Rose's little daughter, pawn that she was in the game of Martie's
fortunes, was pushed into play the following day. For Rose telephoned
Martie at the Library, in the foggy early morning, that Doris was not
well: there was a rather suspicious rash on the baby's chest, and if it
really were measles, there must be no announcement luncheon to-day.
Martie had been eagerly awaiting that luncheon, when a dozen of the
prominent young matrons of Monroe should learn of her engagement. She
put up the telephone thoughtfully. Another delay. Another respite, when
she might still say to herself over and over: "I COULD end it now. It
isn't too late yet!"
In her hand to-day was a brief note brought to land by the tender of
the Nippon Maru. Dean Silver and John had duly sailed, they were far
out on the ocean now. That was settled. Now there was nothing to do but
go on serenely with her interrupted plans.
And yet the restless excitement caused by his coming was still about
her, she could not make herself forget. Everything that his odd and
vibrant personality had touched was changed to her. The wallflowers he
had twisted unseeingly in his nervous fingers, the kitchen where their
eager, ardent talk had gone on over the boiling of coffee and the
mixing of muffins, the hill they had climbed in gray, warm moonlight,
these things belonged to him now. Martie touched the books he had
praised tenderly, hearing his words again.
He had not written her: she knew why. She must be all or nothing to
John now. He had not spoken of her to Dean, he was trying in his
blundering boyish way to forget.
The novelist's note was short, and written in a tone of disappointment
and reproach. Martie read it, and winced as she crumpled it in her
hand. Presently she straightened it out, and read it again. She
flattened it on the desk before her, and studied it resolutely, with
reddened cheeks, and with a little pang at her heart.
Sally came in, full of happy plans. There was talk now of making Joe
resident physician at the hospital, with a little house up there right
near the big building. It would be so dignified, bubbled Sally, setting
little Mary on the desk, where she and Aunt Mart could each tie a
small, dragging shoe-lace.
"Of course, this won't be for a year or two, Mart--but think of the
fun! A pretty house with a big porch, to match the main building, I
suppose--"
"But you'll be a mile out of town, Sis!"
"Oh, I know--but I can run the children in to school in the Ford, and
you'll have your own car, and that's all I really care about! This is
only a possibility, you know. What are you thinking about, Mart?"
Martie laughed guiltily.
"I don't know what I was thinking," she confessed. Sally flushed,
studying her with bright eyes.
"Have you heard--"
"From John? No, but he sailed. I have a note from Mr. Silver here. He
was anxious to get him away, and they left suddenly. The sailing list
was in the paper, too, with a little notice of them both. It's better
so, I'm glad it's settled. But I wish I was a little more sure of what
the next step should be."
"I don't believe Rose's Doris has the measles at all," Sally said
thoughtfully, "and in that case, the luncheon will be in a day or two,
and won't that be rather--rather a relief to you? Oh, and Mart," she
broke off suddenly to say, "I have a letter for you here--Teddy and
Billy called for the mail yesterday, and they left this with mine."
Martie took the big envelope, smiling. The smile deepened as she read.
After a minute she turned the letter about on the desk, so that Sally
might read it too.
"From the editor of the magazine that took my other article," Martie
explained. "I sent them another, two weeks ago."
Sally read:
MY DEAR MRS. BANNISTER:
Your second article has been read with much interest in this office,
and we are glad to use it. Enclosed is a check for $100, which we hope
will be satisfactory to you. Our readers have taken so continued an
interest in your first article that we are glad to give them something
more from your pen.
If you are ever in New York, will you favor us with a call? It is
possible that we might interest you with an offer of permanent work on
our staff. We make a special feature, as perhaps you know, of articles
of interest to growing girls, and when we find a writer whose work has
this appeal, we feel that she belongs to us.
In any case, let us hear from you soon again.
"A hundred dollars!" Sally said proudly, handing the letter back. "You
smart thing! That's a nice letter, isn't it? Don't you think it is? I
do. Listen, Mart, don't say anything about Joe's plans, will you?
That's all in the air. I've got to go now, it's eleven. And Mart, don't
worry too much about anything. It will all seem perfectly natural and
pleasant once it's DONE. Good-bye, dear, I wish I could have been some
help to you about it all!"
"You have been, Sally--I believe you've been the greatest help in the
world!" Martie answered enigmatically, kissing Mary's soft little neck
where the silky curls showed under the little scalloped bonnet.
"Good-bye, dear--don't walk too fast in this sun!"
When Sally had tripped away, Martie sat on at the Library desk, staring
vaguely into space. Outside, the village hummed with the peaceful
sounds of a mild autumn morning. A soft fog had earlier enveloped it;
it was rising now; every hour showed more of the encircling brown
hills; by noon the school children would rush into a sunshiny world.
Shopping women pushed baby-carriages over the crossings; a new
generation of boys and girls would swarm to Bonestell's in the late
afternoon. Time was always moving, under it all; in a few weeks the
Clifford Frosts would be home again; in a few months the High School
would stand on the ground where little Sally and Martie Monroe had
played dolls' house a few years ago.
This was her last week at the Library; Daisy David was coming in to
take her place. Already Miss Fanny suspected the truth, and her manner
had changed toward Martie a little, already she was something of a
personage in Monroe.
Women and children and old men came out and in, their whispers sounding
in the quiet, airy space. Len's wife came in, with the third daughter
who should have been a son. Teddy and Billy came in; they wanted five
cents for nails; they had run out of nails. Measles had closed the
little boys' classes, and they were wild with the joy of unexpected
holiday.
Martie presently found herself telling Miss Fanny that she would like a
few hours' freedom that afternoon: she had shopping to do. She ate her
basket lunch as usual, then she walked out into the glaring afternoon
light of Main Street. A summer wind was blowing, the warm air was full
of grit and dust.
The Bank first, then Clifford's office, then a long, silent hour
praying, in the empty little church, where the noises of Main Street
were softened, as was the very daylight that penetrated the cheap
coloured windows. Then Martie went to Dr. Ben's, and last of all to
Sally's house.
She was to take Teddy home and Sally came with them to the gate. It was
sunset and the wind had fallen. There was a sweet, sharp odour of dew
on the dust.
"Be good to my boy, Sally!"
"Martie--as if he was mine!" Sally's eyes filled with tears at her
sister's tone: she was to have Teddy during the honeymoon.
Martie suddenly kissed her, an unusually tender kiss.
"And love me, Sis!"
"Martie," Sally said troubled, "I always DO!"
"I know you do!"
Martie laughed, with her own eyes suddenly wet, caught Teddy's little
hand, and walked away. Sally watched the tall, splendid figure out of
sight.
At the supper-table she was unusually thoughtful. Her eyes travelled
about the familiar room, the room where her high-chair had stood years
ago, the room where the Monroes had eaten tons of uninteresting bread
and butter, and had poured gallons of weak cream into strong tea, and
had cut hundreds of pies to Ma's or Lydia's mild apologies for the
crust or the colour. How often had the windows of this room been steamy
with the breath of onions and mashed potatoes, how many; limp napkins
and spotted tablecloths had had their day there! Martie remembered, as
long as she remembered anything, the walnut chairs, with their scrolls
and knobs, and the black marble fireplace, with an old engraving,
"Franklin at the Court of France," hanging above it. Mould had crept in
and had stained the picture, which was crumpled in deep folds now, yet
it would always be a work of art to Pa and to Lydia.
She looked at Lydia; gentle, faded, dowdy in her plum-coloured cloth
dress, with imitation lace carefully sewed at neck and sleeves; at
Lydia's flat cheeks and rather prim mouth. She was like her mother, but
life had perforce broadened Ma, and it was narrowing Lydia. Lydia was
young no longer, and Pa was old.
He sat chewing his food uncomfortably, with much working of the muscles
of his face; some teeth were missing now, and some replaced with
unmanageable artificial ones. The thin, oily hair was iron-gray, and
his moustache, which had stayed black so much longer, was iron-gray,
too, and stained yellow from the tobacco of his cigars. His eyes were
set in bags of wrinkles; it was a discontented face, even when Pa was
amiable and pleased by chance. Martie knew its every expression as well
as she knew the brown-and-white china, and the blue glass spoon holder,
and the napkin-ring with "Souvenir of Santa Cruz" on it. She could not
help wondering what they would make of the new house when they got into
it, and how the clumsy, shabby old furniture would look.
"Pa and Lyd," she said suddenly in a silence. Her tone was sufficiently
odd to arrest their immediate attention. "Pa--Lyd--I went in to see
Clifford this afternoon, and told him that I wanted to--to break our
engagement!"
An amazed silence followed. Teddy, chewing steadily on raisin cookies,
turned his eyes smilingly to his mother. He didn't quite understand,
but whatever she did was all right. Malcolm settled his glasses with
one lean, dark hand, and stared at his daughter. Lydia gave a horrified
gasp, and looked quickly from her father to her sister: a look that was
intended to serve the purpose of a fuse.
"How do you mean?" Malcolm asked painfully, at last.
"Well!" said Lydia, whose one fear was that she would not be able to
fully express herself upon this outrage.
"I mean that I--I don't truly feel that I love him," Martie said,
fitting her phraseology to her audience. "I respect him, of course, and
I like him, but--but as the time came nearer, I COULDN'T feel--"
Her voice dropped in an awful silence.
"You certainly waited some time to make up your mind, Martie," said her
father then, catching vaguely for a weapon and using it at random.
"But, Martie, what's your REASON?" Lydia overflowed suddenly. "What
earthly reason can you have--you can't just say that you don't want to,
now--you can't just suddenly--I never heard of anything so--so
inconsiderate! Why, what do you suppose everybody--"
"This is some of your heady nonsense, Martie," said her father's heavy
voice, drowning down Lydia's clatter. "This is just the sort of
mischief I expected to follow a visit from men as entirely
irresponsible as these New York friends of yours. I expected something
of this sort. Just as you are about to behave like a sensible woman,
they come along to upset you--"
"Exactly!" Lydia added, quivering. "I never said a word to you, Pa,"
she went on hurriedly, "but _I_ noticed it! I think it's perfectly
amazing that you should; of COURSE it's that! Martie listened to him,
and Martie walked with him, and several people noticed it, and spoke to
me about it! It's none of my business, of course, and I'm not going to
interfere, but all I can say is THIS, if Martie Monroe plays fast and
loose with a man like Cliff Frost, it will hurt us in this village more
than she has ANY idea! What are people going to think, that's all! I
certainly hope you will use your authority to bring her to her
senses--just a few days before the wedding, with everybody expecting--"
"Perhaps you will tell me what Clifford thinks of this astonishing
decision?" Malcolm asked, again interrupting Lydia's wild rush of words.
"Cliff was very generous, Pa. He feels that it is only a passing
feeling, and that I must have time to think things over if I want it,"
Martie began.
"Ha! I should think so!" Lydia interpolated scornfully.
"At first he was inclined to laugh about it, and to think that it was
nothing," Martie said almost timidly, glancing from one to the other,
and keeping one hand over Teddy's hand.
"What makes you feel that you HAVEN'T given the thing due
consideration, Martie?" her father asked darkly, with the air of
humouring a child's fantastic whims.
"Yes! You've been engaged for months!" Lydia shot in.
"Well, it's only lately, Pa," Martie confessed mildly.
"Exactly! Since somebody came along to upset you!" said Lydia. "All I
can say is, that I think it would break Ma's heart!" she added
violently. "You give up a fine man like Cliff Frost, and now I suppose
we'll have some of your divorced friends hanging about--"
"Lyd, dear, don't be so bitter," Martie said gently, almost maternally.
"Mr. Dryden has gone off for a long tour; he may not be back for years.
What I plan to do now is go to New York. I told Cliff that--that I
wanted to go."
"May I ask how you intend to live there?" Malcolm asked, with
magnificent and obvious restraint.
"By writing, Pa."
"You plan to take your child, and reenter--"
"I think I would leave Teddy, Pa, for a while at least." They had all
left the table now, and gone into the parlour, and Martie, sinking into
a chair, rested her chin on her hand, and looked bravely yet a trifle
uncomfortably at her interlocutors. Teddy had dashed out into the yard.
"Now, I think we have heard about enough of this nonsense, Martie,"
said her father, in a changed and hostile tone. Lydia gave a satisfied
nod; Pa was taking a stand at last. "You didn't have to say that you
would marry Clifford," he went on sternly. "You did so as a responsible
woman, of your own accord! Now you propose to make him and your family
ridiculous, just for a whim. I sent you money to come on here, after
your husband's death, and all your life I have tried to be a good
father to you. What is my reward? You run away and marry the first
irresponsible scamp that asks you; you show no sign of repentance or
feeling until you are in trouble; you come back, at my invitation, and
are made as welcome here as if you had been the most dutiful daughter
in the world, and then--THEN--you propose to bring fresh sorrow and
disgrace upon the parent who lifted you out of your misery, and offered
you a home, and forgot and forgave the past! I am not a rich man, but
what I have has been freely yours, your child has been promised a home
for my lifetime. What more can you ask? But no," said Malcolm, pacing
the floor, "you turn against me; yours is the hand that strikes me down
in my age! Now I tell you, Martie, that things have gone far enough. If
you follow your own course in this affair, you do so at your own risk.
The day you break your engagement, you are no longer my daughter. The
day you let it be known that you are acting in this flighty and
irresponsible way, that DAY your welcome here is withdrawn! I will not
be made the laughing-stock of this town!"
Lydia was in tears; Martie pale. But the younger woman did not speak.
She had been watching her father with slightly dilated eyes and a
rising breast, while he spoke.
"Cliff generous?" Malcolm went on. "Of course he's generous! He
probably doesn't know what to make of it; responsible people don't blow
hot and cold like this! The idea of your going in to him with any such
cock-and-bull story as this! You'll break your engagement, eh?--and go
on to New York for a while, eh?--and then come smiling back, I suppose,
and marry him when it suits your own sweet will? Well, now, I'll tell
you something, young lady," he added, with a sort of confident menace,
"you'll do nothing of the kind! You sit down now and write Clifford a
note, and tell him you were a fool. And don't let me ever hear another
word of this New York nonsense! Upon my word, I don't know how I ever
came to have such children! Other people's children seem to have some
sense, and act like reasonable human beings, but mine--however, you
know what I feel now, Martie. Going into the Bank indeed, and telling
the man you're going to marry that you are 'afraid' this and you
'fancy' that! I'll not have it, I tell you!"
"I told him that I knew I was acting badly," Martie said, "I said that
I felt terribly about it. I even cried--I'm not proud of myself, Pa!
And he asked me to think it over, and not to worry about postponing the
wedding, and--I think he was tremendously surprised, but he didn't say
one unkind word!"
"Well, he should have, then," Malcolm said harshly. "And you are a
fortunate woman if, when it suits your high-and-mightiness to come to
your senses, he doesn't take his turn to jilt YOU! On my word, I never
heard anything like it! What possesses you is more than I can
understand. You deliberately bring unhappiness down on your family, and
act as if you were proud of yourself! I don't pretend to be perfect,
but all my life I have given my children generously--"
"Pa," Martie said suddenly, "I wonder if you believe that!" She stood
up now, facing him, her breath coming quickly. It seemed to Martie that
she had been waiting all her life to say this: hoping for the
opportunity, years ago, dreading the necessity now. "I wonder if you
believe," she said, trembling a little, "that you--and half the other
fathers and mothers in the world--are really in the right! I didn't ask
to be born; Sally didn't ask to be born. We didn't choose our sex. We
came and we grew up, and went to school, and we had clothing and food
enough. But then--THEN!--when we must really begin to live, you
suddenly failed us. Oh, you aren't different from other fathers, Pa.
It's just that you don't understand! What help had we then in forming
human relationships? When did you ever tell us why this young man was a
possible husband, and that one was not? I wanted to work, I wanted to
be a nurse, or a bookkeeper--you laughed at me! I had a bitter
experience--an experience that you could have spared me, and Lydia
before me, if you had cared!--and I had a girl's hell to bear; I had to
go about among my friends ASHAMED! You didn't comfort me; you didn't
tell me that if I learned a little French, and brushed up my hair, and
bought white shoes, the NEXT young man wouldn't throw me over for a
prettier and more accomplished woman! You were ashamed of me! Sally,
just as ignorant as Teddy is this minute, dashed into marriage; she was
afraid, as I was, of being a dependent old maid! She married a good
man--but that wasn't your doing! I married a bad man, a man whose
selfishness and cruelty ruined all my young days, crushed the youth
right out of me, and he might be living yet, and Teddy and I tied to
him yet but for a chance! I suffered dependence and hunger--yes, and
death, too," said Martie, crying now, "just because you didn't give me
a livelihood, just because you didn't make me, and Sally, and Lydia,
too, useful citizens! You did Len; why didn't you give us the same
chance you gave Len? Len had college; he not only was encouraged to
choose a profession, but he was MADE to! Our profession was marriage,
and we weren't even prepared for that! I didn't know anything when I
married. I didn't know whether Wallace was fit to be a husband or a
father! I didn't know how motherhood came--all those first months were
full of misgivings and doubts! I knew I was giving him all I had, and
that financially I was just where I had been--worse off than ever, in
fact, for there were the children to think of! Why didn't I have some
work to do, so that I could have stepped into it, when bitter need
came, and my children and I were almost starving? What has Len cost
you, five thousand dollars, ten thousand? What did that statue to
Grandfather Monroe cost you? Sally and I have never cost you anything
but what we ate and wore!"
Malcolm had risen, too, and they were glaring at each other. The old
man's putty-coloured face was pale, and his eyes glittered with fury.
"You were always a headstrong, wicked girl!" he said now, in a toneless
dry voice, hardly above a whisper. "And heartless and wicked you will
be to the end, I suppose! How dare you criticise your father, and your
sainted mother? You choose your own life; you throw in your fortune
with a ne'er-do-well, and then you come and reproach me! Don't--don't
touch me!" he added, in a sort of furious crow, and as Martie laid a
placating hand on his arm: "Don't come near me!"
"No, don't you dare come near him!" sobbed Lydia. "Poor, dear Pa,
always so generous and so good to us! I should think you'd be afraid,
Martie--I should think you'd actually be afraid to talk so wickedly!"
She essayed an embrace of her father, but Malcolm shook her loose, and
crossed the hall; they heard the study door slam. For a few minutes the
sisters stared at each other, then Martie went to the side door, and
called Teddy in as quiet a voice as she could command, and Lydia
vanished kitchenward, with only one scared and reproachful look.
But the evening was not over. After Teddy was in bed, Martie, staring
at herself in the mirror, suddenly came to a new decision. She ran down
to the study, and entered informally.
"Pa!" She was on his knee, her arms about him. "I'm sorry I am such a
problem--so little a comfort!--to you. Forgive me, Pa, for I always
truly loved you--"
"If you truly want my forgiveness," he said stiffly, trying to dislodge
the clinging young arms, "you know how to deserve it--"
The old phraseology, and the old odour of teeth and skin! Martie alone
was changed.
"But forgive me, Pa, and I'll truly try never to cross you again."
Reluctantly, he conceded a response to her kiss, and she sat on the arm
of his chair, and played with the thin locks of his hair while she
completed the peace. Then she went into the kitchen, where Lydia was
sitting at the table, soaking circles of paper in brandy for the
preservation of the glasses of jelly ranged before her.
"Lyd, I just went and told Pa that I was sorry that I am such a beast,
and we've made it up--"
"I don't think you ought to talk as if it was just a quarrel," Lydia
said. "If Pa was angry with you, he had good cause--"
"Darling, I know he did! But I couldn't bear to go to sleep with ill
feeling between us, and so I came down, and apologized, and did the
whole thing handsomely--"
"You couldn't talk so lightly if you really CARED, Mart!"
"I care tremendously, Lyd. Why don't you use paraffin?"
"I know," Lydia said with interest, "Angela does. But somehow Ma always
did it this way."
"Well, I'll mark 'em for you!" Martie began to cut neat little labels
from white paper, and to write on them, "Currant Jelly with Rasp.
1915." Presently she and Lydia were chatting pleasantly.
"I really put up too much one year," Lydia said, "and it began to
spoil, so I sent a whole box of it out to the Poor House; I don't
suppose they mind! But Mrs. Dolan there never sent my glasses back!
However, this year I'll give you some, Mart; unless Polly put some up."
"Unless I go to New York!" Martie suggested.
Lydia's whole face darkened.
"And if I do, you and Sally will be good to Teddy?" his mother asked,
her tone suddenly faltering.
"Martie, what POSSESSES you to talk about going to New York now?"
"Oh, Lyddy, you'd never understand! It's just the longing to do
something for myself, to hold my own there, to--well, to make good!
Marrying here, and being comfortably supported here, seems like--like
failure, almost, to me! If it wasn't for Teddy, I believe that I would
have gone long ago!"
"And a selfish feeling like that is strong enough to make you willing
to break a good man's heart, and desert your child?" asked Lydia in
calm tones.
"It won't break his heart, Lyd--not nearly so much as he broke yours,
years ago! And when I can--when I could, I would send for my boy! He'd
be happier here--" Martie, rather timidly watching her sister's face,
suddenly realized the futility of this and changed her tone. "But let's
not talk about it any more to-night, Lydia, we're both too tired and
excited!"
"I don't understand you," Lydia said patiently and wearily, "I never
did. I should think that SOMETIMES you'd wonder whether you're right,
and everybody else in the world is wrong--or whether the rest of us
know SOMETHING--"
Martie generously let her have the prized last word, and went upstairs
again.
To her surprise she found Teddy awake. She sat down on the edge of the
bed, and leaned over the small figure.
"Teddy, my own boy! Haven't you been asleep?"
"Moth'," he said, with a child's uncanny prescience of impending
events, "if I were awfully, awfully bad--"
"Yes, Ted?" she encouraged him, as he paused.
"Would you ever leave me?" he asked anxiously.
The question stabbed her to the heart. She could not speak.
"I'm enough for you, aren't I?" he said eagerly. Still she did not
speak. "Or do you need somebody else?" he asked urgently.
A pang went through her heart. She tightened her arm about him.
"Teddy! You are all I have, dear!"
His small warm hand played with the ruffle of her blouse.
"But--how about Uncle Cliff, and Uncle John, and all?" he asked. Martie
was silent. "Are you going to marry them?" he added, with a child's
hesitation to say what might be ridiculous.
"No, Ted," she answered honestly.
"Well, promise me," he said urgently, sitting up to tighten his arms
about her throat, "promise me that you will never leave me! I will
never leave you, if you will promise me that! PROMISE!"
He was crying now, and Martie's own tears started thick and fast.
"I might have to leave you--just for a while--" she began.
"Not if you promised!" he said jealously.
"Even if I went away from Aunt Sally and the children, Ted, and we had
to live in a little flat again?" she stammered.
"Even THEN!" he said, with a shaken attempt at a manly voice. "I
remember the pears in the carts, and the box you dropped the train
tickets into," he said encouragingly, "and I remember Margar's bottles
that you used to let me wash! You'd take me into the parks, and down to
the beach, wouldn't you, Moth'?"
"Oh, Teddy, my little son! I'd try to make a life for you, dear!"
"And WE'D be our family, just you and me!" he said uncertainly.
"We'd be a family, all by ourselves," she promised him, laughing and
crying. And she clung to him hungrily, kissing the smooth little
forehead under the rich tumble of hair, her tears falling on his face.
Ah, this was hers, this belonged to her alone, out of all the world.
"I'm glad you told me how you felt about this, Teddy," she said. "It
makes it all clearer to me. You and I, dear--that's the only real life
for us. I owe you that. I promise you, we'll never be separated while
Mother can help it."
His wet little face was pressed against hers.
"And you'll NEVER talk about it any more!" he said violently. "Because
I cry about it sometimes, at night--"
"Never again, my own son!" He lay back on his pillow with a breath of
relief, but she kept her arms about him.
"Because you don't know how a boy feels about his own mother!" he
assured her. Kneeling there, Martie wondered how she had come to forget
his rights, forget his point of view for so long! He would always seem
a baby to her, but he was a person now, and he had his part in, and his
influence upon, her life. Suppose she had left him to cry out this
secret hunger of his uncomforted; suppose, while she thought him
contentedly playing with Billy and 'Lizabeth, he had been judging and
blaming his mother?
While she knelt, thinking, he went to sleep. But Lydia wondered what
was keeping Martie awake. The light in Martie's room was turned up, and
fell in a yellow oblong across the gravel; Lydia dozed and awakened,
but the light was always there.
Morning broke softly in a fog which did not lift as the hours went by.
Malcolm was at home until after lunch, to which meal Teddy and Martie
came downstairs unusually well dressed, Martie observing that she had
errands down town. Teddy kissed Grandpa good-bye as usual, and his
mother kissed Grandpa, too, which was not quite usual, and clung with
her white hands to his lapel.
"Teddy and I have shopping to do down town, Pa, and I've written Cliff
a note!" she said. Her father brightened.
"I'm glad you're inclined to act sensibly, my dear!" he said,
departing. "I thought we'd hear a different story this morning!"
"What are you going down town for?" asked Lydia. "I ought to have some
rubber rings from Mallon's."
"I'm taking a lot of things down--I have to pass the cleaner's anyway,"
answered Martie. "I'll get them, and send them."
"Oh, bring them; they'll go in your pocket," Lydia said. "Well, Ted,
what'll you do when these measles are over, and you have to go back to
school? You've put an awful good suit on him, Mart, just to play in."
"He'll change before he plays," Martie answered, nervously smiling.
"Come, dear!"
"Don't forget your things for the cleaner's!" Lydia said, handing her
her suitcase. Martie surprised the older sister with a sudden kiss.
"Thanks, Lyd, dear!" she said. "Good-bye! Come, Ted!"
They went down through the quiet village, shabby after the burning of
the summer. Fog lay in wet, dark patches on the yellow grass, and in
the thinning air was the good smell of wood fires. Grapes were piled
outside the fruit stores and pasted at a slant on Bonestell's window
was a neatly printed paper slip, "Chop Suey Sundae, 15c." Up on the
brown hills the fog was rising.
They went to see Dr. Ben in his old offices opposite the Town Hall, and
he gave Teddy a pink "sucker pill," as he had given Martie years ago.
At the grocery they met Sally, with all four children, and two small
children more, and Aunt Mart had her usual kisses. Sally was afraid
that Grace's baby boy had the measles, she confided to her sister, and
had taken the twins for a time.
"Martie, how smart you look, and Ted all dressed up!" said Sally. "And
look at my tramps in their old clothes! Mart, do go past Mason and
White's and see the linen dress patterns in the window; there's a
blue-and-tan there, and an all-white--they're too lovely!"
"Why don't you let me send you one, Sally?" Martie asked
affectionately. "I'm rich! I drew my two hundred and eleven dollars'
bank account yesterday, and cashed a check from my editor, and Cousin
Allie's wedding check!" Sally flamed into immediate protest.
"Martie, I'll be wild if you do--you mustn't! I never would have spoken
of it--"
Martie laughed as she kissed her sister, and presently Sally wheeled
Mary's carriage away. But Teddy and his mother went into Mason and
White's, nevertheless, and both the tan-and-blue and the all-white
dress were taken out of the window and duly paid for and sent away.
Teddy shouted to his mother when they were in the street again that
there was Uncle Joe in the car, and he could have taken the dresses to
Aunt Sally.
No, his mother told him, that was to be a surprise! But she crossed the
street to talk in a low tone to Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe said more than
once, "I'm with you--I think you're right!" and finally kissed Teddy,
and suddenly kissed his mother, before he drove away.
Teddy was bursting with the thought of the surprise. But this afternoon
was full of surprises. They were strolling along, peacefully enough,
when suddenly his mother took his small arm and guided him into the
station where they had arrived in Monroe nearly two years before.
A big train came thundering to a stop now as then, and Teddy's mother
said to him quickly and urgently: "Climb in, Love. That's my boy! Get
in, dear; mother'll explain to you later!"
She took a ticket from her bag, and showed it to the coloured porter,
and they went down the little passage past the dressing room, and came
to the big velvet seats which he remembered perfectly. His mother was
breathing nervously, and she was quite pale as she discussed the
question of Teddy's berth with the man who had letters on his cap.
She would not let Teddy look out of the windows until the train
started, but it started in perhaps two minutes, and then she took off
his hat and her own, and smoothed back his hair, and laughed
delightfully like a little girl.
"Where are we goin'?" asked Teddy, charmed and excited.
"We're going to New York, Loveliness! We're going to make a new start!"
she said.