Mrs Prentice would have turned away from the gate of the Morse cottage
and gone her homeward way, too, had she not heard a cackling little
"ahem!" behind her. There was the wizened Mr. Chumley right on her
heels.
"Very fortunate escape--very fortunate escape, indeed," said the
landlord.
"It was," agreed the repentant lady. "I might have gone farther and done
much worse in my excitement."
"Oh, no," said he. "I mean it was fortunate for the girl--and her
mother. Of course, they've got nothing, and had the money really been
missing it would have looked bad."
Mrs. Prentice eyed him in a way that would have made a person with a
thinner skin writhe a little. But Mr. Chumley's feelings were not easily
hurt.
"You evidently know all about those people?" said the lady, brusquely.
"Oh, yes. They've been my tenants for some years. But rents are going up
in this neighborhood and----Well, I can get a much more satisfactory
tenant."
"You have been warning them out of the cottage?" asked Mrs. Prentice,
quickly.
"Not just that," said the old man, rubbing his hands together as though
he had an imaginary cake of soap between them and was busily washing the
Morse affair from his palms. "You see, I've told them I shall be obliged
to increase their rent at New Year's."
"What do they pay you now?"
Mr. Chumley told her frankly. He wasn't ashamed of what he took for the
renting of that particular piece of property. In a business way, he was
doing very well, and business was all that mattered with Mr. Chumley.
"But that's better than _I_ can get for the same sort of a cottage in
this very vicinity," exclaimed Mrs. Prentice.
"Ah! these agents!" groaned Mr. Chumley, shaking his head. "They never
will do as well as they should for an owner. I found that out long ago.
If I was a younger man, Mrs. Prentice, I would take hold of your
property and get you twenty-five per cent. more out of it."
"Perhaps," commented the lady. "And you intend to raise the rent on
these people?"
"I have done so. Three dollars. I can get it. Besides, a woman alone
ain't good pay," said Chumley. "And they're likely to fall behind any
time in the rent. Most uncertain income----"
"Is it true that Mrs. Morse writes for a living?"
"I don't know what sort of a livin' she makes. Foolish business. She'd
better take in washing, or go out to day's work--that's what she'd
better do," snarled the old man. "This messin' with pen, ink, an' a
typewriter an' thinkin' she can buy pork an' pertaters on the
proceeds----"
"Perhaps she doesn't care for pork and potatoes, my friend," laughed the
lady, eyeing Mr. Chumley whimsically.
But a flush had crept into the old man's withered cheek again. He was on
his hobby and he rode it hard.
"Poor folks ain't no business to have finicky idees, or tastes," he
declared. "They gotter work. That's what they was put in the world
for--to work. There's too many of 'em trying to keep their hands clean,
an' livin' above their means. Mary Morse is a good, strong, hearty
woman. She'd ought to do something useful with her hands instead of
doing silly things with her mind."
"So she writes silly things?"
"Stories! Not a word of truth in 'em, I vum! I read one of 'em once,"
declared Mr. Chumley. "Widder Morse wants to ape these well-to-do folks
that live 'tother end o' Whiffle Street. Keeps her gal in high school
when she'd ought to be in a store or a factory, earnin' her keep. She's
big enough."
"Do you think that's a good way to bring up girls--letting them go to
work so early in life?"
"Why not?" asked the old man, in wonder. "They kin work cheap and it
helps trade. Too much schoolin' is bad for gals. They don't need it,
anyway. And all the fal-lals and di-does they l'arn 'em in high school
now doesn't amount to a row of pins in practical life. No, ma'am!"
"But do these Morses have such a hard time getting along?" asked Mrs.
Prentice, trying to bring the gossipy old gentleman back to the main
subject.
"They don't meet their bills prompt," snapped the landlord. "Now! here I
was in the house to-night. I suggested that the gal pay the rent for
December; it'll be due in a day or two. And she didn't have it. They're
often late with it. I have to come two or three times before I get it,
some months. And I hear they owe the tradesmen a good deal."
"They are really in need of sympathy and help, then?"
"How's that?" demanded Mr. Chumley, with his cupped hand to his ear as
though he could not believe his own hearing.
The lady repeated her remark.
"There you go! You're another of them folks that waste their substance.
I could see that by your keerless handlin' of money," croaked Mr.
Chumley. "The Widder Morse don't need help--she needs sense, I tell ye."
"And do you know what you need, Mr. Chumley?" asked the lady, suddenly,
and with some asperity.
"Heh?"
"You need charity! We all need it. And we've gossiped enough about our
neighbors, I declare! Good night, Mr. Chumley," she added, and turned
off through the side street toward her own home, leaving the old man to
wend his own way homeward, wagging his head and muttering discourteous
comments upon "all fool women."
Mrs. Prentice was a widow herself. But she had no mawkish
sentimentality. She had lived in the world too many years for that. She
was not given to charities of any kind. But the thought of Jess Morse
and her widowed mother clung to her mind like a limpet to a rock--even
after she had dismissed her maid that night and retired.
"Just think!" she muttered, with her head on the pillow. "If that purse
had been really lost I might have made that young girl a lot of
trouble--and her mother. And she is such a frank, courageous little
thing!
"We _do_ need more charity--the right kind. Somehow--yes--I _must_ do
something to help that girl."