VISITORS FOR THE JUDGE
Two weeks later Berty and her boy were spending the day at the Judge’s.
She arrived early in the morning.
“Dear Judge,” she said, bundling out of a cab with various packages and
looking up at him as he stood on his front doorstep throwing crumbs to
the sparrows, “dear Judge, I have come to spend the blessed, livelong
day with you.”
“I am delighted,” he said, gallantly, and throwing away his bread he
hurried down the steps and took the baby from her.
“Yesterday,” she went on, “I was half distracted with calls upon me.
‘Tom,’ I said to my husband, ‘if I’m spared till to-morrow morning I am
going to take baby and hide for a day. You get up early in the morning
and go to your mother’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I am going to
close the house and give Daisy and the cook a holiday.’”
“And what did your husband say?” inquired the Judge, as he held open the
door for her. “O, my dear lady—”
“What is it?” asked Berty, anxiously.
“This baby—he is putting something in my ear.”
“Gravel,” said his mother, as she stood on tiptoe and examined the side
of the Judge’s head. “He had his hands full when we started. He is the
most mischievous baby ever born. You would better give him to me. You
take the packages, and I will take him.”
“No, no; he is too heavy for you to carry.”
“Have you had breakfast?” inquired Berty, as the Judge went toward the
dining room.
“No, not yet. I was just waiting for the children.”
“Here they come,” said Berty, looking up the stairway. “Good morning,
lammies.”
Bethany and the boys pressed about Berty. They all loved her, and the
baby was a great attraction to them. He pulled out a wisp of Bethany’s
hair, untied Dallas’s necktie, and slapped Titus, all in the compass of
a minute, but without the slightest resentment they politely crowded
each other in endeavoring to get a seat near him during prayer time.
His behavior during the reading of a psalm was so disgraceful that his
mother was obliged to carry him out of the room. Chuckling gayly, and
not at all abashed, he came back in time for breakfast.
His exploits at the table, especially with a cream jug and his mother’s
plate of mush, became so exasperating that at last she put him on the
floor with a crust of bread.
He was not hungry, having breakfasted earlier, so, taking his crust, he
crawled under the table and polished the children’s shoes with it. In
huge delight Bethany and the boys, with little explosive bursts of
laughter, submitted to his manipulations, while his mother talked to the
Judge.
“Can you love your work and yet get tired of it?” she was inquiring
searchingly of her older friend.
The Judge shook his head, not negatively, but in a thoughtful manner.
“O, so tired, my dear friend, especially when the flesh grows weak.”
“‘The ghost is willing, but the meat is weak,’ a Frenchman once said,”
continued Berty, with a laugh. “Well, Judge, yesterday I thought I would
go crazy. They began before I was out of bed. ‘Mrs. Everest,’ said Daisy
at my door, ‘the man at the Babies’ Supply Depot says an accident has
happened to the fresh-milk van. The cans are upset. What shall he do?’
‘Do,’ I said, ‘the foolish man! Why, do the best he can. There are other
cows. Let him ransack the town for fresh milk. Telephone to the suburban
places. There is milk somewhere. We’ve got to have it for the River
Street babies. Why does he waste time by coming to me? I put him there;
let him look after his business. If he doesn’t I’ll discharge him.’”
“Do have some of this Cloverdale honey,” said the Judge, “it is
delicious.”
“Now, Judge, you think I want sweetening,” she said, with a mischievous
twinkling of her black eyes, “but you’ve got to hear all my troubles.
Let me see, what was the next thing? O, yes, I know—and this, too,
before I was out of bed. Daisy calls through the door, ‘Mrs. Everest,
the footman from Miss Sally Draylittle’s is here. He says that his lady
says that the Angora cat she bought from your cat farm is going round
with its leg hanging loose. What shall she do?’”
Dallas, who was listening to Berty, began to laugh.
“I don’t wonder you laugh,” said Berty, indignantly. “Did you ever hear
of such a helpless woman trying to run an establishment? ‘Tell the
footman to tell Miss Draylittle to send for a good veterinary. The cat
has probably broken her leg.’ Then let me see, what came next? I’ve got
to tell you quickly while I’m cross about it, for when I get cool I
shall be ashamed of myself for telling my trials, even to such dear
friends as you all are.”
“You in your work are hampered by inefficient persons in places of
trust,” said the Judge, philosophically.
“That’s it in a nutshell,” said Berty. “Why, the average person doesn’t
seem to think. My next call was to go to see a sick woman. She wasn’t
sick; she was troubled and uneasy. Her husband had left home in a temper
the night before and hadn’t come back. She frightened me and I
frightened her. She poured out her woes to me, and I said, ‘I don’t
blame him. If I were your husband I wouldn’t come back for a week.’ The
poor creature stared at me. ‘Why, look about you,’ I said. ‘Look at this
dirty room, this filthy room. How could a man sit down in it with
self-respect. Stop your crying and clean it.’ And do you know, Judge, I
couldn’t make her see it was dirty. I sent for two men and had her moved
bag and baggage into two clean rooms in that house you were good enough
to buy for my poor people; and now the question is, will she have sense
enough to keep it clean?”
“Reform is losing some of its rosy hues to you,” the Judge observed,
sententiously.
Berty laughed. “Please give me some more honey, and just you try
criticising River Street. Then you will find out where baby gets his
temper. I scold those people frightfully, but I love them. Titus, are
you coming to live on River Street with me when you get to be a man?”
and she turned to the boy.
“No, but perhaps I can help you,” he said, modestly. “I was thinking
that on that stock farm grandfather is going to let me have there will
be plenty of room for some cottages for poor sick folks, and I would
like to have some of the children out every day.”
“You dear,” she said, enthusiastically; then as he began an animated
conversation with Titus on the subject of farming she remarked in a low
voice to the Judge, “Why, that boy has stopped stammering, hasn’t he?”
The Judge nodded. “I will tell you about it presently.”
When the two boys and the little girl were excused from the table, and
got up to go to school, there were simultaneous squeals of laughter from
them. Their shoes were all slipping off their feet.
“It’s that cute little baby,” observed Bethany, “he’s untied all our
shoes.”
“Mine are not only untied, but off my feet,” said Berty, unconcernedly.
“Perhaps Higby will be good enough to find them.”
The old man, who was grinning with delight over the baby’s antics, found
one in the coal hod. The other was discovered an hour later out in the
yard, where it had been carried by Bylow the dog, he having probably
picked it up in the back hall, where it had been thrown by Tom, junior.
“Why, I believe,” said the Judge, shuffling his feet about, “that the
little rascal has untied my laces. Dallas, just look before you leave
the room. I dislike fussing with my feet after I am fully dressed.”
Dallas went down on his knees, neatly fastened the Judge’s laces, and
put his feet on a stool where they would be slightly out of baby’s way.
“Who is going to take Bethany to school this morning?” asked the Judge.
“It’s my turn,” replied Titus.
“Good-bye, Daddy Grandpa,” said the little girl, coming to kiss him.
“Good-bye,” he said, “mind and wait for Jennie to come and bring you
home. Don’t leave Mrs. Hume’s alone.”
“No, dear Daddy Grandpa.” Then she went on, anxiously, “Will the baby be
here when Bethany comes home?”
“I hope so,” said the Judge, politely.
“Yes, he will,” said Berty, “that dreadful baby will be here for
luncheon, and for dinner, too, if he is not turned out before then.”
The Judge smiled. “He won’t be. I have a fellow-feeling for that baby.
Many a time I have heard my dear departed mother say that I was one of
the worst children she ever saw.”
“O, Judge,” said Berty, vivaciously, “is that true? Can it be that there
is hope for my baby of becoming a man like you?”
“Tut! tut! he will be a far better one.”
“Judge, will you take him and bring him up?”
The Judge tried to repress a shudder, but could not. He liked Berty’s
baby, and had great patience with him as an occasional visitor, but as
steady company—“No,” he said, thoughtfully, “that baby needs a mother.”
“So he does,” said Berty, catching him up in her arms, “mother’s great
fat lump of flesh with a naughty little mind inside. Now, Judge, what
are you going to do this morning?”
“I am going to entertain you,” he said, politely.
“No, no, I only stay on condition that I don’t interfere with your
regular occupations. Baby and I can amuse ourselves.”
“I assure you that I would rather stay with you than do anything else,”
said the Judge.
“Well,” she returned, “you are a truthful man, and I believe you. Will
you take me to see the pigeons first thing? But what shall we do with
baby?”
“Higby,” said the Judge, “you are fond of children. You amuse him.”
The old man deliberately came forward and received the crowing baby in
his arms.
Young Tom was too much accustomed to strangers to object, and at once he
was fascinated by Higby’s teeth, which were rather large and curiously
shaped. Insinuating all his pink fingers in the man’s mouth, to tried to
take them out. They would not come.
“If you don’t object to that, Higby,” said Mrs. Everest, “it is a sure
way to amuse him.”
Higby gurgled a reply in the affirmative, and Berty went away with the
Judge.
“O, the lovely creatures,” she exclaimed, when a few minutes later they
entered the pigeon loft, “and how tame they are!”
The pigeons were flying all over the Judge, lighting on his head, his
shoulders, his arms, and gently tapping him with their beaks.
“They are becoming tamer every day,” he said. “It is wonderful what kind
treatment will do in developing the intelligence of the lower order of
creation.”
“I suppose Titus pets these birds very much.”
“O, yes, he and Bethany are indefatigable. I watched him at first, for I
thought he might neglect them, but he does not.”
“I used to keep pigeons,” said Berty, wistfully. “I was very fond of
them.”
“I am sure Titus would give you a pair or two, if you wish to start
again. He won’t let everybody have them, but he would be sure of your
devotion to them.”
“I should love to have some,” she said, enthusiastically. “By the way,
Judge, tell me about his stammering. Is he really cured?”
“You noticed that he spoke slowly.”
“Yes, I did.”
“He is trying to cure himself, really trying hard now. He got a shock
the other day that started him in the right direction. It was after Airy
Tingsby’s last visit here. Just as soon as she went away I called him to
me. ‘Titus,’ I said, ‘did you notice that Airy stammered quite often
during dinner, and in the evening?’
“‘Yes,’ he said, reluctantly, ‘he had.’
“‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘that that little girl has set up a lofty ideal
for herself. She wishes to be a perfect lady.’
“Titus said he knew that.
“‘And you,’ I said, ‘are going to be a stumbling-block. So anxious is
she to imitate the members of this family in every particular that she
is going to copy our bad as well as our good qualities. Now, don’t you
think you ought to endeavor to shake off this habit of stammering?’
“Titus asked me if I thought she was imitating him purposely.
“‘Do you think so yourself?’ I asked.
“He gave me to understand that he did not, that she was so consumed by a
burning, intense desire to improve that she unconsciously caught up
everything he said, absorbed all his words, and his mannerisms with
them.
“I did not need to say anything further. The boy was perfectly upset
over the affair, so much so that I wondered. He was ashamed of standing
in the way of a girl—and such a fragile piece of ambition as Airy. So he
set himself resolutely to conquer his failing, and you see he is making
good progress. He slips sometimes, but not often.”
“Titus is a noble boy,” said Berty, warmly. “He is going to make a fine
man.”