KEREN-HAPPUCH, THE FIRST
"NOT any more coffee, dear," Mrs. Scollard said, pushing back her chair
from the breakfast table.
"You have hardly eaten a thing, motherkins," protested Happie in a
worried voice.
"One cannot always be a credit to one's family cook, Hapsie," returned
her mother. "My appetite has been mislaid somewhere between here and
the city hall, in the subway, I fancy."
"I think it must have gone over to the Gordons' flat, blown the wrong
whistle, the way the grocers do," said Happie. "You never in all your
life saw any one so hungry as those two boys were last night when we
came home from the park."
"You had a good time, didn't you, dear?" Mrs. Scollard smiled at her
second daughter, who was smiling over her recollection of the previous
afternoon when she and Margery and Laura had been to the Metropolitan
Museum with Bob and the two Gordon boys, and to tea afterwards in the
Gordon flat, and had laughed every three minutes of the six hours.
"What are you going to do to-day, my house-keepers?"
"Scour our pans, our Patty-Pans," said Happie promptly, before Margery
could speak.
"My dear, this little flat will be washed away!" protested her mother,
submitting her glove to Polly for buttoning.
"Mother, it truly does need cleaning," said Margery. "You don't see it
in real daylight, except on Sunday, but we know! What's the matter?"
Her mother had caught the back of a chair and swayed slightly forward,
but stood erect and smiling in an instant, though her face was a shade
paler than usual.
"Nothing, dearies; don't look so frightened! There is a shadow that
comes over my eyes of late, and for a second I am wiped out of
existence, but you see how quickly I come back! Indigestion, probably;
it really is nothing."
"How can you have indigestion when you don't eat?" demanded Margery,
not at all reassured by her mother's explanation.
"And how could there be digestion when one ate nothing?" retorted
her mother. "Now, Margery, don't look like my worried little
seventeen-years-old grandmother! I am not ill. Bob! Come, Bob! I am
ready for my escort."
Bob appeared struggling with the over-starched buttonhole in his
collar, through which his button refused to pass, and with his tie
dangling in one hand.
"Oh, say, Margery, come on, like a good sister!" he implored. And
Margery "came on," rightly interpreting this as an appeal for aid.
Her soft fingers deftly coaxed the stiff linen over the stud, and tied
the four-in-hand into the perfection of knots. Bob picked up his hat,
got into the coat which Margery held for him, and offered his mother
his arm to escort her as far as the subway station, according to his
daily custom, with as fine an air as if the narrowness of the exit did
not necessitate her immediately dropping the arm as soon as it was
accepted.
Together this mother and son started out every morning, and the
pressure of his mother's hand in parting, and the blessing in her sweet
eyes as she went bravely away to labor for him and his sisters would
have kept Bob safe through whatever temptations might assail him during
the day, just as her honest boy's tight hand squeeze sustained the
mother through her weary hours.
"We mustn't think about it, Margery," said Happie visibly giving
herself a mental shake, as if she were a dog shaking off troubled
waters, and answering the unspoken anxiety in her sister's eyes. "We've
got to do our part anyway. And it can't be bad--it would be so very
bad, so dreadful, if it were bad that it can't be bad at all."
Margery shook her head, and turned away to hide the gathering tears.
"Don't shake your head," protested Happie impatiently. "I can't bear to
have people shake their heads! It's worse than saying the most awful
thing! Of course she isn't ill, nor going to be! Do you suppose we
could live if motherkins were ill? Well, then! That proves she isn't
going to be, because it stands to reason we've got to live. Now, let's
hurry these dishes away, and clean those rooms, and make motherkins'
room particularly spick-and-span, and then we shall feel better."
"You're a comfort, Happie!" said Margery warmly, laying her face for
an instant on the girl's bright hair. "No wonder mother says you are
Happie, our happiness! You are a perfect tonic. You would be the very
one to lead a forlorn hope."
"I'd rather lead a hope that wasn't forlorn," laughed Happie, well
satisfied with the result of her effort at cheering Margery. "Just a
plain, every-day hopeful hope. Come on, Margery! Polly and Penny, it's
dusting time, but you needn't dust, because we're going to sweep, and
sweeping one room in a little flat means dust in all. Perhaps Polly can
help Laura make beds and get things ready for sweeping."
This busy household of children had each her appointed tasks and even
baby Penelope was supposed to be useful.
"I've got to finish a waltz I was composing; I can't do anything till
that's done," said Laura. It was not a little trying to find Laura's
genius in the way of her fair share of commonplace tasks, but Margery
and Happie were used to it, and when Laura would not, why, Laura would
not, and there was less than no use in trying to make her see justice.
"I'll sweep one room, while you dust it, and you can sweep the next
one, and I'll dust it; that's fair," said Margery watching Laura depart
piano-ward with her troubled look of elder-sisterly responsibility,
wishing that she could coax Laura into playing fair.
"And begin in mother's," added Happie, tying up her head so tight that
her eyebrows mounted a quarter of an inch, the left higher than the
right.
Margery's broom flew, and Happie dusted briskly the chairs set out in
the parlor; it was something like the old-fashioned game of solitaire
with marbles to clean in the Patty-Pan; one had to move pieces about
many times before they could be restored to their appointed place.
Dorée considered cleaning done solely for his entertainment, and flew
after Happie's duster till she and Polly and Penny were in a gale of a
frolic with him, and Margery had to come out to hug the little cat, who
looked like a dandelion in a high wind, as he raced over the floor.
The two active housewives worked their way into the third little
bedroom rapidly, leaving the first two of the Patty-Pan chambers
guiltless of dust. Laura tired of her waltz at last, and consented to
go out to do the errands for the day, taking pains with her toilet,
though her calls were to be limited to the grocer, the butcher and
the German delicatessen shop, to fill out Margery's neat list of
necessities.
"Wonder where Penny is!" Polly called to the older girls after Laura
had been gone ten minutes, and the silence of the Patty-Pans had been
broken only by the lively broom and duster.
"Laura didn't take her," Margery called back. "I saw her start alone.
She's in there, isn't she?"
"Not one bit," cried Polly, as if her little sister were made up of
fragments.
"Why, how queer!" Happie said, emerging from Bob's room with dangling
duster. "She couldn't have gone out."
"No; here's her hat," Polly began, but a little crow of a laugh
interrupted her.
Looking up, Happie and Polly saw Penny's dusty head appearing over the
edge of the wardrobe in her mother's room, Jeunesse Dorée beside it.
The step-ladder leaned against the wardrobe, explaining the ascent.
"Oh, Penny, what made you go up there in all that dust? We couldn't
sweep it off to-day and I know it's dusty up there," said Margery.
"Come down, dear."
"Dorée ranned up," said Penny, whose verbs were subject to
eccentricities in their past tense. "I wanted to be up too, so I
climbed. But I can't come down, not ever. You'll have to come up after
me."
"I don't believe she can," sighed Happie. The space between the top of
the wardrobe and the ceiling was so small that the child could not sit
up, and it would have been impossible for her to slide down to the top
step of the ladder without falling.
"I'll go up, Margery; let me go," said Happie, and mounted the
step-ladder.
There was a loud report, the support broke on one side of the ladder,
and down came poor Happie, "ladder and all," like Rock-a-bye Baby.
"Oh, Hapsie, dearest, are you hurt?" cried Margery, flying to her
rescue.
"Well, I am--surprised," replied Happie, slowly rising. "I don't think
I'm hurt beyond a few scratches, and my feelings."
"Now, how'll we get the baby down?" asked practical Polly, satisfied
that Happie was not harmed seriously, and at once turning to something
that needed doing.
"We'll have to borrow a step-ladder from the Gordons," said Margery.
"I'll go, though I am not fit to be seen! Do I look a perfect pig?"
"You couldn't look like a pig, Peggy; you were made so you'd look
clean if you were covered with muddy stove blacking," said Happie. And
Margery departed on her errand.
She came back with both Ralph and "Snigs" Gordon, and their
step-ladder. Snigs chuckled at the sight of Penny's smutty little face
on which the tears which she had shed at Happie's downfall had made an
effective paste. Ralph placed his step-ladder and climbed up to rescue
the damsel in distress and the yellow kitten.
Just then the bell rang, a sharp, decided peal and Polly ran to press
the button in the kitchen which unfastened the outer door to admit
visitors.
"Now, who could that be?" cried Margery, dismayed.
"It could be a postman, a peddler, a life insurance agent, a bill, a
friend, a foe, the landlord, company, country cousins--shall I go on?"
said Snigs.
"Never mind," said Happie. "We never have company in daytime, because
all the girls we know are in school, and mother's friends understand
that they can't find her here except at night. Mercy, there are all the
things from Bob's room in the hall! Nobody can get in."
"Margery and we came in--and the step-ladder. You shouldn't expect, nor
admit, any bigger company in this little flat, Happie. Here is Penny;
please take her--eke the kitten. I'll stay up here aloft till you find
out what's coming up-stairs, and whether there's room for me and your
guest both." And Ralph handed down Penny to Margery, and seated himself
on the top step of the ladder, folding his arms with a perfectly
idiotic expression on his face.
The girls could not help laughing, and then the bell at their upper
door rang smartly, and Margery squeezed through the narrow passage to
answer the summons.
[Illustration: "'HOW DO YOU DO, MARGERY?'"]
"How do you do, Margery?" said a voice, strong, insistent, crisp, but
decidedly well-bred. "I have come to spend the night. There is room;
there's a couch in the dining-room."
"My goodness me! It's Keren-happuch, the first," whispered Happie in
comical dismay. "She's as nice as she can be, but I don't know how to
take her--I believe I'm afraid of her. She pays lots of attention to
me, too, because I'm her namesake."
"Had I better come down?" Ralph whispered back. "Or shall Snigs come
up?"
Before Happie could answer this important question, Margery and her
guest came down the hall; the boys and Happie heard Miss Bradbury set a
chair on another to make more space for their passage.
"Happie, I have come to make a short visit," announced that vigorous
lady entering the little bedroom. "What in the world are you doing
with two boys here when you're sweeping? And why do you keep one on a
step-ladder?"
"We don't, Aunt Keren," said Happie presenting her flushed cheek for
Miss Bradbury's kiss, which was more hearty than the girl realized.
"Penny had climbed on top of the wardrobe, and our step-ladder broke
when I tried to get her down. So Ralph brought his over and rescued
her. This is Charles Gordon, Miss Bradbury, and that up there is Ralph,
his brother; they are the boys in the next flat."
"Yes. I hope then that they are more quiet than most boys," remarked
Miss Bradbury. "I shall put my bonnet here, and my coat over the back
of that chair. It is not so cold. I wore my medium weight coat; there
are signs of spring--time for it, middle of March!" She spoke in crisp,
curt sentences as if not to waste a word. The boys looked at her, and
wondered that Happie had said she half feared her. They saw a tall
woman, perhaps two or three years past sixty. Her eyes were keen, but
humorous, her ample mouth was decidedly firm, but not unamiable. Her
nose was the nose of an aristocrat, and her garments, though remote
from so much as an approach to fashion, were of the best materials,
worn with a carelessness that betokened them interesting only for their
usefulness to the wearer. Eccentric Miss Bradbury was stern, perhaps,
but kind, and rather a fine lady in her queer way.
"Do you know why I came?" asked the visitor turning from the bed where
she had laid her bonnet, and giving two rapid strokes to her hair
without a glance at the mirror.
"Because you wanted to see us, we hope?" suggested Margery with her
gentle smile.
"Obviously. Never make smooth, meaningless speeches, Margaret," said
Miss Bradbury. "I came, however, rather more because I felt that you
wanted to see me. When I feel a drawing to certain people, as if I
were being called to them across the space dividing us, I know those
people need me. It has happened to me at various times in my life,
and never has led me wrong. Last night I felt that I was called here;
here I am. That may sound to you young people like great nonsense, but
Keren-happuch Bradbury is not given to nonsense, and she is convinced
that she is right in this matter."
"I don't see why not, since we know that there is such a thing as
wireless telegraphy," observed Ralph from his perch, whence he had been
too much interested to remember to descend.
"That's a very sensible remark, my boy, though you look anything but
sensible roosting on that step-ladder in that anthropological manner,"
said Miss Bradbury with a twinkle.
"You don't mean that we are going to need you for--well, that there is
any trouble coming, Aunt Keren?" said Happie, her mind reverting to her
mother's tired face.
"I am not prophesying; I am visiting, Happie," retorted Miss Bradbury.
"I have no idea why I am here, but here I am, and that because I felt
sure that you needed me. Better let me get luncheon, and send these
boys home while you finish your work, children. If you came to rescue
Penelope from the top of the wardrobe, there is no reason why you
should wait for her to crawl up again, Master Ralph Gordon."
Ralph unwound himself and began to come down on this strong hint, but
he was not offended; on the contrary he liked this queer person who
would guard his young girl neighbors like a dragon, as he plainly saw.
As Ralph stood erect and folded his step-ladder the bell rang once
more, this time with a startling peal, and, as Margery ran to the
speaking-tube and to press the button in the kitchen, Laura's voice was
heard screaming in the outer hall: "Oh, open the door, open the door
quick!" and she rattled the knob frantically.
"What is it, what has happened?" cried Happie, catching the little girl
as she half fell over the threshold when she opened the door.
"Mama, oh, poor, poor mama!" wailed Laura, clutching at Happie.
"What?" gasped Happie, turning so white that Ralph sprang to help her.
"She has been sent home in a carriage. Oh, oh, I came along just in
time to see her. I ran up when the man rang the bell," moaned Laura.
Miss Bradbury came forward with a kind of collected haste. "Laura," she
said sternly, "stop your hysterics. I have no patience with hysterics.
As though there were anything dreadful about being sent home in a
carriage! Ralph, come with me. We will go down and help Mrs. Scollard
up-stairs."
Ralph Gordon brushed past the frightened Scollard girls, and followed
Miss Bradbury instantly. When they returned it was very slowly, and
the janitor of the house, with a stranger who had been passing, was
helping them. They were carrying Mrs. Scollard, and Margery and Happie
clutched each other, and Laura ran away to hide, fearing to look.
Their mother's face was ashen, and her eyes were closed. Polly began
to cry, and Penny fled to Snigs for comfort; for the first time in her
life her sisters were not equal to giving it.
"This way," said Miss Bradbury leading. The men laid Mrs. Scollard on
her own bed, and withdrew.
Her eyes fluttered and opened. "Don't be frightened, children," she
said. "I'm only tired."
"What doctor shall I fetch?" asked Ralph. "And isn't there something
Snigs could get from the drug store in the meantime?"
"Yes. Go for--who, Margery?" asked Miss Bradbury.
"Doctor Revel on the corner is the nearest," said Margery, so
frightened her lips would hardly form the words.
"Happie, heat milk," ordered Miss Bradbury. "Yes, go for that doctor,
boy; hasten. I suppose we must not prescribe, but I think it's pure
exhaustion."
"Mother put away some of that old wine which you sent her for
Christmas, Aunt Keren. She said it must be kept for sickness. Isn't
that best now?" asked Happie.
"Old port! The very thing! Get it. I'm glad to see you have
self-control, Happie," her godmother smiled at her approvingly as she
spoke. "I am going to make Laura behave herself and look after Polly
and Penny. Then we will undress your mother and make her comfortable."
She stalked grimly away with a look that promised scant allowance for
Laura's twelve years. Miss Bradbury was the sort of woman that expected
every child, as well as "every man to do his duty," thus outstripping
England as interpreted by Nelson.
By some means she succeeded in dominating Laura, and the two younger
children's voices hushed, as Laura took them in hand.
Then this efficient woman who had come so opportunely to the frightened
tenants of the Patty-Pans, returned to get Mrs. Scollard comfortably in
bed, where she lay with closed eyes when Ralph returned with the doctor.
"You've been a good and useful boy; I thoroughly approve of you," said
Miss Bradbury, and somehow Ralph felt as if he had been brevetted. Miss
Keren-happuch was such a strong character that her commendation carried
with it the conviction of a genuine gain.
The Gordon boys slipped away to their own apartment across the hall.
Margery and Happie waited anxiously, holding each other fast, while the
doctor examined his patient.
"No disease; pure exhaustion, but that is quite enough," he said,
coming out through the sliding door to the waiting girls. "She has been
spurring herself on for months; the worn nerves can go no further. She
must have complete rest and good nursing for a year, perhaps; certainly
for a long time. Then I can promise that she will be perfectly
restored. It is nothing serious, nothing to be alarmed about, I assure
you."
The doctor bowed himself out, and Miss Bradbury attended him to the
door.
Margery and Happie stood silently watching him go, each occupied with
the same thought. Nothing serious? When the promise that their mother
should be restored _if_ she took the needed rest held the implication
that she would never be well without it! And when there was no money
but what she had earned, earned at the price of this breakdown!
Nothing serious! Why, nothing could be more serious, as this beloved
mother's young daughters realized with the hand of this, their first
acquaintance with real sorrow, heavily gripping their hearts.