Chapter D: Appleton and Company (2)

"Oh, it's my liver!" Granny flew to the kitchen to turn off the gas which was burning the liver. "I forgot all about dinner when I heard the news," she apologized. "It's lucky I hadn't put in the onions. Then we would have had a mess. Now then, Tessie, what's the first thing to do? I'll bet you have it all planned out in that clever little head of yours." She looked triumphantly at Mr. Bill as if to ask him if he had ever seen another girl with such a clever little head as Tessie's. "Say," she said suddenly, "I don't believe I got your name?" That was true, for Tessie had been so excited when she told Granny the amazing news, that she had never remembered to tell Granny who Mr. Bill was.

"He's young Mr. Kingley, Granny--Mr. Bill!" Tessie was as pink as a rose, and she looked a thousand apologies as she smiled at Mr. Bill. "His father owns the Evergreen," she explained.

"My soul and body!" gasped Granny when she understood who Mr. Bill was.

"My father told me to look after our little queen," Mr. Bill said eagerly, so that Granny might know why he was present at what some people might consider a family council.

"That's very kind of him, I'm sure." But Granny's mind was not on the Evergreen or its kind proprietor. "Tessie," she cried sharply, "that's why a dark-complexioned gentleman has been walking up and down in front of the house to-day. If he went by once, he went by a hundred times. He made me so nervous I almost went out to ask him to exercise on the other end of the block for awhile, and not wear out our sidewalk, but just then a fat man with a tow-head and a big nose came up in a purple taxicab and spoke to him, and they went away together. The dark-complexioned gentleman had rings of some kind in his ears and a yellow sash around his waist. He looked like he was a left-over from a masquerade or something. Dear, dear! It does seem like a dream, don't it? But what's the first thing we do?" She looked at Tessie for orders. Already she accepted Tessie's right to issue orders.

Tessie smiled and squeezed the work-roughened hands. "The first thing is to go to Mifflin and get a copy of father's and mother's wedding license. And the second thing is to find a record of my birth."

"Tessie!" Granny was all admiration. "What a business head you have! She'll make a fine queen, won't she, Mr. Bill? And how are you going to Mifflin?" She looked at Mr. Bill to see if he knew how Tessie was going to Mifflin.

"Mr. Douglas is going to take me in an automobile. He's one of my lawyers," Tessie explained importantly. "The old lawyer, Mr. Marvin, arranged it. I don't see why you can't go with me, Granny--and Johnny, too. It would be a nice ride."

"Sixty miles there and sixty miles back," chuckled Mr. Bill, much pleased to hear that Tessie did not care to drive one hundred and twenty miles alone with Mr. Douglas. "And the country's pretty now."

"That's fine," beamed Granny.

And Johnny the Boy Scout declared it would be fine, too. Johnny was sitting beside Tessie and staring at her with big round eyes. Just imagine having a sister who was a queen! Gee! what would the fellows say?

"Tessie, what's that you got in your pocket?" asked Granny suddenly, for her keen eyes had seen the end of something hanging from the pocket of Tessie's black sateen frock.

"The Sunshine native gave it to me." Tessie took the royal jewel, the Tear of God, from her pocket and dangled it before Granny's astonished eyes. "It's the sign I'm Queen of the Sunshine Islands. If I lose it, I lose my kingdom." She laughed softly. She had no intention of losing the royal jewel. "The people won't have a king or queen who can't show them this--the Tear of God. That's what they call it."

"Tessie! Ain't it pretty! And your Uncle Pete wore it?" She took it in her fingers and patted it as she would have patted Pete's fingers if he had been present--and in a mood to be patted. "And now you'll wear it." She wiped a tear from her eyes.

"Not until we get those records and the lawyers say it's all right. It wouldn't be honest!" declared upright Tessie.

"But the native gave it to you himself," objected Granny. She liked to see the royal jewel around Tessie's white neck.

"Oh, he thinks I'm the queen all right, or he would never have given me this, but I have to know I am before I wear it. You can keep it safe for me, Granny, until I do know."

Granny accepted the appointment of custodian of the royal jewel with pride and pleasure. "I'll put it in the baking-powder can, wrap it up in waxed paper," she said. "Nobody would think of looking in a baking-powder can. I often tuck away a quarter or a dime in one. My soul and body!" She had forgotten that Mr. Bill was not a member of the family. She didn't remember it until she had disclosed her secret hiding place, and she looked frightened. Then she glanced at him slyly and smiled triumphantly. "Maybe I won't put it in the baking-powder can after all. I've got a lot more hiding places."

"I'll bet you have!" chuckled Mr. Bill. "But I wish Miss Gilfooly would let father keep it in his safe, or Mr. Marvin take care of it. It isn't safe to have valuables in a house where there are only women."

"There's a man in this house as well as women!" The Boy Scout bristled with indignation at being ignored so completely. "I guess I'm here."

"And you're the biggest help!" Tessie hugged him.

Mr. Bill remembered that she had hugged Granny; and now she had hugged the Boy Scout. Perhaps it would be his turn next. He hoped it would.

"Granny would never have come out of her faint if it hadn't been for you," Tessie told Johnny proudly. "We just stood around like geese, didn't we?" she asked Mr. Bill.

"That was one of the first things I learned," Johnny explained with haughty scorn because they had not learned it. "Every scout has to know how."

"I expect I should go home!" exclaimed Mr. Bill suddenly, although he did not want to go home, and he said so ruefully.

"You can stay and take pot-luck with us if you want to. It's liver and onions." Granny extended the invitation with royal hospitality. "And I'll open a can of my preserved strawberries. I've been saving them for a big occasion, but I guess there won't ever be a bigger occasion than this. Even your wedding, Tessie, won't mean so much to me as your being a queen. Any girl can have a wedding, even Lil Scanlon next door, but I never knew a girl who was a queen before. You can thank your Uncle Pete for your luck. Poor Pete!" she sighed. "He never liked liver and onions," she remembered sadly. "Maybe we shouldn't have them to-night, just when we hear he's been dead six months and left Tessie a throne! Maybe we shouldn't ever eat liver and onions again now we're queens!" And she startled them all by bursting into tears.

Tessie ran to her, and tried to soothe her with loving pats and words. "She's all upset," she told Mr. Bill apologetically.

"And no wonder!" Mr. Bill was a bit upset himself at the amazing and interesting situation in which he found himself. "I tell you," he suggested, as inspiration gave him an idea, "suppose you all come down town and have dinner with me? You don't want to bother getting a dinner to-night; and Dad said I was to take care of you." He grinned at Tessie. "I can run you down in the car. Come on to the Waloo with me?"

"I ain't got a thing to wear!" But Granny stopped crying and wiped the tears from her eyes as she reviewed the contents of her closet. "I ripped the sleeves out of my best dress this very afternoon to cut 'em over more stylish."

"You're all right just as you are," Mr. Bill told her. "You look fine--neat as a pin. Just put on your hat and come along."

Granny looked at her black alpaca, which was, as Mr. Bill said, as neat as a pin, and then she turned questioning eyes to Tessie. "I could take off my apron," she said slowly, and when Tessie nodded, she caught Johnny by the shoulder. "But this young man has to wash his hands! Such fists!" She was shocked at the sight of Johnny's hands. "And your own sister a queen on a throne! It's a disgrace!" She bustled Johnny to the kitchen, although he loudly protested that he was going to wash his hands, a Scout knew enough to wash his hands when they were dirty.

"Well!" Mr. Bill drew a long breath when he was alone with Tessie. "This is a corker! An out-and-out corker!"

"It's awfully kind of you to take us to the Waloo," Tessie said softly. "Granny is too excited, and I'm too excited, to get dinner, and we don't like the cafeteria at the corner. And on our way home we could stop at the public library, couldn't we?"

"The public library!" Mr. Bill stared. Why on earth would she want to stop at the public library?

"I'd like to get some books on the Sunshine Islands," explained Tessie. "I don't know a thing about them, and I think a queen should know about her kingdom, don't you?"

"I don't think it will make the slightest difference what you know!" Mr. Bill rather lost his head as he looked into her pink face and her big blue eyes, which had such dark purple lights in them. "You'd be all right if you didn't know anything!" he stammered thickly.

"Oh, Mr. Kingley!" Tessie's pink rose of a face turned like magic into a red rose.

"Call me Bill!" he begged, and his face was red too.

Tessie almost swooned. Call her hero--her wonder man--Bill! She couldn't!

"As Dad said, we belong to the same family--the Evergreen," Mr. Bill reminded her ardently.

Put that way, Tessie managed to falter "Bill," and she glanced at him from under her long lashes. Mr. Bill gasped, and if Granny had not come in with the washed Boy Scout he would probably have been guilty of the "lesest" kind of _lèse majesté_.

As they went out to Mr. Bill's car, a shadow by the lilac bushes turned into a man and slunk away, but not before Granny's sharp eyes had seen him slip down the street.

"I'd like to know what that man was doing there," she grumbled. "Tessie, you got the Tear of God in your pocket?" she asked in a hoarse whisper, and when Tessie said she had, that her fingers were holding it tight, Granny's frown changed to a self-satisfied smile. "Then I guess he's welcome to what he finds. There isn't anything worth stealing in the house now, I guess!"

"I'm glad I put on my medal!" exclaimed Johnny. "I put on all my insignia for you, Tessie." He thrust his small chest forward so that Tessie could see for herself that he had done honor to her.

"Bless the boy!" Tessie bent her head and kissed him.

Mr. Bill all but died of envy. He wished that he was a Boy Scout, and then he was glad that he wasn't. A Boy Scout might have privileges, but a man could have hopes. He was not sure what he hoped, but he knew that he admired Tessie tremendously, and that it was amazingly exciting to be on such friendly terms with a queen. It seemed impossible that only a few hours ago he had never known that there was a Tessie Gilfooly in the world. And now--why now she seemed the only girl in the world!

V

They had a delightful dinner at the Waloo. Granny gazed around the big room rather awed by the ornate display of rose velvet and gold, the crystal electroliers, and the army of waiters.

"I suppose this is what you'll have all the time in the Sunshine Islands," she said with pride. "Just think of your Uncle Pete, Tessie, sitting down to dinner every day in a room like this and to a dinner like this. I don't wonder he never came home. The good Lord has sure been kind to the Gilfoolys!"

Tessie did not eat much, and she did not talk much. She was still too dazed at what had happened. She could not believe that it was true. It couldn't be true that she was in the dining room of the Waloo Hotel, with Mr. Bill as the host of a family party--a family party of Gilfoolys! Such things never happened to poor working girls. But Mr. Bill's radiant smile and eager attention convinced her that at least he was real.

Gilbert Douglas was with a party of young people at the other end of the room. He came over to speak to Tessie, and tell her that he would call for her the next morning about ten. Mr. Bill yearned to stab him with his dinner knife. When Bert went back to his friends and told them who Tessie was, there were many curious and admiring, and almost as many envious, glances sent toward her. Altogether it was a very pleasant dinner. But Tessie would not loiter over the coffee--not even to listen to the orchestra nor to dance once with Mr. Bill.

"I'd faint," she declared. "I feel all wobbly sitting down. And I want to stop at the library. It closes at nine. And anyway it wouldn't be right to Uncle Pete. We had to have something to eat, but we don't have to dance."

Every one in the big dining room seemed to know who Tessie was when she left, and there was much craning of necks and whispering. The head waiter bowed them out with much ceremony and hoped that Tessie would come again. Tessie was pink to her little ears, and she shyly murmured that she would like to come again.

They reached the library barely in time. The librarian was just locking the door of the branch station when Mr. Bill and Tessie ran up to her. She obligingly unlocked the door and went back with them.

"The Sunshine Islands," she repeated, when she heard Tessie breathlessly explain what she wanted. "I never heard of them."

"They're in the Pacific Ocean." Tessie told her with much importance.

"We have several books that speak of the islands in the Pacific Ocean," the librarian remembered. "But why on earth do you come running in here at this time of night to ask for books on the Sunshine Islands?" And she looked from pink-cheeked Tessie to grinning Mr. Bill, as if she would not produce one of her books until that question was answered.

"Because," dimpled Tessie, who saw no reason why she should not tell--it was nothing to be ashamed of, and she felt that she had to give some reason for taking the librarian back to her library after the door had been locked for the night--"because I've just heard that I'm the Queen of the Sunshine Islands!"

"My goodness!" exclaimed the surprised librarian, and she found Tessie all the books which mentioned the islands in the Pacific Ocean. "There!" she said. "If you read all these you'll learn something about your kingdom. The best book," she remembered with a frown, "the one that tells all about the Pacific islands is out. A man came in after dinner and took it."

"What kind of a man?" asked Mr. Bill, not because he cared but because the librarian seemed to expect something to be said.

"A tall man, young and thin, with rough brown hair and brown eyes and rather shabby clothes." The librarian appeared to describe her client by looking at Mr. Bill and seeing his opposite.

"It must have been Joe Cary!" exclaimed Tessie. "It would be just like Joe to learn everything about my kingdom before I can read a word!" She looked vexed.

"Save you a lot of trouble," suggested Mr. Bill. "He can tell you what he learns, and you won't have much time for reading now."

"That's true!" Tessie stopped frowning to smile. "I'll let Joe do my reading for me. That's the way queens do, isn't it?--have some one do things for them? Thank you for the books." She turned politely to the librarian, who was staring at her with unbelieving amazement.

"My goodness! I'm much obliged to you for coming in for those books even if you never read them. I've been librarian at this branch station for three years now, and nothing as interesting as this ever happened. I hope you'll be a very happy queen!" And the librarian drew a long breath. She had never supposed that she would ever tell a queen to her face that she hoped she would be happy. Such things might happen in books, but surely they had never happened before in a real library.

"Thank you," said Tessie, putting out her hand to shake the librarian's lean fingers. "I'm going to try to be a good queen."

"My goodness!" repeated the librarian, as Tessie, Mr. Bill and the books went to join Granny and Johnny. "My goodness, but I'm glad I didn't close up a minute earlier than I did!"

There were no lights in the narrow street when Mr. Bill turned his car away from the avenue. In contrast to the brilliantly lighted thoroughfare, the street seemed darker than a pocket. The city fathers depended on the moon for illumination on certain nights designated by the almanac, and if the moon was dilatory or negligent, that was not their fault. The lights on Mr. Bill's car were all he had to show him the way, but with their aid, he found the shabby little cottage without any trouble at all.

"It's been a very pleasant evening," Granny said politely, as she stepped from the car. "I'm sure we've all enjoyed it, and we have the liver and onions for to-morrow night when we've had time to calm down a bit. Good night, Mr----" She discovered she had forgotten Mr. Bill's name. She was horrified.

"Call me Bill!" begged Mr. Bill in the friendliest way. "I'm such a friend of your granddaughter's--at least I'm going to be such a friend--we belonged to the same family, you know, the Evergreen--that I want to be a friend of yours, too."

"You've proved yourself a friend," beamed Granny. "I declare I'm that tired I'll be glad to go to bed. I'm not as young as I was, and it's a good deal of a strain for an old woman to hear all in one day that her son was a king and that her granddaughter is a queen. Come, Johnny, we'll go right to bed. Good night, Bill, and thank you kindly."

She was tired, and her step was heavy as she went along the walk and up the steps. On the narrow porch her foot touched something that gave beneath her weight. It was soft, and yet it wasn't. Granny drew back her foot, stood still and screamed. There was--yes, there was something on her nice clean porch that did not belong there!

"I'll make a light," offered the resourceful Scout.

"Not with two sticks of wood," objected Tessie, who had run to her grandmother and was staring at the black shadow on the porch floor. "It takes too long!"

"I got a match, silly!" retorted her brother. "We can use matches when we got 'em!"

But Mr. Bill had struck a match, and by its feeble light they could see that the black shadow was the body of a man, huddled on Granny's nice clean porch. Granny shrieked again.

"My soul and body!" she cried. "This is too much!" And she sat heavily down on the step. "I don't like men murdered on my front porch!" she wailed.

"Murdered!" Tessie shrieked, too.

"He isn't murdered," declared Mr. Bill, who had been bending over the body. "At least I don't think he is. Darn it!" For the match flickered and went out.

"Who--who is it?" whispered Tessie, and she trembled so that Mr. Bill had to put his arm around her. "Who is it?"

"I don't know. He looks like a black man--at least he isn't a white man. And I caught a glimpse of an earring as the match went out. We must get some light!" He looked about for some light, but the resourceful Scout had taken the key from Granny's limp fingers, thrown the door open and turned on the light in the hall. There was a white stream through the doorway, and as it fell on the dark face of the man on the porch, he moved slightly and moaned.

"Thank the good Lord he isn't dead!" Granny stumbled to her feet. "Who are you and what do you want?" she asked the stranger sharply. "I'll bet he was after that Tear of God, Tessie," she said, as the dark head moved away from her, and she, like Mr. Bill, caught a glimpse of an earring.

"Oh!" Tessie's fingers felt for the royal jewel. It was there in her pocket, and she grasped it eagerly. Just suppose she had lost it!

"I'll take him away," offered Mr. Bill. "You don't want him here. I'll take him away."

"Hello! What's up here, Mrs. Gilfooly?" And there was Officer Clancy peering at them. "What's the matter here?"

"Well, Mr. Clancy!" Granny turned eagerly around. "I'm sure glad to see you to-night. We go out for a pleasant dinner with a friend of my granddaughter, who's just learned that her Uncle Pete, my eldest, has made her Queen of the Sunshine Islands, and we come home to find this dark-complected gentleman on my nice clean front porch. I almost stepped on him." She shuddered as she recalled her sensations when she put her foot on the dark-complexioned gentleman. "I couldn't think what it was, but it was him!" And she waved her hand toward the stranger who had managed to sit up, and was staring around with dull eyes.

It was no wonder that Officer Clancy was dazed and bewildered to hear Granny talk so glibly of queens and porches, but he stooped over the stranger, who curled up like a snail.

"Now then, my man, what are you doing here, frightening the ladies out of their wits?" asked Clancy sharply.

The stranger shrank away and muttered something. The words sounded like "The Shark! The Shark!" but Granny thought that her ears must have deceived her. A shark was a fish that lived in the ocean. There were no sharks in her neighborhood.

"The shark! The shark!" was all the stranger would say that any one could understand, although he stammered a lot of words that sounded like anything but language to the little group gathered around him.

"I can't make head nor tail of what he says!" Officer Clancy exclaimed helplessly. "I'll try him again. Now then, my man, what were you doing here?"

"On my nice clean porch!" added Granny shrilly.

But the man only muttered some more of the unintelligible gibberish jumbled around the word "Shark." Officer Clancy jerked him to his feet, and he stood leaning weakly against the policeman.

"I better take him along to the station," the latter suggested. "He hasn't done any harm, has he? Maybe he was taken sick as he was passing by, and came in to get help," he suggested eagerly.

"He's got a lump as big as an egg on the back of his head," declared Mr. Bill. "Looks to me as if somebody had blackjacked him!"

"That so?" Officer Clancy looked at the head whose black thatch was unlike any hair he had ever seen before. "There is a lump there! I expect that was it, Mrs. Gilfooly. Somebody slugged him, and he crawled up on your porch and fainted. And I bet I saw the guy that did it! I passed a queer-looking chap not ten minutes ago. He was dark like this fellow, and his hair was frizzed for fair, and he was in his bare feet. He was walking fast and looking straight ahead of him. I remember I thought he was a fine figure of fun. I never saw anybody just like him."

"Could it have been Ka-kee-ta?" Tessie asked Mr. Bill in a frightened whisper. "He was in his bare feet." She shivered.

"Ka--oh, the chap Mr. Marvin spoke about. I wonder!" And Mr. Bill looked at Tessie.

Clancy's sharp ears heard their whispers. "Friend of yours?" he asked quickly.

"No, not a friend," Mr. Bill answered just as quickly. "Just a messenger of some sort. I think you're right, Officer, you better take this man away."

"I'll take him to the station until his mind clears up and he can tell us how it was. You can drive us over." He nodded to Mr. Bill.

"I would be glad to." But Mr. Bill sounded anything but glad. "Only I hate to leave Mrs. Gilfooly and Miss Gilfooly here alone."

"I guess I'm here!" shouted the insulted Boy Scout. "I guess I know what to do if anything happens!"

"There won't anything happen," promised Clancy. "It's happened. And I'll have the sergeant send a man right over to keep an eye out. I'm sure glad to hear of your luck, Miss Gilfooly." He turned to Tessie and solemnly shook her hand. "You'll make a fine queen!"

"I don't know as I want to be a queen if it means finding strange men fainting on our front porch," Tessie murmured almost tearfully.

"Perhaps I'd better stay," suggested Mr. Bill, as he saw how she trembled. "I can sit downstairs and read your books."

"You need your rest as well as we do if you're going to be any help to your pa to-morrow," objected Granny. "We'll be all right with Johnny and the man Officer Clancy sends up. You take that stranger to the station, Mr. Clancy, and lock him up tight. I'll bet he knows more than he's letting on." She peered into the dark face. "Thank the good Lord tattooed noses ain't fashionable in Waloo," she murmured. "Tessie, you ought to go to bed. There's Joe Cary!" She stopped as she heard a whistle up the street. "Joe! Joe Cary!" she called.

"Here!" answered Joe. "What's up?" he demanded as he came up the walk. "You can run along," he told Mr. Bill and Officer Clancy, when he heard the story. "I'll look after things here." When Mr. Bill had reluctantly said good night, holding Tessie's fingers until Joe took them from him, and gone away with Clancy and the stranger, Joe turned to Tessie.

"You'd better go to bed, Tess. You must be all tired out!"

"She is!" Granny answered for her. "We're all tired. I declare it does take it out of a body to have such wonderful things happen. Can you believe it, Joe? We had a nice dinner at the Waloo," she said, following him into the house. "And that Mr. Bill is a real pleasant young fellow. My soul and body!" she exclaimed, staring around in amazement, for the house which she had left as neat as wax was now in disorder. Drawers had been pulled out and their contents dumped on the floor, closets emptied in a way that startled and angered Granny. "Somebody's been here, Joe! Somebody has been all over this house!" She stared at Joe. "I expect they came to get that jewel of yours, Tessie," she guessed loudly. "That Tear of God! Thank goodness I didn't put it in the baking-powder can. Thank goodness you got it in your pocket! Well, this is too much!"

"There, there, Granny!" soothed Joe. "They didn't get anything. You trot up to bed, and Tess and I'll straighten things out."

It took some time before Granny could be persuaded to leave them and more time before the drawers were pushed into place and doors shut on the disordered closets. Joe looked at Tessie. Her face was milk-white and her eyes were heavy and tired.

"Well, Tess!" He put his hands on her shoulders so that she would look into his face. "What do you think about queens now? Are you still glad that you are such an old-fashioned, wornout thing as a queen?" He bent to peer into her eyes.

"I don't know," she faltered. She put up her hands to clasp his strong fingers. "It isn't what I thought it would be, if things like this are going to happen."

"All sorts of things happen to queens," prophesied Joe. "You have only to read the papers to know that. The world doesn't need queens any more. I'm sorry, Tessie," his hands slipped from her shoulders to her waist and he drew her to him. "I'm sorry you're one!" His voice was soft as velvet and honey-sweet.

But Tessie pushed him away. "Why, Joe Cary!" she exclaimed indignantly. "If that isn't just like you! You never want me to have any fun! You only want me to go to the Y. W. C. A. gymnasium, and to study shorthand!"

"I don't want you to be a queen!" he insisted stubbornly, his face flushed, his eyes snapping.

"Why not?" she asked defiantly, and when he did not answer her at once, she asked him again, more softly this time. "Why not, Joe Cary?"

"Because," he said, and he folded his arms across his chest and looked at her scornfully, "queens always think they are a darned sight better than other people. I'm one of the other people, but you needn't think you are any better than I am, Tessie Gilfooly, even if you are queen of a lot of cannibals. Queen!" He had nothing but hot scorn for the word.

She turned away from him impatiently. "You never want me to do anything but work," she pouted. "The idea of talking to me like that, as if a queen wasn't any more than a scrubwoman. I shan't listen to you another minute. I'm going to bed. But before I go, I'll tell you one thing, Joe Cary: if I had heard you were a king, I wouldn't have been so nasty. I would have been proud and glad for you!"

"Tessie!" he cried. But she tossed her head and ran up the steep stairs.

She would not look back at him even if he did stand at the foot of the stairs and call to her. He had hurt her when he had said that queens were no better than other people. The very idea! Mr. Bill never talked that way. Indeed, he never did! Tessie stopped thinking about disgruntled Joe Cary so that she could think of the wonderful Mr. Bill. Oh, wasn't he the most wonderful!

VI

In spite of her tearful assertion that she knew she would not sleep a wink, Tessie was soon dreaming of her new kingdom and of Mr. Bill. Not once did shabby Joe Cary intrude on her dream of glory. It seemed only a minute from the time she crept shiveringly into bed beside Granny, before Granny was shaking her shoulder.

"After nine o'clock, Tessie!" she was calling. "If you're going to Mifflin to get your ma's and pa's wedding license at ten, you'd better get up right away!"

Tessie opened her eyes slowly and reluctantly. She was afraid of what they would see. Yes, there was Granny calling her as she called her every morning. There was the ugly old bureau and the crayon portrait of her grandfather. Of course, she had been dreaming. She wasn't a queen. She had never been at the Waloo for dinner with the wonderful Mr. Bill. She would have to get up and put on her old sateen and go and sell aluminum in the Evergreen basement. She wished she hadn't dreamed that Uncle Pete had died and made her a queen. Such a dream as that made it harder than ever to waken. She had known all the time that it was only a dream. Such wonderful things never happened to poor working girls. And if it really was nine o'clock, she was afraid to imagine how Mr. Walker would rebuke her for her tardiness. Why had Granny let her sleep when Granny knew that she would be fined if she were late?

"And your friend, that Mr. Bill, stopped here half an hour ago on his way to the store," went on Granny, shaking out Tessie's clothes and hanging them on a chair. "We got to get you some new things, Tessie. These ain't royal. They don't do credit to your poor Uncle Pete, who's been so good to you. Mr. Bill said he stopped at the police station, and the police told him that we were right last night when we said that man on the porch was hit on the head. A friend came for him, and after he had talked to him, he told the police just how it was. The colored man was walking along the street, when all of a sudden he didn't know nothing. I don't suppose he could have upset my closets if he was unconscious, and so long as nothing's missing, I ain't going to worry. But there certainly were queer doings last night. You hurry right along, Tessie. Your coffee's all ready, and I warmed up the liver. No knowing where we'll be for dinner to-night, and we can't be wasteful even if we are queens."

There it was, that most disturbing word! Tessie swung her feet over the side of the bed and stared at her grandmother, who was already dressed in her black alpaca instead of her morning calico, and whose front hair must have been surprised to find itself out of curling pins at nine o'clock in the morning.

"Then it's all true!" she faltered. She told herself again that it couldn't be true. It just could not be true. She thought she would die if it wasn't true, but she knew it wasn't.

"What's true?" questioned Granny, who was putting the room to rights.

"That I'm a queen?" Tessie blushed hotly, as she asked the question. It was so perfectly ridiculous and unbelievable, and yet Granny talked as if it might be true.

Granny stood still with Tessie's worn blue serge suit in one hand and a clothesbrush in the other. "Of course you're a queen!" The firm confident tone sent a shiver of delight down Tessie's spine. "Didn't your Uncle Pete die and make you a queen? Come down just as soon as you're dressed, Tessie. We ain't got time to waste to-day."

Even when Bert Douglas drove up in a shining touring car, Tessie could not believe that she was to ride in it, although Bert told her that she was, and he for one was mighty glad that she was.

"We have a corking day!" he exclaimed, with an approving glance at the cloudless sky. "And we'll have a corking ride. I'm glad your people were married sixty miles from Waloo. This is just a formality, you know, Miss Gilfooly. We all know that you really are the Queen of the Sunshine Islands. We don't need any certificates." And he laughed joyously. It was so strange and unbelievable and delightful that he was to drive a young queen to Mifflin and back.

"It's so wonderful that I can't believe it," Tessie told him earnestly, and her voice quivered with the wonder of it. She looked speculatively at the tonneau of the big car. There was no one in it. "Could we take my grandmother, Mr. Douglas?" She raised her big blue eyes appealingly. "She would enjoy the ride. And my brother Johnny? He's a Boy Scout."

"Sure, we can take all the royal family," chuckled Bert. "There's plenty of room, and we'll feel safer to have a Scout with us." He laughed again as he hospitably opened the tonneau door.

Mrs. Scanlon stood at her window and watched Granny and Johnny settle themselves proudly in the car. She saw Tessie take the seat next to the wheel, and she was green with envy from her red hair to her patched black shoes. She had heard the news, and in her heart she wished that she had had a son to run away to sea and be a king. "My Lil would make a better-looking queen than that washed-out Tessie Gilfooly," she thought, as she watched them from behind the skimpy curtain. "Lil's suit was new this spring, and that blue dud Tessie has on is a year old if it's a day. I don't believe it's really true! Such things don't happen! Queen, indeed!" And she sniffed loudly and elevated her long thin nose because little Tessie Gilfooly had come home with some ridiculous story about being a queen.

Jonah, Johnny's dog--a mongrel with a most rakish brown spot on his white face--jumped wistfully around the car. Jonah wanted to drive to Mifflin too. He saw no reason why he should be left at home alone.

"Could we take him?" asked Granny, eager for the family to enjoy the ride as a family. "He'd enjoy it."

And Jonah joined the two in the tonneau.

"Just as well he's going," muttered Mrs. Scanlon. "I wouldn't have no time to feed anybody's dog to-day!" And to show how little she cared about the good fortune which had come to her neighbors, she took her chairs and tables out of the parlor and gave the room a thorough cleaning.

Bert was right. It was a wonderful day--a blue and gold day. There was not a cloud in the sky, nor a care in the car. The road to Mifflin was velvet smooth, so that the drive, as Bert had prophesied, was delightful. It was no time at all before they were in front of the red brick building which was Mifflin's new Court House. But when they went in and demanded a copy of the record of the marriage of John Gilfooly and Teresa Andrews, which had been solemnized in Mifflin twenty years ago, the clerk could not find the record.

"That's funny!" he exclaimed. "It was here yesterday, but it isn't here to-day!" He looked puzzled.

"Did you see it yesterday?" demanded Bert, with all the importance of a six-months lawyer.

"Sure I saw it yesterday. A man came in and asked for a copy. Funny thing! In all the time I've been here, no one has ever asked about that license. And now yesterday a man wanted it and to-day you want it." The coincidence impressed him as so strange that he blinked.

"Was he a black man and did he have a tattooed nose?" asked Tessie eagerly.

The clerk shook his head. "No, he had light hair and a big nose with freckles all over it. He was what you would call a blond. With a big nose," he insisted almost as if he thought it was quite unusual for a blond to have a nose at all.

Tessie looked at Bert, and at Granny and Johnny. But not one of them could tell her anything about a blond with a big nose. Granny could only shake her head.

"He must have sneaked the record when I went out to look at the fire," the clerk said indignantly. "Ferguson's store had a little blaze yesterday, and when I heard the fire engine I naturally went to the door. But I can't have this sort of thing," he added querulously. "I can't have my records stolen!"

"No, I shouldn't think you could," agreed Bert. "And you had better find out who stole this record."

"I shall!" The clerk was quite offended because Bert had thought it necessary to tell him what to do. "I'll call the sheriff right away." And he bustled over to the telephone.

"But--but why should any one steal my father's and mother's marriage license?" Tessie could not imagine why any one would steal a piece of paper. Money or a jewel--the Tear of God even--could be used, but a piece of paper----

Bert smiled at her puzzled face. "Some one might want to make it impossible for you to prove that you are John Gilfooly's eldest child," he explained carefully.

Tessie gasped. "The idea! But whoever would?" She could not imagine.

Granny bristled indignantly. "Well, they can't do that!" she declared. "Not while I have breath in my body to say she is! I guess I know!"

"Sure you do!" And Bert grinned at her.

But Granny wanted more than smiles. She wanted action--immediate action.

"What are we going to do now?" she demanded. "Can't Tessie be a queen unless she has her ma's and pa's wedding license?"

"I don't see why you need any old paper," put in Johnny. "If you want to know about the wedding of father and mother, all you have to do is to ask Granny. She was at the wedding, weren't you, Granny?"

Granny turned to gaze at him with pride. "Bless the boy!" she exclaimed in honest admiration. "Of course I was there! And I can tell the lawyers all about it! That was a bright thought, Johnny, but I'm glad it didn't come to you before. If you'd had it in Waloo we'd have missed a pleasant ride. I can tell you all about the wedding," she said to Bert, and there was much triumph in her voice, "all about the bride's dress and the refreshments and everything!"

"I don't believe that your evidence will be enough, Mrs. Gilfooly," Bert said reluctantly and regretfully, for he would have preferred to tell Granny that her story of the Gilfooly-Andrews wedding would be sufficient to place Tessie on any throne. "You are too near a relative to be disinterested. That's what the court would say," he explained hastily as Granny snorted.

"My soul and body!" She stared at him. "As if I'd lie about my own son or my own granddaughter! But there were other folks at the wedding," she, remembered joyously. "The Hortons, who live over on Olive street, were there. Sophie Horton was Tessie's mother's bridesmaid, and Sam Horton knocked over a piano lamp the night of the wedding and came near burning up the bride. He'll remember and be glad to tell you that my son John married Teresa Andrews right and proper. And that ain't all," went on Granny, who could accomplish great things when she began little things, "the man who married John and Teresa and baptized Tessie is alive to this day and living in this very town. We've only got to go to the Reverend Townshend's house to hear all about it. I suppose the law would believe a regular minister if it wouldn't believe a loving grandmother," she said to Bert, with a decided tinge of resentment in her hearty voice.

Bert laughed apologetically. "That's fine! But you understand, Mrs. Gilfooly, it is because you are so close to Miss Gilfooly that your evidence wouldn't be sufficient. The court might suspect such a near relative, but the word of the minister who married Miss Gilfooly's parents should be enough for any court."

"I should think so!" snorted Granny, who had nothing but contempt for a court which would not believe a grandmother.

They drove through the pretty streets of Mifflin to the home of Mr. Townshend, which was almost hidden by shrubbery and vines, and the Boy Scout rang the bell loudly. But Mr. Townshend was in Waloo visiting his sister, and the young granddaughter, who answered the bell, had never heard of the Gilfoolys.

"Never mind!" exclaimed Granny cheerfully, for Tessie looked as if she did mind. "We know where to go now for what we want, and that's everything, no matter what you're looking for. You say Reverend Townshend's sister lives on Tenth Avenue South?" she asked the young granddaughter. "Mr. Douglas will just drive us there and hear with his own ears what Reverend Townshend has to say."

"Sure I'll drive you!" Bert said. "That's my job!" And he looked as if he liked his job enormously.

But black luck preceded them, for when they returned to Waloo and drove to Tenth Avenue South, they learned that the Reverend Townshend had been knocked down by an automobile as he was crossing a street that afternoon, and was lying in the hospital with concussion of the brain. And they found, on driving to Olive street, that the Hortons had gone to Vermont for the summer.

"I don't believe I ever was born!" Tessie was almost in tears. Her lips quivered. So did her voice.

"Tut, tut!" rebuked her grandmother. "There were fifty-six folks, as I remember, at that wedding, and it will be funny if I can't find some of them. You don't want to get discouraged at the beginning of anything, Tessie, not if you ever want to see the end of it."

"Why don't you drop it, Tess?" advised Joe Cary, when he heard about the blond man with a big nose, the stolen marriage record, and about the Reverend Townshend who was in the hospital with concussion of the brain. "The Fates seem to be against you! So are some people, I should judge. There is evidently some one who doesn't want you to be the Queen of the Sunshine Islands. Look at last night! Look at to-day! Why do you want to be a queen, anyway?" He asked the question as he would have asked why she wanted to be a salesgirl, or why she did not want to be a stenographer.

Tessie stared at him. The idea of asking such a question! Joe Cary was crazy! And she told him so. "You talk as if being a queen was like selling aluminum in the Evergreen!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"It isn't as decent!" cried Joe, and then Tessie knew, beyond a doubt, that he was crazy.

"You can't stop being a queen if you are one!" she flared.

"Why can't you?" demanded Joe. "Can't you abdicate? Seems to me I've read of several kings and queens who were glad to abdicate. You don't have to be a queen unless you please, Tessie Gilfooly!" He actually did seem to think that being a queen was like selling aluminum.

"Joe--Joe Cary--" she began in exasperation, and then she startled him by bursting into tears--"you--you never want me to have any f-fun!" she hiccuped.

"Oh, great Scott, Tess!" he said helplessly, and he would have taken her in his arms and kissed the tears away, she was so little and sweet and unreasonable, but Granny snatched her from him.

"There, there, my lamb!" she crooned. "You're all tired out. You just come to your old Granny. There's some folks," she said over her shoulder to Joe, "who are quick enough to tell other folks what to do, but I wonder what they would say if they were to find themselves kings."

Joe stared at her, and then he laughed. "I know what I would do," he declared promptly. "I never would be a king! Not for a minute!" He seemed proud of himself--of what he would be.

"Then you'd be a coward, Joe Cary, and a shirk!" Granny pricked the balloon of his pride with her frankness. "When the good Lord puts responsibilities and duties on a body's shoulders, he can't throw 'em off without being a coward and a shirk. What he has to do is to carry them the best he knows how. Now I want you to stop picking on Tessie just because she's a queen. It isn't her fault, and you needn't talk to her as if it was. We don't none of us know why she was picked out to look after those queer folks in the Pacific Ocean, but I guess the good Lord knows His business, and He knows the Gilfoolys. It isn't any crime to be a queen. It's a privilege, and we're all going to enjoy it with Tessie. I don't want to hear any more picking," she repeated sternly.

"All right, Granny," Joe murmured meekly, but his eyes twinkled. "Just as you say. Tess can think she is Queen of England, and I shan't say another word!"

VII

"And about this wedding license, I'll put on my thinking cap," remarked Granny. She went into the bedroom and closed the door.

When Tessie was a little thing and heard Granny talk of her thinking cap, she always visualized the cap as something between the formal Sunday black straw or velvet, and the Monday morning gingham sunbonnet Granny wore when she hung out the washing. And now that Tessie was a big girl, she knew no more of what a thinking cap was like than she had when she was seven, for Granny had never worn one in public. She always closed the door before she put it on.

But as usual, the thinking cap quickly produced results, and in no time at all Granny emerged with half a dozen names scribbled on a piece of paper. They soon found Mrs. Waterman and Mr. Jacob Dassett, who had been at the wedding of John Gilfooly and Teresa Andrews, and could remember the ceremony perfectly. They were thrilled to hear that the inheritance, a kingdom in the Pacific Ocean, of the daughter of John Gilfooly and Teresa Andrews, might hang on their word, and they grew incoherent as they ransacked their memories for recollections of twenty years ago.

"A queen!" exclaimed the astonished Mrs. Waterman. "Can you believe it! And a mighty pretty queen she'll make!" She looked with admiration at Tessie's flushed and dimpled face. "The spitting image of her ma, ain't she, Mrs. Gilfooly? And I tell you, miss, there wasn't a prettier girl in the state than Tessie Andrews when she married John Gilfooly. Ain't I right, Mrs. Gilfooly?"

Granny nodded. "John was a handsome man, too," she declared. "They made a beautiful couple, Tessie. I wish you could have seen them!"

"You bet I remember the wedding of Jack Gilfooly and Tess Andrews!" Mr. Dassett spoke a bit testily that any one should have thought he would have forgotten. "Didn't Sam Horton knock over the lamp and near set the bride on fire? It would have been a bad deal for you, young lady," he smiled at Tessie, "if he had. There wouldn't have been no queens then, you bet!"

Granny's thinking cap produced not only witnesses to the wedding, but also told her where to unearth old Doctor Grannis, who had brought Tessie into the world, and who swore he remembered the six-pound, red-faced mite.

"Well, are you satisfied now?" Granny asked Mr. Marvin, when the statements of her witnesses, duly signed and adorned with notarial seals, lay on the desk before him.

"Perfectly!" But Mr. Marvin did not look at her and smile, he looked at her blushing granddaughter. "Perfectly! The court can ask for nothing more. But you can understand, Mrs. Gilfooly, why we cannot accept the evidence of the interested parties. But these statements make everything all right, and Miss Gilfooly is Queen of the Sunshine Islands." He rose and bowed to Her Majesty. "But according to the terms of her uncle's will, she is to remain here until his personal representative arrives to escort her to her kingdom. And in the meantime--" He touched the button on his desk.

Tessie and Granny held their breaths as they waited to hear what was going to happen in the meantime.

At the whirr of the buzzer, the door, which had been tightly closed opened, and Bert Douglas shot in. He was followed by a man who was not black nor red nor yellow, but an attractive combination of the three colors. He wore a blue blouse hanging over his trousers which flapped around his bare feet. His hair was frizzed and stiffened until it stood half a foot away from his scalp and was adorned with shells. His nose was tattooed in red and blue, and in his hand he carried an ax. At least Granny called the strange weapon an ax. The blade shone like silver.

Granny shrieked when she saw him, and clutched Tessie by the hand as if she would run away with her. Johnny the Boy Scout stepped bravely before the women of his family and stared at the strange creature, who stood with bowed head and an air of great humility. His humility did not deceive Granny, not for a second. She did not trust him, and she kept a firm hold of Tessie's fingers.

"This is Ka-kee-ta, the protector of the royal person," exclaimed Mr. Marvin.

And as if to prove his words, Ka-kee-ta jumped into the air and clicked his bare feet together before he dropped on his knees before Tessie, and laid the blade of his ax against her shabby brown shoes. Tessie shrank back and caught her breath.