Bicycle Built for Two by Alice Duncan Page B

of
six or more, and with quarters for a household staff, but it didn’t
come close to mansion-size. In fact, the place was pretty much a
typical farmhouse, if one operated a prosperous farm, which Alex
did. And, dash it, that hadn’t happened by accident. It had been
he, Alex English, who had built the family enterprises to their
present level of prosperity.
    Recalling Kate’s brother Bill, Alex
acknowledged that he was attempting to do the same with his
family’s assets, such as they were. Bill had to work on a much
smaller scale, but still . . . The boy should be commended for
attempting to dig his family out of the gutter.
    Alex had told Bill so, more diplomatically,
of course, when they’d spoken in the hospital two weeks ago. He had
also given Bill a couple of tips he’d garnered from his
investment-minded friends and associates, and had offered him the
opportunity to profit from the World’s Columbian Exposition, as
well. Since Alex was in a position to do so, he’d offered Bill
shares in his own Agricultural Cooperative at a greatly reduced
price.
    Bill, unlike his sister, had thanked him for
the information and the offer. He’d made arrangements on the spot
to take advantage of the Agricultural Cooperative offer. Bill’s
appreciation had been overt and absolutely genuine. Every time Kate
thanked Alex for anything, Alex could tell it just about killed her
to do it. Dratted woman.
    Conky, Alex’s no-account bird dog, set up a
frenzy of barking that jolted Alex out of his broody mood. The dog
was a total failure as a hunter, but his rapture at seeing Alex
again cheered him up a little. “Hey there, Conky!” he called out
the window. The dog, leaping joyously and making a horrible racket,
trotted alongside the carriage, jumping up and scratching the door
panel every now and then. Alex sighed. What did it matter if the
animal scratched the paint? Conky might be worthless, but Alex
counted him as a friend, and a man couldn’t have too many
friends.
    “Alex! Alex!”
    His mother’s happy shout yanked Alex farther
out of his mood. He leaned out the window, cupped his hands around
his mouth, and hollered, “Ma!” like he used to do when he was a
boy. Conky barked, too, as if he were echoing Alex’s shout.
    Kate Finney called her mother “Ma.” Maybe
they weren’t so fundamentally different from one another as surface
indications would lead one to believe.
    “Don’t be an ass,” he advised himself.
    When the coach horses drew up to the huge
front porch, Alex saw his little sister tripping merrily down the
steps. Mary Jo, the youngest of the five English children, was
fourteen years old now. The rest of Alex’s siblings were married
and living in or near Chicago. Mary Jo thought she should be
married and living away from home, too, but everyone knew that was
only her age determining her attitude.
    Alex loved her even if she was going through
adolescence. He also gave her some extra latitude because he knew
she missed their father, the older Alexander English, who had
passed away only two years earlier. Alex missed their father, as
well, so he tried not to be too hard on his little sister.
    “Alex!” Mary Jo screamed. “Alex! Minnie had
her kittens!”
    Minnie, the barn cat who kept the rodent
population under control on the English farm, had been doing her
duty for years now, supplying kittens on a regular basis to serve
in the feline rat patrol.
    “Are they as ugly as the last batch?” Alex
called as he opened the door and let down the carriage steps.
    “They’re beautiful !”
    Before he could properly brace himself, Mary
Jo threw herself into his arms, propelling him back through the
open coach door. He ended up sitting on the steps with her in his
lap, Conky leaping on both of them, and unable to catch his breath
for laughing.
    “Mary Jo, you little fiend, are you trying to
kill me?”
    “Mary Jo, really,” their mother said, trying
to sound stern. She couldn’t. She’d never been able