FIRE, AND OTHER ESCAPES
ONE'S mother never has the appearance of any particular age. She does
not look precisely young, because hers is the face to which our baby
eyes are raised for comfort and guidance, it is from her that we
receive and hope for all things. So it is impossible to realize that
she is quite young. On the other hand the familiar, beloved face never
wears the look of age, no matter how wrinkled it be, nor how far we
have traveled from childhood. It is too dear, too perfectly the spring
that quenches our thirst for unfailing love ever to look to us withered
and age-stricken as it must to strangers. The young Scollards had never
stopped to consider whether their mother was quite elderly, or very
youthful--her age was swallowed up in the fact of her motherhood. In
reality Charlotte Scollard was but just approaching the milestone of
the fourth decade. She was a pale, slenderly built woman, with a worn,
sweet face, like Margery's, but older and saddened. It wore a look of
ill-health which her children saw too frequently to recognize fully,
though the three eldest half perceived it at times, with a tightening
of fear around their hearts.
Polly and Penny clung around their mother's waist as she entered, Bob
and Margery encircled her from each side with their loving arms, while
Happie hugged her breathless, and Laura vainly strove for an opening
for her own welcome.
"Such a dear little home! Such joy to get home to you, my blessings!"
said the mother, as she said each night. "Have you been good and happy
all this day?"
She went into the front room which was that nondescript allowed by
flat life, neither drawing-room, library nor living-room, but a little
of each. It was a pretty room, made so by its furnishing of books and
pictures, and the mother looked about her, feeling anew that it was
well worth the effort that taxed her slender strength to the utmost to
maintain this nest and her nestlings within it.
"We've found a name for the flat at last, motherkins!" cried Happie, as
she removed her mother's hat pins, while Laura and Margery unbuttoned
her coat, and the two least girls pulled off a glove from each hand.
"Happie has," corrected Margery. "It's a nice, cozy, funny little name,
just like this family."
"Tell me," smiled Mrs. Scollard.
"Patty-Pans!" announced Happie triumphantly. "I thought of it when I
was pouring my cake into the cup pans. Don't you know that these flats
are precisely like a patty-pan, every room following after and joining
on to the next one the way the cups do in those sheets?"
"I see the resemblance." Mrs. Scollard laughed, and the weariness went
out of her face for the moment as her eyes danced. "Shall we have a die
cut for our letter paper: 'Patty-Pans,' and printed in bright silver
like new tins? Only I'm afraid our correspondents might think that all
our letters should be dated April first!"
"And the flat across is rented; the family came in to-day," Bob said,
adding his information to the small fund of entertainment which it was
the children's custom to amass daily for their mother's return.
"Oh, me! I hope they are not people who will play the piano all the
evening when we are at our lessons!" Mrs. Scollard sighed, remembering
past troubles.
"Two big boys and their mother; I guess not," said Bob succinctly. "The
one we saw across the dumb waiter looked a good sort, and full of fun.
I got home to-day earlier, mother. Mr. Felton told me that if you would
agree to letting me come for all day he would make it worth our while."
"I am glad to hear that, Bob; it shows that he likes you. But I will
never consent to giving you up for all day to earning, leaving no time
for your studies, until we are absolutely driven to it. As long as I
can earn enough to support us all--with strict economy, to be sure, but
enough--I will not let my only son lose his chance for an education.
Half a day is all that I will let you spend at the office, dear Bob.
But thank Mr. Felton for me; tell him I am glad indeed that he thinks
you worth having all day. Now, I must get ready for dinner. I hope it
is very good and abundant, lassies, for I am pitiably hungry." Mrs.
Scollard rose as she spoke, and pulled aside the sliding-door at the
end of the room. It led into her own chamber, lighted by the glass in
this door, the second room of the series of seven, arranged, as Happie
had discovered, in true patty-pan order.
The girls ran through to the kitchen to serve the dinner, while Penny
and Dorée lingered with the mother, waiting for the special petting to
which, as the baby, Penny was entitled.
"I always think of how the girls in Little Women got ready for their
mother to come home, don't you? When we are waiting for our marmee, I
mean," said Happie, arranging her little cakes on the delicate Limoges
plate. "They swept up the hearth and put their mother's slippers down
to warm. I don't think flats are really homes; you can't do that kind
of comfy, homey things in a flat."
"But our mother can come home just as truly, and that is the only
important thing. We are fortunate to have a home," said Margery, with a
suggestion of reproach in her voice.
"Mercy! Don't I know it," retorted Happie. "But won't you be glad when
we are able to make a home for mother instead of her making one for
us?"
"Next winter I shall do something towards it," said Margery in a tone
of quiet conviction. "You will be old enough to keep house then without
my help."
"I'd rather be the one to go out; I'm better fitted for it," said
Happie. "Dinner is served, Mrs. Scollard, mum," she added, putting her
head out of the dining-room door, and calling down the three-foot hall
which carried sound like a tunnel.
Mrs. Scollard did not prove her own assertion as to her appetite. The
children, anxiously watching her, saw her taste her food, and push it
away uneaten, telegraphing their uneasiness to one another as she did
so.
"You said you were hungry, dear Deceiver," Happie reproached her at
last.
"I was, dear; I felt as if I could not wait for my dear girls' good
things, but when I see them I cannot eat, although I appreciate the
perfect seasoning, and how fortunate I am in my cooks." Mrs. Scollard
laughed a little as she spoke, and her eyes rested lovingly on Margery
and Happie, but she only broke a corner of one of the golden patty-pan
cakes, and took bird-like tastes of the delicate blanc mange. It seemed
to the older girls and Bob that the pallor of her face, the shadows
under her eyes, the droop of her lips had never been so apparent.
Before they had time to dwell on the thought and what it might
portend, there came a great clatter from the kitchen, and Dorée flew
into the dining-room with his golden fur so electrified that he looked
like a four-legged sunflower, with very little difference in his size
and shape at any point.
"What under the canopy----" Bob began, jumping up from the table and
running out, followed by his sisters.
Somebody was hammering madly on the dumb waiter door with a competent
stick. Bob opened the door emphatically, and there, in the opposite
doorway, stood the boy whom they had seen in the afternoon, his stick
raised for further pounding, but with a broad smile on his face that
did not suggest anything in the least malicious.
"Say, what's the matter with you?" demanded Bob.
"Would you be so very kind as to return our cat?" asked the boy with
exaggerated mildness.
"We haven't got your cat; that's ours," said Bob, pointing over his
shoulder to where Jeunesse Dorée was standing sniffing the situation
with greatly elongated body, having returned to investigate what had
frightened him, with true feline nervous courage and curiosity.
"'Tis true, my lord, and pity 'tis 'tis true,'" returned the boy.
"For that's a beauty cat. Ours is merely a cat of many colors, but we
are fond of him. He is on your fire escape, having leaped across from
this one. From the sounds I have heard, I think he has upset a pan of
something, though it's too dark for me to see."
"Oh, my fudge!" cried Happie, and threw up the window.
A tiger cat immediately jumped into the kitchen, to Dorée's intense
disapproval, and Happie fished her pan of fudge from between the slats
of the fire escape floor, where it had lodged, caught by the transverse
slats on its way down to the ground. The candy bore the unmistakable
imprint of the tiger cat's "paddy-paw" feet, and Happie surveyed it
with chagrin, while Polly stroked the interloper, and Penny clasped
struggling Dorée to her breast, to prevent his manifest intention to
punish his neighbor.
"Was it your fudge? I'm awfully sorry," said the boy across. "I guess
Whoop-la sat in it."
"I guess so too," returned Happie with a laugh. "It's hard luck after
broiling one's face to make it. Hard luck for you, too, because we'd
have offered you some if it hadn't been spoiled."
"That's noble of you, but I'm afraid you wouldn't, because I shouldn't
have knocked on your dumb waiter door, and so we wouldn't have met if
Whoop-la hadn't gone over. That is, we shouldn't have met till after
you had eaten up all the fudge. Of course we were bound to scrape
acquaintance. Would you mind handing me Whoop-la?" The boy bowed as
he spoke, and his eyes laughed in spite of his preternaturally solemn
manner.
"Such a name for a cat!" exclaimed Bob. He picked up the tiger cat and
passed him across to his master, leaning well over the ledge of the
dumb waiter to do so. "Suppose you come around to see us tonight," Bob
suggested. "We generally study and recite evenings, but to-night is
Saturday, and a holiday. Won't you come?"
"I suppose the correct thing is for you to call on me first, you
being the oldest--no, the older inhabitant, but I'll waive ceremony.
I'd better waive it, because there isn't anything in this flat but
bedlam--boxes and chairs you can't tell apart, burlap, and excelsior. I
couldn't very well ask you over. My mother and younger brother haven't
come yet, so I'm a little lonely. I will come around, if you don't
mind, and thank you for asking me." The boy received his cat with hands
so considerate of cat-nerves that the Scollard girls, noting, approved
of him at once.
"Just give us time to scurry the dishes away," laughed Happie. "We're
are own servants, and we couldn't entertain you while we were at work.
Give us half an hour for finishing up, and then come."
"It would entertain me very much to watch you work," said this queer
boy, "but I'll wait. Good-bye for thirty harrowing minutes. My watch
goes fast; you won't mind?"
The Scollards laughed as Bob shut the dumb waiter door.
"He's a character," cried Bob, elated at the prospect of his visitor.
Mrs. Scollard bore off Penny to bed, which she shared with her mother,
and lying down beside the baby for her nightly story-telling, fell
asleep beside her from sheer exhaustion.
Margery, Happie and Laura washed and wiped the dishes, and Polly put
them away, with Bob's help for the higher closet shelves. They worked
so fast that only twenty of the thirty minutes were consumed by the
task. They were rather excited by the coming of a caller of their own
age. Their mother discouraged them from making acquaintances lightly.
Living, as they did, in a neighborhood of low rents and crowded
apartment-houses, she feared for them contact with young minds less
carefully shielded from the knowledge of evil than their own, dreaded
their possible contact with manners and morals such as she would not
have had them imitate.
Happie's bright hair was curly and moist around her temples from the
hasty dash of water which she had thrown over her face, and Margery was
daintily drying her fingers one by one when the bell rang, so prompt
was the new boy in keeping his appointment to the moment. Polly opened
the door for him, and in he walked, hailed by a shout of laughter from
Bob which brought the girls in at once, although Margery was conscious
of lingering dampness around her little finger.
The new boy had made a label for himself of a box cover, and on it he
had written his name, "Ralph Gordon," in very bold letters for all who
ran to read. This improvement upon a visiting card he had hung around
his neck, so that there could not be an instant's doubt as to whom the
Scollards were entertaining.
"Now if you'd only stand by the dumb waiter whistles in the cellar
with that thing on, we'd never be troubled with your groceries as
we were to-day," said Bob, shaking hands with the arrival. "Wait a
minute. You've set the example of labor-saving introductions; I'll
follow it. Here, girls, draw up in line, oldest first, and so on. Now,
this, Mr.--let's see, oh, yes! Mr. Ralph Gordon----" Bob pretended to
be near-sighted, and to consult Ralph's card at short range. "This,
Mr. Ralph Gordon, is my oldest and elder sister, Margery, christened
Margaret. This is Keren-happuch, next younger than I. This is Laura,
musical at twelve. This is pretty Polly, Polly-put-the-kettle on, my
sensible, reliable sister of nine. Penny, you can't see because she is
in bed. She's the baby, and we consider her a bright Penny, a fairly
new one, for she's only four years old, and we wouldn't give her for
a five dollar gold piece, as some people do bright new pennies. I am
Robert, 'Robert toi qui j'aime'--you know the air? I have only to
mention that the last named Scollard is the flower of the family, and
my duty's done."
"Fully," commented Margery, with her gentle smile. "We would not say
that he is not _a_ flower, but _the_ flower--well, that's another
matter."
"Yes," said Ralph with a little look at Margery that held the value of
a compliment.
"Quite another matter. He's not a violet, anyway, because that's a
modest flower. But what did he call you?" he added turning to Happie.
Happie laughed. "Did you ever hear such a name?" she cried.
"Keren-happuch. But they mercifully call me Happie. I was named after
an old lady, a friend of mother's mother, and she was named after her
grandmother. I think they might as well have stopped with her, and not
gone on handing down such a fearful name!"
"Well, it is rather a heavy weight," admitted Ralph. "But Happie is
enough to make up for it. I suppose it's a case of 'What's the odds as
long as you're Happie.' It ought to be a kind of fairy godmother for
whom you're named! Sounds like an old lady who was the only one of her
pattern, and who showered gifts on mere mortals."
"Miss Keren-happuch Bradbury is the only one of her pattern; you're
right there," Bob answered for Happie. "But she's not a fairy
godmother. She's as eccentric as she can be, most interesting, and as
independent as the Thirteen Colonies on July, 1776; rather mannish in
her ways, but very thoroughly a gentlewoman. However, she's not rich,
or we suppose she's not, so she can't play fairy godmother very well."
"And we need fairy godmothers," added Happie. "Our dear father didn't
know how to get rich, and when he died, four years ago, poor little
mother had to take his place. She's such a frail, delicate little
Charlotte-mother! It's not easy. We are all pining for the day when she
won't have to work for us, but we can work for her. How she goes down
in town every morning to an office. We keep house alone. Bob is in a
real estate office in the forenoon, but mother insists on his staying
at home to study in the afternoon; she is such a learned darling that
she gives us all a good education by teaching us at night, though she
is tired to death. Isn't she blessed? That's all of us; our history."
Ralph Gordon's humorous face grew grave, and a look of admiration and
respect dawned in his laughing eyes. "It's great," he said in boyish
commendation of true heroism. "I have a good mother, too," he added.
"My father died when Snigs--that's my brother; he's thirteen, and I
guess his name's Charley, but of course Snigs is much better--well,
when Snigs was three years old and I was five, father died. Mother
didn't have much either. She has kept us at school, and managed pretty
well--you see she came of good old fighting, revolutionary stock, and
she never dipped her colors once, though she had enough to discourage
her. She means me to go to college--she has gone without everything
she could give up to save enough to start me, and for the rest I am to
help myself through. She has moved up here thinking she could rent a
room or so in this flat to some of the boys up there at Columbia, and
so get on better until I start, which can't be for two years more. I
guess my mother is stronger, more able to bear her burdens than yours
is, from what you say, but I've got my hat off to my mother, too, every
time. Talk about women's rights! They're about as near right as they
can be, rights or not, and when there's anything to be done they don't
fall far behind men in pluck and stick-to-it-iveness, I notice."
"Hear, hear!" cried Margery and Happie. "We're much obliged."
"Don't mention it," said Ralph generously. "I hope you will live up to
my high opinion."
"I wonder if your cat--Whoop-la, isn't it?--got into both pans of
fudge, Happie?" suggested Margery.
"Sure enough!" cried Happie departing on this hint, as Ralph exclaimed:
"Thank goodness, you are beginning to prove yourself worthy of my
confidence in your sex!"
Happie returned with a pan of fudge, which she examined carefully
under the gaslight, turning it at different angles to make sure that
Whoop-la's paws had not touched it.
"I think it's all right," she announced at last. "It would surely show
if he had stepped into it."
"Certainly," assented Ralph promptly. "And departing leave behind him,
footprints in the bands of line. I see you've marked it off into
squares. But if he had stepped on it, N'importe! as we said when I was
Minister to Paris. Whoop-la is the cleanest cat on Manhattan Island. He
licks each snowy paw till it's free from fleck or flaw."
"Ugh!" shuddered Laura. "How disgusting! Think of eating candy he'd
touched with licked paws!"
"Oh, he didn't, Laura!" cried Margery. "He got into one pan, but he
missed the other."
"I believe you like nonsense as well as a Scollard--better than Laura
and Polly, who worry because it doesn't seem quite sensible," said
Happie approving the new boy more and more.
He shook his head reproachfully at Laura and Polly. "Do you not know
the full title of this highest form of philosophy, my sisters?" he
asked. "It is called: _Non sensus sed_, defense--us. That means it
is not sense but a defense, because it defends us from the horrible
fate of being dull. This has been contracted into one English
word--nonsense. But the whole title fits better."
Laura stared doubtfully at the lecturer, and Polly gazed at him with
round-eyed admiration, while Margery, Bob and Happie chuckled over his
fooling, beginning to suspect that this merry-looking boy with the
queer ways was decidedly clever.
"Pretty good fudge, Sister Keren-happuch; just a suspicion too sugary,
but I can use it," said Bob, helping himself to a corner piece,
and devouring it with the same relish he had shown for its three
predecessors.
"Same here!" remarked Ralph, following Bob's example. "It will go."
"So it seems," laughed Happie. "Much obliged."
"And I must do in like manner," Ralph supplemented his preceding
remark, rising. "I am tired with the effort of superintending the van
men and moving things around after they had gone. I felt tired enough
to dread the evening all alone in the lunatic asylum our place looks
like to-night. So I'm no end grateful to you for taking me off my own
hands. Hope you'll all come to see me. Next time maybe we'll get at
music--I play the violin and the mandolin a little, and I see some one
fiddles and pianos here."
"Bob plays the violin, but Laura is our musical girl; we all sing more
or less, and better or worse," said Happie. "Please come again. I'm
sorry you couldn't see mother for she is--well, you will see her by and
by."
She held out her honorably burnt little right hand, which had been
scalded that night by the gravy, and Ralph took it with a look of
hearty liking and respect.
"You're all my sort," he said. "I'm mighty glad we're neighbors.
You'll like my mother, too, though I say it who should, for I know her
better than any one else ever can."
Margery laughed, and shook hands so cordially that Bob and Happie knew
that Ralph had accomplished the difficult feat of winning reserved
Margery's approval in his first visit.
"We've had cat escapes, fudge escapes, loneliness escapes, formality
escapes, all turning on Whoop-la on your fire escape," said Ralph. "We
ought to sing, 'For We Are Jolly Good Fellows,' in parting, but I'm
afraid we should disturb your mother and wake up your Penny. Good-bye,
and heaps of thanks."
"Hold on; I'll get my top coat and glasses, and take you home in my
automobile," said Bob, opening the door, and shaking hands with his new
friend across the narrow hall as Ralph fitted his key into the door
opposite. "You won't wait? Good-night, then, and drop over as often as
you can, unceremoniously, like your intelligent Whoop-la."
"He's all right," he added to the girls as he closed the door of
Patty-Pans.