If time and space did not matter, and if even more important happenings in Mary-'Gusta's life were not as close at hand to claim attention, it would be interesting to describe at length those of that spring and the summer which followed it. Summarized in chronological order, they were these: First, the lengthy discussions between the partners concerning Miss Pease's plan, discussions which ended by Zoeth, as senior partner, writing Miss Pease:
Shadrach and I say yes. We ought to have said it afore but flesh is weak and we found it kind of hard to make up our minds to spare our girl all summer. But we know we ought to spare her and that it will be a splendid chance for her. So we say she shall go and we thank you more than we can say. She will need clothes and fixings to take with her and Shadrach and I wish to ask if you will be kind enough to help her pick out what she needs. Maybe Mrs. Wyeth will help too. It will be a great favor if you two will do this, Shadrach and I not being much good at such things. We will send the money and will pay for all.
Then came the breaking of the news to Mary herself. At first, after she could be made to believe the whole idea a perfectly serious one and realized that a trip to Europe--her dearest day-dream, even when a little girl, and the favorite play with the dolls in the attic at South Harniss--when she at last realized the opportunity that was hers, even then she hesitated to accept it. There were her uncles--they needed her so much in the store--they would miss her so dreadfully. She could not go and leave them. The united efforts of Miss Pease and Mrs. Wyeth could not alter her determination to remain at home; only a joint declaration, amounting to a command and signed by both partners of Hamilton and Company, had that effect.
She consented then, but with reluctance.
The steamer sailed from Boston--Miss Pease's civic loyalty forbade her traveling on a New York boat--on the thirtieth of June, the week after Commencement. Mary and Mrs. Wyeth attended the Commencement exercises and festivities as Crawford's guest. Edwin Smith, Crawford's father, did not come on from Carson City to see his son receive his parchment from his Alma Mater. He had planned to come--
Crawford had begun to believe he might come--but at the last moment illness had prevented. It was nothing serious, he wrote; he would be well and hearty when the boy came West after graduating.
God bless you, son [the letter ended]. If you knew what it means for your old dad to stay away you'd forgive him for being in the doctor's care. Come home quick when it's over. There's a four-pound trout waiting for one of us up in the lake country somewhere.
It's up to you or me to get him.
Crawford showed the letter to Mary. He was disappointed, but not so much so as the girl expected.
"I never really dared to count on his coming," he explained. "It has been this way so many times. Whenever Dad has planned to come East something happens to prevent. Now it has happened again; I was almost sure it would. It's a shame! I wanted you to meet him. And I wanted him to meet you, too," he added.
Mary also was a little disappointed. She had rather looked forward to meeting Mr. Smith. He was her friend's father, of course, and that of itself made him an interesting personality, but there was something more--a sort of mystery about him, inspired in her mind by the photograph which Crawford had shown her, which made her curious.
The man in the photograph resembled Crawford, of course, but she had the feeling that he resembled someone else even more--someone she had known or whose picture she had seen. She was sorry she was not to meet him.
Commencement was a wonderful time. Mary was introduced to dozens of young fellows, attended spreads and sings and proms, danced a great deal, was asked to dance ever so much more, chatted and laughed and enjoyed herself as a healthy, happy, and pretty girl should enjoy a college commencement. And on the following Tuesday she and Miss Pease, looking down from the steamer's deck, waved their handkerchiefs to Mrs. Wyeth and Zoeth and Captain Shadrach and Crawford who, standing on the wharf, waved theirs in return as the big ship moved slowly out of the dock and turned her nose toward Minot's Light and the open sea. For the first time since Hamilton and Company put up a sign both partners had come to Boston together.
"Annabel's keepin' store," explained Shadrach, "and Isaiah's helpin'. It'll be the blind leadin' the blind, I cal'late, but we don't care, do we, Zoeth? We made up our mind we'd see you off, Mary-'Gusta, if we had to swim to Provincetown and send up sky-rockets from Race P'int to let you know we was there. Don't forget what I told you: If you should get as fur as Leghorn be sure and hunt up that ship-chandler name of Peroti. Ask him if he remembers Shad Gould that he knew in '65. If he ain't dead I bet you he'll remember."
So Mary-'Gusta sailed away and for ten marvelous weeks daydreams came true and attic make-believes turned to realities. War had not yet come to sow its seed of steel and fire and reap its harvest of blood and death upon the fair valleys and hills of France, and the travelers journeyed leisurely from village to cathedral town and from the Seine to the Loire. They spent three weeks in Switzerland and two in Italy, returning for the final week to London where, under Miss Pease's expert guidance, Mary visited the shops, the big ones on Regent and Oxford Streets and the smaller, equally fascinating--and more expensive--ones on Bond Street and Piccadilly, buying presents and remembrances for the folks at home. And, at last, came the day when, leaning upon the rail, she saw the misty headlands of Ireland sink beneath the horizon and realized that her wonderful holiday was over and that she was homeward bound.
