"Come down here--we're down by the river!" called Mrs. Burgoyne, from
the shade of the river bank, where she and Mrs. Lloyd were busy with
their sewing. "The American History section is entertaining the club."
"You look studious!" laughed Mrs. Brown, coming across the grass, to
put the Brown baby upon his own sturdy legs from her tired arms, and
sink into a deep lawn chair. The June afternoon was warm, but it was
delightfully cool by the water. "Is that the club?" she asked, waving
toward the group of children who were wading and splashing in the
shallows of the loitering river.
"That's the American History Club," responded Mrs. Burgoyne, as she
flung her sewing aside and snatched the baby. "Paul," said she, kissing
his warm, moist neck, "do you truly love me a little bit?"
"Boy ge' down," said Paul, struggling violently.
"Yes, you shall, darling. But listen, do you want to hear the
tick-tock? Oh, Paul, sit still just one minute!"
"Awn ge' DOWN," said Paul, distinctly, every fibre of his small being
headed, as it were, for the pebbly shingle where it was daily his
delight to dig.
"But say 'deck' first, sweetheart, say 'Deck, I love you,'" besought
the mistress of the Hall.
"Deck!" shouted Paul obediently, eyes on the river.
"And a sweet kiss!" further stipulated Mrs. Burgoyne, and grabbed it
from his small, red, unresponsive mouth before she let him toddle away.
"Yes," she resumed, going on with the tucking of a small skirt, "Joanna
and Jeanette and the Adams boy have to write an essay this week about
the Battle of Bunker Hill, so I read them Holmes' poem, and they acted
it all out. You never saw anything so delicious. Mrs. Lloyd came up
just in time to see Mabel limping about as the old Corporal! The cherry
tree was the steeple, of course, and both your sons, you'll be ashamed
to hear, were redcoats. Next week they expect to do Paul Revere, and I
daresay we'll have the entire war, before we're through. You are both
cordially invited."
"I'll come," said the doctor's wife, smiling. "I love this garden. And
to take care of the boys and have a good time myself is more than I
ever thought I'd do in this life!"
"I live on this bank," said Mrs. Burgoyne, leaning back luxuriously in
her big chair, to stare idly up through the apple-tree to the blue sky.
"I'm going to teach the children all their history and poetry and
myths, out here. It makes it so real to them, to act it. Jo and Ellen
and I read Barbara Frietchie out here a few weeks ago, and they've
wanted it every day or two, since."
"We won't leave anything for the schools to do," said little Mrs. Brown.
"All the better," Mrs. Burgoyne said, cheerfully.
"Well, excuse me!" Mrs. Lloyd, holding the linen cuff she was
embroidering at arm's length, and studying it between half-closed lids.
"I am only too glad to turn Mabel over to somebody else part of the
time. You don't know what she is when she begins to ask questions!"
"I don't know anything more tiring than being with children day in and
day out," said Mrs. Brown, "it gets frightfully on your nerves!"
"Oh, I'd like about twelve!" said Mrs. Burgoyne.
"Oh, Mrs. Burgoyne! You WOULDN'T!"
"Yes, I would, granted a moderately secure income, and a rather roomy
country home. Although," added Mrs. Burgoyne, temperately, "I do
honestly think twelve children is too big a family. However, one may be
greedy in wishes!"
"Would you want a child of yours to go without proper advantages," said
Mrs. Lloyd, a little severely, "would you want more than one or two, if
you honestly felt you couldn't give them all that other children have?
Would you be perfectly willing to have your children feel at a
disadvantage with all the children of your friends? I wouldn't," she
answered herself positively, "I want to do the best by Mabel, I want
her to have everything, as she grows up, that a girl ought to have.
That's why all this nonsense about the size of the American family
makes me so tired! What's the use of bringing a lot of children into
the world that are going to suffer all sorts of privations when they
get here?"
"Privations wouldn't hurt them," said Mrs. Burgoyne, sturdily, "if it
was only a question of patched boots and made-over clothes and plain
food. They could even have everything in the world that's worth while."
"How do you mean?" said Mrs. Lloyd, promptly defensive.
"I'd gather them about me," mused Sidney Burgoyne, dreamily, her eyes
on the sky, a whimsical smile playing about her mouth, "I'd gather all
seven together--"
"Oh, you've come down to seven?" chuckled Mrs. Brown.
"Well, seven's a good Biblical number," Mrs. Burgoyne said serenely,
"--and I'd say 'Children, all music is yours, all art is yours, all
literature is yours, all history and all philosophy is waiting to prove
to you that in starting poor, healthy, and born of intelligent and
devoted parents, you have a long head-start in the race of life. All
life is ahead of you, friendships, work, play, tramps through the green
country in the spring, fires in winter, nights under the summer stars.
Choose what you like, and work for it, your father and I can keep you
warm and fed through your childhoods, and after that, nothing can stop
you if you are willing to work and wait."
"And then suppose your son asks you why he can't go camping with the
other boys in summer school, and your daughter wants to join the
cotillion?" asked Mrs. Lloyd.
"Why, it wouldn't hurt them to hear me say no," said Mrs. Burgoyne, in
surprise. "I never can understand why parents, who practise every
imaginable self-denial themselves, are always afraid the first
renunciation will kill their child. Sooner or later they are going to
learn what life is. I know a little girl whose parents are
multi-millionaires, and who is going to be told some day soon that her
two older sisters aren't living abroad, as she thinks, but shut up for
life, within a few miles of her. What worse blow could life give to the
poorest girl?"
"Horrors!" murmured Mrs. Brown.
"And those are common cases," Mrs. Burgoyne said eagerly, "I knew of so
many! Pretty little girls at European watering-places whose mothers are
spending thousands, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get out of
their blood what no earthly power can do away with. Sons of rich
fathers whose valets themselves wouldn't change places with them! And
then the fine, clean, industrious middle-classes--or upper classes,
really, for the blood in their veins is the finest in the world--are
afraid to bring children into the world because of dancing cotillions
and motor-cars!"
"Well, of course I have only four," said Mrs. Brown, "but I've been
married only seven years--"
Mrs. Burgoyne laughed, came to a full stop, and reddened a little as
she went back busily to her sewing.
"Why do you let me run on at such a rate; you know my hobbies now!" she
reproached them. "I am not quite sane on the subject of what ought to
be done--and isn't--in that good old institution called woman's sphere."
"That sounds vaguely familiar," said Mrs. Lloyd.
"Woman's sphere? Yes, we hate the sound of it," said Mrs. Burgoyne,
"just as a man who has left his family hates to talk of home ties, and
just as a deserter hates the conversation to come around to the army.
But it's true. Our business is children, and kitchens, and husbands,
and meals, and we detest it all--"
"I like my husband a little," said Mrs. Brown, in a meek little voice.
They all laughed. Then said Mrs. Lloyd, gazing sentimentally toward the
river bank, where her small daughter's twisted curls were tossing madly
in a game of "tag":
"I shall henceforth regard Mabel as a possible Joan of Arc."
"One of those boys MAY be a Lincoln, or a Thomas Edison, or a Mark
Twain," Sidney Burgoyne added, half-laughing, "and then we'll feel just
a little ashamed for having turned him complacently over to a nurse or
a boarding school. Of course, it leaves us free to go to the club and
hear a paper on the childhood of Napoleon, carefully compiled years
after his death. Why, men take heavy chances in their work, they follow
up the slightest opening, but we women throw away opportunities to be
great, every day of our lives! Scientists and theorists are spending
years of their lives pondering over every separate phase of the
development of children, but we, who have the actual material in our
hands, turn it over to nursemaids!"
"Yes, but lots of children disappoint their parents bitterly," said
Mrs. Brown, "and lots of good mothers have bad children!"
"I never knew a good mother to have a bad child--" began Mrs. Burgoyne.
"Well, I have. Thousands," Mrs. Lloyd said promptly.
"Oh, no! Not a BAD child," her hostess said, quickly. "A disappointing
child perhaps, or a strong-willed child, you mean. But no good
mother--and that doesn't mean merely a good woman, or a church-going
woman!--could possibly have a really bad child. 'By their fruits,' you
know. And then of course we haven't a perfect system of nursery
training yet; we expect angels. We judge by little, inessential things,
we're exacting about unimportant trifles. We don't want our sons to
marry little fluffy-headed dolls, although the dolls may make them very
good wives. We don't want them to make a success of real estate, if the
tradition of the house is for the bar or the practice of medicine. And
we lose heart at the first suspicion of bad company, or of drinking;
although the best men in the world had those temptations to fight! But,
anyway, I would rather try at that and fail, than do anything else in
the world. My failures at least might save some other woman's children.
And it's just that much more done for the world than guarding the
valuable life of a Pomeranian, or going to New York for new furs!" They
all laughed, for Mrs. Willard White's latest announcement of her plans
had awakened some comment among them.
"Mother, am I interrupting you?" said a patient voice at this point.
Ellen Burgoyne, rosy, dishevelled, panting, stood some ten feet away,
waiting patiently a chance to enter the conversation.
"No, my darling." Her mother held out a welcoming hand. "Oh, I see,"
she added, glancing at her watch. "It's half-past four. Yes, you can go
up for the gingerbread now. You mustn't carry the milk, you know,
Ellen."
"Mother," said Ellen, flashing into radiance at the slightest
encouragement, "have you told them about our Flower Festibul plans?"
"Oh, not yet!" Mrs. Burgoyne heaved a great sigh. "I'm afraid I've
committed myself to an entry for the parade," she told the others
ruefully.
"Oh, don't tell me you're going to compete!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown.
"Well, we're rather afraid we are!" Mrs. Burgoyne's voice, if fearful,
was hopeful too, for Ellen's face was a study. "Why, is it such a
terrible effort?"
"Oh, yes, it's an appalling amount of struggle and fuss, there's all
sorts of red tape, and the flowers are so messy," answered the doctor's
wife warningly, "and this year will be worse than ever. The Women's
Club of Apple Creek is going to enter a carriage, and you know our club
is to have the White's motor; it will be perfectly exquisite! It's to
be all pink carnations, and Mr. White's nephew, a Berkeley boy, and
some of his friends, all in white flannels, are going to run it. Doctor
says there'll be a hundred entries this year."
"Well, I'm afraid I'm in for it," said Mrs. Burgoyne, with a sigh. "I
haven't the least idea in the world what I'm going to do. It isn't as
if we even had a surrey. But I really was involved before I had time to
think. You know I've been trying, with some of my spare time," her eyes
twinkled, "to get hold of these little factory and cannery girls over
in Old Paloma."
"You told me," said Mrs. Brown, "but I don't see how that--"
"Well, you see, their ringleader has been particularly ungracious to
me. A fine, superb, big creature she is, named Alice Carter. This Alice
came up to the children and me in the street the other day, and told
me, in the gruffest manner, that she was interested in a little
crippled girl over there, and had promised to take her to see the
Flower Festival. But it seems the child's mother was afraid to trust
her to Alice in the crowd and heat. Quite simply she asked me if I
could manage it. I was tremendously touched, and we went to see the
child. She's a poor, brave little scrap--twelve years old, did she say,
Baby?"
"Going on thirteen," said Ellen rapidly; "and her father is dead, and
her mother works, and she takes care of such a fat baby, and she is
very gen-tul with him, isn't she, Mother? And she cried when Mother
gave her books, and she can't eat her lunch because her back aches, but
she gave the baby his lunch, and Mother asked her if she would let a
doctor fix her back, and she said, 'Oh, no!'--didn't she, Mother? She
just twisted and twisted her hands, and said, 'I can't.' And Mother
said, 'Mary, if you will be a brave girl about the doctor, I will make
you a pink dress and a wreath of roses, and you shall ride with the
others in the Flower Festibul!' And she just said, 'Oo-oo!'--didn't
she, Mother? And she said she thought God sent you, didn't she, Mother?"
"She did." Mrs. Burgoyne smiled through wet lashes. Mrs. Brown wiped
her own eyes against the baby's fluffy mop. "She's a most pathetic
little creature, this Mary Scott," went on the other woman when Ellen
had dashed away, "and I'm afraid she's not the only one. There's my
Miss Davids' little sister; if I took her in, Miss Davids would be free
for the day; and there's a little deaf-mute whose mother runs the
bakery. And I told Mary we'd manage the baby, too, and that if she knew
any other children who positively couldn't come any other way, she must
let me know. Of course the school children are cared for, they will
have seats right near the grand stand, and sing, and so on. But I am
really terrified about it, you'll have to help me out."
"I'll do anything," Mrs. Brown promised.
"I'll do anything I CAN," said Mrs. Lloyd, modestly, "I loathe and
abominate children unless they're decently dressed and smell of
soap--but I'll run a machine, if some one'll see that they don't swarm
over me."
"I'll put a barbed wire fence around you!" promised Mrs. Burgoyne,
gaily.
Mrs. Carew, coming up, as she expressed it, "to gather up some
children," was decidedly optimistic about the plan. "Nobody ever uses
hydrangeas, because you can't make artificial ones to fill in with,"
she said, "so you can get barrels of them." Mrs. Burgoyne was
enthusiastic over hydrangeas, "But it's not the fancy touches that
scare me," she confessed; "it's the awful practical side."
"What does Barry think?" Mrs. Carew presently asked innocently. Mrs.
Burgoyne's suddenly rosy face was not unobserved by any of the others.
"I haven't seen him for several days, not since the night of my
dinner," she admitted; "I've been lazy, sending my work down to the
office. But I will see him right away."
"He's the one really to have ideas," Mrs. Brown assured her.