“WITHOUT”
THE alarm-clock under Barbara’s pillow sent forth a muffled rattle,
like a querulous old woman with tooth-ache, complaining from beneath
her bandages. The girl turned over in bed and sighed. A moment later
the town-clock struck six, with insistent note, and after a sympathetic
delay of a minute more, the living-room clock below sounded its
admonition. Sleepily and reluctantly Barbara drew forth the alarm-clock
to make sure of the worst.
“It’s _always_ six o’clock,” she said crossly. Then she slammed the
offender down upon the bed, and set her bare feet upon the floor
with a thud that betokened no happy morning spirit. Oh, for those
luxurious days at college when a closed transom and an “engaged” sign
upon the door insured sufficient slumber after a night of school-girl
dissipation! Not since the nightmare of housekeeping had attacked her
rest, two months before, had “Babbie the Nap-kin,” as she was jocularly
known at college, had enough sleep. This starting the day with heavy
eyes, and body that sighed for rest, was a new thing. How had her
mother done it, all these years? Probably as she, Barbara, was doing it
now;—there was no one else to share it with her.
The same old routine,—Barbara wearily went over it: Unlock the doors,
open the windows; light the fire, put the kettle on, take the food out
of the ice-box, skim the milk, grind the coffee, make the toast, set
the table, rouse the sleepers. Every one of the mornings in the year
her mother had done it, or superintended the doing of it. Three hundred
and sixty-five mornings, for twenty-three years. 8395 times! Barbara
shuddered.
It was hot and stuffy downstairs. The chairs were set about at untidy
angles, and the sun blazed in fiercely at the window. The kitchen
door-knob was sticky to the touch, and a bold cockroach ran across
the back porch as she opened the door. Was this summer hotter and more
disagreeable than usual, or was it possible that Mrs. Grafton had been
responsible for the cool, shaded rooms and the fresh morning air that
had always greeted Barbara when she arrived upon the scene of action?
For the third time in her experience the girl considered herself with
misgiving. Was it possible that housekeeping was a science, instead
of merely an occupation,—to be learned by study, and experiment, and
experience, just like philosophy? Was it even possible that she,
Barbara Grafton, called “The Shark” at college, was, for the first time
in her life, to fail miserably in a “course”?
Dr. Grafton and David were the only members of the family who responded
to the breakfast-bell. The doctor drank his under-done coffee and ate
his over-done toast without comment; the small boy bent contentedly
over a bowl of bread and milk. Barbara herself ate nothing.
“What’s the matter, girl?” asked her father. “Aren’t you well?”
“I’m all right, only not hungry.”
“I’m afraid you’re working too hard. I can’t have you losing your
appetite and looking like a ghost. Don’t you hear of a cook?”
Barbara shook her head.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to make other sort of arrangement, then. Perhaps
Mrs. Clemens will take us all to board until we hear of some help. I’ll
try to see her to-day. I don’t mind the meals,—my stomach is proof
against anything!—but I can’t have you sick.”
Her father laid a tender hand on her shoulder, and gave her a playful
little pat as he left the room. But Barbara felt anything but playful.
Her eyes flashed, and her lips set in a hard, bitter line. “My stomach
is proof against anything!” Such a stupid joke,—such a cruel bit of
pleasantry! There were unshed tears in her voice, as well as her eyes,
as she went to the stairway and called up, crossly: “Jack, Cecil—ia!”
There was no answer. Repeated calls brought forth an angry response
from Gassy, and a lazy one from Jack.
“Breakfast is all over. If you’re not down in five minutes, there’ll be
nothing for you; I’m not going to let my dishes stand all morning!”
Gassy deigned no answer. Dangerously near the time-limit, Jack appeared.
“The wind seems to be from the east this morning,” he remarked casually.
Barbara did not answer.
“Was there anything special requiring my attendance at this witching
hour of the morn?”
“The lawn-mower,” said his sister, sharply.
“Ah, I thought it must be a telegram or a fire,—judging from your
agonized voice.”
“If it _had_ been a fire, you would have had to be roused! When you
haven’t an earthly thing to do about the house, Jack, I do think that
you might get up in time for breakfast.”
“You have some new theories since you began housekeeping. I have some
faint recollections about your being the last man in the house to
rise, a few weeks ago. I’m sorry, though, I overslept, Barb. I got up
the minute you called.
I roused me from my slumbers,
I hied me from my bed.
If I had known what breakfast was,
I would have slept, instead.
Excuse me for turning up my trousers. The coffee seems to be somewhat
muddy.”
The storm that had been threatening all the morning came at last.
College dignity was forgotten, and Barbara became a cross, over-worked,
over-heated child, with a strong sense of grievance.
“Jack Grafton, you are a lazy, selfish, inconsiderate _beast_! If you
had to do anything but _eat_ the meals, you wouldn’t criticise them so
sharply. You _know_ I’m doing the best I can,—you know it!—and it’s so
hot, and there’s so much work—”
David’s serious brown eyes looked reproach at his older brother.
“I’m sorry, Barb,” said Jack, penitently. “I exaggerated about the
coffee,—it’s not muddy, only riley. You mustn’t get so fussed up about
things that are said in fun. You always _used_ to be able to take a
joke. As for the grass, I’ll hie me hence at once. It needs a cutting
as badly as Gassy’s hair.”
In spite of herself, Barbara smiled at the comparison. “Poor Cecilia,”
she sighed. “I don’t know what on earth to do with that hair of hers.
It is so stiff and rebellious that it won’t lie smooth, and yet so thin
and straight that it won’t fluff out, like other children’s. I want
her to have it cut, but she objects, and pins her faith to that row of
curl-papers that makes her look like a Circassian Lady. It is such an
ugly shade of red, too. If the child only knew how she looked—”
“She’d never have another happy moment,” interrupted Jack, pushing back
his coffee-cup. “Well, to work, to work! My, it looks hot out there in
the sunshine!”
An hour later, Barbara raised a flushed face from the ironing-board
to greet the Vegetable Man. The Vegetable Man was fat and red, and
wheezed as he walked. He was an old patient of the doctor’s, and his
bi-weekly trips to the Grafton house were partially of a social nature.
His face wore the blank expression of a sheet of sticky fly-paper, and
he was equally hard to get rid of. He sat down on one of the kitchen
chairs and fanned himself with his hat.
“This is a scorcher!” he remarked.
No one appreciated the truth of this statement more strongly than
Barbara. But she feared the result of an enthusiastic response to the
Vegetable Man. “Yes,” she assented. “It is.”
“Ninety-three, accordin’ to the official thermometer on the weather
bureau’s porch. My thermometer’s three degrees higher, an’ when I’m out
in the sun, I believe mine’s right. Even the guv’ment’s likely to make
mistakes on a day like this.”
Barbara nodded.
“Want any vegetables this morning?”
“No, I have already ordered my meals to-day.”
“Got some nice corn out there in my wagon. An’ some prime cauliflower.”
“I don’t want either, to-day.”
“All right; only you know you save money by buyin’ from me instead of
the grocery-store. Your ma would tell you that, if she wuz here. How
_is_ your ma?”
“Getting better, slowly.”
“That’s good; give her my respects when you write. Leander Hopkins’s
respects, an’ hopes you will soon be in your accustomed health again.
How are you gettin’ on while she’s gone? Are you just helpin’ in the
kitchen, or are you without?”
“Without?”
“Yes, without.”
“I don’t understand what you mean, Mr. Hopkins.”
“Why, without a gurrl—a kitchen gurrl.”
“We have no cook at present. Do you know where I can get one?”
“No, I can’t say as I do. Gurrls are pretty scarce in kitchens,
nowadays, though there seems to be plenty of them in parlors. Maybe my
Libbie would come in and help you out, though she ain’t never worked
out, regular.”
“Oh, would she?” exclaimed Barbara.
“Can’t say fer sure. I’ll ast her when I go home. She’s got steady
company, now,—he’s a brakeman on the Southern Limited,—an’ he always
gits back fer Sunday night. I dunno as she’d like to engage herself fer
Sunday nights. But I’ll ast her. You ain’t got that waist sprinkled
enough; it’s too dry to iron well.”
Barbara only thumped her iron a little harder.
“Don’t like to be told, do ye? Guess you must be a little like my
wife,—set in your ways. I know a good deal about ironin’; seen the
women-folks do it fer thirty years.”
“You must have had a good deal of time to sit and watch.”
“Wal, no, not so much as you might think; they’s a good deal of work on
my place. I’ve been sickly, though, a good bit of my life, an’ had to
sit by an’ let others do it. I know, Miss Barb’ry, that I’ve got the
reputation of bein’ lazy, but it ain’t true: I ain’t lazy; I don’t
mind workin’, but I don’t like to _have_ to work. That’s what I like
about vegetablin’: I can rest a little as I go along.”
“You are fortunate!”
There was a pause as the stubborn iron squeaked its way over the
half-dry linen.
“Wal, I guess I must be goin’. You wouldn’t like no egg-plant, would
ye?”
“No, I think not.”
“Shell I bring in a little pie-plant before I go? Ye might change your
mind if you was to see it.”
“No, I won’t trouble you.”
“No trouble at all, even if it is a hot day. You’re sure you don’t want
it?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Wal, good-day, then. Don’t fergit my respects to your ma.”
Out of the kitchen door waddled Mr. Hopkins. In at the same door he
waddled a few seconds later. “Hate to int’rupt ye, Miss Barb’ry,” he
said mysteriously, “but jest look a’ here.”
“What is it?” inquired Barbara, suspiciously, fearing she was being
enticed to the vegetable wagon.
“That’s what I don’t know,” said Mr. Hopkins.
The Vegetable Man led the way around the walk at the side of the house.
He stopped at the turn, where the syringa and the lilac mingled their
branches in a leafy roof. The sun and the leaves made a checkerboard of
light and shade below, and here in the dancing flecks of sunshine lay a
grotesque little figure, asleep. It was Gassy, but such a sadly changed
Gassy! Reckless hands and a pair of scissors had worked havoc with the
hair that had been “too stiff to lie smooth, and too thin to fluff.”
Except for the crown of the head, where a few locks stood erect, like
faithful sentinels on a battle-swept field, the scalp was almost as
bare as a billiard ball. Not content with devastating her enemy,
Gassy had concealed the last sign of the hated color by covering the
remains with a coating of black. Perspiration and tears had aided its
extension, and two streaks of the dark fluid had found their way down
her cheeks. There were traces of recent crying about the closed eyes,
and a damp handkerchief was tightly clutched in one of the thin little
hands.
[Illustration: SUCH A SADLY CHANGED GASSY]
Barbara dismissed the Vegetable Man with a few whispered words of
explanation, walking with him to the gate to insure his departure. Then
she returned to the syringa-bush, and took the shorn little head in her
lap. Gassy started, and sat erect. For a moment she looked bewildered;
then she remembered, and her proud little voice said defiantly:—
“I guess I won’t look like a Circassian Lady, now!”
Barbara hesitated; words seemed so futile, and any explanation
was impossible. Then she did the very best thing, under the
circumstances,—caught the small sister in her arms, and held her close.
Gassy struggled for a second, then her thin little body relaxed, and
the hot tears drenched Barbara’s shoulder.
“You needn’t think I didn’t know about my hair, before!” she said
fiercely, between sobs. “I’ve always hated it, long before I heard
what you and Jack said. But I’ve got it fixed now. It ain’t stiff, or
thin, or red, any more!”
Barbara waited until the first shower was over. “How did you do it,
dear?” she asked, at last.
“Manicure scissors and liquid blacking,” said Gassy, with a fresh storm
of sobs. “I don’t care if I _do_ look awful! I looked just as bad
before. Jack said I’d never have another happy moment if I knew how I
looked. And I do. I’m the ugliest girl in Auburn,—the very homeliest!”
Barbara’s quick thoughts flew to the sanitarium at Chariton. Was it
possible that tragedies like this were of common occurrence in her
mother’s life? It was only a child’s tragedy, but it was a very real
one; and the tenderest wisdom and the wisest tenderness were needed to
dispel it. Her mind went back to the sweet lips and the loving arms
that had soothed so many of her own baby griefs. Housekeeping had been
such a small part of her mother’s life; was she, Barbara, capable of
being a substitute in a case like this?
“I’m sorry you heard what we said,” she replied, tenderly stroking the
sticky head. “Of course you know that we always exaggerate when we
joke,—Jack and I,—and we said what we did in fun. Your hair isn’t as
pretty now as it will be when you get a little older; then it will turn
dark,—red hair always does,—and you may have real auburn, which is the
prettiest shade in the world.”
“It isn’t just my hair,—it’s all of me,” sobbed Gassy. “I’m so dang
homely!”
Barbara laughed, a merry, hearty laugh, that carried more comfort than
a million words to the aching little heart. “You blessed chicken!
You’re not so homely.”
“But I want to be pretty like you; not skinny, and awkward, and tight
little pig-tails of hair! I’d just love to shake curls out of my neck,
the way the other girls do.”
“Well, not _every_body can have curly hair; I’m not that lucky, either.
But I was thinner than you when I was your age, and far more awkward.
You’ll grow fatter in a year or two. And in the meantime, dear, be glad
of the pretty things about yourself,—your clear, wide-open eyes, your
dainty little ears, your high-arched instep. You have a very sweet
mouth, too, when you are happy.”
Gassy snuggled a shade closer to her sister. “I like you, Barbara,” she
said, her proud little voice strangely softened.
“I know you do, dear. And I love _you_, so much that I want you to like
yourself. Don’t think about how you look; you’re always pretty when
you’re merry. Let’s go in and shampoo that head of yours. You won’t
mind it short during this hot weather, and it will probably grow in
thicker and darker because of this cutting.”
The half-ironed waist had dried when they returned to the house, and
Barbara, as she re-sprinkled the garment and laid it back in the
ironing basket, was reminded of her frequent admonitions to her mother
about “systematizing the housework.” “A mother is a composite of cook,
laundress, seamstress, waitress, nurse, and kindergartner,” she said
to herself. “And yet that isn’t what keeps her busiest; it’s the
unforeseen happenings, and the interruptions, that eat up the time. I
don’t wonder she never finished her work. What next, I’d like to know?”
Her wish was soon gratified by the appearance of Jack at the door. “Gee
whiz! but this day is a scorcher,” said the boy, mopping his forehead
with his handkerchief, as he threw himself upon the lounge in the next
room. “It is ninety in the shade in the yard,—that is, it would be if
there was any shade to get under. If I ever said anything derogatory
unto the snow-shovel, I take it all back. Here’s a letter, Barb;
mail-man left it.”
Barbara, reaching for the envelope, stumbled over the prostrate form of
David, who lay on his stomach on the floor, reading his well-worn copy
of the “Greek Heroes.”
“Goodness, David, do get out of the way! There isn’t room to step in
this house when you lie on the floor. And please don’t read aloud
until I finish this letter.” She tore open the envelope, and her eyes
eagerly ran over the words, as her mind hungrily took them up:—
VASSAR COLLEGE, August 6, 1907.
MY DEAR MISS GRAFTON,—It gives us much pleasure to
notify you that the Eastman Scholarship will fall into
your hands this year. Miss Culver, who ranked slightly
above you in the competitive examination, writes us
that circumstances make it impossible for her to enjoy
its advantages. You, as second in rank of scholarship,
fall heir to her place and her honors.
We heartily congratulate you upon the attainment of
what you so richly deserve, and beg that you will
notify us of your acceptance this week. It is so
late in the season now that an immediate decision is
necessary.
Cordially yours,
Eastman Scholarship Committee,
E. C. BEDFORD, _Chairman_.
Jack, glancing up from the lounge, caught a glimpse of Barbara’s face,
“What’s the matter? Is mother worse?” he demanded, sitting bolt upright
on the sofa.
“No,—oh, no. It’s just a letter from college,” said Barbara. She got up
from her chair suddenly, and made her way back to the kitchen.
“If you’re through with it, may I read aloud now?” called David; but
his sister did not hear him. She stepped inside the pantry and sat down
on a tin cracker-box to think it over.
The Eastman Scholarship! The highest honor which Vassar had to offer,
and which carried with it a year of post-graduate study, had been the
ambition of Barbara’s life. Nobody but herself could dream what that
letter meant to her. Nobody but herself ever suspected how bitter the
disappointment had been the spring before, when Miss Culver, who was
less brilliant, but more of a student than Barbara, had taken the
scholarship almost out of her hands. Every one in college had expected
her to win it, and though she had been outwardly dubious about her
prospects, she had been inwardly self-confident. It had taken courage
to offer congratulations to Miss Culver, on that dreadful day when
the decision had been announced. _Everybody_—that is, everybody but
the faculty—knew that it belonged, by right, to her. She had made
light of her defeat at home,—she had never dared think much about it,
herself,—and nobody had suspected how deep a tragedy it was.
And now the chance had come, _now_, when everything in the world was
upside down; when a sick mother and a forlorn household needed her;
when an empty kitchen called her; and when a pair of hands, awkward
though they were, meant as much to her family as a brilliant brain
meant to her college. Barbara closed her eyes, and tried to think.
David, in the next room, had taken up his reading again, at the Isle of
the Sirens:—
“And all things stayed around and listened; the gulls
sat in white lines along the rocks; on the beach great
seals lay basking and kept time with lazy heads; while
silver shoals of fish came up to hearken, and whispered
as they broke the shining calm. The wind overhead
hushed his whistling as he shepherded his clouds
toward the west; and the clouds stood in mid-blue, and
listened dreaming, like a flock of golden sheep.
“And as the heroes listened, the oars fell from their
hands and their heads drooped on their breasts, and
they closed their heavy eyes; and they dreamed of
bright, still gardens, and of slumbers under murmuring
pines, till all of their toil seemed foolishness, and
they thought of their renown no more.”
[Illustration: BARBARA SANK DOWN WEARILY]
“I’ve been asleep,” thought Barbara, bitterly, “asleep and dreaming.”
“Then Medea clapped her hands together, and cried,
‘Sing louder, Orpheus; sing a bolder strain; wake up
these hapless sluggards, or none of them will see the
land of Hellas more.’
“Then Orpheus lifted his harp, and crashed his cunning
hand across the strings, and his music and his voice
rang like a trumpet through the still evening air: into
the air it rushed like thunder, till the rocks rang,
and the sea, and into their souls it rushed like wine,
till all hearts beat fast within their breasts.”
“Every dream I had at college—every hope, every aspiration—has gone,”
interrupted Barbara’s thoughts. “Surely I left school with plenty of
ambition. But here I am, a drudge of a housekeeper, and a poor one at
that! I can’t even cook a meal or iron a waist. And I haven’t the
chance to do anything else, with mother sick. Oh, I would like to! I
would, I would! Because this is my last opportunity. If I don’t take
this, _I_ shall never, never, see the land of Hellas more.”
David lost his place in the story. But the new page he turned was just
as sweet to him, and he went on reading in his child’s voice, made
hoarse by hay fever, and yet sweet with love of the words:—
“And a dream came to Æetes, and filled his heart with
fear. He thought he saw a shining star which fell into
his daughter’s lap; and that Medea his daughter took it
gladly, and carried it to the river-side and cast it
in, and there the whirling river bore it down, and out
into the Euxine Sea.”
It was nine o’clock that evening before the last dish was washed,
David’s throat-wash prepared, Gassy’s head anointed, and a letter
written. After these things were done, Barbara went out to the
mail-box. She posted her letter, and came back through the moonlight
that seemed to heat the breathless night. Mosquitoes hummed about the
porch, a cricket creaked in the grass, and the voices of innumerable
locusts nicked the silence of the evening. The house was dark and
lonely, and still. Barbara sank down on the porch, wearily, and laid
her head against the railing.
“I’ve cast in my star,” she said to herself.
The homely words of the Vegetable Man came back to her with new meaning.
“Yes, it’s true, I _am_ without,” she added; “that’s just the word for
it!”
She put both hands before her eyes, and burst into tears.