Had Elsie Marley been possessed of more imagination, or had she been
accustomed to use what she had, she might have been better prepared to
meet little Mattie's mother. The child was unusual and showed the
influence of careful upbringing. Further, Mr. Middleton had spoken of
her as looking like a girl and as worth seeking out; and already Elsie
had had a chance to discern that, broad and tolerant as he was, he saw
things as they were (except in the case of his wife), never misstated
and rarely overstated. For all that, she set out on Saturday afternoon
prepared to meet the typical washerwoman of fiction--worn, bedraggled,
shapeless, and forlorn. She was prepared to go into a steaming kitchen
with puddles on the floor and dirty children all about, and have this
red-faced personage take a scarlet hand out of the tub, dry it on a
dirty apron, and hold it out to her. And for her part she was prepared
to take it, damp or clammy as it might be, without a squirm.
Wherefore, when Mattie ushered her proudly into a pretty, tidy
living-room with a square piano in the corner, and she saw a tall,
slender person with a plain, sweet, girlish face advancing to meet her,
in spite of her resemblance to Mattie, Elsie had no idea who she might
be. She had a confused sense of some neighbor having been brought in
to receive her, and a vague idea of asking to be taken into the kitchen.
"Oh, mother, here's Miss Moss!" cried Mattie, then dropped her hand and
exclaiming, "My goodness, there's that baby already!" fled into the
entry.
"I'm so pleased to see you, Miss Moss," said Mrs. Howe quietly. "Sit
there by the window where you get a view of the hill. It's more than
good of you to come. I hope Mattie didn't tease you too much?"
"No, indeed, she asked me very prettily," said Elsie. "She's a sweet
child."
"She's good as gold," said her mother. "And she's perfectly wild about
you. She calls you the Princess Moss-rose and makes up stories about
you after she goes to bed."
Elsie smiled and colored.
"Don't tell her I told you," warned Mrs. Howe, "she'll be right back.
She had the baby's clean dress ready to pop over his head the moment he
woke up."
Elsie looked up quickly as if she were about to speak. But though she
said nothing, Mrs. Howe seemed to reply.
"She takes most all the care of him when she isn't in school," she
admitted. "Some people think she's too young and that it's too hard
for her. But I hardly think so. She's naturally thin, just as I am,
but she's never sick, and she likes it, though, of course, like any
child, she'd like more time to herself. But she's a born mother. And
she really seems to make better use of her spare time than most of the
little girls she plays with. And though I suppose I ought not to say
it, she and Charles Augustus are ever so much better-behaved and
better-mannered than most children who have nothing to do but play--and
sometimes it seems they're happier. You see I taught school three
years up in the State of Maine, which is my home, and I understand
children pretty well, by and large."
Mattie came in at that moment with the baby, a fair, rosy, fat little
fellow in a starched white dress and petticoats. She put him through
all his tricks to please the visitor, and then asked Elsie if she
wished to hold him. Elsie accepted the honor, though she felt rather
apprehensive. It wasn't bad, however; indeed, the confidence with
which the baby nestled into the arms that didn't know how to enfold him
was rather sweet to the girl. And when he made a sudden dash for the
pink rose in her leghorn hat, she didn't mind it at all.
Watchful little Mattie minded, however, and took him away quickly lest
he injure any of the princess's royal finery. Then the mother took him
from her, that the little girl might have the major part of Miss Moss's
attention. For the same reason she forbore to call in the other two
children, little girls of five and seven, who were playing with dolls
in the yard.
But when Charles Augustus came home, his mother proudly summoned him
into the parlor. Elsie had seen him at the library--a solemn, big-eyed
little fellow with a prominent forehead and spectacles.
When he had shaken hands, his mother told Elsie how much she relied
upon his help. He fetched and carried all the clothes she laundered,
and had recently made a new body for his old cart which would carry a
good-sized clothes-basket.
"I don't see how you do it--other people's washing," said Elsie
suddenly.
"I couldn't if Mattie and Charles Augustus didn't help me so much,"
replied Mrs. Howe.
The girl glanced about the pretty room, at the attractive mother in her
neat, faded muslin gown, at the thoughtful children, and the rosy baby.
How dreadful it seemed to wash soiled clothing for four strange
families!
"Don't you hate it?" she asked with a directness rare to her.
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Howe quietly. "I love to iron, especially pretty
things, and I don't mind washing, now that I've got set tubs. You
wouldn't believe, would you, that your uncle is responsible for my
having them? He thought of it himself. The first I knew of it was
that the men came to put them in. Isn't that just like him?"
Elsie agreed.
"But don't you get awfully tired?" she demanded.
"Well, yes, Miss Moss, I do. But so does almost every mother of a
little family. You come to take it for granted, you know. A mother
rather sinks her life in that of her children, and--after all, she
doesn't lose half so much as she gains. And getting tired--why, I know
just from what Mattie has told me about the way you do at the library
that you understand the satisfaction of doing for others, and that
getting tired's a part of it."
Reaching the parsonage, Elsie didn't go in, but sat on a bench in the
garden for an hour, not thinking, hardly musing, but in a sort of spell
as it were. As she rose at the stroke of six, she was saying to
herself: "I never knew life was like that!" And she repeated it as she
entered the house.
On the hall-table was a letter from the Elsie in New York. Taking it
to her room, she perused it eagerly. One paragraph she read over
twice, and yet twice again at bedtime.
"Oh, Elsie-Honey," the passage ran, "I was so relieved and thankful to
get your letter and feel convinced that you like Uncle John and Aunt
Milly just as well as I do Cousin Julia--though I don't see how you
can--quite. It came to me the night before I got your letter--suppose
you should want to swap back? The cold shivers chased one another up
and down my spine and nearly splintered it. Of course, I should have
done it without a word, but oh, Elsie-Honey, I don't mind telling you
now that it would have broken my heart for sure. For I'm simply mad
about Cousin Julia--so dotty over her that I believe if she'd told me I
couldn't on any account study for the stage, I should have kissed her
hand like a meek lamb. Instead of which she knows and approves--that
is, she is willing. Only an angel from heaven would really
approve--and I suppose he (or she) wouldn't. At any rate, my present
job is trying to keep from bursting with happiness."