SUZANNA AIDS CUPID
"Mother dear," asked Suzanna one day, "if the Eagle Man's sick, don't
you think I ought to go and see him?"
Mrs. Procter hesitated. She looked into the earnest dark eyes raised to
hers. "Well, dear, perhaps it would be kind," she said.
"I ought to take him some flowers," Suzanna pursued.
The time was early morning, and Mr. Procter had not yet departed for the
hardware store.
"I can't think where you'll get flowers, Suzanna," he said.
"Oh, there's a little shaded spot in a field I know and there's some
daisies there. I'll gather them on the way to the Eagle Man."
So that afternoon after school Suzanna admonished Maizie to be quick
with her buttons because she and the baby were to pay a call on the
Eagle Man.
"I have to gather the daisies for him, too," said Suzanna.
"I don't like the Eagle Man very well," said Maizie; "I'm afraid of him;
and I don't see why you should take flowers to him. He has plenty in the
big glass house in his yard."
Suzanna stopped short. "You don't like him after he gave you that lovely
ride in the summer, Maizie Procter, and after he's interested in our
father's Machine? I'm 'shamed of you. You ought to like everybody Miss
Massey says, and flowers in his glass house aren't like flowers that are
a present from somebody else."
Maizie did not answer this, but the look on her face indicated some
defiance of Suzanna's attempted direction of her thoughts. When they
were ready, they called good-bye to their mother and started away.
Suzanna pushed the cart containing the baby, while Maizie walked
sedately beside her.
From the field Suzanna knew, she secured a small bunch of late daisies
and then the journey was continued. At length the children reached the
Massey grounds. Suzanna pushed open the big iron gate and trundled the
cart into the gravel path. The ground immediately began to be slightly
hilly.
"You'd better help me, Maizie," said Suzanna.
"How?" asked Maizie helplessly.
"Put your hands on my back and push," said Suzanna.
So the little procession formed itself. And in this wise it reached the
top of the hill. The house itself lay a few yards in front of them. The
children paused to rest, and then Suzanna, looking around, beheld a
small vine-covered arbor, and within, just visible through the
enshrouding ivy, a man and a woman, Miss Massey and a stranger.
"How do you do, Suzanna?" Miss Massey said when she found herself
discovered. "Did you want to see me?"
"I'm very glad to see you," responded Suzanna politely, "but I didn't
come expressly on purpose to look at you. I came to see the Eagle Man."
"The Eagle Man?" asked Miss Massey, puzzled.
"He walks with a cane," put in Maizie, "and he coughs kind of hoarse
each time he speaks."
"He's your father," said Suzanna. "He sits down on a velvet chair, and
he shouts, and he gets red in the face, and he bangs his fist on the
chair when a little man doesn't hurry up, though I thought he went very
fast. He did all that the day the Sunday School pupils came to your
party."
"Oh, yes," said Miss Massey, a smile lighting her face at the vivid
description, "I did not know that you had met my father, but I'm afraid
you can't see him today, dear. He's not well."
"Yes, I know; that's why I came to see him and to bring him these
flowers."
Miss Massey was a little puzzled. How did Suzanna know John Massey was
ill?
"Suppose you bring the baby in here," suggested the man who was sitting
next to Miss Massey, and who up to this time had been silent. "And after
awhile Miss Massey can find out if her father is able to see you."
"All right," said Suzanna with alacrity. She started to lift the baby
from his carriage when the man sprang up and took the child from her.
The baby smiled and won his way at once to the stranger's heart.
"He's sweet, isn't he?" began Suzanna, as she entered the arbor, Maizie
with her. Miss Massey drew Maizie within the circle of her own arm.
"He is that," said the man earnestly, "although I don't know very much
about babies. Does he cry much?"
"Well, he's very sinful when he's hungry. He's getting better now
because he's growing older, but he used to shriek till his face got red.
Once in awhile now he wants what he wants right away. I was trying once
to learn a piece of poetry, and he suddenly shrieked and I had to stop
everything and warm his milk. I'm only hoping he'll live to grow up,
because if he should die now I'm afraid God wouldn't want him in
Heaven."
"Are there ladies in Heaven that take care of babies?" asked Maizie
interestedly, a new train of thoughts started.
"You know there are, Maizie," said Suzanna, allowing no one else a
chance to answer. "There are lots of little babies that go away, and do
you s'pose they'd be called if they were going to be left hungry and
cold? God has it all arranged. First, he calls a baby and then pretty
soon he calls a mother and she takes care of the baby."
"Any mother?" Maizie asked.
"Yes, any mother; they're all good."
"But why doesn't he leave them on earth with their own mothers?"
"Because sometimes he takes a liking to somebody down here," Suzanna
said gravely. "But anyway, you needn't ask me such questions, because
here's Miss Massey who knows everything," Suzanna finished
magnanimously.
"She does that," said the man gravely who was holding the baby.
"Are you related to Miss Massey?" asked Suzanna. Now Miss Massey's
rather faded cheeks grew pink.
"Is it a long time before the baby needs his bottle again, Suzanna?" she
asked.
"Oh, not for hours," said Suzanna. "You see, now he eats crackers and
bread and butter and an egg sometimes, and we gave him some before we
started." She returned relentlessly to the question again, appealing to
the man. "Are you related to Miss Massey?"
"No," the stranger said after a time, "we're just friends."
Miss Massey put in hastily: "Shall we go into the house, children, and
I'll show you some interesting things?"
The man rose quickly, the baby still in his arms. In this manner they
all entered the big house and went into the beautiful room that Suzanna
remembered so well.
"Do you live here?" asked Suzanna of the man. He shook his head.
"You mean in this little town?" he asked. "I once did years ago, but I
moved away to the city. I'm paying a short visit to my sister now."
"Oh," said Suzanna. "My father has a sister called Aunt Martha. She
comes sometimes when we have a new baby."
"Why," said Maizie suddenly, as they were all seated, the baby
contentedly sitting on the man's knee, her voice shrill with new
discovery. "He _is_ related to Miss Massey; he looks at her that way."
The man, after a long pause in which he gathered understanding, answered
very solemnly. "Well," he said, "if loving a person makes you a
relative, then I am very closely related to Miss Massey. But if lack of
money keeps one from being related, then I'm only a stranger to her."
Neither Suzanna nor Maizie could understand that statement. But Miss
Massey blushed till her face was like a lovely flower.
Yet when Suzanna appeared to be about to take up a new line of
questioning, Miss Massey spoke quickly:
"I think you'd like some lemonade, wouldn't you, Suzanna, you and your
sister? I'll go and order some for you."
She went out of the room. The man waited for a moment, then handing the
baby to Suzanna, followed Miss Massey.
"Would you like to live here, Suzanna?" asked Maizie.
"No, I don't like people around with brass buttons on their coats," said
Suzanna. "And then there'd be so much cleaning we'd never get through."
At the moment came an unmistakable sound.
"The Eagle Man!" cried Suzanna with absolute conviction. "I thought he
was sick."
And indeed it was just exactly the Eagle Man. Straight he came to the
library. He paused in the doorway at sight of the children. All the high
color had faded from his face; he looked alarmingly ill.
"Oh," cried Suzanna, immediately upon sight of him. "We came to see you
and to bring you these daisies."
He accepted them with a little grimace. "Thank you, little girl," he
said. "Put that heavy baby down. He can crawl around."
Suzanna carefully lowered the baby to the floor. He sat with blinking
eyes, so many treasures for his small hands lay within touch.
The Eagle Man spoke. "Who have you been talking with?" he asked as he
looked about suspiciously.
"Oh," cried Suzanna, "there's nobody hidden away. Miss Massey and her
relation went out to see about some lemonade."
"Her relation!" stormed the Eagle Man.
"Yes, the one who loves Miss Massey."
The Eagle Man recovered all his lost color. Watching his terrible
expression, both children thought it a blessing that at this critical
moment Miss Massey and her relation returned. But, oh, it was not the
same Miss Massey, but one who had found the world. Her face was glowing
like a girl's and her eyes sparkled and shone; and when she faced her
father there was manifest in her aspect a certain courage that in his
eyes at least sat strangely upon her.
"Father," she cried, "you should be in bed."
"What's the meaning of all this?" he shouted, ignoring her soft concern.
The new relation came forward. "My dear sir," he began, "I shall have to
ask you to refrain from attempting to intimidate the lady who is to be
my wife."
"Your wife?" exclaimed the Eagle Man turning upon the speaker. "She's my
daughter."
"Granted," said the man calmly, "and she's also my promised wife."
"I shall never give my consent," said the Eagle Man, but his voice had
fallen.
"Then, father," said delicate, timid little Miss Massey, "I shall marry
Robert without your consent."
There was a long heavy silence. The baby having found a gold-plated
lizard on the hearth was contemplating it with wondering eyes.
"Very well," said the Eagle Man at last, trying to speak calmly. "You'll
go your own way. Not a cent of mine do you ever get."
"I'm glad to hear that," said the man, "for not a cent of yours shall my
wife need."
Into the breach Suzanna strode.
"Oh, but you will need money," she cried as she stood anchoring the baby
by means of an extended arm. "When you're married and you have a big
family you'll have to pay the rent, and you'll have to dress all the
little children, and there'll be insurance week, and something you
haven't thought of all the time, and just when you get on your feet,
there'll be the doctor at your door and his bill pretty soon."
"Exactly," said the Eagle Man, as though by Suzanna's words many of his
contentions had been proved.
"But we shall be together," said little Miss Massey, as though that
beloved truth answered everything. The man had thrown his arms about her
and had drawn her quite close, and she looked up into his face with eyes
that still shone. Oh, how long she had loved him! And how long had it
been since she settled to the realization that though he loved her, he
was proud and would not speak. This spoken love she had craved with all
her heart; and it had been withheld because he had no money and her
father had too much.
"Will you tell me your real objection to me?" asked the man with frank
directness appealing to the Eagle Man. "For that you have had objections
to me I've sensed always."
The Eagle Man turned and looked the younger man over, carefully,
critically, before answering. Indeed, he was so long about speaking that
the children, at least, thought he never meant to speak again.
But at last: "My daughter," he began, "is now thirty-six. She has had
thirty-six years of luxury, of merely raising her finger and receiving
highly trained service. She is not a young girl who might, being more
adaptable and buoyed up by romance, settle down to a new order of life;
she is too used to the luxuries I have been able to give her, servants,
carriages, horses, travel, fine clothes--" he enumerated them all with
distinctness, giving each item a lengthy second before going on to his
conclusion. "It will work real hardship on her to be compelled to give
up all these things to do her own work and to make over her own
dresses."
"You're mistaken, father," Miss Massey denied, "all that giving up, if
giving up you can call it, will be my joy if I can be with Robert." Her
voice, deep with emotion, died into a silence which reigned for moments.
No one seemed to wish to break it, not even the baby. And yet, though
the meaning of all the spoken words had not been clear to Suzanna, her
eager, sensitive little mind seized on pictures which seemed somehow to
fit in; yet pictures in their simplicity so far removed from her
surroundings of luxury that they would seem but vagrant fancies.
Had she attempted to translate them, she would have failed, yet as they
grew momentarily more vivid and meaningful, interpretive words, as vivid
as the pictures themselves, rushed to her lips. She turned to the Eagle
Man.
"Oh, on Saturday night when supper is over and the shades are pulled
down and the lamp is lit in the parlor, and Robert is reading a big book
with pictures in it, and the children, except the two eldest, are all
asleep upstairs and it's raining outside, and you can hear the pitapat,
pitapat of the drops on the window pane, then Miss Massey will be happy.
Before supper Miss Massey'll have felt awful tired and she'll hurry up
things and she'll make her eldest little girl hurry too, but after the
dishes are cleared away, and she's sitting close to Robert, she'll be so
glad she's in out of the rain with her children all in safe too, that
she'll not care a bit about raising her finger for a little man to come
and ask her what she wants. She'll not want to go about in a carriage,
or travel in a big train!"
No one spoke. Only the scene painted so simply grew in the hearts of at
least two there, so that Robert drew his promised wife a little closer
to him and she glanced up in his face with eyes full of color.
Suzanna went on. She had forgotten her audience. She was just telling
out the pictures that had been built into her life; supper tables with
many young faces about; little babies who had stayed just awhile; hasty
words and loving making up; the star-dust of the real every-day life.
"You know," she continued, "that Maizie and I crept downstairs one
Saturday night because I wanted to tell daddy something, and mother was
sitting right close to him, and we heard her say: 'When the children are
safe in bed, and just you and I are here--then I see things clearer--'
And he just looked at her and said, 'Sweetheart!' and his voice was
nicer than even when he says good-night to Maizie and me."
Miss Massey turned her gaze upon Suzanna. "Little girl, little girl,"
she said, "come here--"
So Suzanna went and stood close to Miss Massey, whilst Maizie went after
the marauding baby.
The Eagle Man cleared his throat. "That child of yours is going to
sleep," he said speaking to Suzanna.
"Oh, no," said Suzanna, not meaning to contradict, but just to set him
straight, "he's wide-awake. But I guess it must be time for us to go. I
know you think so too, Mr. Eagle Man."
She left Miss Massey's tender clasp, went to the baby, raised him, held
him under her arm skilfully, the while his legs stuck out straight
behind her. She spoke to Miss Massey:
"If the Eagle Man's mad at you and he stays mad all night," she said,
"you can come to our house and sleep in my bed with Maizie. Mother can
fix the dining-room table for me."
Miss Massey released herself from Robert's clasp and went to Suzanna.
She stooped and kissed her tenderly. "Thank you, dear little girl," she
said. "I'll remember that invitation."
The Eagle Man pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling. Immediately it
seemed, one of the men with brass buttons appeared.
"Carry that child to its perambulator," shouted the Eagle Man. Not a
flicker disturbed the serenity of the man addressed, no matter what were
his inner feelings. He put out two arms straight and stiff like rods,
and Suzanna placed the baby upon them. Saying quickly their adieus,
Suzanna and Maizie walked behind the uniformed man, for whom Suzanna at
least felt a stirring of pity.