Merry O
/ o ‘.fP* Oo / cV'--,f v^.v /,& % / ♦aVa*. V> :£Mk\ :mm° % ** •* .0^ V/^T*- <\ ~Y o <• c ^ -G . i * - „ o «- ^ * - vr-k j'd’ •*■ . . _.. ._ ? - o , ro V x° VV •«. V a* .vdgftf. ^ ** ‘ **V. Vmtlf: a5 >. ->. ” ' a „«, * C° .jtfStvl' o •^d* '!o v v * '•zssnium * r* , ’-/ * ^ -* x ■ * ,# , • ■A** „ ^ • ^ " hflYSAy • • xO-A. <4 <2 °o * W’ ' *°J V fo. ^ 4<T **.VL'«- v> V * V °* ^ * ** <& ''- * V C ■«<*- /■> ♦ • V^*> * <L^ ^r> ^ <#■ »?Wv \ \. > s ' A<S <»'”•** A° , '”s 0>^ o*_4* 'jm&S. +*0i * w * • A.0 ^ V * * * °- ’C* ' ^ V^V ^ ■* '^O- • ' <r* ' Ov o°N 0 « 'u1 C 0 ^ **''*\*°0 .. ^ aO vLVL'* ^ &• ° v<* ^ ; v^v * c^ ^rv * 4/ • ^ 231 ^ 4 (*iv v V1 ° * » •*■'*■♦ ^0% 6 0 M 0 f i _^, * ^ G ■ 'c>. sy **](Lr+ * v% ^ • av’ i-Ck a. v4. *. V* o> ^ + r\ ^ + *//•>* ’ ^0 * * £> n o C^ .<y ***'% ^ AT v£- ' ° * ^ o * £> v^ ■?>• c°^'^f^' f°° .. A * •» • °* CV. <0 i* ■> * o * » •vimssssT' *• ~ .atm#’ *M&,; ^ c v*-'/ V^V V*V >> vV „ - • ». ^c- VT ,« • * % ■> v -*• ■ r , _-__ ._ * <V V* ° ^ * / A s s A <^ '<>•* A • 1 ' * * ^ ,0 o >b/ ° *1' ~ ,- . - o ’- ^o* , ?>° ^ *5§l§|sV ^ °^‘ * o ^V, 4? O A0 ^ 4,0 N°9 **0 <y *» • • a > V" f 1 " u> <*v a - • ^ %/ #{fc V* • V v^» * ^/A^A^r^YvNo * c v/' •* ;^~3W ? ! MiSw' O A ^ ° , ♦ a$ ^ °o V^SilP** ^ °. ^ c "A <A .0^ ^ *'7A* A<V <* '•• A^ . t » « „ o^ o 0 " 0 * ^o t * ‘A® * ^ T> . t _/v>z-, -r *C_ C •_tfSNtowfc#«. ° A * &l(l//?^~ ^ y ^ A0 „ «r IlmVOx v . T* ' ^ ot ^y'/// / U <Jr v ^ T A /i ( *«►/♦.„ O’* ^ 0cV S-/"V \> Vv •> y * °- ^ AV ^ A »P>. .<6 S rS\^> )$A?° Merry O * OTHER BOOKS BY ETHEL HUESTON Prudence of the Parsonage Prudence Says So Sunny Slopes Leave it to Doris Eve to the Rescue Little Lady Comb s * jZU h^H & i v jfei 111 |paB9H -• - jok t ~ <) i. 1 » . VJ H fMl $:• ^PP*-'- IjlffFi W y%f C : >3, . vffi « 'mE ;., « l if \ I », rg He shaved ten years from his appearance Merry O By ETHEL HUESTON it Illustrated by Edward C. Caswell m INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1923 By The Bobbs-Merrill Company Printed in the United States of America o « o c c < < PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH ft CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. APR -4 *23 ©Cl A704043 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I A Case of Coercion . 11 II Commonly Known as Common Sense . . 32 III A Door that Opened and Closed .... 48 IV A Reward of Virtue . 70 V Whom the Gods Love . 86 VI   Greek Meets Greek . 216 XV Neither Dead nor Sleeping . 228 XVI A Proposal, En Rapport . 246 XVII Another Opening Door . 260 XVIII A Prisoner of Fate . 271 XIX The Secret of the Stone Cache .... 285 XX When Spirits Walk . 296 . XXI If You Will Be Orthodox . 310 Merry O Merry O CHAPTER I A CASE OF COERCION HJ ISTEN, father!” The Reverend Mr. McAllister was a light sleeper at all times, but it would seem that slumber deep as of the grave itself must yield to the force of that insistent, lilting voice, — and if not to the voice, certainly then to the resounding spring of the bed as, with a flying leap, the lithe young figure landed full in the center of it, or to the stirring vigor of that pair of strong white arms. Mary Martha McAllister in action was not to be denied. “Listen, father!” With a low, protesting, yet submissive mur¬ mur, her father turned over in bed, and opened his eyes. He was sleepy, he did not want to be disturbed, yet he could but smile at that picture. 11 MERRY O It was in the very early morning, all drab and somber, before the faintest hint of rose swept up the eastern sky. And against the drab and som¬ ber gray, Mary Martha was a riot of gay color, with her golden tousled curls, her glowing deep- blue eyes, her face all flushed from sleep and from her glad excitement. Clutching a nonde¬ script flannel kimono at her throat, she crouched on her knees in the center of her father’s bed, excitedly wriggling her bare pink toes protruding from the faded blue of her kimono. “Listen, father!” Her voice was low but vi¬ brant with emotion. Mary Martha was always vibrant with emotion of one sort or another;-*- whether pleasure, pain, a high resolve, a driving hurry, or only girlish merriment — whatever it was. Mary Martha was vibrant with it at the time of its possession of her. “If you were a hen,” she said slowly, with impressive dignity, “if you were a hen, and sat yourself down comfortably in a box with a dozen eggs in the nest, in a nice warm corner of the hen-house, and somebody came 12 A CASE OF COERCION along and shooed you off the nest and stole all the eggs, and carried the box away and hid it, and then came back with a broom and drove you out of the hen-house and locked the door and barred the windows, — now, father, what would you think ?” Her father was accustomed to Mary Martha’s line of conversation. He laughed and answered promptly, “I should infer that somebody wanted me to get away from that hen-house and stay away.” She nodded with satisfaction. “That’s right! You said it the first time ! Anybody would ! And it is just the same with us. This is the only house in New Paris that isn’t occupied, — by any¬ body but us, I mean. And now they come and say they’ve got to have it. That turns us out. And then, to make it even stronger, they come and say they’ve got to have my position, and you know yourself it’s the only position in town. So there you are. They took our eggs, took our nest, and now they’re shooing us out of the hen- 13 MERRY O house forever. Of course, I’m talking in par¬ ables, but you know what I mean. The hen¬ house is New Paris.,, “But, Merry O — ” She interrupted quickly. “It seems to me, father, as if the Lord must want us to get away from this town. Don’t you think so? I’ve got to have work, and there’s no work here. We’ve got to have a house, and no house here ! Well, then, doesn’t it just look as if the Lord decided we’d better move ?” Her father hesitated. This was a powerful argument, as Mary Martha had foreseen, and one he found difficult to answer. “Of course, if it is indeed — ” he began hesi¬ tantly. Mary Martha bounced quickly off the bed, kissed him hastily and patted his head. “Yes, that’s what I say. All right, then, we’ve agreed on that much, haven’t we? We’ll move; as soon as we possibly can. I think we can be ready to go by the time school is out.” 14 A CASE OF COERCION She walked toward the door, an appealing if somewhat ludicrous figure with her triumphant air, her tumbled curls and bare feet, wrapped in the bunglesome flannel kimono. Her hand on the knob, she turned for a moment, her manner that of a conqueror. “I did it by New Thought, father. It’s very simple. When you go to bed at night you say, ‘Well, here I am in a nice predicament, but Divine Love will show me the way out in the morning/ Then you go to sleep. And it did. Only it worked faster than I expected and got me up before daylight.” “You might have waited till breakfast,” he said plaintively. “No, that’s against the rule. As soon as you get the hunch, I mean, the inspiration, you have to hop to it right away. Oh, I don’t mean the slang. I mean, you must embody the inspiration in your plan of action right straight away. That’s the rule. It’s very clever. Good night.” Mary Martha’s conclusion in regard to a move 15 MERRY O seemed indeed based on sound logic. In the little town of New Paris, in southeastern Iowa, houses were not built to rent. It was a commun¬ ity in which each man owned his home, and there was scant provision of any kind for tran¬ sients. Indeed, there were no transients, with the ex¬ ception of teachers and preachers. The minister was furnished a parsonage. The teachers lived at a boarding-house. They had come to New Paris, the family of McAllisters, ten years before, when Mary Martha was a boyish, breezy child of ten, and Theodora a baby in arms. They were sent there by decree of the Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in southeastern Iowa, and took up their residence in the parsonage provided for them, happily, comfortably, orthodoxly. Three years later, Mr. McAllister, never a man of rugged health, had suffered a complete nervous break¬ down, and, unable to recuperate his feeble forces, was obliged to give up his little church and suffer 16 A CASE OF COERCION himself to be recorded on the lists of the church as “superannuated.” Afterward, Mary Martha often said, regret¬ fully, that if she had only known as much at the time of the disaster as she knew in later years, she could readily have whipped her father into his old preaching form along the practical healing lines of Auto-Suggestion, Christian Science, Mental Healing, New Thought, or just plain Theotherapy if you wanted to be strictly ortho¬ dox. But unfortunately, at that time, Mary Martha was patiently resigned, along with the rest of the family, to a placid acceptance of illness as not only unavoidable but perhaps a positive disposi¬ tion of divine providence. At any rate, they found themselves without a church, and, what was really more disastrous, without a parsonage. But Benjamin Hargood, a kindly intentioned member, put into some sem¬ blance of repair a little cottage of his at the edge of town, a cottage he had long since discarded 17 MERRY O as unfit for human occupancy, and placed it at the disposal of the unfortunate minister and his family. Regardless of its condition, they were glad to get it, and soon had a comfortable little home established there. For a time, things went nicely enough. The children continued in the public schools of New Paris, and Mr. McAllister went happily on his way, working almost as hard in the church as he had done before, with the one great difference that now he did it without remuneration, from habit and from love, whereas before there had been a salary, though a meager one. It was upon Mrs. McAllister, as always upon the wife of a minister, that the burden of the new regime fell hardest, — the training of the children, the care of baby Theodora, and the maintenance of a home and a family in a way that measured up to the traditions of ministerial life on funds wholly insufficient. Even her sublime heroism was unequal to the performance, and after a sudden, very brief, very quiet illness, Mrs. Mc- 18 A CASE OF COERCION Allister closed her wearied eyes and abandoned the impossible.* After that, things went steadily down-hill. The small savings dwindled with astonishing rapidity in spite of rigid economy, and the allowance re¬ ceived from the Board was in no way commen¬ surate with the family needs. Fortunately, Mary Martha was just finishing high school at the time. She did not go on and take the normal course to prepare for teaching as she had intended, but in¬ stead went courageously into the “Dry Goods Emporium” of John G. Barnes, as his sole clerk and general assistant. Her modest wage was a great help, and outside her hours in the Em¬ porium, Mary Martha managed, after a fashion, to run the house. In recent years she was assisted in an amiable but somewhat unreliable fashion by her sister Vivien, fifteen years old, now a sophomore in high school. At this time, Theodora was a sober, conscientious child of ten, most precocious, Mary Martha devoutly believed, for already she was a 19 MERRY O more dependable assistant than the flightier Vivien. Mary Martha had been thus christened by her doting parents in a fond hope that in her would develop a sweet commingling of the commend¬ able virtues of both the sainted sisters of the Bible. And in their desire to forward this pos¬ sibility to the limit of their abilities, they persisted in the daily use of both names during her baby years. Mary Martha was nearly seven when little Vivien burst into coherent speech, and the first word on her rosy lips was a demand for the presence of her sister, — an imperative repetition that would not be silenced until that sister came. “Merry O! Merry O! Merry O!” ordered the tyrant baby. And the name was so applicable to Mary Martha, so alluring in sound, so easily spoken, that from thence forth, Mary Martha was cheerily known as Merry O ! “Twenty, fifteen and ten,” Mary Martha said sometimes, with something like good-natured de- 20 A CASE OF COERCION rision. “It’s a ridiculous way to raise a family, father! Of course, not blaming you at all, for I suppose you did as well as you could, but on general principles, it’s no way to build up an establishment. And you didn’t get started soon enough, either, if you ask me. There ought to be a time limit to such things. Why, you never really thought of handing down a posterity, until it was time for you to turn your thoughts to solemn things.” Although her father laughed at this, as he usually laughed at Mary Martha’s opinions, he really felt in his heart the criticism was just enough, for he was nearly fifty when Mary Martha arrived in the parsonage home, and now, at a time when the three girls needed so much of material care and fathering, he was frail and feeble, well on his way toward seventy, “super¬ annuated” from active service. The crisis which precipitated Mary Martha’s morning mission and disturbed her father’s sleep came, fortunately, in the early springtime. The 21 MERRY O son of Benjamin Hargood, who had kindly proffered the ramshackle cottage, was on the verge of marriage, and his father planned to re¬ build the little house at the edge of town to make a home for the son and his bride. This was ob¬ viously no more than reasonable, although it left the McAllisters shelterless. The additional blow to their domestic serenity came quickly on the heels of the first. As Mary Martha sat browsing in the Book Department of the Dry Goods Emporium, which was her espe¬ cial delight and charge, her employer ventured almost timidly to address her on a serious sub¬ ject. “You know. Merry O, my girl Helen gets through at high school next week,” he said ten¬ tatively. Mary Martha knew this only too well. She had foreseen the catastrophe from the moment of her employment, three years previous. “And I ain’t really got work enough for two clerks,” he went on apologetically. “Not but what 22 A CASE OF COERCION you’re a fine help, and I hate to see you go, you understand.” There was not another position available in New Paris. It seemed that every one in the little village who had an opening for a “bright girl” had either a daughter, a niece, or a cousin by marriage, to fill that opening. Mary Martha was inclined to think it was one of the laws of New Paris that no man should have any kind of work for a girl, unless he had a girl of exactly the nec¬ essary requirements in his family proper. The only thing left for Mary Martha was an occasional bit of nursing or housework attendant upon the visits of the community stork, — a hard as well as an uncertain livelihood on which to depend for food for four. It was in this emergency, as Mary Martha proudly boasted, that she resorted to the principles of New Thought as she understood them. Mary Martha was not much of a student, merely an indiscriminate devourer of things literary. It had been at her especial and fervent plea that 23 MERRY O J. G. Barnes installed two scant shelves of books in a corner of his Emporium. Mary Martha her¬ self had selected the books, selected them most painstakingly with the help of many publishers’ advertisements and catalogues, to say nothing of three enthusiastic traveling salesmen who “carried books.” In the end, it was a small but varied selection, including half a dozen of the latest and most widely puffed books of fiction, two or three volumes of standard poetry, including India's Love Lyrics, which Mary Martha afterward in¬ sisted was a mistake and kept carefully out of sight on the back of the shelf; Science and Health, which she thought was a doctor book when she ordered it; two volumes on the latest methods of practical Auto-Suggestion ; The Key to Theosophy ; Trowurd’s Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science; three books on different phases of New Thought, as applied to physical healing, success in business and happiness in general ; also First Studies in Psycho-Analysis, and Faith, the Greatest Power in the World, by McComb. 24 A CASE OF COERCION This comprised Mary Martha’s Book Depart¬ ment of the Dry Goods Emporium, and in it she reveled. She read each volume again and again, and yet again. And when, as happened rarely, a customer came for books, Mary Martha took it grievously to heart, and selfishly, as she admitted, assisted her customer to the purchase of the book for which she herself cared least. Hence, the end of the Book Department was the self-culture, the personal erudition, of Mary Martha Mc¬ Allister. For Mary Martha knew every beloved volume by heart. J. G. Barnes regarded the Department with contempt born of Emporium practicality. “This town don’t take much to books, outside the free library,” he said, and Mary Martha felt the im¬ plied criticism of her judgment. “What’ll you take for the whole Department?” she demanded, a suddenness of notion which she would certainly have attributed to New Thought had she been working for a demonstration at the time. 25 MERRY O J. G. Barnes laughed. “You’ll turn out to be one of these Here authors if you don’t watch out,” he said. “Two dollars takes the lot.” “Deduct it from my salary,” she said grandly, and in that moment Mary Martha made a great decision. The family of McAllister leaving New Paris for — somewhere — should be a Traveling Book Department. Since it was in the spring that young Hargood married and Vivien was graduated, the entire summer lay before the McAllisters for their ven¬ ture. Vivien and Theodora were wild with child¬ ish eagerness, Mary Martha breathlessly alert with dreams and plans. It was their father who felt the pain of parting. In another town, he knew he would be only “old Mr. McAllister, superannuated.” In New Paris, ranking next to the active shepherd of the flock, he was still the spiritual leader. The going out would cut him off at once from all participation in the things he 26 A CASE OF COERCION loved most in these quiet declining years. Rut he did not hesitate. “Seems as if the Lord just decided we had to move,” Mary Martha had said, and that settled it; he never tried to resist the irresistibility of that declaration. Perhaps the most surprising revelation of all these surprising days came when Mary Martha rushed in from work one night and flung herself into a chair with the terse announcement: “Well, I bought an automobile.” Like most of life’s climactic moments, Mary Martha’s was met in silence. She looked about, almost defiantly, at the awed and rigid group. “Why not?” she de¬ manded. “Train fare is too expensive when you multiply it by four — since Teddy got so big no- body’d ever believe she was under ten, even if father would keep still long enought to — Well, anyhow, we can’t walk, can we? We might get a rickety horse and a rackety wagon, but that’s not stylish. And if we’ve got to do anything, I 27 MERRY O say do it right. As father says, we’ve got to the end of New Paris and have to move! But we can’t move on foot.” “Did I say that?” asked her father modestly. “Where is it?” demanded Teddy, who, at normal, was always practical, and after the first staggering shock of revelation quickly reverted to type. “It’s down the road in front of Wrays’. We’ll have to go down there after supper and push it home.” “Push it !” “I thought it—” “Well, so it is. But in the first place, I haven’t learned to drive it, and in the second place there’s no gas in it, and in the third place — it’s smashed — a little bit. It belonged to Billy Graves and he ran into a truck — and he said ‘There she lies, take it for a hundred.’ You can always get a hundred for a Ford, even if there’s nothing left but the name on the radiator. Everybody knows that. So I said, ‘Done.’ ” 28 A CASE OF COERCION “Where’d you get a hundred dollars ?” de¬ manded Teddy, holding her role as interrogator, while the others continued electrified but speech¬ less. “I haven’t got it. I told Billy to come down after supper and we’d give him a hundred dollars’ worth of whatever we’ve got that he’ll have. Goodness knows we can’t move all this pile of stuff along with us, everywhere we go. Now there must be two dozen hens left, I should say. Teddy, you hurry up and finish your supper and go out and see how many you can catch. He’s a farmer, he’ll love hens. And the two pigs Smith gave us — ” “Those are good pigs, Mary Martha,” pro¬ tested her father suddenly. “They’re — ” “That’s what I told him. Now, father, be rea¬ sonable. You don’t expect to carry those two pigs along in our Traveling Book Department, do you ? And the piano — Vivien, you hurry and polish it up a little. As I told him, it’s not new, but it’ll play all right. And for goodness’ sake, 29 MERRY O father, don’t mention that we only paid fifty dollars for it when we bought it at the auction. Pianos are higher since the war. Maybe you’d better go up-town somewhere, and let me do the selling. I think the hens and pigs and the piano ought to make it.” When Teddy had corralled as many of the hens as she could locate, and Vivien had obediently polished the piano, the united McAllisters walked briskly down the road toward Wrays’, to convey home their new possession. At first sight, it was not prepossessing. Mary Martha’s statement that it was “smashed — a little bit,” did not begin to do justice to its condition. Vivien turned a haughty nose in the air and an¬ nounced that she’d rather travel on foot. The Reverend Mr. McAllister shook it from side to side, listened intently to the varied assortment of noises produced by every touch, tried the springs a time or two, and then looked doubtfully at Mary Martha. “Maybe the blacksmith can wire it together,” 30 A CASE OF COERCION he said dubiously. “I can’t risk a fall, at my age, you know.” But Teddy accepted it with the joyous hope¬ fulness of youth. “We don’t care, do we. Merry O?” she cried. “I bet it’ll go all the faster ’cause it’s hung together kind of loose !” CHAPTER II COMMONLY KNOWN AS COMMON SENSE MARY MARTHA’S newly acquired motor stood dejectedly in the ditch at the side of the road and refused to budge. A leaking radia¬ tor, two flat tires, a smashed fender, a broken windshield, a door hanging loose on one weak hinge, detracted nothing from its spartan resolu¬ tion to adhere to that one spot on the highway. The united efforts of Mary Martha, her father, Teddy and three small boys, failed to affect that high resolve, and the wheels but settled them¬ selves more solidly at every attempt to dislodge them. Vivien scornfully declined to lend a hand in any such silly business, but took up a superior position some feet away beside the fence, where she tried to see all that was going on as a rank outsider, not even remotely recognizing the rest of the party. 32 COMMON SENSE “ You can — do anything — if you do it — hard enough,” panted Mary Martha, throwing every ounce of her strength into the unequal contest, both feet planted squarely in the rich black Iowa mud. “A Ford’s — not so much — to move! Push, boys, push!” Her allies rallied to another effort, but all in vain. The car did not so much as tremble in its tracks. Then another Ford, complacent in new and shining pride, rolled quickly alongside and stopped. “It’s true then,” called a bitter voice from be¬ hind the wheel of the new arrival. “Like a fool, I refused to believe it. But knowing you, Merry O, \ should have known right off that the bigger fool nonsense it looked like, the bigger chance there was of its being so !” Mary Martha dejectedly shoved the damp curls from her forehead, and tried to glower the peev¬ ish newcomer into silence, but he would not be abashed. 33 MERRY O “I wouldn’t believe it,” he went on doggedly. “I said, ‘No, her father may be a fool, but not that big a fool.’ I said, ‘Those girls may be out of their heads, but not that far out.’ I said — ” “I don’t care what you said!” cried Mary Martha at last, goaded into fury by the combina¬ tion of her failure and his scorn. “Whatever you said, you can say it to yourself, or with flowers. Don’t speak to me!” Then he laughed, and swung out over the side of his car to consider the depths of the dilemma into which Mary Martha had wilfully thrown herself. Mary Martha relented in a moment. “Oh, Jeremy,” she pleaded. “How on earth do you make a Ford go when it won’t go ?” Jeremy Lanton said nothing until he had thor¬ oughly inspected the car. Then he whistled. Then he was ready to express his opinion. “You may get a lot of good out of all that slush you’re always reading,” he said loftily, “but there’s such a thing as Common Sense, too, 34 COMMON SENSE Merry O, and now and again folks do pretty well to use it.” “I know all about it,” put in Mary Martha. “It’s the same thing as Mental Science. You read Troward’s Lecture about it, and you will see.” “Common sense is common sense. That’s all the name it’s got and all it needs,” he insisted grimly. Mary Martha dug a resentful toe in the ground and said nothing. She knew very well that Jeremy Lanton would quickly start that car for her, if she but held her peace and looked miser¬ able, which required no great effort, either. “Common sense's not one of those pretty affairs that gets itself put into books, like some other things I could mention, but it's an awful handy thing in a pinch, Merry O.” Merry O swallowed even this thrust in humbled silence. “There’s two ways to push a Ford,” Jeremy went on in a pleasanter tone now that she was 35 MERRY O sufficiently crushed. “One is to let off the brake, and the other is to leave it out of gear in the first place, and you didn’t do either one.” Vivien, from the walk beside the fence broke into mocking laughter, and even the small boys hooted derisively at Mary Martha’s discomfiture, as Jeremy released the brakes. Then he took a stout rope from his own tool box, and towed her purchase home without another word, while the McAllisters trudged somberly behind. “You see it’s a good enough car all right,” Mary Martha said defensively. “I knew it all the time. The brakes and the gears work fine !” When they reached the house, Jeremy drew Mary Martha persuasively around behind the car. “Merry O,” he began, “you’re just running your¬ self head-first into all kinds of grief. This is an awful silly thing you’re planning on. You can’t go off alone in a bum flivver with that old man and those two kids! Why don’t you just stay at home and be sensible, and marry me as I asked 36 COMMON SENSE you, and we’ll build them a house right on the farm with us so you can run both houses, and — Go on, Merry O ! I feel — I want — I can’t stand to let you go off like this !” “Oh, Jeremy,” she answered gently, warm fin¬ gers clasping his arm, “if it was only myself, honestly, I don’t know but I would marry you that way, just to get myself off my own hands and on to somebody else’s. But I can’t. Why, I’ve got to put Vivien in shape to marry a rich man, for goodness knows she can’t do a thing in the world but look pretty. And I have to get Teddy steamed up to do something very smart and clever when she is old enough, — and you know father!” “But how about me, Merry O ? And how about you?” “Oh, Jeremy, you’re awfully good. You’ll not forget me, I know, but you’ll like other girls when I am gone. You’ve got to be happy in the end, you know, because you’re the happy kind. And me ?” Mary Martha laughed a little, contentedly. 37 MERRY O ‘Til be all right. You see, Jeremy, you’ve got to have time to want things, and to miss things, and to fall in love, and for all the other wonderful luxury things like that, and I’ve never had a minute to spare!” What could Jeremy do? He assisted, as he was well fitted to do, in their mad preparations for taking to the road. And Mary Martha rejoiced in his help, partly because everything he did was well done, partly because it was a great item in cutting down the expense of getting ready. In the week that fol¬ lowed, with the usual neighborly interest of the small-town folk, every man in New Paris who knew anything about a car, lent a dexterous hand in the reconstruction of Mary Martha’s. Many who had never touched finger to a motor before, saw in this a rare opportunity to acquire experi¬ mental knowledge, but Jeremy Lanton kept a strict eye on the final product and saw to it that no friendly but ill-prompted zeal had a chance 38 COMMON SENSE to wreak further havoc on the already shattered Ford. It was Jeremy who suggested a camping-bed in the car, and then carried out his own suggestion by cutting down the back of the front seat and putting it on hinges, so that at night it could be dropped in conjunction with the back seat to form a good and cozy bed for the girls. And he resurrected from some place on the farm a heavy camping hammock for Mr. McAllister to use in¬ stead of a cot, it being lighter to carry and better in service. In a hundred ways he helped them to cut down the load, explaining again and again that in a motor trip, and especially a motor trip in “an old heap of junk like theirs,1 ” they must travel light, if they would travel far. He made a dust-proof box for the running board in which to carry their supply of food, and the kerosene stove. And as a final offering — in deference to Vivien’s wounded pride — he painted the car afresh. “Of course, I suppose I could work out all 39 MERRY O these sensible ideas myself by going into the si¬ lence and concentrating,” Mary Martha said, and added gratefully: “But it does save lots of time for you just to think them up offhand that way, without effort, and then go right ahead and do them as fast as you can get them in mind. I wish you were going along, Jeremy. With my Divine Love and your Common Sense, we’d be rich in no time.” Mr. McAllister, professing himself hardly qualified at his age to sell India's Love Lyrics , or to discuss with customers the philosophical in¬ tricacies of Psycho-Analysis and Mental Science, made hasty arrangements to take orders for Bibles and to distribute various religious tracts of his own choosing; while Vivien, who frankly confessed she had no notion of bothering with any kind of books for anybody, but spurred to un¬ wonted effort by the zealous enthusiasm of the entire household, acquired an assortment of beauty preparations and toilet waters, for which she was confident she would find a ready market, 40 COMMON SENSE recommended as they would be by her own lux¬ uriant dark hair, her creamy skin, her brilliant shining eyes. As only the barest necessities of camping could be carried in the car, they sold most of their household goods, receiving in return a sum so slight as to make of the transaction almost a charity. Yet considering that everything had been in constant service for thirty years and more, the girls could not be blamed for the feel¬ ing that they were lucky to get rid of it on any terms at all. The things they wished to keep were neatly packed away in boxes, and stored in the basement of the church until they should send for them later on. Mary Martha, with Jeremy as tutor, had no difficulty in learning to drive the car and change tires, and soon professed herself quite an artist A in her ability to “turn and tighten things and punch with the wrench and pound with the ham¬ mer when she goes dead.” So their plans went on apace, and because, 41 MERRY O * — without understanding that back of that un¬ yielding law lay all the mysteries of life and death and the eternal beyond, — from their early youth they had known there was an infinite source of supply which could not fail the one who tapped that spring in faith, they were only hopeful, and not at all afraid of what might lie ahead. “The trouble with us,” said Mary Martha, looking up from her book one afternoon, “the trouble with us is that we have never expected enough! We’ve been satisfied with too little. There’s been a good deal coming to us we didn’t get, just because we didn’t know it was ours and take it. Now from this on, we’ve all got to get together and expect. Expect the very best of everything in the world ! And then of course we’ll get it.” On the last night before their departure, just before they were ready to sleep, Mary Martha gathered her little flock about her and fixed them with a purposeful eye. “Listen,” she began. “We’ve got to have a 42 COMMON SENSE plan. That’s the first rule. All the books say so. Now for myself, my plan for the present is just to sort of — well, scurry along and get a job of some sort as quickly as possible, and see what comes of it. Now, Vivien, what is your plan? — I don’t mean selling the beauty things, — I mean, your great general plan for life.” Vivien, thus set upon, flushed and giggled and finally admitted that so far she had been satis¬ fied to get along as best she could, and had really no definite line of action mapped out for herself. Mary Martha was willing to assist. “As I’ve often told you, Vivien, you’re obviously fitted for nothing on earth but a rich husband, so you’d bet¬ ter make up your mind to that.” Then, quickly forestalling paternal objections, she went on, “Oh, of course, father, she’ll have to fall in love with him, but there are plenty of rich young men that any girl could fall in love with if she had a chance. You see, Vivien, a rich husband is satis¬ fied if he has a pretty wife with a good disposi¬ tion. That’s what you are, and that’s all you 43 MERRY O are. Now, you must take a string and tie twenty knots in it, and every night just before you go to sleep you must say, Tve got a rich husband,’ ‘I’ve got a rich husband.’ ” Vivien laughed, still flushing with confusion. “What’s the string for ? To hang on to him, once I get him?” “Oh, no. It’s Auto-Suggestion. The string with the twenty knots is to count by, so you won’t have to get your mind off the general idea trying to keep track. You’re supposed to say it twenty times, night and morning. It works like this. You must picture an image until it becomes a reality. It’s the rule. Tve got a rich husband.’ Don’t forget.” “I won’t do it,” declared Vivien. “It’s a lie in the first place, and I’d look pretty wouldn’t I, sitting up in bed saying Tve got a rich husband’ twenty times, when everybody knows I haven’t.” “You haven’t now, but if you keep saying it, it will impress itself on your Unconscious, and then your Unconscious will make it come true. It’s 44 COMMON SENSE all down in the book, and it’s very clever. I’ll let you read the book if you like.’’ ‘Til read what it says about getting a rich husband, but I won’t say it on a string until I get him. You begin at the wrong end, Merry O. 