chicken into the depths 
 of the flannel and went once more to take a look in 
 the bedroom. 
 
 " There was that horse, Clara," she said when 
 she returned. " It was springin' along as if it was 
 made of rubber. It was shakin' the head off itself 
 like as if it was goin' to spit out all its teeth. Sheer 
 spite it was, and the boy hettin' up things something 
 fearful and that bit of a lamb slidin' and slippin' 
 this way and that on top o' the greengrocery till I 
 thought I'd hear her inside rattle all out of place.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 9 
 
 Then she comes gently and suddenly over the tail- 
 board, hangin' there a minit or two, and trying to 
 keep her toes, bumpin' the ground long enough to 
 be certain she'd got that far. It didn't take her 
 long to discover she'd come to mother earth when 
 she let go with her hands. You'd have thought 
 a cyclone had started right in her face and clean 
 shoved her backwards." 
 
 " Could she speak to you, Mary ? What did she 
 say?" 
 
 " First thing she says when I get her into bed 
 with all them bits of wrecked clothes out of sight, 
 is : ' Oh, Mother, I didn't mean to do it.' The poor 
 lamb, as if any of it was ever intended to be 
 meant." 
 
 " It was an auto comin' right in the face of the 
 vegetable cart set the horse rampagin' ! " said Clara. 
 " Spring muster hopped off in time." 
 
 " Thank the Lord for that. She can count it 
 a blessin' same as I do." 
 
 " Don't see where you count it a blessin', Mary," 
 Clara ventured, " seein' you wasn't on the cart when 
 it all happened." 
 
 " I count it a blessin' bein' right there behind 
 when she fell off," said Mary. " It was mighty 
 encouragin' to hear her say, all cuddled up over my 
 heart that was workin' like a engine under me every- 
 day dress : ' Oh, Mother, I didn't mean to do it.' "
 
 io SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " 'Course, Mary, I don't suppose she did mean 
 to do it." 
 
 " 'Twasn't that part touched me most, Clara. It 
 was the ' Oh, Mother ! ' cry from her that was en- 
 couragin'."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " ' IT would be something worth knowing/ I says, 
 ' if you were to tell us just where you were thinking 
 of going when you started out on the top of all 
 them vegetables ? ' 
 
 Mary continued her story with a zest to which 
 Clara Hopkins' exclamations added interest every 
 moment. 
 
 " ' I wanted to go . . .to the city,' she says, 
 slowlike and trying to hide something." 
 
 " ' The city was it ? ' I got out. ' You might 
 have been reaching for any part of the United 
 States.' Reminds me, Clara, of the boy that 
 wanted to see the wheels go over a flat-headed tack 
 he put on the railroad. They said afterwards that 
 he knew more about that tack than any mortal 
 livin' soul, an' it was a pity his information wasn't 
 more use to him, seeing the experience he had and 
 what he went through." 
 
 Mary crossed the kitchen to adjust the clothes 
 by the stove. 
 
 " ' We're the Ropers,' she says to me. ' Way 
 down past Bird Town. Mother and all of us work 
 Ladybird Farm. It's awfully hard, and the mort-
 
 12 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 gage is most depressing.' Now think of that, Clara ! 
 The Ropers originally come of something with a 
 bit more color in the blood than any in these parts. 
 I could see that be the turn of Spring's ankles and 
 wrists even when she was turning a cyclone stunt 
 in the middle of the road. They've been makin' a 
 world of trouble on themselves ever since Graham 
 P. died the Ropers tryin' to make ends meet. 
 Now I never heard that ends did meet. Not their 
 kind of ends anyhow. Too many ways of fmishin' 
 off to be an end at all; besides I always says that 
 if there are ends you can't make them into any- 
 thing else however long you try. An end's an end, 
 and it's a finish, and a finish is a full stop, and a 
 full stop ain't always convenient when there's a 
 family growin' up and can't wait or stop growin' 
 jes' because there's nothing in the food closet. I've 
 got me own notions about Spring. It was her Aunt 
 Susannah that scared to the tail of that trouble. 
 She was runnin' away from somethin'." 
 
 Taking one frayed stocking from the line Mary 
 hoisted it over her hand again. 
 
 " Would you be wearin' your best stockin's be 
 any chance, Clara, or on'y your everyday worsted 
 ones ? " she asked. 
 
 " I changed them this very day, Mary, thinkin* 
 the weather might be sensible to something thinner," 
 Clara replied.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 13 
 
 " Then let us have them off you this minute ! " 
 Mary's air of mild and abstract interest vanished 
 instantly. 
 
 " I can give them a run through this water, 'cos 
 Spring might be recovering sooner or later and 
 likely to want to hit it for her ma and Bird Town. 
 You peel off, Clara, and I'll serve you a pair of 
 mine. They can't harm you, though they do make 
 a younger leg than mine itch something terrible 
 . . . unless there's a scare of rheumatism in the 
 blood." 
 
 Clara Hopkins talked like a trip-hammer all the 
 time she was changing her footgear. 
 
 " Graham P. Roper was the man killed in the 
 Pynes Steel Works that time. I remember; I was 
 working up that way. The company give Mrs. 
 Roper a check to start them in the farm. They 
 don't seem to make a shake outter things. ..." 
 
 " Still I expecks Mrs. Roper was thankful enuff 
 to get started at all, seeing there's not much left of 
 a man after he's been through what Graham P. man- 
 aged to fall into. The check was about as much as 
 could be hoped for, I should say. Sentiment don't 
 come into these business affairs, and it's all in a 
 day if a man gets caught up in the machinery. A 
 few hundred dollars is a real good thing and always 
 welcome when there's children to be fed and 
 housed, and maybe it's hard to part with a man
 
 i 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 sudden like that, but ... a lump of dollars right 
 off an accident does a heap towards restoring 
 things, and gives young stomachs a chance to bear 
 up in the trouble. Now if one of the family had 
 been caught up in that machinery same time as 
 Graham P., Mrs. Roper might have been justified 
 in asking for more, but seeing that it was only 
 Graham P. and only one accident it would be sort 
 of over-grabbin' to think about a double check. I 
 knew a woman, down Chicago way, had her son 
 fall overboard into something terrible hot he was 
 meddling with in the name of work, and they only 
 made it good to her in a couple of dozen cans of 
 ham and turkey and mixed fish, the same being a 
 memoranda of the occasion and not much consola- 
 tion seeing there was no proper organized fu- 
 neral. ..." 
 
 Clara was replacing her stockings by a pair of 
 thick woolen ones belonging to Mary. 
 
 " I must confess," Mary interrupted, intent on 
 her own thoughts, " that the Aunt Susannah busi- 
 ness nearly got me beat. It appears she is more 
 of a relation of Graham P.'s than of his children. 
 A kinder second aunt, his mother's side, not re- 
 moved far enuff to be out of any little thing that 
 happens, and no one really to blame for it. Spring's 
 got a cause against her because she's that tidy about 
 a place . . . well, you know the sort, Clara ? You'd
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 15 
 
 be afraid to have a cold in your head in her house. 
 As far as I can make out Spring is a kinder promise 
 to her ever since she was ten. Now Mrs. Roper 
 has sort of postponed that promise every year till 
 Aunt Susannah has got up a complaint about it. 
 Seven dollars a month lost through it too." 
 
 The stockings coiled on the line like two limp 
 black wriggling reptiles, as Mary threw them over 
 it. She worked them into something like their 
 proper shape while she went on talking. 
 
 " I asks Spring . . . did Aunt Susannah used to 
 carry a parcel of bills handy in case her mother was 
 out with the store account? " 
 
 " ' Once she gave mother five dollars towards 
 Thanksgiving,' says the lamb. ' Mother had asked 
 her to come to dinner with us. We had a splendid 
 lot of fun' . . . Got that, Clara?" 
 
 ' Aunt Susannah was real nice/ Spring tells me, 
 'and ate as much as anyone. It pleased mother, 
 who's quite proud of her cakes and mincemeat.' ' 
 
 " Seems like, Clara . . . she's one of the kind 
 that like to know what she eats has been paid for. 
 . . . Her conscience ought to have been setting 
 down easy that dinner if it never has since. And 
 that seven dollars a month. . . . Spring tells me 
 she was to attend her Aunt Susannah well, and not 
 speak the very first thing that came into her head. 
 . . . Now listen to that, will you ? Makes me fair
 
 1 6 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 mad ... to think there's critters in this world, like 
 that Aunt Susannah, stopping a baby using her 
 tongue much as she pleases. What chance has a girl, 
 or a woman, or a man, or a monkey, if it comes to 
 that, if there's a bridle put on them always ? I mean 
 to keep Spring Roper under my own observations 
 even if I have to call on Aunt Susannah about sup- 
 plying the seven dollars regular, without the 
 services rendered." 
 
 Clara eased her feet in the changed gear. 
 
 " Miss Hetty," she said, " she won't be doing 
 much for the ellergint young gentleman. She let 
 Doc Harkins have it all his own and never as much 
 as offered to wash any of the accident off of him." 
 
 " I expect, though, she won't have to borrer 
 proper clothing same as I'm doing for Spring Roper, 
 seeing he come from the city and maybe has a 
 valise tucked away safely in the auto." 
 
 . " A brown leather one it was." Clara hit on the 
 mark easily. " Miss Hetty was mighty curious 
 when they brought it in for all the world as if she 
 was expecting a summer boarder. Doc Harkins 
 wouldn't allow on nothing being touched till the 
 city gentleman was fit to calc'late where he was and 
 what his real name was." 
 
 "They got Doc Harkins then? My! I had a 
 feelin' the profession would come into it. Spring 
 don't like a girl to come into ordinary doings.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 17 
 
 Nothing less than an ellergint young gentleman as 
 you say, and an auto . . . and a brown leather 
 valise, maybe with his initials on, Clara ? " 
 
 " Q. L. P. I helped Miss Hetty rub the dirt off 
 a bit and we discovered them." 
 
 " That was good of you, Clara, though Miss 
 Hetty used to be handy with the duster once upon 
 a time and never needed any help of that sort. 
 Still, as you say, Q. L. P. on the brown leather looks 
 significant enuff. And . . . the profession into it 
 as well will cost something. What you might call 
 going some into the liabilities of finance; which re- 
 minds me, Clara . . . that if Spring is reasonable 
 to stop abed a day or so and give her bruises a 
 chance to rub off, I'll be needin' you to step up a 
 spell with your book about Lord and Lady Tre- 
 mendous while I go to see her ma down Ladybird 
 Farm." 
 
 " I could come around Saturday," said Clara, 
 rising to depart and stumbling a bit in the awkward- 
 ness of a too-well-filled boot. " Lor', Mary," she 
 went on, " these stockings of yours fills my boots 
 so that my feet are kinder out of focus with 'em. 
 I'll have to go slow a bit . . . suppose I couldn't 
 have a peep at Spring Roper . . . just a min- 
 ute. . . ." But Mary was tying on her bonnet 
 behind the kitchen door. 
 
 " Miss Roper'll be delighted to see you Saturday,
 
 1 8 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Clara. Just now I'll call Benjamin to mind her 
 a time while I walk up the road with you. We'll 
 take a turn up past Miss Hetty's. I got that brown 
 leather gentleman setting down like a bee in my 
 mind, now that I know the ins and outs of the 
 case." 
 
 She shouted up the yard for Benjamin, who came 
 with a boiled look, due to overdoses of soap and 
 hot water, about his face, and moving slowly as a 
 crawfish.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 LATE that night Mary Settler returned at the 
 head of a procession of neighboring men with the 
 " ellergint young gentleman " on a borrowed 
 stretcher. 
 
 " It would be kind of comfortable for Q. L. P. 
 to wake up tomorrow and know he could lie in for 
 a week or so, and no bother to us," she said back 
 over her shoulder. " Miss Hetty, she do take a 
 deal of trouble with visitors, an' maybe it's natural 
 she wants to make it cleanin' day for her parlor 
 tomorrow. Praise be, I turned out my front room 
 only yesterday, and he don't need be disturbed for 
 a bit. Miss Hetty was likely to feel it terrible, her 
 havin' to let the dust lie, when she's been used to 
 a thorough clean-out once a week even if she- don't 
 have need to use the parlor at all." 
 
 The man who had driven his own car clean 
 through the heart of Miss Hetty's lilac bushes 
 wakened to find himself stripped of his clothes, 
 and of almost any satisfactory reason. Instead of 
 the gray overall suit and necessary equipment of 
 a long distance motorist, he was now wearing a 
 
 19
 
 20 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 shirt which was neither comfortable nor agreeable 
 to his sensitive skin. The color of it was neither 
 gray, nor blue, nor red, nor yellow, but had a 
 chameleon effect when he held up one arm and let 
 the light fall on it. Altogether it was a mean sort 
 of garment with only one way of attaining a certain 
 purpose, that purpose being to go just as far as 
 its meanness allowed and not by any manner of 
 persuasion, further. 
 
 However, he soon turned his attention from him- 
 self to his surroundings, and in a short time brought 
 back his searching eyes to where they had started. 
 He could make nothing of the place at all, and 
 started to examine the different parts of his anatomy 
 just in case they might also prove foreign to him. 
 But everything seemed in place, except that there 
 were certain discomforts whenever he lifted an arm 
 too far or attempted any sort of movement what- 
 ever with his back or lower limbs. 
 
 Something he wanted to remember escaped him 
 altogether. There had been a smashup, he knew 
 that. A beastly-looking horse and cart had sud- 
 denly rounded the corner, madly bearing down upon 
 him, before he could alter the course or the speed 
 of the car. He remembered nothing whatever 
 about an apology or what came afterwards. Now 
 he was in a shaded room that looked very depress- 
 ing. And somewhere in the corner of his mind
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 21 
 
 there was a ' bogie ' telling him that he would have 
 to stay there for some days, if not weeks. 
 
 Through a horizontal bar of vacancy just below 
 the window shade which had been pulled down, 
 and tied so that it could in no way escape its full 
 duty, a shaft of bright yellow light cut in a direct, 
 broad line to the floor. Nearer his bed and on the 
 other side of the room a sulky darkness gave him 
 no help whatever. 
 
 The sheets round his body were almost stiff with 
 freshness and the faint smell of things newly 
 laundered finished any calculations he was trying 
 to make. 
 
 Towards one deep corner, buried in the darkness 
 somewhere, a bluebottle-fly started to sing its way 
 to the shaft of light under the window blind. Hum- 
 ming there in a revolving circle it struck the taut 
 material of the blind, and the snap of wings and 
 body came again and again to him, not altogether 
 pleasantly. 
 
 Later on, through the closed door someone 
 started a long refrain of modulated talking, which 
 never seemed to alter, nor decrease, nor get any 
 louder. It was Mary in the kitchen. 
 
 " She was just the sort of human creature I was 
 expectin' after knowin' Spring for a night. One 
 of the kind that wears big eyes in her head and 
 hardly uses 'em at all 'cept to stare at you when
 
 22 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 she don't seem to know what to say. Didn't take 
 me long to just make out the size of things and 
 which way they was goin', whether it was jump, or 
 fall, or be pushed, and reckonin' on her havin' had 
 a baby mostly once a year until the Lord signified to 
 Graham P. to pass right along be means of the 
 machinery in the steel works, which sort of hurried 
 him, I can't see that she could hev done more'n 
 she did." 
 
 This came to the man lying in the parlor, rather 
 indefinitely, and though he could not make much 
 out of it he felt stirred to get up and see for himself 
 just what kind of a person it was who possessed 
 such unqualified opinions. When he moved his foot, 
 however, he felt a peculiar twitching in one knee, 
 and sitting up was altogether a misery. Some- 
 thing like a burning needle traveled down the length 
 of his spine and he lay down again with some relief. 
 
 "... 'Course I told her, gentle-like, I'd got 
 Spring fixed up all easy and peaceful, and her not 
 to worry, but I could see that she was one o' them 
 kind that keeps a tidy eye right on you all the time 
 she's makin' believe and you thinkin' you got her 
 fast and sure, but dreckly she's done her day's work, 
 and there's nobody around to interrupt the deluge, 
 you can bet your boots and stockings, Clara, she'd 
 be makin' a horrible mess of her piller that night." 
 
 The woman's voice went on in the same strain,
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 23 
 
 never increasing, never diminishing, but always the 
 same modulated rhythmical hum. The snatches of 
 conversation floated to the man; but he got nothing 
 more out of it than he had gained of the knowl- 
 edge of his surroundings. When he had con- 
 sidered the chameleon shirt again, the dark objec- 
 tionable pieces of furniture about him, the fly, and 
 the insistent humming of the voices somewhere not 
 very far off, he swore quietly. 
 
 This gave him some very direct evidence about 
 himself. He was no longer a benumbed creature 
 of circumstances. He was a living, breathing, un- 
 happy man with a fierce resentment of some trick 
 which had been played him by fate. He was 
 strongly antagonistic to his present environment 
 and to the humming sounds which came so repeat- 
 edly, and which only muddled his brain. 
 
 Then gradually his comprehension widened as if 
 light were creeping on him, slowly, like the almost 
 imperceptible creeping of dawn on a night sky. 
 
 He was in bed, wrecked up in some way, but 
 just why, or how, he could not determine. An 
 entanglement of strange faces and happenings 
 wavered in and out of his brain. The faces must 
 belong to the people concerned in the thing that 
 had happened to him, he decided. Had he been 
 part of a railroad accident? He knew that he had 
 had some kind of a fall, but that was very indefi-
 
 24 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 nite. He wondered if he should call out, and to 
 whom? 
 
 He thought that if he could manage to think 
 of something to say, he might call out loud enough 
 to stop that ceaseless flow of talk in the kitchen. 
 
 It was getting horribly on his nerves and it was 
 not the kind of thing at all he had been used to. 
 Mentally he felt himself on a level with someone 
 who had managed to bungle hopelessly into the 
 servants' quarter of a private house, and it didn't 
 suit him at all to be lying there apparently at the 
 mercy of domestics and other people to whom he 
 might have to say thank you for some benefits he 
 had not yet discovered. With a flushed face he 
 turned the thing over in his mind and tried to catch 
 a little more of the conversation. 
 
 Mary Settler had evidently been through a whole 
 volume of adventures which had pleased her that 
 day and she was not stopping until her friend, Clara 
 Hopkins, had taken a mental trip in the same di- 
 rection. 
 
 ". . .1 could just about see that this couple of 
 dollars paid regular once a month was going to 
 make a heap of difference to the thickness of the 
 bread she was feeding the bunch of children on. 
 None of your scraping, Clara, for her. I guess 
 she'd think as much of a good-living stomach as 
 she would of a good-living young man, and she'd
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 25 
 
 break up something tremendous if one of them 
 bright- faced children had to be refused a second 
 help of the breakfast-food, now advertised at 
 twenty below cost." 
 
 Then to the young man came the harsh beating 
 of words from Clara Hopkins' vocal organs. 
 
 " Suppose she was hitting up some, on account 
 of you having all the pleasures and the bother of 
 minding Spring after the accident. Did she say 
 she could stop a spell ? " 
 
 Mary took her full time again. " I don't mind 
 sayin', Clara, that she had me sized up first go 
 as a sort of interferin' person with my mind set 
 on makin' a good deal of trouble outter the Aunt 
 Susannah business, and until I come to the part of 
 the deal where I kinder signed on as towel-flapper 
 to Spring, she didn't seem to lose none of the scare 
 in her eyes. . . . What's eight or ten dollars a 
 month more or less ? " 
 
 " Eight or ten dollars ? Why, Mary, you had it 
 that Spring was to get seven a month . . . the way 
 you make things reach out beats me. ..." 
 
 " Well, Clara, I'd as soon make it eight or ten 
 dollars less my own side of the day ledger, than 
 have that Spring lamb double it under the extra 
 weight of her Aunt Susannah, and her not even to 
 speak, 'cept she gets the kick first of all to say 
 it's her turn. There's some folks in this world who
 
 26 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 don't mind taking another person's place in the cor- 
 ridor car the very first minit that person sees fit 
 to walk out of it, leaving not so much as a news- 
 paper or a twenty-five-cent novel to mark it as a 
 claim if that person wants to come back again. 
 Now I'm that person from yesterday, and I'm sit- 
 ting tight just where that Aunt Susannah vacated 
 when she expected that bit of a thing to step up, and 
 play any tune she likes to rag, on account of her 
 loosening the button of her bank account by that 
 one hole. Sure as you're sitting there, Clara Hop- 
 kins, she vacated her auntship . . . and I'm going 
 to travel a piece with the Graham P. lot and see 
 something she's kinder missed." 
 
 What happened then even Clara Hopkins could 
 not tell. She strained her ears and eyes as far as 
 she could after the flying feet of Mary, who had 
 dashed away from the kitchen at the sound of a 
 sudden crash in the front room and some rather 
 excited masculine shouting. 
 
 Clara was pleased that at last she heard the ' el- 
 lergint gentleman ' remark : " As there was no bell 
 handy I had to fling the footstool at the door ! " 
 
 Mary was then picking up the fragments and 
 dislocated legs of the small wooden stool which 
 had stood near his bed, and made quite a ragged 
 tear in the paint of the parlor door. After a mo- 
 mentary pause her voice came down the passage.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 27 
 
 " I dunno that a bell's so mighty handy. It might 
 have gone clean through the panel of the door, and 
 no knowin' who's walking down the other side of 
 it." 
 
 Mary then adjusted the shade a little and the 
 light filtered in. While the fly escaped somewhere 
 behind the curtains, she took observations of the 
 young man. 
 
 " I'd be ever so much obliged," began Quilter 
 Lancelot Pendren, " if you would kindly tell me 
 just what I'm supposed to be doing here? " 
 
 Mary cleared her throat for action. 
 
 " You're lyin' in my front parlor for a period 
 of your holiday or whatever else you like to call it, 
 and till such time as you'll learn again the proper 
 use of your own legs. To all appearances you was 
 born in a set of lilac bushes just a bit up the corner 
 of the road. Up till now nobody was any the wiser 
 but that the Q. L. P. on your valise might surely be- 
 long to you. Miss Hetty, her as owned the lilac 
 bushes same as the priviledge of havin' the acci- 
 dent right at her very front door had you down 
 for a thorough clean-out today; and that meaning 
 that she never likes to put off her duty to her parlor, 
 be as much as a hour, I took it upon my shoulders 
 to remove you here be the assistance of Benjamin 
 o' the yard and Hulky Smith, both good farm- 
 helps, and not a cent worse off for knowin' it."
 
 28 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 She stopped to pinch the quilt a little. To her 
 eye there was nothing like a loose upper sheet so 
 that the person lying beneath it did not find too 
 much tightness a strain in trying to turn about. 
 
 " But what am I doing here at all ? I know I 
 started out to go somewhere, but ..." 
 
 " That's a fact ! Sure as my head you started out 
 to go somewhere, but where you might hev got to 
 isn't really for us to say. Mighty certain it wasn't 
 a place you'd hev needed the things in that brown 
 valise, seein' the speed you muster got up at that 
 corner where the greengrocery department had you 
 crowded." She pointed to the brown bag. " Miss 
 Hetty wanted it that we take a note of the contents; 
 but I'm not good digesting surprises, and these 
 times there might be anything from dogs to ex- 
 plosions shipped in cases like that." 
 
 " You mean in my bag ? " 
 
 " I do. Doc now he's sensible. He clean sat on 
 Liz Hetty same as she was that fly. Said as how 
 you'd maybe pass out any benefits you could spare 
 after you'd been through them yourself. Miss 
 Hetty she's holdin' the automobile against you; 
 which isn't nearly so wrecked to bits as her lilac 
 bushes." 
 
 " Ah, you've reminded me ! The car ! We've got 
 so far." 
 
 " Certain. As you say you've got so far; but
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 29 
 
 what came after that part in your mind's business 
 isn't for us to say. We've only got you down as 
 Q. L. P." 
 
 " That's my name, of course. Quilter Lancelot 
 Pendren." 
 
 Mary nodded her head calmly. 
 
 " We're obliged to you for that. Doc Harkins 
 might like to communicate with your folks." 
 
 This made the young man angry immediately. 
 
 " Communicate nothing," he said sharply. 
 " You'd have the whole bunch down on me and I'd 
 be treated as a blessed infant." 
 
 Mary again nodded. 
 
 ' That's what you got to s waller for a week or 
 two, anyway. Doc Harkins now ..." 
 
 " I don't mind what I swallow, but I won't have 
 my people know. It seems as if I've got into a 
 mess and everything's doing Catherine wheels in 
 my head, but I'll get myself out, I guess, as I got 
 myself in. My father would go crazy before he got 
 here if he knew I'd had a smash-up, and my sister 
 . . . she'd probably take to her bed with nerves if 
 she saw me now. Besides there are others to be 
 considered. Women get frightened if they even 
 smell a petrol leak." 
 
 " If your father was to go crazy before he got 
 here, it'd be unwise to tell him, maybe, and as to 
 your sister, Mr. Pendren, sir, if she wanted to take
 
 30 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 to her bed right here I dunno where we'd put her, 
 'less we turned Benjamin in with the horse." 
 
 Mary's humor turned things a bit in the right 
 direction, and the young man laughed quietly. 
 
 " I wish you could tell me ... tell me there's 
 something I can't break through." 
 
 " I'd leave it if I was you," said Mary. " You 
 done enuff breakin' through when you spilled into 
 Liz Hetty's lilac bushes." 
 
 " Perhaps it will all come presently. I'm just a 
 bit off my wheels, I can see, and it won't do to 
 force things." 
 
 " You was clean off your wheels, sir, that's the 
 trouble. If you'd stuck to them, according to opin- 
 ions, it's likely you might have sailed right along 
 to Miss Hetty's best bedroom where you could have 
 taken things easier than you did in the garden." 
 
 Pendren could not help smiling. 
 
 " Are you the nurse or . . . or the boss of this 
 establishment? " he asked. 
 
 " I'm both and the whole lot in one, sir, which- 
 ever you like to call up first. My name's Set- 
 tler, a good strong name hearty and encouragin' 
 to fix your mind on if there's anything you want 
 doin'. Mary Settler, and what I can't do with my 
 hands, I generally makes up with me tongue. Now, 
 what's your order, sir, seein' you've rung the bell 
 which is only an ordinary wooden praying stool."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 31 
 
 " I'd like to get into some of my own clothes 
 which are in the bag there, though for the life of 
 me I can't remember . . . Oh, damn ! " he went on, 
 " perhaps we'll know more about everything when 
 we open the bag." 
 
 He ran his hands over his face a couple of times 
 as if seeking to brush away unpleasant memories 
 and reinstate better ones. 
 
 Mary brought the bag. " It's locked," she said. 
 
 " Then where the . . . oh, I wish I could get 
 more sense out of my head. Hunt round in my 
 clothes and see if there are any keys. I don't 
 seem to remember even that." 
 
 She brought the suit he had been wearing. It 
 had been cleaned of all the garden soil and stain 
 of the accident, but it still looked hopelessly crum- 
 pled and rather like a second-hand renovation. 
 
 " I can't wear that," he said, disturbed again. 
 
 " You can't while you're on your back, sir," said 
 Mary, searching the pockets for the keys. " I 
 guess it will be precisely the thing you'll be needin', 
 like you might want your breakfast, immediately 
 you feel ready to be kicking about again." 
 
 " Oh, what a shocking mess I've made of my- 
 self." 
 
 " No blame to you, sir. It was that rampageous 
 horse." 
 
 She brought out a handful of letters, pocket-
 
 32 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 books, oddments, and finally the keys from one of 
 the inside pockets of his coat. Then the bag was 
 opened. 
 
 A change of underwear, socks, collars, and a 
 pair of gorgeous pyjamas and some handsome 
 scarlet leather bath slippers were in it. 
 
 " Looks like a couple of days' delay whatever 
 I was on," he said. 
 
 " An' now it's more like a couple of weeks," 
 Mary put in. " You'll be glad of the underwear, 
 and we'll get you into something respectable right 
 away." 
 
 Pendren looked irritated and nervous. 
 
 " It doesn't tell me what I want to know," he 
 said. 
 
 "What was that, sir?" 
 
 " What the deuce I came to this part for at all. 
 Something's gone to sleep in my head. Say, Mrs. 
 Settler ..." 
 
 " Plain Mary if you don't mind, sir. I got no 
 claim to Mrs. an' it only reminds me of the mis- 
 take I made long ago." 
 
 "A mistake? What was it?" 
 
 " The mistake of allowin' my mind to go gala- 
 vantin' on ideas I had no claim on. You'd like 
 Benjamin to come in and help you, wouldn't you? 
 And I don't mind sayin' he'll take a bath before 
 he does. Never saw such a chap. It's on account
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 33 
 
 of ... Well, that's maybe his mistake too, but 
 he'll find it out. . . . Mistakes come home to roost 
 same as chickens do. Mine came back through a 
 very small hole in the fence, sneakin' home on tip- 
 toe, one at a time. No matter ! I recognize them." 
 
 She went out of the room carrying a fly that 
 she had imprisoned in her plump warm hand. The 
 young man lay there wondering. He thought that 
 she was a very interesting kind of person, perhaps 
 more interesting than anyone he had ever met. 
 
 Mary returned to Clara, who had sat straining 
 her ears in the kitchen all the time. 
 
 By her eyes she expected much ; but by the flutter 
 in the older woman's manner she knew that she 
 wasn't going to get any particulars just then. 
 
 " Just run up the yard, Clara, and turn that Ben- 
 jamin out o' the turnips. The Q. L. P., which is 
 Pendren by the last quarter of it, has sort of sur- 
 prised himself and us by a fresh turn. I'll just 
 strain off a little of this barley and put in a touch 
 of lemon. ..." 
 
 Clara ran into the sunlight with wonderful 
 agility. Mary looked out of the door. 
 
 Benjamin never looked more like himself than 
 he did at that moment. Beads of nervous perspira- 
 tion ran down his hair and neck. With the full 
 sun on him, he might have been some great ground 
 insect that carried a hulking, flat body and strag-
 
 34 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 gling crooked legs. He was awkward, genial, and 
 very slow-minded. When he bent to his work he 
 did it in sections and deliberately uncoiled in jerky, 
 distinct movements suggesting the opening of a 
 something made to unbend by arrangement of dif- 
 ferent little kicking springs. One could almost hear 
 a battery of snaps and jars as Benjamin o' the yard 
 stood to full height. Clara stopped at the edge of 
 the turnip patch. 
 
 " Mary wanted me to come ..." she began. 
 
 Benjamin wiped his face by three or four dif- 
 ferent movements. 
 
 " I guess ... I didn't kinder think . . . you'd 
 come ... on your own account," he said.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 QUILTER LANCELOT PENDREN found himself in 
 the same position on his back in Mary Settler's 
 parlor nearly a week afterwards. He had settled 
 with an exceedingly bad grace into a full-tempered 
 invalid subject to occasional bursts of positively 
 hysterical fury. These Mary dealt with in her own 
 way. 
 
 " Nothin' like a real good blow-off once in a 
 while to shake up the liver and give it a chance to 
 feel it's doing something," she said; "I mind the 
 time when Ab Keziah, our preacher, was teachin' 
 the Sunday School class, and making it a great 
 matter when things go contrary-wise, to be ' gentle 
 as the dove/ and gladsome as a young lamb sport- 
 ing in green pastures ! Jest then . . . someone gets 
 up to go to the melodian, to play the hymn for the 
 children to sing : ' Gentle as the zephyr breezes,' 
 and treads sudden-like on Ab's crop of corns which 
 he wasn't expecting. What Ab says then wasn't 
 altogether consistent, seeing he gets worked up 
 something awful . . . but it did the class a heap 
 of good, and done more than anything to mak- 
 
 35
 
 36 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 ing the children go home, ' Gentle as the dove,' 
 leavin' Ab more like a raging lion, which no- 
 body minded so long as it was him had the ex- 
 perience." 
 
 At the end of the first week Pendren's ill humor 
 had lessened somewhat. He wore cool clothing 
 out of his valise, and Mary saw to it that it was 
 ' rinsed out regular ' so that he might have plenty 
 of cool shirts to change in the warm weather. The 
 room had been set out in white covers and his 
 brushes and shaving gear put handy. The rest of 
 the parlor, it is true, looked at variance with these 
 arrangements, as it contained the best of Mary's 
 traditional hopes and ornaments, stored as treasures 
 all her life, but now stacked together on the sofa 
 and chairs in reckless abandonment. 
 
 Pendren eked out an existence by trying to im- 
 agine what the rest of the house might be like? 
 Whose voice it was that seemed foreign to the 
 things around him? If there were children, or a 
 child even, who sometimes laughed from a room 
 not very far away? And when it would be time 
 to cut the local medico out of things once and for 
 all. 
 
 He lay under the spell of Mary Settler's good- 
 ness. He wondered if he could suggest payment. 
 Her open countenance was filled with a frank char- 
 ity which made him afraid to mention the subject,
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 37 
 
 but daily he worked over these different points, and 
 slept on them. He never remembered sleeping so 
 well before. 
 
 The voice that occasionally came to him like a 
 child's was that of Spring Roper lying just a few 
 paces down the passage to the left. 
 As the days grew in peace and luxury for her, 
 she found herself opening out toward the love 
 and goodheartedness of Mary Settler, as a flower 
 opens to the sun. Mary for her own reasons had 
 kept the knowledge of the young man's proximity 
 from Spring. Mary had certain little ideas in her 
 mind, which, though scarcely formed, gave her a 
 considerable amount of pleasure to think about, and 
 which she confided to Clara Hopkins one late 
 evening. 
 
 " Seems like up till lately I ain't been of much 
 consequence, so to speak, Clara. Five years come 
 Thanksgiving, since that poor soul died in me arms, 
 havin' walked more'n she ought to get way from 
 a man who hadn't no notions of how to treat his 
 own beasts, much less a wife. You mind the time 
 Mrs. Casey died, Clara. There ain't been much 
 since, barrin' Benjamin's operation on his nose and 
 Jimmy Pedler's heart which carried him off in a 
 fit of over beer an' recklessness. Can't say as I've 
 ever settled comfortable in me bed a night since, 
 seein' I got kind of used to pickin' up stitches
 
 3 8 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 dropped out of some poor soul's constitution. The 
 Lord gives us all something to do, an' when an odd 
 job happens to be pleasing to the person, it comes 
 like a chill to your bones to be left idle for much of 
 a while. 
 
 " Praise be, Clara, it's my luck in, now, to have 
 these two young things under my wing, same time. 
 I'm wonderin' if both ain't sufferin' much the same 
 kind of complaint. Spring wants a job the minit 
 she gets out of bed which is what is making me 
 keep her pinned to the mattress, till I've got me 
 mind made up about her. Q. L. P., which is Pen- 
 dren, seems to want to hurry his business same sort 
 of way, and I don't know if I'm right to encourage 
 any extra special hurry in either of them, seeing 
 the Lord has put them both in my charge for some 
 reason not yet plain." 
 
 She brought her voice down a trifle. 
 
 " Did it ever hit you, Clara, in the right spot of 
 your reason, that all the books you read comin' 
 and goin' from and to your work, was all took 
 maybe from things in real, human life? How'd 
 the man, writing, know the secret innards of Lady 
 Betsy Clamphoffen's heart if it wasn't that he's 
 met up with the same thing somewhere in the world ? 
 You take it from me, Clara, books is made up from 
 what's happening round our very feet, and us fool 
 enough not to see it, till it's put in black and white,
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 39 
 
 and charged twenty-five cents, or half a dollar, to 
 take it home where perhaps it started." 
 
 Clara was taking her turn at the ironing, and 
 one of Spring's ragged slips was being pressed 
 into shape, ready for the needle that Mary had 
 threaded. 
 
 " You mean Spring and Mr. Pendren, Mary ? 
 You ain't told her about him, have you?" 
 
 " Not a word. I want it to be a particular kind 
 of a double surprise for both of them. It's for all 
 the world like your book, as I said that rampa- 
 geous horse, and Spring tumbling off of the cart, the 
 auto, and the handsome young man ! Where's your 
 sense, Clara? I'm bringing them together like the 
 pages in one chapter. There's a heap of interesting 
 things goin' to happen right in this very house. 
 She don't know as much of him as one of the flies 
 spinning round his window, and he's only dreamin' 
 . . . dreamin'. . . . It's some business he can't 
 remember a thing about is on his mind. Comes of 
 landing on your head too sudden. Something that 
 was important got dislodged in that hurry and fell 
 out of his mind when he tumbled on his head. 
 'Tisn't as if we could go and hunt it up, either. 
 Miss Hetty and me picked up all there was 
 an' . . ." 
 
 " Penny Murtle once got hit too sudden on the 
 ground on account of falling off her father's barn
 
 40 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 and it took near a year to persuade her she had a 
 head at all. She used to go round feeling her face 
 and saying it had no top to it." 
 
 " Poor thing. I suppose she recovered." 
 
 " Oh, yes, she got over it." 
 
 " How'd she get over it ? " 
 
 " Somebody took her a trip to Broadway and 
 showed her a winder full of hats. She found her 
 head pretty smart and came back with three of 
 them packed in a hamper. Since then she's been all 
 right." 
 
 " So she oughter with three heads in a hamper, 
 Clara." 
 
 " I was speaking of hats, Mary." 
 
 " Wouldn't be any use takin' Q. L. P. all the way 
 to Broadway and showin' him a case of hats, to 
 bring back the piece of himself he's missing," Mary 
 went on. " It's something to do with his father 
 and the sister that takes to her bed every time 
 there's trouble around. Say, Clara, that gets me 
 beat! If there's trouble around why should she 
 take to her bed ? " 
 
 " Some folks can't help it. They want to be out 
 of the way." Mary stood in the middle of the 
 kitchen, her arms hooked at her hips, and her face 
 filled with wonderment. 
 
 " I can't quite get that, Clara, tryin' to get out 
 of the way of trouble when it's comin' straight for
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 41 
 
 you is only encouragin' it to come on, and make 
 a mess of things generally. What you want to do, 
 is to put up your fists to it. Go clean and hard for 
 it, or walk right through it, and get it under your 
 boots, then when it's down and out, jes' wipe your 
 feet, and scrape your boots on the door iron. That's 
 how I'd serve trouble, but say this bit that's 
 wearin' Q. L. P. to a frazzle, if we could get that 
 part hitched to the rest of him, he'd be a pretty fair 
 sample of a successful invalid." 
 
 "What does Doc say?" 
 
 " Doc wants it that he lies quiet for a time; but 
 I see no chance of a calm sea till he gets back his 
 reason for comin' across that accident at all. Now 
 I'm thinkin' about those hats o' Penny Murtle's. 
 Looks like they was the most needed thing to re- 
 mind her she had a top to her head. If we could 
 think up something and spring it sudden on the 
 gentleman in my parlor, it might just happen his 
 machinery might get a jump and start off same as 
 if it was adjusted by means of a screw and a little 
 oiling." 
 
 " I wonder what his business is, Mary." 
 
 " Mostly changing his clothes three times a day, 
 and eating his dinner when it ought to be supper, 
 I should say. He's soft goods, Clara, made one 
 width, easy crumpled, and selvedge down both 
 sides. There's silk socks in his bag and . . ."
 
 42 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 "How many, Mary? That's the way to work 
 it out." 
 
 " There's four pair off him and the ones he 
 accidented in." 
 
 Clara looked knowing. 
 
 " That means, the business he was on would take 
 him five weeks at least, if he was allowing one pair 
 a week." 
 
 Mary considered and shook her head. 
 
 " Won't work with only one change of under- 
 clothes. S'pose he set out from home with a fresh 
 lot, and this one to change ; that allows him a week, 
 and a second week, allowin' the weather don't' 
 warm up too much to be uncomfortable." 
 
 She strode over to Clara and emphasized her 
 words by laying her hands broad side on the table. 
 
 " Clara, I've got it ! Q. L. P. is on business that 
 is open to keep him a week or two, or less." 
 
 " Did he bring any nightshirt with him, Mary ? " 
 
 Mary backed to the stove. 
 
 " Now we're off the track again. There was one 
 pair of pyjamas, double-striped, with bunches of 
 colored cord across the front jes' like he was play- 
 in' the drum in the new town band." 
 
 " One pair of pyjamas? " That certainly settled 
 Clara's argument. 
 
 " I should calc'late on the one pair lasting him 
 a week or more. What 'd you say, Clara? "
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 43 
 
 " I guess we're out of this, Mary, neither of us 
 bein' married women." 
 
 " Married women don't count as much as a hill 
 o' beans in this, Clara. We've got to find out some- 
 thing satisfactory, or we're not doing our best by 
 
 Q. L. R" 
 
 " Could we ask someone, Mary? " 
 
 "Ask 'em what?" 
 
 " How long a gentleman as ellergint as any in 
 the top set of New York or Boston allows for one 
 pair of pyjamas to last decent without getting them 
 laundered? Mary . . . p'r'aps Benjamin could 
 tell us." 
 
 Mary put up a finger. 
 
 " Benjamin couldn't recognize a pair of pyjamas 
 from what them chaps in the wild west shows wears. 
 He's more used to a common, ordinary, old- 
 fashioned nightshirt, or what he's been workin' in 
 be the day." 
 
 " Well, we ain't getting any towards knowin' 
 Pendren's business, Mary." 
 
 " I got it that Q. L. P. started out in his own 
 auto with something important in his mind because 
 of it requiring all his attention, and no side-trackin', 
 or stoppin' for refreshment by the way." 
 
 " But what was the something important, 
 Mary?" 
 
 " Oh, keep shut there, Clara, and give me a
 
 44 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 chance! I got it that Q. L. P. had a mind to stop 
 as little as he could over the business, and jes' threw 
 careless-like a change of clo'es into his valise 'cos 
 his man wasn't handy to pack." 
 Clara's eyes sparkled. 
 
 " There's something real true in that, Mary." 
 " Sure as life there is. Now why wasn't his man 
 handy to pack ? Because his father was behind him 
 slappin' round with his tongue, and hettin' up some- 
 thing tremendous to get Q. L. P. started." 
 " But why? What was the business? " 
 " Q. L. P. dashes for the elevator," Mary went 
 on, as if she were not stopping any side of the 
 finish, " presses the button twice to bring it to the 
 ninth floor, keeps pressin' to make it pull up imme- 
 diate, steps in with his valise in one hand, and a 
 lump of the elevator in the other, to keep him bal- 
 anced, quits the ninth floor as if he had put his 
 feet into something that had no bottom to it, slides 
 down like a rush of cold air in a wind flue, steps 
 out again like a flash of lightning, presses the button 
 to send the elevator back to the shed, and rushes 
 blind for the auto house. He stows his valise under 
 the seat, hitches up the electric meter, not waitin' 
 to kiss anybody good-by, or even to wave his hand- 
 kerchief; and inside two minutes he's . . . right in 
 front of things. Then ..." 
 
 Suddenly she paused and caught Clara's eye. It
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 45 
 
 was another fixed query there that made her falter. 
 
 " Seems like there oughter be a woman in it, 
 Clara, to be exactly right, still " 
 
 " Mary, perhaps he was settin' out to get mar- 
 ried." 
 
 Clara thought that Mary's solutions suggested 
 such a possibility. 
 
 " With five pairs of silk socks, and one pair of 
 pyjamas, and as handsome a pair of red bath 
 slippers as would go on anyone's feet without ob- 
 jecting to being walked on? " 
 
 " Bath slippers ? You didn't mention them be- 
 fore, Mary. That's a clean case of his expecting 
 to stop over a fortnight. Whatever it was, his 
 business meant him to stop a couple of weeks, Mary. 
 I can see that." 
 
 Mary passed over this. " More like he was out 
 to hunt down a man. If there's been women in it, 
 he'd be sure to carry a difference in colored shirts 
 and some extra wrist cuffs to tidy up when he hadn't 
 time to change all his clothes. Look here, Clara, it 
 all points the one way same as a finger-board on 
 the subway. There was mortal hurry for Q. L. P., 
 or he was going to miss something for sure. He 
 was going ... to ... hunt ... a man . . . 
 down." 
 
 " In a pair of bath slippers and five pairs of silk 
 socks? I don't agree to that, Mary."
 
 46 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 "Well, I'll agree on me own! Listen to me, 
 Clara. Five pair of socks just about does the trick 
 if it's a man he's chasing. Why five pairs? Be- 
 cause he's going good and hard and needs a change 
 pretty regular or his feet would sweat him to 
 blisters." 
 
 " But he don't use his feet in an auto." 
 
 " He was calc'lating, maybe, on the breakdown 
 of the auto and was ready to take his walking ticket 
 any minit. Whatever got in his way, Q. L. P. was 
 ready to run clean through it, like Liz Hetty's 
 lilac bushes." 
 
 " He didn't mean to run clean through them, 
 Mary. More like," Clara hushed her voice, " he did 
 mean to run through somebody who'd done him a 
 harm, or his father." 
 
 " That sounds real good. We're a parcel of pri- 
 vate sheriffs, I should say." Mary agreed by a flash 
 of her eyes and went on quickly. 
 
 " Now the person he's after must 'v been handling 
 the till too easy, or workin' the confidence trick on 
 somebody belonging to the family. Whatever it is, 
 it's a serious business concern, for that young man 
 is business from his brains to his toes. Land, Clara, 
 the way he kicks the bedclothes off him when he's 
 thorough mad ! Oh, he's business all right, though 
 he's that good-looking he might be travelin' two 
 trunks and a bag o' golf sticks ! "
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 4 ? 
 
 " You think he's hunting a man, Mary? " 
 
 " That's the color of it, Clara." 
 
 " And he ain't likely to be appreciatin' an inter- 
 ruption ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't put it past him to scent something 
 out of the way, special and worth hanging around 
 for, if he was to see Spring passing his door." 
 
 " You think that Spring 'd stop him chasing busi- 
 ness as important as you've just said? " 
 
 " I think she'd stop him if he had that same busi- 
 ness by the tail of its shirt, and extra good material 
 in the making, to give him a long chance. She's 
 picking up color and flesh every day, poor lamb. 
 Once he catches sight of Spring ..." 
 
 Clara held up the frayed shirtwaist she had been 
 ironing as a warning to Mary. 
 
 " Look at that ! If he catches sight of her in 
 that, he won't be forgetting his business for long. 
 Ain't she got nothing better in her trunks? Her 
 mother told Benjamin she'd be sending along her 
 best dress and a set of underclothes." 
 
 " I been thinkin', Clara." Mary's eyes softened 
 from the story to something nearer her heart. 
 
 " I been thinkin', there's the fruit money ..." 
 
 " That fruit money's been stretched longer and 
 longer every week. You'd think it was a roll of 
 bills as long as from here to Jake Heldy's store ! " 
 
 Mary said nothing, for Clara was looking right
 
 48 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 at her and there were certain lights of suspicion in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " I've known three lots of folks have a peck at 
 that little bit of profit in the last two months," Clara 
 said. " Sure to goodness, Mary, it ain't elastic. 
 What's left of it wouldn't buy more'n a pair of 
 stockin's, double-heeled and extra thick knees, I 
 should say." 
 
 " Well, there's always Hek Dean to loan me a 
 little till next crop of potatoes, Clara. You don't 
 count your blessings as you should." 
 
 Clara looked defiant. 
 
 " My blessings don't come outter givin' up every- 
 thing but the clo'es on my back, as yours do, Mary. 
 And if Hek Dean loans you any money it will be 
 on the property, and everybody knows that Hek has 
 had his eyes on this piece since you made it any- 
 thing at all." 
 
 " Havin' his eye on my property won't hurt no- 
 body, or me," said Mary. " He's fair nice to me 
 always when I mention a bit of business to him." 
 
 Clara shot her head forward and held up one 
 hand. 
 
 " Mary, say . . . you been having a deal with 
 Hek already? I can see something kind of unset- 
 tled in your eyes now." 
 
 Mary blew an imaginary speck of dust from a 
 cup of milk she was preparing for Spring as a
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 49 
 
 nightcap. There really was no need for the action 
 except as a means of avoiding Clara's eyes. Clara 
 had an uncomfortable way of getting folks into a 
 corner, when she thought that a corner was the 
 proper place for them. 
 
 Mary was not ready to face her for a minute or 
 two. 
 
 " I ain't had business with Hek for quite a year, 
 and that's a fact," she said. 
 
 She placed a fringed napkin on a small tray and 
 put the cup of milk ready with a cracker. 
 
 " That means you've had business with him al- 
 ready anyhow, and him holdin' a bill over your 
 head, I suppose, if you ain't paid it back." 
 
 " Hek and me understands each other, Clara. 
 That reminds me I must find time to run over to- 
 morrow if things'll let me. Hek's girl as married 
 Mark Spinney ought to be up to her time now and 
 all hands needed with the baby. Say, Clara, do you 
 think she'll take it well? She's uncommon fretful 
 over a bit of a burnt finger, times." 
 
 Clara tied on her cape and took up her hat irri- 
 tably. 
 
 " Cora Spinney's not the kind to find it any better 
 whether it's a burnt finger, or a baby. I'll come 
 over Saturday, Mary, and read to Spring. Good 
 night." 
 
 Mary went to the door with her. Her eyes were
 
 50 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 steadier now and she arranged Clara's cape with 
 trembling fingers. 
 
 " You do be in a mortal hurry some nights, 
 Clara." 
 
 " I got things on me mind that needs a long sleep 
 off," said Clara. 
 
 " If you're not too busy next week, I'd be glad 
 of a hand makin' up that piece of colored muslin I 
 got from the store. Spring won't be easy much 
 longer on the flat of her back, and I'm scared some 
 that Q. L. P. might discover her just as she is, 
 which is hardly decent, she's that much out of 
 things." 
 
 " When did you get that piece of colored muslin, 
 Mary? I never heard of it before." 
 
 There was ice in Clara's words. Mary folded 
 her hands to keep them still. 
 
 " I got it up Jake Heldy's store. It was the last 
 of the roll and only lying there for the dust to 
 settle on. I got it bargain rates and ..." 
 
 " An' you'll be payin' it outter the fruit money 
 which has all been used long ago settlin' up other 
 people's affairs." 
 
 Mary smiled, and the light of the evening sky lit 
 up her face in the doorway. 
 
 " Out of that ... or the potato crop," she said, 
 and Clara walked away without another word. 
 
 " It's real nice of Clara to be so mad about the
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 51 
 
 property," Mary told herself, and stood some time 
 staring across the fields to where Hek Dean's little 
 house sat squat, and faintly marked by the night 
 lights against the open sky.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " CLARA will be over in half an hour," said Mary 
 Settler, fixing on her things to go and call on Mrs. 
 Spinney. " She's bringing her book to read you a 
 piece, and it won't do you a morsel of harm to rest 
 a bit longer, seein' you've been kinder bringing up 
 a family before you've even got the start of one 
 yourself. 
 
 " What you don't know about your mother's chil- 
 dren ain't yet been found out, and I'm not handing 
 on any information that's merely a bundle of knots 
 for other people to try and unravel. A live wire 
 spittin' up sparks, regular as should be, ain't been 
 doin' duty to the main machinery any less than 
 you've been doin' yours to your mother, I should 
 say; and you can take a couple of weeks off 
 now without wearin' your heart out rubbin' it 
 against your soul in arguments about a waste of 
 time." 
 
 " But I must find something to do . . . pres- 
 ently," said Spring. 
 
 " You won't be needin' a pair of opera glasses to 
 help you search it out," Mary continued. " When 
 that little job comes along I don't mind sayin' it'll 
 
 52
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 53 
 
 be just about as nice a lookin' thing as ever suited 
 a girl of your particular kind. You see if it ain't 
 a regular heart to heart, confidential, understanding 
 kinder job ! Don't you go worrying your head, any- 
 way. I'd recognize that identical ladylike sort of 
 stunt, in the dark, if it was trying to give us the 
 hide-and-seek dodge. I'm going to bring it to the 
 hitching post, if I've got to go out and carry it in, 
 struggling, in my two hands . . . and remember, 
 it ain't no kind of common chore either. Once 
 Mary Settler's foot goes down on a thing, that thing 
 is as good as trapped. I'm wide awake on it, Lovey, 
 and you hold on to that and put all your chips on 
 me." 
 
 She came to the foot of the bed where Spring 
 Roper lay, and lifted a piece of material that had 
 been carefully cut into a simple house frock. The 
 hem at the bottom was neatly turned up, but the 
 tape facing had not been sewn down. 
 
 " That's another good and proper reason why 
 you shouldn't be fretting about gettin' out of bed. 
 No high-minded girl would be wanting to wear a 
 thing like that, unfinished." 
 
 Spring stretched out two shell-tinted slender 
 arms. 
 
 " Oh, is it for me, Mary ? Really for me ? " 
 
 " Well ..." Mary held it out, " it's not exactly 
 the kinder thing me or Benjamin, or even Clara,
 
 54 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 who's figure hasn't gone to ghost's yet a bit, would 
 be thinkin' of wading into." 
 
 She left the dress hanging near the foot of the 
 bed and turned to go. 
 
 " Sure it's for you, Spring; and if the potatoes 
 is good this year, an' don't need the eye-doctor, 
 which is after all only an ordinary kitchen knife 
 turned once or twice in precisely the same spot, 
 and if there's no heavy trouble with blight or other 
 contagions, it's more than likely Jake Heldy, the 
 storekeeper, will be takin' a trip to town to search 
 out other things suitable to that bit of colored mus- 
 lin." 
 
 She went through the door without saying 
 good-by. It was part of her splendid philosophy 
 that when one said " Good-by " one necessarily 
 meant good-by; and she herself never wished to 
 bring about any such thing when taking temporary 
 leave of a person she desired to see again. 
 
 " Good morning or good night don't happen to be 
 such a compromise on one as ' Good-by,' " she said 
 once. " When I've done with Hek Dean, or Jake 
 Heldy, and them both paid off, and nothin' owing 
 to spoil the stamped receipt I'm holdin' against 
 them, then it's good-by good and proper." 
 
 Mary Settler had gone off to do her visiting, leav- 
 ing Spring Roper in the one room across the pas- 
 sage, and the " ellergint gentleman," in the other
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 55 
 
 across the same passage. She had not mentioned to 
 either of the young people that their rooms were 
 separated only by a stretch of amber sunlight that 
 filtered in through the passage door, and that the 
 only chaperon they were likely to have until Clara 
 Hopkins and her book arrived was a merry and par- 
 ticularly discreet sunbeam. 
 
 To forward her own schemes, Mary had not even 
 whispered of the young man's adventure. She knew 
 that the girl would have begged to get out of bed 
 if she had imagined that anyone else was ill in the 
 house also; and Mary was not ready for this. Pen- 
 dren had been surly and inclined to be feverish and 
 muddled at times, and the doctor had advised no 
 immediate action on Mary's part other than that 
 suggested by Pendren himself. 
 
 All the time he had lain there, the man had only 
 one special appeal. His business needed his rapid 
 recovery. It must be understood that when there 
 was the slightest chance of getting himself and the 
 car into anything like running order again, he must 
 not be delayed at any cost. 
 
 His head was stupid, he told Mary one day, as 
 she swarmed over the floor with a polishing rag, 
 and made comments from any position she hap- 
 pened to be in, even if it was just under the fringe 
 of his bedcover. 
 
 " Wheels," he said, " cursed wheels running
 
 5 6 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 round and round and round in my head. They 
 never seem to stop." 
 
 Mary had paused with the floor cloth in hand. 
 Her eyes widened as she came out of the dark from 
 beneath his bed to the splash of light that cut in a 
 bright shaft through the window. 
 
 " It's a wonder to me," she said, " that you 
 haven't been clean run over in these two last days. 
 Must be something terrible to have all that traffic 
 spinning round in your head." 
 
 It was the same day he had asked her to bring 
 him his pocketbook that he might try to work out 
 a little of the trouble which seemed to be causing 
 the congestion of ideas in his brain. 
 
 " It's that piece of business jes' eating your mind 
 like a worm," she went on, searching for the pocket- 
 book and hoping that there might be something in 
 it to give him a trifle of peace. 
 
 While she adjusted the room, young Pendren had 
 fidgeted and fussed with shaking fingers among the 
 contents of his pocketbook. There was only his long 
 indrawing of breath and the gradual letting out of 
 it again to break the silence. Mary rummaged 
 about and tried to appear easy, though she was far 
 from it. 
 
 ' There's nothing here," said Pendren at last. 
 " But I think I've got a grip of something. It all 
 came so suddenly ..."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 57 
 
 "Did he take much money?" Mary took her 
 first plunge, thinking to help him as well as herself. 
 
 The young man looked steadily at her. 
 
 " How did you know ? " 
 
 " Well, I guessed there was larceny, or embez- 
 zlement, in it." 
 
 " Ah . . . now we're getting at it. You are put- 
 ting me right on the track. Now wait a min- 
 ute. ..." 
 
 Mary felt for once in her life that she could not 
 wait half as long. She had never been so inter- 
 ested in anything in all her life as the arranging of 
 this little plan of hers, and to get it going smoothly 
 needed a clear passage first of all. 
 
 Two minutes passed. He struggled to his elbow. 
 
 " Say, do you know anybody about these parts 
 of the name of ... of ... Roper?" 
 
 The woman reeled as if shot. " Name of what? " 
 she said uncertainly. 
 
 " Roper. I think I've got it right." 
 
 " Better make sure." She was palpitating so 
 much that she thought her heart was rising to choke 
 her. 
 
 " Yes. Here it is, in the notebook. Graham P. 
 Roper. That's the man." 
 
 " Is it him you're after? " Mary nearly screamed; 
 but the calm of her nature brought her voice down 
 to normal.
 
 58 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Well, I want to get him first of all. He's in 
 it, of course, but I'm not anxious to make a friend 
 of him, you may be sure. Do you know anything 
 about him? Can I get in touch easily without his 
 knowing it ? " 
 
 Mary spread her hands on her heart. Then she 
 held them up to stop him saying any more. 
 
 " Praise be. You can't touch him any kind of 
 way if you was to engage the longest arm of a 
 steam crane and hitch it to a hundred fire ladders. 
 He's beyond that. ..." 
 
 " Then he's dead. Thank goodness ! " 
 " Don't go thanking so easy. Sure, he's dead, 
 and higher up than the power of the law of the 
 land." 
 
 " Did he leave any family or a widow? " 
 " Jest a bunch of hard workers that's ..." 
 " Hard workers ? Have they got any money ? " 
 Mary considered. She thought that she ought 
 to go slowly. 
 
 ' They're mostly women folks, I think, but ... " 
 " Ah, then we can fight them easily." 
 He fell back on his bed, gasping, his tension of 
 thought relaxed. 
 Mary flashed round. 
 
 "Depends," she said. "Women is apt to be 
 hefty at times. If it ain't with their fists it's with 
 other things nature's give them. You beware of
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 59 
 
 nature, young man. It can strike harder sometimes 
 than a man's blows. What's the use, anyway, when 
 Graham P. is dead? " 
 
 Pendren paused and spoke slowly. He was rather 
 spent with the excitement. 
 
 " Yes . . . you're right. Anyway we'll leave it, 
 meantime, and I'll write to my father later on when 
 I'm . . . I'm easier a bit." 
 
 Mary had flown to the kitchen for a refreshing 
 drink to repair the effects of the exertion he had 
 gone through. Her mind was wheeling like a bird 
 over some newly found prey. Any minute she 
 would be able to swoop down and pick up fresh 
 information that would help her work out a solution 
 perhaps to help the family that she had practically 
 taken under her wing. 
 
 That night she confided her news to the ever re- 
 ceptive Clara. 
 
 " Sure it was a man he was hunting down. Sakes 
 alive, and it was that dear, dead man belonging to 
 the . . . Ropers." She whispered every word and 
 scarcely said the last one. 
 
 Clara opened her mouth and turned crimson. She 
 was agitated beyond expression. It was as if she 
 were living in the pages of something she had been 
 lying awake all hours to read. She was afraid to 
 speak. 
 
 " You keep shut, Clara," Mary admonished.
 
 6o SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Whatever comes of this trouble, the only way to 
 stop a fight is to push Spring forward into the ring, 
 and let her use her innercent eyes and ways to 
 entangle him. I believe in that sort of thing and it 
 always works if there's good material in the net. 
 You get me, Clara ? He'll let the whole bunch of? 
 with a very small amount of fist work if he knows 
 Spring through. It's likely too he'll hand out some- 
 thing handsome, 'stead of punches, if he gets in 
 touch with that silver, pool-eyed bit of a thing as 
 is ma to my little lamb. But we must go slow a bit. 
 Shove Spring forward first chance he's feeling like 
 anything out of bed. Land, to think of all this 
 going on in my very house, under my very nose, 
 and me not smelling it until this very day ! " 
 
 She also pumped the girl a little, very gently. 
 
 " Speakin' of your poppa and his ways of tryin' 
 to make good for the early bunch of you, Spring, 
 was he ever be his own right settled in a business, 
 maybe canned meat, or soap, or somethin' other 
 than the red-hot machinery of the Pynes folks? 
 Might he hev ever left your mother a shade 
 of a while to settle in, say, New York, or there- 
 abouts?" 
 
 "He often left us," said Spring. " But he al- 
 ways sent mother the money he got for working 
 away. And he came back again every Saturday 
 night, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas, and we had
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 61 
 
 a good time then! We were very fond of father, 
 even if he didn't ever make much good at his busi- 
 ness. He was clever at teaching us, and he could 
 recite beautiful poetry he'd made up while he was 
 away at his work. Mostly it was about mother. I 
 know quite a lot of it." 
 
 Mary nodded slowly. She had gained something 
 out of this, but it was not altogether practical. 
 
 " Yes, I know the kind, Lovey. Makes your eyes 
 run from the start of the piece. You get unsettled 
 in your throat and your stomach direckly the piece 
 is give out by the preacher and the person sayin' 
 it comes on the stage to bow. So your poppa was 
 a clever head at making words. Well, it reminds 
 me of a parrot my ma had that roamed the kitchen 
 as frequent as the flies, on'y more welcome. Sakes 
 alive, that bird could talk, Spring. He'd fix his eye 
 on the sugar bowl or the cracker box, and he'd start 
 out, express behind you, and you listening with both 
 ears and busy with your eyes on something. When 
 he'd finished talking a good long while, he'd desert. 
 And with him would go a piece of sugar, or some- 
 thing out of a box with no lid on. He was a cute 
 one and no argument. Always talking, talking, talk- 
 ing ! 'And off with something when your back was 
 turned." 
 
 Spring's eyes were wide with amazement. 
 
 " Why, father wasn't a bit like that ! He'd recite
 
 62 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 the most perfect pieces, but he wouldn't steal things 
 while he did it." 
 
 Mary calmed her. 
 
 " Land, Spring, whatever put that into your head ? 
 Why, I wouldn't hev thought that about the curious 
 talking bird. You see, he was some absent-minded. 
 It's mostly the case with folks that has a lot to say 
 in somebody else's kitchen. Jes' a mite absent- 
 minded. That's all it is." 
 
 Since the incident in Pendren's room, Mary re- 
 mained quiet. Quilter Lancelot Pendren said no 
 more about his business. The trouble on his mind 
 kept him in a most querulous mood. He was still 
 simmering when Mary went off to visit Hek Dean's 
 daughter, Cora Spinney, and this very action in 
 leaving the house helped the developments Mary had 
 set her heart on considerably, although really Cora 
 Spinney had nothing whatever to do with it.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 HALF an hour passed ; but Clara Hopkins had not 
 arrived with her book. To Spring, who lay watch- 
 ing a large cantankerous fly on the window shade, 
 it seemed more than half an hour that Mary had 
 been gone to make her call on Cora Spinney. 
 
 The house was very still. Up in the fields Ben- 
 jamin worked at his row and cautioned a weary- 
 eyed horse every now and then. 
 
 " Guess you think I'm a kind of near relation 
 owing you money and not in a hurry to pay you 
 back again," he said, slapping the nose of the crea- 
 ture suddenly and playfully. " I'm more of a per- 
 fect stranger to you, old hoss, till I've finished here. 
 Shunt! Yussuh!" 
 
 The afternoon wore on and the sunbeam stole 
 away from the passage between the two rooms. 
 
 Spring Roper began to dream slowly; the fly sang 
 an accompaniment to her dreams. Presently she 
 noticed it, and sat up in bed, stretching out a deli- 
 cate, entreating hand. The fly hummed and de- 
 scribed an invisible circle round and round the room. 
 
 "Oh, don't, don't do that!" Spring cried. 
 " You're like me, you can't get out, even though 
 
 63
 
 64 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 the door is open. Why don't you go through ? Be- 
 cause you're silly like I am. I could get up this 
 minute and go out and work; but I don't, because 
 really I don't want to." 
 
 Across the passage the young man heard the full 
 soft voice; but he took it that somebody else would 
 answer the voice, and waited. Only the tap, tap of 
 beating wings on the blind came through the doors. 
 
 " I wish you'd stop, fly." The voice came clearer, 
 for the fly was humming in another corner and had 
 stopped slapping the blind. "If I'd gone to my 
 Aunt Susannah now I should have been exactly like 
 you. Beating about and making a fuss. There's 
 always the door; but, isn't it funny, we never use 
 it?" 
 
 The fly answered by swooping down on to the 
 cover of the bed, and up into the air again, com- 
 plaining vituperatively all the time. 
 
 " You very nearly went out that time, fly," Spring 
 murmured. " Are you blind, or cowardly ? When 
 a person hasn't the courage to do the only thing 
 that's of any use, she must be one or the other." 
 
 " Not always! " 
 
 The exclamation apparently came from some- 
 where in the front part of the house, but how, Spring 
 was almost afraid to think. She lay listening 
 breathlessly. The voice had seemed to be a man's, 
 yet the only man she knew of in the place was
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 65 
 
 Benjamin, and he had only looked at her through 
 the window so far, and had never done more 
 than pull his hat down over his face by way of 
 greeting. 
 
 " They might be considering other people," the 
 strange voice which seemed to come out of space, 
 continued. 
 
 The young man waited again. The silence began 
 to throb about him and he felt that he had been 
 talking to darkening vacancy. But Spring was only 
 considering. " Of course," she said slowly and 
 nervously. " They might be considering other peo- 
 ple ... but ... I never thought of that." 
 
 The frankness of the tone did not escape young 
 Pendren. He felt for the first time that there was 
 a child in the house, yet withal a child with some 
 considerable reason in her mind. The easy phi- 
 losophy of her first remarks marked her as a reason- 
 ing young thing perhaps a trifle undeveloped. It 
 pleased him to think about her more than anything 
 he had come across for days. Whoever she was, 
 she was not of the type he had imagined an inhab- 
 itant of Mary Settler's house would be. He had 
 seen only Benjamin, with his shock of a head and 
 his genial grin, besides Mary herself. 
 
 " You see, I was talking to the fly," said Spring 
 when she had located the direction of the voice. 
 " There was really no need for him . . . for it ...
 
 66 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 to consider anybody but itself. The door is open 
 and it could have gone out." 
 
 A short cough, as if he were clearing his throat, 
 came through the space, then the young man said 
 smartly : 
 
 "If the door is open and the fly could have gone 
 out, why don't you ? " 
 
 Another interval and again the silence throbbed 
 for both. 
 
 The fly had settled in one corner of the room 
 and was no longer taking an active part in pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 " Is your door open ? " The question was put 
 so mildly that the young man scarcely heard it. 
 
 " Yes, it is, for once, thank goodness." The last 
 word was almost cut off by the sharpness of the 
 tone, and following this Spring heard a weary sigh 
 and some smothered complaint. 
 
 " Then it looks as if both of us are as foolish as 
 the fly." 
 
 He took her up quickly. 
 
 " Oh . . . blow the fly ! Look here, I'm tired of 
 this. If you've got anything interesting to read, 
 I wish you'd let me have it. I've never been so 
 bored with myself before. ..." 
 
 " If you could wait a little, Mary Settler will be 
 back, or Clara Hopkins. Clara reads out of a book, 
 the most interesting stories."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 67 
 
 " Oh, my. ..." He smothered the last word 
 advisedly. 
 
 Then came Spring's voice carefully attentive. 
 
 " Whatever is the matter? Are you very bad? " 
 
 " Worse than that. I thought that everybody 
 knew it." 
 
 "I didn't, but I guessed it! Mary's the Sa- 
 maritan, you know; she's always picking people up 
 out of trouble. You must be in trouble or you 
 wouldn't be here." 
 
 " Did she pick you up ? " 
 
 " Yes. I was part of the accident, didn't you 
 know?" 
 
 " Is that all ? I was the whole accident. Didn't 
 you know ? " 
 
 A dead quiet reigned after this and then there 
 was a shuffling of bare feet. He heard it distinctly, 
 as Spring crossed the floor searching the room for 
 something. 
 
 " I'm dreadfully sorry," she called through the 
 door. " There is only one book here and I'm afraid 
 you . . . you wouldn't care for it." 
 
 " What is it ? Anything will do." 
 
 " It's a Bible. I'm afraid I'll have to throw it 
 across because I'm . . . I'm not quite dressed." 
 
 The fly started a round of the room again with 
 startling and whirling velocity. Spring waited, 
 leaning against a chair, for she was weak with lying
 
 68 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 in bed, and her frame shivered with some nervous- 
 ness. 
 
 " Don't throw it." His tone struck her as final 
 and perhaps a little masterful. " I can wait, thank 
 you." 
 
 " Yes. I don't think one ought to throw a Bible," 
 came quietly from Spring as she climbed back to 
 bed. 
 
 Later on an idea occurred to her. She had this 
 young man on her mind and it never struck her as 
 anything out of the ordinary that she was in some- 
 what the same capacity as he was, though he occu- 
 pied the parlor. It would have been just as nat- 
 ural if the kitchen had also been converted into a 
 temporary hospital. If there had been a dozen 
 people concerned in the affair Spring would 
 have known they were all under Mary Settler's 
 care. 
 
 Therefore, she asked no questions as to why 
 there was a man lying an invalid in the room across 
 the passage and was content to try and do her share 
 making him comfortable even though she was thor- 
 oughly weak and relying on the good woman her- 
 self. 
 
 " I'll tell you what I could do if . . .if you'd 
 like it. I know quite a lot of stories. Some of 
 them are quite good enough to be written, I was 
 told."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 69 
 
 " And why weren't they? " 
 
 " Oh, because they have been in my head and 
 never had a chance to get . . . get anywhere else, 
 I suppose." 
 
 " You mean you made them up ? " 
 
 " Something like that. They come together when 
 I think and then they grow like little pictures, just 
 as quick as those in a photo play." 
 
 " Turn on the roll then. I'll use the blind here 
 as a screen." 
 
 For fully a minute Spring was silent and Pendren 
 thought that she was having a game with him. But 
 no feminine giggle such as he expected was forth- 
 coming, and the girl said: 
 
 "What kind of of stories do you like? Real 
 life or just . . . just . . . things that couldn't 
 possibly happen ? " 
 
 " Just at present I'm more interested in real life, 
 if you don't mind. Got any wrecked railroads or 
 deep-sea collisions, or entombed families in your 
 category ? " 
 
 " That's not real life. It's real death and per- 
 fectly horrid to even think about. I call trees, and 
 bluebirds, wild berries, and children real life." 
 
 Spring's voice was certainly chiding. Pendren 
 chuckled at the tone. He had created quite the sit- 
 uation he wanted to. It worked off a little of his 
 superfluous mind-trouble.
 
 70 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Just one minute," he called. " Let me take that 
 to pieces and see what I can make of it. Real life 
 is trees, bluebirds, wild berries, and children. 
 That means that the trees shelter the bluebirds, I 
 suppose, and the wild berries are food for the chil- 
 dren. I guess the bluebirds get the first chance every 
 time because sometimes there are disastrous results 
 from wild berries. Suppose you turn on the other 
 roll. The things that couldn't possibly happen. I'll 
 bet you anything you like I know more about them 
 than anyone in the world." 
 
 A crisp little smothered laugh came from 
 Spring. 
 
 " I'm sure it's not my way of knowing them. The 
 things that couldn't possibly happen are dreams" 
 
 " Sometimes nightmares." 
 
 " Then they don't count, because they couldn't 
 possibly happen." 
 
 " Never mind. Sometimes they give you cold 
 feet all the same." 
 
 " My dreams never do." 
 
 " Then turn on one of your dreams." 
 
 But there was another short pause in the con- 
 versation. Spring was weighing things and the 
 balance wasn't even. It would have given her a 
 dreadful feeling if he were to laugh in the middle of 
 one of her greatest dreams. 
 
 " I'm afraid ..." she began, and stopped.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 71 
 
 "What of?" 
 
 " Afraid you could not understand. I'm ever so 
 serious." 
 
 " So am I. Honest Injun." 
 
 It was then that Spring got him completely; and 
 the complete victory made her laugh crisply several 
 times before delivering a parting shot. 
 
 " Then that is one of the things that couldn't pos- 
 sibly happen ! " 
 
 In the parlor the young man struggled to sit up 
 and managed it much better than he had done for- 
 merly. Somehow there was a better incentive to 
 act for himself now, than in the days when there 
 was only Mary Settler's kind face to encourage him. 
 Something had stirred the stagnant atmosphere of 
 his mentality. There was even a breeze whispering 
 quaint new things. The stern man of business was 
 playing with a child, or thought he was, until he 
 knew differently. 
 
 " Bully for you ! " Leaning forward he shouted 
 the words. " You're the first person to find it out, 
 though. Personally I hate dreams. I'm too prac- 
 tical and solid. Do you know that / wouldn't even 
 bother dreaming who you are or what you are like ; 
 but you've got me curious." 
 
 " Then let us play a game of ' Guessing.' Do 
 you know it? You start by asking me a question 
 to which I am bound to answer yes or no. We take
 
 72 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 turns and you can't ask the same question twice . . . 
 please begin." 
 
 " Right. Are you pretty? " 
 
 He waited. 
 
 Thinking that she did not hear him, he shouted 
 it louder. 
 
 " Are you pretty ? " 
 
 Distinctly he heard the fly humming again be- 
 tween him and the girl, but nothing else came forth. 
 
 "Are you asleep?" 
 
 Then Spring answered quite quickly. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Won't you answer the first question ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Was it a wrong one ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " It's your turn." 
 
 " Just a minute. Pretend we are not playing a 
 minute while I explain. You see you need not an- 
 swer any question that you can't. If you don't know 
 the answer you keep quiet." 
 
 " I see. Well, we'll have another go. Can I 
 start?" 
 
 " Yes. Does your name begin with ' A ' ? " 
 
 " Wait a minute. I hadn't asked the first ques- 
 tion." 
 
 ;< You did. You asked if you could start ! An- 
 swer me ! "
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 73 
 
 " Does my name begin with ' A ' ? With ' A ' 
 what?" 
 
 Spring quietened again. Then she said seriously : 
 
 " Can't you play fair ? " 
 
 "Yes. Can you?" 
 
 " Of course I can. I know the game." 
 
 " You mustn't say all that. You must stick to 
 yes or no." 
 
 " I stopped playing when you never answered my 
 question." 
 
 " I beg your pardon but you didn't. Since then 
 you've asked me another. You're not sticking to 
 rule." 
 
 The fly in Spring's room hummed louder and 
 stopped altogether. Someone passing in the 
 road shouted, and then the silence opened out 
 again. 
 
 " Shall we start again and try? " 
 
 " Yes," from Spring. 
 
 "Are you a little girl?" 
 
 " Yes. Are you tired of talking to me ? " 
 
 " Not a bit. I mean . . . no. Is your hair thin 
 and black?" 
 
 "No. Is yours?" 
 
 " No. Will you tell me your name when we've 
 finished playing? " 
 
 " Yes. Will you tell me yours? " 
 
 " Yes. Will you also tell me how old you
 
 74 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 are, what you look like, and where you come 
 from?" 
 
 "Yes. No. Yes. (A short laugh.) Do you 
 want to know anything more? " 
 
 " Yes. Shall we stop playing now ? " 
 
 " Yes, because I've won." 
 
 The young man again leaned forward in his bed. 
 He had never run across anything quite so assured 
 before. Somehow too he was conscious that he was 
 being ridiculed by a kind of child that had grown 
 up before her years. 
 
 " I can't see why you've won any more than I," 
 he said. 
 
 " That's the very reason in my favor," laughed 
 Spring. 
 
 " Really. I don't get you again ? " 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you. The person who finds out 
 the most in the shortest time scores twenty. I 
 scored twenty on your first question." 
 
 " You've been using the jigger when I wasn't 
 looking, then." 
 
 " I found out all about you and that gave me 
 the twenty." 
 
 " I found out all about you and that gave me 
 forty." 
 
 " Nonsense. How could you ? " 
 
 " I found out that you were a little girl, without 
 thin black hair, that you were going to tell me your
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 75 
 
 name, how old you were, and where you came from 
 presently, and that you are very, very pretty. That's 
 six things." 
 
 " Oh ! " indignantly from Spring. " I never 
 said a word about being . . . pretty or anything 
 like that." 
 
 " That's precisely how I knew. You didn't want 
 to tell a lie and you didn't like to say yes. I fancy 
 I score sixty for that." 
 
 " I can score a hundred that way." Her voice 
 was still resentful. 
 
 " I found out that you were stupid, inquisitive, 
 unteachable, tiresome, impatient, unfair, and per- 
 fectly ridiculous. That's seven." 
 
 " You've only left one thing out. Unsquashable." 
 
 " I didn't want to squash you " mildly from 
 Spring. 
 
 " So the elephant said to the flea, but he had to 
 sit down all the same. Would you mind killing that 
 fly in your room? It's driving me silly." 
 
 A faint sigh floated to him across the passage, 
 then the girl's voice, quaintly resigned : 
 
 " I can't, because it has done the one and only 
 thing. It has gone through the door."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " MARK'S lost his job, Mary." 
 
 The good woman had just touched the rim of the 
 little house across Hek Dean's fields. Cora Spinney 
 sat on the porch watching Mary come across the 
 plowed land and immediately she thought her near 
 enough she hailed her with the news. 
 
 Mary Settler scraped her boots on a stone before 
 she went into the low, dust-speckled living-room. 
 
 " Jest about time Mark was setting up a new 
 sensation. It's a wonder you ain't been giving him 
 something to think about, Cora, that had lungs of 
 its own to remind him his family had started, and 
 a job wasn't exactly a blood relation that would 
 stick to him when he wanted to treat it bad. What's 
 Hek got to say about it ? " 
 
 Cora looked tearfully at her. 
 
 " Ain't no use making a song to father. He 
 clean finished with Mark, time he got mussed up 
 with Jake Heldy." 
 
 "Jake don't hold anything much against Mark, 
 Cora, 'cept that he hadn't a mind of his own when 
 Mark come into the business. I'll talk to Hek. But 
 it won't give Mark a new job, I'm thinkin', and it's 
 
 76
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 77 
 
 only a guess on my part that it will do anything 
 towards putting food into your mouth so as you 
 can feed that baby you're expecting." 
 
 " We owe father ever so much as it is, Mary, 
 and Mark and me wouldn't be the ones to ask more 
 of him, knowing it 'd only set sparks going. We 
 borrowed ever so much on the property long ago, 
 and we been paying it back in rent ever since. If 
 Mark don't happen on something pretty lively there 
 won't be nothing but the road for me and baby." 
 
 All this was said in a wearisome whine, and any- 
 one else but Mary Settler would have scorned the 
 tone. Cora Spinney knew it, and it was her chance 
 to wail. 
 
 " I dunno what I done to deserve it, either. All 
 through I've stuck to Mark and never as much as 
 a grumble all the time. I tell Deacon Perch only the 
 other night that I'd keep comin' to meeting right up 
 to my time and I ain't missed yet." 
 
 " That's considerable in your favor, Cora, but 
 you didn't ought to mix up what you done for the 
 Lord with what the Lord is doin' for you. Now 
 we're all mighty small fish in one water-hole, and 
 there's benefits to go round if they are properly 
 distributed ; and you ain't doin' too bad with a baby 
 right off the first year of your marriage, when 
 there's some goes to the end of time and gets no 
 chance. I knew a woman up Mapleboro once that
 
 78 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 set by a frilled-muslin soap-box, pretendin' it was 
 a workbasket, year in and year out, and her never 
 get any nearer her heart's desire than five feet of 
 front yard. She kep' up the soap-box till she died, 
 poor thing; and one of the neighbors, cleanin' up a 
 bit, undertook to use it for its right purpose. I 
 never did think that woman had a proper chance, and 
 it was mostly ' hope deferred '; but then she might 
 of had feelings of compensation." 
 
 " We ain't paid the store account two months, 
 Mary." 
 
 Cora got her grievance forward a little more. 
 
 " Thet's bad as can be, Cora, but I should say 
 that, soon as you can get the baby over, things will 
 just stand on their own feet without assistance. 
 Nothing like a baby to promote strict business when 
 the food closet's empty. There was Mrs. Casson 
 now. She was mortal afraid, when her man was 
 smashed up in the railroad business and brought 
 home without any legs, that they were all goin' to 
 starve. Well, she had the baby sudden, and a bit 
 previous to what I would have advised. It was on 
 account of the shock and only half a man returned 
 to her 'stead of a complete article, and all the people 
 in the village up and hands her down enuff food 
 for a month. They took it in turns to see she didn't 
 have nothing to worry over all the time doctors was 
 patching and hemming her man together and while
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 79 
 
 she was busy with the new baby, and for the next 
 year and a half she only had to open her mouth to 
 put the food in. Well, Casson he dies next fall, and 
 she hurries up things again, and not long after 
 throws a double. Twins it was; and not a neighbor 
 in the place anxious to do a mortal hand's turn. 
 They reckoned she was helping herself to a bigger 
 advantage, and flesh and blood was all against that. 
 
 " You never can tell, Cora," Mary said presently. 
 " If it had been twins the first time, the benefits 
 would have been just the same. You keep on be- 
 lieving, and Hek and me will come to some under- 
 standing." 
 
 " Oh, I believe in you all right, Mary. It's father 
 I'm mortified over. We must get money, unless 
 Mark goes to the city and takes a job there, and 
 what will I do with only meself and the baby? " 
 
 Another bogie had disturbed Cora and she started 
 a short sniffling, that suggested a cold in the head 
 more than anything. 
 
 " Now look here, Cora," said Mary, with some 
 firmness. " I'm not exactly the whole book of in- 
 formation given away at the matrimonial bureau, 
 but say, what'd you think Hek would be doin' settin' 
 down to his supper over there in a linoleumed parlor 
 all easy and mindful of the blessin's he'd received 
 through being a kind of a cautious man all his life, 
 if he knew you was havin' your first baby good and
 
 8o SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 hard, with Mark out of a job and a store account as 
 long as your clothes line? If I know anything at 
 all I reckon he'll be along right the very first minit 
 Doctor Harkins touches the porch. I know Hek, 
 if you don't, and if I make a mistake then I'm going 
 to find it out pretty quick." 
 
 She was even then getting up to depart and Cora 
 held out a detaining hand. 
 
 " Mark won't let me ask father, Mary. He's 
 prideful even if his temper do get him out of work 
 times." 
 
 " That's a good spirit, Cora, though a man who 
 gets mad with his boss three times in two months, 
 and is chucked for it, ought to have something more 
 to recommend him. Well, Hek and me will have a 
 little talk. Maybe Mark won't be too prideful to 
 hold his objections out to borrowing from say . . . 
 somebody else names not mentioned ? " 
 
 Cora straightened and dried her face. 
 
 " It 'd make the baby easier if I knew we had a 
 little cash down, Mary, not even knowin' who's 
 the . . ." 
 
 " And nothin' said to ... to Clara Hopkins or 
 nobody, but just taken for granted it come from 
 Hek?" 
 
 " I can say father sent it, Mary." 
 
 " Then I'll be getting over the fields. Did you 
 know I got Spring Roper of Ladybird stopping up
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 81 
 
 my place? Nice little thing with big eyes full of 
 soft light like her mother's. There's a pool of water 
 for you! Children for every chair in the house, 
 to say nothing of the benches in the kitchen. Spring 
 come to an unhappy finish last week tryin' to do a 
 trick ride to the depot. I don't blame her and I'm 
 thankful it was me got the chance to show her her 
 error." 
 
 " I heered you got the gentleman from the city 
 as well. Miss Hetty, she was mortified at that." 
 
 " I must call on Miss Hetty and let her know 
 he's doin' fine. Spring put a high speed into her 
 recovery directly she saw the new dress Clara helped 
 me to make. Bless my soul, to think of you, Cora, 
 with a baby of your own, and me . . . well, it don't 
 come nearly so unsatisfactory when you get the 
 chance to fuss up something you've borrowed. I'll 
 go this way across, and see if I can catch sight of 
 Hek." 
 
 Sure as the woman crossed the cultivated patch 
 and turned through the little gate into the yard 
 where an old man was feeding chickens, did she 
 catch sight of Hek! 
 
 He was standing there watching her come across 
 the field from Mark Spinney's house. 
 
 " Wall, Mary," he said in slow, languid tones. 
 " I guess you've been picking up chips again for 
 some as don't deserve it. Now ain't it jest too bad
 
 82 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 of them to get you to come right along to me? I'd 
 be real sorry to refuse you anything, Mary, but 
 Mark Spinney's got his own row to hoe, and I 
 guess I don't help block up his track with benefits 
 he's kinder looking for." 
 
 " You ain't going to get the chance to refuse me 
 anything, Hek," said Mary, following him into the 
 kitchen. She stood there a moment looking round 
 her. 
 
 " Seems like you ain't got the proper handling of 
 this place, Hek. Who's your ' help ' now Cora's 
 taken up with her own private affairs? " 
 
 " Miss Hetty, she's taken a sudden fancy to come 
 and do the chores for me; but there ain't much in 
 the way of keeping her here more'n an hour a day, 
 thank the land." He took a chair and then put one 
 for Mary. 
 
 But the good Samaritan still remained standing, 
 observing the arrangement of the kitchen. 
 
 Miss Hetty, she do be terrible soft with me, 
 Mary, but she's hidin' a scorpion with a living 
 tongue of fire somewhere in her busom. Mostly I 
 keeps out of the house, but that don't seem to suit 
 her neither." 
 
 " Miss Hetty ain't had no chance, Hek. I mind 
 the day when she was photographed for somebody 
 she'd been corresponding with regular. He'd been 
 away in the country's wars many a day, and Miss
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 83 
 
 Hetty she thinks to bring him back to her be jest 
 that fancy picture. Well, Hek, it was that same 
 photograph that did the trick. She's been most 
 sour from that day and nussed up a different no- 
 tion about that man ever since." 
 
 " Maybe, Mary " Hek took things leisurely. 
 He was evidently debating the story. " She's con- 
 siderable pleased about somethin' these days." He 
 nodded his head slowly. " She can cook too." 
 
 " She can do most things she sets out to. I'm 
 right glad she's come around, Hek. Stops you bein' 
 lonesome like an' takes the edge off of the feelin' 
 you got when Cora married Mark." 
 
 " I got no feelin' for Cora, Mary. She sets great 
 store be what she's brought on her own head." 
 
 " Sure she does ! It wouldn't be you nor me, 
 Hek, that would think much of a girl that didn't 
 stand up for what she'd taken on, and was ready 
 to face out. She can't set too much on that baby, 
 even if it ain't born regular and up to time. If a 
 woman can't set great and everlastin' store be her 
 first baby, then she can't have no right to be glad 
 about anything." 
 
 " Mary, she ain't no right to be setting store be 
 a wrong action. I nussed her from a baby meself 
 and never as much as let her know a thing about 
 an onrighteous and evil doer." 
 
 " That's exactly what brought about the trouble,
 
 84 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Hek. You nussed her upside down, or wrong side 
 out, or whatever it is a man like you thinks the 
 correct style. If she'd been mine I'd have turned 
 her out among the hedges and let her learn life 
 from the sermons in the trees and the stones and 
 the common people. You kep' her tied to her hymn- 
 book, Hek, and it was only natural that when some- 
 thing with red blood in him come along, she was 
 going to feel the warmth of it before she accepted 
 your opinions." 
 
 " She didn't ought to have brought disgrace on 
 my house, Mary. I'm a clean-livin' man, and a gal 
 with a baby before her time ..." 
 
 " My land, Hek, you do make me wriggle. I'm 
 a kind of a sort of earthworm just travelin' along 
 in the dark, when I think of what Cora done. No 
 woman on this earth, or in any other part, ever 
 had a baby before her time. When a baby has to 
 be born, it jes' has to be born, and nothin' made 
 be man, be it government law, or family law, or 
 any manner of law whatever, is goin' to stop it. 
 Jes' suppose you could. Now, what'd the world 
 be doin'? The mortality alone would flood the 
 market and on'y the undertakers be making any- 
 thing of a livin'. I guess they'd be doin' a big 
 thing in funerals for the poor creatures who'd been 
 robbed of the fruits of their lives after bein' put 
 on this earth for precisely that selfsame reason."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 85 
 
 She stopped a moment to wipe her face. The in- 
 tensity of her feeling was bringing the sweat from 
 every pore. Indignation at suffering and injustice 
 was poured out from her swelling heart. " Cora's 
 not having a baby before her time. The precise 
 hour for that dear lamb to arrive, and fill the earth 
 with good will and peace towards men, has been 
 set by the Lord Himself, and you an' me, Hek, ain't 
 got no cause to question whether it's early, or late." 
 
 Across the fields the sun had taken a slant and 
 small and great things began to have a face of 
 colored shadow. Mary looked through the door. 
 " We'll just go through that little matter of ... 
 of my property, Hek, and then I'll be getting back." 
 
 Silently the old man rose and searched in a 
 drawer among an assortment of table knives, forks, 
 and spoons. He brought out some yellowish papers 
 to Mary. 
 
 " There's . . . interest owing . . . Mary." 
 
 " I'm a bit slow, Hek, these times at catching-up." 
 
 " I guess then, Mary, that you ain't anxious par- 
 ticular about paying . . . today ? " There was a 
 kind of fierce gloating pleasure in his voice. 
 
 " Nor . . . tomorrow, Hek," said Mary evenly. 
 " But I'm particular anxious and breaking my 
 heart most, to take a fresh loan from you, Hek." 
 
 " Ah ! " It was all the old man said as he smiled 
 across at her.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A BOY brought a message to Benjamin that same 
 afternoon that Clara Hopkins had been " taken with 
 a terrible toothache." This message was passed on 
 in turn to Mary as she crossed her own potato patch 
 on the way to the house. 
 
 " Then jes' you hustle a bit, Benjamin, and when 
 you're through here you can take up a bottle of 
 my mixture to Clara. Come in and have a bit of 
 supper first before you sets out." 
 
 " I guess I'll get a move on direckly I've cleaned 
 up a bit," said Benjamin; and Mary turned to look 
 at him suddenly. 
 
 " You don't need to be cleanin' up for Clara, 
 Benjamin. Last time you was a heap more like 
 the garbage corner of the yard when I sent you up 
 that direction." 
 
 Benjamin took it facing front. His great head 
 with the thin streaks of lank hair was held high 
 to the evening glow. 
 
 " It wa'n't in that direction. It was oncommon 
 close to Mirandy Bell's place you sent me with the 
 errand. Mirandy ain't Clara Hopkins and that 
 makes a heap of a difference." 
 
 86
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 87 
 
 " Folks said once you was mighty keen on Mi- 
 randy, Benjamin." 
 
 A flush of indignation ran from the boy's high 
 forehead to where his shirt divided at the throat. 
 
 " Once, Mary, but on'y the once. Since then I 
 got in company that pleases me more." 
 
 " I'm real glad of that, Benjamin. Would it be 
 overcurious of me to ask you the proper name of 
 that same company? " 
 
 For a moment the boy hesitated, then he wheeled 
 round and pointed with one ground-grubby fore- 
 finger. 
 
 " Dunno the proper name, but it's thet old hoss 
 over thar. He's a sight more entertainin'. ..." 
 
 Mary allowed a smile to come over her face. She 
 turned away. 
 
 " Ain't much compliment to Clara," she said to 
 herself as she rubbed her feet on the rush mat at 
 the kitchen door. " But I s'pose it's Benjamin's 
 way. So Mirandy Bell's on the path of No Hope 
 and plain sewin' for the rest of her life. Well, I 
 never did quite cotton to breakin' her in for Ben- 
 jamin, and now I come to think of it . . . " 
 
 She had reached the bedroom and found Spring 
 sitting up in the bedcovers quietly stitching up the 
 hem of the new muslin. In the girl's face was 
 something wonderfully vital. Her thin, delicate, 
 shell-colored fingers manipulated the needle in and
 
 88 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 out of the hem with a speed of almost anxious 
 anticipation. Two bright eyes like the first stars 
 in a turquoise evening sky twinkled at Mary as she 
 came in, and the sudden flush of an unexplainable 
 position spread over the velvet cheeks and full 
 throat. 
 
 Mary had the strength to hold her tongue. It 
 was the most unusual thing for her to do, for she 
 was ever ready to say what she was thinking. 
 Something made her just stand there, looking at 
 Spring, and in the minute the girl took it that the 
 good woman was surprised that she had at last 
 asserted herself to take a hand in things. 
 
 Deliberately Spring smiled across the whiteness 
 of the bed and Mary caught the gleam. 
 
 " I declare to goodness, Spring, you seem to grow 
 different every hour of the day," she said, although 
 it was not really in her mind to utter such a thing. 
 
 A bubbling laugh came from the bed. 
 
 "Of course, Mary. I couldn't grow the same, 
 could I? I'd be staying in one kind of position 
 something like the pyramids of Egypt. One has 
 to grow different if one grows at all." 
 
 " My word ! And you're getting that perky and 
 indifferent to them bruises on your arms and legs, 
 that looked more like you been setting down in 
 several pools of blue-black ink than anything else, 
 that you'll be talkin' of getting out of bed next."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 89 
 
 " Tomorrow I'll be getting up, Mary." 
 
 " Sure now. There's nobody wants to hurry 
 you, Spring. Another week on the same prescrip- 
 tion, to say nothing of the exact kind of recent 
 treatment, and you'd be plump as a plum. Land, 
 when I look at you now, and think of what you 
 was when I carried you in a week ago, it does my 
 heart good. Sure now you wouldn't be better to 
 take another day or so, Spring ? " 
 
 If for one moment Mary had allowed her face 
 to relax from its seriousness, the whole root of her 
 scheming would have been laid bare to the winds 
 of ridicule. But the good woman with wonderful 
 discrimination kept the light in her eyes as steady 
 as that on a windowpane. Her jaws came together 
 slowly and she waited with the uttermost con- 
 cern. 
 
 " Jes' another day or so, Spring," she said pres- 
 ently and the girl's face bent further over the sew- 
 ing. " Give yourself time to finish off that bit of 
 sewin' you're so kind as to take on. You can't get 
 up without that's finished." 
 
 " It will be quite finished by . . .by tonight/' 
 came eagerly from Spring. 
 
 Mary smiled. 
 
 " Then jest you work as fast as you can, Lovey, 
 if it ain't making the job into a headache as well as 
 a pleasure. You keep right on the tape-line, and
 
 90 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 I'll make time tonight to put in the rest of the 
 buttonholes." 
 
 " Do . . .do you think you'll really have time, 
 Mary?" 
 
 Such a quivering of uncertainty in the voice and 
 such a change of brightness in the anxious eyes ! 
 
 Mary was leaving the room. " Sure as to- 
 morrow starts at twelve o'clock tonight," she said, 
 going across the passage to her other charge. 
 
 " Jes' like doin' a sum on one side of your slate 
 and provin' it to be right on the other," said Mary 
 mentally, when she had taken in certain alterations 
 in Quilter Lancelot Pendren. 
 
 " Spring's the piece of arithmetic I been working 
 on for a week, and to prove I got her right, I've 
 only got to turn over the slate, which is the other 
 side of the passage, and take a look at what's doin' 
 in the parlor." 
 
 While working this out she was standing watch- 
 ing the young man in the same way as she had 
 observed the girl. 
 
 Pendren was intently concerned in looking under 
 his bed, although it was not altogether an easy 
 thing to do from his position on the top of it. He 
 was too taken up trying to balance himself to notice 
 the woman's entrance. She stood there a little 
 longer till he gave up his acrobatic feat of trying 
 to discover something under the couch.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 91 
 
 "Damn!" he said roundly. 
 
 " That's a bad word, but I should say, Mr. Pen- 
 dren, that it just about suits the situation. Young 
 man, you got no horse sense to go leaning that way 
 on your anatomy seeing that Doc Harkins can only 
 renovate you temporary. Would it be out of place 
 to inquire jest how much further you would have 
 crawled under that stretcher if I hadn't called you 
 up by wireless, so to speak, in time to save you 
 cracking right in half ? " 
 
 " I was looking for my boots," said Pendren. 
 
 " Going to wear 'em in bed, and go treading on 
 yourself 'cause of no chance to walk anywhere's 
 else?" 
 
 " I'm going to get up. I'm sick of playing the 
 . . . infant." 
 
 " Oh . . . was it only playing then ? Land ! to 
 think of that! And us all thinking you down and 
 out, run over by heavy traffic in your own head. 
 . . . I'm real pleased you're beating us to frazzles 
 over that part." 
 
 " Oh, I expect to be as weak as a kitten and as 
 stupid as an owl for . . . weeks yet." 
 
 " That's good." Mary was off her guard, but 
 she quickly took her stand again and kept things 
 going. 
 
 " It does my heart good to hear you admit you're 
 not feelin' like jumping the moon as yet. I ain't
 
 92 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 had a chance to know you properly yet. So you'll 
 be getting up tomorrow ? " 
 
 A little rush of blood made Pendren hesitate. 
 He felt decidedly uncomfortable, but he pulled up 
 smartly. 
 
 " I didn't mention tomorrow . . . exactly." 
 
 " Then it was my mistake. I'm real sorry." 
 She turned to go out of the room. " I'll get Ben- 
 jamin to hunt out your clothes in a day or so. Jest 
 you make your mind easy now." 
 
 But this didn't suit the young man. 
 
 " Perhaps . . . perhaps it might as well be ... 
 tomorrow," he called out. Mary turned round. 
 
 " If you're feeling fit, I don't mind sayin' that 
 it would be the most blessed kind of a day for you 
 to get up." 
 
 "Why a blessed kind of a day?" Mary's ex- 
 pression had stirred certain suspicions in his breast. 
 
 " For one reason, because it's Sunday," she said, 
 and gave him no more time to ask questions. 
 
 Later, when everything in the house had been 
 attended to and finished for the night, when the 
 last buttonhole in Spring's new dress had been 
 pressed with an iron, Mary Settler stepped through 
 the door of her house and stood out under the 
 stars. To her it was the time when all thankful 
 souls should pray, and pray in the open where God 
 looked through the blue.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 93 
 
 " Dear Lord of Love," she said quietly, and the 
 night wind took it right to the sprinkle of stars, 
 " there's Cora with her baby, an' Miss Hetty over- 
 anxious about Hek Dean; there's Benjamin search- 
 ing out Clara, who's a head over him in years, an' 
 these two misunderstanding things trying to keep 
 a secret close when it's been sticking out a foot all 
 the evening. And there's me, Lord . . . jes' 
 thankful. Bless us every one."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " You are pretty." 
 
 Across a strip of turned-up chocolate soil Spring 
 Roper saw the young man upholstered in all manner 
 of bandages, and clad in a badly damaged traveling 
 suit, a silk handkerchief collar, and a pair of hand- 
 some red leather bath slippers. He was sitting in 
 a basket-chair indifferently languid, and blinking 
 in the face of the fullest sunshine. She was lying 
 in a twine hammock made in two-colored mesh, and 
 hung under the best flowering apple tree in Mary 
 Settler's garden. 
 
 The good woman had arranged everything with 
 a wonderful discrimination, and never for a moment 
 had she allowed these young people to think that 
 she had guessed at their apparent previous knowl- 
 edge of each other. At an early hour she had got 
 the girl out of bed, and with some carefully hidden 
 concern as to her proper debut, had brushed out 
 the short masses of curling hair and anointed her 
 with many blessings as she did so. The colored 
 muslin was arranged with the buttons all fastening 
 down the back and a bow of ribbon was perched, 
 
 94
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 95 
 
 where the belt presumably, but not really, did up at 
 the left side. 
 
 The hammock in two-colored twine, as well as 
 the pretty muslin, had also been part of the scheme 
 in Mary's mind, and it gave her great satisfaction 
 to see the girl lying there. 
 
 " More'n ever like a part of Clara's novel, even 
 if the bulk of her do resemble somewhat a passel of 
 onions in a net bag." 
 
 Before leaving the garden the woman had given 
 the girl a few instructions just to help things 
 along. 
 
 " I don't see, Spring," she said, " as how you 
 can't hand him out jest the kind of female, do- 
 mestic attentions you've been so keen on delivering 
 your ma's family so long. There's no need for 
 you to encourage him to use his legs, either. Ben- 
 jamin will be back presently from the Sunday 
 School and we will get that Q. L. P. to bed by 
 sundown." 
 
 She was going off, but returned with another load 
 of light remarks. 
 
 " Talk bright to him, Spring, lovey. I got the 
 idea today that he's kinder missing his happy home 
 and mother. Don't let him be dull, same time keep 
 down things that might come up to rouse that piece 
 of business he's living under just now, and which 
 don't come too easy on his mind. Play all you
 
 96 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 like, and if he wants to admire you for things as 
 ain't your fault, nor your credit just let him. It 
 will do you both good, but hold on to your own 
 identity jest as long as you can same as he's been 
 doing by us. 
 
 " Certain, Spring, it don't do a flea-bite of harm 
 to let him hear you turning on the high-gear talk; 
 but same time it isn't always wise to hand out in- 
 formation like your mother's first name, or your 
 address, for a bit. Young folks is like to be a bit 
 overanxious when first they meet. That's the 
 trouble afterwards. I mind the time I first hit up 
 in a line of heart throbs myself. I had him guess- 
 ing all the names under the sun, of flowers, birds, 
 and beasts, and colors, and him never as much as 
 touching the truth of plain Mary. . . . Sakes alive, 
 wasn't he cute, too, when he happened to strike some- 
 body who opened the daylight on the real thing? 
 Says to me that very day, ' You got me guessing, 
 all right, but since you made it Daffodil, you got to 
 stop Daffodil till the cows come home ! ' . . . " 
 
 As if in a mental abstraction the good woman 
 continued her little story in silence. Spring heard 
 no more of the affair now worn threadbare by the 
 years. 
 
 After this advice, when Mary Settler had timed 
 the young man's hour of rising (with some valua- 
 ble and much-needed assistance from Benjamin of
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 97 
 
 the yard) she found herself short of time to get 
 to the Sunday School meeting. 
 
 No sooner had Quilter Lancelot Pendren been 
 disposed of in the basket-chair with an impedi- 
 menta of rugs, bandages, footstools, and other in- 
 valids' etcetera, than the good woman reminded Ben- 
 jamin that he was also a bit overdue for the Sunday 
 School. 
 
 " It's uncommon queer about that Q. L. P.'s 
 boots," Mary said, not looking too closely at her 
 companion as they trudged the fields and the road. 
 " Seems like I'm getting out of touch with myself 
 these times when I can't remember where I put 
 them. I've a kinder notion I gave them to you to 
 clean up, Benjamin." 
 
 " Mebbe you did, seeing I remember the kind of 
 patent leathers they was," said the farm help. 
 
 " An' you put them back in the clothes closet 
 same as his other things? " 
 
 " Yep." 
 
 " Did you turn the key? " 
 
 " You did that, Mary." 
 
 " Praise be, then, for they must be somewhere 
 hiding. That Q. L. P. will have to content himself 
 with the ellergint bath slippers till I can turn them 
 out." 
 
 "Is he in some hurry, Mary? " 
 
 " He's got particular business further on, the
 
 98 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 nature of which isn't oiled up enough to get itself 
 started. Ain't likely he'll be getting a move on 
 without his boots, though." 
 
 This apparently gave her some satisfaction, for 
 her face fell into soft shades and lines of merri- 
 ment as they went into the Sunday School. 
 
 " You are pretty." 
 
 When Spring had only stared wide-eyed in an- 
 swer, the young man had repeated himself. 
 
 " And you haven't got thin black hair. It is just 
 the most marvelous change of colors in this sun- 
 shine. Is it meant to be up or down ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Mary did it." 
 
 Quite at a loss as to how to take this, Pendren 
 looked across the space of mellow sunshine and 
 chocolate soil. It was a decided disadvantage to 
 have to call out so loudly, and to have a full blare 
 of light in his eyes every time he wanted to speak 
 to her. The strip of upturned soil was indeed an 
 annoyance. He wriggled in his chair. 
 
 " Mary does pretty well everything," he grum- 
 bled. " She put me in this chair with this cursed 
 sun in my face, and insisted on my remaining in 
 my bath slippers at an hour when it is positively 
 indecent. I detest the sun in my face, and I hate, 
 above everything, to slop about in bath slippers." 
 
 " But you are not slopping about," said Spring,
 
 99 
 
 to justify Mary. " You are not supposed to even 
 walk, are you?" 
 
 " I'm not supposed to do anything but sit here 
 like a goods parcel tied up and labeled ' To be left 
 till called for.' I'm doing a dummy stunt, while 
 somebody else plays my hand. You don't under- 
 stand that, of course." 
 
 He frowned at her because the sun in his eyes 
 made it difficult for him to see even her face 
 properly. 
 
 " I know what part of it means. It refers to 
 business, I expect." 
 
 " Correct. You tumble, as we say. I'm just sit- 
 ting here looking pretty in swaddling clothes and 
 bath slippers while somebody else is jumping my 
 claim. Oh, dash that sun!" 
 
 " I think it is beautiful." 
 
 " So you ought to. It suits you, and it is not 
 in your eyes, though I must admit that to me you 
 look like the center of it. Say . . . about your 
 hair. Will you lift your head a minute? " 
 
 Partly in obedience and partly in surprise, Spring 
 did so. 
 
 " Just what I thought," Pendren continued. 
 " It's kiddish, and crinkly, and you have scarcely 
 started to grow as yet." 
 
 Immediately the girl fell back into her former 
 position in the hammock.
 
 ioo SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " You mean my hair? It can't be helped. Mother 
 cut it short after I had an illness, not long ago. 
 It's a long time growing. Don't you think it is 
 coming on wonderfully, though ? " 
 
 She held up a piece that was in the way of her 
 eyes. It had a dozen flickering lights in it, and 
 might have been ruddy gold, amber, or brilliant 
 yellow. He thought that the sun was in his eyes 
 again. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I suppose it is ' coming on wonder- 
 fully,' as you say, but I'm not an expert on hair- 
 growing. I know more about tulips and gardenias, 
 though I don't suppose there would be much dif- 
 ference." 
 
 " I think there is ever so much difference," said 
 Spring smartly. 
 
 " Tulips grow up and hair grows down." 
 
 He shaded his eyes to take a good look at her. 
 
 " What a sharp kid you are ! Must have been 
 fed on cutlery and scissors all your life." Spring 
 rippled at this. 
 
 " It isn't sharp to say a thing like that. Hair 
 does grow down. It is quite natural." 
 
 " Yes ... I suppose it is quite natural. Yours " 
 finished Pendren, then turned the subject. " I 
 say, isn't it time you kept your promise?" 
 
 " I've forgotten it. Is it about telling you a 
 story? A dream story?"
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 101 
 
 " I'm inclined to think you told me several yes- 
 terday. That was in the invisible game. I was 
 speculating on your height, width, diameter, and 
 circumference, and I find myself more puzzled than 
 ever." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because, in that hammock, all bunched up as 
 you are, you look about one-half." 
 
 "I'm not then!" Spring's eyes sparkled with 
 mischief. " I'm two halves." 
 
 " Got me again. You promised to tell me your 
 name, how old you were, and where you came from, 
 in the guessing game." 
 
 " I know I did, but it was in the guessing game. 
 This is real life." 
 
 " You promised to tell me," he insisted, " all 
 those things, after the game was finished." 
 
 " My name is Spring." 
 
 "And the rest of it?" 
 
 " Glory." 
 
 " Ah, Spring Glory; and you look like it. Now 
 for the other things. Age?" 
 
 " Seventeen come September." 
 
 " What? " He nearly bounded out of his chair. 
 " With your hair like that . . . and . . . and . . . 
 the guessing game?" 
 
 " My hair isn't to blame. I told you it 
 was cut off. The guessing game is quite a
 
 102 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 parlor one. Mother plays it with us, nights, in 
 the fall." 
 
 Her lip quivered and curled in at one corner; 
 Pendren missed nothing of her emotion. The 
 sensitive man in him spoke then. 
 
 " Your mother must be a . . .a brick. ..." 
 
 " She is a most perfect and precious mother. 
 None of us are like her; you never saw such eyes 
 . . . and feet ... as she has. Oh, Mr. . . . 
 whatever your name is, you would wonder that 
 mother could walk on her feet, they are so 
 sweet and small. It is almost a pity to use 
 them." 
 
 Half-sitting up in the hammock the girl swung 
 to the ground. Pendren observed her well-rounded 
 ankle. 
 
 " Yes," he said, smiling inwardly. " There 
 ought to be a carriage and a motor to go with those 
 feet." 
 
 He was still glimpsing below the hammock, but 
 Spring was unaware that he was thinking of her 
 feet and not her mother's. 
 
 " That is part of my dream," she said eagerly. 
 " But . . . Mr. What-ever-they-call-you, how did 
 you guess?" 
 
 "Guess what? That your mother should have 
 a carriage to go with her feet? Why, I have seen 
 them."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 103 
 
 " Seen mother's feet? Not really. Without her 
 heavy boots on ? " 
 
 " Without her heavy boots on," repeated Pen- 
 dren. He was still staring below the ham- 
 mock. 
 
 " It's impossible," she said. " Mother is miles 
 away and you are a stranger." 
 
 " Not to your mother's feet. I know them well. 
 I've watched them for quite half an hour at a 
 time." 
 
 "You are sure they were mother's?" She was 
 puzzled beyond understanding. 
 
 " They were . . . once upon a time ! " He added 
 as he sat back in his chair and shut his eyes. 
 
 " I'm more puzzled than ever." Spring also fell 
 back into her position in the hammock and the 
 dangling feet were drawn up again. 
 
 " Never mind if you are," said Pendren. " You 
 can work it out later. Tell me about what you 
 all guessed in the game with your most precious 
 mother. " 
 
 " We guessed the most cute and marvelous 
 things. Sometimes we were birds or animals, and 
 sometimes we were just human beings like you and 
 I, yesterday." He took this slowly. 
 
 " I'm glad we were human beings yesterday. I 
 was beginning to think I had been a bad-tempered 
 ass."
 
 io 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " I would have guessed that quite easily," said 
 Spring with merriment. 
 
 He sat through this, and tried to see if there was 
 any caustic femininity in it; but there was just a 
 wonderful simplicity in her face and somehow it 
 caught him as a child might have, who had taken 
 him by the hand. 
 
 " Miss Glory," he said quietly. " Where do you 
 come from? " 
 
 " A small farm with chickens and trees and chil- 
 dren on it." 
 
 "Anything else?" 
 
 " Yes, a ... a mortgage." 
 
 The first real break in the conversation came 
 then. Somehow the mortgage darkened the sun- 
 light between them, and the embarrassment was on 
 his side. 
 
 " Say, your name is Glory, isn't it?" 
 
 She sparkled again. " Yes, Spring Glory. It 
 is written that way in the family Bible." 
 
 " Oh, that doesn't give me much ; but your 
 mother's name ? Is that really Glory too ? That is 
 what I want to get at." 
 
 He was suspecting her of subterfuge because he 
 knew that she thought him curious. 
 
 " She is Anna Glory," said Spring, with some 
 trembling uncertainty. The young man put up a 
 rebuking ringer.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 105 
 
 " Look here. Your eyes tell tales. I don't be- 
 lieve you are telling me the whole truth." 
 
 " It is as much truth as anyone could expect who 
 tried to find out real, real things in a guessing game 
 anyway." 
 
 She gave a sudden heave in the hammock. 
 
 " Oh . . .a bee, a bee! It pricked my wrist! " 
 
 He stood up, holding on to his chair. 
 
 " Shall I kill it ? I feel like killing something 
 . . . where is it ? " 
 
 Spring was sucking away at the afflicted part 
 like a baby, making a loud noise with her lips. 
 When he spoke to her she ceased this and bore the 
 pain while she advised him not to move. 
 
 " Don't, oh don't you try to move, or walk along," 
 she pleaded. " Mary said you must not! " 
 
 " Nonsense. I'm coming over to kill that bee. 
 It might return, and I can't bear things of that 
 kind. I don't want it to start eating me." 
 
 He took two uncertain steps. They were the 
 first he had taken alone since his accident, and the 
 bath slippers were dragged rather than lifted 
 through the thick upturned chocolate soil. Across 
 the patch was the shortest way to her and he took 
 it slowly. Spring saw him waver, and balance, 
 like a man walking a plank. Behind him was a 
 wake of smoothness in the corrugated earth that 
 he had worked his feet through.
 
 io6 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Sit down ! Oh, do sit down, Mr. . . . what- 
 ever-your-name-is," called Spring. 
 
 " Pendren," he said. " My name's Pendren. I 
 can't sit down in the middle of the patch, can I ? " 
 
 Another step or two, and he lost one of his slip- 
 pers, which stuck in the soil and very nearly stayed 
 there altogether. 
 
 " Very nearly did it, though," he said, queerly 
 sensitive of a fresh pain in his body. 
 
 " I'm coming to meet you." Spring let herself 
 down slowly from the hammock and advanced to- 
 wards him. 
 
 " Go back." The stern tones did not make her 
 falter till he had repeated them. " Go back ! " he 
 bellowed, and stood frowning at her in a regular 
 bath of dark clinging soil. Spring drew in her lips 
 again. He thought that she was going to cry, but 
 her lips only quivered nervously. 
 
 " I'm . . . I'm quite strong enough." 
 
 " I told you to go back," he said roughly. His 
 face was working with suppression of the desire 
 to swear madly at the pain he was suffering. 
 
 " Do you think I would allow a girl to help 
 me ? " he went on, and muttered some short, sharp 
 words under his breath. 
 
 " Please ! " came from Spring as she still stood 
 there, near him, in the patch of chocolate soil. The 
 tearing pain in the young man's shoulder made him
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 107 
 
 lurch forward a trifle and she thought that he was 
 going to faint. Waiting no longer, she jumped 
 the distance between them and caught his arm 
 quickly and firmly. He never spoke as she guided 
 him carefully back to his chair. Beads of perspira- 
 tion ran down his face. His hair was wet against 
 his forehead and he scarcely knew what she had 
 done, although he was conscious of being safely 
 ensconced in the chair again. 
 
 Swiftly and without a word she took her place 
 in the hammock once more. Pendren lay with his 
 eyes shut, but from his lips came a truth he had to 
 admit. 
 
 " You beat me every time, Kid . . . but by ... 
 Jimmy, I've got your measurements correct at 
 last."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 " ANYTHING doing ? " said Clara, shutting the 
 door between the kitchen and the rest of the 
 house. 
 
 Mary was sprinkling a bundle of rough dry 
 wearing apparel with cold water. Some of it was 
 the ' change ' belonging to Pendren, and the rest 
 of it Spring's scanty underwear. 
 
 " You'd think I was qualifying for something 
 here, Clara, if you'd seen things lately. Look at 
 that ? " She held up a fragile garment belonging 
 to Spring. " And that " 
 
 She dropped a couple of handkerchiefs and 
 socks, and a man's undervest upon the table. " The 
 way things gets mussed up in the wash is enough 
 prognostications to settle any question. Look here, 
 Clara, I'd be as proud as a peacock if my private 
 wardrobe got mixed in with that of a handsome, 
 good-looking, interestin', wealthy gentleman. It's 
 like the shadder of what's comin', round the cor- 
 ner; and if it don't put that Graham P. business 
 right, and rule out the Aunt Susannah for good 
 and all, then I'll change my job." 
 
 108
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 109 
 
 " Has anything happened ? " Clara looked sus- 
 picious. " You've got a way, Mary, of getting 
 through a thing before you're round it." 
 
 " The shortest way's the quickest and saves your 
 legs," said Mary. 
 
 " Tell us about Sunday. Has he seen her ? " 
 " I never knew you so impatient, Glara ! I de- 
 clare you scare me. There she was, lyin' in the 
 hammock as innocent as though she had never been 
 born, and not sayin' as much as a word, and him 
 jest sittin' there opposite, with not a word either. 
 It was the sun-shiniest day that ever caught my 
 back garden unawares, an' it was the same with 
 me when I caught the pair of them with not a 
 word left between them. Out of breath you'd have 
 called it. Out of good common English language 
 more like, seem' there wasn't jes' nothin' to de- 
 scribe that situation." 
 
 " Spring's lookin' ever so perky, Mary." 
 " An' Lancelot, as I prefers him, as well. I 
 guess I can't make a cinch of the Quilter part of 
 him. This morning there he was, settin' up jes' as 
 pert as you like and askin' me if he couldn't do 
 something to help us a bit. I'm well acquainted 
 with those symptoms, Clara. I knew a man up 
 Oh, anywhere, it was and when he takes to doin' 
 the chores about the place for my mother, which 
 didn't suit his hands, nor his back, nor any part
 
 no SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 of him, any more'n it suited my mother, who was 
 uncommon particular the way a thing was finished 
 off, well, everybody said there was something doin', 
 up our way." 
 
 " He was after you, I guess, Mary? " 
 
 " Well, he wasn't exactly trailin' mother, and her 
 with sixteen children, mostly dead at birth, an' a 
 man of her own cutting wood in the yard as lively 
 as a good healthy man could be. Sure he was after 
 something, though ... it didn't turn out to be 
 me, after all." 
 
 She lifted the lid of a large steaming can on the 
 stove and a red, raw lump of corned beef sprang 
 up in the bubbling water. This received a spike 
 from the kitchen-fork and it disappeared like a 
 great greasy whale, harpoon and all. She wrenched 
 the fork out and jammed on the lid again. 
 
 " Maybe it might have been I wasn't worth the 
 extra business; or doin' them chores scared him 
 stiff after a bit. I often think Rachel and her sister 
 must have been somethin' uncommon good in the 
 cookin' and house-cleanin' line for Jacob to take 
 on the double time. But that's not what I'm tell'n' 
 you, Clara, so you keep your ears well open, but 
 don't let anything I say get loose once you got it 
 tight." 
 
 Clara sat forward, tense with interest. 
 
 " You remember, Mary, the time I read you
 
 SAMARITAN MARY in 
 
 about Lady Fitzhumber. She was much the same 
 cut as Spring, only a bit more hefty perhaps in the 
 swing of her tongue. Lady Fitzhumber was in 
 the precise same predicament, Mary." 
 
 " Spring ain't in a predicament, Clara ? " 
 
 " She don't have need. I got eyes and brains 
 and common horse sense. It was Lancelot told me 
 all I wanted when he stopped rememberin' to ask 
 for his boots. A man, Clara, as has urgent, imme- 
 diate hurry in his business today and forgets to 
 ask for his boots tomorrow has only one kind of 
 mind." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " It's . . . mind your own business, Clara, and 
 listen some more." 
 
 Mary rolled a sheet of golden dough on the table 
 and looked at the clock. 
 
 " Must get these into the oven or there'll be 
 trouble in the Amen Corner. Have you ever no- 
 ticed, Clara, that the brother who keeps up the 
 Amen business good and hard right through the 
 meetin' does a sight more'n anybody else to help 
 sech things along? He's thinkin' all the time and 
 is apt to be wide awake for the finish when he's 
 watchin' the prayer or the hymn. That is what 
 I mean when I say there may be trouble in the Amen 
 Corner if these doughnuts is not to hand. Our 
 stomachs is much the same as the brother watchin'
 
 ii2 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 out an' apt to be ready before things is through. 
 ... I mind the time when Deacon Heddy had a 
 fit of hay fever and sneezes right through the 
 prayer. Well, Brother Brown was there in the 
 corner turnin' the Amen on half-way be mistake 
 every time Deacon takes a fit, and turnin' it off 
 again when he discovers Deacon still goin' express. 
 He gets so 'mazed presently that he gives it up 
 altogether, and the prayer over, Deacon looks 
 around for the Amen, but nobody anxious or helpin' 
 him a morsel, so he says it himself before he has 
 another fit." 
 
 She shut the oven door and turned to Clara, 
 putting up a floury hand. 
 
 " Clara, you ain't to guess any when I tell you 
 I'm the whole box o' tricks on that Q. L. P. Yes- 
 terday, Benjamin leaves me suddenlike after Sun- 
 day School and takes up with Deacon Heddy, who 
 goes right along past your very gate. ..." 
 
 Clara bounced from her chair as if she had been 
 thrown to her feet, but instantly she rescued a sew- 
 ing needle out of the flare of her skirt and showed 
 it to Mary. 
 
 " It's good you found it before you set on it, 
 Clara. Benjamin, as I was saying, goes off. ..." 
 
 ' You was tellin' me things on account of Spring 
 and the gentleman," interrupted Clara once more. 
 
 " I'd forgot him," said Mary, smiling, " like as
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 113 
 
 not I'd forget those doughnuts. As I said, I'd the 
 pick of a good walk to myself, and enjoyed it thor- 
 ough, as it give me the chance to get acquainted 
 with a fresh line of interest in me own thoughts. 
 I hits my back garden jest as usual an' comes on 
 them two like as if I'd kind of been expected. 
 There was Spring sucking the back of her hand 
 like a baby and not a word out of either of them. 
 All the time Lancelot was lookin' up into the sky, 
 for all the world like as if he was dreadin' it might 
 rain before he could get full use of his legs, and 
 perhaps it bothering him some, seein' a man with 
 his trouble might jes' as well have been born a 
 cart without a horse to drag it. But no matter 
 what was wrong with his power to get about be 
 himself, that hitchin' up of his eyes to the heavens 
 wasn't altogether the right place for puttin' a blind 
 on me. I never did trust things to be usual when 
 a man has need to look higher than a girl like 
 Spring for company. Shows there's somethin' be- 
 low his nose he's avoidin', and why? Because his 
 conscience is right there too and pullin' him to do 
 something he don't want to for some reason. I 
 don't mind sayin', all the same, Clara, that it's the 
 contrary ways of a man like that that counts, an' 
 once he looks Spring properly in the face, it'll take 
 twelve horses and a row of automobiles to get him 
 away from her. And see here. ..."
 
 ii 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 She stepped nearer to Clara. 
 
 " ' It's good/ I says to him; ' you set quiet and 
 let the sun warm up some natural life in you. If 
 I'd been tied be the legs I'd have found it worse'n 
 a lot of things havin' to set still the whole time 
 an' never as much as a walk down the gar- 
 den.' 
 
 " ' Yes,' he says, slowlike, tipping one eye a bit 
 to me. 
 
 " * I'll take you in meself, not waitin' for Ben- 
 jamin, as has other jobs on this afternoon,' I says. 
 ' Think you can walk a bit, leanin' on me ? ' An' 
 he gladdens on that, an' I'm mortal afraid he's been 
 havin' another kind of a fit of sickness. 
 
 " ' Guess you're as stiff as a rod, settin' so long,' 
 I says, careful to notice his feet was still on the 
 hemp-mat I put under them meself when I went to 
 the meetm'. 
 
 ' Pretty sore,' he says, an' loses one of his slip- 
 pers right off the start. That told me in one second 
 more'n the whole information bureau of Sherlock 
 Holmes and other eye-openers. The slipper turns 
 up wrong side, which to my mind was the precise 
 right side for my argument, and on the sole was 
 enough of the damp of that patch Benjamin dug 
 up only the day before to make Lancelot qualify for 
 the all-round, cross-country gold cup prize. I kep' 
 my information, Clara, and I'm not wondering
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 115 
 
 quite so much now why he tried to cross that patch. 
 And ..." she added, looking hard at Clara, " if 
 that don't start the Graham P. and the Aunt Su- 
 sannah business running down the sink, then it's 
 not dirty water I'm trying to get rid of."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 " MY DEAREST, most beautiful Mother : 
 
 " Ever since I ran away I have missed you most 
 dreadfully, but the thought that I have overthrown 
 Aunt Susannah helps me bear it a whole lot. Do 
 you think we ought to apologize to her? I know 
 it was me that ran away, but then as the parent is 
 responsible until the child is twenty-one, perhaps 
 you ought to do it and make the best excuses you 
 can. Do, dear parent! The best thing might be 
 to tell her I am not old enough yet to understand 
 her ways, and by no means the kind of person to 
 be put in charge of the ornaments on her whatnot. 
 Also you had better tell her how subject to colds 
 I am, and how I sneezed until the Liberty statue 
 fell off our bureau once, and broke in three pieces. 
 " Forgive me, most delicious Mother, for asking 
 you to write the letter, but I can make it up to 
 you presently when Mary gets me the work she 
 says she has in mind for me. It is her opinion that 
 we ought to make some kind of apology to Aunt 
 Susannah. She says it's best not to quarrel with 
 anyone quite so rich, and quite so likely to die any 
 day now. 
 
 116
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 117 
 
 " Since coming here I've been busy getting 
 ' fatted-up ' in bed, same as you ' fat ' the chickens 
 when you think they won't be ready in time for 
 Christmas, or Thanksgiving. 
 
 " I don't really know if Mary is preparing me 
 for anything like Christmas, or Thanksgiving, in 
 her mind; but there's a young man from the city 
 who came part of the way in his own automobile, 
 and the rest on a stretcher, which Mary had to 
 borrow, and for which she paid the other day out 
 of the fruit money. Why he came on the stretcher 
 was because the accident happened right on top 
 of him just as he got to Miss Elizabeth Hetty's 
 place. You remember Mary telling you that I just 
 escaped that part of the affair by letting go the 
 tail-board of Jerry Grab's cart in time. I could 
 never contradict Mary, but truly, Mother darling, 
 it wasn't that I had anything to do with letting go 
 that tail-board before the crash. Something just 
 pushed me off, and if I'd had any say in the matter 
 I'd have clung on like the tapes on my petticoats, 
 and never, never have budged an inch. I must tell 
 you this because I don't want you to think I deserve 
 any credit really for remaining out of the accident 
 when the poor young man had no choice. 
 
 " Sometimes I rest in a hammock, all red and 
 blue twine, and practice how to get out and in, 
 without showing any more of my stockings than
 
 n8 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 you do when you wash out the porch, and Zek 
 Barkin passes by the fence with his slow leg drag- 
 ging after him, poor fellow. Usually when I'm in 
 the hammock, Mr. Pendren sits up as well as he 
 can in a basket-chair, all pillows, and a hemp-mat 
 under his feet. Mary told me today she wants 
 me to watch him, and I've only just discovered that 
 it isn't because she really distrusts him, or that he'd 
 steal the things in the yard because of course he's 
 a gentleman, and possibly got more than he wants 
 at home but because she thinks I might turn out 
 good at nursing. We've been discussing that sort 
 of thing lately and seeing the knowledge I have 
 now of children and bed-making and of rubbing 
 Milly's teeth every night till they bite through, and 
 how to use the blue bag on a swelling, or a bee 
 bite, I should just about think I might qualify with 
 a little more experience. 
 
 " But experience with the children isn't helping 
 me so far with this young man. You can't do 
 much for a man like we've got here because he's 
 certainly too stupid and doesn't care for you to 
 fuss about him. Why, he couldn't even play the 
 guessing game without stopping every minute to 
 argue or explain something. But then, perhaps 
 he hadn't a fair chance, seeing we were in different 
 parts of the house and had to call out extra loud 
 to make anything of it at all. Then again, I don't
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 119 
 
 think he need be stupid at all, because he is cer- 
 tainly very clever about some things. 
 
 " Evidently he knows something of our family, 
 because he spoke of your beautiful little feet, 
 Mother. That is, he said really wise things about 
 them and called you a ' brick ' when I was dis- 
 cussing the subject. Perhaps he passed our porch 
 when you were sending the children off to school 
 in your good, kind way; or else he's watched you 
 washing the step with your back to the road when 
 Zek Barkin didn't happen to be around. I expect 
 I shall find out later on, but I'll take good care not 
 to tell him exactly where we live or what our name 
 is until I find out whether he knows it. 
 
 " Mary is a wonderful woman and does more in 
 a day than most people could get into two without 
 going to bed till everybody else is asleep and even 
 the cat and kittens settled. It's a lesson to me. 
 
 "And what else do you think? Benjamin of 
 the yard, a really kind-hearted, plain, but hard- 
 working boy helping here, took the horse out yes- 
 terday and brought back Mr. Pendren's automo- 
 bile. It wheeled along quite easily, but the horse 
 had to be the engine or it would never have got 
 here at all. Two or three men about came and 
 had a look at it, and they say it is in quite a bad 
 condition. It will have to be nursed in Jake Heldy's 
 shed, because he keeps everything there, and Mary
 
 120 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 for some reason won't have it in the yard. I be- 
 lieves she thinks it might start running over every- 
 body and there has been enough damage done now. 
 All the same, I wonder why she doesn't get rid 
 of the horse. It was Jerry Grab's horse upset 
 things before. 
 
 " Clara Hopkins is also a nice kind of woman, 
 very thin and interesting. Sometimes she snaps at 
 Mary as if she meant to bite, but Mary says it's 
 her manner of showing how concerned she is. She 
 hasn't done it to me yet, but Benjamin of the 
 yard got two doses, one on top of the other, the 
 other night. I will remember to keep my hair tied 
 back as you say, dearest, most beautiful Mother. 
 It will be long enough to hold the pins soon, I hope. 
 
 " Now Mr. Pendren is calling me. My love to 
 all. Lots of it ! 
 
 " SPRING GLORY ROPER." 
 
 The girl looked up from her writing. The " el- 
 lergint " young gentleman called again. 
 
 " Miss Glory ! I wish you wouldn't write so 
 much." 
 
 " It's only a very little, really. It's to my most 
 beautiful mother." 
 
 The sun shone on her uncovered hair as she sat 
 just inside the porch and young Pendren caught a 
 hundred different shades in it. Then he held her
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 121 
 
 eyes a minute. They possessed a wonderful soft- 
 ness and the thoughts behind them transmitted tiny 
 little flickering lights that ran in and out of the 
 pupils. It was always so when she spoke of her 
 mother. 
 
 " You've been talking about that mortgage, I 
 can see," he said. " Now listen to me; what are 
 you doing in this house, and why aren't you away 
 home Helping your mother ? " 
 
 Spring dropped her eyes and her lips quivered. 
 
 " I can't help my mother, away home, nearly as 
 much as I . . . as I can if I . . . " 
 
 As if she had been called from the kitchen, Mary 
 Settler appeared on the porch. 
 
 " You're neglectin' your job, Spring," she said, 
 measuring things mentally. " Run into the parlor 
 and jes' turn the mattress across the winder to air 
 a bit. Mr. Pendren never sleeps so sound as when 
 the bed's had a real good punchin' to make it lie 
 down proper." 
 
 She watched till Spring quickly folded away her 
 writing paper and tucked the home-letter into her 
 waist. 
 
 Pendren looked horrified. 
 
 " Does . . . does Miss Glory always do that . . . 
 do things like that ? " he asked. 
 
 Mary appeared fogged a moment. 
 
 " You're meanin' Spring, I suppose."
 
 122 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Yes. Does she have to do that sort of thing? 
 I mean with the mattress and all the bother I must 
 be making here? " 
 
 " Indeed I wouldn't have her lazy on my hands 
 and be responsible to her mother afterwards," 
 said Mary. " What made you call her Miss 
 Glory?" 
 
 Pendren shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I'm afraid I'm old-fashioned enough, Miss Set- 
 tler, not to call her by her first name until she gave 
 me leave." 
 
 Mary took it calmly. She had been watching the 
 two for some days and any developments were 
 quickly encouraged. 
 
 " And you prefer it to be Miss Glory, then ? " 
 
 " Decidedly. I wish she hadn't to bother with 
 my things. I know I'm a perfect nuisance. Why 
 don't you . . . oh, hang it. I'll get someone down 
 to fix up that car and I'll get along. You've all 
 been just splendid to me, but I ought to be 
 moving." 
 
 Mary looked round to see if Spring was return- 
 ing before she spoke. 
 
 " You can't delay too long on that back of yours, 
 young man," she said kindly. " Backs isn't what 
 they was in my time; and you can't get another to 
 take its place if you go cracking up that one." 
 
 " Well, I must make a start to get used to doing
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 123 
 
 things, anyway. I think I might have my boots on, 
 don't you?" 
 
 " Havin' your boots on won't get you started 
 anywhere if your back isn't of a mood to comply 
 with 'em. Talkin' of boots, did you bring down a 
 pair when you had that tumble into Miss Hetty's 
 lilac bushes ? " 
 
 " Why, of course I did. They couldn't have 
 dropped off my feet just because I was smashed 
 up in the middle." 
 
 Mary spread wide, gesticulating hands before 
 her. 
 
 " I've heard of worse in a railroad accident. 
 There was a woman once lost every stitch she had 
 on her, and when she come to reason she had to 
 get up and walk home in a couple of newspapers 
 somebody had been readin' in the car. It's likely 
 your boots went the same sort of way without you 
 knowin' it." 
 
 " But I remember . . . no, I'm hanged if I do 
 remember any boots. Could we ask Miss Hetty 
 if she knows anything about them?" 
 
 " I brought every stitch you owned away meself, 
 and I figger it out there weren't boots among the 
 lot" 
 
 This was perfectly true, because Benjamin had 
 carried the boots over the next day, having been 
 given them by Miss Hetty.
 
 i2 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Well, isn't there a store about somewhere ? 
 Would you be so good as to send up and inquire if 
 they keep my size ? " 
 
 Mary began to feel warm in the cheeks. How- 
 ever she soon found a way out of it. 
 
 " The kind Jake Heldy keeps would raise a 
 blister on your toes and your temper in half an 
 hour," she said. " You leave it to me, and if it's 
 boots needed, then it's boots you'll have." 
 
 Spring was returning, so she went back to the 
 kitchen, but all the time she kept her nearside ear 
 well towards the door, and every now and then 
 found occasion to go to the porch for some reason 
 or other. 
 
 " So," she said mentally once as she dodged about 
 inside, " she's usin' her second name on him to try 
 out. I should say ' Glory ' was about as good a 
 name as any to carry things through; though how 
 she came to think of it beats me. Suppose she's 
 havin' a kind of a game on her own. Minds me 
 of the time I surprised somebody meself." 
 
 The good woman stirred something in a saucepan 
 slowly and gently to the tune of her own thoughts. 
 
 " It's curious that I ever could have made believe 
 me name was Daffodil 'stead of plain Mary. 
 Plain . . . Mary, with the plain things of life right 
 under me very nose to make me remember it. Still 
 I was Daffodil for a summer . . once and .
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 125 
 
 somebody else thought it suited me. Somehow I 
 had a notion all the time it was a misfit." 
 
 In the glow of a full day the young man was 
 sitting gazing at Spring. 
 
 " I'm afraid I'm a great nuisance to you, Miss 
 Glory," he said. 
 
 " Not to me." Spring sparkled a moment, then 
 grew very still. 
 
 " Perhaps we are both a good bit of trouble to 
 Mary, but she seems to like it. After all we won't 
 be a bother always and we'll have it all to remem- 
 ber afterwards." 
 
 What they would have to remember was not 
 quite clear to the young man, but he let it pass as 
 he did many things, at times. 
 
 "But you're a permanency here, aren't you? 
 You don't move on ? " 
 
 Spring looked slightly depressed. 
 
 " I don't want to move on," she said, " but I 
 ought to. You see, it's a kind of business affair, 
 even though it's relatives." 
 
 " You mean your moving on, or staying here, is 
 a matter of business, and concerns your relatives? 
 Funny thing it cuts me that way, too. I ought 
 to move on because it is a business affair and 
 concerns my relatives. But I can't, for all 
 that."
 
 126 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Mary crept nearer the kitchen door, but did not 
 show her face. 
 
 " It's my Aunt Susannah, or rather my father's 
 Aunt Susannah," Spring explained. " Mother and 
 our family don't want her quite as near as that. 
 We'd prefer her to be our grandfather's aunt if it 
 could be; but you can't put your relations back like 
 that as if they were dusty ornaments on a shelf. 
 Anyway, she promised mother seven dollars a 
 month for me, but I ... I ran away from it." 
 
 " I should think you did. Seven dollars . . . 
 wheufT!!!" 
 
 Mary thought it was about time she put her 
 foot on the porch. She had an idea that Spring 
 was going to creep into some very close confidences 
 with the young man and that they might just spoil 
 her schemes as they were ripening beautifully. 
 
 " Seven dollars, mind you," Mary took up the 
 young man's disgusted tone. " Why, if you was 
 dressed up a bit extra, Spring, and had white socks 
 on your feet, and your hair left as it is all fussed 
 out with a blue ribbon bow on it, I should say you'd 
 fetch more like seventy dollars in a Fifth Avenue 
 doll department." 
 
 The two laughed delightedly. 
 
 Mary lingered. " You don't blame Miss Glory, 
 do you, Mr. Pendren, sir, for up and doing what 
 she did, when the best her Aunt Susannah could do
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 127 
 
 for her was seven dollars per month and speak 
 when you're spoke to, and mind the step every two 
 minutes of the day. I'm proud she had a mind 
 to run away at the tail of Jerry Grab's greengrocery 
 cart, the same being, sir, the one that clean sat on 
 you and your auto, harness, vegetables, and all." 
 
 " We're . . . friends in adversity," Pendren 
 said to Spring. " Do you know ..." 
 
 Mary left the porch. It was as well she did, for 
 evidently Quilter Lancelot Pendren had quite for- 
 gotten her existence. He leaned as far as the chair 
 would let him, gazing to where the girl sat. For 
 some minutes he went on talking, briskly and ear- 
 nestly. It was not in Mary to stay any longer. 
 
 " Out goes the Aunt Susannah," she remarked 
 complaisantly to herself as she started to cut a pro- 
 digious pumpkin.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SPRING went right through her short term of 
 probation as nurse to Mary's patient with little 
 trouble to herself or anybody else. It is true that 
 she was possibly a little " bossy " at times on account 
 of the early training she had had for so long with 
 several small sisters, and which now she applied 
 with youthful ignorance to the young man prac- 
 tically left in her charge. 
 
 Quilter Lancelot Pendren took time to recover. 
 It bothered him a good deal that he had made no 
 agreement with Mary Settler to pay for his board. 
 The good woman made it so evident that she re- 
 garded him more in the light of a friend staying in 
 her house than a summer boarder that there never 
 had been a chance of discussing the matter of 
 finance. 
 
 But that he knew could be settled more easily 
 than his debt to the girl who almost untiringly at- 
 tended to him, carried his cushions, and sat with 
 him in the long glory of the dying evenings, or in 
 the warmer and more uncomfortable parts of the 
 day. 
 
 Pendren had learned from Spring's confidence 
 128
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 129 
 
 that her people had a serious struggle for the means 
 of existence, and became thoroughly uncomfortable 
 about her services for him. Because she was of 
 such fine grain and delicate mold, it distressed him 
 to think that she also was involved in this struggle; 
 but the suggestion that he should pay for her atten- 
 tion seemed like turning her into a kind of servant, 
 and he felt afraid to even speak of it. Touching 
 on the matter lightly one day with Mary Settler, 
 he got the information that a fresh experience was 
 worth everything to Spring after years of head- 
 nurse duties to her mother's children. He did not 
 know that the seven dollars sent to Mrs. Roper, 
 tied up in a piece of a newspaper, together with a 
 jar of cranberry jelly, had already supplied the first 
 installment of Spring's earnings. 
 
 Events took a turn one day when Spring was 
 indoors attending to the preparation of a meal. 
 Suddenly annoyed at the fact of the doctor having 
 refused to allow him to try any length of walking 
 by himself, Pendren, who was furiously impatient 
 at waiting for other people to do the things for him 
 that he was itching to do for himself, deliberately 
 disobeyed orders. Gripping his chair with both 
 hands, he rose to his feet and began to make to- 
 wards the porch. 
 
 If he could have done the distance in a short 
 run it might have been an easy matter, but it re-
 
 i 3 o SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 quired some steady stepping which he wasn't up to, 
 and before he had gone half the distance he went 
 on his knees; then, feeling unhappy and feverish 
 about his venture, started to crawl the rest of the 
 way. In getting to the porch he stumbled and fell 
 with one hand twisted under him. His whole arm 
 suffered a nasty jar, snapped somewhere, and then 
 hung limply as if it had no intention of coming 
 back to its proper position again. Clinging on to 
 the trellis of the porch with his other hand, he 
 tried to work the hurt one, but it flopped horribly 
 and was starting to swell near the root of his thumb. 
 
 " Confound my luck ! " he said irritably. Spring 
 had just then come out of the house. He looked 
 up as if he had been caught stealing. 
 
 With the wounded wrist placed behind him, he 
 met her eyes, and tried to talk as if there was noth- 
 ing the matter. All the time he was feeling thor- 
 oughly sick with the pain. 
 
 " I thought that I'd take a turn by myself. I ... 
 I ... got on ... pretty well." 
 
 Spring came to him as he stood there clinging 
 to the trellis. With a wonderful quiet in her eyes, 
 she placed her shoulder ready without a word. 
 
 " I can manage," said Pendren. " I've got so 
 far. Please let me do the rest." 
 
 " Put your left arm round my shoulder." The 
 voice was Spring's, but the authority came from
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 131 
 
 somewhere back in the generations. Pendren hesi- 
 tated. 
 
 " I'm never going to let you take my weight, Miss 
 Glory. If I can't manage we can call Miss Settler. 
 I don't mind her so much, but you're just a ... 
 baby." 
 
 " Mary's not back from Mrs. Spinney's yet. Put 
 your arm round my shoulder. I'm quite tall 
 enough. We can go slowly." 
 
 " Please call Benjamin. I could never allow you 
 to do this." 
 
 Then he grew impatient. " Can't you see that 
 I refuse to budge till you do?" 
 
 Spring listened to him calmly but she never 
 moved an inch. 
 
 " Benjamin has gone out somewhere and there is 
 only me. Now, please. ..." 
 
 " I refuse to allow you." His eyes met hers as 
 she turned away, exasperated. In both faces there 
 was a sudden flashing of temper. 
 
 " Not if I drop here as I am, will I let you take 
 my weight," he said. " You beat me once, and 
 I ... I seem to see you drooping that shoulder 
 ever since. Nice sort of thing for a man with any 
 kind of sense to allow. What sort of a . . .a per- 
 son . . ." 
 
 He was suffering both with the strain of standing 
 so long and with the broken wrist. She saw his
 
 132 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 face change. It grew livid about his mouth and 
 sweat started from his hair and trickled down his 
 face. 
 
 " Please . . . " began Spring, dropping all au- 
 thoritative measures. " You can't get up your- 
 self." 
 
 He bit on his lower lip. " I can. For Heaven's 
 sake, don't argue! Give me room." 
 
 She caught at his arm. " I won't let you. Oh, 
 why won't you be obedient ? " 
 
 " I told you why before. Please allow me to 
 manage for myself; you're hindering me." 
 
 Spring stepped away and turned her back. A 
 little burst of warm temper held her just a moment. 
 
 "Very well; and if you fall and do any more 
 damage it will serve you right." 
 
 Hardly had she said it than he collapsed behind 
 her and went sprawling from the step to the ground. 
 
 "There ..." It was all she could say as she 
 flew to his side and lifted him to a half -sitting 
 position against her shoulder. 
 
 He had almost fainted, and for a time she held 
 him leaning against her. He was incapable of even 
 pulling himself further. 
 
 " It . . . it's my fault," she said miserably. " I 
 should never have allowed you to . . . " 
 
 " Oh, don't be silly . . . Spring! " He was too 
 weak and hopelessly ill at ease lying there on the
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 133 
 
 corrugated surface of the yard to regard having 
 called her by her name. 
 
 " I'm not silly, I'm just mad with myself." 
 
 He began to laugh queerly and the sweat came 
 down his hair again. 
 
 " Little idiot," he said, and deliberately, to steady 
 himself, now that he was beginning to recover, put 
 the uninjured arm right round her neck. 
 
 " Can you raise yourself carefully if I hold you 
 from the waist? " 
 
 " I don't intend to try," he said. She looked 
 horrified. 
 
 He was leaning against the step, one arm round 
 her neck, and she had applied to such a position 
 the only meaning possible to her simple mind. 
 
 " Listen to me," he said. " I hate to bully you 
 because you have been so much of an angel, and 
 besides you are too sweet and pretty to bully . . . 
 but I can't help it. I have never let a woman have 
 her way over me yet, and if you're going to be the 
 first one then I'm going to die hard . . . fight- 
 ing." 
 
 Much of this was beyond Spring; she was trem- 
 bling slightly and rather nervous. 
 
 " Did you understand that ? " he asked, tighten- 
 ing his hold on her neck so that her face was drawn 
 round for him to look right into. 
 
 " But ... I don't want you to die on the
 
 i 3 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 ground," she said with quivering lip and her eyes 
 shaded from his keen scrutiny. 
 
 " I'll die wherever I want to. Right here with 
 my arm round your neck, if I like. You are only 
 a very small person, remember, though lately you 
 seem to have grown like a lily in the night. Now 
 we've got that over, suppose you just shunt me 
 on to my side and I'll see if I can't crawl to the 
 house with you alongside, playing mother crab." 
 
 " I wonder you can joke when you've hurt your- 
 self so," said Spring brokenly. 
 
 " It isn't a joke. You watch me." He dropped 
 his arm from her neck and managed to turn to his 
 knees again; but immediately he started to crawl 
 along, the injured wrist gave under him and he 
 went down flat on his face. 
 
 Spring jumped to her feet. She had remained 
 watching him where he had left her kneeling on 
 the ground. 
 
 " Your wrist . . . your wrist . . . oh ! " 
 
 " Yes, it's broken." He had raised himself and 
 was holding it up, looking at it like a miserable 
 dog run over in the road. 
 
 " It has been all this time ? " Spring could hardly 
 credit it. 
 
 He wagged his hand a bit more. 
 
 " Yes, it's nearly dead now. Watch it." 
 
 " Oh, how dreadful ! I'll run into the next field
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 135 
 
 and see if I can get someone to come and help 
 you." 
 
 " You'll have to hurry them, because I've made 
 up my mind now to finish this business myself." 
 
 He started to crawl along on his knees and one 
 hand. His back was breaking with pain and the 
 bad wrist seemed to have numbed his whole right 
 arm. Spring darted for the fence and ran some 
 distance across the potato patch to the dividing 
 fence of Hek Dean's land. There was nobody 
 about, and she turned a second to look back to 
 where young Pendren was struggling to get himself 
 up the step. He had succeeded in raising his body 
 to the level of the porch and was wriggling along 
 over it to the open door. 
 
 She lingered a moment before climbing through 
 the fence, and in that time Pendren had wormed his 
 way through the door. She knew that he was going 
 right through the passage to his own room. She 
 dashed for the house again, and reached it in time 
 to see him go through the front parlor door. She 
 heard him call out as if he could bear the pain he 
 was in no longer. 
 
 He was still on the floor with his head against 
 the stretcher bed when she got to him, but most of 
 his strength had gone and some of his determina- 
 tion. 
 
 " Spring ... for God's sake stand by me. I
 
 136 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 beat . . . you, Kid, but it's ever so much easier if 
 ... I can get my arm round you. ..." 
 
 As he slipped to the ground the girl ran forward; 
 then, considering a moment, she slipped the pillow 
 under him carefully. He worked his left arm up 
 till it reached under the pillow; she stood there 
 watching him. 
 
 " That's better," he said quietly, slipping into 
 drowsy unconsciousness. " What a ... woman 
 you are . . . after all ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " I SHOULD jest about say it was time you opened 
 up some information and let your folks have a look 
 at things for themselves," said Mary Settler when 
 young Pendren, with his arm in a sling and his back 
 well bolstered, sat once again on the porch. 
 
 " How can I ? I intended to write my father the 
 day I ... I broke my wrist. Now if it had only 
 been the left one instead of the right ..." 
 
 " Didn't strike you that Spring had a right and 
 a left hand both goin' idle these days now you're 
 setting up so much and taking the ordinary run of 
 food? My opinion is that that girl can write any- 
 thing she wants to. You should 've seen the letter 
 she wrote her ma. Sheets of it, and as easy as 
 anything I ever set eyes on. I wasn't so bad meself 
 once, but I was doin' a regular thing in corre- 
 spondence them days. Kind of setting down to it 
 after a day's work and making pictures in me mind 
 all the way along. I got those letters somewhere 
 about now. Must hunt 'em up jes' to remind me 
 ... of what I could do once." 
 
 Pendren was more interested in this good, kind 
 motherly soul every day, and sometimes he probed 
 
 137
 
 138 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 her gently in order to learn more of her history and 
 ways of living. 
 
 "Didn't you ever send them, then?" he asked, 
 watching her face. 
 
 Mary clattered something she was beating-up in 
 a bowl. 
 
 " Sure I sent them. Whatever would be the use 
 of spoiling good, expensive, scented notepaper all 
 for nothing? Oh, I was particular in those days 
 and had perfume in me hair, and on me handker- 
 chief, and notepaper. Mother used to say it would 
 get me into the courts; for even if I was wearin' 
 me shoes through three places at once, and I got 
 down town, it was sure to be scent I came home 
 with, even if it was in the color of a bit of chewing 
 gum that satisfied as long as it lasted. Yes, Mr. 
 Pendren, sir. And it was heliotrope notepaper, no 
 less, for Mary Settler, with a carnation bokay in- 
 cense about it that scented all my clothes if I left 
 the letters for a day in the clothes-press. Don't 
 suppose though now that there's much of a flavor 
 in 'em, seeing they've laid by many a long year, 
 and I've not bothered about 'em." 
 
 " But I thought you said you'd sent them some- 
 where." 
 
 Mary beat harder at the substance in the bowl. 
 
 " That didn't stop 'em comin' back when the deal 
 was finished. Perhaps if I hadn't made the mistake
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 139 
 
 of bein' so particular-like about the color and the 
 scent, and had wrote them on an ordinary piece of 
 paper made rightly for folks with ordinary ideas, I 
 might have done something with 'em. Oh, I sup- 
 pose I'm mighty proud of them, all the same. I 
 wouldn't have been without them, or the extra fine 
 special feelings I got when everybody else had gone 
 to bed and I was left inventin' a future. Does one 
 good to build a stack like that sometimes, even if 
 it do tumble down, and knock the lid off and let 
 all the good out of it afterwards. You see I didn't 
 know it would tumble down when I was stackin' it. 
 Like Benjamin o' the yard the other day! Kep' 
 piling away at the wood-heap in the shed stackin' 
 and stackin' and stackin' all in one tremendous heap, 
 more like a fire escape than anything. Presently he 
 puts the last straw on it and kinder breaks the back 
 of the woodpile, and while he's dreamin' about it 
 down comes the whole thing, and him, looking as 
 if he'd been under a month's yard cleanin's. One 
 thing these sky-scrapin' ideas teaches you. It ain't 
 no good building a second time. I never tried." 
 
 She passed inside the house just as Spring came 
 out with her hair well tied back and two small shell- 
 colored ears showing just under the waves rippling 
 from her forehead. She had on a fresh muslin 
 dress of palest pink, which deepened her color and 
 gave her hair a warmer tone of bronze.
 
 140 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Pendren, thinking of what Mary Settler had just 
 been telling him and dreaming at the same time of 
 the exquisite expression on the girl's face, watched 
 her till she reached the door. 
 
 " Don't come any further," he said. 
 
 " I'm not," said Spring. " I'm going to sit on 
 the step, just here, in case you might be needing 
 anything." 
 
 " I need something now. Will you write some 
 letters for me if I dictate them very slowly? " 
 
 " Why, yes; I'll get my block. Wait a minute." 
 
 " You'll find some paper with a heading to it in 
 my bag," he called after her. " There's a fountain 
 pen somewhere also." 
 
 Mary stopped the girl as she ran through the 
 house. 
 
 " What are you going to do, Spring? " 
 
 " Going to write some letters." There was a fine 
 color in the girl's face and her eyes were brilliant. 
 " I want to get the special paper Mr. Pendren keeps 
 for business, I expect, and his fountain pen." 
 
 " Well, if that isn't jes' too smart for anything," 
 said Mary, as the girl dashed away. " She's clean 
 tucked up against his family affairs now. Good 
 thing I reminded him she had a pair of hands going 
 to waste these days. If he can find employment for 
 them at this stage of things, maybe he's likely to 
 find something better for her to do later on. I'll
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 141 
 
 have to watch the Graham P. business all through, 
 though. It's bound to come out soon now." 
 
 During the rest of the morning Mary settled her- 
 self near the porch and on several occasions found 
 some reasons to go out and take observations. She 
 thought that this might be the critical moment and 
 the young man might disclose just how far Gra- 
 ham P. Roper was inculpated in the matter he had 
 referred to some time ago. It was a daily puzzle 
 to her that Spring's father had been killed in the 
 Pynes Steel Works and yet was being hunted down 
 presumably in regard to this cash robbery. Pendren 
 had told her so little, yet it weighed so much 
 on her mind that its weight was warping her while 
 she kept the two in her house with no disclosure to 
 either. Things had gone just as she wanted, and 
 there was a fine thread of friendship woven into the 
 daily attention with which Spring supplied the 
 young man, and which he subconsciously returned. 
 This dictating of his letters seemed to Mary a 
 critical undertaking, and she waited near with an 
 anxious ear and her wits ready in the case of an 
 allusion to Graham P. Roper, should it arise. Pen- 
 dren started right away. 
 
 " My dear Father : 
 
 ( Mary heard that with much foreboding. ) " I'm 
 somewhere down on the track of the man."
 
 142 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Pendren paused, and the innocent eyes of Spring 
 Roper met his across the sun shaft in the porch. 
 Mary listened unashamedly. Then to cover her 
 silence a little she started a low, crooning song, half 
 lullaby and half ragtime. 
 
 " I've got . . . ' the man . . . ' " said Spring, 
 looking up for her next orders. 
 
 " I wish you had," said Pendren lightly, his eyes 
 resting on her sweet, earnest face. 
 
 " I mean that I have got ' the man ' down." 
 Spring was a weeny bit confused. 
 
 " Have you ? We have been trying to do that 
 for ages. The beggar won't give us the chance. 
 He's too slippery." 
 
 He smiled as if to tease her, but Spring's face was 
 deepening to scarlet confusion. Once or twice the 
 corner of her mouth drooped a little lower, and the 
 expression she wore made him continue his fooling. 
 
 " Shall . . . shall I write all that about him being 
 too slippery ? " she asked simply. 
 
 " Oh, no ... no ... no, I'm sorry. You see 
 I'm just beginning to pick up my strength, and any 
 little fool-game rather hits me in a safe spot. As 
 soon as I can find a bit of stiffening in my back, 
 and when I can locate my boots ... I shall take 
 a look at the car and see about getting on with this 
 business." 
 
 He leaned a bit forward.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 143 
 
 " Do you know, Miss Glory, that although I seem 
 such an ungrateful beggar and take such a deuce 
 of a time to get right, I'm really enjoying being ill 
 quite a heap." 
 
 The girl said nothing. She glanced at him a little 
 doubtfully. She never knew how far to believe him. 
 Besides, she was just considering what he had said 
 about getting on. 
 
 " Don't open your eyes so wide," said Pendren. 
 " You make me feel as if I'll fall right into the 
 pools of light you carry around in them. What a 
 baby you are ! " 
 
 Spring took courage again. 
 
 " You said I was ' a woman after all ' only the 
 other day; now you call me a baby again. You 
 never stick to things." 
 
 " Nonsense. I'm a fair nailer at sticking to 
 things. I never give in. When did I accuse you 
 of being a woman ? " 
 
 Spring looked down. She had thought a good 
 deal of the incident in which he had asked her to 
 stand by him, and had said that it would be ever 
 so much easier for him to bear the pain if he could 
 get his arm around her. Of course she knew that 
 he had only said it when he was feeling hopelessly 
 ill and lonely and frightfully faint, but then he had 
 curled up against the pillow almost as if it was a 
 special kind of motherly protection, and she knew
 
 144 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 that the words " That's better . . . what a woman 
 you are after all " were not applied to the pillow 
 at all. 
 
 " Well," he said, smiling across and waiting. 
 " When did I ever say such a thing. Was I dream- 
 ing or . . . guessing?" 
 
 " I . . . think you were dreaming," she said, try- 
 ing to be truthful. 
 
 " And tell me, was it one of the things that 
 couldn't possibly happen ? " 
 
 Suddenly she caught his eyes and smiled till hers 
 nearly closed altogether. 
 
 " Not if it was my dream," she said. 
 
 " And do you dream you are a woman ? " 
 
 He was getting all round the point just to try 
 and confuse her. 
 
 " Sometimes," she said, still looking away from 
 him. 
 
 " Then I must apologize for calling you a baby 
 again. I begin to think you are more woman than 
 . . . than anyone else in the world." 
 
 He stopped and shut his eyes a moment, as if 
 thinking something out that had just occurred to 
 him. 
 
 " We haven't got very far with our letters yet, 
 have we? There are several I ought to get off my 
 mind." 
 
 Spring straightened her back.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 145 
 
 " ' I've got ... on the track of the man.' Please 
 go right on. We get so confused if you keep stop- 
 ping." 
 
 " Then, please, will you turn your back ? I can't 
 collect my thoughts if you keep opening your eyes 
 at me. I feel as if you were going to swallow 
 me." 
 
 The wind rustling through from the front to the 
 back of the house was playing with the loose ten- 
 drils of Spring's hair in a sort of pitch and toss that 
 sent Pendren scorching to his finger-tips to get up 
 and touch them. The gap between her blouse and 
 ears was delicately soft, sweet, and rounded, and 
 he drew in his lips as a hungry man might in sight 
 of food. 
 
 " We'd better start again," he said, trying to look 
 anywhere but at Spring. 
 
 A sudden resolution to give up " playing the giddy 
 ox," as he called this delightful trifling to himself, 
 made him set his mind again on the letter to his 
 father. 
 
 Mary Settler, in the kitchen, had understood 
 without seeing just about twice as much as these 
 two. Inwardly she was doing a kind of hornpipe at 
 the result of her schemes. 
 
 " If he'd only get on with the track of that man, 
 and hop across it, and cache his trouble somewhere 
 clean the other side, I'd be seeing Spring in orange
 
 i 4 6 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 flowers and my mother's wedding veil, under a 
 month. Praise be, he's startin' again ! " 
 
 Pendren began to dictate his letter with more 
 seriousness. 
 
 " My dear Father : 
 
 " I'm somewhere down on the track of the man 
 . . . but I find that . . . that the beggar died some 
 time ago." 
 
 A flicker in Spring's eyes, an opening of her lips 
 seemed to indicate that she was going to say some- 
 thing; but she changed her mind as quickly as the 
 flicker of thought had spun across her eyes, and was 
 silent. 
 
 " It appears that there are a bunch of women to 
 deal with, and that their only recommendations are 
 that they are a hard-working lot, able to fight their 
 own battles in their own way," Quilter Lancelot 
 continued. " I don't think we need start pulling on 
 warmer socks on that score. We can touch them 
 in a sort of compromise at any time later. Mean- 
 time I am keeping a lookout for anything that might 
 be credited to Blessing and ..." 
 
 Spring swung her first look of real consternation 
 on him. 
 
 " You mean a blessing, don't you ? " 
 
 " No; Blessing is the name of a man. Though
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 147 
 
 what in thunder he wanted to be called that for beats 
 me." 
 
 Mary had wandered out to the porch with a cup 
 of milk for Spring and some equivalent for the 
 young man. 
 
 " You'll jes' stop a minute, Mr. Pendren, sir, if 
 you don't mind, and take a sip or two's refresh- 
 ment," she said. " I'm not so keen on any express, 
 non-stopping kind of business for a man who's 
 nearly been wrecked in his last speedy journey." 
 
 Pendren said, " Thank you," and took the cup; 
 then he went on explaining to Spring as Mary stood 
 there. 
 
 " All I can say is, Miss Glory, that if I had a 
 name like that I'd take jolly good care not to live 
 beneath it. Instead of a blessing he's more like a 
 curse to our family." 
 
 Mary took the cup from him. 
 
 " If I might put me foot in for one moment, sir, 
 I might jes' suspicion he was a blessin' to somebody 
 and you not know it. It's like havin' a cold, mortal 
 bad, and having to stop in bed with a tremendous 
 pain somewhere when you wouldn't otherwise dare 
 refuse to go and take tea with, well, say, Deacon 
 Heddy or Miss Liz Hetty. That's my way of 
 lookin' at it, sir." 
 
 Pendren was too much taken up with his topic 
 now to stop or heed Mary's amiable garrulity. He
 
 i 4 8 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 went for his subject as though he were smashing 
 an egg. 
 
 " Confound him ! He's been up against our fam- 
 ily for generations ! " 
 
 " Then he must be wearin' out with things, seein' 
 he's been raging that long." Mary still lingered 
 with the empty cup. 
 
 " Wearing out ? He'll have a hole through Dad's 
 heart worse than if he'd been chased by a cannon 
 ball. If I could get my hands on Blessing I'd scruff 
 him first and pickle him after." 
 
 Spring had never seen this man in his fighting 
 mood, and although she admired the strength behind 
 his voice, and the way he spoke of his father, she 
 trembled inwardly. 
 
 " He's been sizing up your dad then, same as if 
 he was carving something he's a grudge against, is 
 that it?" 
 
 " He's been raising . . . hell ... I mean he's 
 been chucking bricks since my grandfather's time, 
 though it was the old chap that started the trouble. 
 You see it's this way " 
 
 He sat forward again, and took relief in opening 
 out on the whole subject. 
 
 " Old Blessing was in my grandfather's employ 
 before the works came down to us, that is, to Daw- 
 son, G. Pendren, and Son. I'm the last portion of 
 that. You take me ? Well, there was some trouble
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 149 
 
 in grandfather's time about somebody looting the 
 cash box or playing the business false, and this old 
 Blessing raised a war among the men. There 
 weren't such things as strikes in those days, but he 
 managed to churn up enough dirty water to make it 
 uncomfortable for my grandfather. The result was 
 that Blessing was clapped in prison as an inciter of 
 riots or some such ructions, and though it was years 
 ago, we've been fighting the second Blessing, his son, 
 ever since." 
 
 " You mean he was annoyed like, and tryin' to 
 get somethin' back on account of ... of his father 
 bein' put in prison? " said Mary. 
 
 " You've got me," answered Pendren. " To con- 
 tinue ..." 
 
 " There's more of it, then? It's a whole chapter 
 or so in the family volume, I should say." 
 
 " Yes, and it's likely to be a complete novel before 
 we've finished. You see, the son happens to be some 
 sort of a ninth-rate, out-at-elbow, cur-jawed, long- 
 eared kind of a lawyer-chap, and he's been nosing 
 round for years trying to drop on something likely 
 to upset our firm, and give him a banquet. That's 
 where the trouble comes in. You're getting it, aren't 
 you?" 
 
 Mary had been listening as intently as she knew 
 how. 
 
 " Land," she said, " we're getting it, as you say !
 
 1 50 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 We'll all be up to our necks in it presently. I can 
 see that." 
 
 Young Pendren was too wrapped in his story to 
 notice the sharp edge of her words. 
 
 " Well, this chap, Blessing, after digging about, 
 brings up some cock-and-bull yarn about there being 
 a side line in our family who can lay claim to half, 
 or more, of the estate. He reckons he's on the track 
 of the man now, who, if he cares to let him take up 
 the case, can claim the biggest part of our business. 
 Blessing swears that unless we make it good to him 
 to a tune of some thousands, he'll see us through 
 the courts and fight the other chap's chance for 
 nothing." 
 
 Quilter Lancelot stopped to swallow down some 
 of the spirit this talk was raising in him. Mary 
 stood there before him more amazed than she cared 
 to feel. 
 
 " Of course Dad says he'll see him frizzle first, 
 but he got me to take a run down just to sort of 
 nose a bit for ourselves, find out if this family 
 really exists, or if it is all a put-up game of Bless- 
 ing's. If the family really exists we've got to fight 
 it, but by . . 
 
 Almost beyond himself with rage, the young man 
 stopped as he caught a frightened glance from 
 Spring. 
 
 " By your bright eyes, Miss Glory," he finished,
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 151 
 
 pulling himself up and laughing shortly, " we'll take 
 them through every court in the United States of 
 America, before we let them have what's been ours 
 for generations." 
 
 Mary was leaning forward as if she thought she 
 might be required any moment to revive the young 
 man if he fell back exhausted with his excitement. 
 
 " I don't exactly calc'late to understand any too 
 much of that, Mr. Pendren, sir," she said, " but I 
 guess there's not so much to get cold feet on, after 
 all. I was kinder holding a grudge against somebody 
 who had maybe filled his side pockets from your 
 father's till, right along. Is it that they want to 
 make you part up with some of the shares of the 
 business ? Well, that isn't so bad, after all ! " 
 
 " Bad ? " Pendren looked at her as if he would 
 have liked to get up and shake her. " Bad ? 
 It's . . . rotten. Would you divide up your potato 
 crops, and your turnip patch, and your house and 
 all, and give over perhaps the biggest share after 
 you'd slaved in it for years, to somebody who just 
 hopped up on the word of a blackguardly no- 
 body who wanted to get even with you? Would 
 you?" 
 
 Mary took this gently. She showed some slight 
 hesitation all the same. 
 
 " Well, I guess I'd rather have it that I'd been 
 even with them first of all, Mr. Pendren, sir. If
 
 152 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 you're not on a level with folks to start off with, 
 how can you expect them to balance you, after- 
 wards? Certain I'm as fond of my bit of a place, 
 bad seasons or fair, but if anybody hops up now 
 and gives me good reason why it's theirs, and not 
 mine at all, then ..." 
 
 " You'd give it up without a fight. You'd be 
 a fool if you did." 
 
 " Maybe I'd be a bigger fool if I didn't, and they 
 took the case to court and I had to walk out prompt, 
 looking altogether a mighty small worm after I'd 
 been trod on and serve me right." 
 
 " Well, we are not going to be trodden on, I can 
 tell you. If there was a cent's worth of truth in 
 the story, I wouldn't mind offering these people a 
 small sum to compensate them for any loss; but 
 they'd have to prove their claim; and we've got 
 enough money to run the thing dry before they 
 could do that. It isn't likely they have enough even 
 to start a fight." He laughed. 
 
 Spring ventured to speak for the first time. 
 
 "How horrible!" she said. "If money is the 
 strength of it, you ought to be fair and give them 
 what is theirs without a fight." 
 
 Young Pendren glared at her. She saw the force 
 behind his mood. 
 
 " If it comes to that, nobody on this earth has 
 a right to a thing," he said. " You might as well
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 153 
 
 ask the President to give up his rank or the great 
 railroad makers to resign their claims because of 
 some rotten socialistic worm. The business is ours." 
 He laughed to ease the situation. 
 
 " I'm a beggar to talk, once I get going, but you 
 can't see it my way. If these people would take a 
 small sum, which they might deserve, I wouldn't 
 be so violent about it, but with Blessing to fight for 
 what he can get out of it, our case might be up the 
 spout. Great sharks, I must get up. . . . Miss Set- 
 tler . . . I'm red hot and all oiled to start sparking. 
 You remember I asked you the other day if there 
 were people about here called ..." 
 
 With wonderful accuracy Mary dropped the cup 
 and saucer on to the floor and raised a shout as 
 if she had been shot. 
 
 " Sakes alive ! " she yelled, dashing for the 
 kitchen, " I left a syrup tart all this time in the oven, 
 and . . ." 
 
 For the moment the two remained listening. 
 
 They heard Mary open the stove door and utter 
 another cry. 
 
 " Bring me the yard spade, Spring, like a good 
 girl, and we'll jus' hop this tart into the sink." 
 
 Spring was beside her in a minute. The syrup 
 tart was certainly bubbling and sparkling in the 
 oven; but it was crisp and golden and wonderfully 
 flaked.
 
 i 5 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Why . . . Mary . . . ? " she began, when the 
 woman hushed her up. 
 
 " Why ? Because that young man will be havin' 
 a fit of something we can't cure if he goes on talkin' 
 any more," Mary said.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MARY managed to keep Spring employed inside 
 the house till quite late that evening. When the 
 girl took the tray of supper into the parlor where 
 Pendren had been assisted an hour before, he was 
 inclined to be moody, and scarcely looked at her. 
 More than his recital of the story disturbed him 
 that night when he went to bed. He lay tossing 
 until the morning. 
 
 Early next day he pulled his clothes on with his 
 one hand and by pushing a small chair before him 
 gained a place on the porch, where he sat in almost 
 childish temper. 
 
 Spring found him there when she took a broom 
 to sweep the porch. Immediately he started talking. 
 
 " Miss Glory "... the tone was one of a griev- 
 ance, " I wish you wouldn't use that broom near 
 me!" 
 
 " I didn't mean to raise the dust over you," said 
 Spring, her cheeks aflame. 
 
 " I didn't mean that. I hate to see you sweep- 
 ing." 
 
 " But it is part of my work. I couldn't live here 
 without doing something. Could you ? " 
 
 155
 
 156 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 She saw her mistake as soon as she had spoken. 
 Trying to evade it was of no use. The young man 
 was flashing immediately. 
 
 " I've had to live here without doing anything 
 for ever so long," he snapped. " But I intend to 
 make some settlement to Mary, you may be sure. 
 It's her beastly goodness that is choking me, and 
 yours, too.. What do you want to make me feel 
 like this for?" 
 
 " Like what ? " There was a charming simplicity 
 in the way she said it. 
 
 " Like . . . this ! One minute I want to slap 
 you. Yes, slap you for being so ... so ... you. 
 And the next I don't want to do anything of the 
 sort. I'd like somebody to break my head if I did 
 it. How do you think I'm going to repay you for 
 all you've done? Do you see my position? Do 
 you?" 
 
 Spring looked at him hopelessly. 
 
 " I never understand half you say," she began. 
 
 " Thank goodness," said Pendren. " One thing 
 I want to ask you. Will you please consent to my 
 suggesting something that might help you ? " 
 
 " I don't want help," said Spring. 
 
 " I'm glad of that. It . . . it cheers me a whole 
 lot, but there's your immediate future to think of. 
 You've got an angel mother with a whole batch of 
 children, to say nothing of the mortgage on your
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 157 
 
 mind, and . . . and I feel a positive brute to sit 
 here taking your time and attention, and I can af- 
 ford to ... to, well pay for it. ... 
 
 " Oh, please don't think I'm trying to be inde- 
 pendent and all that tommyrot. I just . . . love it. 
 I mean, the little things you do. I ... was only 
 thinking last night that I'd be a heap worse off 
 when I was better, than if I remained with only 
 half a back-bone and one serviceable arm for life." 
 
 Out of the midst of his peculiar mood he smiled 
 at her. Spring was biting the top of the broom 
 as it rested on the step. The morning sun was on 
 her hair and in her heart. 
 
 " You don't mean that ? " Her eyes held him 
 so that he could only answer foolishly. 
 
 " I do . . . honest Injun ! " 
 
 " You must be fearfully . . . happy here," she 
 said, looking him right through to see if he wasn't 
 really playing again. 
 
 " I am . . . I'm just beginning to recognize what 
 a fool I've been." 
 
 " And how much you appreciate everything and 
 how much you admire Mary and all she does. I 
 don't think she'd like you to speak of payment. 
 She's funny like that. She never wants money, she 
 says. She never seems to use any." 
 
 " Certainly not on herself. But I'm sure she'd 
 like to use some on you."
 
 1 58 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " She has. She gave me my colored muslin, and 
 the new shoes, and ever so many things I wear at 
 other times." 
 
 " Oh, then she is keeping you. That's what I 
 want to get at. You see, if she's keeping you there 
 can be no harm in my offering her some money 
 to ... well, to buy you a few pretty things. 
 Great stars, Spring, I'd just like to run you up to 
 New York, and watch your face, and let you order 
 from the big plate-glass cases as you liked. It 
 would be gorgeous. I can see just what you'd look 
 like in a . . ." 
 
 He stopped a moment to take in her whole 
 person. 
 
 " I'd put you into the palest shades I could find, 
 the softest materials, silks and lawns, not heavy 
 satins. You'd be the daintiest fairy in crepe de 
 chine. I know all about crepe de chine because 
 my sister is great on it. And big hats! Lovely 
 flopping things with berries or buds on them. Must 
 be flopping because everybody would be staring at 
 you so hard you'd be crazy with fright." He was 
 looking quite different now under this new spell. 
 
 " I'd take you in taxis so that nobody could make 
 you afraid, and I'd have the biggest stores turn out 
 their goods till there was a pile that would take 
 you a year to go through without wearing the same 
 thing twice. I'd have somebody special to brush
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 159 
 
 out that lovely crinkly hair of yours and turn the 
 sun spray on it every morning for me to look at. I 
 think I could lie all day looking at your hair, 
 Spring. ..." 
 
 " Would you be turnin' on the refreshments be- 
 tween times jes' to give it the look of the life of 
 an ordinary common human being, Mr. Pendren, 
 sir?" 
 
 Mary Settler came into the entertainment as the 
 young man stopped speaking. He saw that his only 
 way of escape from a compromising situation would 
 be to take her question as she had put it. 
 
 " My word, Mary," he said briskly, " you'd be 
 in it as well. You'd be just the person to do the 
 brushing. We could have ..." 
 
 " Are you thinkin' of turning Spring into a penny- 
 in-the-slot-walk-right-in-and-see-the-fat-lady-kind-of- 
 affair. I'm not set on her going to the city, 'cept 
 she go in her proper line." 
 
 Pendren had gone too far in admitting his con- 
 cern for Spring to try and get out of acknowledg- 
 ing its consequences in a hurry. Moreover, he was 
 so worked up that he did not want to wade out. 
 
 " There is only one role she could fill," he said 
 quietly. 
 
 " Please tell me; I'm just crazy to know," came 
 from Spring. 
 
 " So I will, Miss Impatience," he replied, set-
 
 160 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 tling back in his chair and half shutting his eyes 
 on the girl. " There's one thing, though. You 
 don't come into this till you're allowed. I'll have 
 a talk to Mary presently, if she has time." 
 
 Mary dodged past him and took up the broom. 
 
 " Sakes alive, we'll never get the porch swept at 
 this rate. You go right along and fetch Mr. Pen- 
 dren his coffee and toast-rolls, Spring. Set a cloth 
 on the tray, a good clean one out of the press." 
 
 Spring retreated with tingling nerves and a 
 throbbing, glad heart. If the unexpected was about 
 to happen then it must be of the nature of one of 
 her dreams. In her mind the things he had been 
 saying spun round with marvelous velocity. Surely 
 it meant a lot of money. More than she had ever 
 known, or dreamed of, and it would of course 
 benefit her mother because she would never consent 
 to live dressed so fine unless her family was being 
 dressed likewise. 
 
 In what capacity she was to go to New York 
 and live so well she could not think. It was true 
 he meant to pay because he had mentioned it first 
 of all. The whole thing was too new and too much 
 of a far-away vision to dwell on. She attended to 
 his breakfast, and somehow, though she had turned 
 the subject out of her head, it gave her a light- 
 heartedness, fresher than the morning. 
 
 Mary gave the porch the touch of a really heavy
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 161 
 
 hand as she treated young Pendren to a bit of the 
 same thing in another way. 
 
 " You got Spring all anxious and thinkin' herself 
 real gold plate all through," she said, and worked 
 the broom quickly. " I'm wonderin' what kind of 
 a situation you've got in your head that will dress 
 her out like a store window at Christmas time. 
 I'm half sorry, Mr. Pendren, sir, to hear you givin' 
 way to such a manner of expressions. Spring don't 
 belong to your set, nor your sister's set, nor to any 
 place you're used to. I'll find myself asking you 
 in a minute to treat her same as you would any- 
 body else you had a respeck for." 
 
 " I can only treat her as she ought to be treated," 
 said Pendren, and steadied down a bit to consider. 
 " She's a lady born and bred, anybody can see that, 
 and she's come of good old stock, blue blood and 
 brains. That's a certainty. ..." 
 
 " And you were thinkin' of putting her, Mr. Pen- 
 dren, sir, right in the full light of blue blood and 
 brains in a dress likely to daze her terrible, and 
 make her talk like something out of a book which 
 would scare the tongue of her in twenty-four hours. 
 You were thinkin' of garnishing her out same as 
 a table at Thanksgiving time, and for why, and for 
 what reason, everybody would have to guess." She 
 moved over to him and leaned on the top of the 
 broom.
 
 1 62 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Mr. Pendren, sir, if I might come into it a bit 
 nearer, as I'm kind of takin' her mother's place . . . 
 would you be treating Spring honest, traveling her 
 as a decked-out peacock in clothes she hasn't the 
 money to pay for, nor is likely to have this side of 
 a fortunate surprise? Just exactly, sir, what she'd 
 be going as? " 
 
 When he had let himself go in his admiration of 
 Spring, Pendren had not reckoned on having to 
 explain it. He knew he had been foolish to drift 
 into a situation which necessitated Mary's asking 
 questions before he was ready to answer them 
 before he was sure even of the breadth, depth, 
 quality, or quantity of that admiration. 
 
 " I'm anxious she shall have her place with other 
 girls, not half as brainy or pretty. I intended writ- 
 ing to my sister ..." 
 
 " Beggin' your pardon, sir, again, but bringin' 
 your sister into it before she knows anything about 
 Spring don't give anybody a fair show." 
 
 " But she can help me." 
 
 " She mightn't take to the child same as the rest 
 of us. Spring's got a way of turning a red-hot 
 feelin' into your blood, but same time she jes' might 
 run it in cold if there's woman's jealousy about. 
 What did you exactly mean by helping you, sir ? " 
 
 Mary's anxiety to get the matter on a sound 
 footing was making her more than usually curious.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 163 
 
 " Well, I thought that . . . that my sister might 
 like to have Spring as company and help with the 
 children. She can't manage them a bit." 
 
 Mary reared as if a wasp had stung her. 
 
 " That's not what I got in my mind for Spring 
 at all, sir. She's had her mother's children ever 
 since she was born herself, and if that wasn't enuff 
 experience till she starts a family of her own, then 
 I'm going to chance it and refuse, sir." 
 
 " But she could earn good money." He was 
 slightly flushed and a trifle exasperated at Mary. 
 " She could start that way." 
 
 Mary's heart throbbed and bumped as if it were 
 out of place. 
 
 " And would I be overcurious, sir, to ask, if she 
 started that way, what kind of a finish might we all 
 be countin' on ? " 
 
 " Well, you never can tell, but she might marry." 
 
 " Ah ! There's more in that suits my palate. I 
 got as much belief in a girl like Spring marrying 
 as I've got in what they teaches in the Sunday 
 School. She might marry, then. That's settled. 
 I can breathe without breaking my heart now, sir." 
 
 Quilter Lancelot Pendren did not altogether like 
 the tone, but he was pleased that she regarded him 
 in a friendly way again. 
 
 " Yes. She might marry. Certainly she might. 
 Of course," he said, carefully considering, " dressed
 
 164 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 as I picture her, she would turn the heads of a 
 thousand men in New York." 
 
 " One would be sufficient," said Mary, " if it so 
 happened she managed to turn him right about fac- 
 ing the way she was looking at him." She took the 
 broom inside the house. 
 
 Pendren sat there thinking till Spring brought 
 out his tray. 
 
 " I don't see the slightest reason why . . . why 
 she shouldn't marry," he said to himself.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 " CORA'S b-a-d!" 
 
 Mary turned to catch the drawling tones of 
 Mark Spinney as he put a hot, grinning face inside* 
 her kitchen door. 
 
 " Mercy, what a turn you gave me, Mark," she 
 said quickly. 
 
 " Turn off the joy a bit, my man, and let us have 
 all the news to hand." 
 
 " There ain't no news. Cora's b-a-d, that's all ! " 
 
 " Meanin' she's scared somethin' fearful and sent 
 you tumbling over to ask me to come up? I been 
 expecting you an hour, Mark. Suppose you nearly 
 bust your boots running? " 
 
 Mr. Spinney lurched across the kitchen and took 
 a chair unbidden. 
 
 " Always got a joke handy, ain't you, Mary ? 
 Cora's been up since four o'clock, walkin' the place, 
 something turrible. Wanted it that I get Hek to 
 come along. If Hek can't see what's doing with 
 his own gal without me having to hand him out a 
 printed card of invitation . . . I'm not going to ask 
 him why." 
 
 Mary threw the fire together with one hand while 
 165
 
 1 66 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 she pushed a saucepan simmering to the edge with 
 the other. 
 
 " That's no argument," she said. " You should 
 'er got Hek along. Miss Hetty, too, she's likely 
 to want to come into this. She's most mortified if 
 she's lef out of things." 
 
 " Cora wanted you, Mary. She's done set on 
 Liz Hetty since she took up cooking and baking for 
 Hek. She's got Hek fixed real tight these days, 
 Mary." 
 
 "Who, Cora?" 
 
 " Neow. Miss Hetty. She's up there twice a 
 day now and turnin' out the place so often Hek can't 
 locate a thing he puts down. Good enuff for Hek, 
 too! Hope he loses his head one of these days. 
 She'll hev it somewhere in her mind, I reckon." 
 
 He allowed a long laugh to break from him as 
 he shot his heavy legs forward, and put a dead, evil- 
 smelling pipe between his lips. Mary fussed about 
 and reached for her bonnet and faded cape which 
 always hung behind the kitchen door. 
 
 " You get me beat, Mark. Some folks couldn't 
 take things as easy. I was thinkin' of taking a spell 
 up Clara Hopkins' way. She's home now and work- 
 ing only three days a week at her job. I got me 
 mind crammed to breakin' with business these days, 
 but I meant to stand by Cora all along." 
 
 " She's talkin' about dying, mostly, the last hour.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 167 
 
 Wants it that we get Deacon Heddy and her father 
 to come right along an' fix up that business about 
 her clearin' out" 
 
 Mary turned quickly. Her eyes pierced the 
 man's as if she were going to strike him; but she 
 spoke as calmly as ever. 
 
 " Ain't that serious, Mark? If a girl wants her 
 father mighty bad, ain't she to have him ? " 
 
 " I ain't stopping him. He knows what's about. 
 He's got the use of his legs same as the rest of us. 
 Miss Hetty can't stop him walkin', can she? " 
 
 " Look here, Mark, Liz Hetty ain't in this at all. 
 It's your business to see Hek's called to Cora if 
 she's scared and askin' for him." 
 
 " Oh, she's sc-a-r-ed all right." A subtle expres- 
 sion spread over his face and he took his pipe from 
 his lips to smile. " She's been scared all day yes- 
 terday. I had to stop home and clean up the place. 
 Cora's awful careless and easy-goin' with things of 
 late." 
 
 " And ain't it your place same as hers, Mark ? 
 You ain't working, and she's doing double shift 
 with the baby coming and the house as well. You 
 come right along with me now. Who'd you leave 
 with Cora?" 
 
 " Mirandy Bell, she's stopping a piece while I 
 come for you." 
 
 Mary threw up her hands.
 
 1 68 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Mirandy Bell ? Land o' liberty ! She's about 
 as useful at a time like this as you are, Mark." 
 
 The man took it hardly. 
 
 " I got up at five o'clock." 
 
 " An' Cora, four o'clock, with the scare of death 
 in her, and not even her father called in to com- 
 fort her. Suppose Doc Harkins is getting along 
 right now. We must hurry, Mark." 
 
 " I give over hurrying, Mary. Twice I got half- 
 way here and Cora called me back again. What's 
 a chap to do ? " 
 
 " Do ? " Mary looked right through him. " Any- 
 thing he can at a time like this. You step along, 
 Mark, and I'll be with you in a quarter of a minute. 
 I got to fix things here before ..." 
 
 " I hear you got a bunch of interesting folks 
 stopping ? " 
 
 " I've got something more interesting presently 
 to talk to you about, Mark. Hustle now." 
 
 She went out to the porch and spoke to Spring. 
 The girl was sitting there with a little piece of 
 sewing between her fingers and her eyes wide with 
 wonderment. 
 
 Pendren worked a pen in his left hand slowly. 
 On his knee there was balanced a pad of note- 
 paper and he was practicing how to write with his 
 left hand. 
 
 " I got a call up Cora Spinney's place," said
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 169 
 
 Mary. " If I don't get back quick I'll send Clara 
 to look after you a spell. There's a chicken in the 
 stew-pot, Spring, and mind you see it don't stick 
 to the bottom. Mr. Pendren, sir, you'll excuse me 
 while I trot out to see what I can do for a poor soul 
 that's only got a lump of wood for a man, and 
 green wood at that, which isn't sort of encouraging 
 jes' at present." 
 
 Pendren started to speak, but she rattled on : 
 
 " Benjamin's up the yard, and if you should be 
 requiring anything immediate just you holler out." 
 
 " There won't be anything immediate," said 
 Spring with a little happy flush. 
 
 " Miss Glory is so capable," said Pendren, send- 
 ing a swift glance in the girl's direction. " You 
 might get this letter away for me, if you don't 
 mind. I've managed perfectly well with my left 
 hand." 
 
 Mary took the letter. " Look at that," she said, 
 smiling at him. " I do love a man that tries. If 
 that lump of green wood in my kitchen," she 
 added, lowering her voice, " would only do some- 
 thing that's well-nigh impossible, I'd think a heap 
 more of him. But there ... I must push him 
 along. Cora's getting cold feet about herself with 
 no one but Mirandy Bell to do as much as a word 
 for her." 
 
 She bustled off, and Mark Spinney took a short
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 cut somewhere while she herself deliberately set 
 out towards the next field. She meant to pay a 
 call on Hek Dean as she went past his house. 
 Mark's duties had to be undertaken by somebody, 
 even if they were of the sort that called up all 
 manner of trouble. 
 
 Spring watched the short, bulky figure climb 
 through the fence and splash through the sandy 
 patches to Hek Dean's land. With a wonderful 
 glow in her eyes she turned to Pendren. 
 
 " I wish she'd bring the baby back with her, 
 don't you?" 
 
 He held her eyes a moment. 
 
 " I thought that you'd had enough of that sort of 
 thing to last you the rest of your life? " 
 
 " Enough of babies dear, little, cuddley 
 things?" She seemed amazed at him. "I could 
 never love anything in all my life as I love our last 
 baby. Sometimes I see her at nights and I feel her 
 little velvety arms creeping about my neck. ..." 
 
 Her glad expression changed; tears trembled at 
 the edge of her eyes, and one tumbled down and 
 damped the sewing she had in her hand. 
 
 " I'll hate it if you cry," said Pendren. 
 
 Spring mopped her face with the sewing. 
 
 " After all, it isn't a thing to cry about, is it ? I 
 haven't lost them for good and all. I'll be back 
 some day, won't I? Oh, Mr. Pendren, you're so
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 171 
 
 good and so ... rich. ..." Stumblingly she said 
 it, like a nervous child. " You could arrange any- 
 thing . . . anything, couldn't you ? " 
 
 He put down the pen and sat f oward. 
 
 " You've only got to say it. I'll buy the whole 
 family for you if you want it." In his face there 
 was a sudden glow. He felt himself trembling on 
 the edge of the precipice that he had avoided that 
 very morning. The cover he usually had over his 
 knees was pushed aside. He made an attempt to 
 stand on his feet alone again. 
 
 Spring did not notice it. She was trembling with 
 excitement. 
 
 " It would be just lovely if . . .if you really 
 could," she said, half smiling. "... But of course 
 they are not in the shops like the things you spoke 
 of this morning. If they were ..." 
 
 Her face beamed and he took two or three steps 
 towards her. 
 
 " If they were . . . mother would be the most 
 expensive, of course. Or Elsa. Elsa has the most 
 glorious hair nothing like mine, and ever so much 
 real gold running through it. Prue would, of 
 course, be really quite expensive, though she is 
 thinner than the rest of us. Her voice is just per- 
 fectly heavenly. You would wonder that she could 
 have it all in her body." 
 
 While she rattled on, flushed and happy, the
 
 172 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 young man gained her chair, slipped to the ground, 
 and sat contentedly at her feet. 
 
 " If I was putting a price on our family, Mr. 
 Pendren," Spring hesitated, " and it was really to 
 be bought like that, I think I should have to start 
 at a reserve . . . isn't it? You know, you make 
 the value out first of all and won't take a cent 
 under. Would that scare you if you really con- 
 sidered . . . buying an expensive family like 
 ours?" 
 
 Full in his face she laughed, for he had turned 
 towards her and was looking right into her eyes. 
 
 " Nothing in the world would scare me if ... 
 if it meant ..." He stopped, nervous, then he 
 went on again. " I say, they must be the most 
 wonderful lot of children ever built. Couldn't we 
 go and see them? I'm just aching to hear Elsa 
 sing and the rest of it." 
 
 " You'd go crazy in ten minutes over Christine 
 if you care for girls at all. She's perfectly lovely 
 and sweet all the time. Have you ever seen any- 
 body talk with her eyes, Mr. Pendren ? " 
 
 " No, but I've heard them quite often," he an- 
 swered, watching the dark-rimmed iris of her own. 
 
 " Well; Christine never has to open her lips, 
 mother says. If you want to punish her she's say- 
 ing she is ever so sorry long before she has stopped 
 crying enough to speak."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 173 
 
 Pendren grew hot. " Who ever wanted to punish 
 a child like that ? " he asked almost fiercely, still 
 watching the eyes near him. 
 
 " Why, nobody ever wanted to punish her; but 
 sometimes, perhaps " 
 
 " I'd break my heart if anybody put a finger on 
 her," he went on, deliberately supporting his tired 
 back by resting his shoulder against the girl's knee. 
 " I'd kill the man who made her unhappy, and I'd 
 hang for murder and be pleased to do it." 
 
 Spring dropped her eyes. 
 
 " Why, you are talking as if you knew Christine 
 all the time ! " she said. " Are you only making-up 
 so as to please me? " 
 
 " I never make-up to you," he said. " Don't look 
 away so often; I can't understand you so well when 
 you turn your head. Of course I know Christine 
 and the whole lot of them. Mother, Elsa, Christine, 
 Prue. I've only got to look into your face, and 
 while you are talking I see them all dancing round 
 merrily. It's as good as being at home with them 
 all." 
 
 " It couldn't be as good as being there. You've 
 no idea what mother is like. ..." Suddenly she 
 stopped. A brightness enveloped her face and she 
 turned eyes in which the sunlight danced towards 
 him. 
 
 " Is that what you meant when you said . . .
 
 174 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 said, once, that you'd seen mother's beautiful little 
 feet ? You mean just through looking in my eyes." 
 
 " Something like that. Didn't you know that you 
 were the whole family, Elsa, Prue, and Christine 
 in one." 
 
 " But mother . . . you spoke as if you really had 
 seen her ! " 
 
 " I said I had been watching her feet for half 
 an hour at a time. Well, I was watching you in 
 the hammock that day. You are just your mother 
 over again, don't you see? " 
 
 Evidently she did not quite, but something else 
 disturbed her. 
 
 " Do you know you've been most comforting to 
 me today, Mr. Pendren, and you've been awfully 
 nice, explaining things. Well, there's an awful 
 story on my mind. Not so much of a story as it 
 is a kind of ... covered-up sin." 
 
 " Something you've told me, I'll wager." 
 
 " No, something I've never told you." 
 
 He leaned more against her knee. " Oh, come 
 now, we're not playing at confessions. I hate that 
 kind of thing. Let us talk about the family. What 
 do you want me to do? Ask what you like. You 
 know I am really ever so much in your debt." 
 
 Spring folded the sewing because it was almost 
 impossible to do anything else with it. 
 
 " And don't wriggle your hands so." He caught
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 175 
 
 hold of one of her hands and did not let it go again. 
 The action did not even disturb her. 
 
 " Look here," he went on earnestly. " When you 
 said just now that I was so good and so rich and 
 that I could arrange anything, what did you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " I meant . . . that you could really help me to 
 make some money. Oh, it will have to be lots and 
 lots ! There are so many of us, and the mortgage, 
 and . . ." 
 
 " Now we are talking. I want to help you. 
 Wasn't I suggesting the very thing this morning? 
 Now suppose I write to my sister and ask her to 
 have you with her. She's a trifle particular over 
 the children, but ..." 
 
 " Oh, would there be children ? I'd love that kind 
 of work." 
 
 " Well, Mary doesn't think you ought to take it 
 on any more; but you see, if my sister took an in- 
 terest in you, which she will certainly do if I ask 
 her, she might even promote you to something 
 better." 
 
 " It sounds ever so good. When could I go? " 
 
 " You could go with me. I shall be returning 
 very shortly now, and I could write first of all." 
 
 " And please could you send a first installment of 
 the money to mother immediately I begin." 
 
 The young man considered.
 
 176 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Well, that could be arranged, certainly; but I'm 
 afraid it would require something like a lump sum 
 down to make any difference to the mortgage. 
 Now suppose I run down presently in the auto. 
 I'm having it fixed right away. I could take you 
 with me and then we could do my little bit of busi- 
 ness and return to New York in a day." 
 
 The plans made the girl vibrate with something 
 she had never experienced before. 
 
 " Is it going to be a very big fight," she asked. 
 " I mean, the business with the Blessing in it ? " 
 
 " Dear child," he cornered the other hand that 
 had strayed to her throat, " there's no blessing in 
 it at all. It's a beastly business altogether, I can 
 tell you. But I don't want to discuss it. I get hot 
 and mad, and I never, never want to get that way 
 when I'm with you again." 
 
 " That's awfully nice of you, and perhaps you'll 
 make it right for those poor wretched people who 
 you speak of fighting. I don't believe you'd be 
 mean enough to keep anything from them that was 
 really theirs." 
 
 The young man hesitated, then replied : 
 
 " It's not so much to me as to my father. Oh, 
 you don't know how he has worked and . . . any- 
 way, whatever I do, you may be quite certain that 
 I'm fighting for Dad and not myself." 
 
 " That's just what makes you so ... splendid,"
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 177 
 
 came from Spring. " You do try so hard. Why, 
 you managed to write those letters with your left 
 hand, and you did get right along to the parlor the 
 other day with your bad wrist ... oh, you've done 
 it again You've ..." 
 
 He laughed loudly. " Yes, I've done it again; 
 but I didn't crawl this time. I walked boldly. I 
 wondered you didn't start making a fuss long ago. 
 It's been such a relief to do something really for 
 myself." 
 
 Spring's eyes dulled a trifle. 
 
 " You're getting quite strong again, and I sup- 
 pose I should really be thankful." 
 
 " I can't tell you how thankful I am. Aren't 
 you?" 
 
 " Of course, in a way; but then ..." Her face 
 turned to his like a sensitive child's. 
 
 " It's been perfectly lovely, Mr. Pendren.' 
 
 " It's been ..." He withheld the words, and 
 just stood up carefully, still holding her hands, and 
 looking down into the beautiful depths of her eyes. 
 Without finishing what he had been going to say, he 
 drew backwards slowly and took his chair. Spring 
 never knew what that restraint had been to him, 
 and her heart palpitated with something like childish 
 fear as she observed his face.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HE remained silent and gloomily thoughtful for 
 a while; then Spring brought out his tray. 
 
 " I haven't told you all my name, Mr. Pendren," 
 she said, sighing as she got the confession off her 
 mind. 
 
 " I don't care." He was decidedly brusque and 
 hardly said " Thank you " as she placed the tray 
 on his knee. 
 
 " I thought that you might like to know the rest 
 of it and mother's as well." 
 
 " Please do not talk to me for a little, Spring. 
 I'm . . . I'm dreadfully bad-tempered at present." 
 
 She moved away immediately. Then he called 
 her almost roughly. 
 
 " That doesn't mean you should go. Why don't 
 you . . ." 
 
 " If I stayed I should only be talking." So simply 
 she said it that he felt ashamed. 
 
 " Talk all you want to ! " he sighed impatiently. 
 " So your name's not Glory? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, it is; but it's something else as well. 
 I'm Spring Glory and mother is Anna Glory, but 
 we're . . ." 
 
 178
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 179 
 
 He put up a finger. " Do you know I've got an 
 idea we haven't been treating each other quite 
 fairly. You've kept things from me, and I've cer- 
 tainly kept them from you. Suppose we leave it 
 at that for the present. If you turn on the confi- 
 dence tap now I've got to do the same . . . and I 
 don't feel like it. No, I'm hanged if I do. Little 
 girl, would you mind awfully if I told you to go 
 inside and not come out again till I call? " 
 
 "Of course I won't mind. And about the other, 
 I just wanted to have it clear I was sorry to have 
 been cheating you." 
 
 He forgot the tray on his knees and leaned back 
 and closed his eyes. 
 
 " Looks like we've all been cheating. My good- 
 ness ... if she only knew." 
 
 He put the tray away from him, and all the after- 
 noon lay there thinking. That she had withheld her 
 full name never occurred to him as anything but a 
 childish freak. They never had started being serious 
 till lately . . . lately. It came to him then that af- 
 fairs generally were more than serious with him. 
 The business concerning the firm and his father was 
 turned aside for something he could not get rid of. 
 
 The important thing to do seemed to bring a cer- 
 tain amount of happiness right to this child's feet. 
 
 He found himself considering her family with 
 something like a new enthusiasm, and how their for-
 
 i8o SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 tunes could be bettered. He counted the family over 
 in his mind. If Elsa could sing, she might be fully 
 seven; and Christine, who never spoke but with her 
 eyes . . . well, she might be anything, but surely 
 within the age limit when spanking was not pro- 
 hibited. Then there was Prue, with the glorious 
 hair. He wondered how many years of growth it 
 took to make hair as wonderful as Spring had de- 
 scribed it. And last of all ... there was Spring 
 herself. She was nearly seventeen, he had heard 
 that once, and she seemed to carry the responsibili- 
 ties of the whole crowd on her small shapely 
 shoulders. 
 
 Out of the sum total of all this he could not make 
 very much; but it was sufficient to tell him that any 
 sum his sister paid for service to her children would 
 not cover much of the expense of such a family, 
 even leaving out the ones he knew that the girl had 
 never mentioned. Oh, yes, there was a baby . . . 
 something with velvety arms that cuddled into your 
 neck. He had never had such an experience; but 
 the thought of it made him wriggle as if a worm 
 had crawled over him. Anything as soft as that 
 really made him nervous. Gradually his mind came 
 round to Spring and her pure soul again. 
 
 So her name was not only Spring Glory. There 
 was really a romance in the whole thing. 
 
 He was smiling to himself at the thought when
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 181 
 
 somebody passed him to go up the steps. It was 
 Benjamin, who with stentorian breaths was making 
 for the kitchen where Spring was singing softly as 
 she worked. At first Pendren was struck by the 
 boy's immense shadow cutting off the sunlight, then 
 by the noise of his breathing, and then by the smile 
 widening as he went by. 
 
 Pendren said something about the weather, and 
 Benjamin just answered him, and continued to go 
 up the steps. He seemed in a hurry to get inside the 
 house. Usually he stopped and said a few words 
 about the country or the automobile or the long 
 talked of accident, or about Mary Settler, or him- 
 self; but today. . . . 
 
 Pendren began to feel distinctly as if he had 
 really been in the way when Benjamin had passed. 
 
 " Confound him. Perhaps he hasn't had his 
 dinner, or . . ." 
 
 On top of his reflections concerning Spring came 
 the thought that perhaps Benjamin had come in to 
 take advantage of Mary's absence by having a word 
 or two with the girl. Perhaps Spring liked to have 
 Benjamin to talk to her. He was a good fellow, al- 
 though a little uncouth. 
 
 Pendren sat up and called to Spring. She looked 
 out the door a moment afterwards. 
 
 " I can't come now," she said. " I'm talking to 
 Benjamin."
 
 1 82 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 He took it as any man might have. 
 
 " Serves me right," he reflected grimly. " I sent 
 her away and I'm suffering for it. Suffering. Stars 
 and stripes! I could be jealous about her, and I 
 haven't the slightest right. Oh, hang everything! 
 I wish I'd never come here." 
 
 He got up and walked slowly to the door from 
 the porch, entering. Benjamin was talking, and 
 Spring was answering him as she might have an- 
 swered one of her baby sisters. Pendren, gripping 
 the door, like a thief, listened. 
 
 Benjamin was talking. " 'Course it's caring, 
 Miss Spring. I'm just about caring as much as 
 anybody, though mostly I stops in the yard when 
 I'm bursting to get down in the kitchen. Mary 
 mightn't believe it, but she will presently. A chap 
 without a ... girl might as well be a bottle of 
 4 fiz ' without a cork. There's nothin' in him less 
 she's right there to keep him in his place; and if 
 my place's the yard then why couldn't we work the 
 place good and hard, with me takin' on every bit 
 of the outside work. I guess there ain't so much 
 difference between us, after all." 
 
 Pendren shut his left hand tightly and leaned 
 against the wall with the bandaged one. He could 
 only make certain things out of this conversation, 
 and they did not add to his peace of mind. He
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 183 
 
 waited for the girl to make answer to the apparent 
 advances of Benjamin. 
 
 Then Spring spoke. " I think it would be better 
 for everybody, Benjamin. Wouldn't a wedding be 
 a perfectly lovely thing ? " 
 
 Pendren shivered. He bit his teeth into his lower 
 lip, for not only was his strength giving out, but his 
 patience also. 
 
 " I've saved ever since I was fourteen," Benjamin 
 was saying. " An' I got no cause to be ashamed 
 to offer myself." 
 
 " One would never be ashamed," Spring was tak- 
 ing things up again, " if it's love all through, Ben- 
 jamin." 
 
 " Dunno what you'd call it, Miss Spring, but it's 
 here . . . here, and that's where the safest things 
 belonging to a man lie, usual, in his heart, not in 
 his pocket. An' so I made up my mind when Mary 
 went out today to come right along and ask 
 you ..." 
 
 A sudden darkening of the doorway stopped Ben- 
 jamin from saying more, and Spring opened her 
 mouth very wide, amazed to see Pendren standing 
 there gesticulating with his bad hand while he sup- 
 ported himself against the frame of the door with 
 his other. 
 
 " Oughtn't I to come in ... to come in ? " he 
 asked fiercely, angry lights in his eyes. " I'm sure
 
 1 84 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 I've been out long enough today. Why . . . why 
 . . . don't you come and . . . and suggest my 
 coming inside ? " 
 
 He realized that he was behaving foolishly, that 
 his manner was querulous; but Spring took him 
 seriously. 
 
 " I'm so sorry," she said. " You see, Ben- 
 jamin ..." She stopped, knowing that she could 
 not divulge what the boy had confided to her. 
 
 " You see . . . Benjamin." 
 
 " Of course I can see him," said Pendren irri- 
 tably. 
 
 He stood staring at Benjamin till the great, shock- 
 headed fellow began to measure his own length 
 nervously trying to discover what everybody was 
 referring to. 
 
 " Ain't nothing crook with me . . . eh ? " he 
 asked, observing his heels and his elbows carefully. 
 
 Spring realized that she had brought about a mis- 
 understanding unmeaningly and began to laugh 
 over the cause of it. 
 
 Pendren, who saw no joke, turned to go from 
 the kitchen. He had suddenly become aware of the 
 fact that the laugh was with Spring against him, 
 and he was furious with himself, and wroth with 
 the whole situation and with the circumstances that 
 had brought him into it at all. 
 
 "When will Miss Settler be home?" he asked
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 185 
 
 sharply. " I must get fixed for a move on to- 
 morrow. Tonight, if possible. This sort of thing 
 can't go on any longer." 
 
 Spring was going to ask : " What thing ? " but 
 the expression Quilter Lancelot Pendren was wear- 
 ing would not permit her to say a word. She stood 
 gazing*at him very sorry and very upset, for some 
 scarcely known reason, and Benjamin stood awk- 
 wardly and uncertainly beside her. 
 
 Pendren had started his temper blazing, and it 
 got out of hand as quickly as a prairie fire. 
 
 " I'd like you," he denoted Benjamin by a wave 
 of one hand. " I'd like you to give me a hand 
 getting my things together, and if Miss Settler does 
 not return presently you might hunt out my boots. 
 I can't go to New York in bath slippers." 
 
 Benjamin stared at him, as though he thought 
 that the young man from the city had taken leave 
 of his senses. 
 
 " My boots," Pendren said stiffly, to impress 
 Spring with the firmness of his intentions. " I'd 
 be obliged if someone would tell me just where they 
 are." 
 
 " You really mean to ... to go ?" It was all 
 that Spring could say. Her tone turned the tide 
 of his resentment, but although the young man an- 
 swered her mildly, he still held himself aloof. 
 
 " I've been meaning to go . . . every day and
 
 1 86 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 I've delayed foolishly," he said. " Perhaps it would 
 be wiser if I did not wait for Mary's return. She 
 is apt to persuade one, and I'm quite strong enough 
 now to get into the car and run my business 
 through. Have you the least idea where those boots 
 of mine are? " 
 
 Spring began to search the kitchen. Benjamin 
 followed her about, awkwardly searching in pre- 
 cisely the same places as she did to find the boots. 
 
 " Guess this is a kind of a sort of Sherlock 
 Holmes job you've turned on to us," ventured Ben- 
 jamin when they came round to the side of the 
 kitchen -where young Pendren lingered, still grip- 
 ping the door with his best hand. " Mary, now, 
 she hadn't ought to hev put a chap's boots away so 
 careful. Maybe it's the mice she's fearing. You 
 started out from the accident with as decent a pair 
 as was ever skin to a hoss. Sure Mary can't be 
 wearing them herself." 
 
 " They must be somewhere in the front parlor," 
 said Spring at last. " Would you . . . would you 
 mind being taken back to your own room, Mr. Pen- 
 dren? Then we could hunt in there while you sat 
 and watched us." 
 
 Just for a moment the young man had forgotten 
 his ill humor and was looking from her to Benjamin 
 and back again from Benjamin to the girl. He was 
 wondering how this tousle-headed fellow had
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 187 
 
 started out with the notion that a girl like Spring 
 could ever care a rap about him. 
 
 " I think I will go to my room, thank you," he 
 said calmly, " and if you can unearth my boots I 
 will be really grateful." 
 
 He let go the door frame and began to move un- 
 steadily along the passage. Spring watched him 
 with Benjamin, her eyes dull with the depression 
 of fear lest he should drop before he got to his 
 room. 
 
 She followed him along the passage. He turned 
 his head and spoke over his shoulder near the door 
 of his room. 
 
 " I'd like to get that car along tonight. Boots or 
 no boots, I can delay no longer." 
 
 When they had both reached the little parlor, 
 Pendren settled down on the couch bed like a weary, 
 moody child. He looked at Spring. 
 
 " I am convinced that I was right, after all, when 
 I called you a woman that time. You have a won- 
 derful way of baffling a chap, so I've got to think 
 twice before I can . . . can trust myself to even, 
 even ..." He stopped because the girl was stand- 
 ing there looking as if she might be expected to 
 break into tears any minute. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he broke out sharply. 
 
 " You change your mind so quickly," Spring 
 said.
 
 1 88 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 But young Pendren went straight to the mark. 
 
 " When I discovered just today that you were 
 most of all a woman before . . . before anything 
 else it came naturally as a bit of a shock. So many 
 things you have been keeping back from me, though 
 you were honest enough to allow that you had not 
 told me all your name. There were other things, 
 too, that you had not told me, and yet we seemed 
 to get into the private corners of your family only 
 an hour or so ago. We were learning all about Prue 
 and Christine, and . . . and your mother, and your 
 coming to New York to . . .to take up a proper 
 start and to earn enough to make things go, and 
 then . . . and then I suddenly find out . . . other 
 things. Miss Spring, honest Injun, do you think 
 you are treating me fairly? " 
 
 Spring's face glowed with fresh hot color. She 
 did not know what to say. 
 
 " You must admit, Miss Glory, that you've left 
 an awful lot out that, that, well, might have made 
 things easier between us if you had told them to 
 me." 
 
 " I wanted to tell them," came simply from 
 Spring. " Only you would not allow me to speak 
 today." 
 
 " Then I suppose I have only got myself to 
 blame. Would you mind turning all the things over 
 in this room and seeing if you could find those
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 189 
 
 boots? I never knew a pair of boots to cause so 
 much trouble before." 
 
 He was arriving at that stage at which a man 
 asks himself whether he may not have overdone his 
 righteous wrath and indignation. He sat watching 
 the girl turn over his bag and Mary Settler's old 
 chest. 
 
 " Were they ordinary boots, just like anybody 
 else would be wearing, Mr. Pendren ? " Spring asked 
 presently, when he had stared at her for quite an 
 uncomfortable time. 
 
 " Quite ordinary black boots," he said indiffer- 
 ently. Then all at once he got up again and moved 
 slowly towards her. 
 
 " Stop looking," he said, and restrained her as 
 she attempted to go down on her hands and knees 
 under the table in the corner. But Spring had al- 
 ready stooped and was nearly under the table. He 
 caught her tenderly, gently, and almost reverently 
 by the shoulders to raise her to her feet. 
 
 She righted herself and found her small body 
 very close to his and that he had not even taken his 
 hands from her shoulders. Turning her about, he 
 looked straight into her face. 
 
 " So . . . you think it ought to be love all 
 through, Spring?" 
 
 Very slowly he said it, and the girl looked back 
 into his face unafraid, but wondering.
 
 i 9 o SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Why, yes. For Benjamin. Don't you?" 
 
 " I never knew till this last hour that Benjamin 
 came into it at all, Spring. That's one of the 
 dreadfully horrible, womanish things you kept from 
 me." 
 
 Spring knew that she had never been held in such 
 a grip in all her life, for the young man was so 
 earnest now that he had forgotten to remove his 
 fingers from her slim young arms. 
 
 " But, you see ... it would never have done for 
 me to have mentioned anything to do with Benjamin 
 or Clara, because you see it's his own very private 
 affair and ..." 
 
 " Clara? Who the ... who's Clara, now?" 
 
 " Why, Benjamin is ever so much in love with 
 Clara, and Mary isn't altogether pleased because, of 
 course, Clara is ever so much older than Benjamin, 
 >ut it doesn't seem to matter to me at all. Would 
 you think it a very bad thing, Mr. Pendren, if ... 
 if you were really caring all through, and the girl 
 you just loved better than anything in your whole 
 life was more like your mother? Would you mind ? 
 Would you? Don't you think caring is just the 
 same whether it is young or old, or like a sister, or 
 like a mother ? Don't you ? . . . " 
 
 But Pendren could not take all this in. He was 
 so overcome at the idea of his stupid mistake re- 
 garding the farm-help and the garrulous woman
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 191 
 
 who visited the place mostly in the evening, that he 
 just clung to Spring and forced her to come and 
 sit down with him on the couch-bed. 
 
 " I think you are the most beautiful little soul 
 ever born," he started. " Spring, I've got ever so 
 much to tell you about that same kind of caring all 
 through that you talk about. Why, all my life I've 
 hunted for it and women have come and passed, and 
 once ..." 
 
 At this very minute, just when Spring had al- 
 lowed her hands to be taken firmly in his, and just 
 when Pendren started on the story of his life with 
 some definite purpose, Mary Settler put her head 
 around the door and gave her opinion outright as 
 to the manner in which some people set about find- 
 ing a pair of boots that had never been lost at all. 
 
 " If it's boots, Mr. Pendren, sir, that's keeping 
 you from being overhappy in this climate, there 
 they are. Benjamin thinks that car ought to be 
 around here about sunset. It's getting on that side 
 now, so . . . " 
 
 Never before had Mary Settler seemed to possess 
 so much spine. She stood there just looking at him, 
 but in that look many things were plain. Pendren 
 got up slowly from the bed and took his boots with- 
 out a word.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 PENDREN'S car had been brought into the yard, 
 but the young man himself remained in the front 
 room just as Mary and Spring had left him there. 
 
 On the floor in the half dark his boots looked to 
 him like the end of all things, for after Mary had 
 departed to the kitchen, taking the girl with her, he 
 had been aware for the first time that he was an 
 intruder rather than a welcome guest. 
 
 He sat on the edge of the little stretcher and 
 touched the fabric of the covers. Nothing had 
 ever appeared so deliciously cool and easy before. 
 All around him there was the peace of something 
 which he felt he had been living in for an eternity, 
 the beginning of which had been lost somewhere 
 and the end of which was right now staring him in 
 the face. The smell of recently cut grass across 
 the road filled him with a feeling, the like of which 
 he had experienced only once in his life before, and 
 that was when he was leaving the newly-made grave 
 of his best man-friend. 
 
 He realized it the very moment Mary had handed 
 him his boots. There in front of him were his 
 boots polished so that even in the half-light they 
 
 192
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 193 
 
 seemed to mock him by their readiness for action. 
 Twice within the last week he had cautioned him- 
 self not to ask questions about his boots, and for, 
 the very reason that he wished to avoid the un- 
 pleasant sensation of a break from his secret com- 
 forts. And now he had done the very thing to 
 bring about that shock, and the break was here, and 
 there were but ten minutes to make up his mind 
 as to what he was going to do. 
 
 Once or twice he wondered whether Mary was 
 considering his sudden resolution to go a joke; and 
 was just humoring him by seeming to consent to it. 
 She was not the woman to allow him to go out 
 into the dusky uncertainty of the country while he 
 was still so weak. 
 
 She could not possess a spirit of such pure Sa- 
 maritanism and permit him to go . . . but then she 
 had put the case so cleverly and directly. That was 
 the fault of Benjamin, of course. The man of the 
 yard had supplied such information in the first few 
 moments of her home-coming that she had imme- 
 diately taken it for granted, as Pendren insisted on 
 going that very night, that his visit was becoming 
 a bore to him. 
 
 Four minutes passed. The boots absolutely rip- 
 pled in lines of brightness. Somebody had been 
 using the polishing paste pretty freely. As the dark- 
 ness crept into the corner of the room, there was
 
 i 9 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 no mistaking their invitation. They almost called 
 to him to pick them up and put them on. But he 
 felt himself less capable of pulling them on than of 
 walking the distance in his bare feet. But some- 
 thing had to be done and done at once. The clink 
 of china being set on the table for the supper made 
 him feel his position the more keenly. The meal 
 would be served in a few minutes. Despite the fact 
 that he had insisted that he would not even wait till 
 Mary returned from her visit to Cora Spinney, 
 Mary had been in the house some time now, and 
 still he delayed. 
 
 He leaned forward to pick up one of his boots. 
 The clink of china came more familiarly than ever. 
 He dropped the boot. Surely no one with such a 
 generous heart as was in Mary Settler's breast could 
 permit him to go on his journey without as much as 
 a mouthful of supper? Usually she was over- 
 anxious that he should be well fed. Apparently 
 now, because of his ungraciousness, Mary was pre- 
 pared to ignore his existence. 
 
 Pendren wondered if Spring would remember 
 him. . . . He stooped to pick up the boot again. 
 His fingers were burning and he tried to persuade 
 himself that he was having a slight fever on account 
 of rather overdoing his strength in the afternoon. 
 But he kept the boot in his hand and looked into the 
 creeping silent night.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 195 
 
 A tramp, unkempt and weary, dragged his legs 
 across the road. The man was making for the 
 fields, evidently in search of a comfortable straw 
 barn for a night's lodgings. 
 
 Pendren watched him from where he sat. In 
 the mood that held him he felt little better than 
 the tramp. He was crawling mentally along the 
 road of life in the same disappointed way. His 
 hopes of happiness lay all behind him, he told him- 
 self dejectedly. 
 
 Then forgetting his languidness, he walked 
 briskly to the window, adjusted the shade so that 
 he could see further out, and watched the man, who 
 scattered the dust as he slouched along. This gave 
 him an idea. He whistled, a short, sharp, distance 
 hail, and the tramp turned. Pendren then held up 
 the boot, signaling to the tramp to come to him. 
 
 Two minutes afterwards both boots had started 
 on a fresh track under the arm of the tramp, and 
 Pendren looked much relieved, although certain 
 lines round his mouth told of a guilty sense of mis- 
 doing. 
 
 He turned quickly from the window as Mary 
 Settler entered the room with a lamp in one hand 
 and his rubber rain-proof and hat in the other. 
 
 " Like as not you'll arrive at the depot time to 
 miss a good square meal, Mr. Pendren," she said, 
 putting down the lamp and taking good care not
 
 196 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 to observe that his valise lay open on the table, 
 and without anything having been packed into it. 
 " I jes' told Spring to parcel up a few sandwiches. 
 You'll be glad of them when the dust begins to get 
 you a bit. I might put you up a bottle of my cider 
 as well. This express notion of yours don't exactly 
 fit with my ideas of hospitality." 
 
 She looked at Pendren out of two soft, warm 
 eyes. 
 
 " It does seem a bit of a . . .1 mean, it does 
 seem ungrateful of me to hustle like this, and you 
 tired I expect, Mary, with so many things on your 
 mind." 
 
 It was all he could manage 'just then, for the 
 kindness of her heart was making him thoroughly 
 ashamed of himself. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind now as Cora Spinney's 
 through with a fine plump baby. I set Mark down 
 to doing some of the chores of the house same as 
 I would Benjamin. Tomorrow I'll go along jes' to 
 take observations like, and if things don't look kind 
 of promising Mark goes out, and Hulky Smith goes 
 in and takes the entrance money." 
 
 This sudden change of subject allowed the young 
 man sufficient time to recover his lost ground. He 
 delayed his own grievances by carrying on the af- 
 fairs of the neighbors. 
 
 " Do you mean to say you are going to pay a
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 197 
 
 man to do the work on his own land? " he asked 
 quickly. 
 
 " Dunno that I'll be doing the paying; but Mark 
 won't sit tight there doing common house chores 
 unless there's something in it." 
 
 " And the money . . . who is standing in for 
 that?" 
 
 He had a suspicion that Mary herself was more 
 than charitable in this, as in most other in- 
 stances. 
 
 " Well now," said Mary, giving the lamp a bit 
 of a rub with her apron. " Would you be throwing 
 a somersault if I was to give you the direct informa- 
 tion that Hek Dean, Cora's own father, put that 
 money up this very day out of consideration of the 
 way things has been going of late? Oh, Hek's a 
 bundle of tracks, pictures and, all, mostly, all hand- 
 ing out of nothing but hot air on the subject of 
 what's right in his estimation, but same time if I 
 can get him to hand under a nice easy rub-down, 
 he comes up all shiney and purrs just for all the 
 world like Hannah-Ellen, my old kitchen cat. Mind 
 you I don't say I'm not distributer and collector of 
 that cash; and it all goes to show that if we can 
 turn on the tap to the main channel of Hek's bank- 
 ing account jest occasional, Cora ain't likely to suffer 
 none on account of that baby and Mark out of 
 work."
 
 i 9 8 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Mark has no work and there's a baby? " Pen- 
 dren looked really concerned. His concern gave him 
 time, too, to reinstate himself in Mary's good graces. 
 For the first time in his life he blessed Cora Spinney 
 for being the woman she was. He could spare 
 quite a lot of interest on her and to an extent it was 
 sincere. 
 
 "If it wouldn't be presuming too far, Mr. Pen- 
 dren, and you not in a big hurry tonight, I'd take 
 it mighty kind and charitable if you'd jest run that 
 car along be the fence of Hek Dean's land, and ask 
 him to step up and see Cora. Hek's got to be kept 
 moving for the reasons of that new baby, and to 
 stop his legs goin' stiff with rheumatics, at the same 
 time. 
 
 " I'll jes' send Spring in with those sand- 
 wiches ..." 
 
 She bustled out again, and young Pendren found 
 himself facing the open valise and a row of toilet 
 things which he had not noticed till the lamp came 
 into the room. Mary had arranged these things 
 just handy for him to pack while she had been 
 dilating on the affairs of her neighbor and he had 
 not noticed what she was doing. 
 
 The full realization of what he had to do now 
 was not to be ignored. Mary expected him to go, 
 and to execute a commission for her at the same 
 time. He started to pack the bag, but the idea of
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 199 
 
 his going seemed so ludicrous that he smiled. Of 
 course he wasn't going. How could he, without his 
 boots? He looked at his feet. The scarlet leather 
 of his bath slippers reassured him. Surely Mary 
 must have noticed that he had not put on his boots 
 and that his boots were not there to put on ! 
 
 He called softly. 
 
 " Why, Mary ... I declare if those wretched 
 boots haven't disappeared again." 
 
 He managed to keep his voice pretty even and 
 reasonably sincere. To his horror and complete 
 amazement Mary Settler replied from the end of the 
 house. 
 
 " Jes' what I expected, Mr. Pendren, sir; but as 
 they were only a pair as Benjamin had by him many 
 a year, bein' unable to wear 'em on account of a bad 
 corn he was rearing at the same time, there ain't 
 no cause for you to be upsetting your mind so fear- 
 ful. I'm bringing your own pair in under ten min- 
 utes . . . " (A pause while the woman held her own 
 breath out of sheer fright that she might show her 
 private opinion too freely, followed.) "Ten min- 
 utes ..." she went on carefully, " or maybe half 
 an hour. Dear me, it will take me more than a day 
 to get the mud off them, but still . . ." 
 
 In the front parlor young Pendren carried a happy 
 heart. 
 
 " More than a day to get the mud off them," he
 
 200 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 repeated. " More than a day ..." The mere idea 
 sent him down the passage a different man. 
 
 Spring was sewing very quietly on the kitchen 
 settee and her eyes came slowly to his as he passed 
 through the door. 
 
 " More than a day ... to get the mud off them," 
 Mary repeated from somewhere out of sight, and 
 he heard a vigorous brushing of boots. 
 
 He looked at Spring and sat down next to her on 
 the little settee. 
 
 Mary came into the room with the boots on her 
 hands. 
 
 " I guess we'll give 'em that time to soak in the 
 cream, Mr. Pendren. I should say they'd be easier 
 to shine by tomorrow." 
 
 " By . . . tomorrow," said the young man, look- 
 ing only at Spring.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A SHAFT of soft moonlight rode like a blessing 
 right across the open fields and laid lingering, tender 
 hands on the woman's shoulders as she passed along. 
 It was eight o'clock and the earth and its creatures 
 had settled down into the calm that creeps out of the 
 unknown as the weariness of a day passes. 
 
 Mary trod silently over the dusty ground and 
 the moonlight on her black cape might have been 
 pale hands embracing her. For the second time 
 that day she was visiting Cora and the new baby, 
 taking Hek Dean as an incidental of the journey. 
 The car belonging to young Pendren still remained 
 like a lumbering, heavy monster waiting to be 
 stirred to life in the yard, and when Mary passed it 
 she gave it a few hand-pats of confidence. 
 
 " Not that I'd be thinkin' I got any right to try 
 and understand the works of such a mind as that 
 Lancelot, and not that I'd be right in me own mind 
 to be judging such, but sure he's as cunning as any 
 I've tried to dig into. What's underneath has got 
 to come up and the sooner the better." 
 
 She crossed her own cultivated patch of land 
 and crawled through the fence into Hek Dean's 
 fields. 
 
 201
 
 202 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Reckoning on the Graham P. business being 
 just about white hot now for stirring so's not to 
 burn the bottom of the pan, I guess it was about 
 the correctest thing to leave those boots lie a day 
 under the poultice of cleaning paste I give them. 
 Never saw such a mess of boots before ..." She 
 chuckled. " I'm wonderin' what he did with the 
 other pair, the ones belonging to Benjamin that I 
 unburied in a mortal hurry earlier, and which I 
 knew was good to work the problem in his mind 
 to a finish? Finish? " She sighed. " If this night 
 don't settle into something, and that something be 
 to the good of us all, counting Spring in as a sort 
 of Queen bee to lead off a bit . . . then I give it 
 up." 
 
 Her musing was here interrupted by coming face 
 to face with Miss Liz Hetty, who, with cloak and 
 bonnet, was preparing to leave the back door of 
 Hek Dean's kitchen. 
 
 Mary and Liz had never had what one might call 
 a really private interview since their ambitious days. 
 Miss Hetty had acquired a sort of subtle quiet 
 when alone with Mary which the good Samaritan 
 always welcomed rather than blamed. On the other 
 hand, Miss Hetty would have found much to say if 
 Mary Settler had chosen the silent course. 
 
 But tonight, for the first time in years, Liz 
 Hetty found herself leaving an open field to her
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 203 
 
 neighbor, that open field being Hek Dean's profita- 
 ble graces and neatly arranged kitchen and living- 
 room. Therefore she clung to the door handle of 
 the house and met Mary querulously and on the de- 
 fensive. 
 
 " Seems like, Mary Settler, some folks ain't got 
 enough to do at home with ellergant boarders from 
 the city and a kind of summer-girl living rich and 
 good on the profits," she said. " I guess you'll be 
 wearin' out your body before it's had its rightful 
 time, same as your mother did, on'y her much 
 younger and better wearin' than yourself when she 
 took to her burial." 
 
 Mary nodded. 
 
 ; 'Tain't everybody, Liz; as remembers my 
 mother same as you do," she remarked easily. " It's 
 mighty kind and charitable of you to worrit your- 
 self over me. Times I've been laid in me bed won- 
 derin' how it was you never come to be ' momma ' 
 to me after that good soul passed right along to the 
 best place picked for her." 
 
 This little reference to a difference in the re- 
 spective ages of the two women had its effect. 
 Mary knew in her own mind that certain things had 
 been worrying Liz Hetty for a matter of ten to 
 fifteen years, and that the slowest years of a woman 
 sometimes are those that come after forty. She 
 took what Mary said quite quietly.
 
 204 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Folks might have thought so," she said care- 
 fully, dropping acid into her speech, " when I 
 ketched up to you first year at board school and 
 Miss Passey, our school teacher, havin' it against 
 you that you started there three years before I got 
 the chance." 
 
 " Sure you carried enough brains about with you, 
 Liz, to weight you to home without as much as a 
 day's learnin' in that old schoolhouse. I mind the 
 day you stopped home on account of the rain. Miss 
 Passey was mos' terrible upset. She wanted you 
 to speak up, for Deacon Burdy, and none of us with 
 anything ready. She was mighty keen on gettin' 
 you goin', Liz, no matter if it was Deacon Burdy, 
 or school festival. And us all sittin' there with not 
 as much as a quarter of the tongue you could sup- 
 ply . . . sakes alive, I remember the time ..." 
 
 The gentle grilling of Miss Hetty might have 
 gone on further had Mary not suddenly remembered 
 her mission. She turned to walk to the porch. 
 
 " Hek ain't to home, Mary." 
 
 " That's likely, Liz. I see you was leaving 
 prompt this evening." 
 
 A slight flush ran over Miss Hetty's withered 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Maybe he's gone up to Cora already ? " in- 
 quired Mary. 
 
 " Maybe, Mary. Maybe not."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 205 
 
 Liz Hetty went down the path to the little white 
 gate and Mary turned the handle of the door. It 
 refused to open. She looked about for the key. 
 
 " Like as not Liz has it in her pocket an' will keep 
 it there till she thinks Hek's time to return home 
 will be kind of drawing close. Well it's no kind 
 of a day, or night, when Mary Settler had to climb 
 in through a winder because she wanted to wait 
 somebody's return to have a word in season, but 
 still . . . sure as I'm seven years the junior of 
 Miss Elizabeth Hetty, I can do it if it's necessary." 
 
 But neither window nor door would give to her 
 fingers. Miss Hetty had turned the house into 
 darkness for some reason or other, not yet plain 
 to Mary, but she sat down wearily on the porch 
 looking into the moonlight, and there she waited. 
 Time never had proved so profitable. She was de- 
 termined to see Hek alone and to do so she must 
 wait his return, even if he brought back Miss Hetty 
 with him to open the door. It did not worry her 
 ... it was an opportunity to think and to work 
 out the various parts of the several domestic tan- 
 gles growing like a web before her. She looked 
 back towards where her little cabin of a house lay 
 in the light. 
 
 " First of all ... those babies in my kitchen," 
 she said, and mentally turned the leaves of her day 
 ledger.
 
 206 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 The kitchen settee was not really wide enough 
 for even a small girl and a man quite so tall as 
 young Pendren. That is, not if there is stitching 
 to be done, and a good arm's length of cotton to 
 be considered. Spring wore a face as glowing as 
 a summer rose, and Pendren reclining just behind 
 her shoulder, had been telling her so many exciting 
 things about New York and his sister that an un- 
 expected warmth rushed all over her tender young 
 body. She positively burned with happiness. 
 
 " You were so right, Spring, about it being love 
 all through. Of course it could never be the proper 
 kind of stuff if it had any flaws in it. It would 
 be cheap at that . . . and that is why I want you 
 to trust me." 
 
 Spring looked over her shoulder; but his face 
 was so close to her ear that she could not keep her 
 eyes in that direction. 
 
 " Is it Benjamin you are talking of ? " she asked. 
 " Or someone much nearer yourself ? " 
 
 He smiled, she was so simple and sincere. 
 
 " I wasn't speaking of Benjamin at all." Pen- 
 dren took a deep breath. 
 
 " Of course it was someone much nearer myself. 
 Someone quite quite close. . . ." 
 
 " A relation in New York? " 
 
 " Not exactly, though my sister may be consid- 
 ered in it as well. You see she is older than I am
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 207 
 
 and usually takes me in hand. Before I can make 
 things quite plain to you, Spring, there is ... 
 something to be considered. All that has got to be 
 unraveled and this business of the firm's the affair 
 with Blessing. Listen to me, Spring, will you 
 promise me to stay with Mary till I'm through with 
 it; not to move as much as a foot to take work 
 or anything like that ? I'm bound to get this beastly 
 thing through in a day or so after I locate the people 
 I'm looking for." 
 
 " And when will you do that ? " 
 
 " Oh, possibly in a week ! I can't use my wrist 
 on the car for a time, but I'm going to hunt round 
 for a man to drive, and I'll get through very soon. 
 Then . . . my sister and New York . . . New York 
 for both of us and . . . " 
 
 Here Spring could hold the needle no longer. 
 She drove it through the material and left it there. 
 
 " Mr. Pendren," the voice and eyes were a child's. 
 " Would mother be in it, too? " 
 
 " Why, yes . . . and Prue and Elsa and Christine 
 and that cuddley baby." 
 
 She folded her hands in a way that suggested a 
 little silent prayer, and young Pendren, sitting there 
 so close, just touched her lightly round the waist. 
 
 " Spring Glory," he said, smiling, " you are the 
 most perfect thing that I've ever known. If I could 
 let my tongue go now ..."
 
 208 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " But it isn't only Spring Glory," said the girl, 
 raising herself and turning so as to face him di- 
 rectly. " It is not only Spring Glory." 
 
 " Hush," he said, " you can confess when I do. 
 There are so many things I've got to get right now 
 before we can start plans for home that I don't 
 want you to say a word. Not a little word ! Just 
 go on being you a little longer. I prefer you as 
 Spring Glory until I have the right to ... to ... 
 know you as something else." 
 
 There was a fine light in his face as he said this, 
 and Spring picked up her sewing again. Presently 
 he took a wooden chair at the table and picked 
 up a piece of paper and a pencil and tried to 
 write. 
 
 Spring put down her work. 
 
 " Why didn't you tell me you wanted to write, 
 and let me do it ? " she said. " It's ever so much 
 more interesting than the sewing." 
 
 But Pendren went on practicing to write with 
 his left hand. 
 
 " I must learn," he said. 
 
 In Mary's mind his case was undergoing a thor- 
 ough investigation meantime. She put it to herself 
 in this way. 
 
 " For all the world like givin' the place a proper 
 clean-out once in a while. Down comes the pic-
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 209 
 
 tures and ornaments off the bureau and up goes the 
 broom. My, but it's wonderful what you can raise 
 out of the dust behind them ornaments, even 
 counting in the once-a-day cleanin', never missed by 
 any kind of a mistake. Sometimes out of the dust 
 you can sort up all kinds of trouble that's got blown 
 there when you've left the winder shades too free, 
 and sometimes it's unexpected things comes out of 
 that same cleanings, and you're sort of surprised 
 and gladsome that you undertook the thorough turn- 
 out." 
 
 Her eyes wandered again across the fields to 
 where two golden eyes, the windows of her own 
 house, glowed in the misty darkness. 
 
 " Now Lancelot and my girl Spring come in on 
 that list of cleaning, same way. By leaving them 
 alone tonight makes it the precise moment when 
 unexpected things is going to come down in the 
 dust. The winders have been open free to the 
 light and fresh air ever since they met up in the 
 garden patch, and him wearing enough of it on his 
 bath slippers to convince me that the * mountain 
 had gone to Mahomet,' as the sayin' is. Well 
 . . . what's been hiding away behind the things in 
 Spring's and that young man's mind has got to 
 come down now. It's a clean sweep, and I'll be 
 collecting some most interesting things in my dust- 
 pan presently. I guess it will need the sifter to
 
 210 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 root out the precious bits of information I'm com- 
 ing across if there's much in the Roper, Graham P. 
 business but- that might have more of a blessing 
 in it than we've reckoned on." 
 
 As she surmised this Hek Dean came wandering, 
 dragging one leg, towards the back porch. He saw 
 Mary and signified it by a nod; then he took his 
 place on the step beside her without a word. 
 
 For a time there was nothing said; then the old 
 man rolled some tobacco leaves in his thin, knotted 
 hands. 
 
 " Minds me of the time we climbed Paradise 
 Hill, Mary," he said, curiously indifferent to the 
 fact that the woman might have been waiting there 
 an hour or more. " You mind that time . . . your 
 mother was mad as a hen off her setting of eggs 
 because we stopped out a bit longer than we had 
 ought to. I mind there was two winders in John- 
 son's house all lit by a banner lamp, that kep' up 
 a winkin' at us, and us taking as much notice as 
 we ... might be doing now. There was nothing 
 to freeze us home them days, Mary." 
 
 Mary replied with her eyes still set towards her 
 own place. 
 
 " The rheumatism hadn't worked up so familiar 
 then, Hek," she said. 
 
 The old man smoked silently for a few minutes, 
 then he said crisply :
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 211 
 
 " There was worse things than rheumatism then, 
 Mary. There was wimen's tongues ..." 
 
 " Same as this very present time, Hek," Mary 
 interrupted. 
 
 " Yes," he answered. " I was forgetting Liz 
 Hetty." 
 
 " You've no cause to forget Liz, or anything 
 she's done charitable for you lately, Hek. Doing 
 what she's doing at this time of life for you goes 
 in as part of things, just as much as climbing Para- 
 dise Hill when . . . when we were thicker of blood 
 and more easy roused." 
 
 " 'Tain't likely, Mary, I'm forgetting what Liz 
 does here be the day, or the night, for that matter, 
 now that she takes to coming back to put the poul- 
 tice on me chest for the pneumonia she's scared 
 I'd be getting. What's a poultice anyway, if it 
 comes regular as a man's pipe once of an evening? 
 Only difference is that I enjoys the pipe and I can't 
 say as how I likes the poultice quite the same. Liz 
 has a hefty way with her. She might be stacking 
 hot bricks on me chest, way she drops that linseed 
 plaster and shifts it about." 
 
 " It ain't depressed you any, Hek, all the same," 
 said Mary, still watching the windows of her own 
 little cabin across the dark fields. " And you ain't 
 got the pneumonia, nor cold, nor anything ram- 
 pageous in your lungs since Liz took to doping you.
 
 212 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Some folks would go down on their knees to Liz 
 Hetty for half as much." 
 
 " I wouldn't mind jest about half as much, but 
 Liz's plaster's twice the size an ordinary cow would 
 kick at." 
 
 " Cows is cows, and men is men," said Mary. 
 " I never put much on the fact of treating them 
 same way. Liz knows what's she's doing." 
 
 " Sure she does. She's got the key of that door 
 in her pocket now, so's I can't can't get in without 
 her knowing, and so's I'm not to excape the plas- 
 ter." He breathed deeply and went on smoking. 
 
 In the interval Mary turned her mind to the 
 reason of her visit. 
 
 " Did you see Cora? " 
 
 " Yep," shortly from Hek. 
 
 " And the baby ? It's as like you, Hek, as ... 
 as your two hands is like each other." 
 
 Hek turned suspicious eyes towards her; but she 
 had never taken hers from the windows across the 
 field. 
 
 " You'll allow there's a chain or two's difference 
 in our ages, I s'pose, Mary." Roused somewhat, 
 he let himself go very near being sarcastic. 
 
 " I dunno that there's as much as a chain or two, 
 Hek. I never found a man different to a baby in 
 misunderstanding himself in the whole course of 
 my life yet. When a woman marries she thinks
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 213 
 
 she's got what they calls a husband; well, if she 
 only calc'lated on it beforehand, and understood 
 jes' what she was going to undertake, she would 
 find she was starting her family right then, with a 
 very big trial that had to be fed and watered same 
 as anything else, of a different name." 
 
 Mary stood up on the step. Miss Elizabeth 
 Hetty was coming along the sidewalk and things 
 were likely to be taking a fresh turn. 
 
 Hek stood up, too, and there was that in his face 
 could not be kept out any longer. 
 
 " You got a mighty funny way of forgetting to 
 hang that key behind the water barrel, Liz," he 
 said. 
 
 " The water barrel ain't exactly the place, Hek, 
 to leave the key when there's tramps about, and 
 folks who come in and out as if the place belonged' 
 particular to them." She threw one sharp glance 
 at Mary and opened the door with the key. 
 
 " By a lot of ways I'm agreeing with you, Liz," 
 said the good Samaritan quietly, " but it's over late 
 to keep a man of Hek's years out in the cold, glued 
 to his own porch same as a cockroach waiting its 
 proper turn to get to something better. You'll be 
 needing to give him an extra dose of the linseed 
 and mustard before you goes home tonight." 
 
 She went down towards the little white gate and 
 through. All this time she had scarcely lost sight
 
 2i 4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 of her own windows which faced the porch, and 
 crossing the fields she kept them before her all the 
 way. 
 
 Presently she noticed something different in the 
 glowing eyes of the lamplight in her house. It was 
 a silhouette, distinctly outlined in the square in the 
 kitchen wall. Young Pendren had finished his let- 
 ter, carefully written with his left hand, and some- 
 thing had relieved his mind to the extent of making 
 him do the thing which had been in thought so 
 long. He crossed the kitchen to where Spring sat 
 stitching her little muslin frock. Mary saw him 
 stoop and raise the girl to her feet. His arms went 
 round her and she submitted to his tender kiss for 
 the first time in her life. Something seemed to 
 snap in the good woman's head as she watched the 
 picture. 
 
 " It's all the same," she said, standing there in 
 the patch of stubble oi. the garden, " it's all the 
 same if it's kisses or poultices . . . there's the 
 heart of the mother behind it all." 
 
 She wandered on. " Blessings have come down 
 in the dust same as other things," she said as she 
 scraped her feet on the door-iron.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WHEN Pendren rose deliberately from his chair 
 and left his letter on the table, Spring looked sur- 
 prised; but when he took hold of her as if she had 
 never grown up at all, and was just an armful of 
 something soft and lovable, she did not wonder 
 any more. He had so often held her wrists, or 
 her hands, or her shoulders, and this complete em- 
 brace seemed only in keeping; but ever so much 
 more tender and to her own taste, than any ex- 
 cited, hasty handling. 
 
 The young man started talking right away as if 
 he had just been putting some of it down in his 
 home letter. 
 
 " I asked you just now to trust me, Spring, and 
 to remain here not to move a foot from Mary's 
 house till . . . till I arranged to take you away." 
 He kissed her red, warm lips and something ran 
 into the girl's blood that had never been there 
 before. 
 
 The change sliowed in Her face. 
 
 " Do you know ... I don't think that I should 
 have done that But you looked so ... so abso- 
 
 215
 
 ai6 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 lutely eatable. Spring, I feel as if I would kill any 
 man who has as little right over you as I have if 
 ... if I'd seen him do a thing like that." 
 
 But Spring was just looking at him, and the 
 flame in her eyes and on her cheeks was not chiding 
 at all. 
 
 " There you are ! Fm about as ^inconsistent as 
 a summer breeze. I don't go to the point right 
 away, and I'm a long time getting there at all. 
 But you see ... dear, I can't explain myself until 
 . . . until I get an answer to that letter over there. 
 You'll try and believe and wait, won't you, 
 Spring?" 
 
 The simplicity that is in every man when love 
 invests his soul was springing into his eyes and 
 beating in his heart. Its pulses made him feel as 
 young in the world as the girl was. 
 
 "Do you mean, believe that you are good?" 
 asked Spring. 
 
 He touched her again gently, but her lips were 
 sacredly reverenced. 
 
 " Believe that I love you, Spring. Anything else 
 at present doesn't matter. Oh, my dear, there is 
 ever so much to tell you ! Ever so much to be ham- 
 mered out and put right! When this rotten busi- 
 ness of the firm's is fixed, and . . . and the 
 other ..." 
 
 " Something troublesome, is it ? "
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 217 
 
 " Something that is but a temporary obstacle, 
 dear, in ... in our future together." 
 
 " You mean in New York ? " 
 
 " Yes, in New York and . . . other places." 
 
 " Is it here the obstacle? " 
 
 Slowly he answered. " No, it is not here, thank 
 Heaven." 
 
 Spring put out her hand. " Do you know you 
 seem to be in as much trouble as our family ? " 
 
 " I believe I am," he replied, half smiling. " Only 
 that there is only me in it, now. You see, if I 
 didn't get through it all, safely, there would be you 
 and Prue and Christine and Elsa and that cuddley 
 baby and the most precious mother all in it, too. 
 I want to avoid that, and so if you stand by and 
 believe in me, dear, and wait . . . oh, there might 
 be ever so much waiting, because, you see ..." 
 
 The sudden noise of feet being scraped on the 
 door-iron stopped him. He put up a finger. " Re- 
 member, even Mary must not be told a word of 
 what I have been saying." 
 
 " You mean . . . about ..." 
 
 " About . . . well, about my loving you, Spring. 
 It's got to be a secret until all this business is set- 
 tled. You see, it might so turn out that I ... I 
 could never marry you, Spring." 
 
 He got no further, for Mary was at the door, 
 looking in. From her appearance and her de-
 
 218 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 meaner no one would have imagined that she had 
 heard anything, but those last words of his were 
 sticking in her heart, as hard and fast as if they 
 were knives driven there. 
 
 " When you are up against the band," she said 
 mentally, " an' the music some excitin', it's small 
 blame if your constitution does get up and shake 
 itself." 
 
 However, she made a few remarks while hanging 
 up her cape and bonnet, and turned to the two quite 
 easily. 
 
 " Hek's encouraging a chill or pneumonia some 
 by allowin' Liz Hetty her own way with his back 
 door key. Seems like them patent winder catches 
 might be useful, after all. You can't lock 'em up 
 any more'n you can unlock 'em, so there's safety 
 in bein' unable to break into your own house at 
 nights more often than not. Miss Hetty now ..." 
 
 But the silence with which the two received this 
 gave her a hint that she was talking too widely for 
 the present situation. 
 
 Spring was simmering under the young man's 
 last words, and she wanted more than anything 
 to ask him what he meant by them. Marrying him 
 had never suggested itself to her even when he had 
 confessed to loving her. Everybody loved her, ex- 
 cept her Aunt Susannah, she thought; and even she 
 might have if she had been a dutiful niece and had
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 219 
 
 not broken the things on the whatnot when she went 
 to stay with Aunt Susannah. 
 
 Pendren was lost to find out what he wanted to 
 do first. There on the table was a letter addressed 
 to somebody whose existence had never been men- 
 tioned by him, whose significance in his life had 
 not entered into his thoughts for the last month or 
 two. The address was showing as clearly as the 
 kitchen lamp on the table would permit, and what 
 was more, because of his infirmity, he had printed 
 it largely with his left hand. 
 
 Mary was not looking at the letter; but Pendren 
 felt uncertain about everything connected with his 
 visit in its presence. He began to take the place 
 of a thorough blackguard in his own opinion, for 
 having told the girl of his love. But no accusations 
 came from Mary, who sat down and leaned on the 
 table without seeming so much to glimpse at the 
 letter. 
 
 " You'll be turning that auto on pretty free to 
 running away in the morning, Mr. Pendren, sir, I 
 suppose," she said. " Spring will be wanting a ride 
 as far as the turn of the road; but no further. 
 Autos are dangerous and unrighteous things to sit 
 in, 'cept you're able to do it upside down occasion- 
 ally when the time comes for the reverse engines 
 business. Say, Spring, if it don't give you the hint 
 to strike a trail for your bed this very minute, then
 
 220 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 I'll have to carry you there meself, and I'm mortal 
 weary and upset about . . . Hek and Cora, jest at 
 present." 
 
 Spring folded her sewing slowly, although she 
 had done it before, but she fidgeted and pricked her 
 fingers, and finally went over to Pendren almost as 
 if he had called her to him. 
 
 " Good night," she said. " I won't be going in 
 the car. I'll I'll be helping Mary . . . and ..." 
 
 She wondered if he would kiss her again, and 
 stood there, almost waiting for him to. There 
 would have been no blush of shame or modesty if he 
 had stooped and touched her lips. In fact she ex- 
 pected him to do it; but as he stared at her, almost 
 strangely, she thought that the kiss must have been 
 part of the secret, and the mistake she had made 
 showed gradually in her cheeks, which paled 
 slightly. 
 
 " And making ready for that nice-looking job 
 I'm preparing for you, Spring, lovey," the good 
 woman finished for her. " You'll be seeing Mr. 
 Pendren in the morning to say good-by, so jest you 
 go to bed comfortable in your mind about any 
 benefits he might have had in his mind over New 
 York and fatting you up like a Thanksgivin' turkey. 
 It's good-by in the morning, an' you can sleep to- 
 night jest as usual. I guess we will both be kind 
 of sorry . . . but so will Miss Hetty for locking
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 221 
 
 Hek Dean out of his rightful place. Life is much 
 the same everywhere, here, or next door, or in 
 New York. You get me, Spring?" 
 
 But the girl did not understand. She passed 
 dreamily out of the kitchen and along to her room. 
 
 " Now if you'll jest take a corner of that settee 
 same as when Spring was setting there a while ago, 
 Mr. Pendren, sir, we'll come to business right 
 away." 
 
 Mary watched till he sat down wearily, then she 
 went express to the point. 
 
 " You've been kind of pulling a string on that 
 baby till you've got her almost tied to strangula- 
 tion. You needn't jump on the settee as if I was 
 throwing fire-rockets about. I don't blame you 
 none, Mr. Pendren. Spring's as fine a girl as will 
 ever go to the pickin's of an uncommon, high-level 
 woman. But all the same, we don't want her, as 
 I said before, pushed into something that don't suit 
 her, nor what she don't understand, any more than 
 we want her on exhibition for things as is not in 
 stock like they advertise in the papers, and never 
 has behind the counter. Say, Mr. Pendren, what 
 sort of a kind of a friend are you to Spring? That's 
 my job from this minute. I want to get on to the 
 tail-board of the cart that goes to the proper depot, 
 and I don't mean to upset that cart none because 
 I may seem overanxious to get to the truth in a
 
 222 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 hurry. No, sir, you're driving that same cart, 
 which is only a matter of fake, after all, an' I take 
 it you must be driving somewhere and expectin' me 
 to f oiler; as it's Spring being carted into the special 
 abode. Where's this fairy palace in New York, 
 and what's it all mean, anyhow ? Is it straight cut, 
 or an extra shuffle, and quite a couple of cards 
 under the table, nobody knows anything about? 
 I'm handing you out my honest opinions, sir, and I 
 want yours in return." 
 
 All this time Pendren was staring at the letter 
 on the table and Mary had not lifted her eyes from 
 his face. With an easiness born of experiences in 
 the business life of a great city and its daily exi- 
 gencies, he crossed the room and picked up the 
 letter. " You are quite right to ask me that, Mary," 
 he said with a masculine attempt to cover any con- 
 fusion there might be in his breast. " Spring is, 
 as you say, an uncommonly fine girl, and . . . and 
 if it's to be New York for her . . . well, we'll all 
 drive there presently." 
 
 He smiled at Mary and used her own simile to 
 dispel anxiety. 
 
 " All drive there . . . meanin' me on top of the 
 cart, same as yourselves ? " 
 
 " Why, sure ! Spring will need careful han- 
 dling. And she will need someone she loves to be 
 with her. I would never dream, either, of separat-
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 223 
 
 ing you, Mary. She has grown into your heart, 
 I can see, as she has grown into . . . into . . ." 
 
 He found himself getting out of his depth again. 
 The letter in his hand idly pressed against his side, 
 reminded him of what he should not say. He 
 balked, swallowed the rest of his words, and let the 
 good woman finish for him. 
 
 " As she has grown into yours, Mr. Pendren, 
 sir. Now I'm not blaming that. Anyone who could 
 resist Spring half an hour after seeing her, and 
 hearing her talk in the quaint way she's got, would 
 have to be cast in clean steel." 
 
 Mary rose from the table. 
 
 " There's things in this dope I can't understand, 
 Mr. Pendren. I can't swaller any more till you've 
 set certain things right in it. Now I'm not asking 
 you, but I've got something to tell you. Did that 
 baby ever give you her right name ? " 
 
 " No, and for the reason that I forbade it. Mary, 
 I want to play fair, and until I can " 
 
 Mary threw up her hands. " Sakes alive," she 
 queried, with something of pain in her eyes, " is it 
 a double deal and both of you with cards on the 
 floor? Look here, Mr. Pendren, sir, it's all on ac- 
 count of that dear, sweet, precious woman as is 
 mother to Spring that she and me has been keeping 
 back her really and truly name. This is precisely 
 the corner of the road, sir, where we stops dead as
 
 224 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 a shot rabbit and finds ourselves never so much 
 alive in the whole course of our lives. My! when 
 Spring opened out the Glory part of her name clean 
 on to you like an electric spot-lamp comin' sudden 
 and a bit too familiar into your face, and you ex- 
 pecting nothing more than an ordinary buggy lamp, 
 well, I says to myself, Spring has got her own rea- 
 sons, and after a bit I says to myself that it works 
 as good as a door catch to keep out anything that 
 hasn't yet been handed out an entrance ticket; but 
 now that I steps into the thing with two feet scraped 
 clean of the mud and the road dirt, and you tell 
 me that you haven't been playing fair ... I'm 
 clean to frazzles. Mary Settler, sir, is a remnant, 
 with a bargain-sale card clean tacked on to her from 
 this time forward. I'm down from the two-and-a- 
 half -dollar table to the five-and-twenty-cents. My 
 experience is cheap, sir; human nature isn't my line 
 at all. . . . Dear Lord, but it makes me feel I'm 
 to blame, sir ... yes, to blame, for as sure as 
 you're born I've been sticking Spring up in your 
 face, same as if she was something you been hunt- 
 ing for and was mighty particular about the finding 
 of. I been ..." 
 
 Perspiration and tears were streaming down her 
 face and she stopped to wipe it with her sleeve. 
 
 " You want to be fair, you say, Mr. Pendren ? 
 That's precisely my case. Spring isn't above the
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 225 
 
 age to play tricks on a fellow when he's acting fool- 
 games like you were on, that time she sets in the 
 hammock trying to look as lively as any grown-up, 
 but me ... Mary Settler, don't sit looking on any 
 longer than it takes for her to get a terrible un- 
 pleasant slap to jump clean out of her seat and 
 speak her mind. I've brought all this upon you, 
 Mr. Pendren, sir; I've made an uncommon heap of 
 leaving a syrup tart in the oven when it's scarcely 
 out of the dough stage, and me hammering my 
 tongue something frightful to get Spring to desert 
 you and leave you without any real knowledge of 
 the case. Oh, I've schemed and trapped you, Mr. 
 Pendren, sir, and here you want to get up and say 
 ' you want to play fair,' as if it was you to blame all 
 the time. No, sir, Mary Settler has clean knocked 
 the tack out of the wall and brought down the 
 imitation sword of Dam somebody or other, and 
 it's all my fault from the start ! " 
 
 Here young Pendren tried to get a word in. He 
 did not understand what she was referring to. The 
 good woman was humbling herself so that he felt 
 almost certain she had seen the letter on the table. 
 
 " But I have not played fair ... I mean I can't 
 play fair to Spring until until I get certain things 
 fixed," he stammered out. 
 
 " And that's precisely our case again, Mr. Pen- 
 dren, sir," said Mary. " There's Clara Hopkins in
 
 226 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 it, too, and Spring, who's only a baby same as her 
 mother is, and we been . . . just as you put it ... 
 unable to play fair till we got certain things fixed. 
 Now this is the turn of the road, sir, just where it 
 says, ' Keep to the right,' or ' Go slow, there's rocks 
 ahead/ or something mortal uncomfortable like 
 that, sir, and I guess we better see what's round the 
 corner before we go an inch further. Now, 
 Spring " 
 
 " One minute ! " Pendren stayed her. " The 
 business that is keeping me from playing a straight 
 game with Spring can be settled and done with 
 under two weeks, I hope. Will you allow things to 
 remain as they are until then? I shall have run 
 through to Ladybird, if that is the name of the 
 place where these Roper people are, and by that 
 time I have an answer to the letter I wrote tonight, 
 I can then go to Spring and and ..." 
 
 Mary was holding her face as if it would drop 
 off. 
 
 " Seems like as if I was jes' goin' to put me 
 feet into something mighty hot be the look of it, 
 but cold as ice water to those whose experiences are 
 better than mine are," she cried distressfully. 
 " Now, as you're going to give me a chance again, 
 sir, to trust you, sure I'm going to do it, and all 
 I ask is that you'll do the same by me." 
 
 " What ? Trust you, Mary ? "
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 227 
 
 " Jest as far as Ladybird, Mr. Pendren, sir. I 
 got another scheme, which won't be so far out in 
 setting things right, from our side, within a matter 
 of twenty-four hours. Sakes, I'll never sleep easy 
 in me mind till that twenty-four hours is over." 
 
 Pendren smiled. "If your side is right, then per- 
 haps mine may be righting itself a bit, except that 
 that letter . . . has to be posted and I must receive 
 an answer." 
 
 Mary waved a finger at him. 
 
 " Leave that letter be, and let us get the can- 
 opener on to the very best idea I ever had. Mr. 
 Pendren, sir, take Spring alongside of you to Lady- 
 bird; she knows that part of the country like she 
 knows her mother. Take Spring, sir, just for luck 
 to your winning the case." 
 
 There was something so twinkling in Mary's eyes 
 as she said this that Pendren thought he was losing 
 some special point to her. 
 
 " You can drop her at her own mother's place 
 when she's given you direction, and you're keen on 
 turning on the Graham P. affair that's upsetting all 
 your pa's money bags. The run would please 
 Spring and clean elevate things before you get 
 started because if the day don't turn out good 
 that girl will give you the sunshine in her heart." 
 
 "If the day don't turn out good, Mary? You 
 mean ? "
 
 228 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " There's days, and days, Mr. Pendren. It 
 might just happen that Spring and your day might 
 be proved by your losing your case." 
 
 " I'm going to win my case," said the young 
 man, with rising color. " I can bluff all I know on 
 to that Roper crowd, but it is something else that 
 is worrying me. Something at home in New 
 York " 
 
 Mary began to straighten up the kitchen. 
 
 " Get your letter to the post, sir, and just when 
 you are ready to set out for Ladybird, Spring will 
 be going home to her ma. You can drop her jest 
 where she tells you, and no surprises, if you don't 
 find out the rest of your way." 
 
 " Yes," said Pendren, leaving the kitchen. " I 
 think the very first thing will be for me to mail 
 that letter."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 " LOOKS like as if things had got a wrong twist, 
 and wasn't goin' to work nearly as well as we 
 thought, Mary," said Clara Hopkins, coming right 
 into the kitchen late the next afternoon. 
 
 Mary, who was turning out a pantry off the 
 kitchen, put her head round the door. 
 
 " Set down, Clara ; some things works better with 
 a twist than with otherwise. Minds me of the clock 
 I had once. Nothing you could do under earth or 
 heaven would start it workin' proper. Then we 
 turns it upside down. Well, from that day onward 
 we got the correct time, and had to pretty nigh 
 stand on our finger nails to do it. If you stood that 
 clock up as much as a second on to its feet there 
 was a pull up with a regular street-car grind, but 
 if you left her misplaced on her head, which was 
 her alarm signal, ordinary hours, she went through 
 her turn regular as something paid to do it. Now 
 things here is pretty much like that. I've got Spring 
 and that Q. L. P. away in the auto which is as 
 much of a twist on things as that old crazy clock. 
 
 " If I'd done what was usual, I suppose I'd have 
 kept Spring behind, seeing that it was against com- 
 
 229
 
 230 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 mon ordinary sense to let her go as far as the gate 
 even with the discovery I made last night. Oh, yes, 
 Clara, I've in mind that old clock . . . why, folks 
 wouldn't believe me when I told them that she 
 works her inside, upside down. . . . Well, this 
 Graham P. business has as much chance as that 
 clock had, and is likely to work out something 
 useful if we let it have its own way, even topsy- 
 turvy ways as the case looks like now." 
 
 " Well, I don't agree with you, Mary. Why, I 
 seen it myself ! " 
 
 "Seen what?" 
 
 " I seen it in Benjamin's hand." 
 
 " Has Benjamin been stopping up your place this 
 morning, then ? I dunno what you could see in his 
 hand other than a few cracks of the yard dirt he 
 hadn't time to get rid of, me being out of the 
 common yeller soap and no time to think about it. 
 P'r'aps you been making palmistry lines and look- 
 ing into the future jes' by him opening his hands 
 for you. That's a thing I never could abide. 
 Providence don't see fit to put us up to points like 
 that, though they will try and convince you that 
 half a dollar scraped in the palm of your hand is 
 as good as looking into a kind of goldfish bowl and 
 making fancy pictures outter nothing jes' to try and 
 keep that half-dollar. What you saw in Benja- 
 min's hand must be like that old clock, gain ..."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 231 
 
 " I seen the letter, Mary. The letter Mr. Pen- 
 dren give him to mail." 
 
 " An' that's something to go on with," answered 
 Mary, returning to her shelves. 
 
 " It's more to go on with than we reckoned on, 
 Mary. Did you see who it was written to?" 
 
 Mary answered from her work behind the pantry 
 door. 
 
 " I didn't happen, Clara, to come that close to 
 Benjamin so as to be able to interpret things he 
 held in his hand. What was on the letter ? " 
 
 " It was addressed to Mrs. Lancelot Pendren. 
 Land, Mary, you mind the day we made a list of 
 his things? Four pair of silk socks? 'Course we 
 might have known why ? " 
 
 "Why?" Mary's voice came easily from the 
 shelves. 
 
 " Why ? 'Cos when a man's away from his home 
 and wife, he don't stop to darn his socks. That's 
 why he carries four pair and the ones he had on 
 him. I'd have thought, Mary, that you would have 
 picked out that information long ago. I mus' admit 
 to having my suspects ever so long." 
 
 Mary came out of the pantry carrying an armful 
 of miscellaneous boxes. 
 
 " Clara, you're for all the world like the things 
 behind my closet door. Got to be taken clean out 
 to the yard and have the dust shaken off them be-
 
 232 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 fore we can get the contents of the boxes into our 
 hands ! Now what's under all this you are choking 
 over? Suppose that letter was addressed to Mrs. 
 Lancelot Pendren, I didn't have need to side-track 
 Benjamin to see what he carried to the post, for 
 that young man standing here last night was as 
 good as telling me things without opening his 
 mouth. What if it was addressed to Mrs. Lancelot 
 Pendren ! " 
 
 " Sakes alive, Mary . . . did it never hit you 
 that she would be his wife? " 
 
 " You mean Spring, Clara ? I'm stacking my 
 chips for that all along." 
 
 Clara beat her hands together. 
 
 " Not Spring. How could she, with him writing 
 letters to Mrs. Lancelot Pendren?" 
 
 " 'Course she could, Clara. I've known cases 
 more likely than that. Now you wouldn't have 
 thought that old clock could go on telling the truth 
 standing on her head, but she did . . . so in the case 
 of Spring and Q. L. P. There's more in the workin' 
 of the whole thing than we could ever understand. 
 Look here, Clara " she came forward and stood 
 with the dust on her face and the fighting spirit in 
 her eyes, " we're only two very ordinary, common 
 sparrow kinder people. Folks would pass us by 
 and never know we got anything out of the usual 
 to themselves, and us all the time raking about for
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 233 
 
 information about what really don't concern us at 
 all ... but at the same time we are only ordinary 
 sparrow kind of people, you and I, and we can't 
 see deep enough into things because of that. 
 
 " Now, when I turned that clock upside down, 
 and it started going right away, it was only a 
 try-on a fluke and so's this case of Spring. I've 
 clean turned things topsy-turvy on purpose to see 
 just what might happen presently. If I'd done 
 what was perfectly right by that old clock I should 
 have scrapped it to a hawker at the door for old 
 iron, or something, and same with Spring. If I'd 
 done what would have been perfectly correct ac- 
 cording to opinions, I should have tossed Q. L. P. 
 out on his neck into the middle of the next street 
 and shut Spring up in my pantry here, but I 
 didn't. I turned things upside down, I tell you, 
 and I'm trusting in Providence to set the works 
 going good and proper." 
 
 " But the letter to his wife? " 
 
 " I haven't calc'lated, Clara, on it being to his 
 wife at all. Same way as I never calc'lated on that 
 old clock doing one thing out of the ordinary. 
 Leave it be, Clara; things may appear upside down 
 and contrariwise now, but they'll be right-side up 
 presently. Why, did you never take a peep under 
 the back-cloth of a photographer's picture camera? 
 Everything is bottom end up, and yet the very
 
 234 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 things being photographed sitting as straight and 
 proper as you and me at this moment. You'd 
 swear the lady being taken was not altogether in 
 her right mind, Clara, to be posing there with her 
 feet, so to speak, in the air and the roof under 
 where her toes ought to be, but . . . it's quite all 
 right, and she's sitting ordinary, and like any Chris- 
 tian, when you look over the camera and see for 
 yourself." 
 
 Clara took out her tatting. She was busy these 
 days, and always brought a little sewing or hand 
 embroidery along to work on as she talked. 
 
 " Well, I suppose there is something in that, 
 Mary," she admitted, " though you won't be ex- 
 actly sweating up things till you know, about our 
 fitting Spring for her visit to New York." 
 
 " Indeed I'll be up at Jake Heldy's store to- 
 morrow if it's a fine day, just looking round like, 
 case there's a roll marked twenty below cost and 
 kind of suitable to underclothes for Spring." 
 
 " And I guess you'll be taking another loan on 
 the property from Hek same as you did lately to 
 recompense that wooden-headed Mark Spinney and 
 Cora. Everybody knows Hek didn't pay that 
 money because there was a baby comin' into the 
 world, Mary." 
 
 " It's certain sure he didn't pay it then, Clara, 
 because that same baby and his own flesh and blood
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 235 
 
 was no consideration to him at all. Hek's that 
 pleased he went right along to Cora and stopped 
 a spell. It wasn't borrowin' the money at all, I 
 promise you. It was jest as good as a christening 
 cup to the new baby, though Hek wouldn't like 
 you to be mentioning it. You see he's ruled these 
 days by the love and influence of Liz Hetty, and 
 perhaps that done it, or the way she treats him 
 makes him soft-like . . ." 
 
 " Liz Hetty never made anybody soft-like in her 
 life. She'd make a tiger spring the wrong way to 
 get out of sight of her, rather than anything else ! " 
 
 " Well, Hek don't take no springing job lately, 
 and her looking his way pretty often in the day. I 
 don't mind sayin', Clara, that Hek is this very min- 
 ute lying in bed with a linseed and mustard poultice 
 on his chest for pneumonia, and Miss Hetty as 
 scared as anything it might turn to both lungs 
 'stead of one." 
 
 " She'll be marryin' Hek presently when he's 
 least aware of it, Mary, if somebody don't step up 
 and save him in time." 
 
 "Save him? Mercy, Clara, save a man from 
 being looked after by a proper loving wife? " 
 
 " Tisn't love at all, Mary. I know all about 
 that." 
 
 Mary caught her eye. " Then I'm not arguing 
 anything, Clara. You got experience perhaps I
 
 236 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 missed. Though I dunno. . . . When I went 
 through my turn years ago it was kind of topsy- 
 turvy also, like the old clock. But no matter how 
 I worked it, there was no regular ticking inside." 
 
 She carried the boxes, well dusted, into the pan- 
 try again. 
 
 " If it was real love, Mary, it didn't stop work- 
 ing all the same." 
 
 Clara bent to her tatting and talked slowly and 
 deliberately. She knew that Mary's eyes had gone 
 from her face. 
 
 " I suppose so, Clara," came slowly from the 
 pantry. 
 
 " If a woman . . . keeps true, Mary, no matter 
 how long, or how hard it's been, he's sure to come 
 back to her, somehow or other, even if it's in the 
 grave." 
 
 A short period of silence reigned in the kitchen, 
 then Mary climbed down from the shelves. She 
 spoke from the pantry floor, where she waited, al- 
 though there was nothing more to be done in there. 
 
 " From the grave, Clara . . . yes, I suppose so ; 
 but if it's . . . another woman?" 
 
 " It's all the same ... if it's love." 
 
 After this Mary bustled about the kitchen and 
 Clara said no more. Something of the sandpaper 
 surface of her nature had been smoothed to an 
 evenness which almost made her gentle of voice.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 237 
 
 Benjamin had that morning remained in her 
 kitchen without shuffling and awkwardly raising the 
 dust, and what was more, he had talked like a man 
 to her. A man . . . she was aching and longing 
 to tell Mary some of the things he had said. 
 
 She began presently. 
 
 " Mary, I was jest thinking. Benjamin . . . 
 Benjamin's 'most like that that old clock of 
 yours." 
 
 " 'Specks he is ! " from Mary, as she wiped down 
 the table and put the cloth on for supper. 
 
 " He says outright to me today, Mary, that I got 
 a right to marry him and no one to blame if I don't." 
 
 " Eh ? Benjamin's getting over free, Clara, but 
 I suppose it's his way." 
 
 " Yes . . . and I was thinking what you said 
 of the clock, Mary. It's all topsy-turvy, that's what 
 love is. I'm years over Benjamin and more like 
 to be his mother than . . . than his wife." 
 
 " Meaning he'll chance a turning upside down 
 and a thorough good hard spanking when things 
 don't go right, Clara. Land, if that's Benjamin's 
 idea of matrimony, it's the surest case of love." 
 
 " I'm sure I dunno which way to take him," said 
 Clara, putting up her work. Mary came forward 
 and touched her on the shoulder. 
 
 " Take him . . . anyway, Clara, upside down, or 
 right side up. You'll find it will work just as well."
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE car was running gently down the long road. 
 Pendren was finding things awkward with his bad 
 wrist and trying to manage as best he could by 
 giving the bulk of the work to his good hand. 
 
 Spring sat next to him with her fingers clasped 
 round a prodigious bundle Mary had intrusted to 
 her care. In the bundle were gifts ranging from 
 fresh eggs to gayly-colored hair ribbons and sashes, 
 from Mary to the family. 
 
 As the car swung sharply into a length of 
 road not so uneven as that previously crossed, 
 young Pendren looked into Spring's face. 
 
 " And all the time," he said quietly, " I am won- 
 dering why Mary let you come." 
 
 " But I had to go home somehow," said Spring. 
 " I'm ever so delighted to be here with you. I like 
 the car because, though it is jolty every now and 
 then, it isn't nearly so dangerous as Jerry Grab's 
 horse and cart. It had a temper of its own and 
 no mistake ! " 
 
 Pendren smiled. 
 
 " Same here," he said. " I never can trust this 
 machine to go well just when I want it to. That's 
 
 238
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 239 
 
 why I'm wondering why Mary let you come. You 
 see, if we had a breakdown now, you'd have to 
 tramp a long way on foot to the railway, or else 
 put up with me under the hedge there till somebody 
 passed this way." 
 
 He was joking because it pleased him to try her. 
 
 "If the moon came out and it wasn't chilly it 
 wouldn't be so fearfully bad," Spring said simply. 
 " I've always loved looking at the moon, and it 
 would be ever so much better with you." 
 
 She was looking directly at him when she said 
 this, and the sincerity of her whole nature made 
 him creep cold for an instant. He leaned forward 
 till his lips nearly touched hers, but a twinge of 
 conscience made him spring back and adjust the 
 levers of the machine as an excuse for not having 
 kissed her. Mary's words of the previous night 
 were rustling about in his ears. " If you are going 
 to give me a chance to trust you, Mr. Pendren, 
 I'm going to do it . . . and I ask you to do the 
 same by us." 
 
 He thought of the letter written to New York, 
 which he knew would create a sudden storm, and 
 perhaps deluge this girl and her little life with sor- 
 row. He had not intended that that should happen 
 when he had expressed his love for her. 
 
 As he spun the car along he knew how much he 
 wanted her love and her purity of mind and soul.
 
 240 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 He knew too that the business that was troubling 
 him in New York was a matter of getting rid of 
 a certain tie which seemed almost to be choking 
 him now. He had no more right to think of offer- 
 ing Spring any part in his life than he had to think 
 of claiming a part in hers, because she had poured 
 out some of her soul to him. But all the time he was 
 aching . . . longing to know the state of her 
 heart, and if she would wake up from her childish- 
 ness at his touch and return in full measure the 
 ardent feelings he carried in his own soul ? 
 
 Again he took a hurried look at her. 
 
 " Spring Glory," he said lightly. She seemed to 
 be dreaming again, but his words awakened her 
 quickly. 
 
 " Shall I tell you the rest now, or shall we wait 
 till you see mother? " 
 
 " We will wait," he said, and became very serious. 
 " Tell me," he continued, as they directed the car 
 into another corrugated country road, " tell me, do 
 you know Bird Town well? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, we know nearly all the people there. 
 You see, father ..." 
 
 She stopped. Mary had particularly reminded 
 her in leaving that it would be as well if she said 
 nothing of her family affairs at all until her mother 
 had met the young man. She remembered this now 
 and closed her lips.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 241 
 
 " Do you mind," she said presently, as he was 
 still looking at her, " . . . if I don't say any more 
 just now? Mother can tell you all about every- 
 thing. You see, I generally put things all out of 
 place. Once I told somebody that my Aunt Su- 
 sannah was only twenty-seven because I thought I 
 heard her saying she was, but mother told me after- 
 wards that it was my mistake, and that Aunt Su- 
 sannah wasn't referring to her age at all. I was 
 quite certain I had heard her rightly, but mother 
 seemed to know just as well; besides . . . Aunt 
 Susannah was quite fifty or sixty at the time. I 
 have had to be ever so careful of what I say, 
 since ..." 
 
 Pendren opened the throttle of the car a little 
 more and let it out for a long-distance run. Spring's 
 cheeks reddened in the glorious rippling wind, and 
 her eyes took into them glowing points that might 
 have been fear or expectation. Pendren gripped 
 the steering-wheel, although he wanted to pull up 
 and take her into his arms then and there. 
 
 His mind veered to the purpose of this drive. 
 Since Spring had written that letter to his father 
 for him concerning the business which had brought 
 him to this part of the country, he had not been able 
 to discuss the subject with her. She had almost 
 chided him when he had explained to Mary and to 
 her something of the nature of that business, and
 
 242 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 her words : " You ought to give them what is theirs 
 without a fight ! " stuck in his mind. He was not 
 nearly so keen on wrestling with the affair as he 
 had been. These last few weeks with such 
 women as Mary and Spring had completely altered 
 him. If this crowd called Roper were only women, 
 whom it would be easy to bluff or bribe, he did not 
 quite know that it would be playing the game to do 
 it. So he let the matter drop and resolved not to 
 mention it to Spring again. 
 
 When they were starting out, Mary had said to 
 him: 
 
 " Spring will be as good as a finger-board to you, 
 Mr. Pendren, once you touch Bird Town, or Lady- 
 bird, where her mother lives. You follow her di- 
 rections and you'll see she'll not send you wrong." 
 
 He had no idea of the double meaning in Mary's 
 words, and she had chanced Spring's not revealing 
 her real name during the run to the district. 
 
 The car purred gently where the roads were level 
 and well-made. Rows of raspberry bushes and 
 young fruit trees on the farms nearby opened and 
 closed like a huge fan as the two in the car passed 
 them. Objects came rapidly into view at the top 
 of the hill, flashed alongside, and then fell behind 
 them like things shown on a sheet. The air whis- 
 tled and whined in the girl's ears and the car swung 
 a little to right or to left, almost jumping obstacles.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 243 
 
 Pendren did not dare look at Spring again. His 
 heart was beating violently and his pulses were like 
 the things whistling past. Almost heedlessly he in- 
 creased the speed a little and they went spinning 
 at a greater rate than ever down the long open 
 road. Spring had never before felt herself being so 
 rapidly rushed through space. 
 
 The car was going at three, four, or five times 
 the speed that Jerry Grab's horse had gone after it 
 had lost all sense of direction and restraints. 
 Spring thought of that now, but no fear entered 
 her mind. Of course the pace made the car a little 
 too bumpy to be quite comfortable, but then the 
 road was hardly fit for a town car. When she was 
 lifted bodily towards the side of the seat where the 
 young man was adjusting levers and working the 
 wheel this way and that, she apologized for nearly 
 knocking his cap off. But he did not seem to hear 
 her; his teeth were set into his lip and his face was 
 wrung with pain. 
 
 When the car tipped awkwardly and struck a 
 stubble-edged corner of the next road, Pendren was 
 thrown against her. Her right ear came in contact 
 with his collar so suddenly and harshly that she 
 felt the edge of it almost cut into the flesh. The 
 car righted itself, but no word was spoken. Pen- 
 dren did not even apologize for the jolt. Before 
 them another long-distance road was opening out
 
 244 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 and disclosing ragged edges of country on either 
 side. 
 
 Spring stole a side glance at Pendren. He was 
 frowning and working as if he were trying to get 
 even greater speed out of the machine. But as a 
 matter of fact he was doing nothing of the sort. 
 He had for the moment lost control of the car, 
 and the stiffness of the levers which had been 
 repaired in the period of his recovery from the 
 accident refused to give to his persuasion. He man- 
 aged to fret himself into a fever of wrath at the 
 obstinacy of the gear and the weakness of his wrist. 
 The long road was empty and safe enough, for- 
 tunately, and he reckoned on being able to get his 
 machinery well in hand before any dangerous turns 
 or sidings hove in sight. 
 
 " Thank God she does not understand," he said 
 mentally. " If it had been my sister or . . ." 
 The difference in the town and country woman gave 
 him a sudden breath of relief. Without looking 
 at Spring, he spoke. 
 
 "Enjoying . . . it?" he questioned as if there 
 was nothing wrong. 
 
 " It . . . it's . . . like . . . being beaten up ... 
 in a bowl . . . or a cup, like ... an egg," said 
 Spring, and laughed in the full breeze of whistling 
 air. 
 
 " Good Lord . . " Pendren did not feel like
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 245 
 
 smiling, but the knowledge that she was absolutely 
 unafraid reassured him. 
 
 Again he wrestled with his gear, and the car 
 rushed along and shook itself, and danced over the 
 road very like an impetuous lady who would not 
 stop her merry ways. But the end of the third long 
 road was coming into view. Pendren could not 
 see what lay beyond it, so he called to Spring 
 again. 
 
 " Are we anywhere near Bird Town? " 
 
 Spring gripped the seat to prevent herself going 
 right into his lap as she replied. 
 
 " We passed it half an hour ago ! At least it 
 looked like Bird Town, but we went so quickly, and 
 it wasn't through the principal street. Oh, yes, that 
 is old Mary Blind's farm over the rise there. We 
 must be very near Ladybird Farm. Oh, there's 
 the Willow Bend, and soon we shall see the . . . 
 river." 
 
 She was so elated at the idea that they were near 
 the fields and farms she was familiar with that she 
 almost stood up in the car, but Pendren, who had 
 not yet got control of the levers, shouted to her to 
 sit down. 
 
 " What . . . 's that ? Something about a bend 
 and a ... river. Where ? Good God ! " 
 
 Spring took another side look at him. 
 
 " You will have to stop near the first field and
 
 246 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 we will take the panel out. You see the river. . . . 
 Oh, it isn't much of a river . . . but we all call it 
 the river because we are so proud of having it run 
 through our field. It is only a cutting, really, with 
 very little water in it at any time of the year, but 
 still ..." 
 
 The young man with the fear in his eyes heard 
 this and interrupted her roughly. 
 
 " Only a cutting. . . . Do you mean . . . it is a 
 precipice? Because this car, . . . Spring ..." 
 He put his nearest arm right round her suddenly. 
 " We've got to jump unless I can move this under 
 five minutes. Less than that! How far is the 
 river ... or cutting? Is there a turning in these 
 endless fences. Quick ! " 
 
 Scarcely understanding, the girl pointed ahead. 
 
 " The cutting runs right across this road at the 
 foot there. There is a slope before you come to 
 it and one up the other side. We could dash right 
 across if the water was low, but I have forgotten 
 exactly how much water there was a few weeks 
 ago." 
 
 " A slope you mean we can't get over the edge. 
 We can run down and across if the water is low. 
 Spring, we have got to chance it. I'll hold you, 
 dear, and we will pray that there may be water 
 in it. Great Heavens ! " 
 
 Before he had finished speaking, the road showed
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 247 
 
 in a long decline that sloped gradually into the cut- 
 ting and ended there in a high bank on the other 
 side. The car would stop either in the middle of 
 the cutting or dash right into the bank opposite. 
 As yet Pendren could not see and again he prayed 
 that there might be sufficient water to break the 
 force of the crash that was impending. 
 
 Down the slope the car went, doubling her speed. 
 He moved the wheel over to turn the machine along 
 the bed of the cutting. With a ripping, tearing noise 
 of falling stones and earth the car swung round and 
 half tipped over. Pendren went over the side with 
 the girl in his arms. The machine grated and 
 whirred for a while before the water rose over it 
 and stopped the engine. 
 
 The bed of the so-called river consisted mainly of 
 sand, loose rocks, and debris, which had silted up 
 into a kind of plateau just where the two were 
 thrown. Pendren felt the sharpness of thorns 
 sticking into his flesh, and a dead weight on his 
 body. How long the weight was going to keep him 
 pinned to the thorn bushes and stones he was afraid 
 to think; but even as he thought about it a wash 
 of river water thrown off by the car engine as it 
 expired revived him. He realized that the weight 
 on his body was Spring. She had clung to him in 
 falling and had fainted. He struggled up suf- 
 ficiently to see what had happened to her, and was
 
 248 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 thankful to find that the girl showed no broken 
 bones, or injuries to be alarmed about. 
 
 The car half buried in the slush of mud and water 
 a few yards away looked a derelict, abandoned and 
 useless. Beyond the stretch of silt on which 
 Spring and Pendren had been thrown ran a spinning 
 eddy of liquid which might have been water, but 
 which looked more like fly-clogged syrup. 
 
 Sitting up among the brambles and stones, with 
 the water lapping against his knees, and Spring half 
 in it, Pendren took another look at the girl. She 
 might have been asleep; only the paleness of her 
 cheeks told him that she was unconscious. 
 
 Pendren dragged her knees out of the slush of 
 evil-smelling water. Then before getting up he 
 raised her face to his. 
 
 With the burning of his kiss she opened her eyes 
 and looked right at him. Her lips went to his again 
 of her own accord. 
 
 " I'm so glad ... we were . . . together," she 
 said.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE sweet summer day burst the covers of the 
 night as quickly and deliberately as a chaste lady 
 stepping from her couch to see what delights lay in 
 the golden warmth of the morning. 
 
 Sunshine, flecked with a myriad of dancing aerial 
 phantoms, lay over Ladybird Farm, and the peace 
 of perfect understanding seemed to be everywhere. 
 
 Humming insects darted through the open win- 
 dow of Pendren's room and chased each other 
 through the web of sunshine into the corners and 
 out through the window again. Fragrant things 
 of fragile bearing and delicate proportions woke 
 him to a sense of something that might have been 
 paradise; but he knew that he was in bed, and that 
 his haven of rest was Ladybird Farm. 
 
 Somebody called " Most Precious Mother " had 
 met them, when he and Spring had waded through 
 the mud, and in a dreadful state of cuts and bruises 
 were making for the farm. She bathed their 
 wounds and cared for them with the fondness of 
 a parent who knows only the sorrows of others, 
 and has the power to relieve with the divine sym- 
 pathy and love of a pure mind. 
 
 249
 
 250 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 There had been little talk of anything except the 
 runaway car on their arrival at the farm, and then 
 Spring had taken entire possession of the family 
 which seemed to appear from every corner of the 
 place. 
 
 Pendren, as he remained in a kindly embrace of 
 charitable sheets, had mental visions of small people 
 who peeped and pried at odd corners of the veranda 
 from which his bedroom led. These small people 
 had had so much consideration for " Spring's gen- 
 tleman," as he heard himself called, that they had 
 taken turns to patrol that part of the veranda, and 
 kept up a patter of small toes and heels till the most 
 precious mother carried them away in installments. 
 
 He had come from the most blessed sleep, undis- 
 turbed by dreams of any kind, and awakened to the 
 freshness of the morning. Fields well flooded with 
 sunshine spread out before the house and wound 
 into paths of beaten gold. He was in a room, bare 
 of anything but his bed, a chair with a rush bottom, 
 and a parti-colored rug which lay across the floor. 
 Dried grasses seemed to be under his head and he 
 wondered what composed the bed he lay on. Most 
 of the things about seemed to be home-made, per- 
 haps woven by the fingers of the sweet-voiced 
 woman he had seen, with cleanliness and comfort 
 everywhere. 
 
 He thought of Spring, of the kiss given so nat-
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 251 
 
 urally and taken so much as part of a complete 
 whole, that whole being their mutual understanding 
 and love. Yes, he was sure it was love on her part 
 as well as on his; but she had yet to experience 
 awakening to the meaning of all that love meant. 
 He reveled in the thought of her budding woman- 
 hood. Deep draughts of it fed his soul as well as 
 his heart and ran into his blood, warming it to a 
 rush of perfect happiness. He had never in his 
 life met anyone quite like this girl, he told himself; 
 the city was filled with beautiful women whose 
 only show of natural womanhood seemed to be in 
 an indifferent smile. One woman in particular he 
 thought about. She would think it indeed graceless 
 and certainly not " the thing " for a girl to return 
 a man's kiss in the way Spring had done sitting 
 there in the midst of the wreckage in the river. To 
 her it would have meant cheapening, almost humil- 
 iating her womanhood unless given under seal of 
 a glittering ring. 
 
 But Spring had pressed her lips unasked to his 
 several times. She was glad in doing so. In her 
 pure love and simplicity she had not questioned 
 whether they would marry, or go to New York, or 
 say good-by at that minute. Her unbounded sym- 
 pathy for him, and her desire to be with him in a 
 time of trouble had made her show her feelings in 
 this sincere fashion. If it was as real as he thought
 
 252 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 it must be it was a gem to be worn and treasured 
 by him, even in the gaudy lights of the city. But 
 the city did not seem to touch this passage in his 
 life at all. Business and the ties of his home 
 were broken into by something new that this girl 
 had brought to him. He wanted to live in another 
 self, to bask in the warmth of such love as she 
 could give, and to emerge from it a different 
 man. 
 
 Little feet were beginning to patter on the 
 veranda again. The small people had started an- 
 other patrol. Whispering came as loudly as the 
 buzzing of the insects. Pendren could see no one; 
 but the small voices hummed around him, inter- 
 mingling with the dancing sun-flecks. 
 
 " He's Spring's gentleman ! " was whispered loud 
 enough to make the birds flutter and take flight 
 from the eaves of his room. 
 
 " He . . . might be dead. The automobile 
 is . . ." 
 
 An interval of silence was broken by more scrap- 
 ing, tapping feet. 
 
 ".Momma mended the crack so's we can't take 
 any looks at him ! " 
 
 Further tapping as apparently another member 
 of the family brigade joined the others. 
 
 " Spring's mos' growed up. Momma gave her 
 a tortoise shell side-comb to keep her hair out of her
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 253 
 
 eyes. Momma says Spring looks as if she never 
 was combed any more'n Peddler was." 
 
 Peddler, another addition to the coterie of con- 
 fidences, suddenly asserted himself by scratching on 
 the doorstep of Pendren's room. 
 
 " There's maple syrup and buckwheat cakes. 
 
 j> 
 
 More hurried feet along the veranda as appar- 
 ently two more of the small people joined the com- 
 mittee in the precise spot. 
 
 The whispers grew furious and incoherently 
 mixed with some fresh excitement. 
 
 " If he's dead it would all be wasted, and Spring 
 would be mad, I guess." 
 
 "Did she find him?" 
 
 " Yes ... at the crossing where it's as messed 
 up as anything. Momma says it's perfeckly mar- 
 velous how she got all of him out of the mud." 
 
 " Did she get him out of the mud ? Did he grow 
 there like the things sticking up ? " 
 
 Another interval while the whole lot collected 
 a little nearer Pendren's door. 
 
 " I remember Barney Corr's horse when it got 
 stuck in the mud. It died with its feet kicking in 
 the air ... momma wouldn't let us talk about it 
 Sh ... sh ..." 
 
 " If Spring's gentleman is dead, could we have 
 the buckwheat cakes ? "
 
 254 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Could we just look at him once, like we did at 
 the horse, and run away very quickly ? " 
 
 These queries seemed to bring their own answers, 
 and Pendren expected the entire family to enter 
 his abode that precise minute. 
 
 " We could poke him very gently with a stick 
 through the door ! " was murmured. 
 
 Then as somebody with a firmer tread came along 
 the veranda there was a scatter. The whispering 
 and the melee ceased, and the children apparently 
 were dispersed right and left, with care, for there 
 was no noise of reproach or scolding. 
 
 Without knocking, or giving him any warning 
 whatever, Spring herself walked into his room. She 
 was part of the day as much as the flickering sun- 
 shine, the incense, the wholesomeness of every- 
 thing. She walked right up to his bed, put tender 
 fingers in his, and stooped and kissed him. It was 
 the purest thing in the world, that kiss. 
 
 " I'm just so pleased about everything," she said, 
 " your loving me and being here, right in our very 
 house with Christine and Prue and Elsa and the 
 most precious mother in the world. Oh, I did 
 not know really how much I wanted to come 
 home till now I am here. And more than any- 
 thing I wanted you to come here to be shown off 
 too." 
 
 He lay there, breathing hard, and the girl knelt
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 255 
 
 down and her two arms went round him, almost 
 mothering him in their warm embrace. 
 
 " You see you are the first real man I have ever 
 loved. I know it is love, because I kept awake won- 
 dering what I should have done if both of us had 
 been killed in the accident yesterday. It wouldn't 
 have been nice to be cut off so soon, with all the 
 plans you have been making for New York, and 
 the provision for mother and the children." 
 
 Just for a minute something like a jealous pain 
 shot into Pendren's heart. He wrestled with the 
 desire to push her away and query her last words. 
 New York and his plans for the provision of the 
 family and her mother seemed so much to her, and 
 she was quite frank about it, as if it were only 
 the financial benefits he could give her that 
 she was thankful for. He swallowed some of 
 the disappointment and raised himself on his 
 elbow. 
 
 " You will have your tray now, and then you and 
 mother can just have the talk of your lives," Spring 
 said. " I've told her it's to be New York, but she 
 doesn't seem to understand quite what I am going 
 to do there." 
 
 A shade of something like self -accusation spread 
 over his face. Events were moving so swiftly and 
 he was not quite ready to be questioned. Most, 
 and first of all, he wanted to find out wherein lay
 
 256 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 the purity of her love. Whether it was from the 
 thankful heart for his suggesting a way out of the 
 family troubles, or because she was just the primi- 
 tive woman responding to the instinctive call of her 
 mate. 
 
 Pressing her face back, he looked right into her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Does the thought of New York really excite 
 you so much, Spring? " he asked. " Is it the things 
 we can buy there, the soft shades of silks and 
 chiffon, toys for the children, and the attention you 
 will have from friends? Is it that which calls the 
 color of joy into your sweet face, girl dear? Tell 
 me . . . tell me this instant. In going to New 
 York, what is it you want most? What is it that 
 would be first and nearest to you in the life I pur- 
 pose to start for you there if . . . if all goes well? 
 Why do you want to go at all? " 
 
 Spring looked amazed at his sudden questions. 
 " Why," she said, " I want to go because you said 
 that I could make money. ... I must make money 
 things are ever so bad here, and the farm ..." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know. But suppose your mother 
 was provided for, and the children and the farm 
 set right, would you just as soon stay and help at 
 home, or would you choose . . . New York? " 
 
 Spring's eyes never wavered. She looked into 
 his face.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 257 
 
 " Oh, I want to go to New York," she said. " I 
 think I would feel it ever so much if I did not go." 
 
 Then his pulse beat rapidly and he held her 
 nearer, his face almost taking some of the warmth 
 from hers. 
 
 " Spring . . . you child of Heaven, tell me why ? 
 If there is reason enough and it means your happi- 
 ness, by all that is right you shall go." 
 
 " I want to go to New York because ..." she 
 let him draw her down to him, " because . . . you 
 are going there and ... I want to go with you."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 MARY SETTLER addressed the old house cat that 
 was stalking round the kitchen and giving vent oc- 
 casionally to a rather weak lament about something 
 or other. 
 
 " Hannah-Ellen, it's only very ordinary folks 
 that never stretches a leg or a hand to save them- 
 selves, and always relies on other people to sing 
 the march onwards. You've got a grouch this 
 morning about your kittens deserting you, and it's 
 no more right for you to sing out then it would be 
 for me to call down misery on account of Spring 
 and that Lancelot taking their own way in matters 
 I got no right to interfere in. Everybody in this 
 world, be it dogs, or kittens, or cows, or waterbugs, 
 or human women, or children, or men has the best 
 right to think and go as they please. Even clouds 
 has that much allowed them, and even if, after all, 
 everything connected with them, be they men, 
 women, children, kittens, cows, or clouds, does go 
 to water, and come down a perfect deluge, it's only 
 the ways of things." 
 
 The cat looked up from the floor and whined on 
 & long-drawn note of incredulity. 
 
 258
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 259 
 
 " Howl out as often and as big as you prefer it, 
 Hannah-Ellen, but you got to take this to bed with 
 you. Other folks, not in the deluge, has only got 
 the right to go in afterwards and wade out to do 
 what they can to stop those foolish creatures from 
 the drowning. If the mistake wasn't of their own 
 accord and misfortune, there would be nothing for 
 such as you and me to do afterwards." 
 
 As if Mary had said something convincingly 
 soothing, Hannah-Ellen settled down where she 
 was, and blinked slowly. She was quite agreeable 
 to leave all matters of botheration to somebody who 
 evidently understood them better than she did. 
 
 Mary stood looking out across the yard. Ben- 
 jamin was turning up the row he had dug two days 
 before and breaking the soil and scattering the tus- 
 socks of weeds everywhere. Every now and then 
 he would lift his hat and wipe his hot face upon 
 it and look wide into the country. Mary seemed 
 to know his every thought. 
 
 " He's finding the row hot work all on account 
 of fretting about Clara," she soliloquized. " Land, 
 it is much the same with Miss Hetty and Hek 
 Dean! Life seems all topsy-turvy, and things is 
 hard by reason that somebody will have to go in, 
 as I said just now, and pull these poor foolish crea- 
 tures out. Tisn't as if they would drown, not be 
 a long way; but they will struggle and struggle, and
 
 260 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 clutch at each other, and maybe hurt one another 
 the more for bein' in the swamp, when all the time 
 they don't want to be in it at all." 
 
 She watched Benjamin a minute longer, then 
 went in to begin her afternoon's work. 
 
 " Jest supposing that Lancelot, is married, and 
 Mrs. Pendren as much of a cinch as a man's head 
 is to his shoulders . . . well, I don't suppose there 
 would be any use of us to interfere 'cept to pull 
 Spring out before she gets her head under. Sup- 
 pose she has got her head under already? I been 
 leaving her feelings out of the matter pretty much 
 as if she had none at all. . . . Lancelot, he cares 
 right enough, but she . . . well, she don't under- 
 stand life as we do. I'd be kind of particular re- 
 lieved this instant if I thought that . . . that it 
 was, after all, on account of the dressing, and the 
 plate-glass winders, she wanted to go to New York." 
 
 Starting on a piece of work, Mary tried to go 
 through with it, but evidently it did not please her, 
 for she put it down and began something else. Half 
 an hour later she put that away, and began to heat 
 the irons for no proper reason whatever. 
 
 " Seems like I am going into the deluge meself 
 and can't stick to nothin' till someone comes to pull 
 me out," she remarked to Hannah-Ellen. " Here 
 I've started fully three things in an hour and none 
 of them a properly going concern, and it nearly
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 261 
 
 three o'clock already. What I put those irons on 
 for would be as hard as guessing who that is raising 
 the dust on the top of Jake Heldy's hill of turnips." 
 She looked out with shaded eyes. " Waste of 
 time guessing. Same as it is a waste of time trying 
 to make out what the matter is with me today. 
 Perhaps I got too many people sitting on my brain 
 at the same time, and F ought to kind of work a 
 few of 'em off before I settle to sleep. Same time, 
 Hannah-Ellen, it ain't the hour to save foolish crea- 
 tures till they are really in the soup. Meantime, I 
 better get busy saving meself from too much inter- 
 ferences and too many upsets in consequence." 
 
 A little later she was interrupted by Benjamin 
 shouting to her from the row. Together with this 
 came a rapping on her front door, and a general 
 tumult of grating, vibrating machinery, and voices 
 from the road, almost as if someone had pulled 
 up, thinking Mary Settler's farm might be a rail- 
 way depot. The good woman opened the door to 
 see a full-sized automobile and four or five people 
 standing in, or round it. 
 
 A young man on her doorstep, rustling with the 
 importance of leather leggings, a rubber coat, and a 
 pair of globular blue-black goggles worn across 
 his forehead, questioned her spasmodically. 
 
 Mary Settler did not know whether to listen to his 
 questions, or to answer the lady in the car, who
 
 262 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 was gyrating and talking from the minute the door 
 opened. The goggles of the man on the doorstep 
 held Mary all the time the chauffeur was trying to 
 make her understand that they wanted to find some- 
 one presumably lost in that district; but in the ex- 
 citement of the arrival, with no one but this shabby, 
 kitchen-marked woman to receive them with a po- 
 lite nod of recognition, they seemed to have for- 
 gotten to give the name of the person they were 
 seeking. The lady in the car was hailing Mary to 
 come to her immediately, and the man wearing the 
 rubber coat was trying to get some information out 
 of her before anything else chipped in. Mary sur- 
 veyed him once again from his double pair of dust- 
 rimmed eyes to his mud-clogged boots, and then 
 left the door to come further out into the porch 
 and the sunlight. 
 
 " Is it Mr.. Lancelot Pendren you are churning 
 up about ? " she asked, only guessing that it 
 might be Q. L. P.'s people come to inquire about 
 him. 
 
 "Yes, it's Lance; where is he?" The second 
 lady standing between the car and the house got 
 her first word in. 
 
 " I been expecting some of his folks down these 
 parts since ever he got messed up weeks ago," Mary 
 replied. " Shall you be putting up here or continu- 
 ing your passage, seeing that the bird has flown, as
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 263 
 
 the song says ? I had Lancelot under my wing long 
 enough to hand you out some information for and 
 against the case. Whichever side you prefers, you 
 have only got to step inside Mary Settler's parlor 
 and the drinks is on the house, as they tells me, 
 though it's only apple cider or cherry wine made in 
 my own press. Come in, sir, unless you'll all be 
 disembarking. Maybe you'd like to help the ladies 
 out of the machinery first of all." 
 
 The girl standing in the road laughed merrily 
 and said something in an undertone to the other 
 people sitting in the car. Beside the chauffeur there 
 was a subordinate who stood near the tonneau and 
 seemed never to remove his eyes from the one 
 direction except to open and close the door of the 
 car. Then immediately he would fall into line 
 again and assume the same sphinx-like attitude. 
 Also there was a gentleman of the lethargic, yawn- 
 ful nature who seemed to have to be probed to be 
 waked up at all. Out of the whole crowd Mary 
 seemed to think her dealings would be first of all 
 with the lady whose gyrations and queries seemed 
 to be one and the same thing. The girl who had 
 laughed so merrily found a place right inside the 
 good woman's soul from the moment she met her 
 face to face. There was the same direct look in 
 her eyes as there was in Pendren's, and that caught 
 at the heart-strings of Mary Settler. It was almost
 
 264 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 as if truth were calling for truth from the depths 
 of those eyes. 
 
 " You are Miss Settler, and you have been look- 
 ing after Lance, my brother, like a mother? " asked 
 the sparkling little woman. Mary took that as if 
 it were a gift thrust into her hands. The mothering 
 of Q. L. P. was a touch of fire to her heart for this 
 young woman also. 
 
 " I cried all night when I heard of the acci- 
 dent . . . " the girl went on, " but when the letter 
 explained how comfortable and . . . and happy he 
 was, I just sat down and howled over that." 
 
 She put a dainty buckskin glove on Mary's hand, 
 and Mary felt a glow of extra warmth start from 
 her fingers and run right to her toes. 
 
 " This is the one that takes to her bed first chance, 
 and me thinking it a mortal sin, may the Lord for- 
 give me," flashed through Mary's mind. " She's 
 clean metal all through and no denting if there's 
 any rough handling." 
 
 " There's nothing like a good cry, miss, to kind 
 of wash out some of the trouble, and it gets over a 
 deal of other things which run down the sink at 
 the same time. Come right along in. I had this 
 room turned out only this very morning after 
 Lancelot, I mean your brother, had resigned his 
 claim." 
 
 " Then he is not here. How disgusting ! " The
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 265 
 
 second lady came in for her turn again. She sat 
 down on the couch as if she had been pushed there 
 and loosened her wraps and silk motor-veil. " Such 
 a journey, too, and such awful roads! I thought 
 that we would be capsized every second minute." 
 
 Mary nodded her head slowly. 
 
 " Precisely what I said to Clara Hopkins when 
 Lancelot set out with Spring Roper for her ma's 
 place a few days ago. The way that auto lopped 
 about. This country weren't ever laid down for 
 anything but the wagons and vegetable carts, or for 
 feet like mine or Benjamin's. . . . Won't the 
 other gentlemen come in and take some refresh- 
 ment?" 
 
 The other gentlemen were standing at attention 
 near the car outside, and Mary waved a long arm 
 in their direction. The girl laughed again, and the 
 lady who had emerged from the folds of her motor 
 coat and wraps, stared, at a loss to know what to 
 say. 
 
 The only reply came from the lethargic gentle- 
 man, who stopped yawning when he got into Mary's 
 parlor because there was so much to interest him 
 in it. 
 
 "What's that about Lancelot?" he questioned. 
 " We understood, my wife and I, that his recent 
 accident in that rotten little dash-about car of his, 
 had tied him a prisoner here and that he was far
 
 266 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 too smashed-up to return to his home. Strange he 
 should have deliberately gone, Pearl, after writing 
 in such a way ! " 
 
 Pearl, who was the youngest lady, did not seem 
 to think anything strange at all. She simply smiled 
 at him, and the other woman answered instead. 
 
 " My dear Huckle, some of the things that Lance 
 does, and some of the places he gets into at times, 
 do not bear the light on them. This whole business 
 of his is questionable. Who did you say he went 
 away with ? " 
 
 " He clean drove that auto like mad for Bird 
 Town, miss, or, begging your pardon, perhaps you 
 are Mrs. Lancelot Pendren as we posted his letter 
 to." 
 
 " Yes, I am Mrs. Pendren," said the bundle of 
 clothes. " I want to take a clean cut with Lance 
 about this whole affair. Possibly he was never 
 wrecked up at all. I never trust these country 
 places. They are a perfect vortex of cheap adven- 
 tures which generally end in stupidity. His letter 
 to me shows that." 
 
 It was evident by her manner that Pendren's last 
 letter had raised some trouble that was not going 
 to be put down immediately. 
 
 The youngest lady of the party, still smiling, as 
 if everything were a huge joke, took a hand in 
 things again. Almost at the same moment Clara
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 267 
 
 Hopkins put her head in at the back kitchen door 
 and shouted to Mary. 
 
 " What was the name of the girl you mentioned 
 just now, or was it a man who drove away with 
 Lance?" the youngest visitor asked, and Clara at 
 the same instant, right from the rear, cried : 
 
 " My word, Mary, you should hear that there 
 Benjamin. If it don't beat all I ever came across! 
 Mary, where are you ? " 
 
 Mary Settler assorted her visitors into several 
 different chairs with a fresh show of politeness. 
 " If you will just stack up together here, I'll get 
 that Clara Hopkins to fetch you some refreshment, 
 then we can get to business right away," she said. 
 " There's something doing your side, I can see, as 
 well as ours, though I don't always hold with folks 
 who call out before they are shot, as the sayin' is. 
 Sit down, sir, there's room on the settee, and it's 
 the same as young Lancelot himself had cause to 
 use so often, it won't be beneath you if you are as 
 tired and ready to die of weariness as he was when 
 I first located him up at Liz Hetty's." 
 
 This was addressed to the gentleman called 
 Huckle, and Mary could not make up her mind 
 whether to assign him to the younger lady of the 
 party or to the one who presumably wished it to be 
 understood that she was Chief. He looked at the 
 settee and its gaudy flowering cover, then he took
 
 268 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 it, indifferently, and crossed one leg over the 
 other. 
 
 " I don't believe we have really explained who 
 we are, or what we have come about," said the 
 nicest of the party. " I am Lancelot's sister, and 
 this is my husband, Mr. Hucklebury Carr." 
 
 Mary looked at the gentleman indicated and 
 waited for him to speak. She felt almost stunned. 
 All along she had been thinking that he might be- 
 long to either one or the other of the two ladies, 
 but somehow things didn't seem to run smoothly 
 with Hucklebury Carr attached to the dear little 
 smiling lady. However, Mary nodded, and the 
 frantic revolutions of the lady on the couch began 
 again. 
 
 " And I ... am Mrs. Lancelot Pendren. It is 
 solely on my account that we are here at all." 
 
 " I don't get you," Mary remarked calmly. " I 
 thought it was purely on account of that Lancelot, 
 who was very nearly wrecked to bits, that this depu- 
 tation happened at all." 
 
 " It's the same thing," retorted the chief lady. 
 " Lancelot and I are bound by . . . " Here Clara 
 Hopkins and her insistent squeaking came rapidly 
 along the passage into the room. She stopped 
 short. 
 
 " Land, Mary," she said, " Benjamin never said 
 nothing about you having company."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 269 
 
 Mary introduced Clara, and everybody but the 
 younger woman looked almost offended. 
 
 " This is the city folks belonging to that Q. L. IP., 
 Clara, we been so precious anxious about of late," 
 Mary said. " Would you mind fetching in a 
 pitcher of the apple cider and some of the wine in 
 the press, and jest a handful or so of them cakes 
 from the box on the kitchen shelf? Mrs. Lancelot 
 looks mortal done up by the travel, and we've busi- 
 ness to start on that maybe will be digested better 
 on a full stomach." 
 
 Clara made as quick an exit as she had an en- 
 trance. Then Mary took a chair and started in 
 right away. 
 
 " I was saying, Mrs. Hucklebury Carr," she 
 spoke to the merry face right in front of her, " that 
 it was Spring Roper that Lancelot, your brother, 
 drove off with like mad for Bird Town." 
 
 "Roper!" Everybody seemed to say it at the 
 same time, and the good woman felt as if she had 
 been suddenly slapped. 
 
 " Yes, Spring Roper, as lives with her ma and 
 a bunch of children, all as perky and as pretty as 
 peaches blown off a tree. ..." 
 
 The lady who had been on the couch started to 
 her feet. "Why, the whole thing is a trick, of 
 course. Huckle, can't you say anything? Roper 
 is the name of the people that all this stupid fuss
 
 270 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 over the firm's rights has been about. After what 
 Lance wrote to me about this girl, and the fact that 
 she is of the very family who would defraud his 
 father, can't you see that he is in their clutches? 
 He must be out of his mind, and of course it is the 
 result of the . . . the accident. 
 
 " Do you mean to say," she turned to Mary, 
 " that Mr. Pendren actually drove this girl he is so 
 infatuated with ... be quiet, Pearl! " 
 
 Mrs. Hucklebury Carr had tried to stop her. 
 
 " Let us stick to the point, Alys, whatever we 
 do," said Mrs. Carr. 
 
 " I want to understand the whole matter before 
 I . . before I give Lance the freedom he thinks he 
 has a right to. This business of the girl might have 
 had something in it, if it had been a matter of 
 sentiment, but when we find out that she is one 
 of the very family that the firm is going to fight 
 for . . . for what is legally theirs ..." 
 
 " Meaning . . . the Ropers'," put in Mary. 
 
 " Meaning the Pendrens'," said the lady. " Noth- 
 ing is legally owing to the Ropers any more than 
 it is to . . . you. The whole business is a trick on 
 the side of that family; I can see it, if nobody else 
 can. Do you think I would sit by and let my . . . 
 my Lancelot be defrauded by a set of people who 
 send a girl with country-bred ways to entrap the 
 boy? Poor fellow, I can see he has been nicely
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 271 
 
 taken in while he has been under the ... the effect 
 of the accident. Huckle, can't you see it? Pearl? 
 How silly you all are! Lance has been worked" 
 upon when he has not been quite himself. His 
 father would be furious. . . . We must stop it 
 right away." She began to throw out her arms 
 and to walk the room as if beside herself. 
 
 Mary took it all very calmly. 
 
 " Stop the auto . . . you mean, Mrs. Pendren, 
 or stop Lancelot loving Spring ? " 
 
 " Stop the whole stupid business and give that 
 girl something to hold her tongue. I admit that 
 Lance must have been foolish, but then that fall 
 from the car is responsible for a lot. He evidently 
 was not in his right mind when he wrote that letter 
 to me." 
 
 Mary stood up to admit Clara with cakes and 
 cherry wine. 
 
 " Clara," she said quietly, " would you say that 
 Lancelot Pendren we nursed so long was account- 
 able for his actions or not? Seems like there is 
 some argument here about it." 
 
 " I never seen anyone so sane in my life," said 
 Clara, putting down the tray. "Benjamin 
 says " Mary put up her hand. 
 
 " Well, Clara, this here lady sitting up ready and 
 pleased to take a drink of cherry wine and a cookie, 
 as you've kindly brought in, is the other end of
 
 272 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 that correspondence, being herself Mrs. Lancelot 
 Pendren and ready, I take it, to die to prove it 
 true." 
 
 Clara stared, hopelessly frank. 
 
 " Mrs. . . . Lancelot Pendren," she said with 
 gaping mouth. " Sakes, Mary ! no wonder he was 
 clean upset to get that letter to the post. Sane, 
 wasn't he ? I should like to tell you that I guess he 
 was never saner in his life than he was while he was 
 here. Wait till you see Spring Roper ..."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 " SEE her? Of course I shall see her," said Mrs. 
 Lancelot Pendren. "If there is anything in this 
 affair at all I shall bring an action against everyone 
 of you for taking advantage of a man suffering 
 from mental aberration." 
 
 Mrs. Hucklebury Carr allowed a long restrained 
 laugh to escape her. The gentleman on the settee 
 sat forward and spoke at last. 
 
 " Whatever is the matter ? " he asked. 
 
 Pearl Carr seemed to be enjoying -herself tre- 
 mendously. 
 
 " The idea of Lance suffering from mental ab- 
 erration is so killing ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " I should not laugh over it," snapped the lady- 
 in-chief. 
 
 " I certainly would not cry over it, then." Mrs. 
 Carr was rocking about on the couch. 
 
 " How can you, Pearl ? Is it nothing to you that 
 certain facts about the case that that wretch Bless- 
 ing has stirred up might be brought to light and 
 proved against us? I don't say for an instant that 
 it would be to our discredit, rather more to a flaw 
 somewhere in these beastly agreements made years 
 
 273
 
 274 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 ago. But with that staring you in the face, and 
 Lancelot's future at stake with my future at 
 stake . . . it is preposterous ! ! ! Why, this girl has 
 got hold of him, don't you see? And the whole 
 scoop will be theirs, just through her fooling of 
 him. Oh, I know what Lancelot is with women. 
 He has a bee about the simple life and all that kind 
 of rubbish. When it was a matter of fighting the 
 thing for his father he was ready to burn for our 
 rights, but when it comes to a saucer-eyed girl 
 who probably shelters her real reasons for getting 
 at him under the blushes of apple-cheeks he lets 
 everything go for a sentiment that is as sloppy as 
 this wretched place is. Huckle, get up and do 
 something, for goodness' sake. Lance has been 
 led into things while under a mental strain, I 
 say." 
 
 Another good laugh from Mrs. Carr stopped her 
 saying more. 
 
 " For the life of me, Alys, I can't stop laughing," 
 she said. " It all makes Lance into the hero of a 
 two-cent-serial run in installments. First chapter: 
 The villain enters and tries to take the good old 
 family estate; second . . . the heir apparent dashes 
 for the country-side to discover, if he can discover, 
 any loophole to save the fortune which he has long 
 enjoyed; third . . . by a lucky stroke of fate he 
 encounters the blushing maiden of his dreams lo-
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 275 
 
 cates her through an accident, and they fall in 
 love; fourth ... he wooes her under another 
 name ..." 
 
 Mary Settler could scarcely keep still. " You got 
 it clean off the slate, Mrs. Hucklebury," she inter- 
 rupted, " all but the ' other name ' piece. Lancelot 
 never wooed Spring under any name but that of 
 God's good name of love. And the wooing, allow- 
 ing for shortage of certain things on Spring's side 
 of it, which any town lady would have carried about 
 with her kind of natural, going on under me very 
 own eyes, not happening to have as much as a for- 
 tune tacked on to it at all. Lancelot, he up and falls 
 at Spring's feet only through her being a mere child 
 and not knowing what he was at. Money bags 
 don't come into it when God Himself is directing 
 that auto to her very mother's house and him not 
 even knowing her name any more than I knew his 
 when I picked him up worse off than when he fell 
 into the lilac bushes round the corner." 
 
 But Mrs. Hucklebury Carr continued her little 
 game. 
 
 " Fifth . . . he is ignorant of her real name and 
 family, and takes her to her mother to ask consent 
 to the marriage ..." 
 
 " Stop it ! " The lady-in-chief could sit still no 
 longer. " Pearl, you are making a hideous comedy 
 of the whole thing."
 
 276 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Well, isn't it better than turning it into a trag- 
 edy, Alys? ' Oh, let us be cheerful/ as the boys 
 say. I don't care if the whole bank goes smash so 
 long as Lance really is happy." 
 
 " Happy . . . ? Pearl, you seem to forget my 
 part in it all. I should never dream of giving him 
 his freedom, and it will serve that girl right." 
 
 Mary looked at Clara, who had been sitting sim- 
 ply staring. 
 
 " If that auto plays the tricks it did on his ar- 
 rival in these parts," Mary said, " I should say he 
 might take his own freedom like he nearly did be- 
 fore." This brought a silence in which everybody 
 gazed at her. 
 
 " If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Lancelot," Mary con- 
 tinued, " you'll let things be till the Lord Himself 
 unwinds the apparatus. It's like catching your feet 
 in a mess of things you don't understand. Before 
 making them any the worse you'll have to set down 
 and think it out. The further you go the more tan- 
 gled up you'll get, and until you come to common 
 human sense about it, you'll find yourself sitting on 
 the ground on your head and ears more like than 
 anything. If that auto ran straight for Bird Town, 
 it's likely that Spring and that Q. L. P. would be 
 well in the bosom of the family by now. If you 
 like, I'll confess to helping on their mutual under- 
 standing, but then . . . same time, Clara and Ben-
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 277 
 
 jamin and me never really got to the correct state 
 of his having anyone like you to to ..." 
 
 " You mind, Mary," Clara took her -turn now, 
 " you mind the time we dug out those socks and 
 underclo'es ? " 
 
 " They didn't prove nothing at all any more than 
 you having your best things on now makes it that 
 you expected me to be having company today." 
 
 " Oh, I can see it all," chimed the lady-in-chief. 
 " Lancelot told us first of all that he was too upset 
 by his fall to think about the firm's business. Then 
 I suppose the girl's influence has kept him here until 
 he suspected some of us would be down, and he has 
 made a dash to get things settled." 
 
 " He was mighty careful about that letter should 
 go at once to you," said Mary. " None of us were 
 acquainted with the contents, but I guessed there 
 was fire and regular business hot on the track after 
 him by the way he was that anxious." 
 
 " Poor old Lance. I am dying to see him, Alys, 
 if it's a case of love, as Miss Settler says, you've 
 got to go out of this." 
 
 " I'll never, never give Lance up, not even if the 
 whole estate goes to the other side. The girl has 
 simply taken advantage of him ..." 
 
 " Well, let us find that out." 
 
 Mrs. Hucklebury Carr unbuttoned her wraps. 
 
 " But before going another inch to do so, I am
 
 278 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 going to eat four of those cakes, and put my feet 
 up, and have a thorough good rest." 
 
 Mary rose immediately. 
 
 " There's my bedroom, Mrs. Carr, and I'll jest 
 draw the shades so's you can be undisturbed and 
 not even a fly to bother you." 
 
 " That will suit me perfectly," said the younger 
 lady. " Huckle, don't you step an inch to wake me 
 till I am ready to go on. Look after Alys. She 
 needs it more than I do. I'm just going right to bed 
 this very instant and I am not quite sure that I'm not 
 going to have a real good cry just to ease up a bit." 
 
 " Just as you like, ma'am," said Mary. " Lance- 
 lot did happen to mention that you was very partial 
 to something of the sort, though ..." 
 
 Mrs. Hucklebury Carr, with a cake in each plump 
 hand, got off her chair and walked over to Mary. 
 
 " If I oversleep, Alys, don't bother waiting for 
 me. The sound of you and Lance breaking your 
 long-lived contract would give me a headache with 
 the noise, I'm sure." 
 
 She went along the passage with Mary Settler, 
 and Clara rose to clear away the tray. 
 
 Way down past Bird Town, Lancelot Pendren 
 sat in the slumberous afternoon light with Spring 
 close beside him. At different points of advantage 
 the small people of the farm crouched hidden so
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 279 
 
 that they could watch Spring and her " gentleman " 
 playing "company" to each other. Pendren had 
 his bad wrist bound again and in a sling. Spring 
 had insisted on this, and the " most precious 
 mother," scarcely lingering to say anything, had 
 gone about the farm work with her usual care and 
 quiet. Towards the evening, she told herself, she 
 would sit down and let these two young people tell 
 her their story. There seemed no reason to hurry 
 them over it. 
 
 Pendren could not help staring at Spring's mother 
 as she sat there in the light of the evening with the 
 trellis and vines sheltering her from the rear. 
 Spring was very like her. She had the same true 
 eyes, the same direct way of looking through a per- 
 son, and the same quick little fashion of putting her 
 hands together as if everything in life were a matter 
 of beseeching and of giving thanks. 
 
 " We want to tell you everything, my most 
 precious Mother," said Spring, but Lancelot held 
 back, almost afraid. The answer to his letter had 
 not come yet, and he felt that he was not free to 
 speak of Spring's future until he was sure of his 
 own. 
 
 " We love each other," Spring was saying, " and 
 it's just a perfectly heavenly feeling like you have 
 for the children, Mother. But first of all we've got 
 to start a kind of confession ..."
 
 280 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " That is what I'm waiting for, dear," said the 
 woman. 
 
 Then, vanquished by her gentleness, her sweet- 
 ness, Pendren went down on his knees and kissed 
 the hands which lay in her lap. 
 
 " Can you trust me a little longer, most precious 
 Mother ? " he asked. 
 
 "Trust you with Spring? If you care. Oh, it 
 would break my heart if you did not. She doesn't 
 know yet what all this means." 
 
 Pendren felt his head swimming. Almost he 
 wanted to rush away. He began to explain. " It's 
 this way : I have got business to attend to for my 
 father. But I want to get it through first of all, 
 and receive an answer to a letter I sent a few days 
 ago . . . then I can open my life freely to you 
 and to this dear child that truly I love as I never 
 knew I could love. Most precious Mother, as they 
 call you, will you trust me a few days longer before 
 I ask you anything? Will you wait as I said, my 
 little Spring Glory ..." 
 
 " Mother's name and mine is Roper." The girl 
 got it out with a rush. 
 
 " Roper, father was Graham P. Roper, and I've 
 been dying to tell you all the time. We're the 
 Ropers of Ladybird. I'm so glad it's off my 
 mind." 
 
 She twined an arm into the young man's, and
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 281 
 
 expected him to say something, but he only stared 
 as if struck dumb. 
 
 " Roper ! Graham P. Roper ! You're not joking, 
 are you ? I mentioned that name once before. Was 
 it to you, Spring? Oh, surely . . . when you 
 wrote my letter for me. . . . Tell me, didn't I men- 
 tion that name to you ? " 
 
 He was almost indignantly insistent. 
 
 " We never said my real name once in the whole 
 time," she said, without understanding anything 
 but the fact that he was thoroughly angry. 
 
 " But . . . but didn't I mention the fact, when 
 referring to the business about Blessing, that the 
 people I was chasing to ... to oh, good God . . . 
 it's too awful ! Mary knew, anyway." 
 
 "Is it something troubling you, Mr. Pendren?" 
 The sweetest woman in the world began to tremble 
 with the girl. 
 
 " Trouble? It's . . . oh, I don't know what it 
 is ! I'll have to go and work this out a bit before 
 I can explain to you." He walked away slowly, his 
 feet dragging. In the distance was a patch of amber 
 light where fields were shimmering in the rising 
 moon-flame and he went towards it.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 AND into the moon-flame that spread over field 
 and house and roadway, she came to him presently, 
 as a softening breeze, trembling, pulsing with deli- 
 cate life. 
 
 He was sitting on the ground, reviewing what 
 had happened to him lately the things mazed to- 
 gether by Fate so marvelously. He was surprised 
 that he could take this new turn of fortune so 
 calmly. He wondered that he had never heard 
 Spring's real name mentioned. It seemed unbe- 
 lievable that the weeks could have gone by without 
 someone having spoken it. The reason why he had 
 not been allowed to hear it now seemed clear. 
 Mary, and even Spring herself, he managed to con- 
 vince himself, had been playing a game with him. 
 
 The sight of Spring coming towards him across 
 the pitched moonlight stirred him. 
 
 But the inherent fight in him, and the ardor which 
 never cools until it has had a sudden outlet, gave 
 him an impulse to meet her as he would have met 
 a weak enemy. He knew how strong he was to 
 strike, and to turn all to his own ends. 
 
 His father's fight was his, he knew that, and it 
 282
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 283 
 
 would be a very easy matter to do as he had orig- 
 inally intended. Of course he could, if he liked, go 
 away and laugh at the idea of these sensitive beings 
 so full of sweet femininity ever being able to make 
 legal claims on him, or his father, or understand the 
 situation, which would enable them to make those 
 claims. Even if they did understand it, they would 
 as soon think of facing a law-court as they would 
 of going about the streets unclothed and un- 
 ashamed. 
 
 The impulse to meet Spring brusquely died in 
 him as she came to him, looking into his face as 
 she had always done, and seeing through him as no 
 one else had ever done. He could not fight her. "Be- 
 tween them suddenly there rose a sword of justice, 
 pointing down to strike if he forgot the responsi- 
 bility of the best thing ever given to him, that of his 
 pure love for her and of her pure love for him. 
 There in her eyes he saw the pity for his griev- 
 ances, the motherly tenderness of sweet protection. 
 In the face near him, as he rose to his feet, there 
 was sympathy, unselfishness, and something else. 
 Was it fear? It seemed like it; but it was the fear 
 that he was suffering. 
 
 "If you would only let me understand just what 
 it is," she said in a low whispering voice. 
 
 And the strong man in him replied: 
 
 " It is so little, and so great. Yes, great. I have
 
 284 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 just discovered that! Little, because you are a 
 handful of babies who find life a mere game and 
 cannot understand anything that is heavy about it. 
 And great . . . because ... in you all I have 
 found something so big, so satisfying, that I know 
 I cannot live without it. Spring, did you not under- 
 stand that . . . you and your precious mother and 
 Christine and Elsa and Prue were the crowd I was 
 sent down here to fight? " 
 
 The moon-flame shivered in her eyes. One hand 
 went out to him, then fell lifeless at her side. 
 
 " Do you mean . . . mean that all these years 
 you have been living on the money that really be- 
 longed to my father ? " 
 
 " Not altogether; but I must admit that some- 
 where further back in the generations something 
 went crooked. It wasn't even your father's father; 
 it was before that. The original Graham Roper 
 evidently had one son and one daughter. The 
 son disappeared and was never traced. Then the 
 daughter married against her father's wishes and 
 also lost sight somehow of the family fortune. 
 Later her husband worked it so that their son reaped 
 the whole fortune, and from then to my father's time 
 the thing has come on in turn. Your side is evi- 
 dently the direct line, through the son, which ought 
 to have legitimately come into the bulk of that for- 
 tune. But your father probably knew nothing of
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 285 
 
 this, or he would have taken out a case long ago. 
 Anyway the whole thing would have to be proved 
 in court, of course." 
 
 Spring was just staring at him all the time he 
 was speaking, and now she drew back, very much 
 upset. 
 
 " Court ? Our family in court ? Why, mother 
 would never stand that. Besides, if . . . if we took 
 the money it would mean that you would be the 
 poor people." 
 
 u Precisely, though I must admit that things 
 would not be quite at such a low level, even 
 then. That is not what worries me now. Great 
 heavens ... ! " 
 
 Looking at her across a little strip of light, he 
 realized how she would take her rightful place in 
 the world even as she would have done long ago 
 had her father been recognized as the direct de- 
 scendant of old Graham Roper. The claims he 
 had already put in to take and keep her affection 
 seemed an impudence on his part, and what was 
 more, they could easily be misconstrued by every- 
 body who knew that he had anticipated taking her 
 to live with his sister in New York. At the same 
 instant he became aware of the certain things he 
 had written recently to his sister and to another 
 lady whose claims on him might be justified and 
 upheld in every court in the land. Those certain
 
 286 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 things blazed at him now, quivering with the real 
 truth. He felt sick at heart as he thought of them, 
 for they were the direct evidence of his plans for 
 the girl's future and his own. In asking his sister 
 to stand in with Spring and let her enjoy life as a 
 companionable subordinate of the household he had 
 only meant to give the girl a place till he had worked 
 things out with the lady to whom he was bound 
 in another way; also to write to the latter and 
 plead the cause of his own happiness and that of 
 Spring. In the face of what had now happened he 
 could only see himself as a schemer and as someone 
 chasing a fortune through the medium of this inex- 
 perienced, fresh-hearted girl. 
 
 Of course it could only be thought of in one way. 
 He had deliberately laid out the whole thing. 
 Knowing that there was a justifiable case for this 
 family if the fellow Blessing could run his scheme 
 through, and prove what was apparently staring 
 them all in the face, he had to all intents and pur- 
 poses, for his financial welfare, played on the girl's 
 innocence, got into the sacred precincts of her heart 
 and home, and the rest would not be merely 
 guessing. 
 
 With these dancing visions before him, Pendren 
 still saw Spring in her place in the world. The fact 
 of her having said that she wanted to go to New 
 York because he was going seemed a small matter
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 287 
 
 when he heard her words questioning the truth of 
 others having enjoyed a fortune whilst her father 
 and mother and little sisters had scraped along on 
 what they could gather, almost as birds of the field 
 might have done. She was still standing there in 
 the moon-flame. And so he waited, with just that 
 space of light between them. He knew only too 
 well what it was he would have to say presently, 
 but he could not bring that torture to his brain for 
 a little while. 
 
 " It means . . . " Spring began on her own ac- 
 cord, " it means that mother could go to town. She 
 has always loved the lights and the big buildings 
 and the rush that one watches from a high win- 
 dow. She has been there before, of course, but 
 it is so long ago, and then she only lived in a very 
 small place right down on Twenty-third Street. 
 Oh ... the children could go, too, and we would 
 have a place up ever so many stairs and a janitor 
 and . . ." 
 
 Her innocence, her belief in trivial happinesses, 
 surprised him. 
 
 " You remember that morning, Spring," he said 
 quietly, " when I spoke of running you up to New 
 York, and letting you order everything pretty and 
 suitable from the big stores ? Well, it would just 
 be that for you . . . and for your mother, and for 
 Elsa, and Prue, and Christine, and the rest of them.
 
 288 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 It would be every bit what I have said . . . with 
 your own purse in your hand, and your right to 
 decide how much you paid or enjoyed. It would 
 be the beginning of a proper existence for you all, 
 and . . ." 
 
 With a little excited gesture Spring stopped him. 
 
 " Oh, it would be just one of my dream stories 
 coming true ! Do you remember the afternoon that 
 we talked across the passage and we played that 
 game of guessing? You were ever so stupid, but 
 couldn't help it, I have found out since, because 
 your head had been shamefully knocked about. 
 Well ... I told you then of my most perfect 
 dreams and we said they might be some of the 1 
 things that couldn't possibly happen. But one has 
 happened, hasn't it ? " 
 
 Slowly he answered, watching her mouth and 
 eyes. 
 
 " Yes ... it has happened, but . . . there is 
 this in it. The dream we began to plan for the 
 city, and the shops, and the soft shades of silks 
 and crepes for you, Spring ... is only part of the 
 great thing that is going to happen. The other 
 part . . . our part together ..." 
 
 He was going very slowly now because it was the 
 ground that seemed so uncertain under his feet 
 "... well, it won't be exactly the same." 
 
 " Not the same ? You mean that what you
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 289 
 
 wanted to give me will be mine really and not just 
 kind of loaned. You mean that. ..." 
 
 Across the beam of light he went to her and 
 stood at her shoulder, but withheld his hands. 
 
 " I mean, Spring, that the bulk of my father's 
 money really belongs to you, and because of that 
 my little plans for pleasure in New York must be 
 slightly altered." 
 
 " Like being real enemies ? " Spring began to 
 throb with uncertainty. " I read something like 
 that once. They called it the family feud, and 
 everything was smashed up most horribly, and one 
 brother took all the money from the younger one 
 because he had been away for years. It was a cruel 
 thing to do, because there were little children just 
 like Prue and Christine ..." 
 
 The sweetness of her voice and the trembling of 
 the sympathy in her whole being made him put 
 out one hand to her. 
 
 " Spring, it is just so with this dream story that 
 is really happening. We've got to play fair to those 
 little children and to you. You shall go to New 
 York and have things just as I planned, but the 
 difference in it now is ... that I shall not go with 
 you or have the blessed joy of ordering your 
 things." 
 
 "Because you will not have the money, you 
 mean. Because we have taken it from you like
 
 290 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 that horrid elder brother. . . . Oh, I couldn't enjoy 
 a thing! Not one little thing! " 
 
 Childishly she went right up to him and laid her 
 face against the sleeve of his coat. 
 
 " There is something to separate us ... besides 
 this wretched money, Spring," he said quietly, 
 " something that you would not understand."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 MILES back in Mary Settler's house there had 
 been but little progress except as far as Mrs. Huckle- 
 bury Carr was concerned. 
 
 Somewhere near six o'clock in the evening she 
 awakened from a sleep of absolute babyhood and 
 had found Mary adjusting the shades so that there 
 might be a little more light and air in the 
 room. 
 
 Mrs. Carr turned her plump wrists outwards in 
 a splendid yawn and let her satisfaction run down 
 to her very toes. 
 
 " Say, this is top-hole, Miss Settler," she said. 
 " If Lance put in a week or two of this kind of 
 thing it would be the making of him. What time 
 is it?" 
 
 Mary rested her arms on the foot of the bed. 
 
 " According to some folks, Mrs. Hucklebury, 
 it's time a move was made in the direction of where 
 this piece of trouble is going to be felt the most. 
 I'd like a word on that same if you won't be en- 
 couraging that particular hurry same as somebody 
 else is, now in my front parlor." 
 
 291
 
 292 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Mrs. Carr sat up and laughed. Her hair was 
 mostly down her back and her shoes lay in different 
 directions across the floor. 
 
 " I can see Alys without looking at her. She has 
 powdered her face nine times in her vanity-bag 
 mirror and said to Huckle : ' I am positively burn- 
 ing to get this business through. Please see if you 
 can get Pearl to wake up and let us order the car ! ' " 
 She laughed again. " Now I am one of those per- 
 sons who do as I like. If I gave in to Alys or my 
 husband even just the once I should never have the 
 courage to stick to my own opinions again. Now 
 I gather from all this that there is more in my 
 brother's game than he has really allowed. I've 
 expected there is a woman in his case as much as 
 Alys thinks she's in it, and when he wrote, hedging 
 and asking me if I could chaperon a kind of com- 
 panion to my own children, I fancied there was 
 fire about. First thing though, Miss Settler, I must 
 talk to you . . . and I can't for the life of me 
 hurry. Please send my husband to me and arrange 
 it that we put up here for the night. Alys can have 
 this room and I'll take that stretcher in the front 
 room. The morning will show us more light than 
 we can get out of anything at this time of the day. 
 If we are not inconveniencing you, Miss Settler, 
 will you be so good as to fix things for us to stay 
 over?"
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 293 
 
 Mary's face widened. 
 
 " Clara will be glad to do what service she can 
 with your hair and dressing," she said almost ex- 
 citedly. " I propose that I deal with the rest of 
 things myself. Now your husband ..." 
 
 " Oh, I'll manage him beautifully. He's always 
 tired, so that I expect he will be glad to take the 
 car to the nearest hotel. Please send him in." 
 
 The matter was even then being discussed in the 
 front parlor. 
 
 " It's too bad of Pearl to sleep so long, Huckle. 
 With this matter on hand we ought to have left for 
 Bird Town hours ago." 
 
 " The whole thing is most alarming," said 
 Huckle. 
 
 " Then wake Pearl and let us go through with 
 it." 
 
 " Wake Pearl? My dear Alys, I never heard of 
 such a thing." 
 
 " Nonsense. If you can't get Pearl to see the 
 seriousness of this affair, we will simply leave her 
 behind and go on at once." 
 
 " Go on to a place called Bird Town, or some 
 such name as that, and leave Pearl behind? Why, 
 Alys, have a little sense. I've never left Pearl one 
 night in the whole of our married lives." 
 
 " Then insist that she hurries now, and let us 
 get away."
 
 294 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Hucklebury yawned. " I'll see what I can do, but 
 I should never dream of trying to wake her." 
 
 Just then Mary announced Mrs. Carr's intentions. 
 
 Mr. Hucklebury Carr left to consult his wife 
 and Mary stayed to appease the woman in the 
 parlor. 
 
 " It might be as well, ma'am, if you were to 
 kind of settle in your mind just what kind of a 
 program you'd like best, seeing that Mrs. Huckle 
 has made up her mind to stop over. If you'll allow 
 me, I'll just get Clara to fix you up with a wash 
 and a clean towel, and when we've sorted out this 
 muddle we'll all be much happier in our minds." 
 
 To this the lady-in-chief replied in a mollified tone. 
 
 " The whole thing is so upsetting, Miss Settler," 
 she said. " I know in your womanly heart you 
 would never see me turned out of my rightful posi- 
 tion because of a girl who ..." 
 
 " I been fighting for Spring and her ma all 
 through," Mary remarked calmly, " and I've got to 
 admit to parceling those two up, same as if they 
 were a pair of gloves only made to go together, 
 and one no use without the other. But say, if I'd 
 known ..." 
 
 " One minute, my dear Miss Settler. We are 
 all anxious that you should have your due as re- 
 gards trying to settle things. Given, that this 
 girl . . ."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 295 
 
 " Miss Spring Glory Roper," interrupted Mary 
 with some fire. 
 
 " Sounds like a sunset, or a new sunshade color," 
 came flippantly from Mrs. Lancelot. Mary 
 bounded. 
 
 " You get me," she said. " Sunset or sunshade, 
 it's all the same when you get in touch with one 
 of that family. Young Lancelot now he jes' 
 turned out his mind for a thorough spring-clean 
 when he got ideas from that lamb. Sakes alive, 
 ma'am, how that young man changed. ..." 
 
 " I know. Oh, I know he has ! " Almost in 
 tears Mrs. Lancelot broke out afresh. Then she 
 shook herself together and tried Mary again. " It 
 might be managed to make certain payments to the 
 Ropers if they would forget this miserable busi- 
 ness of ... of his peculiar attachment to the 
 girl." 
 
 Mary smiled. 
 
 " 'T wouldn't be much use, Mrs. Pendren, ma'am. 
 The peculiar attachment, as you are pleased to call 
 it, and which we all encouraged here . . . not 
 knowing you had first rights to Q. L. P. . . . is 
 more likely to turn out high-class quality that will 
 stretch as far as from here to heaven." 
 
 " You are leaving me entirely out of the ques- 
 tion, Miss Settler." 
 
 There was some sharpness in the woman's words,
 
 296 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 but Mary knew she had the right end of the argu- 
 ment. 
 
 " Seems to me you hold a claim worth all that 
 might belong to Spring and her ma," she went on 
 carefully. 
 
 " Which you are all trying to steal from me," 
 almost sobbed the lady. 
 
 " Begging your pardon . . . but might I ask, 
 ma'am, if you don't put more honest feelings into 
 the matter of that hard cash as is really belonging 
 to the Roper bunch than into the affection of Lance- 
 lot himself?" 
 
 Mrs. Lancelot Pendren turned from her. " I 
 don't understand you," she said as Mrs. Huckle- 
 bury Carr came into the room, refreshed and 
 smiling. 
 
 " Did Mr. Pendren ever really explain about 
 me to you ? " she asked. 
 
 Mary shook her head. " Didn't need that ! The 
 concern in the camp over that letter . . . well, it 
 jest about up and shook trouble at us without us 
 saying a word. There's things run too deep, ma'am, 
 times, to let us ask questions." 
 
 " Then perhaps we had better start at the be- 
 ginning, Pearl, and explain." 
 
 She looked across at Mrs. Carr, who waited cheer- 
 fully at the door. 
 
 " Let us move an amendment," said that smiling
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 297 
 
 lady. " Huckle has gone to sleep on your good 
 bed, Miss Settler, and the Lord only knows when 
 we can get on. I never dream of waking him." 
 
 There was a merry twinkle in her eye, and Mary 
 left the room because she knew that Clara was just 
 about breaking her neck round the corner of the 
 passage.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 " Now then," said Mrs. Hucklebury Carr to her 
 husband, " tell Bricker to let the machine out to 
 a full gallop. I mean of course to do some travel- 
 ing and get this business fixed before we see another 
 night. Huckle, give your voice a little exercise on 
 that speaking tube and show Miss Settler how we 
 do things up our way. Speed her up and pare the 
 corners clean as you can. Gee! if ever I get into 
 anyone else's love affairs again may I be asleep and 
 dreaming. After Alys's fifth attack of hysterics, 
 I should call it good going to do the trip under time 
 limit. Are you comfortable, Miss Hopkins ? " 
 
 In the car were Mary Settler and Clara Hopkins, 
 together with the visitors of the day before. Mrs. 
 Huckle had thought it a great scheme to take Mary 
 and Clara for a run down to Bird Town and to 
 Ladybird Farm to see the finish of the drama they 
 had been so much concerned in. By the look of 
 things it was evident that some definite conclusion 
 had been arrived at, and Mary herself was more 
 pleased than she could say all at once. She and 
 Clara sat hunched inside the tonneau looking as if 
 they were part of the machinery itself and could 
 
 298
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 299 
 
 take no unwise license such as leaning too far this 
 way or that, or giving the slightest occasion for 
 losing their balance over the rutty parts of the 
 road. 
 
 It was the first time that either of the two coun- 
 try women had ever stepped inside an automobile, 
 and the sensation of such a thing very nearly stupe- 
 fied Clara into a kind of " mal-de-mer." 
 
 " I'm just . . . right," she said in answer to 
 Mrs. Carr's question, but all the same she did not 
 look it. 
 
 When the car took the long open road in frantic 
 little bounds, perhaps a trifle over regulation speed 
 and sufficiently unsteady to start the whole crowd 
 swaying from side to side, Clara took her move- 
 ments from Mary Settler. The good woman was 
 speechless, under a mood of thankfulness that had 
 suddenly grown upon her during the night. To her 
 the whole of her life was just opening to the full 
 like a precious rose spread to the sun, and the cool- 
 ness of the winds that traveled kindly past it. Clara 
 thought that Mary was trying to adjust her mental 
 bearing to the terrific speed of the car, and there- 
 fore she switched on certain constituents in her own 
 temperament that had never been called upon before. 
 
 " You are not too crowded? " asked Mrs. Huckle, 
 again leaning forward from her own perch on a 
 little shelf of a seat that folded away when not in
 
 300 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 use and made quite a decent thing of a journey so 
 long as the occupier did not mind being dragged 
 sideways along the road. 
 
 Clara said, with fortitude, that she was " not 
 a mite too crowded," and the little smiling lady 
 turned to Mary. 
 
 " This will do you all the good in the world, Miss 
 Settler." 
 
 Mary answered steadily, though her balance was 
 not altogether in the right direction. 
 
 " More than one body has a right to expect, Mrs. 
 Huckle, in so short a time knowin' you. Spring and 
 her ma will as near shed their skins in excitement 
 as anything they've done yet when they hear this 
 rattle comin' 'long the road." 
 
 " And the ' happy-ever-after ' part to follow," 
 laughed Mrs. Carr, looking at Mrs. Lancelot Pen- 
 dren in the corner. 
 
 The lady-in-chief refused to take any part in the 
 conversation since a certain development in the af- 
 fair the night before. That development was even 
 now nearing its completion, and she was trying to 
 work it to her own satisfaction some way or other. 
 
 The road ran on interminably. Clara Hopkins 
 bobbed and apologized and trod on people in her 
 displacement. Presently she put out a hand and held 
 on to Mary, and so, united in sympathy, they con- 
 tinued their journey together. Things went flying
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 301 
 
 past them so quickly that they thought some of them 
 had been thrown from the fields on purpose. Even 
 the stately birch trees and maples seemed to get 
 themselves up in a mighty raging wind and hurl 
 past vertically and parallel to the telegraph posts 
 which positively danced out of the way of the car 
 as it approached them. 
 
 In all her life Clara Hopkins had never had such 
 an experience. It was as surprising as Benjamin's 
 courting of her. 
 
 He had been left at home to look after the farm 
 and Clara's own small homestead, as well as give 
 an eye, under strict orders from Mary, to Cora and 
 the new baby. Mary would not consent to leave the 
 district till all these things had been arranged; even 
 Hek Dean, under the shadow of Liz Hetty's wing 
 as well as Liz Hetty's temper, came in for consid- 
 eration. 
 
 Mary was thinking of the things she had left 
 behind. Liz Hetty began to sandwich herself be- 
 tween the dancing field ahead and the little patch 
 of fruit and onions at home. Mary was feeling it 
 keenly that she should be sitting there in an auto- 
 mobile with no idea as to how things had progressed 
 at home for several hours. 
 
 The bare fact that she had left the place when 
 Cora was not responsible and Mark out of work, 
 and Hek Dean under several kinds of discomfort
 
 302 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 through the good but firm attentions of Liz Hetty, 
 made her palpitate inwardly. She had come away 
 without even sending any special word to Hek; 
 without even stepping over the cultivation lot and 
 saying a parting word. Perhaps it was the terrific 
 rate of traveling that made her afraid now. She 
 wasn't really going away, she told herself, for any 
 length of time, but she seemed to be passing so 
 quickly through the country that it was almost as 
 if the last years of her life were speeding away 
 from her. Perhaps Hek would not have time to 
 notice her absence. The thought gave her some 
 relief, but at the same time it helped on another 
 totally different kind of feeling. She was not alto- 
 gether happy over Hek. Every time the car took a 
 turn into another road she wanted to call out or 
 to stop the driver. Right back there Hek Dean 
 was sitting in his place, perhaps expecting her to 
 drop in, or to hear from Cora and Mark that Mary 
 had " stepped over for a spell " and left a word for 
 him. She could see it all so plainly. 
 
 She helped Clara right herself at a quick turn of 
 the machine and sat back again. The lady-in-chief 
 was sitting with her eyes shut and Mrs. Carr was 
 talking glibly about everything that she could think 
 of. But the rattle in Mary's mind went on with 
 the hum of the wheels and the engine. 
 
 " I didn't have cause to leave things so sudden,"
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 303 
 
 she said to herself. " I didn't have cause to leave 
 Hek, or Cora, or Mark ..." 
 
 Her troubled reflections as to what was happening 
 at home did not leave her until Mrs. Carr shouted 
 to her husband : 
 
 " Huckle, I'm sure this is Bird Town, because I 
 have suddenly become possessed of a frantic desire 
 to get out and fly in search of something to eat."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 PENDREN found himself gazing in the sweet face 
 of the most precious mother. Sufficient was it for 
 him to know inwardly that in those clear eyes before 
 him there was neither reproach nor accusation. 
 
 The words he had heard Mary Settler utter once 
 long ago while he lay half-conscious came back to 
 him. 
 
 "... she was just the sort of human creature I 
 was expecting after knowing Spring for a night. 
 One of the kind that wears big eyes in her head 
 and hardly uses 'em at all 'cept to stare at you 
 when she don't know what to say. ..." 
 
 Pendren thought that Mary had outlined this 
 woman as though she had taken a pencil and drawn 
 her very features. 
 
 He waited a moment. Then, with the same plead- 
 ing, folded hands that every member of her family 
 used when trying to work out something incompre- 
 hensible, Spring's mother began to talk. 
 
 " Mr. Pendren, you mustn't take too much notice 
 of what Spring says when she tells you she's caring 
 and anxious to fall in with your plans for the city. 
 I think she has got it all like a story-book in her 
 
 304
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 305 
 
 mind, and it's certainly true that she . . . likes you 
 more than any man she knows, but then ..." 
 
 Pendren had guessed that Spring saw or knew 
 few men but those sometimes employed by her 
 mother to do chores about the place. 
 
 " You are trying to be fair to me, Mrs. Roper," 
 he said. 
 
 He gathered himself together to say to her what 
 his heart and soul were full of. 
 
 " I am quite ready to trust the look in Spring's 
 face and to know that once she places her love . . . 
 it is as tightly fixed as though it were welded there." 
 
 He stopped nervously, searching mentally for a 
 real beginning to the truth. 
 
 " Believe me ... there is not one thing wrong 
 on your side, Mrs. Roper. I I have found myself 
 out as . . . as a donkey guided, as it were, by the 
 ears. Last night I learned my lesson and I have 
 come here to repeat some of it to you." 
 
 Again he waited; but the folded hands and the 
 wide eyes implored him to go on. 
 
 " I told you last night before I broke away and 
 went to the fields that there was a trouble in my 
 mind that I could not explain to you. Well, it is 
 that trouble that has got to be made clear now, and 
 then I can go ... yes, I suppose there would be 
 nothing else to do but to go." 
 
 " Do you mean go back to your people without
 
 3 o6 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Spring? You must not mind that, Mr. Pendren. 
 She is so young and will possibly understand 'later 
 that . . . that all your kindness and plans were 
 meant in just a friendly way. The deeper meaning 
 of love has not yet opened for her." 
 
 He was silent a moment, then he pulled himself 
 together, speaking smartly to get things on to the 
 proper road. 
 
 " I came to this part of the country some time 
 ago to find out a certain family who were reported 
 to be a side branch of our family, and who can 
 claim, if they want to, perhaps two-thirds or nearly 
 all of my father's fortune. I was willing to fight 
 them tooth and nail. Yes, I came down to abuse 
 their rights, to laugh at them, to run them through 
 every court in the land, if necessary, even to the 
 absolute wasting of that fortune rather than see 
 these people take what had been ours for so long. 
 Then . . . came my accident, and Spring's revivi- 
 fying part in my life. But . . . through all our 
 merry hours in Miss Settler's house I cannot think 
 why Spring withheld her real name." 
 
 He waited a moment longer ; the wide eyes looked 
 afraid, so he went on carefully. 
 
 " Yesterday . . . the name of the people up 
 against my family's happiness and prosperity came 
 from the very girl for whom I wanted to fight this 
 thing, for I wanted to have and to hold her against
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 307 
 
 all odds, to see her in fine clothes things that suited 
 her sweetness and to watch her eyes glow because 
 her mother, her ' most precious mother,' could live 
 a life of ease in the big city. The name Roper, 
 the name of the family I had come to fight to 
 rob was that of my girl my little Spring Glory 
 who had shown me the real true meaning of life 
 and love. ..." 
 
 " Do you mean ... we are the side branch 
 of " 
 
 " I mean that your husband, Graham P. Roper, 
 ought to have come into the biggest share of his 
 father's money, which had never come to his father 
 before him through family disputes and lost ad- 
 dresses. It came to our side through my great- 
 grandmother, whose husband took it all for his son, 
 my grandfather. . . . Oh, it is all very complicated, 
 but the fact remains. . . . You must have papers 
 belonging to your husband's people, surely. ..." 
 
 " There is a box, but I have never looked inside 
 it. Graham said it was the record of a most misera- 
 ble existence of his father and grandfather and that 
 as long as we had enough to eat we need never bother 
 over it. ... Sometimes I wanted to break it open 
 and see what we could do for . . . for there wasn't 
 always enough for the children to eat. ..." 
 
 Her eyes closed a moment, and when they opened 
 they were softer than the blue mists of night. 
 
 *
 
 3 o8 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Imagine my horror," Pendren continued des- 
 perately, " for I wished above all things to play fair 
 to the precious love between that dear girl and my- 
 self ... I saw myself in the eyes of the world a 
 thing that chases the heart of an inexperienced girl, 
 so that I might, by keeping her to myself, hold the 
 main part of the fortune still. That is how it ap- 
 pears to me now . . . and for that reason I rather 
 welcome now the fact that there is a tie a tie which 
 bars me from taking Spring away from you. Yes, 
 that tie from which I wrote asking freedom only 
 the other day. ..." 
 
 Just a few words came from the woman in her 
 new understanding. 
 
 " But if . . . if it turns out that Spring cares 
 more for you than for this money . . . she would 
 be so unhappy ..." 
 
 " Spring does care, thank God ! But the world 
 will say cruel things, perhaps persuade her that I 
 managed a fine coup through her love. No, it is 
 better that I withdraw myself from this matter, once 
 and for all." 
 
 " And leave my girl . . . breaking her little 
 heart?" 
 
 " Most precious Mother, you said just now that 
 it is all like a story-book in her mind. Perhaps it 
 is. She will find the realest things at the end of 
 the book."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 309 
 
 Passing along the veranda, he went to find the 
 girl. He had not seen her at all since the talk with 
 her in the moonlight. Now he found her in the 
 shadiest corner with a troop of small people 
 sitting on the floor before her and the cuddley baby 
 on her knee. 
 
 " I have fixed matters with your mother, Spring," 
 he said sharply. " The rest can be done by what- 
 ever solicitor she may appoint. Could . . . could 
 you dispense with these small folks long enough to 
 walk with me across the fields ? I want to see what 
 can be done with the car. It may not be able to be 
 mended in time. ..." 
 
 " You are going, then . . . and I have not 
 fully understood just what we are all to do. Oh, 
 Mr. Pendren . . ." she had never become used to 
 calling him anything else, " is it the something that 
 you said I would not understand that is sending you 
 away so quickly ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The children ran away as swiftly as rabbits at 
 a word from Spring, all but the cuddley baby whom 
 she picked up and held in her arms. 
 
 " And I am to stay here and not go with you? 
 To wait till we are really rich and then pack up and 
 go to town? Will I see you then? Will it be very 
 long ? Will you get over all the difficulties and meet 
 us very soon ? "
 
 3 io SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " I am afraid there is one difficulty," he said 
 slowly, " that we could not get over. Spring, I had 
 never intended you to work with my sister. That 
 was only a blind till we saw how things went. I 
 wanted you for my wife . . . for my little play- 
 fellow . . . and for the mother of all the little 
 cuddley things that might come along." 
 
 He ceased speaking. 
 
 " Yes ... I ... I would like so much to be 
 ... be all those things to you," she cried eagerly. 
 " Going to town with you in any kind of way at all 
 would have been just perfect! Oh, Mr. Pendren, 
 even if I couldn't be the wife, and the playmate, and 
 mother to the most precious cuddley babies, could 
 I not go just the same ! Just the same ? " 
 
 Pendren started but did not touch her. The child 
 in her arms acted as a break to his impetuosity. 
 
 Her eyes wandered from his as sounds of traffic 
 came down the open road towards the cutting. He 
 followed her gaze and saw the auto, with Mary and 
 his sister, also the lady-in-chief and others in it. 
 The car was moving slowly towards Ladybird 
 Farm. 
 
 " The reason why you could not come, just the 
 same, Spring, is here now in that car the lady sit- 
 ting back with the motor coat. . . . Everything 
 finishes here." 
 
 " Town folks to see you ! Oh, Mr. Pendren, and
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 311 
 
 I cannot go back with you because . . . because of 
 that lady?" 
 
 She pressed the baby to her heart, and young 
 Pendren turned his back on the car so that the people 
 in it would not immediately recognize him. He 
 wanted a few more minutes with Spring.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 " You must come," said Pendren presently. 
 Spring did not speak. Already the car containing 
 the city folks was slowing down and his sister and 
 the lady-in-chief had caught sight of him standing 
 there with his back turned towards them. 
 
 Spring Roper held the child a little closer and 
 looked at him out of eyes deep with pain. 
 
 " I . . . can't ..." she said almost beseechingly. 
 " It's . . . like having something inside of me all 
 torn so that I can't breathe without it hurting . . . 
 it's more like being really ill than anything." 
 
 " Poor child ! " said Pendren, aching to comfort 
 her, but knowing that even then the inmates of that 
 grinding, awful piece of machinery were preparing 
 to rush the veranda and bombard him with queries. 
 He hung on to the last moments with the girl as 
 if they were the dregs of a cool drink after the pain 
 of thirst-racked fever. " You care ... so much, 
 Spring? You . . . you ..." 
 
 " I ... I don't know what it is," Spring breathed 
 sobbingly, " but it means a dreadful trouble, I'm 
 sure. If she would even let me go with you . . . 
 just for a little time . . . long enough to get used 
 
 312
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 313 
 
 to things, to be able to have them afterwards . . . 
 like little pebbles or stones collected on a beautiful 
 beach and kept as the memory of a glorious day 
 in the sunshine. If she would only say I might go 
 on loving. . . . Oh, it could never harm you or 
 her. . . . Perhaps I could ask her . . . yes, I might 
 do that. Ask her to let me have you sometimes just 
 to speak to . . . to think about . . ." 
 
 He stopped her by a quick movement as she 
 turned away. His hand went out and claimed hers, 
 even as Mrs. Hucklebury Carr and Mrs. Lancelot 
 Pendren came walking towards the veranda. 
 
 " You precious thing," Pendren whispered 
 quickly. " You dear, precious thing. I did not 
 think it was so ... so much to you. I wanted you 
 to have every chance, but, by Heaven ... let the 
 world wag a thousand tongues ... let it shout my 
 name as anything it likes ... let them all go down 
 on their knees and beg, beg, beg me to give you 
 up, and as sure as God made you, and the little cud- 
 dley baby, I won't give you up ! No, Spring, at the 
 last moment you have saved me. I didn't know 
 what I was doing ..." 
 
 He was breathless when Mrs. Hucklebury reached 
 his side, pounced upon him, and kissed him briskly. 
 
 " You darling Lance," she said, then half-whis- 
 pered a warning which Spring heard distinctly. 
 
 " Alys is out for murder and sudden death. She
 
 3 i4 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 is going to have satisfaction for her massacred 
 heart. For goodness' sake, Lance, take her right 
 out to the country as far as you can get, and have 
 the thing settled once and for all. Is this Spring 
 who is coming to stay with me " 
 
 While she moved towards the girl, who quickly 
 put down the baby and stepped back with some 
 nervous hesitation in her face and a little uncertain 
 pain still in her eyes, Pendren found himself face 
 to face with Mary Settler, who had managed some- 
 how to outstep the lady-in-chief and was right next 
 to him, with a stream of information bursting from 
 her lips. 
 
 " There's more ingredients goes to the conditions 
 and the making of that girl's future, Mr. Pendren, 
 than any of us understood when first I started things 
 express, for a reason of my own. Why, here's Clara 
 Hopkins in it too; and if Clara has to hop into the 
 muss like a dash of soda to give things a rise, well, 
 there's going to be a nice-looking kinder settlement 
 afterwards." 
 
 Young Pendren shook hands all round and came 
 to the lady-in-chief, who deliberately laughed as she 
 put her arms out to embrace him. 
 
 " Naughty boy, Lance," she said quietly and 
 briskly. " You gave us all a turn. Why, I even 
 considered your letter serious. Miss Settler, too, 
 gave me quite a wrong impression. I was going
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 315 
 
 to be most dreadfully upset about . . . about things ; 
 but now I see the true state of the case I have come 
 down to do all I possibly can to put them on a 
 proper footing." 
 
 " That's good," said Pendren, and jovially hit 
 Hucklebury Carr on the shoulder as he joined the 
 crowd. 
 
 " The true state of the case, as you say, is right 
 here before us. I find that Mrs. Roper can 
 claim " 
 
 " And we mustn't be mean about things ! " inter- 
 rupted Alys. She took his arm familiarly. " I am 
 quite ready to give over . . . part of the estate, and 
 even more than that, if ... we can just persuade 
 that girl, there, that you had to act perhaps a little 
 unwisely towards her to get to the truth of this 
 affair. Poor Lance . . . did you have a very bad 
 fall?" 
 
 Pendren, taking his cue from the light in Mary 
 Settler's eyes, quickly reassured her. 
 
 "The most delightful tumble of my life, Alys! 
 It knocked sense into me, anyway, where I had 
 been carrying . . . foolishness. I found that I 
 never really loved you . . . that is, not more than 
 as . . ." 
 
 Here Spring and Mrs. Hucklebury Carr came 
 into focus again. The girl's eyes were shining and 
 her lips trembled; but she wanted to understand the
 
 3 i6 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 situation because of her rebellious little heart which 
 was nearly being ruptured with the uncertainty of 
 everything. 
 
 " Will you tell me," she began softly, interlacing 
 her fingers and with her warm face held up to the 
 taller woman, " will you mind my asking you . . . 
 are you very, very dear and near to him? I 
 mean, somebody like . . . like a mother, for in- 
 stance ..." 
 
 Mrs. Hucklebury Carr exploded into peals of 
 laughter, and the lady-in-chief was furious to the 
 extent of nearly losing her head. 
 
 "Like his mother? You mean his wife, I sup- 
 pose, but you dare not say it. You are a wicked 
 little girl and you are to blame for taking advantage 
 
 of a man while he was suffering from from " 
 
 She hesitated, scarcely daring to say again what she 
 had said in Mary Settler's house and so challenge 
 more of Mrs. Carr's amusement. 
 
 " That's what it was, though nobody but myself 
 can see it ! " she declared defensively. " Look at 
 him, Huckle! Pearl! Lance has been foolish be- 
 cause he had this accident while under stress and 
 worry. You must understand that, Miss Roper." 
 She flashed round at the girl, and continued : 
 
 " Mr. Pendren has been much fretted and over- 
 worked for some time and the accident has 
 just ..."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 317 
 
 Another peal of laughter rippled from Mrs. 
 Carr. 
 
 Pendren was thoroughly angry. 
 
 " Are you trying to make out that I am crazy 
 mad, Alys ? " he demanded quickly. " Answer 
 me!" 
 
 The woman shrugged her shoulders with an 
 amazed expression, while Spring hid her eyes on 
 Mrs. Carr's shoulder. 
 
 " Not crazy, Lance, but just a little unhinged, 
 perhaps by all this worry and the accident. I 
 would not dream of blaming you, seeing that ..." 
 
 " Never mind the blame," shouted Pendren. 
 " Tell me this : Do you imply that . . . that my ad- 
 miration for Miss Roper is the result of an accident 
 to my head ? Is that it ? Answer me ! " 
 
 Everybody had something to say. Mrs. Carr 
 laughed a little nervously, and her husband said 
 something quite harmless. Spring breathed a ques- 
 tion that nobody could catch, and Mary and Clara 
 broke into quick undertones. But Mrs. Lancelot 
 Pendren herself had to answer definitely. 
 
 " Yes ... I think it must be something like 
 that," she said. 
 
 " And . . . you are here, to . . . to be kind and 
 consider the case ? To run me home again, not quite 
 as a lunatic, but just mildly loco. One minute; 
 don't interrupt me! I'm fighting for my whole life
 
 3 i8 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 now, Alys . . . and perhaps for yours. You prac- 
 tically question my sanity?" 
 
 " In the matter of ... this infatuation, cer- 
 tainly," said Alys, now firmly assured of her own 
 ground. 
 
 " Then if there is a question of my not being 
 responsible for my actions since the accident, there 
 is danger ... I say danger for you in being tied 
 to me for life under such conditions. One minute 
 more ... do not open your lips." His attitude was 
 imperative. 
 
 Mrs. Lancelot Pendren drew her wraps around 
 her as if she were cold. Everybody waited ex- 
 pectantly as he went on speaking. 
 
 " I told you in my letter that I wished you to 
 hand me back my freedom. It was after the acci- 
 dent. Presumably I was not in my right senses, we 
 will put it that way. Now I take that freedom be- 
 cause you yourself have questioned the fact of my 
 sanity. That at least you will admit, and also grant 
 that I have the right to withhold my . . . affection, 
 seeing that it is not to be relied upon . . . after the 
 accident. According to the laws of nature no 
 lunatic has a right to . . . " 
 
 " I never said that horrid word, Lance." 
 
 " Lunatic? You implied it, Alys. I do not wish 
 to ask you to in any way alter your opinion. Who 
 knows . . . " he looked at Spring. " I may not be
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 319 
 
 in my right mind, that is ... the mind I possessed 
 when I left the city. Certainly my brain has re- 
 ceived a shock at my own behavior, but if the mind 
 I carried with me out to these parts was the right 
 one, then the change is a decided advantage. I 
 have got the chance to make up a fresh mind, and 
 now I take my freedom in that new one, leaving 
 you just as you were, and still are, the wife of my 
 late cousin. So our engagement must now be con- 
 sidered at an end completely." 
 
 For a few moments not a word was said. Even 
 Mary Settler held her peace and, for the first time 
 in years, Clara began to wipe her eyes. She had 
 caught a glimpse of Spring's face, which shone in 
 an ecstasy of purest sweetness. 
 
 Pendren broke the silence. 
 
 " I take from you, Alys, in the presence of these 
 witnesses, the pledge I made you years ago. See- 
 ing that I am mentally deficient, I need recognize 
 no law of social bond, or even that of affection. 
 And . . ." 
 
 He walked over to Mrs. Carr, who was holding 
 Spring in her arms. 
 
 " I ask, implore, and beseech Miss Roper, in her 
 sweet generosity, to accept me as a husband, even 
 at the risk of having to put up with my mental ab- 
 errations from this day onward to the end of my 
 life."
 
 320 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 Mrs. Carr put Spring into his outstretched arms; 
 he drew her protectingly to him and over her shoul- 
 der his eyes spontaneously laughed. 
 
 " Consider us a pair," he said gayly, and every- 
 body except the lady-in-chief joined in the laugh. 
 
 Mrs. Hucklebury Carr made a quick step forward 
 to her husband. 
 
 " For the sake of everything blessed, kiss me, 
 Huckle," she cried. " I feel as if I should explode 
 with joy ! Alys, you played too high, my dear, and 
 now you must go back again and . . . well, just be 
 mother to somebody else." 
 
 But Alys was in honest, childish tears. Mary 
 Settler went to her and another sorrowing soul was 
 taken into her big charitable heart. With true 
 Samaritan gentleness, the good woman talked 
 quietly to her. 
 
 " Sure it often happens that way, Mrs. Lancelot. 
 You've got more of his name through being his 
 cousin's late wife, or I should say his late cousin's 
 wife, than our girl Spring there, up to time of 
 closing this meeting; and as sure as you think about 
 it, you'll find that even that much you'll want to 
 get rid of presently when another man comes right 
 along looking his eyes out of his face on account 
 of not being able to see you quick enough. Spring 
 wasn't so far out when she said that about you 
 motherin' him, near and dear. ... I done that once
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 321 
 
 for a man and I found he treated me same as 
 Lancelot has you. Sure it's our mistake, maybe 
 . . . but it's what we're stacked for. You go on 
 with the mother principle all you know, till you 
 sight the other chap wearing magnifying glasses 
 because he's missed you a spell and can't sit down 
 happy till he has you up against his watch pocket." 
 
 Over her shoulder Mrs. Lancelot cried heartily. 
 Mary turned to Clara. 
 
 " You mind, Clara, what I said about that old 
 clock? She wasn't his wife though her name was 
 Mrs. Lancelot Pendren. Wasn't that topsy-turvy 
 enough for anything? I tell you, Clara, things work 
 just as well sometimes with a bit of an uncommon, 
 ugly twist."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 " BILLS/' said Mary Settler, bringing herself up 
 against Clara Hopkins suddenly one afternoon, 
 after she had spread her outward and visible finan- 
 cial liabilities on the kitchen table, trusting that her 
 friend would not hop in too suddenly and take her 
 unawares, " bills is much the same as children. 
 Once they get the top hand on you, well it's a sure 
 thing you better give up business right away." 
 
 Clara stood her ground and opened fire. 
 
 " Mary Settler," she said, " if you could give busi- 
 ness up as you has it, you wouldn't be scorching 
 your heart with worry these nights and Hek Dean 
 and Jake Heldy and others as has some hold on 
 this concern, be hinting to you tender-like that your 
 property was in a mighty big danger of changing 
 its name. Business, you call it? More like too 
 much fool charity. Think I didn't know how things 
 was going? And how much you was putting on 
 that turnip crop that has only turned to blight and 
 burnt roots, and given Benjamin as bad a time as 
 anyone? " 
 
 " Just taking you on the hop, Clara . . . about 
 322
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 323 
 
 that same," interrupted Mary, glad of an oppor- 
 tunity to change the subject. " Benjamin has been 
 having a bad time, sure thing, but this is where we 
 start right at the beginning and manage his affairs 
 same as our own. Now, Clara, this concern of 
 mine looks like going into other hands. I can't 
 call on Hek, nor claim two cents more from him by 
 any kinder way whatever, so if Benjamin's startin' 
 a new trek, it's your business to see you start out 
 with him." 
 
 Clara opened her eyes wider. " Sakes alive, 
 Mary, you're not talking of turning Benjamin out 
 of the place? Ain't he been bred and born here 
 and eaten his food out of your hand and tamed 
 down to a kinder pet animal ? Ain't he part of the 
 concern same as the yard or the things growing in 
 the cultivation patch? Ain't he flesh and blood of 
 the life we been living these years . . . ain't 
 he . . ." 
 
 Mary had to stop her. Glistening drops were 
 rolling from Clara's eyes and that troubled Mary 
 fearfully. 
 
 "You ain't got cause, Clara, to get upsetting 
 yourself on account of Benjamin. He's a good, 
 honest boy and can get work anywhere. When 
 I've settled with him, the check ought to be good 
 enough to start you and him anywhere you like. 
 You don't think, Clara, that I'd be pushing the boy
 
 324 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 out into the cold street, on a kinder barefooted, 
 homeless, lame-dog stunt ? " 
 
 In the good woman's eyes, also, tears were start- 
 ing. A thousand fears held her own heart, but this 
 was the only intimation that she was feeling any 
 way out of the ordinary at all. 
 
 " Why, I been circulating ideas into my own 
 brain all this month, Clara, ever since they took 
 my girl Spring to town and married her proper 
 with her mother and family handling her clothes, 
 same as if they were the Monday wash and must 
 be held to pegs the right way of the wind. Sure I 
 been setting up my mind that you and Benjamin 
 would be doing the same thing now, and my check 
 owing to Benjamin just coming in handy to set 
 you up." 
 
 Here Clara blubbered outright. - 
 
 " Think I want Benjamin working in another 
 person's place ? Think he'd be happy ? Think we'd 
 take your check, Mary, at such a time ? " 
 
 " My check is only what's been owing to Ben- 
 jamin for about nine months or over. Sure, I had 
 it ready, but Benjamin never kinder hinted he was 
 in a hurry; and there was other things ..." 
 
 " Yes, I know. Mark and Cora look pretty perky 
 these days. Seen her at Sunday School last week. 
 Dark blue serge, nothing less, and a hat that was 
 trimmed at the store, and not at home any more
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 325 
 
 than her boots was. I'm just wondering, Mary, 
 what's going to be left out of the wreck you brought 
 on yourself." 
 
 The lights were dipping in the sky and Mary 
 watched them slowly. Across the fields Hek Dean's 
 little house took the colors of the cold evening, and 
 she shivered. There was something in the scene 
 that affected her more than she knew. 
 
 With a heavy sigh released, she answered Clara. 
 
 " There's meself . . . left . . . out of the wreck, 
 Clara, and that's something to be thankful for." 
 
 Clara mopped her eyes; then began to cry 
 again. 
 
 " I could make Hek sorry for this if I wanted 
 to. Everybody knows how he's been loaning and 
 loaning you money till you don't know which is 
 your yard and which is his. He's got no sentiment 
 about knowing you since you was a girl, Mary." 
 
 " Who told you he knew me since I was a girl, 
 Clara?" 
 
 Mary asked the question with the abruptness of 
 a door banging. 
 
 " Why, Hek, of course ! Only the other night 
 Miss Liz Hetty was trying it over Hek about things, 
 and Hek arguing that you had first call to 
 to . . ." 
 
 Mary's eyes were luminous, though her face was 
 white as death. She held up one hand.
 
 326 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " Clara, for the love of Heaven don't go telling 
 me things like that ! " 
 
 She swallowed some of her excitement and went 
 on more calmly : 
 
 " If Hek ain't gracious to Liz Hetty for what 
 she's done by him these years " 
 
 " She's near driven him out of the country ! " 
 
 " That's his way of making you think so, Clara. 
 Minds me of the time Miriam Plenty got herself 
 up to shouting colors and style of hair, jest because 
 a feller was coming courting her sister and her 
 sister going to refuse him good and strong out of 
 spite for something. Miriam she dances along like 
 the wind on the water and catches her sister in her 
 arms and tells her that there was a proposal coming 
 her way that very day. . . . Well, what actually 
 happened was this, that her sister gives her no 
 chance whatever and grabs him by the collar first 
 go and asks him outright what he means by it. 
 There was a terrible lot of play-acting that minute 
 and the curtain had to come down sharp, or Miriam 
 would have been in with a hop, skip, and jump to 
 seize anything she could in the way of that feller, 
 just out of fool notions that her sister might let 
 him escape. Same with Hek. He's clear-sighted 
 about his own case. He allows that Liz Hetty 
 ain't got no call to have first place with him, but 
 she has all the same."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 327 
 
 Mary finished by dusting her face with her sleeve. 
 She was wringing her handkerchief, though she had 
 forgotten to use it to dry her perspiring hands, and 
 Clara noticed them. She smiled at Mary. 
 
 " I got a letter from Hek, this very day, saying 
 things had got to be fixed, Clara, so that shows 
 your argument is against wanting sentiment for me, 
 though he has known me since the days when he 
 did chores for my mother. He's going to settle 
 with Liz Hetty, or else he's in for a bad time with 
 pneumonia this season, and nobody to take him in 
 hand." 
 
 Clara looked knowing. 
 
 " I'm trying to guess where you'll be, Mary, if 
 there's nobody to take him in hand ? " 
 
 Mary never answered. Her old face grew shad- 
 owy like the evening and she began to bustle about 
 in the kitchen right away. 
 
 " Suppose you'll be out-be-the-day doing washing 
 for the folks around Bird Town, Mary? I'm going 
 right along to Benjamin this minute to settle that 
 first of all." 
 
 And as if to prevent any further argument, Clara 
 banged the kitchen door as she went into the 
 yard. 
 
 Mary began to seriously think about her business 
 affairs with her eyes set towards Hek Dean's house. 
 A light shone out from the windows and made the
 
 328 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 shadows more formidable. For the first time in her 
 life she discredited Hek of systematic charity. He 
 had put the case of her loans in the broadest way, 
 never hinting as to how she might pay in ready 
 cash at any time; but made it plain that the friend- 
 ship, would be the same when her property had been 
 signed to him and the dividing fence broken down 
 between the farms. Her property. . . . Not for 
 one minute would Mary Settler have thought of 
 taking the trouble to an outsider. It might incul- 
 pate Hek, and that would not be playing a fair game 
 after his services to her in the years. She began 
 to think he was right to claim her small house and 
 land; but it threw Benjamin into the masses of the 
 unemployed right away. The good woman never 
 took into consideration that she also might find it 
 difficult to wade through the advertisements for a 
 " charwoman " wanted by the day. That all seemed 
 so small, now. She was getting old, and could live 
 on as much as she gave to the chickens if it came 
 to the point, but Benjamin . . . with his ideas about 
 marrying Clara. 
 
 The more she thought about it the more she mis- 
 understood Hek Dean's motive in putting the case 
 so plainly to her. He had showed her the true bill 
 over her head. It seemed to have expanded tele- 
 scopically in the last two years. Of course there 
 had been liabilities through bad seasons and acci-
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 329 
 
 dents and general poverty in the neighborhood; but 
 that had nothing to do with Hek. 
 
 " Not that Hek made any fuss about my getting 
 the money in time," she said to the rising shades 
 of night. " Don't think he put it that way at all; 
 but then of course if Liz Hetty's comin' into things 
 maybe the house would be more profitable, and . . . 
 I don't think I could keep above water even with 
 Benjamin, now the turnips is gone on us as well." 
 
 Yes, she had to admit, Hek had been considerate. 
 He had simply implied that he could claim the prop- 
 erty any day now, and that he would like her opinion 
 on that same subject if she would step over a spell 
 some morning before Liz Hetty arrived on the 
 scene. 
 
 She had never stepped over so far, as she wanted 
 to think it out first. She wondered now if Hek 
 would agree to keep Benjamin on, as he would be 
 working the two places? Liz Hetty wasn't likely 
 to disagree to that, and Benjamin was a thorough 
 good lad and equal to Hulky Smith for a day's solid 
 work. 
 
 Hek had not mentioned the matter of what was 
 to become of either Benjamin or herself. Naturally 
 she thought he would not expect her to remain, 
 even if he had included Benjamin. Perhaps he 
 thought that she would go to the city and do chores 
 in Spring's new home on Fifth Avenue. It seemed
 
 330 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 as if he must have, as he was so keen on the point 
 of not asking her to try and pay the debt in cash 
 at all. Clara had hit it right away, it appeared. 
 Her property was in a mighty big danger of chang- 
 ing its name. Well, she would not have minded 
 so much if it had not been for Benjamin . . . 
 
 Clara and Benjamin came into the kitchen. 
 
 Mary put away the bills because it seemed to 
 increase her trouble of mind to see them about. 
 
 " I'll see Hek in the morning," she said out loud 
 as she pushed them into the knife drawer and 
 turned to speak to Clara. 
 
 " Hek Dean don't get this place, Mary," Ben- 
 jamin began before he sat down to his tea. " Not 
 if I have to borrer the money meself, and Clara 
 and me run it on corn husks till we can hit things 
 proper with them as loans us the ready cash." 
 
 " I was thinkin' of asking Hek, Benjamin, to let 
 you and Clara stop on a spell and work the place 
 same as you " 
 
 Benjamin flourished his fork. " Ask Hek noth- 
 ing. I guess you better hand me out the proper 
 rights to talk the situation with him and find out 
 what he's really hitting at." 
 
 Mary looked slowly at him. 
 
 " He's hitting at only what's owed him, Benjamin, 
 through my bad seasons, nothing else." 
 
 Benjamin swung round in his chair and took a
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 331 
 
 good look at Clara. She smiled back and Mary 
 was left guessing. 
 
 " Hek's trying to lose Liz Hetty; if you can't see 
 it, Mary, you're blind as a mole." 
 
 As Mary could not see anything of the kind she 
 shut her mouth for good on the subject, and the 
 evening grew in shadows as Clara went home, snif- 
 fling and rather down at the mouth. 
 
 It was nothing to her that Benjamin had allowed 
 her to stand fretting him into a fit for fully two 
 hours that night. She had always managed Ben- 
 jamin, but things looked very bad for Mary 
 Settler.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 " FOR all the world like falling on your feet 
 proper-ways when somebody had turned you up- 
 side down and dropped you from a terrible-looking 
 height, thinking to stop off your life allowance by 
 jamming you good and hard on the rocks below. 
 If it had been Hannah-Ellen, my old cat, I shouldn't 
 have wondered. She always did fall into place like 
 a lady, right side up, even if you pushed her off 
 the table good and hard in a worse temper than you 
 knew about . . . but Mary Settler ... to strike 
 it rich this way, do you hear me tellin' you, Ben- 
 jamin ? " 
 
 Benjamin was slow to catch her meaning, but he 
 stopped eating his breakfast-food and looked at her. 
 
 " Spring and her man been writing a check for 
 all you done, Mary? " 
 
 " No, Benjamin, it's just that Lancelot himself, 
 leaving Spring where she ought to be the time of 
 night he wrote it. Here it is : 
 
 " ' My good Samaritan Mary ' (Now, Benjamin 
 o' the yard, you're not to copyright that to Clara be 
 any chance. Town folks is apt to misconstrue the 
 Bible same as the rest of us, and Lancelot ain't to 
 
 332
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 333 
 
 blame for the name he's given me outter his kind- 
 ness of heart.)" 
 
 " Read the check first," said Benjamin, with a 
 wonderful glee in his face. " Read out the check, 
 Mary. Clara will be here soon and it'll be my 
 turn in the yard with that old hoss. . . . He's likely 
 to be more interested in me than folks that happen 
 to say they'll marry after Thanksgiving." 
 
 Mary postponed the letter till she had said a few 
 words about Clara. 
 
 " Benjamin, if Clara was to fall on your neck, 
 she'd maybe kill you with kindness. Her kind don't 
 act that way. More likely she'll hit up things 
 good and strong after you're married, and you 
 won't know a moment's mortal peace; but she'll 
 love you like your mother did years before you 
 knew it. Clara's the sort to talk the head off a stick 
 of rhubarb, but that's what she's marrying you 
 for. If a woman can't be to home in her own 
 house, and work off steam a bit there, well, she's 
 as good as never wed at all." 
 
 " Never wed at all ! " Benjamin looked hard at 
 Mary. " That's what I'm grouchy about. Clara 
 puts me off and off ... you'd think I was a hat 
 she'd been wearing till her head was sore about it." 
 
 Mary began the letter again. Lancelot Pendren 
 had made her out a check payable on presentation 
 at the nearest bank. It covered all liabilities on
 
 334 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 the property as well as allowing a balance in the 
 bank to meet expenses the next two seasons if they 
 happened to be bad ones. Spring had joined in the 
 letter at the finish, beseeching Mary to leave Clara 
 in charge and come to her before the end of the 
 present season so that she could share in all the good 
 things and see the beautiful gifts presented to her 
 by her husband and his people. 
 
 Clara Hopkins walked in at this point and said 
 something about Mary leaving right away. 
 
 " Spring will outfit you from the stores the mo- 
 ment you touch her place," said Clara. 
 
 Mary allowed this to pass, as there was some- 
 thing bigger looming on the horizon. 
 
 " I allow I might go to Spring right away," said 
 Mary, " but happen you to think, Clara, that you 
 an' Benjamin can't take on my place together, 'cept 
 you get Deacon Heddy to come along and fix you 
 good and proper." 
 
 Clara hedged, but finally had to give in. 
 
 " If you'll leave the place to Benjamin and me, 
 Mary, and go away this very week, I'll get all my 
 starched and colored's in early, and marry Ben- 
 jamin ..." 
 
 " An' I'll help you with the flannels ! " Benjamin 
 burst out, scarcely waiting to draw a breath. 
 
 ' You got enough to do about your own work 
 without inter ferin' with mine," said Clara.
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 335 
 
 Benjamin found himself boss for the first time 
 through sheer bravery. He caught Clara in his 
 arms before Mary. 
 
 " You'll see ! " he said gleefully, holding Clara 
 as she protested indignantly all the time Mary 
 was putting on her cape to go and see Hek. 
 
 Half an hour afterwards the good Samaritan 
 scraped the mud of the damp fields from her boots 
 on the door-iron at Hek Dean's house. The place 
 was very silent. She knocked but got no answer; 
 then she turned the latch upwards and the door 
 opened easily. 
 
 Marveling at such a free entrance, she walked in. 
 Hek was breathing heavily in his bed in the little 
 room off the passage. Even with a prodigious 
 plaster, Miss Hetty had not succeeded in warding 
 off the specially invited pneumonia. Mary paused 
 and looked in on Hek. 
 
 " You're mortal bad, Hek, and I shouldn't be 
 interferin' ..." 
 
 Breathing with painful difficulty, Hek managed 
 to convey to her that he wished her to come nearer. 
 
 " Better ease your mind first, Hek, by telling you 
 that I got the money you lent so good and often. 
 You'll lie better now that's off your mind." 
 
 But the patient did not lie any easier. He strug- 
 gled to get up.
 
 336 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " I never asked you for the money, Mary." It 
 came through stiff lungs, and the heart of the 
 woman cramped in her body because he looked so 
 forlorn and desperate. 
 
 " That was good of you, Hek. You never did. 
 But I'm proud to be able to hand you the check as 
 that Lancelot and Spring sent me this morning. 
 I'm hitting a new track for New York, Hek, leaving 
 Clara and Benjamin o' the yard in charge till . . . 
 till I come back again." 
 
 The old man struggled to get himself up in bed. 
 She put him back softly, tenderly. For the first 
 time in years she touched him on the head with her 
 hands. 
 
 " Till you . . . come back, Mary ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Will it be soon ? I never felt comfortable about 
 things when you went as far as Jake Heldy's store 
 even." 
 
 " You got Miss Liz Hetty, Hek, and that's some- 
 thing to be thankful for. Besides, there's Clara and 
 Benjamin and Cora and the baby." 
 
 The old man struggled up again. 
 
 " Sounds like you ain't exactly comin' back, 
 Mary?" 
 
 Mary answered slowly. 
 
 " No ... I ain't exactly comin' back, Hek."
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 337 
 
 He breathed again heavily, and his breath was like 
 the moan of wind in the house. 
 
 " Mary . . . Mary, you mind the time ... I 
 been thinking of it so many years. Paradise it 
 was " 
 
 Mary folded her cape closer. 
 
 " That was the hill we climbed, Hek. Paradise 
 it was till we ... got home ... at nights ..." 
 
 " Mary . . . that money. I never wanted to loan 
 it to you to get it back again." 
 
 " D'yer mean you was making me a present of it, 
 Hek?" 
 
 " Wall ... not exactly, but ... " 
 
 " You wanted my property, Hek. Everybody 
 says my place would look better tacked on to yours. 
 Something like traveling a refreshment car with the 
 passenger and baggage train, eh ? " 
 
 " I wanted . . . your property, Mary. . . . Yes, 
 that's what I wanted. Take your check away. If 
 I can't have your property ..." 
 
 He tried to get easier in his mind before speaking 
 further, and Mary went on talking and tidying up 
 the room a bit. 
 
 " My bit of a place ain't worth two cents now, 
 Hek." 
 
 " It'd be worth more'n that to me, Mary." 
 
 "'Cos it's only got the dividing fence be- 
 tween?"
 
 338 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 " 'Cos it's only that fence, Mary, that's been 
 botherin' me all these years." 
 
 She thought that he might take a sudden fit if 
 she did not immediately go to him and place him 
 gently back in the bed. 
 
 " If that fence troubles you, Hek, I'll allow you 
 to pull it down right away. Keep low now." 
 
 But Hek could not keep low. 
 
 " You mean that, Mary ? I can get Hulky Smith 
 to . . .to take it down? " 
 
 "If it makes all the difference to you, Hek. I'm 
 not stopping you." 
 
 " And . . . then the property is one, Mary . . . 
 and you and me ... is ... one." 
 
 At last, after untold years, he had got it out. 
 Mary stood in the center of the room, staring at 
 him. 
 
 " You're not too bad with pneumonia, Hek." 
 
 " I'm mortal bad, Mary. Bad enuff to want you 
 to give over that idea of New York City bad 
 enuff to want you for the rest of my life." 
 
 Mary simmered on this. " 'Tain't exactly play- 
 ing the hand Liz Hetty's side of the table, Hek." 
 
 " Liz Hetty knows my mind . . . will you ask 
 Benjamin to get Hulky Smith to take down that 
 fence?" 
 
 Slowly she walked toward the bed. Hek was 
 an old man, far older than herself and not easy to
 
 SAMARITAN MARY 339 
 
 deal with at any time, much less every day of the 
 year. She stood looking down at him. 
 
 " Hek," she said, " I never knew you cared that 
 much when ... the break came. Cora's mother 
 beat me spite of the scented notepaper and the chew- 
 ing gum, and such, but if God's willing to let me 
 take up the ropes where I let 'em drop . . . well, 
 Hek, there's only one God and . . . you, and . . . 
 me ... after all, to settle it now." 
 
 " And if the pneumonia ain't too terrible, Mary, 
 I'll be up to watch 'em pulling down that fence 
 . . . maybe next week." 
 
 " Maybe, Hek," said Mary, although he coughed 
 so badly that she felt it go clean through her own 
 old body. 
 
 All day she moved about the house, adjusting 
 the crockery and the furniture. The neighbors told 
 Miss Hetty what was doing at Hek Dean's and she 
 did not come near the house. Late in the evening, 
 when the wind quieted down into distressingly 
 mournful sighing through the cracks of the old 
 building, Mary watched the old man lying low in 
 his bed. 
 
 " That pneumonia's going to leave Hek a dif- 
 ferent man," she said mentally. " Don't think he's 
 ever going to be much use again, still, thank the 
 Powers it happened when it did. I might have been 
 in New York hitting up a time like I used to dream
 
 340 SAMARITAN MARY 
 
 about when . . . when I was . . . called by the 
 name of a blessed flower, and him never suspecting 
 me as just plain Mary." 
 
 In his slumbers the old man almost seemed to 
 hear her. He was wandering back to the old days. 
 
 " Daffodil," he said, like the whispering wind, 
 and Mary bent over the bed. 
 
 " He must be mortal bad to remember that," she 
 said to herself. " So it's me he wanted through 
 that bit of property." She stood tranquilly brood- 
 ing over the past. 
 
 " Seems like Providence didn't remind him long 
 ago on purpose," she told herself, " and the things 
 I've cherished all these years have come in as bene- 
 fits, so to speak, to make up for what I lost. What 
 ... I lost . . . why, Hek, if you'd only thought 
 about it before . . . when I was a bit younger and 
 more fashioned for for . . . oh, well! I suppose 
 Cora will keep us in touch with a new line of human 
 emotions. It 'ud be more than we could expect of 
 the Lord at my time of life. Same time ..." 
 
 She looked at Hek lying there breathing heavily. 
 
 " Count . . . your blessings ... as I've always 
 said," she went on, as she took a chair and de- 
 liberately sat down to watch over and tend him 
 through the creeping coldness of the night. 
 
 THE END
 
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