She sat on her porch after the visitors had gone, thinking strange Miss
Theodosia thoughts. A man, coming up her front path and lifting a soft
felt hat, interrupted the strangest thought of all.
"I beg your pardon. Is this where somebody needs help? I was told--"
Miss Theodosia laughed outright.
"I do need help. Were you ever a steam whistle? You put two fingers in
your mouth, one in each corner--I was trying to get up my courage to do
it!"
The felt hat rolled down the steps, the stranger needing both his hands.
"Like this?"
"Ye-s. I never saw a steam whistle, you know. That was what I was
wishing."
"Heard one? Because I can give a demonstration."
"Don't!" Miss Theodosia shut her ears.
"I heard one--demonstration. I thought some one was dying, at least."
"Oh, that was the 'help wanted!' I see. My services are not required,
then; it was a false alarm."
Miss Theodosia was on her feet, remembering her manners. "It was a true
enough alarm; won't you sit down? I think my nerves need a doctor."
"Did I call myself a doctor? I am a reformed doctor, madam. It is some
years since I got out. But I thought, in a very urgent case--fits, you
know, or something like that--Thank you, I won't sit down. My work calls
me."
Miss Theodosia inclined her head politely, but curiosity seized her. How
curious she was getting about many things!
"I wish I knew--" she began.
"Yes, madam?"
"What work 'calls' reformed doctors. After they are--out."
The stranger's big, unharnessed laugh was almost startling to Miss
Theodosia. Why? She had never heard just such a big, unharnessed laugh
before. She had heard a big harnessed laugh--when? Before she could
answer her own thought, or the stranger could answer her spoken query, a
hurry of small feet sounded. Only Evangeline's feet could break speed
limits like that.
"Oh, Miss Theodosia--oh, I don't want to int'rupt, but just soon's he's
gone--"
"He's gone," sighed Miss Theodosia, as the child came up. "You mustn't
interrupt again, that way, unless it's a very urgent case--fits or
something." In spite of proper vexation, she smiled. "Who was that man,
Evangeline, that just went away?"
"Oh, I don't know--I wasn't acquainted with his back; that's every speck
o' him I saw. Oh! oh! oh!"
"Evangeline Flagg, what is the matter now?"
"'D you ever do up a man, Miss Theodosia? Stiff--awful stiff? Stefana
says it's bad enough to do women up. She's havin' a dreadful time! We
can't get the stiffness out; I been helpin'. It stands up alone!"
Suddenly, without warning, Evangeline went off into a series of shrill
shrieks.
"Stop me! Stop me! Don't l-let Stefana hear me! Don't l-let me laugh!"
This was an urgent case--fits or something, surely! Miss Theodosia's
eyes sought the horizon for a reformed doctor. In lack of one, she shook
Evangeline.
"Stop at once! Make yourself stop; count ten!"
"One! Two-o! Th-ree!" shrieked Evangeline, through to ten. Ten separate
shrieks. Then, abruptly, she ceased.
"Mercy gracious, I've stopped! I hope Stefana wasn't listenin'. But she
wasn't; she was cryin'. I left her cryin'. If you could come over--.
Honest, we can't do a thing! We thought you'd probably did up men."
Miss Theodosia never had. Not so--awful a thing as that!
"It stands up alone, with both arms out! I don't dass to go back. I
shall laugh if I do, an' if I laugh, Stefana'll cry. She don't think
it's f-funny." The shrieks showed signs of returning, and Miss Theodosia
again had recourse to stern measures.
"Count ten!" she demanded, as she shook.
They went back together to the mysterious something that stood alone
with both arms out. It was in that pose as they approached it. Miss
Theodosia thought it was f--funny; an awful desire to shriek like
Evangeline took possession of her. She counted ten in inward haste.
"I can't do anything with it!" wailed poor Stefana. "And Elly Precious
gets into it, and makes it walk! He's in it now."
"It's walkin'!" shrieked Evangeline, as the portentously stiff shirt
staggered a little to one side. Stefana, filled with enthusiasm and
generosity of soul, had starched not the bosom alone but the entire
shirt. She had done it thoroughly. The result was alarming. It was a
terrible shirt!
"Tell me what to do--somebody tell me!" entreated the little laundress.
"I've unstarched it, and unstarched it, and seems as if it got stiffer."
"Boiling water," breathed Miss Theodosia, too spent with her struggles
not to laugh, to admit of further speech.
"Wait! Don't anybody dass to pour boilin' water on till I get Elly
Precious out! Come to Evangeline this minute, darlin' dear--no, they
shan't boil him!"
Elly Precious emerged, crowing. The deaf-but-not-dumb little Flagg
appeared, to swell the number around the Terrible Shirt. Stefana dried
her tears. Miss Theodosia had the sense of being looked up to--relied
upon. She rose to the occasion buoyantly. As unused as Stefana to men's
bosoms, she yet stepped into the breach. Unused to issuing orders, she
issued them.
"Evangeline, you and Carruthers see to the baby. Stefana, come with me.
Bring--it."
They went back to the big house, she with that new and intoxicating
sense of importance, and Stefana with the Terrible Shirt.
"Whose is it--that?" she asked, indicating the creaking white garment.
"What were you doing with it?"
"Starching it," mumbled poor Stefana. "It took most a package. He said
he liked his stiff. 'Put in plenty o' starch,' he said to Mother, and
she always did. So I did. I thought if he said--"
"If who said?" It took a long time to establish the identity of the
Terrible Shirt.
"If he did, the man it belongs to."
"What man--who?"
"The man that writes things."
"What things?"
"We don't know exactly. Evangeline thinks tracts. She says his room was
all full o' half sheets o' paper--lying all over everywhere. She saw
'Good Lord' on one. Perhaps it's sermons. Mother always sent Evangeline
home with his wash; I never went. He is a very nice man--oh, that's why
I feel so bad about his shirt! I wouldn't care if he was an--an
infidel!"
"Bless your heart!"
Miss Theodosia turned suddenly and embraced Stefana and the shirt.
"Don't worry any more," she said; "you and I will work wonders with that
Tract Man's shirt! Stefana, put the kettle on and we'll go to it!
There's nothing two determined people can't do, once they've put their
minds on it."
Together they labored, and the impossible happened. Theodosia Baxter did
up a man! She--and Stefana--succeeded in getting the starch out of the
surrounding area and into the bosom of the Terrible Shirt. They got much
starch in. Inspiration appeared to come to Miss Theodosia. Even the
really awful task of ironing that bosom till it glittered and shone in
unwrinkled board-like expanse was at length accomplished. Miss Theodosia
was justly proud of herself--and of Stefana; she insisted upon including
Stefana in her triumphs.
"Eureka!" she exulted. "Call Evangeline, Stefana, and Elly Precious, and
Carruthers! Call in a Chinaman, if you like, and tell him to look at
that! Ask him to beat it!"
"There isn't any in this town," responded literal Stefana. "That's why
Mother did bosoms. She'd a good deal rather not've."
"But I love to do bosoms!" sang Miss Theodosia. "I never felt so worth
while in my life before--an artist in starch, Stefana!"
"Well, you've done beautifully--I never did see!" the grateful Stefana
cried. "But I'm afraid it's kind of gone to your head. I think you
better lie down."
"Send for the Reformed Doctor! Stefana, what are you doing with my
beautiful bosom?"
"I won't muss it. I'm just going to take it home and sew the buttons on.
There's two off. Mother always sewed 'em on; he pays two cents extra for
repairs."
Miss Theodosia's fair face flushed. "You don't stir a step with it! I
have buttons and a spool of thread--what I do, I finish doing! Give it
to me."
For the first time, Miss Theodosia handled a man's garment intimately.
It lay stiffly across her lap. She sewed on the two buttons; she mended
a tiny "hog-tear." Life had taken on new interests--bosoms and buttons.
She thrilled--when had she ever thrilled before? Ironing her own dresses
had been a poor, tame business. She would be sorry to part with this
shirt!
And then Evangeline came.
"Mercy gracious, doesn't it look elegant! I came over because he's come
for his shirt. He says he's goin' to begin a new story, an' he always
has to have a clean shirt on. An' his hair cut--he's got it cut. I guess
that bosom'll match his hair all right! It's perfectly lovely!"
"What did you do with Elly Precious, Evangeline Flagg!" demanded
Stefana.
"That's it--that's why I got to hurry back. He's keepin' Elly Precious
for me, an' he don't know what to do with babies. He says all his are
paper ones--paper babies! He gave Elly Precious his knife, an' opened
the blades to amuse him! He said he guessed Elly Precious wouldn't hurt
'em!" Evangeline's face registered great scorn. "If you'll give it to
me, I'll carry it to him," she concluded, holding out her hand for the
shirt. But Miss Theodosia sewed calmly on. She had found a second tear
larger than the first. It would be better to strengthen it with a little
piece underneath. She would find a white scrap in her bag of pieces.
"It is not ready yet. He can wait. But you must not wait, Evangeline.
Elly Precious may be playing with his pistol, if he carries one."
"He don't. He ain't a pistol-man, but, mercy gracious, how you scare me!
You comin' too, Stefana?"
"Yes, Stefana can go now. She is all through," which was Miss
Theodosia's kind inclusion of Stefana. That, again, was curiously new to
Miss Theodosia. Psychological changes were taking place--or were they
just plain tugs on Miss Theodosia's heartstrings?
She sat and sewed.
"Patching--I'm patching!" she laughed to herself. "And here I've been
hiring my own mending done! Theodosia Baxter, see what you are doing;
you are patching a shirt for a man! No, I'm not, either! I'm doing it
for Stefana--what are you talking about?"
Some one came up her steps and knocked on her open door. But she was too
engrossed to hear. The patch underneath had slipped a little askew. She
ripped out some of the stitches and began again. She caught herself
humming as she worked.
"Please may I have my shirt?" a voice asked meekly. "That story is
promised for next month. It's the twenty-eighth, now."
Evangeline's Tract Man stood in the doorway, soft felt hat in hand,
twinkles in his eyes. Evangeline's Tract Man was the Reformed Doctor! If
Miss Theodosia had been eighteen instead of thirty-six she would not
have blushed more beautifully, but she continued to patch. She was
caught in the act; no help for it now. But she would finish--that--patch.
"So it's you! So that's the work Reformed Doctors do!"
"Madam, yes. When stories appeal to them more than pills and tonics,
they reform and write stories. They have to!" he cried, suddenly in
earnest, "When one is life, and the other death--"
"Oh, if it was death to them--your patients," she murmured. Then,
ashamed of her own flippancy: "Of course, I didn't mean anything as
silly as that! I meant--I meant, please sit down while I finish this
patch. There, in that easy-chair. There are magazines on the table."
There was one magazine with his own name in the list of contents. He
opened it at that page and gazed down upon it quite soberly.
"My name is John Bradford," he said, as if reading. Miss Theodosia
started a little, but it was not as he thought, in his innocent vanity.
Miss Theodosia got no farther than the first part of the name--so he was
a John! She glanced quickly at the doorway, measuring him in her mind as
he had stood against the lintel. He had reached a long way up--a long
man. The Shadow Man had been a long shadow. Something told her--
[Illustration: "If you are thinking of putting me anywhere, put me into
a story like that."]
"Did you ever carry a child in your arms and lay her on a bed? In the
middle of the night? Did you do it last night? Are you the same man?"
"I am the same man I was last night," he answered gravely. "I was John
Bradford then, too. Didn't I carry her all right? What was the matter?"
Suddenly he leaned forward in the chair. "Did you kiss her thumbs?" he
demanded.
"I kissed her eyes."
They were silent for a little, while Miss Theodosia set small, nervous
stitches in John Bradford's shirt, and John Bradford twiddled the edges
of the magazine. He stole glances, now and then, at this strange woman
with whom he seemed to have come so oddly into contact. He could make a
story of her dark hair, straight shoulders, beautiful hands. He could
not get a good view of her full face. Bending over a bed, kissing a
little sleeper's eyes--he could work her in that way. If he knew her a
little better--
"I knew they did it!"
"Did what--who?"
"Women--kissed that way. You have proved it now."
"I'm not women. I'm just one woman, and I never did it in my life
before."
"Well, you liked doing it, didn't you? I could put you in, liking it."
The shirt slid to the floor, and Miss Theodosia gave her visitor a full
view of her face.
"Are you making 'copy' of me? Because if you are thinking of putting me
anywhere, put me into a story like that. I'd like it. I mean, with
little children in a bed--and one in a clothes basket! Say I tucked them
in--Yes, I liked kissing Stefana's eyes. I should love to have another
chance. It's nothing to be ashamed of, is it, to like little children?"
"I like 'em. I always have."
"Well, I always haven't. Only very lately--it's queer. When I came home
here and found all those children next door--mercy gracious!"
They both laughed. Laughing together is a great acquaintancer. Miss
Thedosia suddenly thought of something and laughed a little more.
"My name is Theodosia Baxter," she said. They rose and shook hands
gravely. They were decently introduced. The beautiful shiny bosom of the
shirt lay between them like a white mirror and Miss Theodosia caught the
man's glance on it.
"Is it anything to be ashamed of--doing up a shirt?" she demanded.
"Not doing it up like that! That's a work of art!"
"A work of heart--I did it for Stefana. I've got quite fond of it now,
and shall hate to part with it. It's a friend."
"A bosom friend," he parried. Again they laughed and grew more
acquainted. Miss Theodosia made tea in her dainty Sèvres cups. The
faintest flecks of pink made her face youthful. Miss Theodosia was a
good-looking woman always, but, animated, her face was really lovely.
John Bradford was better used to paper women, like paper babies, but his
taste recognized flesh-and-blood attractiveness. He had always been a
lonely man--until now.
"I'm having a beautiful time," he sighed. "Is it anything to be ashamed
of, to have a beautiful time?"
"Or two cups of tea? Please! This is my company tea--warranted good to
write stories on!"
"Oh--stories. Are there such things? Did I ever write one? Have I got to
write another?"
"It's the twenty-eighth," Miss Theodosia reminded demurely. "But you
will need another cup of tea. How long does it take?"
"To drink another cup?"
"To write another story. Tell me about it. Perhaps I could do it. You
take a blotter and a pen and plenty of half-sheets of paper--'tracts,'
Evangeline calls them! Then you write 'Good Lord!' That is what
Evangeline says you wrote on a tract! She said maybe it was a sermon."
"Oh--Evangeline! And speaking of angels--"
"Mercy gracious! You're here--both o' you! An' somebody's gone an'
spilled a drop of somethin' on that beautiful bosom!"
"A tear-drop, Evangeline, because she wouldn't give it to me."
"Tea drop!" sniffed Evangeline. "Guess I know! After all Stefana's work!
Miss Theodosia, can Elly Precious eat your grass? He's out there now. He
don't really eat it; he just kind of pretends. Mother says Elly Precious
ought to be put out to pasture. We haven't got any grass to speak of,
over to our house."
"Don't speak of it! Of course he can eat mine, if you think it is
edible. Ask the Reformed Doctor."
"Him a doctor? Mercy gracious--honest? Then he knows if Elly Precious'd
ought to eat grass--not really eat, you know."
"Just graze a little--let him graze." The Reformed Doctor rose to his
feet and held out his hand to Miss Theodosia. "I'll go out and see how
he does it. It's lucky Evangeline came in, or I might not have known
enough to go at all. I've had a beautiful time. I'll put you in with the
bedful of kiddies."
"And the clothes basket?"
"And the clothes basket."
"You haven't got your shirt--mercy gracious! I thought that's what you
came after," reminded Evangeline.
"Was it?" the Reformed Doctor said. "Give it to me, Evangeline."
"Not naked! Without wrappin' up! I never did see!"
"It's such a good-looking shirt--well, then, wrap it up, wrap it up.
I've got a newspaper in my pocket. Put that round it, Evangeline." He
turned again to his hostess. "It will be a good story if I put--the
clothes basket--in it. They won't send it back. Good-by."
He was off to inspect Elly Precious' grazing-ground. Evangeline, at the
window where she had gone to make sure her darlin' dear was safe,
presented to Miss Theodosia a square, bony little back that was
curiously like that of a dwarfed old woman.
The trail of innocent Elly Precious was over that stoopy little figure.
Miss Theodosia looked with softened eyes. Then a smile grew in them,
wrinkling their corners whimsically. She was noticing something else
besides the little old-lady back. Evangeline's braids toed in! Tight and
flaxen, they stood out in rounded curves, converging suddenly to the bit
of faded ribbon that tied them together. There was something suspicious
looking about that ribbon--"Stefana starched it!" smiled Miss
Theodosia's thought.
The small figure whirled face about.
"There, _he_ can see to him awhile." Evangeline was always cheerfully
oblivious to any confusion of ideas arising from her use of personal
pronouns. "I'm tired. Children are a great care," said Evangeline. She
seated herself in an easy chair and dangled thin legs.
"If you drank tea--I'll make you a cup of cocoa, Evangeline."
"Oh, mercy gracious, no! I'm not as tired as _cocoa_. Jus'
sit-'n'-a'-chair tired. You know how it feels--no, you don't either.
I forgot. I guess you are pretty lucky. No, I don't guess so _either_!"
Evangeline suddenly straightened on the edge of the big chair and eyed
Miss Theodosia sternly, as though that innocent soul had been the one
guilty of disloyalty to darlin' dears.
"Children are a great comfort," declaimed Evangeline with emphasis. She
might have been the mother of six comforts. Tenderness crept into her
eyes, and her freckles seemed to fade out, and even the small blunt nose
of her take on middle-agedness and motherliness. '"Specially when you
undress 'em. They're so darlin' an' soft! You ever undressed one--a
reg'lar _baby_ one? Of course not one o' your own when you never _had_
any, but I thought p'raps you might've undressed a grandbaby or
somethin'--"
Miss Theodosia shook a humbled head.
"No," she murmured, "I never undressed even a grandbaby." And curiously
she failed either to smile at the child's little notion or to wince at
the advanced age it implied for her. She looked across the room from her
big chair to Evangeline's with rather a wistful look. She was envying
Evangeline.
"I'm sorry," the child said gently, a little embarrassed by the
unexpected solemnity of the moment. To relieve it, she had recourse to a
sudden funny memory of her own undressings of Elly Precious. She broke
hurriedly into laughter.
"I have to have an extra pig for my baby!" she shrilled. "Takes six
instead o' five! You know where it ends, 'This little pig said: "Quee!
Quee! Quee! can't get over the barn-door sill"?' Mercy gracious, you
don't know the little pigs, I s'pose--" More embarrassment. Even
Evangeline was losing presence of mind.
"Oh, yes!" Miss Theodosia brightened perceptibly. "I know the one that
went to market and the one that stayed at home--all five of them I
know."
"But you don't know Elly Precious's extra little pig!" crowed the
reassured Evangeline. "Just _us_ know that one. I made him up. When you
have six toes,--I mean when Elly Precious has,--you have to have six
pigs. After the one that can't get over the barn-door sill, I say: 'This
little pig said--' wait, I'll say the last two together so you'll see
they rhyme beautifully. Reg'lar poetry.
"'This little pig said, "Quee! Quee! Quee! can't get over the barn-door
sill.'"
"'_This_ little pig said, "He! He! He! when you tickle, I can't keep
still!'"
"Elly Precious wiggles it when I tickle! We laugh like everything. I
think it is pretty good poetry," added Evangeline modestly.
"It is beautiful poetry. I never could have begun to make up such a
lovely, ticklish little pig!"
Evangeline leaned back again in the soft cushiony embrace of the great
chair and actually achieved a moment of silence. The talkative clock on
Miss Theodosia's mantel filled in the space. Then once more Evangeline:
"But I shall never have any."
"Any--pigs?" smilingly.
"Children. Not any. I've decided I'll rest. They're such a care. But of
course I can run in an' undress Stefana's an' Elly Precious's--mercy
gracious, Elly Precious's!"
It required too great a mental effort to visualize them. Elly Precious's
children were _funny_! Evangeline giggled softly. "Then I'll be a
gran'mother, won't I! I've always wanted to be a gran'mother an' say
what I did when _I_ was a child an' how I always _minded_." A fresh
giggle. "'_I_ never had to be _told to_ twice, my dears,' I'll say to
Elly Precious's children! They'll all be my dears. I'll help bring 'em
up. Isn't it queer," broke forth Evangeline suddenly, "how when you get
to be old you never were bad when you were young? The badnesses have
kind of--kind of faded out. I bet there _were_ badnesses!"
And Miss Theodosia found herself nodding decisively. She, too, bet there
were.
A hilarious little crow suddenly sounded from without the window; it was
accompanied by a deep man-sound of mirth. Miss Theodosia and Evangeline
smiled across at each other indulgently.
"Elly Precious is havin' a good time. That's his good-time noise. Oh, I
think he's a nice person, don't you?"
"Nice? I love him!" cried Miss Theodosia warmly. Her face that was still
the face of a girl was tenderly flushed. "I love every inch of him,
Evangeline."
"Merry gra--that's a lot of lovin'! I guess you are ahead o' me!"
"Evangeline Flagg, aren't you ashamed! When he is the dearest,
cunningest--"
"Not--not _cunnin'est_. But he's got beautiful whiskers. I mean if he
didn't shave 'em off. When he came, he had 'em on. You can't love his
whiskers when you never saw--"
Miss Theodosia held up a limp hand to stem this terrible tide of words.
"Oh, stop! _wait_, Evangeline!" she begged. "Who are you talking about?"
Why stop for grammatic rules at a time like this?
"Why, he--_him_. I said I liked him, an' you said you lov--"
"I have been talking about Elly Precious, naturally," Miss Theodosia
returned stiffly. "You are very careless with your pronouns,
Evangeline," she added with an effect of severity. Her cheeks that
persisted still in being a girl's cheeks had grown a warm, becoming
pink. In pink Miss Theodosia was lovely.
"Don't you think you'd better relieve Elly Precious' caretaker by this
time? He may not enjoy being left in charge quite so long."
"Not enjoy! Come an' see him not enjoy!" sang Evangeline from the
window. She was flattening her nose against the pane and bubbling with
sympathetic glee. Miss Theodosia went over and stood beside her.
Out there the two of them were frolicking together--two joyous children.
It was the good old game of Peek-a-boo, but seemed a new, surprising
game to Miss Theodosia. The big playmate on the grass spread a
handkerchief over the little playmate's face, and with a shriek of joy
the little playmate did the rest. Then the big child's turn--turn and
turn about. Deep voice and thin, sweet tinkle of baby voice joined in a
curiously harmonious chorus that rang through the window pane into the
two pairs of listening ears.
It was a new light in which to see--a new sound in which to hear John
Bradford. Miss Theodosia had a guilty consciousness of being an
eavesdropper, yet she kept on eavesdropping. At a particular climax in
the little play, she laughed aloud softly. Evangeline wriggled with
enjoyment. Her fingers drummed applause on the glass, and the big player
glanced quickly up and saw the two lookers-on. He did not hesitate in
the play, did not stop the next little gleeful peek. Miss Theodosia
loved it in him for not stopping. They were not ashamed--Elly Precious
and John Bradford.