SERVICE OF JOY
It was not often that Eileen Trevis, who was manifestly born for
business, waxed hysterically enthusiastic. And so one morning a few days
later, when an incoherent summons came from her over the telephone,
Eveley was astonished almost to the point of speechlessness.
"What is it?" she gasped. "What has happened? Is it bad news?"
"Good, good, good," exulted Eileen. "Wonderful, delicious, thrilling.
Please hurry. It is nearly lunch-time, isn't it? I have been trying to
get you all morning,--come quickly.--Never mind about your luncheon.--Are
you coming?"
"I am on the way," shouted Eveley, crashing the receiver on to its hook,
and flying with scant ceremony from the office, hoping it was truly the
luncheon hour, but scorning to waste the time to look.
"She is in love," she said aloud as she ran down the stairs, spurning a
tardy elevator. "She is in love, and she is engaged, or maybe she has
eloped and is already married. Eileen Trevis,--of all people in the
world. Whoever would have thought it?"
Only the absence of traffic officers in that part of the city kept Eveley
from arrest that day, and only the protection of Heaven itself saved her
from total wreckage, for she spun around corners, and dodged traffic
warts at a rate that was positively neck-breaking. The last block before
she reached Eileen's home was one long coast, and she drew up sharply
with a triumphant honk.
Eileen was on the steps before she had time to turn off the engine.
"Is it a husband?" cried Eveley.
"No, babies," chortled Eileen.
Eveley put her fingers over her lips, and swallowed painfully.
"It isn't your turn," she said disapprovingly. "You have to do these
things in proper order. You can't run backward. It isn't being done."
"Don't be silly," said Eileen. "Hop out, and come in. I am having a
nursery made out of the maid's bedroom that has never been used. It is
perfectly dear, with blue Red-Riding-Hoods, and blue wolves and blue
Jacks-and-Jills on a white background."
"There is something wrong about this," said Eveley solemnly, as she
followed Eileen into the house, and up the two flights of stairs to her
apartment.
"It is Ida's babies, stupid," explained Eileen at last. "I am to have
them after all. Poor Jim's sister is ill, and I must say, it almost
serves her right,--she was so snippy about the children."
"Oh, Ida's babies! And has the Aunt-on-the-Other-Side-of-the-House had a
change of heart?"
"Yes, a regular one. Heart failure, they call it. I tried so hard to get
them when Ida died, but Agnes flatly refused to give them up and since
her brother was their daddy and he was alive, I could not do much. I
asked for them again, you know, when Jim died, and she was ruder than
ever. But since the dispensation of heart failure, she can not keep them.
I got a letter this morning, and wired for them to start immediately and
I just got an answer that they will be here to-morrow afternoon. Then I
sent for the decorators."
"You aren't any mother for small children," protested Eveley, with an
argumentative wave of her hand. "You are born for business. Everybody
says so. You do not know anything about babies."
"Oh, yes I do," cried Eileen ecstatically. "They have fat legs and
dimples, and Betty sucks her thumb and has to be scolded, and Billy
shouts 'More jam' and smudges it on his knees."
"Are you giving up your position?"
"Oh, mercy, no. We have to live. Poor Jim only left them insurance and
nothing else, and that did not last very long. I sent the other aunt a
small check every month to help along and sort of heap coals of fire on
her head at the same time. No, I shall have to work harder than ever now.
But I get one seventy-five a month now,--and lots of families live on
less."
"Who will keep house then--Betty?"
"Don't ask silly questions, Eveley, I am so nervous anyhow I hardly know
what I am saying. You remember my laundress, don't you? She is so nice
and motherly and a Methodist and respectable and all that,--only old and
hard up. She is coming to live with us,--she will have the den for her
room, and is closing her cottage. She is to keep house and look after the
babies while I am at work. She only charges twenty-five a month, so I can
manage. The rent does seem high, fifty dollars,--but we need the room,
though you all thought it was so extravagant for me to have such a large
apartment to myself. But you know how I am, Eveley,--I like lots of
space,--a place for everything, and everything where it belongs. So I was
willing to stand the expense, and now it is a good thing I did. Come and
see the baby room."
Eveley duly admired the blue Red-Riding-Hoods and Jacks-and-Jills,
exclaimed over the tiny white beds, and tiny white tables and chairs, and
then said:
"You seem to be enjoying this experience, so I suppose you do not feel it
is your duty, nor anything sordid like that?"
"Oh, no," laughed Eileen. "I am doing it because I am just crazy about
those babies, and I am sort of lonely, Eveley, though I have never
realized it before. And when I think of coming home to a frolic with fat
little babies in white dresses and blue ribbons,--well, I am so happy I
could fairly cry."
So Eveley put her arms around her, and kissed her, and offered a few
suggestions about appropriate food for angel babies,--feeling very wise
from her recent experience with Nathalie and Dan, and invited them all to
go driving with her on Saturday afternoon, and mentally planned to send
them an enormous box of candy in the morning after their arrival, and
then said she must hurry back to work.
"Oh, you poor thing," cried Eileen in contrition. "You did not have any
luncheon at all, did you? Wait until I fix a sandwich and you can slip
into the dressing-room and eat it. It will only take a minute. You may
have some of these animal cookies too,--I got a dollar's worth,--I knew
the babies would love them. Now, Eveley, won't you come to dinner
to-morrow night and meet my little blesseds? The train comes at six-ten,
and Mrs. Allis, I mean, Aunt Martha,--we have decided to call her Aunt
Martha,--will have dinner all ready for us."
"Certainly I'll come," said Eveley promptly. "I shall love it. And I'll
come for you in the car and take you to the station."
After work that night, Eveley went into the ten-cent store, and bought a
startling array of drums and horns and small shovels, and sent them out
to Eileen's for the babies. And that night she insisted that Nolan must
come to dinner with her to hear the great good news.
"It is just because she wants to do it," she said happily. "That is why
she is so full of joy. It is plain selfishness,--she has no thought of
doing her Christian duty nor any such nonsense. And--well, you would
hardly know Eileen. Her eyes are like stars, and her voice runs up and
down stairs in beautiful trills, and she forgot to wear her hair net."
"Wait till Billy gets jam on her lace bedspread, and Betty cuts up her
new bonnet to get the pretty flowers, and wait till they both get mad and
yowl at once,--she'll be lucky if she remembers her Christian duty then."
"Isn't he crabbish, Marie?" asked Eveley plaintively. "He doesn't like to
see people happy and thrilled and throbbing."
"Oh, yes, I do. I am thrilled and happy and throbbing myself right now.
There is something about this Cote in the Clouds that--"
"And dear Eileen has lived alone so long, poor thing."
"I can sympathize with her all right. I have, too."
"And now she will have a home, a real home--"
"My own dream for years."
"Sweet companionship--"
"Heaven on earth, Eveley, heaven on earth."
"Something to live for--"
"Alas, how I envy her."
"Nolan, if you do not keep still and pay attention, I shall stop talking
and let you propose,--right before Marie,--and then where will you be?"
"Married, I hope."
So Eveley decided there was no use to try to talk sense with Nolan, but
she arranged to call for him at eight o'clock the next morning to take
him to Eileen's and show him the blue Red-Riding-Hoods and the toys.
As she left the house to keep her engagement with Nolan, she was
surprised to see Mrs. Severs starting out, for Mrs. Severs was not used
to being out so early.
"Why, little Bride, whither away?" laughed Eveley.
Mrs. Severs flushed. "I am going to spend the day with father," she
admitted, rather shyly. "It is sort of lonesome here alone all the
time,--and we have lots of fun in the little cottage on the hill. And
sometimes we go out on the beach and lie on the sand,--he takes me in his
jitney. He thinks I need more sunshine and fresh air."
"He is great, isn't he?" said Eveley warmly.
"He is dear," cried Mrs. Severs, the quick color surging her face. "I am
not very well, and he is so gentle and sweet to me. I--wish I had been
more patient,--I am very lonely now. But we are great chums. He has
taught me to play pinochle, and I fill his pipe for him. And onions
aren't so bad."
"Hum," thought Eveley, as she drove down-town. "You can't suit some
people, no matter how finely you adjust their difficulties." Then she
brightened. "Still, it is better to love each other in two houses, than
to be bad friends in one,--as they were."
That evening, she and Eileen stood at the station impatiently
waiting,--having arrived at five-thirty, fearing the train might come
ahead of time.
"Oh, Eveley," Eileen wailed. "Suppose they should not like me?"
Eveley laughed at that. "Suppose you do not like them?" she parried.
"I do. I haven't seen them for over two years, but they are adorable.
They are seven now. The prettiest things,--long yellow curls, and--"
"Billy will probably be shaved by this time,--I mean barbered."
"Oh, never. No one would cut off curls like his. Their hair will be
longer I suppose, probably darker,--and Betty lisps and swallows while
she is talking,--"
"Oh, she will be over that now."
"In two years? Why, certainly not. They will be just the same, only more
so."
Eveley began to experience a curious internal sinking. Eileen was too
deliriously optimistic about those children. They were angel babies, of
course, for Eileen said so, but Eveley remembered Nathalie and Dan,
angels, too,--but how they shouted and tore through the house. And they
were always exhibiting fresh cuts and bruises, and Dan had insisted on
the confiscation of his curls at four years. If Billy was still wearing
curls at seven, he needed a tonic for he was not regular.
"Eileen," she began very gently, "you--you mustn't expect too many
dimples and curls. Children are angels,--but they are funny, too. They
are always bleeding, you know, and--"
"Bleeding!" gasped Eileen. "Agnes never mentioned bleeding! Do they
always do it?"
"Always. They are always getting themselves smashed and scratched, and
blood runs all over them, and gets matted in their hair, and their hands
are constitutionally dirty, and--they always have at least one finger
totally and irrevocably smashed. Some times it is two fingers, and once
in a while a whole hand, but the average is one finger."
Eileen looked at her friend in a most professional manner.
"I do not know if you are trying to be insulting, or just amusing, but I
saw those children. I was right there for three weeks only two years ago,
and they were always clean, they had curls, and they were certainly not
smashed or I should have noticed it."
"They shout, too, Eileen," Eveley went on wretchedly, determined to
prepare Eileen for the shock that was sure to follow. "They--they just
whoop. And--"
"If you can not be a little pleasanter, dear, suppose you go and wait for
me in the car. I am too nervous. I simply can not stand it."
"I do not want to be unpleasant, and I shall not say another word. I just
wanted to remind you of--of the shouting--and the blood."
"One would think they were savages, Eveley, instead of my own sister's
little babies."
"Here comes the train," cried Eveley, and added in a soft whisper that
Eileen could not hear, "Oh, please, for Eileen's sake, let 'em have
dimples and curls, and don't get 'em smashed before the train stops."
Hand in hand, with eager shining eyes, the girls ran along the platform,
and when the porter put down his stool beneath the steps, the first thing
that appeared was a small dimpled girl with golden curls, and a
flower-like face beneath a flower-laden bonnet.
Eileen leaped upon her, catching her in her arms, and in her rapturous
delight, she did not hear a small brusk voice exclaiming, "Oh, pooh, I
don't need your old stool."
And she did not notice Eveley's gasp,--for Eveley had seen a small
sailor-clad form hurtle itself from the step and fall flat upon the
gravel platform. It was not until a sudden lusty roar went up that Eileen
remembered she had two babies en route. She dropped Betty like a flash,
and turned.
The porter very grimly picked up the child, and held him out, and Eileen
saw with horror that his face was fairly sandpapered from the fall, and
blood was starting from a dozen tiny pricks.
"If this is yourn, for Gawd's sake, take 'im," begged the porter. "He's
fell off'n everything and into everything between here and Seattle."
Eileen clung desperately to Betty's moist hand.
"Don't get scared, Auntie," chirped the small bright voice. "Billy always
falls into things, and he ain't never broke anything yet,--himself, I
mean, arms or legs or necks,--he breaks lots of dishes and vases and
things like that."
Eileen was stricken dumb, but Eveley took the writhing roaring boy from
the porter's hand, and dusted him lightly with her handkerchief.
"Why, where are your curls, Billy?" she demanded, hoping to distract his
attention. And she succeeded only too well, for he stopped so suddenly in
the midst of a loud wail that he almost choked. When he finally recovered
his breath, he snorted derisively.
"Curls! Huh! I ain't no girl. I ain't got any curls. I never did have
curls."
"Oh, yes, you did," she argued. "Two years ago you had beautiful, long
golden curls just like Betty's."
Billy hunched up his shoulders and clenched a small brown fist.
"You got to say, 'Excuse me for them words,'" he said belligerently.
"Ain't so, and you got to say it."
Scenting battle, Eveley hastily muttered the desired words, and passed
him over to Eileen.
Billy thrust out a sturdy hand, but to Eileen's evident delight he
refused to be kissed.
"Betty's got to be whipped, Aunt Eileen," he announced. "Aunt Agnes told
me to tell you all she did on the train, and you would whip her. She
stuck a pin in a fat man that was asleep,--that's the man right
there,--Say, didn't Betty stick a pin in you?"
But the fat man gave them a venomous glare, and hurried away. "And she
pulled the beads off of that blonde lady's coat,--and if you don't
believe it, you can look in her pocket 'cause she's got 'em yet. And she
swiped a box of candy from that lady in the yellow suit, and the lady
said the porter did it, and they had an awful fight. And she sang _The
Yanks Are Coming_ in the middle of the night and everybody swore
something awful. And she wouldn't eat anything but ice-cream at the
table, and one meal she had five dishes."
Eveley and Eileen had listened in fascinated silence during this recital
of his sister's wrongdoing. But Betty stuck a fat thumb between rosy
lips, and drooped her eyes demurely behind her curling lashes.
"Did--you do all that, Betty?" demanded Eileen at last, very faintly.
"I did more than that," she said proudly. "I put the pink lady's bedroom
slippers in a man's traveling bag, and they haven't found it out yet. And
I slipped Billy's wriggly lizard down the black lady's neck, and she said
a naughty word. And--"
"And what did Billy do?"
Betty's lips curled with scorn. "Billy? He didn't do anything. He's too
good. He don't ever do anything."
Billy advanced with the threatening hunch of his shoulders and clench of
the brown fists.
"You say, 'Excuse me for them words,'" he said in a low voice. "And say
it quick."
Betty jerked her finger from her mouth and mumbled rapidly in a voice of
frightened nervousness, "Excuse me for them words, please excuse me for
them words." And then, as her brother's shoulders relaxed, she sidled up
to him, rubbing herself affectionately against his arm, and whispered,
"Aw, Billy, I was only joking. You ain't mad at me, are you?"
"Let's go," said Eileen. "I feel--faint."
"Sticking pins is good for faintness," said Betty hopefully. "I did it to
Aunt Agnes twice when she nearly fainted, and she came to right away."
"And she gave Betty a good whipping."
"Yes, she did, and I only did it to cure her," said Betty in an aggrieved
voice.
"Let's go fast," begged Eileen. "Take your handkerchief, Billy, and see
if you can wipe a little of the dirt and blood off your face."
"He mustn't do that," interrupted Betty promptly. "Handkerchiefs is full
of germs, and if he gets the germs in his scratches he gets blood poison
and dies. You got to wait till you get home, Billy, and then lie on your
back on Aunt Eileen's bed, and she'll take clean gauze and soak 'em off
in cold water. If you haven't got any gauze handy you can use mine, but
you'd better buy some. Billy uses as much as a dollar's worth of gauze in
no time."
Eileen put her hand over her face, and turned away. The children
followed, looking about them in frank interest and pleasure.
"Is that a palm tree?" asked Betty. "Billy says God never made 'em grow
like that. He says men just tie those fins on top to make 'em look funny.
Did God do it, Aunt Eileen? What did He do it for?--Oh, is this your car,
Aunt Eileen? Billy knows how to start a car so you better not let him in
it by himself." Then as the small boyish shoulders assumed the dreadful
hunch, she cried excitedly, "Oh, no, he can't either, honest he can't. He
doesn't know what to turn, nor anything. I was joking. You ain't mad at
me, are you, Billy?"
Eveley slipped silently into her place behind the wheel, and Billy opened
the door for his aunt and sister, banged it smartly after their entrance,
and climbed in front with Eveley.
"They oughtn't to let women drive cars," he said in a judicial tone.
"Women is too nervous. There ought to be a law against it."
Eveley laughed. "I think so, too," she agreed pleasantly. "But until
there is such a law, I think I shall keep on driving."
Billy stared at her suspiciously. "You don't need to agree with me to be
polite," he said. "It won't hurt my feelings any. I ain't used to it,
anyhow."
Betty, in the rear seat, cuddled cozily against her rigid aunt and kept
up a constant flow of conversation in her pretty chirpy voice.
"Are you an old maid? Aunt Agnes said you were. Did you do it on purpose,
or couldn't you help yourself? I am not going to be an old maid. I am
engaged now. Billy tried to be engaged, too, but Freckle Harvey cut him
out."
Billy suddenly squared about in his seat, and Betty shivered into a small
and terrified heap. "Aw, no, he didn't either. Billy didn't like her
worth a cent. He thinks she is just hideous, don't you, Billy? You ain't
mad at me, are you, Billy?"
When Eveley drew the car up before the big apartment-house on Sixth
Street, Billy forgot his temporary burst of manners. With a hoarse shout
he slid deftly over the door and dashed up the steps. Shrieking
gleefully, Betty followed swiftly in his wake.
"Oh, Eveley," faltered Eileen, "I am afraid they scratched the car." She
got out hastily, and caught her lips between her teeth as she saw the
long jagged scratch on the door where Betty's sharp heel had passed.
"Never mind," said Eveley bravely. "It doesn't make a bit of difference.
We all know how children are."
"I--I didn't," said Eileen weakly. "I--guess I am an old maid. I hadn't
realized it."
In Betty's extravagant delight over the new room, and Billy's quiet but
equally sincere pleasure, something of Eileen's own enthusiasm returned,
and although her ministrations upon Billy's marred countenance, performed
under the critical and painstaking eye of Sister Betty, left her
weak-kneed and pale, she took her place at the table with something very
much akin to pleasure, if it were not the jubilant delight she had
anticipated.
Eveley went home immediately after dinner, stopping on her way for Nolan.
They spent an uproarious hour over her account of the twins and their
reception. And at last, weak with laughter, Eveley wiped her eyes, and
said with deep sympathy:
"Poor Eileen! And the twins are adorable. But I believe one needs to be
born with children and grow up with them gradually. For when they spring
upon you full grown they are--well, they are certainly a shock."