There were no playmates at Shintown. The nearest neighbor, Burtsch by
name, was nearly a mile away. The family consisted of the father and
mother, and Rose who was a year older than Beth was supposed to be.
There had been half a dozen children before Rose came, but they had died
when mere babies.
Mrs. Burtsch frequently referred to the loss of her children as "the
strange working of Providence." She had a thin, high-pitched voice. She
was angular, long-limbed. She wore basques and straight, narrow skirts.
Her hair was in a knob behind and drawn so tight that the muscles of her
forehead and temple had a habitual upward tendency. As though to
maintain an even balance, she always directed her glances toward the
earth, and the lines of her mouth went downward. She was ingratiating,
self-depreciating, and presumably humble. She was always declaring that
she was just as good as Mrs. Somebody-or-other, if she was poor. It was
no disgrace to be poor. But it was in her case. Poverty was her shame,
for had she and her husband been up and about their work, making the
most of their farm in place of trying to sustain themselves with the
maxim, 'Poverty is no disgrace,' they would have had all the comforts
desirable and might have been able to help others. Mrs. Burtsch had a
whining voice that got upon one's nerves after a time. She made a point
of coming in to see Eliza, and in an insinuating way found out all she
could, suggested where she dared and criticised in her exasperating way.
She brought Rose with her. While Mrs. Burtsch talked, the children
played, or presumably did so; but Rose's ears and eyes were wide open.
She never missed a word that her elders said. She was a skinny,
owlish-looking child who could sit for hours and listen, but whose
tongue could run as long and as easily as a ball-bearing machine. She
knew every bit of gossip of the country-side, and repeated it with all
the insinuating humility which was characteristic of her mother.
Rose and Beth were cutting out paper dolls. Eliza kept at her sewing
while Mrs. Burtsch, rocking slowly, slowly, kept the conversation going.
"Beth looks stout, Miss Eliza. I've noticed frequently how stout she
looks. But then that hain't no sign that she is going to live. Her own
folks might have had consumption. You can never tell. Like mother, like
child, you know. Her mother couldn't have had a constitution to brag on
when a little thing like falling on a stone killed her quick like it
did. If I were in your place, I'd be mighty careful of her. Don't let
her breathe no night air, and keep her housed up well."
Eliza had long since passed this stage in child-rearing. When she
realized that Beth might be with her always, she set about at once to
learn something of bringing up a little girl, just as she had learned
all she could about feeding chickens. She had long since discovered the
futility of discussing any question with Mrs. Burtsch when the latter
had the other view of the case. It was always a harangue and nothing
else.
"She's healthy enough. She's never had a cold. I'm not at all concerned
about her."
"You never can be sure. She's got a dreadful color in her cheeks, and
her eyes are too bright for health. I'd worry considerable about her."
"What good would that do? It would not improve her condition even if she
was in the last stage of consumption."
Eliza smiled to herself. Beth, the picture of health! Her bright cheeks
and dancing eyes were more the result of good, plain food, quiet, happy
home life and fresh air and sunshine. She looked all she had been
breathing in.
"You never can be sure. My William Henry was as strong a baby as you'd
see in a day's travel, but he went off like a flash with pneumonia. You
remember, Miss Eliza?"
She did remember. She knew how a sick child had been left to drag about
in wet grass, and left lying at home, sick with rising fever, while the
mother dilly-dallied over the fields looking for a weed that the Indians
had found infallible for colds.
Mrs. Burtsch was now well launched on the subject. She discussed in
detail the taking away of each one of her children. She called their
early death "strange and mysterious workings of Providence." It was far
from just to put the blame on Providence when each death had been the
direct result of careless, ignorant mothering, or lack of mothering.
Miss Eliza listened. She had heard the story all her life. It had been a
quarter of a century since William Henry had died. There was nothing to
do but listen. One could not have turned Mrs. Burtsch from the beaten
path of her conversation. The only thing to do was to let her go on
until she had run herself out.
Eliza listened and threw in a "yes", an "indeed", at the proper place;
but for the most part her attention was given to her sewing. It had
required close accounting to make her income provide for herself and
Beth. Each year the expenses would be greater; Eliza tried to lay a few
dollars of her interest money aside. She believed in being ready for
emergencies. Her trunk had, hidden in its capacious depth, all the odd
pennies which came her way.
Now, she was reducing her own wardrobe to fit Beth out. When her
shirt-waists were worn at the collar and cuffs, she took the fronts and
backs and made guimpes for Beth.
Mrs. Burtsch had ultimately spun her story to a finish. Rose and Beth
were yet intent upon cutting out ladies from a magazine. The former paid
little attention to what her mother was saying. She had heard it so
often that its charm had worn off. As far as Rose was concerned, it fell
on dull ears.
Suddenly, Mrs. Burtsch leaned forward and, seizing an end of Eliza's
sewing, took it up critically. "What do you mean to do with it?" she
asked. "The tucks hain't so bad, though the rest does look like it went
through the mill. It's a sin and a shame to throw it away, 'Liza. I do
hope you hain't going to be wasteful. It always cuts me up to see
anything throwed away."
Her own yard was a waste of weeds. Her household a waste in every way.
Hours and hours of each day were spent as she was spending these, at a
harangue that did no one any good, which sapped the energy and left no
gain whatever.
"I don't think I'll grow recklessly extravagant;" replied Eliza. "I've
worn this white dress for three summers. It's out at a good many places
and I've put on just enough flesh to make it too tight over the hips.
I'm making it over for Beth. I can get quite a nice little dress for
her. The ruffles are just as good as new." She held up the skirt and
looked it over. "There's plenty of material to make her a nice little
dress. I'm relieved at the thought of it. She does need one badly
enough, and I could not see my way clear to get her something nice and
fine."
Mrs. Burtsch had been fingering the dress with a hypercritical air. At
Eliza's words, she leaned back in her chair and sighed. That sigh spoke
volumes.
"You're very foolish, Miss Liza. Everyone is saying so and has been
saying so ever since Old Prince got away from you. I don't like to tell
you what folks are saying. I never was no hand at carrying news; but I
feel that it's my duty to let you know. That's what a friend's for, to
set us right when we go wrong. I feel it my duty to tell you."
"Don't put yourself out," said Eliza, biting off a thread closely, and
with just a little touch of vindictiveness. "I'll not treasure it up
against you." She was not angry. Amused came nearest to express her
state of mind.
"I wouldn't be doing right," continued the visitor in her meek, whining,
apologetic voice. "I never set up to be much. I know I hain't educated,
and me and John are poor, but that hain't anything against us. Being
poor hain't any disgrace, I've always tried to do my duty, as I saw it.
If I've failed it hain't because I hain't tried. It hain't no matter to
me how I hate to do a thing or how disagreeable it is, if it's my duty,
I do it. That's the way I feel about telling you. I hain't going to
shirk my duty by you living alone as you are."
The meeker Mrs. Burtsch tried to be, the more "hain'ts" she made use of.
They were the negative expression of herself and her thoughts. Eliza
said nothing at all, but picked her stitches carefully.
"Folks think that you are clean gone crazy about keeping this little
girl. It hain't as though you was a married woman with a man to provide
for you. Of course you've got money, put out on interest, but moths
corrupt and thieves might break in and steal. That means not to count
too much on what you've laid by.
"Now, folks say that you have no call to keep this child and treat her
just like she was of your own family. You're bringing her up just as
fine as a lady."
"Why not?" asked Eliza. "She's a little lady now and I hope she'll be a
big lady by and by. That's what I'm raising her for."
Rose's shears had not missed a snip; but her sharp little eyes narrowed
down to slits and her ears pricked themselves up. This was a new subject
to her. Wasn't Beth really Miss Eliza's little girl after all? The
wonder of it was that she had never found out before. Her mouth fairly
watered for this morsel of news. Yet she never so much as turned her
head or lost one snip with her shears.
"Well, to my way of thinking it hain't right. Every one I've spoke to
says the same thing. It hain't right to take a tramp child and bring her
up as though she was somebody. If you'd train her so she's be handy for
working out, folks wouldn't have so much to say, but you're spoiling her
so that she won't make even a good hired girl."
"I don't want her to be that, Liza Burtsch. She's just a baby yet. I
really haven't thought much what I'd like her to be. All I think about
now is to keep her sweet and wholesome and teach her all that other
little girls learn in schools. There's time enough to think about other
things when ten years more have gone.
"There's something else, Livia Burtsch, that we'll settle right here.
Beth is no tramp child and never was. You have no right to call her
that, and I will not allow it."
"Seems to me that I've got a good bit of right. Folks hain't as blind as
you're suspicioning them, Liza Wells. Tramp child, now what else could
she be called but tramp. Maybe she's worse for all I know. You can't
tell me things, Liza Wells. I've lived too long to have the wool pulled
over my eyes. You know and I know that no decent self-respecting woman
what has a home or any folks is tramping on foot through the country
with a baby. No woman that thinks anything of herself is walking through
a strange country and taking naps under bushes by the roadside. You
can't tell me. The child's mother was nothing but a worthless scal--."
"Stop! Not another word." Eliza's voice was low--too low for peace. It
was as clear cut and metallic as a blade of steel. Mrs. Burtsch was awed
by it. For an instant she looked at Eliza with wide-open eyes and
hanging jaw, but she soon recovered her rigidity of feature and posture.
"Well, I guess I'll say what I see fit to say when it's the truth.
That's what cuts you, Eliza. It's the truth and you know it. Tut, tut,
what's the world coming to if folks can't speak what's in their mind.
Beth's just a tramp--."
Eliza had risen. She stood like an offended goddess before the woman.
"Not another word in my house, Livia Burtsch. Not another word. You
always have been a news-carrier, making trouble wherever you go. I've
borne with you a good many years without saying a word in return. I've
put up with it too long. Now, we'll understand each other. If you can
come in my home and visit without carrying news, and slandering everyone
in the neighborhood, well and good; you may come and I'll make you
welcome. If you can't be civil and can't keep from bothering about my
affairs--stay away."
Mrs. Burtsch had also arisen. She was fairly trembling with offended
pride. She looked at Eliza as though she had never seen her before.
Indeed, she had never seen such an Eliza before. She could not say a
word. She made an effort, but it only ended in a clack of her tongue
against her false teeth. With what dignity she could command, she turned
and, jerking Rose up by the hand, fairly pulled her from the room.
Her tongue was loosened before she reached home. Rose listened to a
storm of abuse against Eliza and her fosterchild. She learned all the
particulars of Beth's advent into the Wells home.
When they had gone, Eliza went back to her sewing. Her hand trembled
with nervousness. Beth came and stood back of her chair. "Adee, I think
I'll fix your hair like you used to wear it when I was a baby."
She loosened the smooth bands until the soft chestnut locks fell loosely
about the high, broad forehead. The roll of hair was too heavy for the
child to manage, so Adee herself coiled it loosely as Beth wished it to
be.
The child disappeared for a moment, but soon returned with some sweet
peas in a delicate pink.
"This is the way you used to wear them, Adee." She stuck them in with
her light, easy touch.
"Now, look how sweet you look, Adee," she cried. Eliza viewed herself in
the big mirror and smiled. She recognized beauty when she saw it
and--well, she was growing to look like her own flowers, and her own
heart.