Mrs. Burtsch remained away all the remainder of the summer and until
late in the fall. Rose, of course, was prohibited from visiting Beth.
For her own part, Eliza was better pleased than otherwise with the
arrangement of affairs. She regretted that Beth was cut off from
intimate companionship with those of her own age, yet Rose had never
been the most desirable acquaintance. Being alone was preferable to
undesirable friends.
Eliza made a point of inviting Helen Reed from Friday until Sunday
evening. The two little girls had the best of times. There were bushels
of pop-corn and barrels of apples. When the weather was not too cold,
they spent hours playing in the attic. Eliza had given them each a play
skirt which could trail behind, and they were happy.
There was a box of antiquated hats in the attic. Beth and Helen at once
set up a millinery shop and sewed braids and trimmed hats until their
fingers were sore. They had quite a fine assortment before they had
finished. It was only too bad that they had no customers and were forced
to buy their own goods.
Winter months in the country are never propitious for visiting unless
one is able to keep a driving horse. The people at Shintown had only the
work horses. During the coldest months these were taken to town to haul
ice from the river to the big store houses, and so were unavailable. So
the folks of Shintown ploughed their own way through the snow to church
or Sunday-school which was always held in the school-house.
Eliza caught glimpses of Mrs. Burtsch and tried to speak to her, but the
offended lady would accept no overtures. She took her place opposite
Eliza and never looked in her direction. When Beth after services would
have run after Rose, Mrs. Burtsch drew her offspring away with, "Come,
Rose, this instant. Hain't I told you that I want you to be particular
who you are friends with."
Even at the sauer-kraut supper, which was the annual event for the last
week in November, when money was raised to pay the minister's salary,
Mrs. Burtsch ignored her neighbors of the old Wells place. Eliza was
washing dishes and Mrs. Burtsch carrying plates heaped with pork,
sauer-kraut and mashed potatoes.
After several attempts, Eliza gave up and accepted Mrs. Burtsch's
attitude as a matter of course. Since the day when Beth had fluffed her
hair and stuck sweet peas in it, Eliza had kept it so. The garden
flowers had all gone. There were plenty of house plants at the Wells
place, however. The evening of the supper, Beth stuck a pink geranium in
her foster-mother's hair.
"You'll be the very sweetest one at the party Adee," said Beth.
She was a true prophet. Eliza's work and the overheated room had given
her cheeks the same tint as the flower in her hair.
"Eliza Wells haint so bad looking," said Sam Houston to some one near
him. "It's wonderful how she does keep her looks. She's thirty-five if
she's a day."
More than one pair of eyes were attracted toward her. Mrs. Kilgore
sighed when she overheard some one mention Eliza's fine coloring. She
shook her head sadly. "I don't like the looks of it," she said. "Old
Sally Caldwell, her great aunt by marriage on her father's side, had
just such high coloring and she was took off sudden as could be with
galloping consumption. You can't tell me. Such things are inherited.
Mark my words, Eliza Wells will be took off before the year is out. It
hain't natural. A woman ought to look a little faded by the time she's
Eliza's age. It's only natural that she should."
"Don't let that worry you none," laughed Mrs. Burtsch in her bitter,
cynical fashion. "Those red cheeks won't have nothing to do with Eliza's
going off unless she goes off with just plumb foolishness. We could all
be blooming out and looking like young colts if we wanted to spend our
money at a drug-store. Pink cheeks! Buy them at twenty-five cents a
bottle at Swain's drug-store."
Sleet set in before the supper was over. It was almost nine o'clock
before the social event of the season was over and the lights in the
school-house were ready to be turned off. The weather had moderated and
the sleet had become a rain. The walking was bad. Slush with pools of
water had filled the road.
Old Squire Stout had come over with his three-seated "carry-all".
"I'll carry you and Beth home," he said to Eliza. "You'uns folks is
farthest out and you hain't got no men folks with you. You'd better ride
along."
"I should like to. Beth's so tired that she can barely keep on her
feet."
They were ready to start when Mrs. Burtsch came out of the school-house
with her basket over her arm. "I most forgot my potato-kettle," she
explained. "I never could get along without that."
"Oh, is that you, Livia," cried the squire in his way. "Better climb in
and we'll carry you home. Always room for one more. Crowd in somewhere.
Let the youngsters sit on the floor."
Mrs. Burtsch was about to comply when she saw that the only seat not
already crowded to its full capacity, was occupied by Eliza and the
squire's wife. They had moved closer to make room for her.
"Not to-night, but I thank you kindly just the same, squire. I'll keep
to Shank's mare yet awhile. I'll trot on alone and I'll be sure to be in
good company."
"Suit yourself, Livia," said the squire, touching his whip to the flanks
of the off horse. "It's a right fool thing to walk two miles on a night
like this when you could just as well ride. But I hain't no way
responsible for your foolishness. You always was plumb set in your
ways."
Later events proved that Mrs. Burtsch was foolish. Sam Houston brought
the news to Eliza. Sam and his wife had the best intentions in the
world. They were "chock-full" to the throat with fine theories about how
to run a farm and anything else that came up for discussion. They meant
to put their theories into practice, but somehow they never got around
to it. He knew when sauer-kraut should be made and just how it should be
made. He got as far in working it out as to have his cabbage piled on
the back porch with bran sacks over it to keep it from freezing. His
"working germ" took a vacation there. The week following the sauer-kraut
supper, he came around to Eliza's back door. He was careful to "stomp"
the snow from his boots before he entered the kitchen.
"Why--you, Sam?" exclaimed Eliza. "I hope nothing has happened to Mary
Jane." Sam was not one to make early calls.
"No, the missis is all right. She just sent me over to get the lend of
your kraut-cutter. You hain't using it, I calculate."
"Mercy, no. I've got mine made long ago. The cutter's out in the
wash-house. You'll find it hanging up behind the door."
"We're a little slow somehow about making ours. 'Pears to be so much to
do. There's chores, and then I had some carpenter work to do on the
chicken-coop. But last night, the cold nipped the top layer of the
cabbage heads, so Mary Jane said we'd better make the kraut right off or
it would all be spoiled. She spoke to set up with Livia Burtsch
to-night."
"Livia Burtsch?" exclaimed Eliza. "What's wrong with her?"
"Got water-soaked the night of the church-supper and took 'monia'.
They've had the doctor from the Bend. The parson's been to see her.
She's right bad. Somebody's had to set up with her every night now for
three days. She gets out of her head."
Sam moved on to get the sauer-kraut cutter. There was no question in
Eliza's mind as to her duty.
"I'm going over to see Mrs. Burtsch, Beth," she said. "I'm not sure that
I'll be back in time for dinner. You can take some bread and milk. I
don't want you to fuss with the fire and try to cook while I'm away.
Mrs. Burtsch is sick and may need me."
There were more ways than one in which Mrs. Burtsch would need help.
Eliza knew that. Olivia was not one to "cook up" anything. She was
generally out of bread and never made jelly, or canned what she called
"truck". Eliza knew how she would find matters in the Burtsch household,
so she took her biggest basket and filled it with some fresh bread, some
jelly and several bottles of home-made grape-juice.
She wasted no time in apology or explaining when she entered the Burtsch
household.
"Well Livia, this is too bad that you're laid up. Have you had any
breakfast yet?"
"Lem did bring me in some, but I couldn't eat," she said.
"A man's cooking! It wouldn't be expected of you. I'll get something for
you."
The kitchen was not the sight to please the eye of a housekeeper. Lemuel
and Rose had made a shift at cooking but had made no attempt at cleaning
up. Dishes were piled high on every available space of the table. The
floor was slippery with grease. The frying pan with bits of what had
been intended for the patient's breakfast was on the back of the stove.
Eliza sniffed at it. Salt pork! Scarcely a tempting breakfast for an
invalid.
She prepared toast with an egg and a cup of tea. The neighboring women
had been kind, but they had their families and households to see to, and
had not been able to accomplish all they wished.
When the breakfast was disposed of, Eliza cleared away the accumulation
of dishes. She pressed Rose into service. She put the house into some
semblance of order in the very few hours she had and prepared dinner for
Lemuel Burtsch. She knew what his meals must have been if he had had the
preparation of them himself. She was a slow, deliberate worker. She
could not rush about and do much in a little time. But she was not
irritating in her efforts. Her serene, calm way soothed Olivia.
Rose was of little help. She whined and cried when matters went askew.
Mrs. Burtsch worried about the child's doing without her meals.
Altogether Rose was of little value in the house.
"Does Rose help you? Is there anything she can do?" Eliza asked Lemuel
as he sat at the dinner table. He looked about bewildered. He had never
been the head of his own house, and now with his wife sick, he was like
a canoe with the paddle gone.
"She hain't much good. She's not very old yet Miss Eliza, and her mother
always calculated not to make her work until she was considerable
older."
"She's really too much of a baby yet to help anyone. If she is no help,
I'll take her home with me and take care of her until Olivia gets
around, or until you can find a good woman."
"That's powerful good, Miss Liza. Your folks was always great hands for
helping other folks out and you're a chip from the old block. I'll be
relieved a heap if you'll sort of look after her."
It was evident that the child's mother was quite as relieved as Lemuel
himself.
It was long after the dinner hour when Eliza set forth with Rose. Mrs.
Houston had come over to "set" for a spell and promised to see to the
patient until the evening when some one else would relieve her.
Beth was watching at the window. When she saw Eliza and Rose coming, she
ran from the house and down to the gate to meet them. She flung her arms
about Adee's neck and then hugged Rose who stood as stiff and
irresponsive as an iron post.
"I'm dreadful glad, Rose. Now, we can play. Helen and I made about a
million hats. They're up in the attic. We'll play millinery store."
"Run along and play until I call you to supper. We'll have it early.
Beth has had only a bowl of milk since breakfast. Run along; I'll call
you."
They needed no encouragement. Eliza went to the kitchen and began her
preparation. Meanwhile the girls had examined the hats in the attic and
commented on the grace and elegance of several. Rose's tongue was going
clickety-clack. She talked more freely when her elders were not present.
"Mrs. Kilgore got a new hat before the church supper. She thought she
wouldn't get it at first. It cost an awful lot," and so on and so on,
petty details of other people's affairs which she had heard her elders
discuss, and which was really no business of hers, or theirs either.
"Let's play store. You be selling hats and I'll be the Queen of Sheba
come to buy," suggested Beth. She had learned this particular "stunt"
from Helen Reed who would have no dealings with anybody but royalty when
she played make-believe.
"I'll have a train. This one is too short and don't rustle." Beth
proceeded to pin a half of a curtain to the tail of her gown. Then she
pranced forward where the gable was highest and trailed her gown after
her.
"You'll be the shop-keeper and I'll be the Queen," said Rose.
"No, I'll be the Queen first. You've never played the game and you don't
know how a queen is supposed to act. They don't act like just common,
every-day people." Beth paraded up and down, spreading her train and
looking back over her shoulder to see the effect. So the discussion
continued for several minutes.
"Much you know about queens. You'd better play like you was a tramp."
There was more than childish teasing in the speaker's voice. There was
the keen cutting desire to hurt which marked her mother's conversation.
"I don't know nothing about tramps. I never saw one in all my life. Oh,
ain't this train perfectly 'kertish'?" and she cavorted about to show
off to the best advantage.
"You don't! You never saw one! Then you'd better look in the
looking-glass. For you're a tramp yourself. You were found--"
Eliza had come to bring the little girls to supper. She caught the last
remark. Quick as a flash, she stepped into the room and, seizing Rose by
the arm, silenced her. She held her thus while she turned to Beth.
"Go down and eat your supper, Beth, dear. Rose and I will have a little
talk."
Sending Beth ahead, Eliza held Rose, cringing and shaking, by the arm
and led her to a bedroom on the second floor, where she took her in and
sat down with her and tried to show how contemptible and mean her act
was.