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"Then I s'pose I'd better be makin' other plans," said Charlotte, going to Pearl and picking her up as if preparing for instant departure. Miss Upton's eyes shone with exasperation. "I wish you wouldn't drive me crazy, Charlotte Whipp. If you haven't any sympathy for a poor orphan in jail on a desolate farm, then I wouldn't own it, if I was you. You can see what chance she has o' comin' here.
I told him I was full as satisfied as I would be to have to make my way through Indians and buffaloes to get anywhere as you have to in those wild Western cities. He claimed that it was perfectly civilized around Chicago now; but of course he'd say that." "H'm," returned Mrs. Whipp, non-committally.
The girlish voice laughed again: not so gleefully as Mrs. Barry could have wished. She hoped they were not sister-sufferers! "I should judge so, from what Mrs. Whipp has told people. Well, I will be patient, Mrs. Barry. We want to show all courtesy to Ben's friend when the right time comes. Good-bye." "Good-bye," replied Mrs. Barry, and hung up the receiver.
Whipp, determined to get some of her usual proxy satisfaction from Miss Upton's outing. "I never saw him till we got to Keefe. Oh, Charlotte, if I'd ever met a boy like him when I was young I wouldn't be keepin' a store now with another woman and a cat." "H'm, you're better off as you are. Ben Barry's young yet. He'll be in plenty of mischief before he's forty. His mother was in the shop to-day.
First, because I love it better than any place on earth, and second, because it's good business. I do a better business there than I do here. You think it over, Charlotte, because I ought to let Nellie know." "Well, you can let Nellie know that I'm goin'," replied Mrs. Whipp crossly. "What sense is there in your takin' a girl to the port to go in swimmin' while you work?"
Whipp had started up at once alertly on her friend's entrance, spilling Pearl, and was already removing Miss Mehitable's jacket and hat with deft fingers and receiving the silk gloves she pulled off. "H'm, I don't believe they'll eat any better things than we're goin' to have. How can I go to church and have us a good hot dinner?" "Sunday dinner should be cold mainly," returned Miss Upton calmly.
"Just the same," she added, the sense of outrage holding over, "we'd ruther you'd 'a' come to-morrer." Ben strode through the shop and out to the living-room, Mrs. Whipp following impotently, talking in a high, angry voice. "'T ain't my fault, Miss Upton. He would come in. Some folk'll do jest what they please, whatever breaks." "Law, Ben Barry!" exclaimed Miss Mehitable with a start.
"Let me fix your collar," said Charlotte, rising; "your apron rumpled it all up." "Why can't I remember to bully her oftener?" thought Miss Mehitable. "It always does her good just like medicine." Promptly at three Ben Barry jumped out of his car before Miss Upton's Emporium, and Mrs. Whipp dodged behind the window-curtain and watched them drive away.
Miss Upton drank her tea busily now to conceal her desire to smile. Some of Ben Barry's comments upon her companion returned to her irresistibly; for she easily followed Charlotte's present mental processes. Mrs. Whipp was in a most uncomfortable corner and her friend had driven her into it with such bland kindness that it made the situation doubly difficult.
If the law has to settle it, she's likely to be toothless before she can make a move." Mrs. Whipp was startled by the wrathful voice and manner of one usually so pacific. "I didn't mean to make you mad, Miss Upton," she said with a meek change of manner; and there the matter dropped. Now was a crucial time for Geraldine Melody.
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