Chapter 16

A RELUCTANT ALTRUIST

As spring came and Carl was more out of doors playing ball and tramping the open country his watchful eyes were continually scanning passing motors for a possible glimpse of the mysterious red racing car and its genial owner. The boy had never forgotten this delightful stranger or quite abandoned the hope that he might sometime see him again. But, alas, day succeeded day and never did any of the fleeting vehicles his glance followed contain the person he sought. Neither was the search for the sender of the Christmas baskets rewarded.

Spasmodically since mid-winter the Harlings and McGregors had cudgeled their brains to discover this elusive good fairy until at length, exhausted by fruitless effort, they agreed to inter Louise's philanthropic Mr. X in a nameless grave. Despite that fact, however, he was not forgotten and tender thoughts clustered about his memory.

In the meantime May followed on April's heels and presently June, with her greenery and wealth of roses arrived, and then the startling tidings buzzed through Baileyville that Mr. John Coulter was to be married. The news thrilled young and old alike for was not young Mr. Coulter the junior partner of Davis and Coulter; and was not Davis and Coulter the heart and soul of Baileyville? Davis and Coulter meant the mills and the mills meant the town itself. Without them there would have been no village at all. Boys and girls, men and women toiled year in and year out in the factories as their fathers and mothers, often their grandfathers and grandmothers had done before them. If you were not connected with Davis and Coulter's you were not of Baileyville's aristocracy.

Hence it followed that the prospective marriage of Mr. John Coulter could not but be an event concerning which the entire community gossiped with eager and kindly interest. The lady was from New York, people said, and Mr. John had met her while doing war work in France. Both of them had large fortunes. But the fact that appealed to the villagers far more than this was the intelligence that the wedding was to take place at the old Coulter homestead and be followed by a fête to which all the mill people and their families were to be invited. How exciting that was! And how exultant were those whose connection with the mills insured them a card to this mammoth festivity!

Rumor whispered there were to be gigantic tents with games and dancing; bands of music; fireworks; and every imaginable dainty to eat. Some even went so far as to assert there would be boats on the miniature lake and a Punch and Judy show. Oh, it was to be a fête indeed!

For weeks the town talked of nothing else; and as Carl McGregor listened to these stories his regrets at not being numbered among Davis and Coulter's elect waxed keener and keener. One did not enjoy being left out of a function of such magnitude, a party to which everybody else was going. Not only did it make you feel lonely and stranded but it mortified you to be obliged to own you were not of the happy band included in so magnificent a celebration.

"Now if you'd only have let me take a job at the mills as I wanted to, Ma, we might have been going to Mr. Coulter's party along with the rest of the world," Carl bemoaned. "I always told you I ought to go into those mills the way the other fellows do. But you wouldn't hear to it. Now see what's come of it. We are left high and dry. I'll bet we are the only people in Baileyville who are not invited to that party. Everybody is to be there. If even one member of a family works at the mill that lets in the bunch."

"Like the garden parties great families used to give their tenants in the old country," Mrs. McGregor murmured reminiscently.

"I don't know about the old country," replied Carl ungraciously, "but that is what Mr. Coulter is going to do--ask whole families. Gee, but it makes me sore!"

"If your father had lived we would have been there," said the boy's mother sadly. "Your father used to be very good friends with old Mr. Coulter and he would have seen to it that none of this household was left out. But Mr. John we never knew. He was always away studying--first at school, then at college, and then in Europe. Later he started in to be a lawyer in New York and but for the war and his father's death he'd most likely be doing that now. But when the old gentleman died Mr. John gave up everything else and came home to take his place in the firm as his father had wished he should. Folks say that in spite of not caring much for the mills at first he has persisted at his job until he has become genuinely interested in them. I honor him for it, too, for a business life wasn't his real choice. Of course being away so much as he has he is little known among the mill people yet; but evidently he means to settle down here and is anxious to get better acquainted. This wedding party shows that."

"Well, there are some he won't get acquainted with," lamented Carl.

"If you mean us I reckon he can worry along without," Mrs. McGregor retorted, with a twinkle in her eye. "He's managed to up to now."

"We're just as good as anybody else," her son blazed.

"Undoubtedly we are," was the good-humored answer. "Nevertheless we won't be missed in a crowd like that."

"Don't you _want_ to go to the party, Ma?"

"Why, to tell the truth, I haven't had time to think much about it, sonny--that is, not to be disappointed. I'm not pretending, though, that so many parties come my way that a fine one such as this wouldn't be a treat. I can't remember the day I've been to anything of the sort. It's a quarter of a century or more, certainly--not since I was a girl and went to the balls the gentry gave in Scotland."

"Oh, I do so wish we were going to Mr. Coulter's," Carl repeated.

"I'll not deny I'd like to," confessed his mother a bit wistfully. "Still, were we to go what a stew we'd be in! It would mean days of washing and ironing; new neckties and maybe shoes for you boys; and hair ribbons and folderols for Mary and Nell. Before we were all properly equipped it would cost a pretty penny. We'd have no right to go without looking decent and being a credit to your father and to Mr. Coulter who was good enough to ask us. So, you see, there are advantages in everything. If we are not invited we shall have none of the trouble and expense of it," concluded the woman philosophically.

"I wouldn't mind the trouble, Mother," burst out Carl. "I wouldn't even care if I didn't have new shoes. Why, I'd go in my bathing suit."

Nodding her head his mother regarded him with withering censure.

"Yes, I believe you would," she agreed, "I believe you would--if you were permitted. But how lucky it is you have a mother. Without me you'd be disgracing your name, Mr. Coulter, Baileyville, and Mulberry Court."

Carl grinned in sickly fashion.

"I'd be having the time of my life!" announced he, undaunted.

"Going to an affair like that in your bathing suit, you mean? I'm not so sure about that. You are always begging to be allowed to wear that costume or grumbling because you cannot wear it. Once, I recall, you actually suggested wearing it to church on a hot Sunday. I'm sorely tempted sometime to let you have your way and see what would come of it. Think, for instance, of your sailing into Mr. John Coulter's wedding party in a get-up like that. You'd be ducked in the pond in a second."

"I'd be ready for it," was the provoking answer.

"Well, you aren't going to the Coulter party, as it happens, so there'll be no question of what you'll wear," returned Mrs. McGregor grimly.

"I know I'm not; but you don't have to rub it in, Ma," Carl answered.

"I didn't mean to rub it in, dear," was the gentle response. "I was merely stating facts. Maybe it's as well, too, that we're not going ourselves, for with the Sullivans, Murphys, and O'Dowds all invited we'll have as much as we can do to get them all creditably rigged out. I shall let Julie wear my black skirt--it just fits her; and Mrs. Sullivan my best hat. My waist Mrs. Murphy shall take if I can get it washed in time. Most likely, too, the O'Dowds will need your clothes and Timmie's."

"Need my clothes!" Carl shouted.

"Certainly. Julie can't hope to provide things for all that big family to appear in at once. Somebody will have to turn to and lend a helping hand."

"But what'll I do while the O'Dowd boys wear my clothes?" wailed Carl.

"Why, you can stay in the house. It won't hurt either you or Tim to take an afternoon of rest," came stoically from his mother.

"But I don't want to take an afternoon of rest," Carl protested wrathfully. "Not on that day of all others. I'm going up to Coulters to hang round outside and watch the fun. If I'm not invited I can at least do that."

"Carl McGregor! You'll do nothing of the sort. Hang round outside, indeed! Haven't you any pride at all? If you're not asked to the party I should hope you'd have the good taste to keep out of the way of it. Hang round outside! You ought to be ashamed even to suggest such a thing," said Mrs. McGregor with scorn. "No, you'll do no lingering on the outskirts of Mr. John's reception, you can make up your mind to that. You'll stay politely at home as the rest of us plan to do and keep under cover so folks won't be asking you why you're not up at Coulters. I've some regard for the family dignity if you haven't. And since you'll be at home anyway, you may as well take the chance to do a kindly deed and let Frankie O'Dowd wear your clothes. You don't want to grow up to be selfish."

"My pants will be miles too long for that O'Dowd kid," responded the unwilling altruist grudgingly.

"Oh, his mother can baste them up so they'll do for one afternoon," was the serene answer.

"Huh! I don't envy Frank going to that party with two thicknesses of trousers on his legs," Carl declared. "If it's a hot day he'll melt."

"Beggars cannot be choosers," Mrs. McGregor asserted. "Likely Frankie will be that tickled to go to the lawn party that he won't care what he has on any more than you would. You'd go quicker than a wink in basted-up trousers if you got the chance."

"You bet I would! Why, I'd go in--in--in _anything_!" was the fervent affirmation. "Somehow, Ma, it just seems as if I couldn't give up the idea of going. I feel as if something _must_ happen so we'd get asked."

"Why, Carl--you silly boy! You don't mean to say you are actually cherishing the thought you may be invited yet?" his mother exclaimed incredulously. "Put it out of your head, son, like a sensible lad. There isn't a chance of it, dear. The invitations were sent out last week and had you been going to get one you would have received it days ago. There'll be no more people asked now."

"There might be--some might have been forgotten by mistake. Or the invitation might have got stuck in the letter box and delayed."

"I'm afraid not, Carlie!" his mother said gently. "Mark my words, all the invitations there are going to be to that garden party have gone out. There won't be any more. The folks that haven't had theirs already won't have none and if you're wise you will face that fact and give up thinking about Mr. Coulter and his wedding."

The corners of Carl's mouth drooped but he stubbornly insisted:

"Well, anyhow, Ma, don't you tell Frankie O'Dowd he can have my clothes until the very last minute, will you? Promise me that."

"Aye! I'll not mention the clothes yet awhile. I'll wait at least a day or two. Most likely Julie or the Murphys will be up by that time and ask for 'em."

And with this scanty comfort Carl was obliged to be content.

Even the concession that he would be allowed to wear his bathing suit while at home was but feeble consolation. What did it matter what he wore if he couldn't go to the Coulter fête?