MARTINE'S ALTRUISM
In spite of her love of fun, Martine was considerate enough not to tease
Angelina about her recital. Later, by degrees of her own accord, the
little Portuguese told the story. After all, there was not much to tell.
She had depended on a few posters scattered at random to fill the hall.
She had thought that the girls of the Excelsior Club would sell many
tickets. But she had fixed the price so high that the girls could
neither afford to buy them, nor succeed in disposing of them to their
friends.
Moreover, on the night of the recital, a Grand Army fair was holding an
auction to which admission was free, and thither every one with a penny
to spend had rushed, hoping for bargains. Even if Angelina had been a
well-known elocutionist, she would have had difficulty in drawing people
from the greater attraction.
"But I never thought," she said, "that some of the people who regularly
bought tickets from me would never pay for them, just because they
thought it was too much trouble to go when they found out how far away
the hall was. My brother John bought and paid for tickets, and so did
you, Miss Martine, and with the tickets I sold I just made out to pay
Mr. Smithkins the ten dollars I'd promised him. But it was very
embarrassing about the hall--and if it hadn't been for your fifteen
dollars, I don't know what I should have done."
Martine did not explain her brother's part in the matter.
"Of course, that Mrs. Stinton could have charged it as well as not. It
wouldn't have been anything to her. They say she owns a whole block of
houses down by the ferry. But it's my last of the Excelsior Club. I
consider they went back on me."
"I hope you have learned a lesson, Angelina. You ought not to have
promised to pay for the hall until you were sure of getting enough money
out of a recital. You should have waited--"
"But I couldn't give a recital without a hall, and I should have paid if
I'd sold more tickets."
"Well, this ought to be the last of your recitals."
"Didn't I do well?" asked Angelina, anxiously.
"Oh, that isn't the point."
Martine did not care at this moment to give her precise opinion of
Angelina's dramatic ability.
"But you see, this must have cost you a great deal, and you ought to
save your money--everybody ought, and life is more serious--there,
Angelina--I'll leave it all to mamma. She'll advise you," concluded
Martine, feeling that she was getting into deep water, in advocating
principles that she herself had not always been able to live up to.
The experience of that memorable Saturday, combined with the advice
given by Mrs. Stratford, so far influenced Angelina that for the time
she devoted herself exclusively to her household duties, ceased to take
elocution lessons, and began to save money. At first she offered to pay
Martine a dollar a week, but when the latter learned that Angelina had
other debts, she urged her to consider them first.
"I can wait," she said, "and when you have finished paying for that pink
satin dress--it would be a good idea for you to make your mother a
present."
Nora Gostar, who always kept closely in touch with the Rosas at their
home in Shiloh, had asked Martine to influence Angelina to do more for
her family.
"Ever since the Four Club years ago began to help the Rosas, Angelina
has taken it for granted that the public would look after them. It is
true that on the whole they are now fairly prosperous. With her boarders
and her garden Mrs. Rosa makes both ends meet, and John always has
something to spare for his brothers and sisters. It is only Angelina who
seems ready to escape all responsibility. You will remind her, won't
you, Martine?"
"Yes," said Martine, "but some people say I haven't enough sense of
responsibility myself."
"My dear, then no one has observed you lately. You certainly have taken
hold splendidly of the girls in your painting class. Two or three of
them, you know, have been called 'hard cases.' No one else ever could
interest them, and yet they seem perfectly devoted to you."
"Oh, they are so amusing," said Martine, "that I can't help throwing
myself into the work, and then I find out what they want to do, and let
them do it. It's silly to make people do things they dislike. Of
course," she added, with some embarrassment, "I am aware that this
wouldn't be the right principle if I were a real artist, and were trying
to make artists out of them. Some of them can't even draw, but they do
take an interest in color, and so I am always hunting for good pictures
in black and white--and their color effects sometimes are quite
wonderful."
Martine did not explain that not a little of her own pocket money was
spent for pictures suitable to her rather original method of conducting
the class. Photographs and lithographs cost money, and though Amy
remonstrated that it was contrary to art to gild the lily, Martine
replied that the end would justify her means.
Among her six little pupils only one showed marked talent. She was a
Russian girl who had been in Boston but a year, and her gift took the
form of a genius for making caricatures.
Her pencil was constantly in her hand, and even with her brush she could
outline figures and scenes on the margins of her pictures that would
send the others into fits of uproarious laughter.
"Esther, Esther," Martine said one day, "you should never make fun of
older people. Who is that tall, thin person, with the lorgnette in her
hand?"
"That's teacher," explained one of the others, "the teacher in our
school. It's her dead image, ain't it?" and the friend to whom she
turned for confirmation, nodded, adding--
"When she's mad she puts her glasses up just so--and we all feel cheaper
'n thirty cents."
"I hope you don't make fun of me this way, Esther, behind my back."
"Oh, no'm, you ain't a teacher."
As Martine was already aware that her girls always spoke of her as "the
young lady," this doubtful compliment passed without criticism. Neither
in her heart did she think it wise to criticise the little girl's
caricatures.
She was delighted when Mrs. Redmond, after looking at Esther's drawings,
said that the child had real talent. Then without further delay, without
indeed consulting anyone, Martine engaged an expensive teacher to give
Esther drawing lessons once a week. Mrs. Redmond would have taught her
gratuitously, had she not felt that the little girl's peculiar talent
would be best developed by a teacher who made a specialty of figure
drawing.
Before Mr. Stratford's departure for England Martine had suggested that
he add to the sum he had given her for Yvonne. To the little Acadienne
had gone one third of three hundred dollars. This was a sum that Mr.
Stratford had asked his daughter to share with her two friends Amy and
Priscilla, and expend on the three young people in whom they had taken a
special interest during their trip through Acadia.
It had surprised Martine not a little when her usually generous father
had hesitated about granting her little request for Yvonne.
"Send her ten dollars from your own Christmas money, dear child, and
later I will add to it. Your desire to help her pleases me very much,
but just now I would rather not promise a large sum."
"But I did not mean _very_ large, papa; only enough for Alexander Babet
to bring her up here and stay for a few months, until the doctors know
what can be done for her eyes. It would make you happier, wouldn't it,
papa, to know that she could see perfectly?"
"Indeed it would, Martine, but just now I would rather postpone anything
of this kind. Besides, even if I were a second Croesus, I should be
more inclined to wait until I could have more thorough knowledge of the
condition of the Babet family."
"Oh, papa, surely you believe what I have told you--that Yvonne is
almost blind, and that she has the most beautiful voice."
"Yes, my dear, but I know also that the Acadians are thrifty, and that
the Babets will spend your gift so carefully, that it will go farther
than five hundred dollars with most people. Some day we shall do more
for Yvonne, but for the present she must be content with what she has."
So positively did Mr. Stratford speak, that Martine, too, had to be
content. She managed, however, not only to send the money that Mr.
Stratford had suggested, but a box of slightly worn garments that could
be adapted to the use of the little blind girl. She remembered Yvonne's
love for pretty things, and what she sent had only enough of the newness
worn off to enable the box to pass the watchful customs officials of
Nova Scotia.
Priscilla did not pretend to be as altruistic as Martine, though both
professed to take Amy for their model. Yet letters between Eunice and
Priscilla passed back and forth constantly, and after reading them
Priscilla was apt to sigh, and fall into a brown study; for Eunice,
having for the first time found a confidante of her own age, opened her
heart almost too freely, and in emphasizing the disappointments of her
daily life, sometimes threw a cloud over her friend. This is a mistake
made by some young letter-writers. They write intensely of personal
disappointments that soon pass away. Yet the letter that they send seems
to give permanence to their troubles, and if the person to whom they
write is sensitive, she pictures the absent one as continually unhappy.
Eunice and Balfour Airton were brother and sister living with their
mother in Annapolis. They had been able to make pleasanter than it might
have been the stay of Mrs. Redmond and the three girls in the old town.
Eunice and Priscilla had soon become warm friends, and after their
comparatively short acquaintance parted almost in tears. The Airtons
were descended from Tories who had gone to Nova Scotia after the
Revolution, and had always been highly respected. Even before the death
of Eunice's father, however, they had lost much of their property, and
were under a heavy strain to make both ends meet. Balfour Airton, who
was a year or two older than Martine, was working his way through
college. In his vacations he served as clerk in a grocery shop. Indeed,
Martine had made his acquaintance one day when lost in the fog on the
North Mountain. She had been rescued by Balfour, who fortunately drove
up in his grocery cart.
Balfour proved a most companionable boy, and his energy and industry
made a great impression on Martine, when she contrasted him with the
idler college boys whom she knew.
By a combination of proofs needless to describe here, Martine discovered
that she and the Airtons were third cousins, since their
great-great-grandfather and hers, Thomas Blair, was the Tory exile who
had gone to Nova Scotia after the Revolution. In the same way Edith
Blair, Brenda's great friend, was a cousin of Eunice and Balfour, and
Martine's first impulse on returning home had been to urge her father
and Mr. Blair to provide for Balfour, so that he no longer need earn his
way through college.
Fortunately enough, before she had spoken to her father, she talked the
matter over with Mrs. Redmond.
"My dear Martine, I sincerely hope that you will change your mind about
this. Or, if you do not, hope that your father and Mr. Blair will be
hard-hearted enough to refuse your request."
"How hard-hearted _you_ are, Mrs. Redmond!"
"No, indeed, not hard-hearted--only hard-headed."
"What do you mean?"
"I am looking strictly to the practical side. In the first place, you
would risk the loss of Balfour's friendship, if you should put him in
the position of a pauper--for this is the light in which he might regard
your interference."
"Oh, no, not a pauper!"
"Well, Balfour is very proud--and in the second place, he could not
afford to risk his independence, as he must, if he should accept money
from strangers."
"But they wouldn't be strangers; in the South third cousins are very
near."
"Well, this isn't the South, and the relationship is on your mother's
side, and Mrs. Blair's. Balfour would probably regard the men as
strangers. Think over what I have said, Martine, and remember Balfour's
disposition."
"It is because he is so bright and industrious that I think it a shame
that he should not have as good a chance as Lucian or Robert."
"Balfour has the best possible chance. In the end his friends will be
proud of him, and he will be thankful that no one took away his
independence."
Martine was sufficiently impressed by what Mrs. Redmond had said to give
up for the time the plan she had formed of getting help for Balfour.
When she saw that her father was not quite ready to do what she had
planned for Yvonne, she was glad that she had not thrown on him the
extra burden of considering the case of Balfour. She decided, however,
to interest Lucian in Eunice's brother. In spite of Lucian's fondness
for teasing Martine, he was really devoted to her. He was apt in the end
to be influenced by her, although in the beginning often pretending to
resist her influence.
In his Freshman year, Lucian was drifting into the extravagant habits of
an idle group from the preparatory school where he had fitted for
Harvard. Fortunately, however, at the critical moment he came under the
ken of Fritz Tomkins--a Junior. Between the two there then sprang up a
friendship rather unusual in its way. For even at Harvard Freshmen and
Juniors are seldom intimate. So it happened that when the summer came,
instead of going to Europe with two or three of his classmates, Lucian
really preferred a trip with Fritz. The two went to Nova Scotia, and the
constant companionship with the sensible Fritz had given Lucian new
views of life, or not to put it too seriously--of the value of time and
money. Fritz himself was gay and light-hearted, fond of teasing his old
friend Amy Redmond, and willing always to have others laugh at him. But
beneath all his apparent frivolity was a depth of purpose that those who
knew him best fully realized.