With her materials and patterns laid out on the dining-room table,
Mattie Farnham was trying to cut out a dress for her Margaret, an
undertaking which was going jerkily because of the arrival, seriatim,
of the children from school. They came in at different times, as suited
their different ages and their rank in the hierarchy of grades. Little
Jim in the first grade was free at two, Loren in the fourth was turned
loose at three, and Margaret and Ellen appeared soon after four. The
hour of the arrival varied, but the manner was identical: a clatter
of hurried feet on the porch, the bursting open of the door, and the
questing yell of “Mother! Mo-o-other!”
Mattie always answered with an “Oo-hoo!” on two notes, adding, “in the
di-i-ining-room!” but she never waited for them to come to find her.
She always laid down her work and all thought of it and hastened to
give the returned wanderer a hug and kiss and run an anxious eye over
his aspect to see what had happened to him during his day out in the
world.
“Jimmy, you look tired. Did you eat your lunch good? Come on with me
and get a piece of bread and butter.”
“Say, Mother, Teacher picked me out to say the good-morning greeting to
the whole school this morning at Assembly.”
“Did she? Which one did you say? Weren’t you scared? Say it to me.
Let’s hear.”
A half hour later they would still be in the pantry, Jimmy swinging
his legs from his mother’s cushiony lap, telling her between mouthfuls
about everything that had happened in the long interval since he had
seen her last. Mattie listened eagerly, stroking the hair back from the
square white forehead, gloating greedily over the changing expressions
on the little open, rosy face.
Then Jimmy wanted to know what _she_ was doing and trotted back with
her to the dining-room and had to have the nature of patterns explained
to him, and hung over her as she worked, rumpling up the paper and
getting in her way, his tongue and hers flying together.
Somehow it was time for Loren. Wherever had that last hour gone to? The
crash of the opening door, the shrill whoop of “Mother! Mo-o-other!”
And it all began again, this time with an exciting account of how
Teacher gave Morton Cummings the awfulest calling-down you ever heard
for copying off of Sadie Bennett’s paper. Both Jimmy and Mother were
spell-bound.
But Margaret’s dress did not progress very rapidly. At a quarter of
four Mattie still had the sleeves to cut out, and she’d _have_ to put
her mind on them because she hadn’t bought enough dimity and they would
have to be pieced under the arm. “Loren, you and Jimmy run out and play
a while, won’t you, that’s good boys. Mother’s got to get this done.”
“Mercy! Evangeline Knapp would have had that dress all cut out and
basted up....”
And then, right out of a clear sky, came the unheralded thunderbolt of
a new idea--how could it have come like that! She had not thought of
the Knapps, not once all that day. She had been wrapped up in her work
and in the children; yet the minute she had thought of Eva’s name ...
it was all there, as though she had been studying over them for weeks!
Everything in her head had shucked together different, like when you
look in a kaleidoscope and give it a shake, and there’s a new design.
Why! Why! One thing after another came to her ... how could it be she
had never thought of it before? It was so plain now ... why, yes!
The inquiring shout of Margaret and Ellen had no response. Surprised
and aggrieved, they pushed on hastily in search of their mother and
found her dropped into a chair by the dining-room table, her big
scissors in her hand, her eyes wide and fixed. She answered them
absently, she hardly looked at them, she never noticed that Ellen had
lost her hair-ribbon, she interrupted Margaret’s account of how Maria
Elwell’s petticoat had come off by jumping up and saying suddenly as
though she didn’t even know that Margaret was talking, “See here,
girls, I’ve got to run over to your Uncle Lester’s for something. You
keep an eye on Jimmy, will you?”
What was the matter with Mother anyhow, Margaret and Ellen asked
themselves over their four o’clock pieces of gingerbread. But they were
not much worried. There was never very much the matter with Mother.
She hurried so that she was puffing as she went up the porch steps of
the Knapp house--and yet when she opened the door she did not know
why she had come nor what to say. Henry and Helen were just in also,
enjoying cookies and milk and telling their father about the events of
the day. The sight of the cookies gave Mattie her cue.
“Do those spice-cookies agree with Henry?” she asked.
“Sure they do,” said Lester. “Everything does nowadays! Henry seems to
have grown right out of that weak stomach of his. He eats like a wolf,
I tell him. The doctor says they do sometimes outgrow those childish
things as they get near their teens.”
“Oh, yes, as they get near their teens,” said Mattie.
A moment later she asked, “Helen, aren’t you fatter than you used to
be? Seems as though you were lots fuller in the face.”
“Did you just get around to notice that, Aunt Mattie?” said Helen,
laughing. “You ought to see me trying to get into a last summer’s
dress. They don’t come together--my!--there’s that much of a gap.” She
showed with her hands how wide a gap it was.
“Helen has put on eight pounds,” explained Lester. “The school nurse
says all the children are gaining like everything, now they serve milk
at recess-time.”
“Oh, yes, milk at recess-time,” said Aunt Mattie.
Helen and Henry finished their cookies and tore out to inspect their
poultry. The children and Lester had gone into the chicken-business on
a small scale and were raising some brooder chicks in a packing-case
chicken-house in the back yard. Stephen was there already, hanging over
the low wire-netting “watching their tail-feathers grow,” as he said.
Lester quoted this as he wheeled himself to the open door where Mattie
stood looking out at the children fussing maternally over the little
peeping yellow balls. “Honest to goodness, Mattie, their tail and wing
feathers do come in so fast you can see them grow.” He added, “_I’m_
watching feathers grow, too. Stephen is fairly sprouting wings he’s so
good! It’s because he can play out of doors again, I suppose, after the
winter. We’ve had such lovely weather of late.”
“Yes, it must be because he can play out of doors again,” said Aunt
Mattie.
As they turned back into the kitchen, where a batch of bread was ready
to be put into the oven, she asked, “Lester, aren’t you better of your
indigestion lately?”
“Sh!” he warned her whimsically, his finger at his lips. “Don’t mention
it aloud. I haven’t had any in months. But I don’t want it spoken
about. Leave sleeping dogs lie. The doctor always said it was nervous,
you know. I don’t know much about the geography of my innards, but
I’ve thought once or twice that maybe that awful shake-up my nervous
system got might have sorted things over into the right pile, as far
as digestion goes. It’s not, however,” he said with a sudden grim,
black look at his paralyzed legs, “a cure for indigestion that I could
recommend.”
The tears sprang into Mattie’s eyes as she turned her face away, “It’s
pretty _hard_!”
“I don’t pretend it’s any picnic. But it’s of no consequence of
course.” He was able to say this with a bare and utter sincerity.
“Look here, Lester!” she broke out. “Why couldn’t you--I don’t believe
but what you could go and be a professor somewhere in a University or
a High School. Professors don’t have to walk around. And you’ve always
set such store by poetry and books and everything. There can’t be
anybody who’s more....”
Lester broke in with a laugh at her absurdity. “Why, you dear old girl,
you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d make a mess of what they
want in a school just as much as at the store. What makes you think
colleges want teachers who love literature? They want somebody who can
make young people sit still and listen whether they feel like it or
not. They want somebody who can ‘keep order’ in a class room and drill
students on dates so they can pass examinations. I couldn’t do that!
And I’d loathe forcing literature down the throats of boys and girls
who didn’t want it as I’d loathe selling things to people who didn’t
need them. I’d be just a dead loss at it the way I always am.”
Seeing that she did not follow this, he added concretely, “Besides I
could no more get a job without all the right certificates than I
could set up shop as a doctor. Nowadays colleges want you to be a Ph.D.
And there isn’t a cross-roads High School that’d look at a man who had
only had three years in a State University fifteen years ago and had
been making a failure of keeping accounts in a department store ever
since.”
Mattie recognized the irrefutable nature of all this. “Yes, I see,” she
said sadly.
“Isn’t Mattie the ignorant, impractical old infant!” thought Lester.
She got up now, with a long breath, and silently took herself off.
* * * * *
Although it was long past time to start supper, she did not go home.
She went straight down to Willing’s and into the Cloak-and-Suits.
Eva was busy with customers as usual. “Everybody wants Eva to wait
on them,” thought Mattie, sitting down heavily. Her eyes were fixed
on Evangeline. What a splendid woman she was, and, now she had some
money to spend on her clothes, what a stylish-looking woman! There
wasn’t anybody in town could hold a candle to her. Mattie made these
reflections automatically. These were always the first thoughts which
came to her when she saw Eva.
But to-day, ravaged as she was by this new perception, in which she was
so all alone, her mind dwelt little on style. What she saw to-day was
Eva’s face, alert, interested, sympathetic, and Eva’s eyes, which had
always had, so Mattie remembered, “a sort of wild look,” now so shining
and quiet, looking from the suits she was showing to her customers.
They were a couple of women from out in the country, elderly mother and
grown-up daughter. Mattie was too far off to hear what was said, but
she understood perfectly from the pantomime and from the expression
of the three faces, what the situation was. The two women had thrown
themselves on Eva’s taste to help them make up their minds, and Eva,
looking at them intently, was putting herself whole-heartedly in their
places so that she could give them her best judgment. How happy she
looked!
As she watched, a lump came into Mattie’s throat, and she felt her eyes
hot and misty. What in time was the _matter_ with her? She swallowed
hard and looked away and tried to think of something else. But she
could not. Lester and Stephen and Henry and Helen ... and Eva! ... came
and stood before her eyes--her opened eyes.
“My goodness! I mustn’t get to crying here in the store!” she thought,
alarmed, starting up and going to the window.
When she turned around, Eva’s customers had made their decision, a
momentous one, judging from the relief on their faces. The three women
were chatting and smiling together, relaxed and cheerful. Mattie
heard Eva say, “I know you’ll take the greatest _com_fort in it!” She
went with her customers to the head of the stairs, talking like an old
friend. They shook hands with her, respectfully, cordially. Then she
turned around and came almost running back towards Mattie. “Mattie,
I’ve got something to tell you,” she said hurriedly, smiling. She
looked around her to make sure no one was near and lowered her voice,
“Miss Flynn’s niece has died and leaves four little children and their
father wants Miss Flynn--he hasn’t got any relative of his own--to
go and bring the children up and keep house for him. He’s in the
greenhouse business at Cleveland. Plenty of money. And she is going.”
Mattie did not understand this. She understood few things at once. She
saw nothing but Eva’s curving, smiling lips and bright shining eyes.
She understood them with no difficulty.
“Don’t you see?” whispered Eva. “Somebody’s going to be moved up to
her place, head of the department. They’re going to give me a try at
it. Aren’t they good! Mattie! It’s three thousand a year! And a bonus
for extra sales! And such fascinating work! I’m wild to get my hands
on it and see what I can do with the salesgirls. Oh, Mattie, we can
begin to lay by a little something every month for the children’s
college. Perhaps we can buy a Ford that Lester can get out in with the
children. Oh, _Mattie_!”
At this Mattie disgraced herself and showed once more, as she said
apologetically, what an idiot she was by bursting into senseless,
hysteric tears and having to be carried off in haste to the toilet-room
to cold water and smelling salts.
“I’ve felt all squimbly this whole afternoon,” she explained, blowing
her nose. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Old fool, I guess.”
“Well, it almost makes me feel like crying myself,” said Eva, holding
out a glass of water to her. “It’s come so soon, so much sooner than
I dared to hope. And it will mean so much to Lester and the children.
They’d never have had a college education any other way. Why, Mattie,
I’ve kept thinking all day about the hymn, ‘God moves in a mysterious
way, His....’”
“_Don’t!_” said Mattie huskily. “You’ll get me started again.”
“Of course,” Eva said now, “it’s dreadfully hard for a mother to be
separated from her....”
Mattie broke in hastily, as if to change the subject, “Eva, how is that
eczema of yours lately?”
Mrs. Knapp rolled up a fashionably wide sleeve and showed a clean,
white upper arm. “Dr. Merritt finally found a cure,” she said, “a
new kind of ointment he heard about in a medical convention. It’s
worked like a charm. I haven’t had a touch of eczema--why, in I don’t
know when! It took the doctor long enough to get around to it, but he
finally did.”
* * * * *
It was half-past five when Mrs. Farnham left the store, but still
she did not start home. “_Let_ them wait for supper!” she thought,
desperately. What was supper compared to some other things! She hurried
heavily along towards Dr. Merritt’s house, hoping to goodness he would
be in.
He was, sitting on the porch, reading the evening paper. “Hello, Mrs.
Farnham,” he said, surprised to see her. “I didn’t think I’d ever get
any business out of _your_ family. Who’s broken a leg?”
“We’re all right,” she told him. “I wanted to ask you about the Knapps.
You know I’m sort of related to Mr. Knapp. I’ve been wondering what you
really thought about him ... whether he’ll ever be cured, I mean.”
The doctor noticed that her voice trembled as she spoke. What a
good-natured creature she was, taking other people’s troubles so to
heart.
He hesitated. It was not at all his habit to talk about his patients to
outsiders, least of all to any such chatter-box as Mrs. Farnham. But
he had thought several times lately that, if Lester Knapp were to make
any progress, he would need to start a campaign to dry up the gushing
spring of family sympathy. He knew all about that sort of campaign from
much experience, but he was never resigned to the necessity for it.
“Darn families and their sympathy!” he often said impatiently. “They
‘poor-Charlie’ and ‘poor-Mary’ more sick people into their graves than
we doctors do.”
He had long suspected that well-meaning Mrs. Farnham did a good deal
of “poor-Lestering” at the Knapps. Maybe this was a chance to head
her off, to get her mind started along a new track. Of course he must
remember to use the simplest, most elementary language with her. She
was really almost an illiterate.
“I’ll tell you, Mrs. Farnham, just what I think about the case. As near
as I can make out, the effusion of blood within the spinal canal has
been safely absorbed, or nearly so. There seems to be no displacement
or injury to the spinal bones; there is no wasting away of the muscles
as would be the case if the spinal cord were injured. There is, I
believe, good reason to hope that the loss of power in his legs is a
sequel of organic conditions which have now passed away. The case now
needs a psychic treatment rather than a mechanical.”
“Organic?” said Mrs. Farnham, faintly. The word made her think of
church.
“I mean that in my opinion no physical lesion now exists in spite of
the abnormal sensations which Mr. Knapp still feels. We must try toning
up the general health, overcoming the shock to the nervous system. As
soon as the weather permits, I shall try heliotherapy.”
Mrs. Farnham caught her breath.
“That is, treatment of the affected areas by direct exposure to
sunlight. They have done wonderful things in France with that treatment
in just this sort of trouble. And of course at any time any sort of
sudden nervous stimulus might do the business. You see, Mrs. Farnham,
Mr. Knapp’s case is now like that of the people who are cured at
Lourdes, or by Coué. The very same sort of phenomenon.”
“I don’t understand very well,” said Mattie humbly. “What I wanted to
know was ...” her voice faltered, “_do you think you can cure him?_”
“Isn’t she the dumb-bell!” thought the doctor.
He went on aloud, hoping she would repeat his words to Mrs. Knapp,
“Don’t you say anything about it, Mrs. Farnham, especially to Mrs.
Knapp. I don’t want to crow till we are out of the woods. I wouldn’t
say anything to you if you were not a relative and a sensible woman. I
don’t want them to have a breath of it, for fear of disappointment....”
(How strangely she was looking at him, her face so white and anxious!)
He brought it out roundly, “Yes, Mrs. Farnham, just between us, I
really believe I can cure him.”
She gave a low cry that was like a wail. “Oh, Doctor!” she cried,
appalled, staring at him.
What was the matter with the woman, now? He stared back at her,
blankly, startled, entirely at a loss.
Another look came into her eyes, an imploring, imploring look. She
clasped her hands beseechingly. “Oh, _Doctor_!” she begged him, in a
quavering voice.
* * * * *
From her eyes, from her voice, from her beseeching attitude, from her
trembling hands, he took in her meaning--took it in with a tingling
shock of surprise at first. And then with a deep recognition of it as
something he had known all along.
She saw the expression change in his face, saw the blank look go out of
his eyes, saw the understanding look come in.
It was a long rich interchange of meanings that took place as they sat
staring hard at each other, the gaunt, middle-aged man no longer merely
a doctor, the dull middle-aged woman, transfigured to essential wisdom
by the divination of her loving heart. Profound and human things passed
from one to the other.
Mattie heard some one stirring in the house. “I must go! I must go!”
she said groaningly. She limped down the path. Her feet were aching
like the toothache with the haste of her expeditions that afternoon.
* * * * *
Half an hour later they had to come out and call the doctor to supper,
fairly to shout in his ear he was so sunk in his thoughts, the evening
paper lying unread across his knees.
“Mercy me! Didn’t you hear the supper bell?” cried his wife. “It’s been
ringing like anything!”