Amarilly of Clothes line Alley

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"I'll remember," promised Amarilly meekly, as she wiped her dewy eyes.

"Now tell me directly, what is the matter."

"It'll be such a humbly picture with my hair that way. I'd ought to look
my best. I'd rather you'd paint me waiting on your table."

"But a waitress is such a trite subject. It would be what your friend, I
mean, our friend, Miss King, calls bromidic. An artist, a real artist,
with a soul, Amarilly, doesn't look for pretty subjects. It's the truth
that he seeks. To paint things as they are is what he aims to do. A
little scrub-girl appeals to the artistic temperament more than a little
waitress, don't you think? But only you, Amarilly, could look the part
of the Little Scrub-Girl as you did. And it would be incongruous--
remember the word, please, Amarilly, in-con-gru-ous--to paint her with
stylishly dressed hair. You posed so easily, so perfectly, and your
expression was so precisely the one I wanted, and your patience in
keeping the pose was so wonderful, that I thought you had really caught
the spirit of the thing, and were anxious to help me achieve my really
great picture."

"I have--I will pose for you as long as you wish," she cried penitently,
"and I will braid my hair on wire, and then it will stand out better."

"Good! You are a dear, amenable little girl. To-morrow afternoon we will
resume. Here, let me loosen your braids. Goodness, what thick strands!"

She stood by the open window, and the trembling, marginal lights of a
setting sun sent gleams and glints of gold through her loosened hair
which fell like a flaming veil about her.

"Amarilly," exclaimed Derry rapturously, "I never saw anything quite so
beautiful. Some day I'll paint you, not as a scrub-girl nor as a
waitress, but as Sunset. You shall stand at this window with your hair
as it is now, and you'll outshine the glory of descending Sol himself. I
will get a filmy, white dress for you to pose in and present it to you
afterward. And as you half turn your head toward the window, you must
have a dreamy, reflective expression! You must think of something sad,
something that might have been a tragedy but for some mitigating--but
there, you don't know what I am talking about!"

"Yes, I do, Mr. Derry. I know what you mean, even if I didn't ketch--"

"Catch, Amarilly; not ketch."

"But my word for to-day is 'afraid,'" she said stubbornly. "I wasn't to
have but one word a day. I'll say 'ketch' until to-morrow."

"Oh, Amarilly, such system as you have! You are right though; but tell
me what it was I meant." "You mean I am to think of something awful that
would have been more awful but for something nice that happened. I'll
think of the day last summer when we couldn't pay the rent. That was sad
until the bishop came along and things got brighter."

"Exactly. You have the temperament, Amarilly, but you should have
written to your twin brother in such a dilemma. It's late now, or it
will be when you get home. I am going to walk with you."

"No; I am not afraid."

"It makes no difference; I am going with you. To think that, intimate
friends as we are, I have never seen your home, your numerous brothers,
and the Boarder. I am going to spend the evening with you."

"Oh, no!" she protested, appalled at the prospect. "You mustn't."

"Why, Amarilly, how inhospitable you are! I thought you would be
pleased."

"I guess you couldn't stand for it."

"Stand for what, Amarilly?"

"Why, you see, I am not ashamed of it, but it's so diff'rent from what
you're used to, and you wouldn't like it, and I'd feel uncomfortable
like with you there." "Why, Amarilly!" A really pained look came into
his boyish eyes. "I thought we were friends. And you let Miss King and
your minister come--"

"But you see," argued Amarilly, "it's diff'rent with them. A minister
has to go everywhere, and he's used to seeing all kinds of houses; and
then Miss King, she's a sort of a--settlement worker."

"I see," said Derry. "But, Amarilly, to be a true artist, or a writer,
one must see all sorts and conditions of life. But I am not coming for
that. I am coming because I like you and want to meet your family."

"Well," agreed Amarilly, resigned, but playing her last trump, "you
haven't had your dinner yet."

"We had a very late luncheon, if you remember, and I am invited to a
supper after the theatre to-night, so I am not dining."

Amarilly did not respond to his light flow of chatter on the way home.
She halted on the threshold of her home, and looked at him with despair
in her honest young eyes.

"Our house hasn't got any insides or any stairs even. Just a ladder."

"Good! I knew you wouldn't--that you couldn't have a house like anyone's
else. It sounds interesting and artistic. Open your door to me,
Amarilly."

Slowly she opened the door, and drew a sigh of relief. The big room was
"tidied" ("redded" having been censored by Derry some time ago) and a
very peaceful, homelike atmosphere prevailed. The Boarder, being an
amateur carpenter, had made a very long table about which were grouped
the entire family. Her mother was darning socks; the Boarder, reading
the paper preliminary to his evening call on Lily Rose; the boys, busy
with books and games; Cory, rocking her doll to sleep.

Their entrance made quite a little commotion. There was a scattering of
boys from the table until Derry called "Halt" in stentorian tones. "If
there's any gap in the circle, I shall go."

Then he joined the group, and described to the boys a prize-fight so
graphically that their eyes fastened on him with the gaze of one
witnessing the event itself. He praised Amarilly to the mother, gave
Cory a "tin penny" which she at once recognized as a silver quarter, and
talked politics so eloquently with the Boarder that for once he was
loath to leave when the hour of seven-thirty arrived.

"You've gotter go now," reminded Cory sternly. "You see," turning to
Derry. "he's gotter go and spend his ev'nin' with Lily Rose. She's his
gal."

"Oh! Well, why not bring her here to spend the evening?" suggested
Derry. "Then you'll have an excuse for two nice walks and an evening
thrown in."

"That's a fine, idee!" acknowledged the Boarder with a sheepish grin.

He at once set out on his quest accompanied by Bobby, whom Derry had
dispatched to the corner grocery for a supply of candy and peanuts.

The Boarder and Lily Rose came in laden with refreshments. The Boarder
bore a jug of cider "right on the turn," he declared, "so it stings your
throat agoin' down."

Lily Rose had brought a bag of sugared doughnuts which she had made that
afternoon (a half holiday) in her landlady's kitchen.

When Mrs. Jenkins learned from Amarilly that Derry and she had had
nothing to eat since half past one, she brought forth a pan of beans and
a pumpkin pie, and they had a genuine New England supper. The Boarder
recited thrilling tales of railroad wrecks. Derry listened to a solo by
Bud, whose wild-honeyed voice was entrancing to the young artist.
Altogether they were a jolly little party, Lily Rose saying little, but
looking and listening with animated eyes. Mrs. Jenkins declared
afterwards that it was the time of her life.

"Amarilly," said Derry, as he was taking leave, "I wouldn't have missed
this evening for any other engagement I might have made."

"That's because it was something new to you," said Amarilly sagely. "You
wouldn't like it for keeps."

CHAPTER XIX

When Cory secured a place as dish-wiper at a new boarding-house near,
and Gus realized that he and Iry alone were dependent upon the others
for their keep, shame seared his young soul. He had vainly tried to
secure steady employment, but had succeeded only in getting occasional
odd jobs. He had a distinct leaning towards an agricultural life and
coveted the care of cows.

"The grocer has sold his'n," he lugubriously lamented; "thar ain't no
one else as wants a caretaker for their critters around here."

After a long rumination on the discouraging problem of his future, he
sought his confessor, the corner grocer.

"I'm too big to peddle papers or be runnin' about with telergrafs," he
declared. "I'd orter be goin' into business on my own account. I ain't
goin' ter be allers workin' fer other folks."

"Well, you'll have to wait a while before you can work for yourself,"
counselled his confidant. "You are young yet."

"This is a hurry-up age," was the sagacious assertion, "and ef you air
agoin' to git any-whar, you've got ter go by wire instead of by mail,
and you can't start too soon."

"You can't start nothing without capital," argued the grocer
conservatively.

"Oh," admitted the young financier, "a little capital mebby. I've got a
dollar I've saved up from odd jobs."

"What line was you thinking of taking up?"

"I'm going into the dairy business. Thar's money in milk and butter, and
it's nice, clean work."

"The dairy business on one dollar! How many cows and wagons and horses
was you figuring on buying with your dollar?"

"Don't git funny," warned Gus impatiently. "Some day I'll hev a farm of
my own and a city office, but I'll begin on one cow in our back lot and
peddle milk to the neighbors."

"That wouldn't be a bad beginning, but I reckon you'll find the start
will cost you more than a dollar. You can't get a cow at that figure."

"Then I'll start with a calf."

"Well, I guess calves cost more than a dollar."

"Say, you've got that dollar on the brain, I guess," retorted the lad
with the easy familiarity that betokened long acquaintance with the
lounging barrels and boxes of the corner grocery. "I bet it'll build a
shed in our back yard. Thar's the lumber out of our shed that blowed
down, and the Boarder can build purty near anything."

"But how are you going to buy a cow?" persisted his inquisitor.

"I ain't got that fer yet," admitted the young dairyman.

"Your dollar'll buy more than the nails for your cow-house. You can put
the balance into feed," said the grocer, with an eye to his own trade.

He wanted to add that it wouldn't cost much to feed an imaginary
critter, but he was a little fearful of the temper back of the lad's
hair, which was the same hue as Amarilly's.

"That's a good idea. Well, the shed starts to-morrow, and of course you
won't say nothin' about it."

"Trust me for not talking in this neighborhood. It ain't safe even to
think. First you know your thoughts are being megaphoned down the
street."

Gus consulted the Boarder who instantly and obligingly began the
erection of a building in the farthest corner of the Jenkins's domain.
This structure was a source of mystery and excitement to the neighbors.

"What on airth do you suppose them Jenkinses air aputtin' up now? Mebby
it's a wash-house for the surpluses," speculated Mrs. Huce.

"It can't be they air agoin' to keep a hoss!" ejaculated Mrs. Wint.

"You never kin tell nuthin' about them Jenkinses. They're so sort of
secretin' like," lamented Mrs. Hudgers.

The Jenkins family were fully as ignorant as were their neighbors of the
nature of the contemplated occupant of the new edifice commonly referred
to as the "cow-house," The Boarder put up a very substantial shed with a
four-paned window and a door that locked though not very securely. The
grocer had on hand a small quantity of green paint which he donated to
the cause of the coming cow.

"Thar ain't enough to more'n paint two sides of it," criticized Gus, "so
I'll paint the front and west sides."

"Thar's a can of yaller paint out in the woodshed," informed Mrs.
Jenkins. "You can paint the other two sides with that."

Then the Boarder made a suggestion:

"If I was you, I'd paint a strip of yaller and then one of green.
That'll even it up and make it fancy-like."

Amarilly protested against this combination of colors so repellent to
artistic eyes, but the family all agreed that it "would be perfickly
swell," so she withdrew her opposition and confided her grievance to
Derry's sympathizing, shuddering ears.

Gus proceeded to bicolor the shed in stripes which gave the new building
a bedizened and bilious effect that delighted Colette, who revelled in
the annals of her proteges.

Each member of the Jenkins family had a plan for utilising this fine
domicile, as there seemed to be a general feeling of skepticism
regarding the ability of Gus to produce a cow in the flesh. This
sentiment, however, was not openly expressed, as the lad was found to be
decidedly sensitive and touchy on the subject.

"Mebby a cow'll jest walk right into the back yard and make herself to
hum in the new shed," prognosticated Mrs. Jenkins optimistically. "It's
such a beautiful place. I'll bet there is cows as would ef they knowed
about it."

"I perpose," suggested Flamingus patronizingly, "that we start a cow
fund and all chip in and help Gus out."

"Sure thing!" declared the generous Amarilly. "He can have all my
savings. We ought to all help Gus get a start."

"I'm in," cried Bobby.

"You kin hev all you want from me, Gus," offered Bud.

Firmly and disdainfully Gus rejected all these offers and suggestions.

"Thar ain't agoin' to be no pardner business about this," he announced.
"The cow won't come till she's mine--all mine--and when she does, I'm
agoin' to pay the Boarder for his work."

"If he wants to be so all-fired smart, we won't help him git no cow,"
declared Flamingus, "and the shed kin be used for a summer kitchen arter
all."

This use of the new building had been the fondest dream of Mrs. Jenkins,
who deemed it an ideal place in which to keep her tubs, mops, boiler,
and wringer. Milt had designs upon it for a boy's reading-room and club;
Flamingus coveted a gymnasium. Bobby, Bud, Cory, and Iry had already
appropriated it as a playhouse.

Amarilly openly and ably defended Gus and his cherished, illusory plan.
Of all her brothers, he was the one to whom her heart most inclined. For
Bud she possibly had a more tender, maternal feeling on account of his
being so delicate. She paid homage to the good points of Flamingus, but
he was too cut and dried, "bromidic," she classified him, for Derry had
carefully explained the etymology of the word. Milt was honest, but
selfish and "near." Bobby was disposed to be fresh, but Gus was just
such a boy as Amarilly herself would have been, reincarnated. He was
practical, industrious, thrifty, and shrewd, and yet possessed of the
imagination and optimism of his sister. She called him aside one day for
a private consultation.

"Say, Gus, your scheme's all right. Go ahead and get your cow. I'll let
you have my savings, and the other boys needn't know. You can pay me
when you get ready to."

"That's bully in you, Amarilly, but I'm agoin' to see this thing through
alone and start in without no help front no one," firmly refused Gus,
and his sturdy little sister could but admire him for his independence.

He locked up his new possession very carefully, putting the key in his
pocket every morning before going to the business precincts to pick up a
job. The children, however, were not dispossessed by this precaution,
finding ingress and egress through the window. Gus most opportunely
secured a week's job driving a delivery-wagon, and he instantly invested
his wages in the provisioning of the cow quarters.

"The feed'll git stale by the time the cow comes," objected Milt.

"Mebby it's fer bait to ketch a critter with," offered Bobby.

After all, it was the miracle predicted by Mrs. Jenkins that came to
pass and delivered the cow. Early one morning, when Gus went as usual
with fond pride to view his sole asset, he found installed therein a
young, corpulent cow, bland and Texas-horned, busily engaged in
partaking of the proceeds of Gus's last week's wages. She turned
inquiring, meditative eyes toward the delighted lad, who promptly locked
the door and rushed into the house to inform the family of the new
arrival.

"She's lost or strayed, but not stolen," said Amarilly.

"Bobby, you put an ad in that paper you deliver at once," commanded Mrs.
Jenkins. "Some poor people air feelin' bad over the loss of their cow."

It was considered only fair that the cow should pay for her meal. She
was overstocked with milk, and graciously and gratefully yielded to
Gus's efforts to relieve her of her load. The children were each given a
taste of the warm milk, and then the little dairyman started right in
for business. The milkman had not yet made his morning rounds, and the
neighbors were so anxious to cross-examine Gus that they were more than
willing to patronize him. Excitement prevailed when it was learned that
the Jenkins family had a cow, and the lad's ingenuity in dodging
questions was severely taxed. He avoided direct replies, but finally
admitted that it was "one they was keepin' fer some folks."

A week went by, with no claim filed for the animal that had come so
mysteriously and seemed so perfectly at home. Gus established a
permanent milk route in the immediate neighborhood, and with his ability
once more to "bring in" came the restoration of his self-respect.

"It's funny we don't git no answer to that ad," mused Mrs. Jenkins
perplexedly. "How many times did you run it, Bobby?"

For a moment silence, deep, profound, and charged with expectancy
prevailed. Then like a bomb came Bobby's reply:

"I ain't put it in at all."

Everybody was vociferous in condemnation, but Bobby, unabashed, held his
ground, and logically defended his action.

"I got the news-agent to look in the 'losts' every night, and thar want
nothin' about no cow. 'Twas up to them as lost it to advertise instead
of us. If they didn't want her bad enough to run an ad, they couldn't
hev missed her very much."

"That's so," agreed the Boarder, convinced by Bobby's able argument.

"Most likely she doesn't belong to any one," was Amarilly's theory. "She
just came to stay a while, and then she'll go away again."

"She won't git no chanst to 'scape, unless she kin go out the way the
chillern does," laughed Mrs. Jenkins.

One day the Boarder brought home some information that seemed to throw
light on the subject.

"One of the railroad hands told me that a big train of cattle was
sidetracked up this way somewhar the same night the cow come here. The
whole keerload got loose, but they ketched them all, or thought they
did. Mebby they didn't miss this ere one, or else they couldn't wait to
look her up. Their train pulled out as soon as they rounded up the
bunch."

"I guess the cow-house looked to her like it was a freight car,"
observed Milt, "and she thought she hed got back where she belonged."

The cow, meanwhile, quietly chewed her cud, and continued to endear
herself to the hearts of all the Jenkins family save Cory. Every time
Bobby spoke her name he called to her, "Co, boss! Co, boss," just as Gus
did when he greeted the cow.

As for the little dairyman himself, he gave his charge the best of care.
He took her for a little outing every day to a near-by lot where she
could graze, being careful to keep a stout rope attached to her,
although they walked to and from the recreation ground side by side.
Derry painted a little picture of the pair as he saw them returning from
a jaunt. Gus's arm was lovingly thrown around the neck of the gentle
creature, and her Texas horns were adorned with a wreath of brown-eyed
Susans woven by Cory.

It remained for Mrs. Jenkins to christen the creature.

"'Cowslip,'" she declared triumphantly, "'cause she just slipped in."

CHAPTER XX

Amarilly's pace in learning English from Derry during the following
winter was only excelled by her proficiency in mathematics. "Figgerin'"
the Boarder declared to be his long suit, and his young pupil worked
every example in Flamingus's arithmetic, and employed her leisure
moments in solving imaginary problems. Then came an evening when she put
her knowledge to practical use and application. She had been working
absorbedly with pencil and paper for some time when she looked up from
her sheet of figures with a flushed race and a Q.E.D. written in each
shining eye.

"Say!" she announced to the family who were gathered about the long
table.

Instantly they were all attention, for they always looked to Amarilly
for something startling in the way of bulletins.

"I've been setting down and adding up what we all bring in each week.
Ma's washings, the Boarder's board, my studio work, Flamingus' and
Milt's wages, Gus's cow, Bud's singing, Co's dish-washing, and Bobby's
papers. What do you suppose it all amounts to?"

She allowed a few seconds of tragic silence to ensue before she gave the
electrifying total.

"Land sakes! Who'd 'a thought it!" exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins.

"We'd orter hev ice-cream and pie every day," reproached Cory.

"It would be reckoned a purty big salary if one man got it all,"
speculated the Boarder.

"We are rich!" exclaimed Bobby decisively.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," pursued Amarilly. "We must start a
syndicate."

"What's that, a show?" demanded Flamingus.

"No; I heard the artists down to the studio talking about it, and Mr.
Derry explained it. He said when a lot of folks put their cash on hand
together in one pile, they can buy something big and do more than as if
they spent it separate."

"Well, I ain't a goin' to put my money in with Co's," said Milt
sarcastically. "Wouldn't be much profit for me in that."

"You don't catch on," replied Amarilly. "If you should put in one
dollar, and Co should put in ten cents, at the end of a certain time,
you'd draw out ten dollars and Co would only draw out one. See?"

"I do," said the practical Gus.

"Well, now let's put our money into something and all own it together,
each one's share according to what we put in. Let's buy this house!"

They all stared in amazement.

"Buy a house! You are sure crazy, Amarilly!" exclaimed Milt.

"We could buy it cheap," continued Amarilly unabashed. "I heard the
grocer saying yesterday that property around here was at a low figure
now. We could put our savings together and make a payment down, and
instead of paying rent let it go on the balance each month. Before we
knew it we'd own the house, and the deed could be made out to show how
much of it each one owned."

"I choose the pantry!" cried Cory.

"I guess if you could buy a window-pane with what you've got, you'd do
well," observed Milt in a withering tone.

"That's a splendid idee, Amarilly!" declared the Boarder
enthusiastically. "I don't know what better investment you could make."

"It would be fine," sighed Mrs. Jenkins, "to own your own place and feel
that no one could turn you out."

"You've got a great head, Amarilly," complimented Gus.

"We could borrow on the house if we ever got hard up, or the fever
struck us again," said Flamingus.

"Well," proposed Amarilly, the ever-ready, "let's get right at it. I'll
set down our names, and when I call the roll, tell me how much you've
saved and will put in the house."

There was a general rush for bank-books, for ever since the preceding
fall, the six oldest children had paid their board, clothed themselves,
and saved the balance of their earnings.

From her washings, the revenue from the board of the children and
Boarder, Mrs. Jenkins had paid the rent and the household expenses. By
thrifty management she had also acquired a bank account herself.

"Ma!" called Amarilly expectantly.

There had been much urging on the part of

Deny in his zeal for language reform to induce his young pupil to say
"mother," but in this sole instance Amarilly had refused to take his
will for law.

"She's always been 'ma' to me, and she always will be," declared
Amarilly emphatically. "If I were to call her anything else I'd feel as
if I had lost her--as if she didn't belong to me."

Ma triumphantly announced: "Forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents."

"A fine starter," commended Amarilly, "Flamingus?"

"Forty dollars," he announced with pride.

"Milt?" Amarilly called his name in faint voice. He was the only tight-
tendencied member of the household, and she feared he might decline to
give. But Milt was envious and emulative.

"Forty-two dollars and sixty-nine cents," he declared in a voice
rendered triumphant by the fact of his having beaten Flam.

Amarilly drew a sigh of relief.

"It's going to add up fine, now. Guess I'll take my own account next. I
haven't got as much as you boys, though." "Shouldn't think you would
have," said Gus sympathizingly. "You don't earn so much, and yet you pay
ma as much, and don't take out nuthin' fer your noon meal. And you give
Co things."

"I've earned quite a bit," replied Amarilly cheerfully. "Besides what
Mr. Derry gives me, there's what I've had from odd jobs like letting the
artists paint my hair, and taking care of Mrs. Wick's baby afternoons
when she goes to card parties. I've got thirty dollars to put in. Gus?"

"Thirty-five dollars," he replied in a pleased tone.

"Bud?"

They all looked expectantly. Bud received ten dollars each Sunday now,
and he had been singing at concerts, organ recitals, and entertainments
all winter. On account of these latter engagements, he had been obliged
to expend a considerable amount in clothes suitable to the occasion.
When Bud donned his "evening clothes," which consisted of black silk
hose, patent leather pumps, black velvet suit with Irish crochet collar
and cuffs, purchased under the direction of Mr. Derry, Amarilly always
felt uncomfortable.

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