THE TOYS RATTLE OUT
Early in December Mrs. Hattie, after an extended search, found a
satisfactory home. It was a somewhat pretentious house, not far
from the Gaylord place. Mrs. Hattie had it repapered and repainted
throughout and two new bathrooms put in. (She said that everybody
who was anybody always had lots of bathrooms.) Then she set herself
to furnishing it. She said that, of course, very little of their old
furniture would do at all. She was talking to Maggie Duff about it one
day when Mr. Smith chanced to come in. She was radiant that afternoon
in a handsome silk dress and a new fur coat.
“You’re looking very well—and happy, Mrs. Blaisdell,” smiled Mr. Smith
as he greeted her.
“I am well, and I’m perfectly happy, Mr. Smith,” she beamed. “How
could I help it? You know about the new home, of course. Well, it’s
all ready, and I’m ordering the furnishings. Oh, you don’t know what
it means to me to be able at last to surround myself with all the
beautiful things I’ve so longed for all my life!”
“I’m very glad, I’m sure.” Mr. Smith said the words as if he meant them.
“Yes, of course; and poor Maggie here, she says she’s glad, too,—though
I don’t see how she can be, when she never got a cent, do you, Mr.
Smith? But, poor Maggie, she’s got so used to being left out—”
“Hush, hush!” begged Miss Maggie.
“You’ll find money isn’t everything in this world, Hattie Blaisdell,”
growled Mr. Duff, who, to-day, for some unknown reason, had deserted
the kitchen cookstove for the living-room base-burner. “And when I see
what a little money does for some folks I’m glad I’m poor. I wouldn’t
be rich if I could. Furthermore, I’ll thank you to keep your sympathy
at home. It ain’t needed nor wanted—here.”
“Why, Father Duff,” bridled Mrs. Hattie indignantly, “you know how poor
Maggie has had to—”
“Er—but tell us about the new home,” interrupted Mr. Smith quickly,
“and the fine new furnishings.”
“Why, there isn’t much to tell yet—about the furnishings, I mean. I
haven’t got them yet. But I can tell you what I’m _going_ to
have.” Mrs. Hattie settled herself more comfortably, and began to look
happy again. “As I was saying to Maggie, when you came in, I shall get
almost everything new—for the rooms that show, I mean,—for, of course,
my old things won’t do at all. And I’m thinking of the pictures. I
want oil paintings, of course, in gilt frames.” She glanced a little
disdainfully at the oak-framed prints on Miss Maggie’s walls.
“Going in for old masters, maybe,” suggested Mr. Duff, with a sarcasm
that fell pointless at Mrs. Hattie’s feet.
“Old masters?”
“Yes—oil paintings.”
“Certainly not.” Her chin came up a little. “I’m not going to have
anything old in my house—where it can be seen—For once I’m going to
have _new_ things—all new things. You have to make a show or you
won’t be recognized by the best people.”
“But, Hattie, my dear,” began Miss Maggie, flushing a little, and
carefully avoiding Mr. Smith’s eyes, “old masters are—are very
valuable, and—”
“I don’t care if they are,” retorted Mrs. Hattie, with decision. “If
they’re old, I don’t want them, and that settles it. I’m going to have
velvet carpets and the handsomest lace curtains that I can find; and
I’m going to have some of those gold chairs, like the Pennocks have,
only nicer. Theirs are awfully dull, some of them. And I’m going to
buy—”
“Humph! Pity you can’t buy a little common sense—somewhere!” snarled
old man Duff, getting stiffly to his feet. “You’ll need it, to swing
all that style.”
“Oh, father!” murmured Miss Maggie.
“Oh, I don’t mind what Father Duff says,” laughed Mrs. Hattie. But
there was a haughty tilt to her chin and an angry sparkle in her eyes
as she, too, arose. “I’m just going, anyway, so you don’t need to
disturb yourself, Father Duff.”
But Father Duff, with another “Humph!” and a muttered something about
having all he wanted already of “silly chatter,” stamped out into the
kitchen, with the usual emphasis of his cane at every other step.
It was just as well, perhaps, that he went, for Mrs. Hattie Blaisdell
had been gone barely five minutes when her sister-in-law, Mrs. Jane,
came in.
“I’ve come to see you about a very important matter, Maggie,” she
announced, as she threw off her furs—not new ones—and unbuttoned her
coat—which also was not new.
“Then certainly I will take myself out of the way,” said Mr. Smith,
with a smile, making a move to go.
“No, please don’t.” Mrs. Jane held up a detaining hand. “Part of it
concerns you, and I’m glad you’re here, anyway. I should like your
advice.”
“Concerns me?” puzzled the man.
“Yes. I’m afraid I shall have to give up boarding you, and one thing I
came to-day for was to ask Maggie if she’d take you. I wanted to give
poor Maggie the first chance at you, of course.”
“_Chance_ at me!” Mr. Smith laughed,—but unmistakably he blushed. “The
first—But, my dear woman, it is just possible that Miss Maggie may
wish to—er—decline this great honor which is being conferred upon her,
and she may hesitate, for the sake of my feelings, to do it before me.
_now_ I’m very sure I ought to have left at once.”
“Nonsense!” (Was Miss Maggie blushing the least bit, too?) “I shall
be very glad to take Mr. Smith as a boarder if he wants to come—but
_he’s_ got something to say about it, remember. But tell me,
why are you letting him go, Jane?” “Now this surely _will_ be
embarrassing,” laughed Mr. Smith again nervously. “Do I eat too much,
or am I merely noisy, and a nuisance generally?”
But Mrs. Jane did not appear to have heard him. She was looking at Miss
Maggie, her eyes somber, intent.
“Well, I’ll tell you. It’s Hattie.” “Hattie!” exclaimed two amazed
voices.
“Yes. She says it’s perfectly absurd for me to take boarders, with all
our money; and she’s making a terrible fuss about where we live. She
says she’s ashamed—positively ashamed of us—that we haven’t moved into
a decent place yet.”
Miss Maggie’s lips puckered a little.
“Do you want to go?”
“Y-yes, only it will cost so much. I’ve always wanted a house—with a
yard, I mean; and ’twould be nice for Mellicent, of course.”
“Well, why don’t you go? You have the money.”
“Y-yes, I know I have; but it’ll cost so much, Maggie. Don’t you see?
It costs not only the money itself, but all the interest that the money
could be earning. Why, Maggie, I never saw anything like it.” Her face
grew suddenly alert and happy. “I never knew before how much money,
just _money_, could earn, while you didn’t have to do a thing but
sit back and watch it do it. It’s the most fascinating thing I ever
saw. I counted up the other day how much we’d have if we didn’t spend a
cent of it for ten years—the legacy, I mean.”
“But, great Scott, madam!” expostulated Mr. Smith. “Aren’t you going to
spend any of that money before ten years’ time?”
Mrs. Jane fell back in her chair. The anxious frown came again to her
face.
“Oh, yes, of course. We have spent a lot of it, already. Frank has
bought out that horrid grocery across the street, and he’s put a
lot in the bank, and he spends from that every day, I know. And I’m
_willing_ to spend some, of course. But we had to pay so much
inheritance tax and all that it would be my way not to spend much
till the interest had sort of made that up, you know; but Frank and
Mellicent—they won’t hear to it a minute. They want to move, too, and
they’re teasing me all the time to get new clothes, both for me and for
her. But Hattie’s the worst. I can’t do a thing with Hattie. Now what
shall I do?”
“I should move. You say yourself you’d like to,” answered Miss Maggie
promptly.
“What do you say, Mr. Smith?”
Mr. Smith leaped to his feet and thrust his hands into his pockets as
he took a nervous turn about the room, before he spoke.
“Good Heavens, woman, that money was given you to—that is, it was
probably given you to use. Now, why don’t you use it?”
“But I am using it,” argued Mrs. Jane earnestly. “I think I’m making
the very best possible use of it when I put it where it will earn more.
Don’t you see? Besides, what does the Bible say about that man with one
talent that didn’t make it earn more?”
With a jerk Mr. Smith turned on his heel and renewed his march.
“I think the only thing money is good for is to exchange it for
something you want,” observed Miss Maggie sententiously.
“There, that’s it!” triumphed Mr. Smith, wheeling about. “That’s
exactly it!”
Mrs. Jane sighed and shook her head. She gazed at Miss Maggie with
fondly reproving eyes.
“Yes, we all know your ideas of money, Maggie. You’re very sweet and
dear, and we love you; but you _are_ extravagant.”
“Extravagant!” demurred Miss Maggie.
“Yes. You use everything you have every day; and you never protect a
thing. Actually, I don’t believe there’s a tidy or a linen slip in this
house.” (DID Mr. Smith breathe a fervent “Thank the Lord!” Miss Maggie
wondered.) “And that brings me right up to something else I was going
to say. I want you to know that I’m going to help you.”
Miss Maggie looked distressed and raised a protesting hand; but Mrs.
Jane smilingly shook her head and went on.
“Yes, I am. I always said I should, if I had money, and I shall—though
I must confess that I’d have a good deal more heart to do it if you
weren’t quite so extravagant. I’ve already given you Mr. Smith to
board.”
“Oh, I say!” spluttered Mr. Smith.
But again she only smilingly shook her head and continued speaking.
“And if we move, I’m going to give you the parlor carpet, and some rugs
to protect it.”
“Thank you; but, really, I don’t want the parlor carpet,” refused Miss
Maggie, a tiny smouldering fire in her eyes.
“And I shall give you some money, too,” smiled Mrs. Jane, very
graciously,—“when the interest begins to come in, you know. I shall
give you some of that. It’s too bad you should have nothing while I
have so much.”
“Jane, _please_!” The smouldering fire in Miss Maggie’s eyes had
become a flame now.
“Nonsense, Maggie, you mustn’t be so proud. It’s no shame to be poor.
Wasn’t I poor just the other day? However, since it distresses you so,
we won’t say any more about it now. I’ll go back to my own problems.
Then, you advise me—you both advise me—to move, do you?”
“I do, most certainly,” bowed Miss Maggie, still with a trace of
constraint.
“And you, Mr. Smith?”
Mr. Smith turned and threw up both his hands.
“For Heaven’s sake, lady, go home, and spend—some of that money!”
Mrs. Jane laughed a bit ruefully.
“Well, I don’t see but what I shall have to, with everybody against me
like this,” she sighed, getting slowly to her feet. “But if you knew—if
either of you knew—how really valuable money is, and how much it would
earn for you, if you’d only let it, I don’t believe you’d be quite so
fast to tell me to go and spend it.”
“Perhaps not; but then, you see, we don’t know,” smiled Miss Maggie,
once again her cheery self.
Mr. Smith said nothing. Mr. Smith had turned his back just then.
When Mrs. Jane was gone, Mr. Smith faced Miss Maggie with a quizzical
smile.
“Well?” he hazarded.
“You mean—”
“I’m awaiting orders—as your new boarder.”
“Oh! They’ll not be alarming, I assure you. Do you really want to come?”
“Indeed I do! And I think it’s mighty good of you to take me.
But—_should_ you, do you think? Haven’t you got enough, with your
father to care for? Won’t it be too hard for you?”
She shook her head.
“I think not. Besides, I’m going to have help. Annabelle and Florence
Martin, a farmer’s daughters are very anxious to be in town to attend
school this winter, and I have said that I would take them. They will
work for their board.”
The man gave a disdainful sniff.
“I can imagine how much work you’ll let them do! It strikes me the
‘help’ is on the other foot. However, we’ll let that pass. I shall be
glad enough to come, and I’ll stay—unless I find you’re doing too much
and going beyond your strength. But, how about—your father?”
“Oh, he won’t mind. I’ll arrange that he proposes the idea himself.
Besides,”—she twinkled merrily—“you really get along wonderfully with
father, you know. And, as for the work—I shall have more time now:
Hattie will have some one else to care for her headaches, and Jane
won’t put down any more carpets, I fancy, for a while.”
“Well, I should hope!” he shrugged. “Honestly, Miss Maggie, one of the
best things about this Blaisdell money, in my eyes, is that it may give
you a little rest from being chief cook and bottle washer and head
nurse combined, on tap for any minute. But, say, that woman _will_
spend some of that money, won’t she?”
Miss Maggie smiled significantly.
“I think she will. I saw Frank last evening—though I didn’t think it
necessary to say so to her. He came to see me. I think you’ll find that
they move very soon, and that the ladies of the family have some new
clothes.”
“Well, I hope so.”
“You seem concerned.”
“Concerned? Er—ah—well, I am,” he asserted stoutly. “Such a windfall
of wealth ought to bring happiness, I think; and it seemed to, to Mrs.
Hattie, though, of course, she’ll learn better, as time goes on how
to spend her money. But Mrs. Jane—And, by the way, how is Miss Flora
bearing up—under the burden?”
Miss Maggie laughed.
“Poor Flora!”
“‘Poor Flora’! And do I hear ‘Poor Maggie’ say ‘Poor Flora’?”
“Oh, she won’t be ‘poor’ long,” smiled Miss Maggie. “She’ll get used to
it—this stupendous sum of money—one of these days. But just now she’s
nearly frightened to death.”
“Frightened!”
“Yes-both because she’s got it, and because she’s afraid she’ll lose
it. That doesn’t sound logical, I know, but Flora isn’t being logical
just now. To begin with, she hasn’t the least idea how to spend money.
Under my careful guidance, however, she has bought her a few new
dresses—though they’re dead black—”
“Black!” interrupted the man.
“Yes, she’s put on mourning,” smiled Miss Maggie, as he came to a
dismayed stop. “She would do it. She declared she wouldn’t feel half
decent unless she did, with that poor man dead, and giving her all that
money.”
“But he isn’t dead—that is, they aren’t sure he’s dead,” amended Mr.
Smith hastily.
“But Flora thinks he is. She says he must be, or he would have appeared
in time to save all that money. She’s very much shocked, especially at
Hattie, that there is so little respect being shown his memory. So she
is all the more determined to do the best she can on her part.”
“But she—she didn’t know him, so she can’t—er—really _mourn_ for
him,” stammered the man. There was a most curious helplessness on Mr.
Smith’s face.
“No, she says she can’t really mourn,” smiled Miss Maggie again, “and
that’s what worries her the most of anything—because she _can’t_
mourn, and when he’s been so good to her—and he with neither wife nor
chick nor child _to_ mourn for him, she says. But she’s determined
to go through the outward form of it, at least. So she’s made herself
some new black dresses, and she’s bought a veil. She’s taken Mr.
Fulton’s picture (she had one cut from a magazine, I believe), and has
had it framed and, hung on her wall. On the mantel beneath it she keeps
fresh flowers always. She says it’s the nearest she can come to putting
flowers on his grave, poor man!”
“Good Heavens!” breathed Mr. Smith, falling limply into a chair.
“And she doesn’t go anywhere, except to church, and for necessary
errands.”
“That explains why I haven’t seen her. I had wondered where she was.”
“Yes. She’s very conscientious. But she _is_ going later to
Niagara. I’ve persuaded her to do that. She’ll go with a party, of
course,—one of those ‘personally conducted’ affairs, you know. Poor
dear! she’s so excited! All her life she’s wanted to see Niagara.
Now she’s going, and she can hardly believe it’s true. She wants a
phonograph, too, but she’s decided not to get that until after six
months’ mourning is up—it’s too frivolous and jolly for a house of
mourning.”
“Oh, good Heavens!” breathed Mr. Smith again.
“It is funny, isn’t it, that she takes it quite so seriously? Bessie
suggested (I’m afraid Bessie was a little naughty!) that she get the
phonograph, but not allow it to play anything but dirges and hymn
tunes.”
“But isn’t the woman going to take _any_ comfort with that money?”
demanded Mr. Smith.
“Indeed, she is! She’s taking comfort now. You have no idea, Mr. Smith,
what it means to her, to feel that she need never want again, and
that she can buy whatever she pleases, without thinking of the cost.
That’s why she’s frightened—because she _is_ so happy. She thinks
it can’t be right to be so happy. It’s too pleasant—to be right. When
she isn’t being frightened about that, she’s being frightened for fear
she’ll lose it, and thus not have it any more. I don’t think she quite
realizes yet what a big sum of money it is, and that she’d have to lose
a great deal before she lost it all.”
“Oh, well, she’ll get used to that, in time. They’ll all get used to
it—in time,” declared Mr. Smith, his face clearing a little. “Then
they’ll begin to live sanely and sensibly, and spend the money as it
should be spent. Of course, you couldn’t expect them to know what to
do, at the very first, with a sum like that dropped into their laps.
What would you do yourself? Yes, what would you do?” repeated Mr.
Smith, his face suddenly alert and interested again. “What would you do
if you should fall heir to a hundred thousand dollars—to-morrow?”
“What would I do? What wouldn’t I do?” laughed Miss Maggie. Then
abruptly her face changed. Her eyes became luminous, unfathomable.
“There is so much that a hundred thousand dollars could do—so much!
Why, I would—” Her face changed again abruptly. She sniffed as at an
odor from somewhere. Then lightly she sprang to her feet and crossed
to the stove. “What would I do with a hundred thousand dollars?”
she demanded, whisking open a damper in the pipe. “I’d buy a new
base-burner that didn’t leak gas! That’s what I’d do with a hundred
thousand dollars. Are you going to give it to me?”
“Eh? Ah-what?” Mr. Smith was visibly startled.
Miss Maggie laughed merrily.
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t thinking of charging quite that for your board.
But you seemed so interested, I didn’t know but what you were going to
hand over the hundred thousand, just to see what I would do with it,”
she challenged mischievously. “However, I’ll stop talking nonsense, and
come down to business. If you’ll walk this way, Mr. New Boarder, I’ll
let you choose which of two rooms you’d like.”
And Mr. Smith went. But, as had occurred once or twice before, Mr.
Smith’s face, as he followed her, was a study.