The Twin City star. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1910-19??, 1914-11-27
CHAPTER VI.
Old Accounts.

AesksF MI ~ ll!it
T was almost dusk when Mary
reached home. While she was
passing the billboard at; thu cor
!. ner-a fare OF yellow letters, as
if,color and the alphabet had united to
breed a monster-she heard children
shouting. A block away and across
the street, coming home from ROLES
TOMS hill, where they had been coast
ing, were Bennett and Gussie Bates, lit
tie Emily, Tab Wmslow and Pep.
Nearly every day Of snow they passed
her house. She always heard them
talking, and usually she heard across
at the corner the click Of the penny in
the slot machine, which no child seem.
ed able to pass without pulling. To-
night as she heard them coming Mary
fumbled in her purse. Three, four, 1--WE
pennies she found and ran across the
street and dropped them in the slot
machine and gained her own door be-
fore the children came She stood at
her dark threshold and listened. She
had not reckoned I'm vain. One of the
children pushed down on the rod in the
child's eternal hope Of magic, and
when magic came and three, four, five
chocolates dropped obediently in their
hands Mary listened to what they said.
1t was not much. and 1t was not very
coherent, but 1t was wholly Ineligible.
Look at!' shrieked Bennett, who
had made the magic.
ibid it?' cried Gussie and repeated
the operation.
"It-it-it neverg' said Tab winsIow
at the third.
Make it again; make it again.
cried little Emily, and they did.
"Gorryv' observed Pep in ecstasy.
When it would give no more they
divided with the other children and
ran on, their red mittens and mufflers
flaming in the snow. Mary stood star
ing after them for moment; then she
closed her door.
II wonder what made me do that
she thought.
In her dining room she mended the
fire without taking OF her hat. It
was curious, she reflected. Here was
this room looking the way 1t looked,
and away of there was the little fel
low who had never seen the room,
and in little while he would be calE
ing this room home and looking for
his books and his mittens and know
ing it better than any other place In
the world. And there was Jenny with
that bottom drawerfui: and pretty SOON
somebody that now was not, would
be, and would be wearing the drawer.
full and calling Jenny mother and
would know her better than any one
else in the world. Mary could not,
imagine that little boy Of Lily'ss get
ting used to sher-Mary-and1 calling
her-well, what wound he call herr
She hadn't thought of that.
Bother thought Mary Chavaf;
there's going to be forty nuisances
about it that l s'pose haven't even
thought of yet.'
not lighted the lamp, SO the wosfd
showed white, not black. Snowemakes
outdoors look big. sine thought.. But
it was big-what long journey NJ
was to Idaho. Suppose something
happened to the man he was tontravei
with? John Blood was onlyla boy; hss
would probably put the. chiid.sl name
and her address in the little travellers
pocket. and these would be lest. The
child was hardly old enough to remems
Der what to do. He would go astruy..
and none of them would ever know
what had become of him and what
would become Of him? She saw, him
and his bundle of clothes alone in the
station in the city.
She turned from the window and.
mechanically mended the fre again.
She drew down the window shade and
went to the coat closet to hang away
her wraps. Then abruptly she took
up her purse. counted out the money
in the freight and went out the door
and down the street in the dusk and
into the postoffice. which was also the
telegraph Office, one which the little
town owed to EbeneGsr Rule, and ira
rival to the other telegraph Office. at the
station.