busy day, she found them awaiting her. There was no possible way of
heating the room, but that was fortunate, for otherwise it would have
been occupied by one of her older brothers.
From the time when she moved up into the wing, Thea began to live a
double life. During the day, when the hours were full of tasks, she was
one of the Kronborg children, but at night she was a different person.
On Friday and Saturday nights she always read for a long while after she
was in bed. She had no clock, and there was no one to nag her.
Ray Kennedy, on his way from the depot to his boardinghouse, often
looked up and saw Thea’s light burning when the rest of the house was
dark, and felt cheered as by a friendly greeting. He was a faithful
soul, and many disappointments had not changed his nature. He was still,
at heart, the same boy who, when he was sixteen, had settled down to
freeze with his sheep in a Wyoming blizzard, and had been rescued only
to play the losing game of fidelity to other charges.
Ray had no very clear idea of what might be going on in Thea’s head, but
he knew that something was. He used to remark to Spanish Johnny, “That
girl is developing something fine.” Thea was patient with Ray, even in
regard to the liberties he took with her name. Outside the family, every
one in Moonstone, except Wunsch and Dr. Archie, called her “Thee-a,” but
this seemed cold and distant to Ray, so he called her “Thee.” Once, in a
moment of exasperation, Thea asked him why he did this, and he explained
that he once had a chum, Theodore, whose name was always abbreviated
thus, and that since he was killed down on the Santa Fe, it seemed
natural to call somebody “Thee.” Thea sighed and submitted. She was
always helpless before homely sentiment and usually changed the subject.
It was the custom for each of the different Sunday Schools in Moonstone
to give a concert on Christmas Eve. But this year all the churches were
to unite and give, as was announced from the pulpits, “a semi-sacred
concert of picked talent” at the opera house. The Moonstone Orchestra,
under the direction of Professor Wunsch, was to play, and the most
talented members of each Sunday School were to take part in the
programme. Thea was put down by the committee “for instrumental.” This
made her indignant, for the vocal numbers were always more popular. Thea
went to the president of the committee and demanded hotly if her rival,
Lily Fisher, were going to sing. The president was a big, florid,
powdered woman, a fierce W.C.T.U. worker, one of Thea’s natural enemies.
Her name was Johnson; her husband kept the livery stable, and she was
called Mrs. Livery Johnson, to distinguish her from other families of
the same surname. Mrs. Johnson was a prominent Baptist, and Lily Fisher
was the Baptist prodigy. There was a not very Christian rivalry between
the Baptist Church and Mr. Kronborg’s church.
When Thea asked Mrs. Johnson whether her rival was to be allowed to
sing, Mrs. Johnson, with an eagerness which told how she had waited for
this moment, replied that “Lily was going to recite to be obliging, and
to give other children a chance to sing.” As she delivered this thrust,
her eyes glittered more than the Ancient Mariner’s, Thea thought. Mrs.
Johnson disapproved of the way in which Thea was being brought up, of a
child whose chosen associates were Mexicans and sinners, and who was, as
