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Page 23 text:
“
Gladys Hudson, ' 23. CYRUS Holmes, Taney Town ' s big postmaster, leaned through the post- master ' s window, talking to a small girl, Dodo, aged five, who was much enthused about talking to Uncle Cy. Come, Dora. Come here at once, a woman ' s voice called sharply. Almost before Cyrus Holmes realized it, the little visitor was whisked away out of his sight by her mother, who never wanted Dodo to talk to Uncle Cy. And Cyrus wondered. At the supper table Cyrus wondered again. Mother was unusually quiet. Even Bee, their youngest daughter, and the only one at home now, was silent, although usually such a chatterbox. Soon the feeling that he was being watched became unbearable. What ' s the matter that Bee isn ' t going to the dance with Dan? He asked slowly, turning to his wife. If it ' s the clothes, we ' ll manage that. It ' s not the clothes, but I think there ' s some trouble between Dan and Bee, she stammered, and set hurriedly to picking up the dishes. Cyrus arose and ambled off to the barn, followed by Dickie, the ancient spaniel. Amid the clutter of miniature houses, in his work room under the rafters he began to think. Once he had longed to be a great architect, so when the children came he built doll houses for them. Gradually his children grew up and the little girls of Taney Town all brought Uncle Cy bits of flowered silk and wall paper, lace from candy boxes and the like, and adored him as he formed the tiny trifles into lace eui ' tains, and dimunitive upholstered chairs. He especially adored all things Elizabethan, and occupied himself in copy- ing in detail an Elizabethan banquet hall with it ' s great oak table, it ' s tapestries and armor. Cyrus pressed Dickies head tightly between the palms of his hands, rose and groped for the lantern near by. For a long time bending there in the flickering light of the lantern, he worked in utter content at a morsel of difficult carving.
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Page 24 text:
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Dan ' s voice carried to him from the gateway where he heard, Why, your father — . The words trailed off into nothingness. If you won ' t understand then — I won ' t go to the dance with you, ' he heard from Bee. What ever the fault it was not Dan ' s, he thought, as he slipped into the kitchen door. Why had his name been mentioned in the talk at the gate? The following day Miss Polly Primsall, who saw Cyrus dressing a little colonial lady to rule over a colonial house (and which he had smuggled down to the postoffice to work on during slack hours) declar ed, It ' s wors ' n Sam Dean who knits. There ' s some sense in his knitting. Cy, who overheard the expression, knew she was comparing him to a man who had a mind like a woman ' s. This contempt touched him in a raw spot. The first real blow fell on the following morning, however, when Tom Dillon, President of the Union Bank and the big political man of Taney Town, quietly informed Cy that he was serving his last term as postmaster. Yet Cy had been so faithful to his work, and moreover without a single complaint from Dillon. Cyrus finished the morning routine and found himself alone in his own barn loft. There was something back of it — Tom Dillon who had been a friend from school days; and if Tom switched there was a reason. He had felt for a week as if something was working against him ; as though the whole town had a secret from which he alone was shut out. Sitting there by the open window Cyrus heard voices and a sound like falling pebbles. Mother and Bee were shelling peas on the back porch. It ' s been growing on him, sighed Mother, But you are a foolish girl, Bee. Dan ' s folks would get over it. I tell you I can ' t do it. Dan is hard to manage, Mother. If I could only get away. We ' ve got to be careful, though. Dad mustn ' t suspect it. If we could only get the play houses away from him, and get his mind on something else. So that was it — . The meaning of the misunderstanding between Bee and Dan, the reason Dodo was no longer safe with him, and the reason he could no longer be postmaster. They thought he, Cyrus Holmes was insane. He would show them. He would burn the doll houses, and stay home nights, reading the newspaper as other men did. The people were fools, every one of them. Back at the postoffice he sat brooding over the little colonial house when suddenly the door slammed and standing before him was a vision. A child whose golden hair and shell-pink daintiness suggested a fairy princess done in water-colors. The child stood laughing up at Cyrus. She reminded him of Dodo, but instead of being round like a gum drop, she was fragile like a rose petal, and he realized that her frock was unknown in the little town of Taney. Sylvia. Oh, Sylvia, called a woman ' s voice which Cyrus knew to be strange. Naughty girl, scolded the mother, She runs away.
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