Miss Theodosia saw pink. Near-anger surged up within her at this
ruinous, this piteous result of Stefana's toil. The result dangled
creaksomely from her hands, revealing new wrinkles and smooches and
leprous patches of starch at every motion. What was in this bundle would
be in the rest--there was no hope.
In Theodosia Baxter's little girlhood, she had played there were two
"'Dosies," a good one and a bad one. The Good 'Dosie was often away from
home, but was sometimes apt to appear at unexpected moments, to the
embarrassment of the Bad 'Dosie. Stamp her foot as she would, Bad 'Dosie
could not always drive the unwelcome intruder away.
"I don't like her!" the small sinner had once been heard to say.
"She--she p'eaches at me!"
The Good 'Dosie was preaching now.
"Wait! Count ten!" she preached. "Don't get any angrier, or you'll see
red instead of pink. Think of that poor child's burned thumbs--think of
her having to take to her bed when she got through--"
"I don't wonder!" snapped Bad 'Dosie.
"Wait--wait! Aren't you going to be good? Do you remember what you used
to do, to help out? Well?"
Miss Theodosia dropped the starchy mass on top of the other newspaper
bundles and rather suddenly sat down in a chair. She saw a little child,
preached to and penitent, on her knees, with folded hands, saying "Now I
lame me down to sleep."
It was very still in the room. Miss Theodosia's eyes closed and opened
again. It was as if she had said "Now I lame me." A little smile tugged
at the corners of her mouth. She no longer saw even pink.
She got up briskly and began turning back her cuffs. First, she would
build the kitchen fire; it must roar and snap, with all the work it had
to do to-night. She would heat a lot of water, for only boiling water
could take out Stefana's awful starch. While the water was heating, she
would eat her supper.
"A good, big supper, it will have to be," smiled this gentled Miss
Theodosia. "I've got to get up my strength! No tea-and-toast-and-jam
supper to-night." She heated her gridiron smoking hot and broiled a bit
of steak. She tossed together little feathery biscuit and made coffee,
fragrant and strong. Momently, Miss Theodosia's strength "got up." She
moved about the kitchen briskly--when had she launched out upon a
night's work like this? Adventure!--call it adventure.
Work to Miss Theodosia had always meant something that other people
did,--the Stefanas and their mothers and brothers and fathers. What she
herself did, a gentle, dilatory playing at work, hardly merited the
name. A bit of dusting, tea-and-toasting, making her own bed, cooking
for sheer love of cooking, what did they count in Miss Theodosia's
summing up of tasks?
Always there had been some one to do her heavy things. She had put her
washings out and taken her dinners in; three times a week she was swept
and scrubbed and made immaculate.
But to-night--to-night was different. This was to be no playing at work.
Miss Theodosia rose to the occasion gallantly--indeed, exultantly.
Thrills of enthusiasm ran up, ran down her spine. She prepared for a
night of it.
The dresses immersed in steaming hot water and her supper eaten, she
stretched drying-lines, with considerable difficulty, from corner to
corner of her kitchen, prepared an ironing-board, and got out long-idle
irons. At eight o'clock she stopped for breath. Stefana's starch still
resisted all inducements to part with Miss Theodosia's dresses; more hot
water was required. After another steamy bath, they were cooled and
wrung and draped over the crisscross clotheslines in the hot kitchen.
Then Miss Theodosia temporarily retired from the field of battle.
Theodosia Baxter had come back from her travelings to this small
ancestral town with a mildly disturbing taste in her mouth. "Settling
down" at thirty-six was not at all to her mind; she would not settle
down!
"If I catch you doing it, Theodosia Baxter!" she said. "If I catch you
growing old! The minute you feel it coming on, you pack up and start for
Rome! Or Paris! Or Turkistan! Start for Anywhere! Keep going!"
But, already, did she feel it coming on even before all her trunks were
unpacked? She was a little frightened at certain signs. Now, when she
sat down heavily--why did she sit down heavily? If some one had called
upon her for scores of little services, so that she must hop up again,
immediately--little piping voices: "Mother, where's my cap?" "Mother,
make Johnnie stop plaguing me!" "Mother, come quick!" If a big John had
come home to her, demanding her time or sympathy or service--
"No little Johns--no big one!" She sighed. "Is that the matter with you,
Theodosia Baxter? Well, for Heaven's sake, don't tell anybody! Keep a
bold front."
She dozed a little in her rocker while she waited. Her plaintive
reveries took the shape of a sober little dream wherein one Theodosia
Baxter tottered on a cane and another walked briskly and youngly among
Johns. Both Theodosias were thirty-six.
"Mercy!" she exclaimed, waking up. "Where's my cane? I must go and iron
Stefana's dresses!" She felt oddly refreshed. Queer dream to refresh
one! She found herself thinking kindly of Stefana.
"I hope she's sound asleep, and a pitying little girl angel with a
nurse's cap under her halo will slip down and cure her thumbs before she
wakes up."
The irons she had set to heating were much too hot. Should she run
out-of-doors while one of them cooled, and lie in wait to catch the
little nurse-angel on the wing or perhaps darting thrillingly down to
Stefana on a shooting star, breaking all speed limits! This was a night
for adventure. The wild ride of a becapped and haloed little celestial
in goggles would be an adventure! Miss Theodosia laughed out girlishly,
not at all a tottery laugh on a cane, and the pleasant sound broke the
midnight stillness.
The dresses were dry enough to roll into tight bundles. One she essayed
to iron as it was. She began as soon as the iron was cool enough.
Miss Theodosia toiled--adventured--through the long hours into the
short. It was unaccustomed toiling, and, like Stefana, she burned her
thumbs. She had judgment and the skill that age kindly lends, in her
favor, and slowly her delicate fingers undid the ravages of Stefana's
patient endeavors and brought beauteous perfection out of apparent ruin.
But the process was wearying and long. It would have been but half the
labor to have begun at the beginning instead of at Stefana's poor little
end.
At midnight, Miss Theodosia made herself cups of tea and sipped them
thirstily. A wrist, both thumbs, and her testing forefinger smarted; she
was tired and disheveled. But the spirit of adventure refused to die.
The fire burned red-hot and the irons must cool again. Miss Theodosia
slipped out this time into the soft darkness.
"Let us hope Aunt Sarah will 'knit fast,'" she was thinking, with
whimsical eyes. "But if she doesn't--Theodosia Baxter, dear, if Aunt
Sarah is a slow knitter, you are in for it! I've no idea of letting you
off. Baxters that begin, end."
It was dim starshine out-of-doors. Miss Theodosia was too late to see
the nurse-angel riding on her star, her little cap and halo awry with
the downhill glide through space. She was too late to see her go into
the dark little House of Children--but she saw her come out. Distinctly,
a misty little blur of white against the velvet background. Miss
Theodosia started a very little--did she need pinching to wake her?
For the space of a clock-tick the little celestial appeared to hesitate,
as though waiting for her star-steed to come within her hail. Then,
floatingly, not walking, it seemed to Miss Theodosia, the mist of blurry
white drew nearer. It came near to Miss Theodosia, and it was not the
nurse-angel in cap and shining halo. It was Stefana!
The child was in her nightgown. One look into her wide, unseeing eyes
was enough; Stefana was asleep. In a chattering little voice she was
talking to herself. It was like a soft wail of sound.
"I must get them back! Quick, before she sees; I must iron them over.
Perhaps if I starched them again--another coat of starch might hide the
smooches. She mustn't see the smooches! If Mother should lose the
chance--oh, I must get 'em back and starch 'em another coat! Mother
mustn't lose her! My thumbs ache so!"
Was she coming straight toward the door? No, a fortunate whiff of breeze
seemed to blow her aside like a little seed-puff, and she went drifting
by. She was apparently searching anxiously.
"I must find them! Quick, before she sees! Oh, there are the smooches. I
see some of the smooches! But I can't find the rest of them--"
Miss Theodosia sprang forward in the direction of the pathetic little
figure, but almost as quickly caught herself up. Sleepwalkers were not
to be awakened suddenly. What then was to be done?
"I must get her back to bed without letting her wake," thought Miss
Theodosia. A plan suggested itself. She caught of her large apron,
rolled it into a bulky mass, and swiftly followed the small nightgowned
figure. Her steps made no sound over the grass. It was but the work of
an instant to lay the roll of apron in Stefana's arms. Instantly, at the
feel of starched cloth in her hands, the tense little face relaxed.
"I've got 'em back!" Stefana muttered, and, as if from the relief of it,
the troubled sleep seemed to calm and quiet down into deep oblivion to
all troubles. To Miss Theodosia's dismay Stefana slid quietly to the
ground and dreamlessly slept. Here, indeed, was adventure! Even at
twelve years and Stefana small, the child was too heavy to carry home.
"I don't dare to wake her," Miss Theodosia cried aloud, but softly, as
if in fear of doing so.
"You needn't--hush! I'll carry her for you."
The voice seemed to materialize out of the gloom into something big and
high and unexpectedly close at hand that rightly should have startled
Miss Theodosia but failed to do so. Afterward, in the house again, among
her irons, she was startled.
"I was going by and saw her--you can tell a sleepwalker by the way one
walks. Glides. Now, when I lift her, gently support her head--that's it.
Forward, march!"
"This way," Miss Theodosia directed in a whisper, though he was already
moving this way. Shadow Man that he was, he stepped earthily, with thuds
of his feet on the grass. Miss Theodosia's footsteps were soft echoes.
So they came to the little House of Flaggs.
"There's a light in that inside room, and I can see a bed. I'll lay her
down, and you can go in afterward--and--er--smooth her out."
"Yes--yes, I'll wait out here," whispered Miss Theodosia with a curious
solemnity in her face. Rome, nor Paris, nor Anywhere had offered
adventure like this--not like this. Miss Theodosia had an odd feeling
that this, too, was a dream--and a John. Would they all wake up
together?
"Sound as a nut--never knew what hit her! But she wants straightening.
New work for me; I'm not used to putting kiddies to bed."
"Oh, I'm not either!" breathed Miss Theodosia, "but I might straighten
one. I don't suppose you--you kissed her thumbs? Of course not!" She
laughed softly. "But I shall."
Now it was the Shadow Man's turn to laugh with a funny, explosive little
effect as though he were not used to muffling his laughs,--as if this
playing Shadow Man were a new rôle.
"Why thumbs?" he whispered. "Why not lips, say, or eyes? I thought women
kissed kiddies' eyes. Hope I haven't made a mistake--" as if he had some
secret desire for women to kiss the eyes of little children. "If you
don't mind kissing 'em when you go in there--"
"I shall kiss her thumbs," Miss Theodosia said firmly. "They were burned
at the stake for me. I know how burned thumbs feel."
But the Shadow Man stubbornly persisted.
"I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll go back now and kiss her thumbs, if
you'll kiss her eyes when you go in; as--er--a favor. 'Stoop over the
little sleeper,' you know, and 'press your mother's lips to the closed
blue orbs.'" He seemed to be quoting something.
"But I haven't any mother's lips," sighed Miss Theodosia, "only the kind
for thumbs--just thumbs. I'm sorry," she added humbly. Curiously she
experienced no surprise at this intimate turn of a conversation with a
Shadow Man at midnight.
"That's all right--that's all right," the Shadow Man assured her. "Only
thought I'd feel a little better to prove it was done that way. Hadn't
any business mixing up with women's lips and kiddies' orbs, anyway!
Serves me right." And now it was his turn to be humble. "Good night,"
and he was gone.
It was into a tiny bedroom off the kitchen, where a needle of light from
a turned-down lamp barely pricked the darkness, that Miss Theodosia
found her way. She had a dim picture of littering little clothes about
the room and on the flat pillows of the bed the round, flushed face of
Evangeline. In a clothes basket beside the bed she dimly saw a little
mound that might be Elly Precious--it was Elly Precious! The little
mound stirred with a curious, nestling sound, and instantly Stefana
stirred also and crooned. Even in her sleep she was the little Mother.
Miss Theodosia felt her own throat tighten and fill.
Stefana still clasped the bundle of apron in her arms, and Miss
Theodosia did not dare try to take it away from her. She merely arranged
it a little more comfortably and smoothed Stefana out. Queer!--as if at
some other time, in some passed-by existence, she had smoothed out a
child. She seemed to know how. Suddenly she stooped and kissed, not
Stefana's thumbs but her eyes.
"The starch!" murmured Stefana as Miss Theodosia turned away. "Some'dy
get it!" The deep sleep had broken a little, and through the break
trickled a thread of Stefana's troubles. Then, again, silence and peace.
No sound from bed or clothes basket on the floor.
Outside, in the faint starlight, Miss Theodosia drew a long breath. She
softly laughed. Curious how much like a sob a little laugh can be! Oh,
starlit night of adventuring! What next? Miss Theodosia's mantle of
gentle melancholy slid from her shoulders; she no longer felt
apprehensions of growing old. Continually she saw Evangeline's rosy face
on that flat pillow, and the little mound of Elly Precious. She
remembered how tiny the house had looked from the inside, and how many
little littering clothes she had seen. The appealing quality of empty
little clothes! In Miss Theodosia's inside room of her soul, something
stirred behind the locked door.
The irons had cooled too much, and the fire was low. Miss Theodosia went
to work again. As she worked, she talked to herself sociably.
"Adventures thicken! Stars, and angels in caps, and children that walk
in their little sleeps! And little heaps in clothes baskets, that are
babies! And--Theodosia Baxter--a Man! Out of a clear, inky sky! Why
weren't you scared? How do you know--you never even saw his face--maybe
he was a thief, and a marauder, and a thug!"
Granted, if thieves and marauders and those awful things, thugs, carry
little loads or sleep as tenderly as women--and never wake them; if they
are polite and say good night--. What kind of marauding and--and
thugging is that?
"What will Stefana think when she finds my apron in bed with her!"
suddenly laughed Miss Theodosia, breaking the spell. "Funny Stefana! she
goes to my heart, she and her starch--when they're asleep!"
But, awake, Stefana's starch went to Miss Theodosia's back and aching
bones. It was three o'clock when she was ready to go to bed. Over chairs
and the couch in her sitting-room, lay the three redeemed white dresses,
soft again and very smoochless and smooth. Miss Theodosia stood and
admired. She was full of pride and weariness. At last, at thirty-six,
she had done real work; she loved the feel of it in her tired bones. She
loved her night of adventuring. Life--she loved that. So she went to bed
at three, when the birds were beginning to get up. If her throat--calm
and grown-up throat--had not persistently tightened, she would have gone
to sleep laughing at the remembrance of it all. All the funny night. Why
wasn't it funny? Why couldn't she laugh? She sat up in bed.
On the morning after her adventurous night, as Miss Theodosia lingered
luxuriously over her late breakfast, came bursting in Evangeline Flagg.
A gray-checked something waved from her hand like a flag of truce.
Evangeline always burst into things--houses, and rooms, and excited
little speech.
"Here it is!--that is, if it's yours. Stefana says to ask. 'Tain't ours.
Mercy gracious, no! We don't take our aperns to bed. Stefana never heard
of such a thing. Neither o' us never. In bed--right straight in bed! An'
Stefana hugging it up like everything! She says to ask you if it's yours
because it ain't ours, nor anybody else's, an' it's got to be somebody's
apern, and once I thought I saw a gray 'n' white one hanging through
your window--I mean on a nail, but, mercy gracious, what was it doing in
bed with me an' Stefana!"
Even Evangeline's breath had limitations. She stopped as headlong as she
had begun. She unwound the large, voluminous-skirted apron from her
grasp and extended it.
"Here 'tis, if it's yours," she gasped, spent. She was gazing at it with
a species of awe; it was an "apern" of mystery, not a human apern. "An'
if 't isn't, take it--Stefana said not to dare to bring it back.
We--we're sort of afraid of it, honest. Though, of course, Stefana says
it must 've blew in the window"--the tide of speech was coming in once
more--"an'--an' sort of landed on the bed, an' Stefana kind of grabbed
it in her sleep, thinking it was Elly Precious. But, mercy gracious!"
"Sit down," Miss Theodosia said, smiling. "Doesn't it tire you to talk
as fast as that?"
"Some," admitted Evangeline, "but I don't mind. What I mind is
ghosts--aperns an' the kind with--with legs." She dropped her voice. "I
saw one las' night."
"Mercy gracious!" Miss Theodosia breathed.
Evangeline nodded solemnly. "Out the window. I woke up feelin' one, an'
I saw it goin' across the grass. White. Slinky."
"Oh, not--slinky!" protested Miss Theodosia, suddenly championing the
ghost-with-legs.
"Slinky," firmly. "I guess I'd a-screeched right out if I hadn't
remembered the baby. Elly Precious is terrible hard to put to sleep
second time. You aren't much acquainted with babies, are you?"
Again--so soon! Miss Theodosia's humility returned.
"We're acquainted, over to our house! Mother says babies are great
edge--edge--"
"Educators?"
"That's it! Mercy gracious, then I should think Mother'd be graduated!"
After Evangeline's departure, Miss Theodosia set down her coffee cup and
gave herself up to laughter. The room rang with the pleasant sound of
it.
"Will you l-listen to yourself, Theodosia Baxter!" she cried at length,
out of breath. "You actually sound happy!"
In the afternoon, a bevy of Miss Theodosia's old friends called on her
as she sat on her front porch. They had intended, they said, to wait
till the proper time, according to etiquette, for calls upon returned
travelers.
"But we wanted to see you so much, after all this time," one of them
said. "We decided we couldn't wait to be proper. Besides, it would be
such a risk. While we waited, you'd run off again. It was really our
only way. Ladies, will you see how lovely and white she looks! Perfectly
spotless!" The speaker sighed. Her own dress was dark and spot-colored.
"I don't see how you do it! I tell Andrew I'd rather dress in white than
in velvet--I love it! But, there, I couldn't get a minute to wear the
dresses; it would take all my days to do 'em up. Of course, with you
it's different. I don't suppose you ever toiled over an ironing-board a
day in your life."
Miss Theodosia gravely shook her head. "No," she said, curious little
twinkling lines deepening round her eyes, "I never did--a day--in my
life."
"That's what I thought! That's what I told Andrew. 'Theodosia Baxter
don't know what work is,' I told him. It's easy enough for some women to
wear lovely white things. Simplest thing in the world!"
Miss Theodosia's cryptic little smile lingered on her lips and in the
clear windows of her eyes, as she gazed past the voluble wife of Andrew,
through her vines, at the little House of Children next door. She
imagined she heard Stefana singing, high up and sweet, over her work.
Wait!--that was not a singing sound!
A single shriek shot above the clear humming noise that might be
Stefana. Then another--a third!
"Some one is hurt!" cried Miss Theodosia, and she kilted her smooth
white skirts and ran.
Again that dread shriek! Over her shoulder, as she ran, Miss Theodosia
gave directions to her startled callers.
"Telephone for a doctor--any doctor. In the side hall--on a table!" But
could any doctor save the life of that terrible shriek? If it came once
more--It came! Miss Theodosia involuntarily closed her eyes to shut out
a sight of horror.
"Mercy gracious!"
She opened them hurriedly at the soft collision of herself with
Evangeline.
"Who is it? Is it the baby? I've sent for the doctor." Half-remembered,
half-read first aids crowded her mind confusedly. Warm water and
mustard--that was for hemorrhage--no, no--poison! But did you apply it
inside or out? What was that about laying the patient up hill--feet
higher--or was it feet lower--down hill?
"Take me there, quick! We must do what we can till the doct--oh, the
poor baby!"
"Mercy gracious goodness! Elly Precious is eatin' bread an' molasses.
He's only et one slice, an' most o' that's on his outside. They aint'
an'thing worse'n molasses the matter with El--"
"There! Oh, there!" As another mournful cry split the air.--"Oh, that!
What is it? Who is it?"
"Mercy gra--why, that's Carruthers bein' a steam whistle. Did he scare
you? He does do it pretty loud when he's gettin' up steam; you see, he
don't know how loud he does it, because he's deaf o' hearin'. We can't
bear to lower him, but we only let him be a steam whistle for a
treat--when he's 'specially good--Mother said to. Stefana found him
washin' his face 'free greatest' this mornin', so she let him--.Quick,
shut your ears! He's goin' off again!"
'But, this time, Miss Theodosia heard, unalarmed. To her own surprise,
she listened almost enjoyingly. To be able to make a noise like that!
The sheer vitality and youth of it compelled admiration.
"If I could do that--" began Miss Theodosia's thought, then broke off
hastily as the mental vision of herself in the act of bein' a steam
whistle appeared to her.
"You do it this way," explained Evangeline, inserting a forefinger in
each corner of her mouth and preparing to steam-whistle.
"No, no, I don't do it any way!" Miss Theodosia protested smilingly. "Do
you think--do you think, perhaps, he has been sufficiently rewarded for
washing his own face, now? Because, you see, I have callers on my
porch."
"Mercy gracious--I see 'em! I'll go right an' stop Carruthers! That's
what Stefana said--that we'd ought to remember you wasn't in Europe
now."
"I think I could hear steam whistles there!" Miss Theodosia smiled. But
Evangeline's sober mind continued its line of thought.
"Stefana says if you'll hang somethin' red out when you're asleep, or
got callers, or anythin', then she'll make us play funeral."
"Oh, no--not that!" No red flag of warning could justify playing
funeral.
"Well, Hold-Your-Breath, then. We can't make much noise holding our
breaths! Stefana's the champion Hold-Your-Breath-er. You take an awful
long breath--this way--" But, already, Miss Theodosia was on her way
home. She found her callers moving agitatedly about. "Central asked what
doctor, and for the life of me I couldn't remember a living doctor's
name in this town. 'Anybody,' I told her. 'Tell him to come quick;
somebody must be dying over to the little Flagg place."
Miss Theodosia lifted a hand to stem the tide of Mrs. Andrew's words.
"He's stopped dying--listen! It's all quiet now; it was only play. I'll
head Central off. Excuse me a minute--I mean, another minute!"
But Central had done her work well--beyond heading-off. Already an
automobile was speeding up the road; behind it clattered a
hurriedly-driven buggy. Miss Theodosia saw them both stopping at the
little Flagg place. She smiled. She was not needed over there to make
any explanations or apologies--Evangeline was there!