when pretty mary farrell came to brine's rip and set up a modest dressmaker's shop quite close to the mills (she said she loved the sound of the saws), all the unattached males of the village, to say nothing of too many of the attached ones, fell instant victims to her charms. they were her slaves from the first lifting of her long lashes in their direction.
tug blackstock, the deputy-sheriff, to be sure, did not capitulate quite so promptly as the rest. mary had to flash her dark blue eyes upon him at least twice, dropping them again with shy admiration. then he was at her feet—which was a pleasant place to be, seeing that those same small feet were shod with a neatness which was a perpetual reproach to the untidy sawdust strewn roadways of brine's rip.
even big andy, the boyish young giant from the oromocto, wavered for a few hours in his allegiance to the postmistress. but mary was much too tactful to draw upon her pretty shoulders the hostility of such a power as the postmistress, and big andy's enthusiasm was cold-douched in its first glow.
as for the womenfolk of brine's rip, it was not to be expected that they would agree any too cordially with the men on the subject of mary farrell.
but one instance of mary's tact made even the most irreconcilable of her own sex sheath their claws in dealing with her. she had come from harner's bend. the mills at harner's bend were anathema to brine's rip mills. a keen trade rivalry had grown, fed by a series of petty but exasperating incidents, into a hostility that blazed out on the least occasion. and pretty mary had come from harner's bend. brine's rip did not find it out till mary's spell had been cast and secured, of course. but the fact was a bitter one to swallow. no one else but mary farrell could have made brine's rip swallow it.
one day big andy, greatly daring, and secure in his renovated allegiance to the postmistress, ventured to chaff mary about it. she turned upon him, half amused and half indignant.
"well," she demanded, "isn't harner's bend a good place to come away from? do you think i'd ought to have stopped there? do i look like the kind of girl that wouldn't come away from harner's bend? and me a dress-maker? i just couldn't live, let alone make a living, among such a dowdy lot of women-folk as they've got over there. it isn't dresses they want, but oat-sacks, and you wouldn't know the difference, either, when they'd got them on."
the implication was obvious; and the women of brine's rip began to allow for possible virtues in miss farrell. the post-mistress declared there was no harm in her, and even admitted that she might almost be called good-looking "if she hadn't such an awful big mouth."
i have said that all the male folk of brine's rip had capitulated immediately to the summons of mary farrell's eyes. but there were two notable exceptions—woolly billy and jim. both woolly billy's flaxen mop of curls and the great curly black head of jim, the dog, had turned away coldly from mary's first advances. woolly billy preferred men to women anyhow. and jim was jealous of tug blackstock's devotion to the petticoated stranger.
but mary farrell knew how to manage children and dogs as well as men. she ignored both jim and woolly billy. she did it quite pointedly, yet with a gracious politeness that left no room for resentment. neither the child nor the dog was accustomed to being ignored. before long mary's amiable indifference began to make them feel as if they were being left out in the cold. they began to think they were losing something because she did not notice them. reluctantly at first, but by-and-by with eagerness, they courted her attention. at last they gained it. it was undeniably pleasant. from that moment the child and the dog were at mary's well-shod and self-reliant little feet.
