The home-coming was keenly pleasant. Mary, who had been going over the house helping to throw open all the doors and windows, paused in the cheerful living-room. The September sun shone across the worn carpet and the familiar furniture which had served them even in the days of the little brown house.

"I didn't know that I could be so glad to get back to these old tables and chairs," she exclaimed. "It actually gives you a real thrill to be welcomed by something that's known you since babyhood, doesn't it?"

"Yes," answered Jack. "They've been considerably mixed up with our family history, and bear more of the scars of our battles than we do. That little chair of Joyce's for instance. Back in the days of my kilts and curls I used to kick dents in it every time we had a scrap, because I couldn't fight a girl, and I had to let off steam some way."

"This is my especial friend," said Mary. She dropped into a wide rocker that held out welcoming arms. "Holland and I used to play in this by the hour. It's a wonder there's anything left of it. We had it for a stage-coach so many times, and turned over in it whenever it was attacked by the Indians. I used to curl up in it before the fire, to read or dream or cry in it, till it knows me in all my moods and tenses. Some of these days, when I go to live in my old Kentucky home, I shall ask mamma to let me take it with me just for old times' sake."

Jack opened the door of the clock and began winding the weights that had hung idle for nearly a year. When the swinging pendulum once more began its deep-toned tick-tock, he looked back over his shoulder with a smile.

"Now I feel that I'm really at home when I hear that voice. As far back as I can remember it's always been saying, 'All right! All right!' I made the nurse carry it back into the kitchen where I couldn't hear it the day the doctor told me I could never walk again. Its cheerfulness nearly drove me wild when I knew that everything was so hopelessly all wrong. But now listen!" he insisted exultantly. "Everything is all right now, and every day is Thanksgiving Day to me the year around."

There was a huskiness in his voice as he added, "Nobody can know what it means to me—the blessedness of being able to go to work."

He dashed away to the office soon after to discover what had been done in his long absence. Norman hurried through the tasks assigned to him as soon as possible, impatient to be off to explore old haunts with Billy Downs. Two pairs of quick, capable hands made light work of the cleaning and unpacking that had to be done that day, and accomplished much more that might have been left till another time had not Mary's usual zeal for getting everything in proper place in the least possible time taken possession of her.

"Oh, yes, I know, mamma," she called back in answer to a protest from the next room. "These curtains could wait till to-morrow, but they are all fresh and ready to hang, and I'll sleep better if they are on their poles instead of on my mind."

As she climbed up and down the step-ladder her thoughts were not on the curtains which she adjusted mechanically, nor on the song which she was humming in the same way. She was composing the letter which she intended sending to the Girls' Winter Camp in Florida, applying for the vacant position, and she wanted to make it perfect of its kind. Mrs. Ware, watching the zest with which she fell upon her work of beautifying the little cottage, thought it must be because she felt the truth of the refrain which she sang softly over and over:

She was so glad to be back herself, that presently, when she had occasion to go through the room again, she joined in for a few notes in passing.

The sweet alto voice made Mary suddenly aware of what she was singing, and she gave a guilty little start, glad that her mother could not know that her thoughts had all been absorbed in planning to get away from the home she was singing about so fondly.

"It does seem nicer to be back than I thought it would," she admitted to herself. "But maybe that's because I know I don't have to stay. Even the finest cage in the world is more attractive with its door open than shut."

Although she did not realize the fact, much of her hurry to get the house in order was due to a feeling that the summons to take advantage of that open door might come very soon, and she wanted to be ready when it came.

Late that afternoon she started to the post-office with two letters, one to the principal of the Girls' Camp, the other to the teacher in Warwick Hall who had been given as reference.

"Oh, I hope my application will get there in time, and I hope my references will be satisfactory," she thought earnestly. "They ought to be impressed, with a list which begins with Bishop Chartley and Madam, and General Walton's wife, and includes twenty people from New York to Fort Sam Houston in Texas."

Just then a wagon, bearing a huge load of hay, creaked slowly along the road past her, and a half forgotten superstition of her childhood flashed into her mind. Hazel Lee had told her once that if you make a wish on a hay-wagon it will come true if "yes" is the first word you say after doing so. But should you be asked a question requiring any other answer, or should it be necessary to make a remark not beginning with the magic yes, you'll "lose your wish."

So it was with a smile at the old foolishness that Mary watched the loaded wagon go lumbering by. She had wished for a speedy and favorable reply to the letter she was about to post. It had been a point of honor with Hazel and herself whenever the other came running up, significantly tapping mute lips with an impatient forefinger, to ask, "Do you love candy?" or "Do you like peaches?" recognizing the necessity of some question to which the liberated little tongue could respond with a fervent yes. Boys were always so mean about it, asking, "Do you want me to pull your hair?" or "Do you love Peter Finn?" a half-witted boy in the neighborhood.

The childish rite brought up a little of the old thrill of apprehension, that no one might ask her the proper question to make her wish come true, and Mary smiled broadly over her own foolishness as she went on up the street. It was the only street which Lone-Rock boasted; just a straggling road, beginning down by the railroad station and the mine offices, and ending farther up the mountain in a narrow wagon track. The houses of the white families were scattered along it at uneven intervals for the space of half a mile. Then one came to a little wooden school-house on one side, and on the other the tiny box of a room which served as a post-office. The school-house was used as a chapel one day out of the week. The mining company's store was beyond that, and a little farther along, the colony of shanties where the Mexican workmen and their families lived.

The fact that Mary had met no one since leaving home and that only the hay-wagon had passed her, emphasized the loneliness of the little hamlet and made her glad that she need not look forward to spending a winter there. Her quick eyes noted a few changes, however, which promised interesting things. Five new houses had gone up in their absence. There was a piano in one of them, Billy Downs had told Norman, and Mr. Moredock, the man in the new yellow house, who had come for his health, was writing a history of some kind, and had brought a whole wagon-load of books.

The postmaster would know all about the newcomers, Mary reflected with satisfaction. One of her pleasures of coming back was meeting her old friend, the postmaster, and at the thought of him she walked a little faster. Captain Doane had held the office ever since Lone-Rock had been a mail station, and in a way was a sort of father confessor to everybody in the place. A clean-shaven jolly old face with deep laughter wrinkles about the blue eyes, which twinkled through steel-bowed spectacles, bushy iron-gray hair and bristling eyebrows—that was about all one saw through the bars of the narrow delivery window. But so much kindly sympathy and neighborly interest and good advice and real concern were handed out with the daily mail, that every man in the community regarded him as his personal friend.

There were only two mail trains a day in Lone-Rock, and at this hour Mary was sure of finding him at leisure. Seeing him through the open window, sound asleep in his arm-chair over an open newspaper, with his spectacles slipping down his nose, Mary was about to spring in the door with a playful "boo." But she remembered her wish on the hay-wagon and the necessity of waiting for him to speak first. So she only rattled the latch. He started up, a little bewildered from his sudden awakening, but seeing who had come, dashed off the old slouch hat, perched on the back of his head.

"Well, bless my soul!" he cried heartily, coming forward with an outstretched hand. "If it isn't our little Mary Ware! I heard you were back and I've been looking all afternoon for you to drop in. Have you come back to stay, this time?"

There was an instant of hesitation, as she considered how she could reply to such a question honestly with a yes. Then she stammered, "Y-yes, for a little while. That is, just for a few weeks." Then she drew a long breath. "My! That was a narrow escape. I've been wondering all the way up the street what would be the first thing you'd say to me, and for a second I was afraid you'd ruined my chances."

Her laugh rang out merrily at his bewildered exclamation. "The chances for my wish coming true," she explained. "I made one on a hay-wagon, coming along, about this letter."

"Sit down and give an account of yourself," he insisted, and as she had come for a visit she willingly obeyed. But she would not take his chair at the desk as he urged, climbing instead to the only other seat which the office afforded. It was a high stool beside the shelf where pens, ink and money-order blanks awaited the needs of the public. Mary had often occupied it, and from this perch had given the Captain some of the most amusing hours of his life.

He had missed her when she went away to school, and he never handed out the letters to her family post-marked "Warwick Hall" without a vision of the friendly little girl swinging her feet from her seat on this high stool, as she told him amazing tales of Ware's Wigwam and a place somewhere off in Kentucky that she seemed to regard as a cross between the Land of Beulah and the Garden of Eden. When she came back from Warwick Hall she no longer dangled her feet, but sat in more grown-up fashion, her toes propped on the round below. And she seldom stayed long. There was too much to be done at home, with Jack needing such constant attention. But her short accounts of boarding-school life were like glimpses into a strange world, and he carried home all she told to repeat to his wife; for in an out-of-the-way corner of the universe, where little happens, the most trivial things are accounted of vital interest.

Now he had many questions to ask about Jack's recovery. It was a matter of household rejoicing in Lone-Rock that he had come back able to take his old place among them. Mary satisfied his curiosity and gave a brief outline of their doings while away, but she had questions of her own to ask. How was Aunt Sally Doane? The Captain's wife was "Aunt Sally" by courtesy to the entire settlement. Was her rheumatism better, and was the old red rooster still alive? Was it true that Mr. Moredock was an author, and how many young people had the new families brought with them?

But all roads led to the Rome of her heart's desire, and between her questions and the Captain's she kept jumping back, grasshopper-like, to the subject uppermost in her mind. His cordial interest, unlike her family's half-hearted consenting, led her into further confidences.

"Jack wants me to wait awhile and study at home until he can afford to send me back to Warwick Hall, but I might be in my twenties before that time, and the girls in my classes would be so much younger that they'd look upon me as a hoary old patriarch. Of course I'd be better equipped for what I hope to do eventually, but it would give me such a late start, and there are a number of things that I am fitted to do right now. Besides, it would handicap Jack to spend so much on me. It's only natural to expect that he'll want to marry and settle down some of these days, and he might not be able to do it as soon as he otherwise would if he had me to support and keep at college. And, Captain Doane, I don't want to be just an old maid sister in somebody else's home, even if it is the home of the dearest brother in the world."

The Captain threw back his head and laughed until the steel-bowed spectacles slid down his nose again.

"Much danger of your being an old maid sister in anybody's home, in a place like this where pretty girls are scarcer than hens' teeth," he declared, teasingly. "I know a likely young lad this minute who'd gladly save you from that fate. He's been around several times lately, inquiring when you might be expected back."

Mary was nearly consumed with curiosity to ask who the likely lad was, but only shrugged her shoulders incredulously, knowing that that would be the surest way of provoking him to a disclosure.

"Well, he has!" insisted the Captain. "It's young Upham, if you must know."

Mary's brows drew together in a vain effort to recall him, and she shook her head. "Upham? Upham? I never heard of him."

"Yes, yes, you have," insisted the Captain. "He drove a lumber wagon for the company summer before last. But he's been to school in Tucson all the time you've been away, and has just come back."

"Oh, you mean Pink Upham!" exclaimed Mary, suddenly enlightened, with an emphasis which seemed to say, "Oh, that boy! He doesn't count."

The Captain interpreted the emphasis and resented it.

"Just let me tell you, little Miss Disdain, he's a lad not to be sneezed at. He's come back the likeliest young man in all these parts."

Again Mary shrugged her shoulders and smiled unbelievingly. Her recollection of Pink Upham was of a big red-faced fellow overgrown and awkward, with a disgusting habit of twisting every one's remarks into puns, and of uttering trite truths with the air of just having discovered them. The warning whirr of a clock about to strike made her spring down from the stool with an exclamation of surprise.

"I had no idea I was staying so long. I've an errand at the store too, so I'll have to hurry."

"Well, I'll see that your letter gets started all right," he assured her. "You can't expect an answer before ten days at the earliest, can you?"

She turned back from the door and stood, considering. "I had counted it at about that, but I didn't think—if they wait to hear from the people I've referred them to, especially those farthest away, it might be double that time. That would keep me waiting clear into October. And then suppose somebody were ahead of me, and I shouldn't get the place, there'd be all that time lost. It would be tragic to have the little ship I'd waited for so long, drift in a wreck."

"That's why I always hold that it's best to send out more than one," said the Captain. "Launch a whole fleet of 'em, is my advice. What makes life a tragedy for most people is that they put all their hopes on just one thing. They load all they've got on one vessel and then strain their eyes for a lifetime waiting for it to come back with all their hopes realized. But if they'd divide their interests and affections around a bit, and start them off in different directions, there'd never be a danger of total wreck. If one went down, there'd be some other cargo to look forward to."

It was a pet subject of the old man's, and Mary made haste to ward off his usual monologue by saying, "I'll certainly take your advice, Captain Doane. You'll see me down here to-morrow with a whole harbor full of little ships. I'll launch all the applications that my family will allow."

The figure of speech pleased her, and as she walked on to the store a vision of blue sea rose before her. On it she seemed to see a fleet of little boats with white sails swelling in the wind. On each sail was a letter and all together they spelled "Great Expectations."

"It's funny," thought Mary, "how such a picture popped right up in front of me. Now, if Joyce had such a fancy she'd do something with it. It would suggest a title design or a tail piece of some kind. Oh, why wasn't I born with a talent for writing! My head is just full of things sometimes that would make the loveliest stories, but when I try to put them on paper it's like trying to touch the rainbows on a bubble. The touch makes them vanish instantly."

It was some crash towelling that she was to call for at the store.

When she opened the door, the place seemed deserted, but she picked her way, among barrels and boxes, saddles and hams, to the dry-goods department in the rear. Through the open back door she could see two men in the yard, one repairing a chicken-coop, and the other standing with his hands in his pockets, watching the job. The man with the hammer and saw, she knew. He was the manager of the store. The other was a new clerk, who had been installed in her absence. She glanced at him curiously, for one reason because every newcomer counted for so much in the social life of the place, for another because he was so imposingly large. "Even taller than Phil Tremont," she thought, and Phil was her standard of all that a man should measure up to in every way.

Presently, seeing that the chicken-coop would occupy their attention indefinitely unless she made some sign, she tapped on the floor with her heel. It was the new clerk who turned, and taking his hands out of his pockets, strode in to wait on her. She noticed that he had to stoop as he came through the doorway. Then she almost forgot what it was she had come to buy, in her surprise. For it was Pink Upham who rushed up to greet her, still red-faced and awkward and facetious, but such a different Pink that she could understand why the Captain had spoken of him as Pinckney, instead of by his undignified nickname. The year at college had done him good.

While he measured off the crash she was taking his measure with quick, critical glances. It was not his pale, straw-colored hair she objected to, made to look even paler by the contrast of his florid complexion and red four-in-hand with its turquoise scarf-pin. It was the way he combed his hair that she criticized, and the gaudy tie and the combination of colors. But his cordial greeting softened her critical glances somewhat. He was genuinely glad to see her, and it was flattering to be welcomed so heartily.

That night at the supper table she recounted her adventures. "I met Pink Upham at the store to-day, Jack. How old do you suppose he is?"

"Oh, about twenty-one. Why?"

"Well, I scarcely knew him before we went away, and he called me by my first name as pat as you may please, and I didn't like it. And when he rolled up the towelling he crooked his little finger in such an affected, genteel, Miss Prim sort of way that it made his big fat hands look ridiculous. I don't know exactly what it was about him that irritated me so, but I couldn't bear him. And yet it seemed that he was so near being nice, that he could be awfully likable if he wasn't so self-conscious and queer."

"He's all right," answered Jack. "Pink is a good-hearted fellow, with the best intentions in the world, but he's green. You see, he hasn't any sisters to call him down and make fun of his mannerisms and set him straight on his color schemes and such things. Now, a girl in his position could get her bearings by going the rounds of the Home Magazines and Ladies' Companions, reading all the Aunt Jenny Corners and columns of advice to anxious correspondents. But there are not so many fountains of information and inspiration for a young man."

"Now, there's your mission in life, Mary," spoke up Norman. "You are strong on giving advice and setting people straight. If you could only get some magazine to take you on for a column of that kind, you might accomplish a world of good. You could send marked copies to Pink, and it might be the making of him."

Norman expected his teasing remarks to meet with an amusing outburst, and was surprised when she pretended to take his suggestion seriously. Her eyes shone with the interest it awakened.

"Say! I'd like that," she answered emphatically. "I really would. I'd call it Uncle Jerry's Corner, and I'd certainly enjoy making up the letters myself so that I could have good spicy replies for my correspondents."

Norman, just in the act of drinking, almost choked on the laugh which seized him. "Excuse me," he spluttered, putting the glass down hastily, "but Mary in the rÔle of Uncle Jerry is too funny. Why, Sis, you couldn't be a proper Uncle Jerry without chin whiskers. The editors wouldn't give such a column to anybody without them. A girl could never fill a position like that."

"Indeed she could," Mary protested. "I knew a girl at school who earned her entire spending money for a year, one vacation, by writing an Aunt Ruth's Column for the weekly paper in her home town. She was only eighteen, and the most harum-scarum creature you ever saw. She had been engaged four times, and once to two boys at the same time. And she used to lay down the law in her advice column like a Puritan forefather. Just scored the girls who flirted and accepted valuable presents from men, and who met clandestinely at friends' houses.

"Her letters were so good that several parents wrote to the paper congratulating them on that department. And all the time she was doing the very things which she preached against. She and Charlotte Tatwell were chums, and in all sorts of scrapes together. Charlotte's father used to mourn over her wild ways and try to keep her from running so much with Milly. He thought that Milly had such a bad influence over her. He hadn't the faintest idea that she wrote the Aunt Ruth advice, and twice, when it seemed particularly well aimed at Charlotte's faults, he made her sit down and listen while he read it aloud to the family. Charlotte thought it was such a good joke on her father that she never enlightened him till he'd repeated the performance several times. He wouldn't believe it at first, didn't think it possible that Milly could have written it, till Charlotte proved that she really had.

"If she could do that, I don't see why I couldn't write better advice to boys than a doddering old man who has only his recollections to draw on. I could criticize the faults that I see before me. Boys need to be shown themselves as they appear to the girls, and I'm not sure but I'll act on Norman's suggestion, and take it up as a side-line."

When supper was cleared away Mary brought out her writing material and wrote several applications for the positions which she knew she was qualified to fill. She could teach in the primary or grammar grades, or take beginner's classes in Domestic Science. She knew that she could adapt herself to almost any kind of person as companion, and her experience with the Mallory twins made her confident that she could do wonders with small children, no matter how refractory. She soon had a whole fleet of applications ready to launch in the morning. Then, inspired by the conversation at the supper-table, she tried her hand at a few answers to imaginary correspondents, in which were set forth certain criticisms and suggestions which she burned to make to Pink in person, and several others which were peculiarly well fitted to Norman.

Next morning, when Norman came back from the store with the basket of groceries which it was his daily task to bring, he began calling for Mary at the front gate, and kept it up all the way to the kitchen door. When she appeared, towel in hand, asking what was the matter, he set the basket on the step.

Then with mock solemnity he reached into his pocket and pulled out a lavender envelope; lavender crossed faintly with gray lines to give a checked effect. It was addressed in purple ink to Miss Mary Ware, and in the lower left-hand corner was written, with many ornate flourishes, "K. O. B." It smelled so strongly of rose geranium perfume that Mary sniffed disapprovingly as she took it.

"Pink asked me to bring it," said Norman with a grin. "He's to send a boy up for an answer at three o'clock. What do you suppose 'K. O. B.' stands for?"

Mary puzzled over it, shaking her head, then broke the large purple seal.

"Oh, it must mean 'kindness of bearer,' for he begins the note that way. 'By kindness of bearer I am venturing to send this little missive to know if it will be convenient for you to give me the pleasure of your company this evening. A messenger will call for your answer at three P. M. Trusting that it will accord with my desires, I am yours in friendship's bonds, P. Pinckney Upham.'"

Norman exploded with a loud "whoopee!" of laughter and Mary sniffed again at the strong odor of rose geranium and handed the note to her mother, who had come to the door to see the cause of Norman's mirth.

"The silly boy," exclaimed Mary. "I told him yesterday, when he said that he hoped to call, that we'd all be glad to see him any evening he wanted to drop in. The idea of such formality in a mining camp. And such paper! And such flourishes of purple ink, to say nothing of the strong perfume! Mamma, I don't want him coming to see me."

Mrs. Ware handed the note back with a smile at Mary's disgusted expression. "Don't judge the poor boy too severely. He evidently tried his best to do the proper thing, and probably thinks he has achieved it."

"Yes, Uncle Jerry," added Norman. "Here's your chance. Here's your tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune! Just cultivate Pink's acquaintance and you'll get enough out of him every week to fill your columns."

Mary ignored his teasing, turning again to her mother to say: "I don't want to answer his note. What did he write for, anyway? Why didn't he just come, as I told him he could?"

"That's the way Sara Downs' beau does," explained Norman. "He always makes an engagement so that she'll be sure to have the best room lighted up and Billy out of the way. He's too bashful to talk to the whole family. They usually go out to the kitchen when he comes, because their house is so small."

"Well, this family won't," declared Mary. "He's no 'beau,' anyway. You'll all have to help entertain him."

She had not answered the note when Jack came home at noon, and she passed it to him without comment. He smiled a little over her evident disgust, and repeated in substance what Mrs. Ware had said, that she must not judge him too severely for his lack of social polish.

"He's a diamond in the rough, Mary," he assured her gravely, but with a twinkle in his eyes. "He may be one of the leading citizens of the state twenty years from now, and even if he isn't, he's one of the few young fellows of the settlement, and a decent one at that, and you can't afford to snub him because he is green."

"Green Pink is a new kind of color," teased Norman. "Say, Mary, are you going to put a 'K. O. B.' on your answer?"

Mary ignored his question. It irritated her to be teased about Pink as much as it used to annoy her to be teased about the half-witted Peter Finn.

When, in answer to her note, P. Pinckney Upham called that evening, he did not find her sitting up alone in state to receive him. He was ushered in to the cheerful living-room, where the entire family was gathered around the lamp, putting a new dissected puzzle together. Before he knew how it came about his bashfulness had vanished and he was a part of that circle. When the puzzle was completed Mary brought out a chafing-dish and a bowl of nuts, which she commanded him to "pick out" while Jack cracked them. She was going to try a new kind of candy. Later, when he disclosed the fact that he could play a little on the guitar, Norman brought out his mother's, bidding him "tune up and plunk away."

Now if there was one thing Pink was fond of it was sweets, and if there was one thing he was proud of it was his tenor voice, and presently he began to feel that he was having the time of his life. They were all singing with him, and stopping at intervals to pass the candy and tell funny stories. He was a good mimic and had a keen sense of humor, and he was elated with the consciousness that he had an appreciative audience. In spite of her certainty that the evening would be a bore, Mary found herself really enjoying it, until she realized that Pink was having such a good time that he didn't want to leave. Later she concluded that he wanted to go but didn't know how to tear himself away gracefully.

"Well, I guess I'd better be going," he said when the clock struck ten. It struck eleven when he said it the second time, and it was quarter past when he finally pulled himself out of his chair and looked around for his hat. They all rose, and Jack brought it. With that in hand, he still lingered, talking at random in a way that showed his evident inability to take his leave.

Finally Mrs. Ware put out her hand, saying, "We've enjoyed having you with us so much, this evening, Pinckney. You must come often."

Jack echoed the invitation with a handshake, and Mary added gaily, "And after this, whatever you do, don't write first to announce your coming. We're used to the boys just dropping in informally. We like it so much better that way."

Pink stopped to reply to that, hesitated with his hand on the knob, and leaning against the door, made some remark about the weather. It was evident that he was fixed to stay until the clock struck again.

Mary reached up to the match-safe hanging near the door and handed him a match. "I wish you'd scratch this as you go out, and see how the thermometer stands. It's hanging on the post just at the right hand of the porch steps. Call back what it registers, please. Thirty-six? Oh, thank you! I'm sure there'll be frost before morning. Good night."

She closed the door and came back into the room, pretending to swoon against Jack, who shook her, exclaiming laughingly, "I think that was a frost, right now."

Just then, Norman, who had disappeared an hour earlier, cautiously opened the door of his bedroom a crack. He was clad in his pajamas. Seeing that the coast was clear he thrust out a dishevelled head and recited dramatically:

Mary blinked at him sleepily, saying with a yawn, "Let this be a lesson to you, son. You can take this from your Uncle Jerry, that there is no social grace more to be desired than the ability to make a nimble and graceful exit when the proper time comes."

As she turned out her light, later, she said to herself, "I'm glad I don't have to look forward to a whole lifetime in Lone-Rock. One such evening is pleasant enough, but a whole winter of them would be dreadful." Then she went to sleep and dreamed that her little fleet of boats had all come home from sea, each one so heavily laden with treasure that she did not know which cargo to draw in first.