THROUGH that winter I caught occasionally a glimpse of Mary Mason on the
street, but as I had not the pleasure of her acquaintance, I did not
stop to ask her how she was getting on. My wife told me, however, that
she lived in a room over a store down town, and took her meals out, and
that she was succeeding very well with her subscription list.
"The girl is all right, if only the gossips would let her alone. Some of
them assert that she had a child in the Refuge, and though the ladies on
our committee indignantly deny that, they shake their heads, and say of
course they don't know anything about her now."
"It's the only excitement a lot of these women have," said I. "They
wouldn't read a French novel for the world, and some of them wouldn't be
seen in a theater, so they have to satisfy their morbid craving for
sensationalism by hearing and repeating all sorts of unsavory tales--and
they do it in the name of charity! They're very sorry that there is so
much wickedness in the world, but since it is there, they enjoy the
investigation of details, and it doesn't matter very much whether
they're doing any good or not."
"There aren't any details to investigate, so far as Mary Mason is
concerned. I took pains to make sure of that, when I heard that a big
hulk of a machinist, who rooms on the same flat, was telling lies about
her, just because she refused to have anything to say to him."
When I was leaving the _Echo_ office at noon one day I saw Henderson's
handsome black span, with the wreck of a sleigh behind them, come down
the street at a full gallop, and I was just debating with myself whether
my duty as a citizen, which called me to attempt to stop the brutes, was
stronger than my duty to my wife and family, which bade me stay where I
was, when a young lady jumped the snow ridge at the edge of the sidewalk
and flung herself at the bit of the nearest horse. The powerful animal
swung her right off her feet, but he was checked for an instant, and in
that instant a young man seized the mate on the other side; the team was
stopped and surrounded by a crowd directly. Then I saw it was Mary Mason
who was the heroine of the drama. She withdrew from the throng,
straightened her flat hat above her rosy face, and walked off with her
habitual indifferent air.
"She's got good grit, that girl," said I to myself, but I thought no
more about her till I came home on a certain evening in March, and found
her comfortably ensconced on one side of our nursery fire, while my
mother from the other side cast suspicious glances at her over her
spectacles. "Miss Mason," had supper with us, and then I retired to my
big leather-covered spring rocker in the parlor to await developments.
That chair needs to be approached with deference, for it has a
precocious trick of either tilting in the air the feet of any unwary
occupant, or of tipping him out on the floor. I know its disposition,
can preserve my proper balance, and have never been flung either forward
or backward--except once each way.
Presently Belle followed me, "loaded up," as the boys say.
"It seems as if I was never to get free from the responsibility of that
child."
"What's up now?"
"Down town to-day I met the chief of police----"
"Great chum of yours!"
"Yes, indeed. We've had considerable conversation at different times
about some of my cases. To-day he said, 'You're interested in that young
girl, Mary Mason, aint you, Mrs. Gemmell?' 'Yes,' said I, though my
heart sank, and I didn't see why he couldn't have addressed any other
one of the committee; 'anything wrong with her?' 'Not yet,' said he;
'but there will be pretty soon if somebody doesn't look after her.
There's a scheme on foot to take her off to Chicago--to sell a book--so
they say.' 'Good gracious! Nobody would dare!' 'Wouldn't they, though?'
said he. 'There's a well-known drummer in this town at the bottom of
it. He's aware the girl has no friends, and in Chicago she don't even
know a soul. It's too bad, for I've had my eye on the young woman all
winter, and she's kept perfectly straight.'
"You may think, Dave, that I ought to be hardened to horrors by this
time, but I became fairly dazed as the chief of police went on to say,
'I can't move in the matter. We never can touch these things until the
mischief is done; but if you like to make inquiries, you'll find out
that I've been telling you the truth.'
"When he left me, I turned to come home, not knowing what to do, but
going round the first corner, didn't I run right into Mary Mason
herself! I hadn't laid eyes on her for a couple of months. 'How d'ye do,
Mrs. Gemmell?' she said, for I stopped and stared at her as if she'd
been a white crow. 'What about "Darkest Africa?"' I found breath to
ask, though it was Darkest Chicago I had in my mind. 'I've done with
that now,' she said; 'did very well, too.' 'And what are you going to do
next?' 'I dunno. Whatever turns up. I've got an offer to go to Chicago
to sell a book there.' I caught her by the arm as if I'd been the chief
of police. 'Mary, will you please go to my house and wait there for me
till I come?' 'Oh, yes, mawm, if you want me to,' and off she went,
asking no questions.
"Well, Dave, I've put in four hours of amateur detective work this
afternoon, and I feel as if I needed a moral bath. I found out it was
all true, as the chief of police had said. There was a plot to ruin the
girl, and I don't think the author of it will forget his interview with
me in a hurry."
"What good will that do the young woman? There are plenty more of his
kind in the world, and with her inherited tendencies I suppose it's only
a question of time--how soon she goes to the bad."
"David Gemmell!"
It is worth while making a caustic speech occasionally to see Isabel
rise to her full height. Her brown eyes positively emit sparks, and her
gray hair, which she wears waved and parted, gives her an air of
distinction that would not be out of place upon an avenging spirit.
"I came home all tired out," she went on, sinking into the chair beside
mine, "and looking through the nursery window, there sat Mary Mason with
our little Chrissie on her knee. The two faces in the firelight looked
so much alike that my heart gave a great thump, and I vowed that girl
should never be set adrift again. This is the second time she has been
cast upon my shore, and I must see to her."
So Mary Mason dropped into our family circle without anybody having very
much to say in the matter--except my mother!
"Wha's yon 'at Eesabell's ta'en up wi' the noo?"
"Her name's Mason," said I; "Mary Mason."
"I h'ard yer wife was thinkin' o' keepin' a hoosemaid, but I didna
expeck tae see her pap hersel' doon at the table wi' the fem'ly."
"She's not a housemaid. She's just staying with us for a while."
"Ye'd think Eesabell micht hae eneugh adae wi' her ain, 'thoot takin' in
ony strangers."
"But Mary is to help with the housework, in return for her board and
clothes."
"Let her wear a kep an' apron, then, an' eat wi' Marg'et."
"Margaret might object," and I laughed at the probable dismay of our
stalwart, rough-and-ready five-foot-tenner, should this ladyfied blonde
permanently invade her domain.
"Hoo lang's she gaun to st'y?"
"That's more than I can tell you."
When Mary had been a week in the house, it became apparent that
something must be done with her.
"She's bound she'll not go back to the public school, Dave, and yet she
cannot read or write. Do you think we can afford to send her to
boarding-school--to a convent, for instance, where she'd be well looked
after, and allowances made for her backwardness?"
Belle and I were out driving together. It was the first springlike
evening we had had, and I was trying Jim Atwood's new mare on Maple
Avenue, which had been newly block-paved. So engrossed was I in watching
her paces I did not reply to my wife at once, and she continued:
"You were going to get me a horse and a victoria this spring, but I'm
willing to give them up to send Mary to school."
"Please yourself, my dear. You would be the one to use the turnout. I'm
content to borrow from my friends. Isn't she a beauty?"
Belle came out of space to answer me.
"Yes, just now; but she'll not be when she's old. Her features are not
good at all; her forehead's too narrow, and her nose too broad. Were it
not for her lovely hair and complexion, she'd have nothing to brag about
but a pair of very ordinary blue eyes."
"Who? The mare?"
"Don't be stupid, Dave, and do attend to what I am saying. I hardly ever
have a chance to speak to you, goodness knows!"
"You get the editorial ear oftener and longer than anybody else."
"Lend it to me now, then. Don't you think a convent would be the best
place for Mary?"
"Perhaps--as there are no theosophical educational institutions that we
know about."
"Mary isn't far enough on for theosophist yet. She'll have to come back
many times before she is. The Roman Catholic Church is on her plane this
incarnation."
"It does seem to catch the masses, that's a fact, whereas your theosophy
doesn't appear to be practicable for uneducated people nor for
children."
"I don't agree with you there."
"Then why were you so anxious to send Watty to a church school to finish
his education, and why are you on the lookout already for a
boarding-school for the two girls where they will have the best of
Christian influences? What is your object in being so particular that
the younger boys are regular in their attendance at our surpliced
choir?"
"It gives them a good idea of music--but that is not the point just now.
Can we afford to send Mary Mason to a convent, or can we not?"
"Choose between her and the buggy mare 'suitable for a lady to drive,'"
said I; but in reality it was my mother who settled the question.
When we came home that evening she was sitting by the fireside,
"Nursin' her wrath to keep it warm."
"Ye maun either pit yon hizzy oot the hoose, or I'll hitta gang."
"What's the matter now, mother?"
"I tell't her to brush the boys' bits tae be ready for the schule in the
mornin'. They were thrang wi' their lessons an' she wasna daein' a han's
turn."
"And what did she say?"
"S'y! I wush ye'd seen the leuk she gi'ed me!"
"The boys can brush their ain bits," said she; "I'm no' their servant."
I laughed.
"It's well seen she hasn't been brought up in Scotland, or she would
know it was the bounden duty of the girls in the house to wait on the
boys."
"An' a hantle better it is than to see the laddies aye rinnin' efter the
lasses, tendin' them han' an' fut as they dae here. When a man comes
hame efter his d'y's wark, he should be let sit on his sate, an' hae a'
things dune for him."
"David," said Belle, sinking to a footstool at my feet with a dramatic
gesture, "you shall never button my boots again! But seriously," she
continued, as mother withdrew in high dudgeon to her sanctum upstairs,
"I don't think Mary should be expected to brush the boys' boots. We
didn't engage her as servant, and even if we had, there isn't a hired
girl in this part of the country that wouldn't make a fuss if she had to
brush the boots of the man of the house, not to mention the boys. We'll
have to pack Mary off somewhere, if only to keep the peace."
So Mary was sent to a convent, and at the end of three months came back
for her holidays to our summer cottage at Interlaken. Being so near the
big lake does not agree with my mother, and she rarely spends more than
a week with us there, but during July and August visits my married
sister in town. The coast was clear for Belle and me to decide what
progress had been made in the making of Mary, and we fancied we
discovered a good deal.
"What have they done to you, those nuns, to tone you down so quickly,
Mary?" I asked, as she sat beside me, swinging in a low rocker, and
looking so pretty that I was quite proud of her as an ornament to our
front veranda.
"I dunno," she said, "unless it was the exercise for sitting perfectly
still on a row of chairs. A nun goes behind us and drops a big book or
something, and any girl that jumps gets a bad mark."
"Capital!" I cried; "no wonder you have learned repose of manner."
Thus encouraged, the girl continued:
"Then we have little parties and receptions, and we have to converse
with the nuns and with each other, and anybody that mentions one of the
three D's gets a bad mark."
"The three D's?"
"Yes, sir--Dress, Disease, and Domestics."
"Hear this, Belle," I said, laughing, as my wife took the rocking chair
on the other side of me; "fancy any collection of women being obliged to
steer clear of the three D's!"
"You should ask Mary about her studies," was the severe reply. "We were
much pleased with your letters."
"Yes, mawm; Sister Stella was always very good about that; helped me
with the big words, and often wrote the whole thing out for me.
Sometimes I had to copy it two or three times before I could please
her."
Belle hastily changed the subject. "Let Mr. Gemmell hear that piece you
recited to me this morning."
I am no judge of elocution, but the general effect of the young girl
standing there in the arch of the veranda, a clematis-wreathed post on
either side, and her face, with its delicate coloring, turned toward the
golden twilight, was pleasing in the extreme.
"She'll maybe be famous some day," said Belle, when Mary had discreetly
retired. "She is far quicker at learning verses off by heart than she is
at reading them."
"Still, to be a successful elocutionist nowadays one has to be
thoroughly well educated, and Mary is too late in beginning."
"You can't tell. She's got the appearance, and that's half the battle."
"With us, perhaps; but remember, we are not capable critics, even though
one of us is a Theosophist."
"Laugh as you like, Dave. Theosophy satisfies me, because it explains
some things in my own nature that I never could understand before."
"It may be that you are too soon satisfied. That's the way with all new
movements--one story is good till another is told. Your
great-granddaughter will smile at the credulity of your ideas on this
very subject."
"She can smile, and so can you. We don't pretend to know everything; we
only hope that we are on the right road to learn. I, for one, am
thankful to think that there are wiser heads than mine puzzling over the
problem of our psychic powers. I've always taken impressions from
inanimate objects, and it has bothered me. Now I find my sensations
analyzed and classified under the head of Psychometry, and it is a
comfort to know that other people besides myself can discern an _aura_,
and are foolishly wise enough to trust the impressions they receive in
that way."
"But if I were you, I don't think I'd make a parlor entertainment out of
the gift,--if it is a gift,--as I heard you did at the Wades' the other
night."
"Who told you? What have you heard?"
"Newspaper men hear everything. You asked Mr. Saxon to hold his
handkerchief pressed tightly in his hand for a few minutes, and then to
give it to you. You shut your eyes as you held it, and received the
impression of his 'aura,' or the atmosphere which surrounds him, or
whatever you like to call it, and then the company asked you questions,
and you gave him a great old character. He didn't like it a bit, nor did
his wife, nor his mother-in-law. You'll make enemies for yourself if you
don't watch out."
"It _was_ wrong of me to exercise my powers just to gratify idle
curiosity. No good Theosophist would approve of it."
"Say, rather, 'no sensible person would.' The Theosophists haven't a
monopoly of common sense. To me they appear slightly deficient in that
article, but I dare say they make up for it in uncommon sense."
"You speak more wisely than you know," said Belle solemnly. "If I hadn't
taken in some of the Brotherhood ideas I wonder where that pretty,
innocent young girl would have been by this time. Would you like me to
go back and be as I was in the old days, a rank materialist, caring for
nothing but dress, dancing, and having a good time? You know you
wouldn't, David. You know as well as I do that Theosophy has been the
making of me, and through me it shall be the making of Mary too."