When Lester Knapp stepped dispiritedly out from Willing’s Emporium, he
felt, as he usually did, a thin little mittened hand slip into each of
his.
“Hello, Father,” said Helen.
“Hello, Father,” said Henry.
“Hello, children,” said Father, squeezing their hands up tightly and
looking down into their upturned faces.
“How’s tricks?” he asked, as they stepped off, his lagging step
suddenly brisk. “What did the teacher say to that composition, Helen?”
“She said it was _fine_!” said the little girl eagerly. “She read it
out to the class. She said maybe they’d get me to write the play for
the entertainment our class is going to give, a history play, you know,
something that would bring in Indians and the early settlers and the
hiding regicides and what we’ve been studying. I wanted to ask you if
you thought I could start it inside one of the houses, the night of an
Indian attack, everybody loading muskets and barring the shutters and
things, and the old hidden regicide looking out through a crack to see
where the Indians were.”
“Oh, that would be _great_!” cried Henry admiringly, craning his
neck around his father to listen. “What’s a regicide?” Henry was
three grades behind Helen in school and hadn’t begun on history. His
father and sister explained to him, both talking at once. And then
they laughed to hear their words clashing together. They swung along
rapidly, talking, laughing, interrupting each other, Henry constantly
asking questions, the other two developing the imaginary scene,
thrilling at the imaginary danger, loading imaginary muskets, their
voices chiming out like bells in the cold evening air. Once in a while,
Henry, who was small for his age, gave a little animated hop and skip
to keep up with the others.
In front of the delicatessen-grocery store at the corner of their
street, the father suddenly drew them to a halt. “What was it Mother
asked me to bring home with me?” He spoke anxiously, and anxiously the
children looked up at him. Suppose he should not be able to remember it!
But he did. It was a package of oatmeal and a yeast-cake. He dragged
them triumphantly up from his memory.
They entered the shop and found Aunt Mattie Farnham there, buying
ginger cookies and potato salad and boiled ham. “My! I’m ashamed
to have you Knapps catch me at this!” she protested with that Aunt
Mattieish laugh of hers that meant that she wasn’t really ashamed,
or anything but cheerfully ready to make fun of herself. “It’s not
Evangeline Knapp who’d be buying delicatessen stuff for her family’s
supper at six o’clock at night! We went out in the new Buick this
afternoon.... Oh, Lester, she’s a dream, simply a _dream_! And we
went further than we meant. You always do, you know. And of course,
being me, there’s not a thing in the house to eat. I put Frank and the
children to setting the table while I tore over here. Don’t you tell
Evangeline on me, Lester. I tried to get her to go and take Stephen,
but she wouldn’t--had biscuits to make for supper and a floor to scrub
or something. She _never_ lets things go, as I do. She’s a perfect
wonder, Evangeline is, anyhow. An example to us all, I always tell ’em.
After I’ve been in your house, I declare, I’m ashamed to set foot in my
own!”
While the grocer wrapped up her purchases she stooped her fair smiling
face towards Helen to say, “My gracious, honey, how swell we do look in
our new coat! Where did Momma buy that for you?”
Helen looked down at it as if to see what coat it was, as if she had
forgotten that she wore a coat. Then she said, “She made it, Mother
made it, out of an old coat Gramma Houghton sent us. The collar and
cuffs are off Cousin Celia’s last-winter one.”
Aunt Mattie was lost in admiration. She turned Helen around to get the
effect of the back. “Well, your mother is the _wonder_!” she cried
heartily, again. “I never saw anybody to beat her for style! Give
Evangeline Knapp a gunny sack and a horse-blanket and she’ll turn you
out a fifty-dollar coat, I always tell ’em. Would anybody but her have
dreamed of using that blue and light green together? It makes it look
positively as if it came right from Fifth Avenue. I don’t dare buy me a
new hat or a suit unless Evangeline says it’s all right. You can’t fool
her on style! What did _you_ ever do, Lester Knapp, to deserve such a
wife, I’d like to know.”
She laughed again, as Aunt Mattie always did, just for the sake of
laughing, gave Henry and Helen each a cookie out of her paper bag,
and took up her boughten salad and boughten boiled ham and went off,
repeating, “Now, folks, don’t you go and give me away!”
The grocery store seemed very silent after she left. Mr. Knapp bought
his yeast-cake and package of oatmeal and they went out without a word.
They didn’t feel like talking any more. The children were eating fast
on their cookies to finish them before they reached home.
They turned up the walk to the house in silence, stood for some time
scraping the snow and mud off their shoes on the wire mat at the foot
of the steps and went on their toes up to the cocoa-fiber mat in front
of the door.
When they finally opened the door and stepped in, an appetizing odor of
hot chocolate and something fresh out of the oven met them. Also the
sound of the clock striking half-past six. Good, they were on time. It
was very important to be on time. Little Stephen sat on the bottom step
of the stairs, waiting for them, his face swollen and mottled, his eyes
very red, his mouth clamped shut in a hard line.
“Oh, gee! I bet Stevie’s been bad again!” murmured Henry pityingly.
He went quickly to his little brother and tried to toss him up. But
the heavy child was too much of a weight for his thin arms. He only
succeeded in giving him a great hug. Helen did this too, and laid the
fresh, outdoor coolness of her cheek against the little boy’s hot face,
glazed by tears. They none of them made a sound.
Lester Knapp stood silently looking at them.
Their mother came to the door, fresh in a well-ironed, clean, gingham
house-dress.
“Well, Evie dear, what’s the news from home?” asked Lester, as the
children separated and began quickly hanging up their wraps. Stephen
slipped off back towards the kitchen.
“Oh, all right,” she said in her dear, well-modulated voice, her eyes
on Helen, to whom she now said quietly, with a crescendo effect of
patient self-restraint, “Don’t wriggle around on one foot that way to
take off your rubbers. Sit down on a chair. No, not that one, it’s too
high. This one. Lay down your schoolbooks. You can’t do anything with
them under your arm. There are your mittens on the floor. Put them in
your pocket and you’ll know where to find them. Unless they’re damp.
Are they damp? If they are, take them into the kitchen and put them
on the rack to dry.” As the child turned away, she called after her,
making her give a nervous jump, “Not too close to the stove, or they’ll
burn.”
She turned to Henry now (Stephen had disappeared). He froze to
immobility, looking at her out of timid shadowed eyes, as if like a
squirrel, he hoped by standing very still to make himself small....
Apparently Henry had taken off his coat and hat satisfactorily and had
suitably disposed of his mittens, for, after passing her eyes over his
small person in one sweep, she turned away, saying over her shoulder,
“I’m just going to put supper on the table. You’ll have time to wash
your hands while I dish up the things.”
Henry drew a long breath and started upstairs. His father stood looking
after him till with a little start he came to himself and followed.
The supper bell rang by the time their hands and faces were washed.
Helen and Henry washed Stephen’s. They did not talk. They kept
their attention on what they were doing, rinsing out the wash-basin
after they had finished, hanging the towels up smoothly and looking
responsibly around them at the immaculate little room before they went
downstairs.
The supper was exquisitely cooked, nourishing, light, daintily served.
Scalloped potatoes, done to a turn; a broiled beefsteak with butter
melting oozily on it; frothing, well-whipped chocolate; small golden
biscuits made out of a health-flour.
The children tucked their clean napkins under their chins, spread
them out carefully over their clean clothes and, all but Stephen, ate
circumspectly.
“Nothing special happened to-day, then?” asked Mr. Knapp in a cheerful
voice, looking over at the erect, well-coifed house-mother.
“Just the usual things,” answered Mrs. Knapp, reaching out to push
Henry’s plate a little nearer to him. “I haven’t been out anywhere,
and nobody has been in. Stephen, don’t eat so fast. Mattie telephoned.
Their new car has come. Henry, do sit up straighter. You’ll be
positively hunchbacked if you keep stooping over so.”
At the mention of Aunt Mattie and the new car, a self-conscious silence
dropped over the older children and their father. They looked down at
their plates.
“Helen, did you put salt on your potatoes?” asked her mother. “I don’t
put in as much as we like, because the doctor says Henry shouldn’t eat
things very salt.”
“I put some on,” said Helen.
“Enough?” asked her mother doubtfully. “You know it takes a lot for
potatoes.”
Helen tasted her potatoes, as though she had not till then thought
about them. “Yes, there’s enough,” she said.
“Let me taste them,” said her mother, holding out her hand for the
plate. After she had tasted them she said, “Why, there’s not nearly
enough, they’re perfectly flat. Here, give me that salt-cellar.” She
added the salt, tasted the potatoes again and pushed the plate back to
Helen, who went on eating with small mouthfuls, chewing conscientiously.
There was another silence.
Mr. Knapp helped himself to another biscuit, and said as he spread it
with butter, “Aren’t these biscuits simply great! You’d never know, by
the taste, they were good for you, would you?”
Helen looked up quickly with a silent, amused smile. Her eyes met her
father’s with understanding mirth.
“Take smaller mouthfuls, Stephen,” said Mrs. Knapp.
Nobody said a word, made a comment, least of all her husband, but
she went on with some heat as if in answer to an unspoken criticism.
“I know I keep at the children all the time! But how can I help it?
They’ve got to learn, haven’t they? It certainly is no _pleasure_ to me
to do it! _Some_body’s got to bring them up.”
The others quailed in silent remorse before this arraignment. Not so
Stephen. He paid no attention whatever to it. His mother often said
bitterly that he paid no attention to anything a grown-up said unless
you screamed at him and stamped your foot.
“Gimme some more meat,” he said heartily, pushing his plate towards his
father.
“Say, ‘Please, Father,’” commanded his mother.
He looked blackly at her, longingly at the steak, decided that the
occasion was not worth a battle and said, “Please, father,” in a tone
which he contrived, with no difficulty whatever, to make insulting.
His mother’s worn, restrained face took on a deeper shade of
disheartenment, but she did not lift the cast-down glove, and the
provocative accent of rebellion continued to echo in the room
triumphant and unchecked. It did not seem to increase the appetite of
the other children. They kept their eyes cast down and made themselves
small in their chairs.
It had no effect on Stephen’s enjoyment of his meal. He ate heartily,
like a robust lumberman who has been battling with the elements all
day and knows he must fortify himself for a continuation of the same
struggle to-morrow. The mottled spots on his cheeks blended into his
usual healthy red. He stopped eating for a moment to take a long and
audible draught out of his mug.
“Don’t make a noise when you drink your milk,” said his mother.
The others ate lightly, sipping at their chocolate, taking tiny
mouthfuls of the steak and potatoes.
“Helen’s school composition had quite a success,” said Helen’s father.
“They are going to have some dramatics at the school and....”
“What are dramatics?” asked Henry.
“Oh, that’s the general name for plays, comedies, you know, and
tragedies and....”
“What is a comedy?” asked Henry. “What is a tragedy?”
“Good Heavens, Henry,” said his father, laughingly, “I never saw
anybody in my life who could ask as many questions as you. You wear the
life out of me!”
“He doesn’t bother _me_ with them,” said his mother, her inflection
presenting the statement as a proof of her superior merit.
Henry shrank a little smaller. His father hastened to explain what a
tragedy was and what a comedy was. Another silence fell. Then, “Quite
cold to-day,” said Mr. Knapp. “The boys at the office said that the
thermometer....” He had tried to stop himself the moment the word
“office” was out of his mouth. But it was too late. He stuck fast at
“thermometer,” for an instant and then, hurriedly as if quite aware
that no one cared how he finished the sentence, he added, “stood at
only ten above this morning.”
Mrs. Knapp had glanced up sharply at the word “office” and her eyes had
darkened at the pause afterwards. She was looking hard at her husband
now, as if his hesitation, as if his accent had told her something.
“Young Mr. Willing didn’t get back to-day, did he?” she asked gravely.
Mr. Knapp took a long drink of his hot chocolate. “Yes, he did,” he
said at last, setting down his cup and looking humbly at his wife.
“Did they announce the reorganization ... the way he’s going to....”
asked Mrs. Knapp. As if she did not know the answer already!
They both already knew everything that was to be asked and answered,
but there seemed no escape from going on.
“Yes, they did,” said Mr. Knapp, trying to chew on a mouthful of steak.
“Who did they put in charge of your office?” asked Mrs. Knapp, adding
in an aside, “Helen, don’t hold your fork like that.”
“Harvey Bronson,” said Mr. Knapp, trying to make it sound like any
other name.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Knapp.
She made no comment on the news. She made it a point never to criticize
their father before the children.
Helen’s eyes went over timidly towards her father, sideways under
lowered lids. She wished she dared give him a loving look of
reassurance to show him how dearly she loved him and sympathized with
him because he had not had the advancement they had all hoped for so
long, because a younger man and one who was especially mean to Father
had been put over his head. Her heart swelled and ached. She would get
Father off in a corner after dinner and give him a big silent hug. He
would understand.
But as it happened, she did not. Other things happened.
* * * * *
There was almost total silence during the rest of the meal. Mrs. Knapp
did not eat another mouthful of food after her husband’s news. The
others made a pretense of cutting up food and swallowing it. Helen and
Henry cleared off the table and brought in the dessert.
“Be careful about holding the meat-platter straight, Henry,” cautioned
his mother. “I scrubbed on those last grease spots till nearly five
o’clock this afternoon. It makes it very hard for Mother when you and
Helen are careless.” Her voice was carefully restrained.
“How is your eczema, to-night, Eva?” asked her husband.
“Oh, about the same,” she said. She served out the golden preserved
peaches, passed the home-made cake, but took none herself. After
sitting for a few moments, she pushed back her chair and said: “I don’t
care for any dessert to-night. I’ll just go and start on the dishes.
You can come out to help when you finish eating.”
Her husband looked up at her, his face pale and shadowed. He tried
to catch her eyes. But she averted them, and without a glance at him
walked steadily out into the kitchen.
Her presence was still as heavy in the room as though she sat there,
brooding over them. They conscientiously tried to eat. They did not
look at each other.
They heard her begin to pile up the dishes at the sink, working rapidly
as she always did. They heard her step swiftly back towards the kitchen
table as though to pick up a dish there. They heard her stop short with
appalling abruptness; and for a long moment a silence filled the little
house, roaring loudly in their ears as they gazed at each other, across
the table. What could have happened?
And then, with the effect of a clap of thunder shaking them to the
bone, came a sudden rending outburst of sobs, strangled weeping, the
terrifying sounds of an hysteric breakdown.
They rushed out into the kitchen. Mrs. Knapp stood in the middle of
the kitchen floor, both hands pressed over her face, trying in vain
to restrain the tears which rained down through her fingers, the sobs
which convulsed her tall, strong body. From her feet to the dining-room
door stretched a fresh line of grease spots. Henry had once more tilted
the meat-platter as he carried it.
* * * * *
She heard them come in; she gave a muffled inarticulate cry, half
pronounced words they could not understand, and, rushing past them,
still shaking with sobs, she ran upstairs to her room. They heard the
door shut, the click of the latch loud and distinct in the silent house.
“I want another help of peaches,” said Stephen greedily, taking instant
advantage of his mother’s absence. “I _like_ peaches.”
His father thought sometimes that Stephen was like the traditional
changeling, hard, heartless, inhuman.
Henry’s face had turned very white. He stood looking dully at his
father and sister, his lips hanging half-open. He turned from white to
a yellow-green, and a shudder shook him. He whispered hastily, thickly,
unintelligibly (but they understood because they had seen those signs
many times before), he murmured, his hand clapped over his mouth, his
shoulders bowed, “... ’mfraid goin’ be sick,” and ran upstairs to the
bathroom.
They followed and found him vomiting, leaning over the bowl, his legs
bending and trembling under him. His father put one arm around the thin
little body and held his head clumsily with the other hand. Helen stood
by, helplessly sympathetic. Henry looked so _awfully_ sick when he had
those fits of nausea!
Henry vomited apologetically, as it were, trying feebly not to spatter
any of the ill-smelling liquid on the bathroom wall or floor. In an
instant’s pause between spasms he rolled his eyes appealingly at Helen,
who sprang to his side.
“... ’mfraid got shome shstairs,” he said thickly, the words cut short
by another agonizing fit of retching.
Helen darted away. Her father called her back. “What is it? What did
Henry say?” he asked anxiously. “I’ll get him his medicine as soon as
he is over this. I don’t believe you can reach it. It’s on that highest
shelf.” Helen stood up on tiptoe and whispered in her father’s ear, “He
said he was afraid he got some on the stairs, and I’m going to wipe it
up.”
Her father nodded his instant understanding. The little girl flew to
the corner closet where the cleaning cloths were hung and disappeared
down the stairs.
The door to the bedroom opened and Mrs. Knapp appeared. Her eyes were
still red, and her face very pale; but her expression was of strong,
kind solicitude. She came straight into the bathroom where Henry stood,
half-fainting, wavering from side to side.
“Oh, poor Henry!” she said. “Here, I’ll take care of him.”
Mr. Knapp stepped back, self-effacingly, and with relief. She picked
the child up bodily in her strong arms and carried him into the
bedroom where she laid him on the bed. In an instant she had whisked
out a basin which she held ready with one hand. “Bring me a wet
washcloth, _cold_,” she said to her husband, “and a glass of water.”
When it came she wiped Henry’s lips clean, so that with a sigh of
relief he closed his mouth; she held the glass to his lips, “Rinse out
your mouth with this, dear. It’ll make you feel better.” When the next
spasm came, she supported his forehead firmly, laying his head back on
the pillow afterwards; and, sprinkling a little eau-de-cologne on a
fresh handkerchief, she wiped the cold sweat from his face.
To lie down had relieved the strain on Henry. The eau-de-cologne had
partly revived him. He began to look less ghastly; he began to feel
less that this time he was really going to die. He drew strength
consciously from his mother’s calm self-possession. Nobody could take
care of you like Mother when there was something the matter with you,
he thought.
Mother now turned to inspect the contents of the basin. “What ever can
have upset Henry _this_ time? I planned that supper specially for him,
just the things he usually digests all right.”
A pause. Then, “What can those dark brown crumby lumps be?” she asked
aloud. “We didn’t have anything like that for supper.”
Henry rolled his eyes at his father, and then closed them, weakly,
helplessly.
His father said from the door, briefly, “We met Mattie when we were at
Wertheimer’s and she gave each of the children a cookie.”
“_Store_ cookies?” asked Henry’s mother, more with an exclamation point
than a question.
“The regular ginger cookie ... a small one,” said her husband.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Knapp.
Behind Mr. Knapp in the obscurity of the hall, Helen slipped
shadow-like, silently as a little mouse, back towards the closet where
the cleaning cloths were kept. Her father hoped she had remembered to
rinse the cloth well.
Mrs. Knapp sat down by Henry. She laid her hand on his forehead and
said, “Mother doesn’t _want_ to be scolding you all the time, Henry,
but you must try to remember not to eat things away from home. You know
your digestion is very delicate and you know how Mother tries to have
just the right things for you here. If I do that, give up everything
I’d like to do to stay here and cook things for you, you ought to be
able to remember, don’t you think, not to eat other things?”
Her tone was reasonable. Her logic was unanswerable. Henry shrank to
even smaller dimensions as he lay helpless on the bed.
She did not say a word to his father about having allowed Henry to eat
the cookie. She never criticized their father before the children.
She got up now and put a light warm blanket over Henry. “Do you suppose
you could get Stephen to bed, Lester?” she asked, over her shoulder.
After he had gone, she sat holding Henry’s cold little frog’s paw in
her warm hands till his circulation was normal and then helped him
undress and get to bed.
When she went down to the kitchen she found that Helen and her father
had tried to finish the evening work. The dishes were washed and put
away. Helen was rinsing out the wiping-cloths, and Lester was sweeping.
The clock showed a quarter of nine.
She looked sharply at what Helen was doing and plunged towards her with
a gesture of impatience. “Mercy, Helen, don’t be so back_handed_!”
she cried, snatching a dripping cloth from the child’s hands. “I’ve
told you a thousand times you can’t wring the water out of anything
if you hold it like _that_!” She wrung the cloths one after another,
her practised fingers flying like those of a prestidigitator. “Like
_that_!” she said reprovingly to Helen, shaking them out and hanging
them up to dry.
Seeing in Helen’s face no sign of any increase of intelligence about
wringing out dishcloths, but only her usual cowed fear of further
criticism, she said in a tone of complete discouragement:
“Oh, well, never mind! You’d better get to bed now. I’ll be up to rub
the turpentine and lard on your chest by the time you’re undressed.”
As the child trod softly out of the kitchen she threw after her like a
hand-grenade, “Don’t forget your teeth!”
To her husband she said, taking the broom out of his hand and looking
critically back over the floor he had been sweeping, “Don’t wait for
me, Lester. I’ve got to change the dressings on my arm before I go to
bed.”
“Can’t I help you with that, dear?” asked her husband.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I can manage all right.”
As he went out she was reflecting with a satisfaction that burned
like fire that she was not as other women who “took it out” on their
families when things went wrong. She never made scenes, not even
when she was almost frenzied with irritations. She never lost her
self-control--except of course once in a while with Stephen, and then
never for more than an instant or two. Until the terrifying but really
unavoidable breakdown of this evening, no one had ever seen her weep,
heavy and poisonous as were the bitter tears she so frequently held
back. She never forgot to say “thank you” and “please.” Her heart
swelled with an angry sense of how far beyond criticism she was. Come
what might she would do her duty to the uttermost.
She went up to Helen’s room, silently did the necessary things for her
cold and kissed her good-night, saying, “_Do_ try to make your bed a
little better, dear. There was a great fold across it to-day from one
corner to the other.”
Then she went downstairs and stepped about the house, picking up odd
things and putting them in place: her usual evening occupation. As
she hung up Henry’s muffler which lay on the floor at the foot of the
coat-rack in the hall, her eyes fell on Helen’s coat. She looked at
it with mingled pride and exasperation. There was not a woman of her
acquaintance who could have taken those hopeless old materials and
pieced and turned and fitted and made such a stylish little garment.
She had always said to herself that no matter how poor they were, she
would die before her little girl should feel humiliated for the lack
of decent clothes. And yet ... what a strange child Helen was! She had
put on that coat as if it had been any coat, as if she didn’t realize
what a toilsome effort her mother had made to secure it. But children
_didn’t_ realize the sacrifices you made for them.
She had a moment of complete relaxation and satisfaction as she
dropped into a chair to feast her eyes on the sofa. What a success it
was! Could anybody recognize it for the old wreck which had stood out
in front of the junk-shop on River Street all winter! She had seen its
lines through its ruin, had guessed at the fine wood under the many
coats of dishonoring paint. Every inch of it had been re-created by her
hand and brain and purpose.
How sweet of Mattie Farnham to give her that striped velours to cover
it with. She never could have afforded anything so fine. What lovely,
lovely stuff it was! How she loved beautiful fabrics. Her face softened
to dreaminess as she passed her hand gently over the smoothly drawn
material and thought with affection of the donor. What a good-hearted
girl Mattie was.
Her children would not have recognized her face as she sat there loving
the sofa and the rich fabric on it and thinking gratefully of her
friend.
But how _funny_ Mattie was about dressing herself! Was there anybody
who had less faculty for it? A flicker of amusement--the first she
had felt all day--drew her lips into a good-natured smile at the
recollection of that awful hat with the pink feather which Mattie had
wanted to buy. What a figure of fun she had looked in it! And she knew
it! And yet was hypnotized by the dowdy thing. All she had needed was
the hint to take the small, dark-blue one that suited her perfectly.
How queer she couldn’t think of it herself.
She loved to go shopping with Mattie--with old Mrs. Anderson, with any
of the ladies in the Guild who so often asked her advice. It was a real
pleasure to help them select the right things. But--her softened face
tightened and set--how horribly naughty Stephen was when you tried to
take him into shops. Such disgraceful scenes as she had had with him
when he got tired and impatient.
The clock behind her struck half-past nine, and she became aware of its
ticking once more, its insistent whisper: “_So much to do! So much to
do! So much to do!_”
She was very tired and found she had relaxed wearily into her chair.
But she got up with a brisk energetic motion like a prize-fighter
coming out of his corner. She detested people who moved languidly and
dragged themselves around.
She went into the kitchen and put the oatmeal into the fireless cooker,
and after this waited, polishing absent-mindedly the nickel towel-bar
of the shining stove, till she heard Lester go out of the bathroom.
Then she went swiftly up the stairs, locked the bathroom door behind
her, and began to unwind the bandages from around her upper arm. When
it finally came off she inspected the raw patch on her arm. It was
crusted over in places, with thick, yellowish-white pus oozing from the
pustules. It was spreading. It was worse. It would never be any better.
It was like everything else.
She spread a salve on it with practised fingers, wound a fresh bandage
about her arm, fastened it firmly and then washed her hands over and
over, scrubbing them mercilessly with a stiff brush till they were raw.
She always felt unclean to her bones after she had seen one of those
frequently recurring eczema eruptions on her skin. She never spoke of
them unless some one asked her a question about her health. She felt
disgraced by their loathsomeness, although no one but she and the
doctor ever saw them. She often called it to herself, “the last straw.”
Her nightgown hung on the bathroom door. They usually dressed and
undressed here not to disturb Stephen who still slept in their bedroom,
because there was no other corner in the little house for him. And now
they would _never_ be able to move to a larger house where they could
live decently and have a room apiece, to a better part of town where
the children would have decent playmates. _Never_ anything but this....
She began to undress rapidly and to wash. As she combed her dark hair,
she noticed again how rapidly it was falling. The comb was full of
long hairs. She took them out and rolled them up into a coil. She
supposed she ought to save her combings to make a switch against the
inevitable time when her hair would be too thin to do up. And she had
had such _beautiful_ hair! It had been her one physical superiority,
that and her “style.” What good had they ever done her!
She began to think of the frightening moment in the kitchen that
evening, when for an instant she had lost her bitterly fought-for
self-control, when the taut cable of her will-power had snapped under
the strain put upon it. For a wild instant she had been all one inner
clamor to die, to die, to lay down the heavy, heavy burden, too great
for her to bear. What was her life? A hateful round of housework,
which, hurry as she might, was never done. How she _loathed_ housework!
The sight of a dishpan full of dishes made her feel like screaming
out. And what else did she have? Loneliness; never-ending monotony;
blank, gray days, one after another, full of drudgery. No rest from the
constant friction over the children’s carelessness and forgetfulness
and childishness! How she hated childishness! And she must try to
endure it patiently or at least with the appearance of patience.
Sometimes, in black moments like this, it seemed to her that she had
such _strange_ children, not like other people’s, easy to understand
and manage, strong, normal children. Helen ... there didn’t seem to
be anything _to_ Helen! With the exasperation which passivity always
aroused in her, Helen’s mother thought of the dumb vacant look on
Helen’s face that evening when she had tried to show her how to perform
a simple operation a little less clumsily. Sometimes it seemed as
though Helen were not all _there_! And Henry with that nervous habit of
questioning everything everybody said and the absent-mindedness which
made him do such idiotic things....
A profound depression came upon her. These were the moments in a
mother’s life about which nobody ever warned you, about which everybody
kept a deceitful silence, the fine books and the speakers who had so
much to say about the sacredness of maternity. They never told you that
there were moments of arid clear sight when you saw helplessly that
your children would never measure up to your standard, never would be
really close to you, because they were not your kind of human beings,
because they were not _your_ children, but merely other human beings
for whom you were responsible. How solitary it made you feel!
And Stephen....
It frightened her to think of Stephen. What could you do for a child
who _wanted_ to be bad, and told you so in a loud scream? How could
you manage a child whom no arguments touched, who went off like a
dynamite bomb over everything and nothing; who was capable of doing as
he did this afternoon, rushing right at his own mother in a passion,
trying to bite and scratch and tear her flesh like a little wild beast?
And yet she had never spoiled Stephen because he was the baby of the
family. She had always been firm with him just as she had with the
others. Every one in her circle agreed that she had never spoiled him.
What future could there be for Stephen? If he was like this at five,
what would he be at fifteen, with all those slum boys at hand to play
with? She couldn’t _always_ keep them away from him.
If they could only move to another part of town, the nice part, where
the children would have nice playmates! But now she knew they never
would. With this last complete failure of poor Lester’s to make good,
she touched bottom, knew hopelessness. There never would be anything
else for her, never, never! How _could_ Lester take things lying down
as he did! When there were all those tragic reasons for his forging
ahead? Why _didn’t_ he do as other men did, all other men who amounted
to anything, even common laboring men--get on, succeed, provide for his
family!
It was not lack of intelligence or education. He had always been crazy
about books and education. What good did Lester’s intelligence and
education do them? It was just that he didn’t care enough about them to
_try_!
Well, she would never complain. She despised wives who complained of
their husbands. She had never said a word against Lester and she never
would. Even to-night, at the table, struck down as she had been by that
blow, that fatal blow, so casually, so indifferently announced, she had
not breathed a word of blame. Not one!
But it was bitter! Bitter! She was fit for something better than
scrubbing floors all her life. Her dark face in the mirror looked out
at her, blazing. She looked as Stephen did when he was being whipped.
She looked wicked. She felt wicked. But she did not want to be wicked.
She wanted to be a good Christian woman. She wanted to do her duty. She
began to pray, fervently, “O God, help me bear my burdens! God, make
me strong to do my duty! God, take out the wild, sinful anger from my
heart and give me patience to do what I must do! O God, help me to be a
good mother!”
The right spring had been touched. Her children! She must live for
her children. And she loved them, she did live for them! What were
those little passing moments of exasperation! Nothing, compared to the
passion for them which shook her like a great wind, whenever they
were sick, whenever she felt how greatly they needed her. And how they
did need her! Helen, with her delicate lungs, her impracticality, her
helplessness--what could she do without her mother to take care of her?
And Stephen--she shuddered to think of the rage into which some women
would fly when Stephen was in one of his bad moods. Nobody but his own
mother could be trusted to resist the white heat of anger which his
furies aroused in the person trying to care for him. And Henry, poor
little darling Henry! Who else would take the trouble, day by day, to
provide just the right food for him? See what that one cookie had done
to him this evening! Why, if Mattie Farnham had the care of that child,
she and her delicatessen-store stuff....
Henry’s mother swiftly braided up her thinning hair. Her face was
calmer. She was planning what she would give him for lunch the next
day.