HOW IT SUCCEEDED.
MRS. JOB SMITH leaned against the table in her bright kitchen, caught
up the edge of her apron in one hand, then leaned both hands on her
sides, and thought. Jerry had been consulting her. Was there any way
of planning so that the front room in the Decker house could have
a carpet? He repeated all Mrs. Decker said about a room not being
home-like without one, and Mrs. Smith, at first inclined to combat
the idea, finally admitted that in winter a room where you sat down
to visit, did look kind of desolate without a carpet, unless it was
a kitchen, and had a good-sized cook stove to brighten it up. There
was no denying that that square front room would be the better for a
carpet. At the same time there was no denying that the Deckers needed
a hundred other things worse than they did a carpet. But the hearts of
the boy and girl were bent on having one; and what the boy was bent
on, Mrs. Job Smith liked to have accomplished, and believed sooner or
later that it would be. The question was, How could she help to bring
it about?
"There's that roll of rag carpeting, bran-new," she said aloud; Mrs.
Smith had spent a good deal of her time alone and had learned to
hold long conversations with herself, arguing out questions as well,
sometimes she thought better, than a second party could have done.
At this point she put her hands on her sides. "There's enough of it,
and more than enough. I had it made for the front room the year poor
Hannah died, and sent me that boughten carpet which just exactly
fitted, and is good for ten years' wear. That rag carpeting has been
rolled up and done up in tobacco and things ever since--most two years.
Sarah Jane doesn't need it, and I don't know as I shall ever put it
on the kitchen. I don't like a great heavy carpet in a kitchen, much,
anyway; rugs, and square pieces that a body can take up and shake,
are enough sight neater, to my way of thinking. But I can't afford to
give away bran-new carpeting. To be sure it only cost me the warp and
the weaving; and I got the warp at a bargain, and old Mother Turner
never did ask me as much for weaving as she did other folks. The rags
was every one of them saved up. Poor Hannah used to send me a lot of
rags, and Sarah Jane and I sewed them at odd spells when we wouldn't
have been doing anything. It is a good deal of bother to take care of
it, and I'm always afraid the moths will get ahead of me, and eat it
up. I might sell it to her for what the warp and the weaving cost me.
But land! what would she pay with? I might give her a chance to do
ironing. I have to turn away fine ironing every week of my life because
I can't do more than accommodate my old customers. Who knows but she
is a pretty good ironer? I might give her the coarse parts to iron,
and watch her, and find out. Job is always at me to have somebody help
with the big ironings, and I have always said I wouldn't have a girl
bothering around, I would rather take less to do. But then, she is a
decent quiet body, and that Nettie is just a little woman. She will
have to do something to help along if they ever get started in being
decent; perhaps ironing is the thing for her, and I can start her if
she knows how to do it. For the matter of that, I might teach her
how, if she wanted to learn. To be sure they need other things more
than carpets, but it wouldn't take her long to pay for this, if I just
charge for the weaving. I might throw in the warp, maybe, seeing I got
it at a bargain. The two are so bent on having a carpet for that room;
and Jerry, he said he had prayed about it, and while he was on his
knees, it kind of seemed to him as though I was the one to get to think
it out. That's queer now! Jerry don't know anything about the carpet
rolled up in tobacco in the box in the garret; why should he think that
I could help? I feel almost bound to, somehow, after that. I don't like
to have Jerry disappointed, nor the little girl either, now that's a
fact. I take to that little Nettie amazingly. Well, I know what I'll
do. I'll talk with Job about it, and if he is agreed, maybe we will see
what she says to it."
This last was a kind of "make believe," and the good woman knew it; Job
Smith thought that his wife was the wisest, most prudent, most capable
woman in the world, and besides being sure to agree to whatever she had
to propose, he was himself of such a nature that he would have given
away unhesitatingly the very clothes he wore, if he thought somebody
else needed them more than he. There was little need to fear that Job
Smith would ever put a stumbling-block in the way of any benevolence.
But who shall undertake to tell you how astonished Mrs. Decker was
when Mrs. Smith, having duly considered, and talked with Sarah Jane,
and talked with Job, and unrolled the tobacco-smelling carpet, and
examined it carefully, did finally come over to the Decker home with
her startling proposition. It is true that a carpet had taken perhaps
undue proportions in this poor woman's eyes. Her best room during all
the years of her past life had never been without a neat bright carpet;
it had been the pleasant dream of her second married-life, so long as
any pleasantness had been left to allow of dreaming; and she could not
get away from the feeling that people who had not a scrap of carpeting
for their best room, were very low down. She opened her eyes very
wide while listening to Mrs. Smith's rapidly told story. What kind of
a carpet could it be that was offered to her for simply the price of
the weaving? for Job and his wife after some figuring with pencil and
paper, had agreed together heartily to throw in the warp. She went
over to the neat kitchen and examined the carpet. It was bright and
pretty. There was a good deal of red in it, and there was a good deal
of brown; a blending of the two colors which had been the subject of
much discussion between herself and husband in the days when Mr. Decker
talked anything about the comforts of his home. How well it would look
in the square room which had two windows, and was really the only
pleasant room in the house. Surely she could iron enough to pay for
that.
"I am not very strong," she said with a sigh. "I used to be, but of
late I've been failing. But Nannie is so handy, and so willing, that
she saves me a great deal, and she has a notion that she would like to
fix up the front room and try to get hold of my Norm. It would be worth
trying, maybe, but I don't know. We are very low down, Mrs. Smith."
And then Mrs. Decker sank into one of the green painted chairs and
cried.
"Of course it is worth trying," Mrs. Smith said, bustling about, as
though she must find some more windows to raise; tears always made her
feel as though she was choking. "If I were you I would have a carpet,
and curtains to the windows, and lots of nice things, and make a home
fit for that boy of yours to have a good time in. There is nothing like
a nice pleasant home to keep a boy from going wrong."
Before Mrs. Decker went home, she had promised to try the ironing the
very next week, and if she could do it well enough to suit Mrs. Smith,
the carpet should be bought.
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Smith, looking after her, and rubbing her eyes
with the corner of her apron. "The ironing shall suit; if she irons
wrinkles into the collars and creases in the cuffs, I won't say a word;
only I guess maybe I won't give her collars and cuffs to iron; not till
she learns how. I ought to have done something to kind of help her
along before; only I don't know what it would have been. It takes that
boy of mine to set folks to work."
Meantime, "that boy" sat in the kitchen door, studying. Not from a
book, but from his own puzzled thoughts. He did not see his way clear.
Under Nettie's direction he had planned a very satisfactory sofa with
a back to it, and two chairs, but how to get the material needed to
finish them, and also for curtains for the new room, had sent Nettie
home in bewilderment, and stranded him on the doorstep in the middle
of the afternoon to think it out.
"How much stuff does it take for curtains, anyhow?"
"For curtains?" said Mrs. Smith, coming back with a start from her
ironing table and the plan she had for teaching Mrs. Decker to iron
shirts. "Why, that depends on what kind of stuff it is, and how many
curtains you want, and how big the windows are."
"Well, what do they use for curtains?"
Mrs. Smith still looked bewildered.
"A great many things, Jerry. They have lace curtains, and linen ones,
and muslin ones, and in some of the rooms up at Mrs. Barlow's, on the
hill, you know, when I helped her do up curtains that time, they had
great heavy silk things, or maybe velvet, though the stuff didn't look
much like either. I don't rightly know what it was, but it was heavy,
and soft, and satiny, and shone like gold, in some places."
Jerry turned around on the doorstep and looked full at Mrs. Smith,
and laughed. "I know," he said, "I have seen such curtains. They are
damask. I am not thinking about lace, and damask, and all that sort of
thing. I mean for Mrs. Decker's front room. What could be used that
would do, and how much would they cost?"
"Surely!" said Mrs. Smith, coming down to everyday life. "What a goose
I was. I might have known what you were thinking about. Why, let me
see. Cheese cloth makes real pretty curtains; if you have a bit of
bright calico to put over the top, and a nice hem in, or maybe some
bright calico at the bottom to help them hang straight, I don't know as
there is anything much prettier. Though to be sure they aren't good for
much to keep people from looking in; and they aren't quite suitable for
winter. I suppose you want to plan for winter, too? I'll tell you what
it is, I believe that unbleached muslin makes about as pretty a curtain
as a body could have; put bright red at the top and bottom, and they
look real nice."
"What is unbleached muslin? I mean, how much does it cost?"
"Why," said Mrs. Smith, dropping into her rocking-chair, and folding
her hands on her lap to give her mind fully to the important question,
"as to that, I should have to think; I'm not very good at figures.
Unbleached muslin costs about eight cents a yard, or maybe ten; we'll
say ten, because I've always noticed that was easier to calculate. Ten
cents a yard, and two windows, say two yards to each, and no, two yards
to each half, four yards to each, and twice four is eight, eight yards
at ten cents a yard. How much would that be, Jerry? You can tell in a
minute, I dare say."
"Eighty cents," said Jerry with a sigh. "I am afraid she will think
that is a great deal. And then there's the red to put on them. What
does that cost?"
"Why, that ought to be oil calico, because the other kind ain't fast
colors. I don't much believe you could get those curtains up short of
fifty cents apiece; and that is a good deal for curtains, that's a
fact. Paper ones don't cost so much, but then there's the rollers and
the fastenings, I don't know but they do cost just as much. And then
they tear."
"I don't want her to have paper ones," said Jerry decisively. "A dollar
for the curtains, and I don't know how much more for the furniture. She
can't imagine where the money is to come from."
"I could tell where it ought to come from," said Mrs. Smith, nodding
her head and looking severe. "It ought to come out of Joe Decker's
pocket. He makes his dollar a day, even now, when he doesn't half work;
Job said so only last night. But furniture is dreadful dear stuff,
Jerry, worse than curtains. And they need about everything. I never did
see such a desolate house! And those little girls need clothes."
"Nettie is going to make them some clothes," said Jerry; "she has some
that she has outgrown; a great roll in her trunk; she is going to make
them over to fit the little girls. She is at work at some of them
to-day. And you know, auntie, I am making the furniture."
"Making it!"
"Well, making its skeleton. If we had some clothes to put on it, I
guess it would be furniture. I've made a sofa, and two chairs, and I'm
at work at a table. Only I would like to see how the things were going
to look, before I went any farther."
"Making furniture!" repeated dazed Mrs. Smith; and she shook her head.
"I don't see how you can! You can do a great many things that no other
boy ever thought of; but I'm afraid that's beyond you."
"Why, you see, auntie, she has seen some made, and she showed me what
to do with hammer and nails. You make a frame, just the size you want
for a sofa, and put a back to it, then it is padded with cotton, and
covered with something bright, cretonne, I think she said they called
it, only it wasn't real cretonne, but a cheap imitation, and they tack
a skirt to the thing in puckers, so," and he caught up a bit of Mrs.
Smith's apron to illustrate.
"I see," she said, nodding her head and speaking in an admiring tone.
"What a contriving little thing she is! And what about the chairs?"
"The chairs are served in very much the same way. The table is just
two flat boards and a post between them, nailed firmly, then they tack
red calico, or blue, or whatever they want, around it, and cover it
with thin white cheese cloth or some lacey stuff, she had the name of
it, but I've forgotten; it doesn't cost much, she said, and tie a sash
around it, and it looks like an hour glass. The question is, where are
the cotton and calico to come from?"
"Well," said Mrs. Smith, "you two do beat all! It can't take much stuff
for a little table; and I can see that they might be real pretty. I
want a table myself, to stand under the glass in my front room. What if
you was to make two, and I'd get cloth enough for two, and she would do
mine and hers, to pay for the cloth?"
Jerry sprang up from his doorstep, and came over and put both arms
around Mrs. Smith's trim waist.
"Hurrah!" he said; "you are the contriver. That will do splendidly.
I'll go this minute and set up the skeleton of another table. I have
two boards there which will just do it. Then we'll think out a way to
get the rest of the stuff."
Now Nettie, busy with her fingers in the house next door, had not left
the others to do all the thinking. She knew the price of "oil calico,"
and imitation cretonne, and unbleached muslin; she knew to a fraction
how many yards of each would be needed, and the sum total appalled her.
Yet she too knew that her father earned at least a dollar a day, and
did not give them two a week to live on. This her mother had told her.
Also she knew that on this Saturday evening at about six o'clock, he
would probably be paid for his week's work. Couldn't she contrive to
coax some of the money from his keeping into hers? She had hinted the
possibility of her mother's getting hold of it, and Mrs. Decker had
said that the bare thought of trying made her feel faint and sick; that
if she had ever seen her father in a passion such as he could get into
when things did not go just to suit him, she would know what it was to
ask him for anything. Nettie, who had not yet been at home a week, had
some faint idea of what her father might do and say if he were very
angry. Nevertheless, she was trying to plan a way to meet him before he
left the shop, and secure some of that money if she could.
With this thought in view, she presently laid aside the neat little
petticoat on which she had been sewing, brushed her hair, put on her
brown ribboned hat, and her brown gloves, watched her chance while the
children were quarreling over an apple that Jerry had given them, and
stole out in the direction of the shop where her father worked. She
would not ask Jerry to go with her, though he looked after her from the
barn window and wished she had; if her father was to grow angry and
swear, and possibly strike, no one should know it but herself, if she
could help it.
I must not forget to tell you of one thing that she did before
starting. She went into her mother's little tucked-up bedroom, put a
nail over the door, which she had herself arranged for a fastening, and
knelt there so long by the barrel which did duty as a table, that her
mother, had she seen her, would have been frightened. But Nettie felt
that she needed courage for this undertaking; and she knew where to get
it.
Then she had to walk pretty fast; it was later than she thought, for
just as she turned the corner by the shop where her father worked, the
six o'clock bell began to ring.
"Halloo!" said one of the men, standing in the door while he untied
his leather apron. "What party is this coming down the street? The
neatest little woman I've seen for many a day. A stranger in this part
of the world, I reckon. Doesn't fit in, somehow. Do you know who it is,
Decker?"
And Mr. Decker, thus appealed to, came to the door in time to receive
Nettie's bow and smile.
"That's my girl," he said, and a look of pride stole into his face.
She was a trim little creature; it was rather pleasant to own her as
his daughter.
"Your girl!" and the astonishment which the man felt was expressed by a
slight whistle. "I want to know now if that is the little one who went
away six, seven years ago, was it? She's as pretty a girl as I've seen
in a year. Looks smart, too. I say, Decker, you better take good care
of her. She is a girl to be proud of."
At just that moment Nettie sprang up the steps.
"May I come in, father?" she said; "I wanted to see where you worked."
Her voice was clear and sweet. All the men in the shop turned to look.
The foreman who was paying Mr. Decker, and who had begun severely with
the sentence: "Two half-days off again, Decker; that sort of thing
won't"--stopped short at the sound of Nettie's voice, and gave him
the two two dollar bills, and two ones, without further words. Six
dollars! If only she could get part of it! How should the delicate
matter be managed? Suddenly Nettie acted on the thought which came to
her. What more natural than for a child to ask for money just then and
there? She needed it, and why not say it? Perhaps he would not like
to refuse her entirely before all the men. And poor Nettie had a very
disagreeable fear that he would certainly refuse her if she waited
until the men were gone; even if she found a chance to ask him before
he reached the saloon just next door, where he spent so much of his
money. Or at least where his wife thought he spent it.
"May I have some of that, father? I want some money. That was one of
the things I came after."
This was certainly the truth. Why not treat it as a matter of course?
"Why should I take it for granted that he is going to waste all his
money?" said poor Nettie to herself. All the same she knew she had good
reason for supposing that he would.
"Money!" he said, as he seized the bills. "What do you know about
money, or want with it?"
"Oh, I want things. The little girls must have some shoes. I promised
to see about it as soon as I could. And then I want to buy your Sunday
dinner; a real nice one."
The tone was a winning, coaxing one. Nettie did not know how to coax;
was not very well acquainted with her father; did not know how he would
endure coaxing of any sort, but some way must be tried, and this was
the best one she knew of.
"Divide with her, Decker," said the man who had first called his
attention to Nettie. "She looks as though she could buy a dinner, and
cook it too. If I had a trim little girl like that to look out for
my comfort, hang me if I wouldn't take pleasure in keeping her well
supplied." He sighed as he spoke, and nobody laughed; for most of them
remembered that the man's home was desolate. Wife and daughter both
buried only a few months before. This man sometimes spent his earnings
on beer, but he was accustomed to say that there was nobody left to
care; and that while he had them, he took care of them; which was true.
Nettie looked up at the man with a curious pitiful interest. His tone
was very sad. She was grateful to him for his words. Was there possibly
something sometime that she could do for him? She would remember his
face.
All the men were looking now, and there was Nettie's outstretched hand.
Her face a good deal flushed; but it wore an expectant look. She was
going to believe in her father as long as she could.
"Go ahead, Joe, divide with the girl. Such a handsome one as that. You
ought to be proud of the chance."
"You have something worth taking care of, it seems, Decker." It was the
foreman who said this, as he passed on his way to the other side of the
room where the men were waiting.
Whether it was a father's pride, or a father's shame, or both these
motives which moved Mr. Decker, I cannot say, but he actually took a
two and a one and placed them in her hands as he said hastily, "There,
my girl, I've given you half; you can't complain of that."