Chapter II

Just a week later, in Palo Alto, California, Anthony Fox slammed the gate of Miss Mix's garden loudly behind him, and eyed the Mix homestead with disapproval. The house was square and white, with doors and windows open to spring sunlight and air, and was surrounded by a garden space of flowers and trees and trim brick walks. The click of the gate brought a maid to the doorway.

"Mr. Fox won't be here until noon," said the maid, in answer to his question.

"Does Miss--could I see Miss Mix?" substituted Anthony, after a moment's thought.

He took a porch chair while she departed to find out.

"If you please," said the maid, suddenly reappearing, "Miss Mix is setting a Plymouth, and will you step right down?"

"Setting a--" scowled Anthony.

"Plymouth," supplied the maid, mildly.

Anthony eyed her suspiciously, but there was evidently nothing concealed behind her innocence of manner. Finally he followed the path she indicated as leading to Miss Mix. He followed it past the house, past clothes drying on lines, past scattered apple trees with whitewashed trunks, and down a board walk to the chicken yard.

No one was in sight. Anthony rattled the gate tentatively. A slim, neat, black Minorca fowl made an insulting remark about him to another hen. Both chuckled.

"Come in--come in and shut it!" called a clear voice from the interior of the chicken house.

Anthony's jaw stiffened.

"May I speak to you?" he called, with as much dignity as a person shouting at an utter stranger across an unfamiliar chicken yard may command.

"Certainly! Come right in!" called the voice, briskly.

Seeing nothing else to do, Anthony unwillingly crossed the yard, and stepped into the pleasant, whitewashed gloom of the chicken house. Loose chaff was scattered on the floor, and whitewashed boxes lined the walls. An adjoining shed held the roosts, which a few murmuring fowls were looping with heavy flights.

As he entered, a young woman in blue linen shut a gray hen into a box, and turned a pleasantly inquiring glance upon him.

"Good morning!" she said, smiling. "I knew you would want to see the thing sooner or later, so I asked Statia to show you right down here. Now, there's the trap"--she indicated a mass of loose chains and metal teeth on the floor--"and here's the key; but it simply WON'T work!"

Anthony was not following. He was staring at her. She was extremely pretty; that he had expected. But he had not expected that she--she--well, he was not prepared for this sort of a woman at all! He must go slow here. He--she--Bud--

"I beg your pardon," he interrupted himself to stammer apologetically, "I didn't catch--you were saying--"

"The trap!" she said, smiling.

"Ah, the trap!" repeated Anthony, inanely.

"Certainly!" she said, with a hint of impatience. Then, as he still stared, she added quickly: "You're the man from Peterson's? From San Mateo? You came to fix it, didn't you?"

"Not at all," said Anthony, smiling. "I came from New York."

Light dawned in the girl's eyes. She gave a horrified laugh.

"Well, how stupid of me!" she ejaculated. "Of course, I thought you were. I'm expecting a man to fix the trap, any day, and you sent no name. I bought this affair a week ago; there's a coon, or a fox, or something, that's been coming down from the hills after my pullets; but it won't work."

"I don't know anything about traps," said Anthony.

He was wondering how he had best introduce himself. The vague campaign that he had outlined on those restless nights in the train would be useless here, he had decided. As he spoke, he absently touched the tangled chains and bolts with his foot.

"Don't do that!" screamed Miss Mix.

At the same second there was a victorious convulsion of metal teeth, and Anthony found himself frantically jerking at his foot, which was fast in the trap.

"Oh, you're caught! You are caught!" cried the girl, distressedly. "Oh, please don't hurt yourself tugging that way--you can't do it!"

Her eyes, full of concern and sympathy, met his for a second; then, suddenly, she broke into laughter.

"Why, confound the thing!" said Anthony, in pained surprise, as he struggled and twisted. "How does it open?"

"It DOESN'T!" choked Miss Mix, her mirth quite beyond control, as she gave various futile little tugs and twitches at the trap. "That's the trouble! The key never has had the slightest effect. Oh, I will NOT laugh this way!" she upbraided herself sternly. "Bu--bu--but you did look so--" She abruptly turned her back upon him for a moment, facing him again with perfect calm, although with lashes still wet, and suspicious little dimples about her mouth. "Now, I'll get you out of it immediately," she assured him gravely; "and meanwhile I can't tell you how sorry I am that--just sit on this box, you'll be more comfortable. I'll run and telephone a plumber, or some one." She paused in the doorway. "But I don't know your name?"

"Appropriately enough, it's Fox," said he, briefly; "Anthony Fox."

Miss Mix gasped, opened her mouth, shut it without speaking, and gasped again. Then she sat down heavily on a box.

"Of New York--I see!" said she, but more as if speaking to herself than to him. "Tony's father; he's written to you, and you've come all the way from New York to break it off. I see!" Desperation seemed to seize her. "Oh, my heavenly day!" she ejaculated. "Why didn't I think of this? This serves me right, you know," she said seriously, bringing her attention to bear fully upon Anthony; "but let me tell you, Mr. Fox, that this is about the worst thing you could have done!"

"The worst!" said Anthony, dully.

He felt utterly stupefied.

"Absolutely," said she, calmly. "You know you only hasten a thing like this by making an out-and-out fight of it. That's no way to stop it!"

"Are you Miss Mix?" said Anthony, feebly.

"I am." She nodded impatiently. "Sarah Mix."

"Then you and my son--" Anthony pursued patiently. "Didn't he write? Aren't you--"

"Engaged? Certainly we are," admitted the lady, with dignity. "And it would no more than serve you right if we got married, after all!" she added, with a sudden smile.

Anthony liked the smile. He smiled broadly in return.

"IF you got married! Do you mean you don't intend to?"

"I see I'll have to tell you," said Miss Mix, suddenly casting hesitation to the winds. "Then we can talk. Yes, we're engaged, Mr. Fox. What else could I do? Anthony's twenty; one can't treat him quite as if he were six. He's absolutely unable to take care of himself; and I've always liked him--always! How COULD I see a girl like Mollie Temple--but of course you don't know her. She's with the 'Giddy Middy' company, playing in San Francisco now."

"No, I don't know her," said Mr. Fox, stiffly.

"Well," continued Miss Mix, "her mother lives here in Palo Alto, and Mollie came home for September. Tony was just what she was looking for. A secret marriage, a sensational divorce, and alimony--Mollie asks nothing more of Fate! She made him her slave."

"Lord!" said Anthony.

"Every one was talking about it," continued Miss Mix; "but I never dreamed of interfering until Thanksgiving, when the Temples planned a week's house-party in Santa Cruz, and asked Tony to go. That would have settled it; so I managed to see Tony, and from that day on I may say I never let go of him. I took him about, I accompanied him when he sang--just big-sistered him generally! I'm thirty-two, you know, and I never dreamed he would--but he DID. New Year's night, Mr. Fox. Well, then I either had to say no, and let him go again, or say yes, and hold him. So I said yes. I couldn't stop him from planning, and I never dreamed he'd write you! Now, do you begin to see?"

"I see," said Anthony, huskily.

He cleared his throat.

"Meanwhile," pursued Miss Mix, glowing delightedly in the sympathy of her listener, "I introduced him to the Rogerses and the Peppers, and lots of jolly people, who are doing him a world of good. He goes about--he's developing. And now, just as I began to hope that the time had come when we could quietly break off our engagement, here YOU are, to make him feel in honor bound to stick to it!"

"Well, I am--" Anthony left it unfinished. "What can I do?" he asked meekly.

"We'll find a plan somehow," said Miss Mix, approvingly. "But you must be got out first!"

"And meanwhile," said Anthony, awkwardly, "I don't really know how to thank you--"

"Oh, nonsense!" she said lightly. "You forget how fond I am of him! Now, I'll go up to the house, and--" Her confident voice faltered, and Anthony was astonished to see a look of dismay cross her face. "Oh, my goodness gracious heavenly day!" she ejaculated softly. "Whatever shall we do now? Now we never can get you out!"

"Then I'll stay in," laughed Anthony, philosophically.

Miss Mix echoed his laugh nervously. She glanced across the yard.

"It's that disgusting newspaper contest!" she said.

"That WHAT?"

"Please don't shout!" she begged, sitting down on her box again, "I'll explain. You see, the San Francisco CALL, one of the big city dailies, has offered the job of being its local press representative to the college man who brings in the best newspaper story between now and the first of May--that's less than ten days. Of course, all the boys have gone crazy over it. It's a job that a boy could easily hold down with his regular class work, and it might lead to a permanent position on the paper's staff after graduation. About ten boys are working furiously for it, and all their friends are working for them. Tony's helping Jerry Billings, and Jerry has already taken in a couple of good stories, and has a good chance. This, of course, would land it!"

"What would?"

"Why, THIS!" She was laughing again. "Can't you see? Think of the head-lines! Even your New York papers would play it up. Think of the chance to get funny! 'Old Fox in a Trap!' 'Goes to Bed with the Chickens!' 'Iron King Plays Chanticleer!'"

"Thunder!" said Anthony, uncomfortably.

"There'd be no end of it, for you or me," said Miss Mix. "I know this town."

"Yes, you're right!" agreed Anthony. "The idea is for me to sit here until after the first of May, eh?" he continued uncertainly.

Her eyes danced.

"Oh, we MAY think of some other way!"

"Tony's not to be trusted, you think?"

"No-o! I wouldn't dare. He's simply mad to have Jerry win. He'd let it out involuntarily."

"The maid can go for a plumber?"

"Statia? She's working for Joe Bates. And both the boys in the plumber's shop are in college, anyway."

"You might telephone for a plumber from San Francisco?" suggested Anthony, afterthought.

"Yes, I could do that." Miss Mix brightened. "No, I can't, either," she lamented. "Elsie White, the long-distance operator, is working for Joe Bates, too." She meditated again for a space, then raised her head, listening. "They're calling me!" she whispered.

With a gesture for silence, she sprang to the door. Outside, some one shouted:

"O Sally!"

"Hello, Tony!" she called hardily, in answer. "Lunch, is it? No, don't come down! I'm just coming up!"

With a warning glance over her shoulder for Anthony, she closed the door and was gone.