LONG STORIES TO TELL.
IF only I had a good picture of Nettie, so that you might see the
radiant look in her eyes just then!
She had hoped for the money, she had tried to trust her father, but
she was, nevertheless, wonderfully surprised when her hand closed over
three dollars.
"O father!" she said, "how nice." And then her courage rose. "Will you
go with me, father, to buy the shoes? The little girls are so eager for
them. I promised to take them with me to Sunday-school to-morrow, if I
could get shoes, but I don't know how to buy them very well. Could you
go?"
The shoe shop was farther down the street, in an opposite direction
from the one where Mr. Decker generally got his liquor, and wily Nettie
remembered that there was a street leading from it which would take
them home without passing the saloon. Of course it was true that she
needed his help to select the shoes, but it was also true that she
was very glad she did. Mr. Decker was untying his apron, and rolling
down his sleeves; he felt very thirsty--the sight of the money seemed
to make him thirsty. He had meant to go directly to the saloon, give
them one dollar on the old bill, and spend what he needed, only a very
little, on beer. With the rest of the money he honestly meant to pay
his rent. Yet no one ought to have understood better than he that he
would not be likely to get away from that saloon with a cent of money
in his pocket. For all that, he wanted to go. He wished Nettie would go
away and let him alone. But the men were watching.
"You can't fit the children to shoes without having them along," he
said gruffly. But Nettie was ready for him: "Oh!" she said, swiftly
unrolling a newspaper, "I brought their feet along." And with a bright
little laugh she plumped down two badly worn shoes on the work table.
"That left-footed one is Satie's. The other was so dreadfully worn out,
I was afraid the shoemaker couldn't measure it. This is the best one
of Susie's."
It was plain to any reasonable eyes that two pairs of shoes were badly
needed.
"I guess they need other things besides shoes."
It was the father who said this, and they were out on the street, and
he was actually being drawn by Nettie's eager hand in the opposite
direction from the saloon.
"O no," she said; "I had some clothes which I had outgrown; I have
been at work at them all day, and they make nice little suits. Auntie
Marshall sent them each a cunning little white sunbonnet. When we get
the shoes, they will look just as nice as can be. You don't know how
pleased they are about going to Sunday-school. I am so glad they will
not be disappointed to-morrow."
The shoes were bought, good, strong-looking little ones, and
wonderfully cheap, perhaps because Nettie did the bargaining, and the
man who knew how scarce her money must be, was sorry for the little
woman. It did seem a great deal to pay out--two whole dollars--for
shoes when everything was needed. It was warm weather, perhaps she
ought to have let the little girls go barefoot for awhile, but then she
could not take them to Sunday-school very well; at least, it seemed to
her that she couldn't; and father was willing to have them bought now.
Who could tell when he would be willing again?
He stood in the door and waited for her, wondering why he did so, why
he could not leave her and go back to that saloon and get his drink.
One reason was, that she gave him no chance. She appealed to him every
minute for advice.
"Father, can we go to market now? I want to get just a splendid piece
of meat for your Sunday dinner. I know just how to cook it in a way
that you will like."
"I guess you can do that without me; I have an errand in another
direction." They were on the street again. She caught his hand eagerly.
"O, father, do please come with me to the market, there are so many men
there I don't like to go alone; and it is so nice to take a walk with
you. I haven't had one since I came. Won't you please come, father?"
Joe Decker hardly knew what to think of himself. There was something
in her soft coaxing voice which seemed to take him back a dozen years
into the past, and which led him along in spite of himself.
The meat was bought, Nettie looking wise over the different pieces, and
insisting on a neck piece, which the boy told her was not fit to eat.
"I know how to make it fit," she said, with a little nod of her head.
"I want three pounds of it. And then, father, I want two carrots and
two onions; I'm going to make something nice."
Only sixty-eight cents of her precious money left!
"I did need some butter," she said mournfully, "and that in the tub
looks nice, but I guess I can't afford it this time."
"How much is butter?" asked Mr. Decker, suddenly rising to the needs of
the moment. "Twenty-five," said the grocer, shortly. He did not know
the trim little woman who had paid for her carrots and onions, and held
them in a paper bag at this moment, but he did know Joe Decker and had
an account against him. He had no desire to sell him any butter.
"Then give me two pounds, and be quick about it." And Mr. Decker put
down a dollar bill on the counter.
The man seized it promptly and began to arrange the butter in a neat
wooden dish, while he said, "By the way, Mr. Decker, when will it be
convenient to settle that little account?"
"I'll do it as soon as I can," said Mr. Decker, speaking low, for
Nettie turned toward him startled; this was worse than she thought.
She had not known of any accounts. Mr. Decker himself had forgotten
it until he stood in the very door. It was months since he had bought
groceries.
"Is it much, father?" Nettie asked, and he replied pettishly:
"Much? no. It is only a miserable little three dollars. I mean to pay
it; he needn't be scared." Yet why he shouldn't be "scared," when he
had asked for those three dollars perhaps fifty times, Mr. Decker did
not say.
"Father," said Nettie, in a very low voice, "couldn't you let the man
keep the fifty cents, on the account, and that would be a beginning?"
But this was too much.
"No," said Mr. Decker; "I will pay my bills when I get ready and not
before; and it is none of your business when I do it. You must not
meddle with what does not belong to you."
"No, sir;" said Nettie, though it was hard work to speak just then;
there was a queer little lump in her throat. She was not in the habit
of being spoken to in this way. The butter was ready, and the man
handed back the change.
Mr. Decker pocketed it, saying as he did so, "I'll have some money for
you next week, I guess." And then they went away.
"If it hadn't been for the girl I'd have kept the fifty cents and got
so much out of the old drunkard; but someway I couldn't bring myself
to doing it with her looking on." This was what the grocer muttered as
they walked away. But they did not hear him. Nettie was bent now on
tolling her father down the cross street to go home.
"Father," she said, "we are going to have milk toast for supper. Mother
said she would have it ready, and toast spoils, you know, if it stands
long. Couldn't we go home this way and make it shorter?"
He was a good deal astonished that he did it. He was still very
thirsty, but there really came to him no decent excuse for deserting
his little girl and going back to the saloon. And they walked into the
house together, so astonishing Mrs. Decker that she almost dropped the
teapot which she was filling with hot water. Whatever other night, Mr.
Decker contrived to get home to supper, he was always late on Saturday,
and in a worse condition than at any other time.
That was really a nice little suppertime. Mrs. Decker had done her part
well, not for the husband whom she did not expect, but in gratitude to
the little girl who had worked so hard all the week for herself and
her neglected babies. The toast was well made, and the tea was good.
Besides, there was a treat; not ten minutes before, Mrs. Job Smith had
sent in a plate of ginger cookies; "for the children," she said, and
the children each had one. So did the father and mother.
Mr. Decker washed his hands before he sat down to the table, for the
tablecloth had been freshly washed and ironed that day, and his wife
had on a clean calico apron and a strip of white cloth about her neck,
and her hair was smooth.
"There!" said Nettie, displaying her meat, "now, mother, we can have
that stew for to-morrow, just as we planned. Father got the meat, and
the carrots, and everything. And what do you think, little girlies,
father bought you each a pair of shoes!"
Mrs. Decker set down the teapot again. She was just in the act of
giving her husband a cup of tea, and the color came and went on her
face so queerly that Nettie for a moment was frightened. As for the
father, he felt very queer. Scared and silent as his little girls
generally were in his presence, they could not keep back a little
squeal of delight over this wonderful piece of news. Altogether, Mr.
Decker could not help feeling that it really was a nice thing to be
able to buy shoes and meat for his family.
"Come," he said, "give us your tea if you're going to; I'm as dry as a
fish."
And the tea was poured.
The toast was good, and there was plenty of it, and someway it took
longer to eat it than this family usually spent at the supper-table;
and then, after supper, the shoes had to be tried on, and Nettie called
the little girls to their father to see if the shoes fitted, and he
took Sate up on his lap to examine them, which was a thing that had not
happened to Sate in so long that Susie scowled and expected that she
would be frightened, but Sate seemed to like it, and actually stole an
arm around her father's neck and patted his cheek, while he was feeling
of the shoe. Then Mrs. Decker had a happy thought.
She winked and motioned Nettie into the bedroom and whispered: "Don't
you believe he might like to see the children in their nice clothes?
I ain't seen him notice them so much in a year; and he hasn't been
drinking a mite, has he?"
"Not a drop," said Nettie; "I'll dress Susie." And she flew out to the
kitchen.
"Father, just you wait until Susie is ready to show you something. Come
here, Susie, quick." And almost in less time than it takes me to tell
it, Susie was whisked into the pretty petticoats and dress which had
been shortened and tightened for her that day. The dress was a plain,
not over-fine white one; but it was beautifully ironed, and the white
sunbonnet perched on the trim head completed the picture and made a
pretty creature of Susie. I am sure I don't wonder that the child felt
a trifle vain as she squeaked out in her new shoes to show herself to
her father. She had not been neatly dressed long enough to consider it
as a matter of course.
"Upon my word!" said Mr. Decker, and there he stopped. This was
certainly a wonderful change. He looked at his little daughter from
head to foot, and could hardly believe his eyes. What a pretty child
she was. And to think that she was his! Certainly she ought to have new
shoes, and new clothes. Sate's arm was still about his neck, and Sate's
sweet full lips were suddenly touched to his rough cheek.
"I've got new clothes too," she said sweetly, "only I doesn't want to
get down from here to put them on."
The father turned at that and kissed her. Then he sat her down hastily
and got up. Something made his eyes dim. He really did not know what
was the matter with him, only it all seemed to come to him suddenly
that he had some very nice children, and that they ought to have
clothes and food and chances like others, and that it was his own fault
they hadn't.
Nettie hated tobacco, but she went herself in haste and lighted her
father's pipe and brought it to him; if he must smoke, it would be so
much better to have him sit in the door and do it rather than to go off
down to that saloon. She hated the saloon worse than the tobacco. As
she brought the pipe, she said within her hopeful little heart: "Maybe
sometime he won't want either to drink or smoke. I most know we can
coax him to give them both up; and then won't that be nice?"
One thing was troubling her; as soon as she could, she followed her
mother into the yard and questioned, "Do you know where Norm is?"
Yes, Mrs. Decker knew. He came home just after Nettie had gone out,
and said he had an hour's holiday; their room had closed early for
Saturday, and he was going to wash up and go down street before supper.
"My heart was in my mouth," said the poor mother; "because when there
is a holiday he gets into worse scrapes than he does any other time;
he goes with a set that don't do anything but have holidays, and they
always have some mischief hatched up to get Norm into. I never see the
like of the boys in this town for getting others into scrapes; but I
didn't dare to say a word, because Norm thinks he is getting too big
for me to give him any words, and just as he was going out, that boy
next door--Jerry, you said his name was, didn't you?--he came out
and called Norm, real friendly, and they stood talking together; he
appeared to be arguing something, and Norm holding off, and at last
Norm came in and wanted the tin pail and said he had changed his mind
and was going fishing; and they went off together, them two." And Mrs.
Decker finished the sentence with a rare smile. She was grateful to
Jerry for carrying off her boy, and grateful to Nettie for thinking
about him and being anxious.
"Good!" said Nettie with a happy little laugh, "then we will have some
fried fish to-morrow for breakfast. What a nice day to-morrow is going
to be."
Mr. Decker was a good deal surprised at himself, but he did not go down
town again that night. After he had smoked, he felt thirsty, it is
true, and at that very minute Nettie came in with the one glass which
they had in the house, and it was full of lemonade.
"Did he want a nice cool drink?" she had two lemons which she bought
with her own money, and she knew how to make good lemonade, Auntie
Marshall used to say.
The father drank the cool liquid off almost at a swallow, said it was
good, and that he guessed she knew how to do most things. By this time
the little girls had been tucked away to bed, and just as Mr. Decker
rose up to say he guessed he would go down street awhile, Norm appeared
with a string of fish. They were beauties; he declared that he never
had such luck in his life; that fellow just bewitched the fish, he
believed, so they would rather be caught than not. Then came a talk
about dressing them. Norm said he was sure he did not know how; and Mr.
Decker said, a great fellow like him ought to know how. When he was a
boy of fourteen he used to catch fish for his mother almost every day
of his life, and dress them too; his mother never had to touch them
until they were ready to cook. Then Nettie, flushed and eager, said:
"O father, then you can show me how to do it, can't you? I would like
to learn just the right way." And the father laughed, and looked at his
wife with something like the old look on his face, and said he seemed
to be fairly caught. And together they went to the box outside, and in
the soft summer night, with the moon looking down on them, Nettie took
her lesson in fish dressing.
When the work was all done, Norm having hovered around through it all,
and watched, and helped a little, Mr. Decker went back to the kitchen
and yawned, and wondered how late it was. No clock in this house to
give any idea of time. There used to be, but one day it got out of
order and Mr. Decker carried it down street to be fixed, and never
brought it back. Mrs. Decker asked about it a good many times, then
went herself in search of it, and found it in the saloon at the corner.
"He took it for debt," the owner told her, and a poor bargain it was;
it never came to time, any better than her husband did. However, just
as Mr. Decker made his wonderment, the old clock over at Mrs. Smith's
rose up to its duty, and dignifiedly struck nine.
"Well, I declare," said Mr. Decker, "I did not think it was as late as
that. There ain't any evenings now days. Well, I guess, after all, I'll
go to bed. I'm most uncommon tired to-night somehow."
Norm had already gone up to his room; and Mrs. Decker when she heard
her husband's words, hurried into the bedroom to hide two happy tears.
"I declare for it, I believe you have bewitched him," she said to
Nettie, who followed her to ask about the breakfast; "I ain't known him
to do such a thing not in two years, as to go to bed at nine o'clock
without ever going down street again. He don't act like himself; not
a mite. I was most scared when I saw him take Sate in his arms; that
child don't remember his doing it before, I don't believe. Did he
really buy the things, child, and pay for them? Well, now, it does beat
all! And Saturday night, too; that has always been his worst night.
Child, if you get hold of your father, and of my Norm, there ain't
anything in this world too good for you. I'd work my fingers to the
bone any time to help along, and be glad to."
It was all very sweet. Nettie ran away before the sentence was fairly
finished, waiting only to say, "Good-night, mother!" She had done this
every night since she came, but to-night she reached up and touched
her lips to the tall woman's thin cheek. Poor Nettie had been used to
kissing somebody every night when she went to bed. It had made her
homesick not to do it. But she had not wanted to kiss anybody in this
house, except the little girls. To-night, she wanted to kiss this
mother. She reached the back door, then stopped and looked back; her
father sat in his shirt sleeves, in the act of pulling off one boot.
Should she tell him good-night? He had not been there for her to do it
a single evening since she came home. Should she kiss him? Why not?
Wasn't he her father? Yet he might not like it. She could not be sure.
He was not like the fathers she had known. However, she came back on
tiptoe and stooped over him, her voice low and sweet:
"Good-night, father! I am going now." And then she put a kiss on the
rough cheek, just where little Sate had left her velvet touch.
Mr. Decker started almost as though somebody had struck him. But it was
not anger which filled his face.
"Good-night, my girl," he said, but his voice was husky; and Nettie ran
as fast as she could across the yard to the next house.
"I did not get the things," she said to Jerry, who stood in the doorway
waiting for her; "I couldn't; but, Jerry, I had such a wonderful time!
Father gave me money, and we went to market, and bought shoes and he
bought butter; and since we came home almost everything has happened. I
can't begin to tell you. I can get some of the things on Monday. Father
gave me money."
"All right," said Jerry; "I didn't get the skeletons ready, either; I
meant to work after tea, but instead of that I went fishing." And he
gave her a bright smile.
"Oh! I know it," said Nettie, breathless almost with eagerness. "That
is part of my nice time. Jerry, I am so glad you went fishing to-night,
and I am so glad you caught your fish; not the ones which we are to
eat for our Sunday breakfast, you know, but the other one. Do you
understand?"
And Jerry laughed. "I understand," he said, "I had a nice time, too. We
shall have some long stories to tell each other, I guess. We must go in
now."