HAIL TO THE CHIEF!

in big yella letters, hemmed down on this white. An' the childern, all

four of 'em, is to sing it, besides. Don't you remember, they learned it

at school down home--I should say, in New York, that time the president

come back, an' all the public-school childern sung'm a welcome?"

Sam bit his lip. "Yes, but that was a little different. Somehow, I

think HAIL TO THE BRIDE might be better, don't you?"

"No!" said Martha, with decision. "First place, she ain't exackly a

bride by this time. When a lady's been married almost a year, an'

traveled 'round the world in the meanwhile, I wouldn't call her a bride.

An', besides, it wouldn't be polite to single her out, an' sorta leave

_him_ in the cold. Everybody knows bridegrooms don't cut much of a

figga, but you needn't rub it in. No, I thought it over careful, an'

HAIL TO THE CHIEF is what I decided on. HAIL TO THE CHIEF lets us out on

responsibility. It's up to them to prove which it hits, see?"

Whether Sam did or didn't, he made no further comment. He went and sat

himself down in his own particular chair, took up from the center-table

the latest number of _The New England Farmer_, and commenced studying it

assiduously.

A second later, the machine was in motion again, running with great

velocity, impelled by Martha's tireless foot.

Mrs. Slawson did not look up, when the eldest of her four children, just

home from school, came in, and made straight for her side.

"Mother-r-r!"

No answer.

"Say, mother-r-r!"

"For goodness' sake, Cora, let go that R. The way you hang on to it,

you'd think you was drownin', an' _it_ was a lifeline. Besides, d'you

know what I decided to do? I decided to strike. For the rest o' this

week, I ain't answerin' to the name o' 'Mother-r-r.' See? There ain't

a minute in the day, when some one o' you childern ain't shoutin'

it--you, or Francie, or Sammy, or Sabina--an' it's _got on my nerves_,

as Mrs. Sherman says. You can call me 'Martha' or 'Little Sunshine' or

anythin' else you got a mind to, but 'Mother-r-r,' not on your life."

"Say, moth----!"

"Look out, now!"

"What you sewin' on?"

"The machine."

"Pooh, you know I don't mean that. What you making? Anything for me?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, what _are_ you, then?"

"I'm a perfeck lady, an' I'm makin' a motta that proves it."

"Mother-r-r, I think you're real mean. All the girls at school have

fancier clo'es 'n I got, an' I think you just might make me some new

ones, so there!"

"Sure I might!" admitted Mrs. Slawson blandly.

Cora's lip went out. "Then, why don't you? You got as much time as any

other girl's mother. Ann Upton's mother makes all Ann's dresses 'n'

things, an' she's got twice's many as I got. She had a new dress, when

school took in, in September, an' she got another new one, 'round about

New Year's, and now she's got another new one for summer."

Martha stroked down a seam with deliberation. "That's nice for Ann,

ain't it, havin' so many? She can _spell_ 'm, as they say here. When

she gets tired o' wearin' one dress, she can change to another, an' look

like one o' them fashion-plates from mornin' till night, an' feel

like----"

"I been wearing the same old thing ever since I was born," continued

Cora, disregarding her mother's irrelevant remark, continuing her

lamentation as if it had not been interrupted.

"Which shows it was good mater'al to begin with," retorted Martha. "Ann

Upton's mother prob'ly buys cheap goods with no wear in 'em."

"She don't either. It's just she wants to have Ann stylish. _You_

don't care a bit if I ain't stylish."

"Certaintly I don't. I got other things on my mind. I don't care a fig

if you're stylish or not. I never was much on style myself, an' I get

along all right. I mixed with the best s'ciety in New York City, I can

tell you, young lady. Nobody coulda went to the houses o' tonier folks

than I did, an' was made welcome too, an' don't you forget it. An' the

complaints, if I missed a day! You'd be surprised! These young ladies

that think o' nothin' but style, you can take it from me, their outsides

is all there is to'm. They got nothin' else to think of, an' nothin' to

think of it with, if they had it."

"Well, I don't care, I wisht you was like Mrs. Upton!"

"Now, what do you think o' that! D'you hear what Cora says, father?

Cora don't like the style o' mother you picked out for her. She's just

fairly disgusted with your taste in ladies."

Sam Slawson did not hear, or, if he heard, did not heed, and Cora

proceeded, unabashed:

"Mrs. Upton does her own work, an'----"

"That all? Most anybody could do their own work, seems to me. That's

dead easy. It's when you do your own work, an' sever'l other people's

besides, that you're ap' to be some occupied," observed Mrs. Slawson.

"Well, I don't care what you say, I just think I might have a new

dress--Dutch neck, with short sleeves."

"Before you wanta wear a Dutch neck, you got to _have_ a Dutch neck.

_You_ ain't a modern bathroom, that you must show you got exposed pipes.

Better cover up your bones, an' think less about what you're wearin'. I

got more to do than waste time fussin' about such trivolous things, so

you better make up your mind you're goin' to skip this fashion."

"Well, I wisht you'd make me a new dress," wailed Cora, returning to her

muttons undaunted. "You ain't too busy. Last night, before I went to

bed, I saw you _sittin' down_, an' you weren't doin' anythin', either,

only mendin' Sammy's pants."

Sam Slawson raised his head.

"That's right, Cora. Make your mother be busy! She don't work hard

enough, as it is. Get a hump on, mother! Get a hump on."

"If I get another hump on, besides the one I already got, I'll be a

drumederry," observed Mrs. Slawson imperturbably, while Cora left the

room in tears, her sense of injury swelling beyond her power of control,

when her father's irony proved he was siding with "mother" against her.

"The next time Cora gets fresh, and calls you down, Martha, I just wish

you'd turn her over to me, and let me give her what she deserves,"

suggested Sam, as soon as the door was shut.

"Give her what she deserves? You couldn't. It'd take too long, besides

exhaustin' you too much. But, I thank you kindly for offerin'. Barrin'

a few airs an' graces, Cora's all right, an' when she ain't, I'm not too

delicate yet, with easy livin', but what I can give her a lickin'

that'll dust some of her fancy frills off'n her. When young 'uns gets

along to a certain age, they're apter than not to get outa sorts an'

feel they didn't have a fair show on parents. I been there myself, an'

I see it work in other fam'lies. It may surprise you, Sam, but the

young is hard, hard as nails. Only, nails has the advantage. Nails has

_heads_. You got somethin' to tie to with _them_. But young folks is

smooth _and_ hard, an', when you think you got'm trained good, that's

just the time they slip out from under your fingers, an' go spinnin'

off, goodness knows where, away from you--like them pretty-appearin'

candy balls that _looks_ sweet, but you break your jawbones tryin' to

put a tooth in'm. All you can do is lick'm oncet in a while. An' it's

just the same with childern."

"Well, I won't have Cora giving you impudence, mother. If she hasn't

the sense to appreciate you, at least I won't stand by and hear her

tongue-lashing you."

Martha bowed. "'Thank you--thank you, sir, she said, your kindness I

never shall forget!' All the same, I'll tell you this, right now,

Sammy, I certaintly got to set to an' begin puttin' in some modren

improvements onto me, for I begun to notice, I don't really suit nobody

but you, the way I am. I'm too old-fashioned or somethin', to please,

nowadays. Quite a lotta people has delicately hinted to me, lately, I'd

be a whole lot more satisfactory, if I was altogether differnt. There's

my childern. As I just told you, I don't seem to be the style o' mother

they'd select at all, if they was out shoppin' for mothers, an' had what

Mrs. Sherman calls Carte Blanche with 'em--whoever _she_ is. An' it's

the same with Ma. I never really did suit Ma for a daughter-in-law from

the start. She could tell you (an' _does_) a hunderd ways I'd be

better, _with alterations_, only I been that took up, tendin' to her

wants, ever since you an' me was married, I ain't had time to put the

alterations in. An', then, there's----"

"Say, Martha," interposed Sam, lowering his voice to an almost inaudible

whisper, "here's Mrs. Peckett coming up the walk. If you've got

anything 'round you don't want advertised all over the place, you'd

better put it out of sight, hadn't you?"

For answer Mrs. Slawson leaned over, plucked up the material next her,

at its nearest available point, and gave its length a flourish that sent

it billowing conspicuously half across the floor. Sam shrugged.

"My, my!" ejaculated Martha, looking around, and speaking with loud

distinctness, "if here ain't Mrs. Peckett!"

Through the open, screened window, Mrs. Peckett inquired, with

elephantine playfulness (physically, she was built on almost as heroic a

scale as Martha herself), "Got any place for a tired little girl to

rest?"

"Sure we have," said Mrs. Slawson. "Come right along in!"

Another moment, and Mrs. Peckett had obeyed.

"Take that chair there, the one alongside the table, with the cushion

in. It's the comfortablest we got--just suits that holla in your back,

that, Ma says, hers always needs restin'--an' Ma's a champeean on

restin'. She knows how to do it in seven differnt languages. You'll

excuse my goin' on with what I'm doin'? I can talk while I work."

Mrs. Peckett lowered herself gradually into the proffered chair with the

air of one accustomed to distrust the good intentions of furniture.

"Certainly, I'll excuse you. What you doing?"

"Sewing," said Martha agreeably.

"Sheeting?" Mrs. Peckett inquired.

Martha considered. "Well, I s'pose you might _call_ it sheeting," she

admitted. "Down home--I should say in New York City--we call it muslin,

but up here it's cotton-cloth. I'm trying to remember the differences.

I don't believe in lettin' things go into one eye, an' outa the other

ear, so you never profit by your exper'ences. I believe in livin' an'

learnin', if you die in the attemp'."

"This ain't very fine quality," observed Mrs. Peckett, stooping and

picking up an end of the material to examine it critically through her

thick-lensed spectacles.

Martha sighed. "Dear me! how sorry I am. But I never was much of a

cornersewer, as Mrs. Sherman says, on white goods, an' that's a fack."

"I'm afraid you won't have much wear out of it," pronounced the oracle.

"You'll have to get new sheets in no time. These'll go through before

you know it. The next time you want to buy sheeting, or anything of

that sort, you just come to me. I'll advise you."

"Thank you," said Martha.

"I always heard tell, city folks wa'n't much of any in the housekeeping

line, and I suspicion it's true. They're too busy gallivanting the

streets to look after their houses. For myself, I don't mind telling

_you_, I don't set much store by city folks."

"You don't say!"

"We get a good mess of 'em up here, summers. Rich and poor, and if we

'natives,' as they call us, ain't glad to see them go away every fall, I

wouldn't say so. _I don't like 'em!_"

"What's your objection?"

"Well, the rich ones are stuck up, and the poor ones are low down. You

never saw such nuisances as those Fresh Air children! Several of our

ladies take them in, every summer, for a spell, but _I_ wouldn't have

one of them in _my_ house, tracking mud and dirt in on my clean

floors--not for anything I can think of. Mrs. Fred Trenholm, who lives

down at Milby's Corners, she took in three last season. You should have

seen them at church. Ungodly don't express it! Didn't know the creed

even. Couldn't sit still through divine worship, on the Sabbath, like

Christians."

"Likely that's because most of'm's Jews," Martha observed calmly. "But

that's as far as the difference goes. Their lungs needs just as much

good air to breathe as little Christians' lungs. An' their stummicks

call for the same sorta nourishment. My childern can say off the creed,

an' their colic, fine, but I wouldn't wanta have my life depend on bein'

able to tell the dirt on their shoes from the dirt on the little

Sheenies'. Nor I wouldn't want to die for the number o' times mine

wriggle less than they do. Childern is childern, the world over, an'

this idea of your bein' nearer heaven when you was a child, like Cora's

piece says, is rot--I beg your pardon!--nonsense! There's where lots o'

folks slip up on childern. They go on the idea that young 'uns are

angels to begin with, an' they break their hearts to see 'em runnin'

down, as they grow up. The truth is, it's just the other way 'round.

Childern is little animals at the start. You got to housebreak'm, an'

train'm, till they learn the tricks o' decent people, an' it's only

little by little they get sense to _know_. Every time I lick my young

'uns, I feel kinda mean. They're doin' _almost_ as good as they know

how, like the rest of us. Only o' course it can't be helped. You got

to lick'm some, to make'm understand. Their constitutions seem to demand

it. I try to bring mine up the way, it looks to me, as if the Lord was

tryin' to bring up us. Lick'm thora, when necessary, an' then, bear no

malice. As I make it out, that's His way, an' I don't see how to

improve on it much. But I interrupted you. You was talkin' about how

you don't like city folks, an' you'd got as far as the childern."

Mrs. Peckett's nearsighted eyes searched Martha's face shrewdly, for a

second.

"I was just thinking that city folks' ways ain't our ways, that's all.

Now, I'd think pretty poorly of myself to go out of my gate, of a

morning, and not pass the time of day with a neighbor. But I hear tell,

that's what city folks do. They would let you live next door--in the

same street with them, for a year, and never know you."

"Sure!" said Martha cheerfully. "I lived in the same house over five

years, before I come up here, an', with the exception of a Dutchman

gen'lman an' his wife, acrost the hall, I wasn't on visitin' terms with

any of the tenants. I was too busy tendin' to my own affairs. The way

I come to know the Dutchman gen'lman was kinda accidental,--on account

o' circumstances over which he had no control at the time, but did later

on. Him an' me grew to be real chummy, after he oncet got on to it I

meant business. He gave me our cat Nixcomeraus, that's a boss mouser

now, which it was only a kitten then. But, as a gener'l rule, we kep'

ourselves _to_ ourselves."

"Well, I don't call that Christian conduct," pronounced Mrs. Peckett.

"It looks heathen to me, and it certainly ain't according to Scripture.

We are all brethern and----"

"Cistern," Martha suggested benevolently.

"And we'd ought to live as such. I like to know what's going on, and

keep in touch with the folks I'm living amongst, but do you think those

city folks encourage a body's running in and out freely? Well, I should

say _not_. They're a stiff-necked generation--summer folks. Nobody can

say I'm a busybody, or pushing, or the like of that. Time and again I

say to Mr. Peckett, 'Folks do altogether too much mixing in with other

folks' affairs.' You wouldn't believe the way Mr. Peckett and I are

bothered, all the time, with people calling on us for charity, to help

them out of their troubles--just because it's known to all we are

forehanded, and have property. But I always say to Mr. P., 'Now, don't

be too quick. Just wait till the--till the----'"

"Clouds roll by," supplied Mrs. Slawson again.

"And, sure enough, the next time we see the party, ten to one, somebody

else has helped them out, and there's no need of our mixing in at all.

No, nobody can say I want to push myself. I always tell Mr. Peckett I

ain't a mite curious, but I confess I _am_ terribly _interested_, which

is altogether different, and what the Bible tells us to be."

"Well, well! Now, what do you think o' that!" said Martha. "I

wouldn'ta known the difference."

Mrs. Peckett paused, as if to weigh her words. "I tell you what I'll

do," she announced with the air of fully appreciating the measure of her

kindness, and wanting Mrs. Slawson to appreciate it, too, "I'll take you

in hand. Whenever you want to know anything, all you have to do is come

to me, and I'll tell you. I'll consider it a pleasure. I can see where

there's a lot for you to learn. The city is a poor place to be brought

up and live in, all your life, with its vice, and its selfishness, and

the like of that. But, now you've come here, you'll see something

different. Why, you'll feel made over, when you've learned our honest,

generous country ways."

Seeing Mrs. Peckett rise cumbersomely, in preparation for departure,

Martha also got upon her feet.

"Well, I declare," she ejaculated blandly, "just before you come in, I

was tellin' my husband the time had come when I'd got to do somethin' or

other, so's I wouldn't be so old-style, an' shame my fam'ly. An' here

you are, offerin' to improve me, free grates for nothin', as Miss

Claire, bless her! says. It's like Providence's finger in the pie, an'

no mistake. But I'm afraid I'll be puttin' you out too much. They say,

it's hard to learn an old dog new tricks."

Mrs. Peckett was a fleshy woman; all her movements had a certain air of

unctuousness. She shook her head, with reassuring, easy patronage.

"Not at all," she said, "I'll admire to----"

The door banged open, interrupting her unceremoniously, and the Slawson

son and heir, Sammy junior, heated and perspiring, breathless but

communicative, burst noisily into the room.

"My, my!" ejaculated Martha. "I guess you think you're a en*gine*,

don't you? Pantin' like that, 's if you was luggin' a train o' cars

behind you? Hats off to ladies. Don't you see Mrs. Peckett? Say how de

do, like a gen'lman."

Sammy bobbed an awkward pate. "Say, mother-r-r," he stammered.

"Well?"

"There's that big place, 'way along up the little side street, I mean

road, past the cimiterry. You can't but just see the house, it's so far

back, an'----

"He means old lady Crewe's, I reckon," explained Mrs. Peckett. "She's

one of the summer folks, I've just been telling you about. Rolling in

money, but as hard and close as a clinched fist. Nobody knows how much

she's worth."

"P'raps she's the kind that don't let her right hand know what her left

hand's got."

"Well, I don't know about that, but she has considerable of a place.

Enough to keep a whole regiment of regular hired help busy, an' every

summer she comes up from the city, with just her young gran'-daughter,

and they make out to get along, as best they can, trusting to get hold

of parties, hereabouts, willing to accommodate. That's no proper way to

do."

Martha smoothed back the hair from Sammy's damp forehead, making it out,

somehow, that he had more to say, and calming his impatience to say it.

"An', mother-r-r, I was walkin' along the road, an' a awful pretty lady,

she called out to me from the garden, an' I went, an' she said her

gran'ma was took sick, or somethin', an' there wasn't nobody she could

send to get the doctor, but 'ceptin' me, coz I was goin' along, an', I

said I'd tell the doctor, an' she said----"

"I don't envy you your job," Mrs. Peckett interposed. "It'll be like

hunting a needle in a haystack to find Dr. Driggs, this time of day. He

may be 'most anywheres out in the open kentry. But one thing's pretty

certain, he won't be home."

"Is he the one lives down in the village, on the main street, with a

office which the door is 'round the corner as you go to the station?"

Martha inquired. "We're such a husky crowd, the lot of us, we don't

ever need a doctor, and I wouldn'ta knew, except I happened to notice

oncet, passin', he had such a funny doormat. There was _Salve_ done

into it--white pebbles stuck in the wire nettin'. Now, what do you think

o' that! It didn't say what kind, either. Just _Salve_. Wouldn't you

think _Pills_ woulda been better? There's more pills used, any day in

the year, 'n salve. But, if he's stuck on salve, why, he's the doctor!

Only--that don't help us get him, does it? You won't mind my runnin'

off, an' leavin' you, Mis' Peckett? But I guess I better be movin' in

the direction o' the Crewe place. An', father, s'pose you get a move

on, like a good fella, an' see if you can't scare up somethin'

somewheres that'll answer to the name o' doctor, when you call it. If

you use the auta, you'll make better time, an' you might overtake me,

walkin'."

Mrs. Peckett laid a restraining hand on Martha's shoulder. "Now don't

you stir a step," she admonished. "It's full two miles to walk to the

Crewe place, and the traveling's heavy, on account of the dry spell. By

the time you get there, most likely somebody else will have passed with

a team, and you'll have your trouble for your pains. It won't hurt

_them_ a mite to go out of their way, if they're driving. That's what I

say to Mr. P. 'Don't be too quick offering. Give other folks a

chance.' Now, here were you, not half an hour back, saying you'd like I

should improve you. Well, this is your first lesson. Stay where you

are, and let some one nearer to, do the helping."

"Good idea!" vouchsafed Sam Slawson senior, speaking for the first time.

As soon as Mrs. Peckett was well out of sight and hearing, Martha turned

reprovingly upon her husband.

"Sam Slawson, what d'you mean by----?"

Sam composedly pulled on his boots.

"Only way to get rid of her," he answered succinctly.

"Oh!" said Martha, going to the cupboard, where she kept her store of

simple home remedies. "Now, if _you're_ ready, _I_ am. An', young

Sammy, you run, an' tell your gran'mother to give you childern bread an'

milk for your suppers. Your father an' I are goin' out. We mayn't be

back till late."

*CHAPTER II*

It was dusk when Martha reached the Crewe place.

As she turned in at the entrance-gate, she thought she saw a spark of

light prick out through the darkness of one of the upper-story windows,

but the next instant it disappeared, and the gloomy house stood

formidably looming up against its background of dense foliage, facing

her, as with a challenge, as black as ever.

Martha Slawson was not one to be intimidated. She plodded steadily along

the driveway, regardless of the strange sensation of shifty gravel

crunching beneath feet used to hard city pavements, the thickening

shadows to eyes accustomed to the glare of electric-lighted streets, and

the soft, surreptitious stirrings of she-knew-not-what among the

underbrush to ears familiar with the roar of the Elevated, the clang and

dash of passing surface cars.

"I don't see the use o' them sheds they build to the front doors o' some

o' the houses, in these parts, which they call'm _port co-shares_, Sam

tells me. You can take it from me, they're like to break your bones,

mountin' the high step o' them," she mused, panting with the effort it

had taken to hoist her heavy frame from the level of the ground to that

of the house-door.

"Them swell ladies must be considerable of acrobats, to do it graceful.

I know _I_ couldn't."

She smoothed down her disordered garments, and dusted off her grimy

palms, before venturing to search, in the darkness, for the bell. She

found it readily enough, but it was some time before she heard the

chain-bolt withdrawn from within, a key turned in a resisting lock, a

door unlatched. Then, the door swung open inward, on its heavy hinges,

and Martha found herself face to face with what she described next day

to Cora as, "the livin' image o' that marble statute in the Metropolitan

Museum, down home. The girl in the flowin' robes, holdin' a

queer-lookin' thing, which its own mother wouldn't reco'nize it for a

lamp, in her hand. You told me her name. Sykey, you said it was,

though not spelled that way on the slob she stood on, I noticed. But, I

take your word for it. Well, if this young lady wasn't just like Sykey,

lamp an' all! You'd never know the difference, exceptin' for

complexion."

"I'm Mrs. Slawson," Martha announced at once. "You told my boy, Sammy,

you'd like him run for a doctor."

Sykey paused a moment, bewildered. "Oh, yes. This afternoon. I

remember, now. I thought he had forgotten." She spoke in the subdued

voice one uses when there is sickness in the house.

"No, he didn't forget. My husband is fetchin' the doctor. But I come

on ahead to see if I couldn't help out some, in between times. My

husband an' me is superintendent for Mr. Frank Ronald, two miles or so

down the main road. You know'm prob'ly."

The girl nodded. "My grandmother was taken sick at about four, this

afternoon. She seems stiff on one side. She can't move her arm, or her

leg, and when she talks it sounds as if her tongue were thick. I got

her to bed as well as I could, and I haven't dared leave her since for

more than a minute at a time. We've no telephone. This little branch

road is out of the line of general travel, and we've no one to send on

errands. I've sat at the window all the afternoon, hoping a team would

pass, but nobody went by but your little boy. I thought I saw you come

in a while ago, and I hurried down to the door, to let you in. But when

you were nowhere to be seen, I gave up in despair. I thought my last

chance was gone. I'd have to spend the night alone with grandmother,

and----"

"The door? Ain't this the right door to come in by?" queried Martha.

There was a moment of hesitation before the answer came. "Oh, yes.

It's the right door for _carriages_. People afoot generally prefer the

front way--on account of the veranda-steps, you know."

Martha gazed at her companion a moment in silence, then quietly doubled

over, in a fit of irrepressible merriment.

"If you'd just as lief, I'd prefer you wouldn't tell Sammy, I mean Mr.

Slawson," she said, when she could enunciate. "He'd never get over my

thinkin' I'm carriage-comp'ny. An' he'd kill himself laughin' at the

sight o' me, climbin', hands an' knees, up your high

stoop-with-no-steps, which the back view, lookin' at me from behind,

certaintly musta been funny. But I've no business detainin' you away

from your gran'ma. D'you think she'd think me pushin', if I give her a

hot bath, an' a brisk alcohol rub? Sam may not get the doctor right

off, an' a bath an' a alcohol rub is as good as anythin' I know of for a

str--for a----"

Katherine Crewe searched her face. "For a _what_?" she demanded

uncompromisingly.

"A poor circulation," Martha returned imperturbably.

"I've no alcohol. There's no running water in the house. I let the

fire in the kitchen range go out hours ago."

"Never you mind about that. I got some alcohol by me, an' if you show

me the kitchen range, I'll show you a fire in it, all right, all right."

"I don't know how it is," sighed Miss Crewe, leading the way through

dark passages, past shadowy doors, "but, somehow, a great load seems

lifted off my heart, now you're here. I've never seen you before, but I

feel you're able to set everything right."

"You go on feelin' that way. It'll help me no end with the _settin'_.

An', now, don't you wait here. You run on up to the ol' lady, an' I'll

be along presently. I'm used to kitchens. I can find all I need in'm,

an' when I got the hot water, I can find my way out."

"I'm afraid you'll think the floor isn't very clean," the girl observed

regretfully, pausing, with her hand upon the doorknob, to gaze back

dubiously. "I suppose it needs a long-handled scrubbing-brush, and----"

By the light of the lamp Miss Crewe left behind her when she went,

Martha made a quick survey of the premises. "'A long-handled

scrubbing-brush,'" she quoted quizzically. "A long-handled Irish woman,

more likely. My, but it's a caution, if you turn up your nose at work,

how the dirt will gather under it. It's like to take me all night to

make a impression on this place. The grate chock-full o' clinkers, an'

the _kettles_--say, but I didn't say I'd give the ol' lady a hot

_mud_-bath."

For a few moments the kitchen resounded with thunderous echoes to the

vigorous efforts of Mrs. Slawson toward reconstruction. Then followed

other sounds, those of crackling wood, igniting coals, bubbling water,

escaping steam. In the midst of it all, Sykey appeared in the doorway.

"Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she deplored, before she had fairly crossed the

threshold. "I'm afraid it's no use. Grandmother won't have it. I told

her about your coming and offering to help, and--she won't have it."

Martha nodded reassuringly. "Well, we won't worry her talkin' about it,

an' we won't worry our-selves _thinkin'_ about it. Have you gotta

bath-tub handy?"

"Yes, but----"

"Plenty o' towels--bath-towels? The fuzzy-wuzzy, warm kind which they

call'm Turkish or Russian, I don't know which, but that gets up a gentle

irritation when applied, just like some folks."

The girl nodded.

"Then, the best thing you can do is, get'm ready. It'll keep your mind

off'n her not bein' willin'. We want everything laid out handy, so's we

won't have to go on a still-hunt the last minute. I got plenty o'

water, steamin' hot. If you'll go along up, an' kinda _perpare for the

worst_, I'll folla along presently, an'--we'll _have_ it."

A single shaded lamp left the great bedroom in partial shadow, but as

Martha approached the majestic four-poster, about five minutes later,

she made out the figure of a diminutive old woman, stretched full length

beneath the spare coverings. There could be nothing formidable in such

a tiny figure. It was only when Mrs. Slawson looked down upon the face,

that she met a pair of eyes that fairly held her at bay.

"I'm Mrs. Sammy Slawson," she announced, a shade less confidently than

usual. "I live down the road a ways--superintendent for Mr. Frank

Ronald, me an' my husband is."

The little body on the bed might be half dead, but the great eyes were

fiercely alive. They measured Mrs. Sammy Slawson from head to foot,

with a stare of icy insolence.

Martha did not quail. She met the stare with a perfectly unflinching

gaze, then went on talking as she worked, as calmly as if she were not

being challenged in mortal combat.

"I s'pose you don't like the idea of a trained nurse? Many don't. I

ain't _trained_, but I'm a nurse all right, all right, an' if not one of

the red, cross kind, why that's only because, as I tell Sammy, I had so

much exper'ence with Ma an' the childern that, be this an' be that, I

learned to keep my shirt on, an' not fly out, when tried. Folks that's

ailin' has enough bother on their chests, without havin' to be

pationate, into the bargain. It's up to them that's tendin'm, to do the

pationate ack. Now, take me, for instance. You couldn't ruffle _me_,

if you took a flutin'-iron to me. That's what come o' bein' sixteen

years married, with a mother-in-law threw in, for good measure. It

learns you to keep your temper. You might need it for the nex' time. I

don't blame _you_ a mite if you feel like bitin' the head off a tenpenny

nail. To have your circulation go back on you, like, is a kind of

nuisance, no doubt about it. But, sakes alive! It might happen to

anybody, as Ma always says when she breaks things she hadn't oughta

touched, in the first place. The best thing I know of, for poor

circulation, is a hot bath, an' a alcohol rub--just for a starter. I

got plenty o' hot water handy, an'--now don't you stir, nor bother your

head worryin' about givin' your gran'daughter an' I trouble! We got the

bath-tub all ready, an' yes--them towels is just the right things!

Couldn't be better! An'--here goes!"

Martha averted her face, as she bent over the helpless form, to escape

the furiously battling eyes. She felt as mean as if she had been taking

base advantage of a defenseless creature to do it harm, instead of good;

but, in spite of this, and in spite of the inarticulate sounds that came

from between the twisted lips at the touch of her hands, she gently

lifted the old woman in her strong arms, stripped her, as she would a

baby, and put her in the tub.

Tears of helpless rage oozed from between the closed lids, but Mrs.

Slawson pretended not to see. She kept up a cheerful babble, what time

her poor little antagonist simmered, and again during all the time her

firm, strong fingers were plying away at the nerveless flesh.

"Don't you try to lug that heavy tub, Miss Crewe, dear. Wait till I can

lay hand to it. If you must be doin' somethin', s'pose you smooth down

the sheets, an' see there's no crumbs in the bed. There's nothin' like

crumbs in the bed for keepin' you from feelin' lonesome, but I guess

your gran'ma willa had enough comp'ny, by the time she gets rid o' me.

Poor ol' lady! I been like a grain o' sand in her eye, which it don't

help her none, to say I'm sorry.

"'Little drops o' water, little grains o' sand.'

"Guess she'll think she's had her dose o' both, to-night, all right.

Say! Hark! Is that a auta-horn? Sounds like Sammy's."

"Then he's brought Dr. Driggs!" Kate Crewe cried joyously.

"Well, you can take it from me he's brought Dr. _Somethin'_. It mayn't

be Dr. Driggs, but Sammy wouldn't have the face to come to me, 'less

he'd got somethin', that'd, at least, pass for what I sent'm out for,"

observed Mrs. Slawson suavely.

As it happened, it was not Dr. Driggs whom Sam had brought. Kate Crewe,

going to the door to admit them, saw, even in the dark, that neither of

the men before her was of the familiar build of the old physician she

knew so well. But there was no time for regret, and, after a few brief

words of self-introduction, she led the way upstairs.

Meanwhile, Martha had made what she called "a fist" at clearing away all

traces of her recent ministrations, so, when the doctor appeared, he

found an orderly room, from which she quietly slipped as he entered.

Downstairs she found Sam.

"You see, Dr. Driggs was off somewheres, up the mountain, and no one

could find him," he explained. "I couldn't make out to get him, the best

I could do. Then I asked wasn't there some other doctor in the place,

but short of Burbank, twenty-five miles off, there wasn't. Dr. Driggs

has all the practice 'round these parts. Then, all at once, somebody

happened to think of a young fellow from Boston, here for his

health--same as I, I guess. He's a M.D. all right--laid up for repairs,

as you might say. He's boarding at the Fred Trenholm's. A wink's as

good as a nod to a blind horse, and off I went to Milby's Corners. At

first, Dr. Ballard--that's his name--said he didn't know about coming.

But, after a bit, he decided he would. He's a fine, outstepping young

gentleman, as ever you saw. You'd never think his lung had a spot in

it, more's the pity."

"Neither would you think yours has," Martha rejoined simply.

Sam searched her face for a moment. "Say, you're not worrying about me,

are you, mother?" he put to her gently.

Mrs. Slawson turned to fill her scrubbing pail with hot water from one

of the kettles on the stove.

"Worryin' about you? Sure I'm not. What'd I be worryin' about you for?

You're chesty enough, ain't you, goodness knows. An' your cough has

almost went. _I_ like sleepin' outdoors nights. The wide, wide world

ain't too big a bedroom for me. An' this air certaintly is more healthy

for the childern, than down home--I _should_ say, New York."

"Only--you kind of miss the old town, eh, mother?"

Martha scrubbed away in silence for a moment. "Well, not as you might

say _miss_. Certaintly not. But I guess I'd find it hard work to live

in any place else, so long as I lived in New York (havin' been born

there), an', that bein' the case, a body thinks back to it oncet in a

while--which, of course, _thinkin'_ is by no means _missin'_."

Sam considered. "How'd you like to take a day off, and go down with me,

after Mr. Ronald gets back? There's some things he wants me to see

about, I'll have to look into myself in the city, and you might as well

come along. We'll leave the children with Ma, and just go off on a

spree--us two."

Martha sat back on her heels, and looked up at her husband out of a face

that glowed.

"Say, Sam, _could_ we? Somehow, it don't seem as if we could. We two

never been alone any time, since we begun keepin' comp'ny. Firstoff,

there was Gilroy! He wouldn't believe I perferred you to him, till the

marriage-lines was ackchelly read over our heads. He was always hangin'

'round. Then, there was Ma, an' then come the childern. So, take it

all in all, we certaintly been, what Mrs. Sherman 'd call, '_carefully

chaperoned_.' Are you sure it'd be _proper_, the two of us goin' off

alone, like that?"

Sam grinned.

"Let's us go," said Martha. "It'll be like the weddin'-tour we didn't

have, when we was married."

Again Sam smiled. "Sure we'll go. You fairly earned a day off, mother.

All these sixteen years, working like Sam Hill, and never a grouch out

of you. Yes, we'll go--and, I tell you what's more, we'll spend some.

We'll just let go for once, and spend some, on something we don't _have_

to. I haven't made out to do as well by you as Peter Gilroy would,

Martha. He used to say, if you'd marry _him_, he'd put velvet under

your feet. It's been more than I could do, sometimes, to put good

shoe-leather."

"Well, I never been Little Barefoot, yet, have I?" inquired Martha

blandly.

Sam shook his head. "Since we been up here, we made out to save a bit

and, by this and by that, we got more coming to us. We never could seem

to fix things, before, so's we could lay by. Couldn't square the bills,

_and_ save, but----"

"It's a kinda stunt to square your bills, _an'_ lay by when, every week,

nothin's comin' in."

"Sure," said Sam.

Martha meditated in silence for a moment. "If Cora knew what's goin' on

inside me this minute, it'd be my finish in the bossin' business, so far

as she's concerned. She's almost got to the place, now, where she feels

she could give Moses points on the Fifth Commandment. She's pretty near

caught on to the little game that parents is a grand bluff, an you're

wastin' time to bother with their figaries. But she'd do it sure, if she

knew how I feel at present--just as much of a silly kid as her."

Sam's satisfaction broadened. "Good work!" said he.

"An' talkin' o' work," his wife took him up quickly, in an altered tone,

"we better get busy on ours, or we won't be done this side o' mornin'.

You get a move on, Sammy, an' bring in a good stock o' wood, out o' the

shed there. An' when you got that done, we'll talk about coal from the

cella."

"What's the matter with the old lady hiring her own help?" inquired Sam

practically. "She's got money to burn, hasn't she?"

"Sure. But, she don't burn it. It's to keep the young lady from a

wintry chill, I'm lendin' a hand. An' if it comes to that, a body as

close as ol' lady Crewe, you'd have to feel sorry for her, on her own

account. She must be cold comfort to herself, with a heart like that

inside her. Them kind, that's so wrapped up in their money, some part

of'm's bound to go bare. A thing like money won't reach all the way

'round a human creature, not by a long sight, an' you can't make it.

Them kind needs help in their nakedness, as much, an' more, than the

rest of us."

Sam making no attempt to dispute it, the two worked on in silence, until

they were interrupted by the abrupt opening of the door.

"Mrs. Slawson!"

Martha raised herself slowly from her kneeling posture, at sound of

Katherine Crewe's cry of appeal.

"The ol' lady--she ain't--_worse_?"

"Not worse, but--unmanageable. She won't let Dr. Ballard go near her.

We can't do a thing with her. Won't you, please, come up and try what

you can do. You made her mind about the bath, you know."

Martha rinsed off her soapy wrists with soapier hands in a gesture, as

of one preparing for the fray. "Now, what do you think o' that!" she

observed calmly. "The size of her! No bigger than a minute, an'

gettin' the best of a able-bodied pair, like you an' that fine-appearin'

young gen'lman upstairs. Don't it beat all?"

Katherine did not stop long enough to admit that it did, but hurried on

ahead, leaving Mrs. Slawson to follow closely in the rear, pausing

outside the sick-chamber door, where the doctor stood like a sentinel on

guard. Martha passed them both without a word, entered the room, and

made directly for the bed. She slid a gentle arm beneath the narrow old

shoulders, drew out the pillow, and replaced it, shaken into more

comfortable shape.

"There! That's a whole lot better, ain't it?" she inquired amiably.

No answer. The old woman glared up at her hostilely, but it was

noticeable that the worst fire had been drawn from the angry eyes.

Martha picked a thread from the carpet, and, winding it neatly about her

forefinger, put the tiny coil into her apron pocket. Presently she

plunged an exploring hand beneath the bed-covering.

"Say, them hot-water bags ain't been a mite o' good to you. Your feet's

like two lumps o' ice. They extend clear up to your knees. Did the

doctor know, before he went, you had cold feet like that?"

No answer.

"He can't be much of a doctor, an' no mistake, to go off, an' leave a

patient with such a chill on 'er, so even arthurficial heat couldn't get

in its fine work. I'm surprised! My husband was the one brought'm

here, I must confess. He couldn't do no better, I guess. Dr. Driggs

wasn't home, an' poor Sam took what he could get. When nothin's left,

the king can't choose. But wouldn't you think any fella that called

himself a doctor would know enough not to leave a lady, so the ones

about her wouldn't know how to handle her case, an' she'd get worse by

the minute, so to speak, for want of a stitch in time, that'd save her

nine--meanin' doctors from the city, per'aps, an' trained nurses, night

_an'_ day, so the expense alone would kill her, not to mention other

complercations. _I_ call it a shame!"

It was not impossible for a shrewd observer to follow the mental

processes of the active old brain, for they were clearly enough revealed

in the passionate, too-expressive eyes.

Mrs. Slawson, appearing to notice nothing, bided her time, while, little

by little, her "ol' lady" betrayed herself, in all her mean guises of

misanthropic distrust, growing self-doubt, and, last--overwhelming

all--susceptibility to the suggestion of fear, response to the stimulus

of--_money_.

"Call--that--man!"

The words were rapped out with the brevity and precision of a military

command.

"Eh?" said Martha, appearing to rouse from a spell of complete

inattention.

"Call--that--doctor!"

Mrs. Slawson moved her massive frame slowly in the direction of the

door.

"Miss Katherine! Miss Katherine!" she shouted past the two silent

figures, just outside the threshold, "Say, Miss _Katherine_! Are you

downstairs? Yes? The doctor gone yet? Say, hurry! Get Sam to go

after'm, an' see can he call'm back! Your gran'ma wants'm!"

*CHAPTER III*

Katherine Crewe awoke next morning to find Mrs. Slawson standing by her

bedside, bearing a breakfast tray.

"It's earlier than I'd 'a' chose to disturb you," Martha explained

apologetically, "but I gotta go home an' feed my fam'ly, an' see the

raft o' them gets a good start for the day."

"But you haven't had any rest! You made me go to bed, but _you_ must

have sat up all night." The girl spoke with compunction, looking

regretfully at Mrs. Slawson's heavy eyes.

"Me? Now, don't you worry your head about me," Martha returned, as she

placed the tray in a convenient position, and arranged the pillows back

of Miss Crewe, so they gave her comfortable support. "_I_ got along all

right. An' your gran'ma slep' fine. I went parolin' 'round, every

oncet in a while, to see if she'd need anythin', an' each time she was

breathin' as peaceful as a baby. You'll think I'm awful, but whenever I

remember las' night, an' me carryin' things with a high hand against her

will, I almost kill myself laughin'. Poor ol' lady! the way she looked

at me! It was like a song they learn the childern to sing, down home--I

should say New York, in the high school Cora went to.

"'Drink to me only with thine eyes----,' whatever that means. With your

gran'ma it was, _Cuss at me only with thine eyes_. She didn't open her

head to say a word, but what she meant was plain as preachin'--only not

quite so pious."

Miss Crewe bit her lip to keep from smiling. "You've been very kind to

us, Mrs. Slawson. I don't know how to thank you," she said.

When Martha had gone the girl rose, hurriedly bathed and dressed, then

made her way to her grandmother. She did not know much about nursing,

but she knew she must not carry a long face into a sick-room, and the

question was, how to help it. Her heart was very heavy. Ever since the

attack yesterday afternoon, her mind had been going over and over what

this sickness was bound to entail. Things had been hard enough before,

but she saw how this might add intolerable burdens, and, in the face of

it, she must look cheerful, give no sign of the discouragement she felt.

That was the way it was with everything in her life, she brooded. She

was continually under some sort of crushing necessity to hold in, and

hold back. She had never been free, as most girls of her age are, and

there seemed no prospect that she ever would be. On the contrary, there

was every likelihood she would be more and more confined and restricted,

as the years went on, if, as the doctor had said, this was but the

beginning of the end. The future looked desperately black. As for the

past, she could remember a time, away back, when she was a little girl,

when things had been very different.

A child's mind does not measure and weigh according to scale, and

Katherine could not fix the precise degree of her mother's grace, her

father's dashing beauty, the luxury of the home in which they, all

three, lived. But she had more than her memory to rely upon. There

were likenesses, there were relics, there were the continual jibes of

her grandmother through recent years, to the effect that she "had been

brought up like a fool; it was time she learned better."

At her mother's death, her father had carried her to his parents' home.

Looking back, she had no sense of having suffered surprise or

disappointment by the change. The new home must have compared favorably

with the old. She could remember her grandfather's _table_--a most

formidable function, to which she was conducted, at dessert, by a

nervous nurse, "afraid of her life there'll be a to-do if you don't look

right, an' hold up your head, an' speak out when you're spoken to, Miss

Kath'rine."

Her father's sudden death had made no change in outward conditions. It

was when her grandfather passed away that there was a difference. Then,

suddenly, she seemed to wake one morning to a realization of lack. She

could not be at all certain her impression was correct. The alteration

might have been so gradual, she had failed to notice it, and it was her

consciousness of the fact, and not the fact itself, that came upon her

abruptly. The way did not matter, the fact did. It all summed itself

up to this, that the grudging hand was certainly not her grandfather's,

much less her father's. They had been open-handed to a fault. The one

who stinted, of whom the country-people 'round about said: "She'll pinch

a penny till the eagle screams," was--

"Katherine!"

The girl started guiltily at the sound of the thick, labored syllables.

"Yes, grandmother." She was at the bed's side in a moment.

"That doctor---- He's not to come again, understand? Call Driggs."

"Yes, grandmother. But perhaps Dr. Driggs will refuse to come. You

found fault with his bill last time, you know, and he didn't like it

very well."

"Tush! He's forgotten that by this time. But----"

"Well?"

"If he _should_ refuse, and I have to have--the other, understand,

you're not to have anything to do with him. I forbid it!"

"Yes, grandmother."

"Ballard! I know the tribe. Leave him alone, and see he leaves _you_

alone."

"Please don't excite yourself, grandmother. I'm sure the doctor

wouldn't want you to."

"Where's that woman?"

"You mean Mrs. Slawson? Gone home. She has a family to see to. She

told you, didn't she, she's the wife of Mr. Ronald's new

superintendent?"

"How much'll she charge?"

"Us, you mean? For what she did last night, and this morning?"

"Uh-huh."

"Nothing, grandmother."

"Nonsense! Compel her to set price. If she won't, it's because she

hopes you'll pay more than's the custom. I know the trick. Don't be

caught. Pay her regular price, and say she mustn't come, 'less we send.

Won't pay, when we don't send."

Katherine felt herself flushing furiously from neck to forehead. "I

wouldn't dare offer Mrs. Slawson money, grandmother. I can't imagine

what she'd do, if I did. She came to help us out of pure friendliness.

She did more than we could ever pay her for. She's put me under deep

obligation."

"Pooh! Obligation! One in that class! When you've paid her, you've

paid her."

Katherine turned her face away. "Let's not discuss it, grandmother.

You oughtn't to talk much, just yet. Let's see! First, I'll get a

basin and warm water, and give you a lovely bath, and afterwards, you

can have your breakfast. I'll go down myself and prepare it, as soon

as----"

Madam Crewe gave vent to a sound Katherine was painfully familiar

with--something between a sneer, a snort, and a groan of exasperation.

"How many _lovely baths_ d'you calculate I can stand in twelve hours?

One last night. Another five A.M. and, now, _you_ want to give me a

third!"

"Mrs. Slawson bathed you before she went?" Katherine demanded

incredulously.

"Yes, and what's more, gave me breakfast. _Good_ breakfast! Better

than _you_ can p'pare."

"She couldn't have slept a wink all night," the girl mused

self-reproachfully.

Madam Crewe made no rejoinder. Apparently, she did not consider it

necessary for one in Mrs. Slawson's class to sleep a wink all night.

Katherine turned away, pretending to busy herself with setting the room

in order. In reality, she was very differently employed. Her stern

young mind had constituted itself court, counsel, and jury, to sit in

judgment upon her grandmother, and, according to the findings, convict

her without privilege of appeal. She could see nothing that was not

contemptible in the old woman's mode of living, her view of life. If

she were poor, it would be different. There might be some excuse then,

for this paltry measuring of everything by the standard of a copper

cent. But, her grandmother had plenty, and more than plenty. If she

stinted, it was merely to add more to an already ample fortune. And,

meanwhile, youth, hope, dreams, all were vanishing. The best of life

was being wilfully sacrificed to a mean whim. She knew the people

'round about, the "natives," turned up their noses at "ol' lady Crewe,"

and pitied her, Katherine, for being the granddaughter of a "tight-wad."

It made her shrink from meeting the commonest acquaintance, when she

considered how odious her position was, and how well every one knew it.

The doctor came early, while she was still smarting with a sense of her

wrongs.

"I've brought a battery," he explained, indicating the instrument Sam

Slawson was assisting him to unearth from the bowels of the runabout.

"It's not my own. Dr. Driggs kindly lent it. I had a chat with him

over the 'phone last night, after I got home, and he agrees with me that

electricity will be----

"If Dr. Driggs is back, why didn't he come himself?" Katherine

interrupted, so sensitively on edge that the most innocent suggestion

jarred.

The young man before her looked blank for a moment. Then a tolerant

smile stole into his fine, wholesome face.

"Precisely the question I put to him. But, he said he'd thank me kindly

if I'd go on with the case."

Katherine winced. She knew why Dr. Driggs was not keen on coming to

Crewesmere.

Dr. Ballard noticed the painful twitching of her brows, and instantly

regretted his reply. To mend matters he began, at once, to explain why

he was obliged to borrow of a fellow-practitioner, and to call upon Sam

Slawson to be his charioteer.

"You see, I'm not here in the village in my official capacity. I only

came for--well, on a sort of venture. But I like it, and I've sent for

my--I mean, I've sent for a machine to get about in, by myself. I was

feeling a bit seedy. I'm here for repairs. I belong in Boston--my

office is there, and my heavy artillery's in it. But if electric

treatment seems to agree with Madam Crewe, I'll send, and have my

portable battery shipped on with the motor. It's quite at her service,

as _I_ am. It's rather more modern than this, and--more--effective."

As Sam Slawson remarked to his wife later, he was surprised at the

manner in which Miss Crewe received the doctor's friendly advance.

"She gave him a look, like he'd trod on her toes, and hurt her bad,

besides taking the shine off her patent leather."

Martha smiled. "Anybody'd know you'd been a strap-hanger, Sam Slawson.

You give yourself dead away."

"Well, she gave him the look, and said she: 'Thanks, but please don't

send. My grandmother is much improved. She may not require the

services of _any_ doctor, very long.'"

Mrs. Slawson nodded. "She's sore on the subjec' of her gran'ma. She

knows her peculiar-rarities, an' she knows she's got to stand by the ol'

lady, but it kinda gives her a turn, every time she thinks anybody's

noticin' her doin' it. If Dr. Ballard wasn't such a great innercent of

a fella, he wouldn't 'a' give it away that Dr. Driggs is _on to_ the

little madam, and just as lief dodge her, if convenient. A party with

more tack to'm than Dr. Ballard would 'a' kep' that dark. But there's

where you can't have everything at oncet, in human bein's. If a fella's

got a lotta tack, an' the kind o' light fantastic toe that, every time

he opens his mouth, he don't put his foot into it, he's more than like

to be the kind that thinks twicet before he speaks, which, it may be

wise, but ain't as hearty, an' uncalkerlatin' as _I'd_ like in a

husband. On the other hand, a fella that speaks, without stoppin' to

count the costs, why, it's ten to one, a woman'll have to pay 'em, in

the end, but anyhow she'll have the comfort o' knowin' his heart's in

the right place, which, it ain't forever takin' the elevator up to the

top floor, to consult with his brains. I'm sorry them two young things

_got in_ wrong as regards each other. But it won't stop the course o'

human events, so far as they're concerned, even if it does delay it

some. I'm not a bit worried."

Sam paused in the act of pulling off a boot.

"Say, Martha, you don't mean you're at it again?"

"'At it'! Me? No! What I mean is, Nature's bound to get in her fine

work, no matter what kinda mater'al's handed out to her. You remember

Miss Claire an' Lord Ronald? They started in complercatin' the pattren,

as hard as they could, but 'twas no use. They couldn't get the best o'

Nature, an' the consequence is, we're lookin' for 'em home from their

weddin' tour any time now, an' if we don't get busy, the decorations

won't be ready for my celebration proceeding."

The morning of the great day on which the Ronalds were expected to

arrive, Martha was astir at sunrise, summoning her brood with the call:

"Miss Claire's comin' home! Miss Claire's comin' home!"

"I'd call her _Missis_, considering," suggested Sam, yawning as he

tucked his pillow more comfortably beneath his rough cheek.

"All right, call her it, if it's a comfort to you. Only get a move on,"

his wife replied, plucking the pillow unceremoniously out from under,

giving it a mighty shake, and setting it across the sleeping-porch rail

to air.

"You can take it from me, my hands is full this day. I've no time to

parley, fussin' over my articles of speech. Besides, Miss Claire knows

me an' my ways. If I was any diff'rent from what she's used to, she'd

be disappointed."

"I thought Mrs. Peckett was making you over. To say nothing of Cora, and

Ma. Perhaps Mrs. Ronald will take a hand at it, too. You never can

tell."

"True for you, you never can," Martha admitted. "Who'd 'a' thought, now,

ol' lady Crewe would ever be troublin' her head about me, an' yet one o'

the first things she said, when she got her power back, an' could

pronunciate clearly, was--'You'd oughta keep a cow!' Knowin' the risks

run by those that does, from the effects o' hoofs an' horns, an' simular

attachments, I mighta thought she wanted to see my finish, because o'

the way I lit in, an' give her a rub-down against her will, the night

she was took sick. But she didn't. She don't bear no ill will. It was

just she thought keepin' a cow would be cheaper for our fam'ly, than

keepin' the milkman. She wants to turn me into a farmer, an' who knows!

You never can tell, as you say. That's what I may turn into before I'm

done. But what I'm occupied with at the present moment is--did you get

that la'nch fixed up good last night, like I told you to? As soon as

the breakfast dishes is washed, I wanta take the childern, an' go acrost

the lake to get laurel for my decorations."

Sam paused in the act of shaving, to turn his lathered cheek toward her.

"The launch is O.K., but I'm uneasy every time you take her out on the

water alone, mother. I'm not sure you understand the motor. And if a

squall blew up sudden----"

"Now, don't you worry your head over me, that's a good fella. I

understand that la'nch, an' the auta, as good as if all three of us hada

been born an' brought up by the same mother. The things I can't seem to

get a line on is animals. Hens, an' cows, an' so forth. _They_ take my

time! O' course, to look at 'em, you'd know hens ain't very

brainy.--Look at the way they behave in front o' autas, or anythin'

drivin' up! They're as undecided as a woman at a bargain-counter,

thinkin' will she buy a remlet o' baby-blue ribbon, or go to Huyler's

an' get a chocolate ice-cream soda. They're hippin' an' hawin', till

it'd be a _pleasure_ to run 'em down. Cows ain't got that trick, but

they're queer in their own way, an' the both o' them is too, what Mrs.

Sherman calls, _temper-mental_ to suit me. Now, who'd 'a' thought all

them chicks woulda died on me, just because they got damped down some,

that cold, wet spell we had along in March? If they'd 'a' told me they

wanted to come in outa the wet, I'd 'a' fetched 'em indoors, or I'd 'a'

went out an' held their hands. Anythin' to oblige. But not on your

life! They was mum as oysters. They just up an' died on me, without so

much as a _beg to be excused_--the whole bloomin' lot o' them. The Lord

tempers the cold to the shorn lamb, but I notice it aint reggerlated

much of any in the case o' chickens. An' talkin' o' chickens, I wonda

if that same Sammy done what I told'm an' whitewashed the henhouse thora

inside. Mrs. Peckett says you gotta do it every oncet in a while, to

keep the vermin down. The quicklime kills 'em."

Breakfast well under way, Mrs. Slawson went out on a tour of inspection.

Evidently what she found did not satisfy her, for, when the family had

had its meal, and was about to rise and disperse, she held Sammy back

with a detaining hand.

"Say, young fella, how about that henhouse you was to fresco with

whitewash yesterday?"

"I did it, mother."

"Well, you let the brush kinda lick down the walls, but what I call a

thora coat you did not give it! Now, I like my jobs done thora.

There's a good pail o' whitewash waitin' for you outside, to say nothin'

o' the brush to lay it on with. An', while the girls an' me goes over

to the other side o' the lake to get laurel, you get busy on the

inter'or o' that hen-residence, my son. An'----"

"Oh--oh, mother-r!" Sammy's wail came from a stricken heart.

It failed to make the slightest impression apparently.

"You knew you was botchin' all the time," Martha pulled him up short.

"After a while, you'll get on to it that you can't palm off careless

work on me--I know too much about it."

"I did what you told me, mother," the boy managed to bring out, between

heavy sobs.

"What did I tell you?"

"You told me--_do the inside o' the henhouse, an' I done it!_"

"Yes, but how about the roosts? You never touched brush to the roosts.

It's a pity if a child o' mine's gotta be told do every last thing, when

he knows better. You can take it from me, I ain't bringin' you childern

up to be the kind o' household pets servants is, nowadays. I wanta

learn you to think for yourselves, sometimes, an' do a thing the right

way, because it's right to do it that way. Never mind if anybody sees

it, or not. Now, you listen to me, since you're so partic'lar: You go

into that hen-house, with your pail, an' your brush, an' you whitewash

down every last thing in it, roosts an' all. Don't you leave a thing go

free. Do you understand me?"

Sammy's pitiful face moved his father to raise a voice in his behalf.

"Say, mother, Sammy knows he's been a bad boy an' he's got to take his

punishment. He's got to do the henhouse over. There's no doubt about

that. But suppose he passes his word of honor to you, as man to man,

that he'll do it thorough next time, will you be easy on him, for this

once, and let him go across the lake with you and his sisters, and do

the whitewashing later?"

Martha shook her head.

"Sorry I can't accommodate you, but when anythin's to do, there's no

time like the present. If Sammy learns his lesson this trip, he won't

have it to learn again, on another occasion, when p'raps he'd miss more

than goin' acrost the lake. Besides, he's got some other little trifles

hangin' over'm, I let him off easy on, at the time. We'll just settle

up his account now, for them _an'_ the henhouse, all together, an' call

it square."

There was a terrible finality in his mother's words and aspect, that

dried Sammy's tears, quenched his sobs. Where was the good of

struggling? Sammy was a small boy, but he had sagacity enough to

realize he was face to face with fate. He turned away mournfully, and

disappeared in the direction of the henhouse.

Mrs. Slawson's severity fell from her, as if it had been a mantle.

"The poor fella," she said commiseratingly. "I'd give a lot to leave'm

go along. But with childern, you got to strike while the iron is hot,

or you'll be forever warmin' their poor little hides, which constant

naggin' is death to their dispositions. But if I'd 'a' had my choice,

I'd 'a' selected a differnt way to punish'm. For, firstoff, I won't

enjoy the fun, knowin' he's left behind, an', second, I really need his

help with the laurel _and_ with the la'nch. But p'raps I need a

punishment on my own account, for leavin'm grow to this age without

knowin' he can't string his mother. If I do, you can take it from me,

_I got it_."

*CHAPTER IV*

Miss Claire's entry into her new domain was triumphal.

As the motor approached the lodge-gate, she plucked impulsively at her

husband's sleeve.

"Look, Frank, look! See! An arch of pink laurel! Flags!

And--and--what's this?"

A quartette of children's voices singing brought the motor to a halt on

the hither side of a wonderful, lettered strip, stretched, like an

unrolled scroll, to span the driveway, from the tips of two lofty

uprights. Mr. Ronald bent forward attentively. Immediately his firm jaw

began to twitch, and, as he spoke, his lowered voice betrayed a

treacherous tremolo.

"They're singing _Hail to the Chief_. But its own mother wouldn't know

it."

Claire threw him a reproachful glance, as, to the consternation of the

new footman, she flung open the door of the car herself, alighted

unaided, and impetuously clung about Martha Slawson's neck.

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" she cried.

There were tears of joy in Martha's eyes.

"God bless you, Miss Claire, ma'am! God bless you, dear."

"I say, Martha, which of us are you hailing? Which of us is _Chief_?"

broke in Mr. Ronald lightly, nodding a salutation toward Sam, Ma, and

the children drawn up by the driveway in martial array.

Martha laughed. "Between youse be it, sir. Time'll tell. Sam didn't

want me put it up, but I says to him, you both started in with a fair

field, an' no favor, an' let the best man win. Guessin' which of you'll

come out ahead, maybe'll relieve the monoterny of married life for you

some."

If Sam Slawson had been a boy, he could not have felt more eager to

"show the boss" what he had made of the place during his absence. While

the two of them were exploring, the children and Ma busy with the

treasures their fairy princess had brought home to them from the other

side of the world, Martha devoted herself to "mothering" Miss Claire.

"My! To be brushin' your hair like this takes me back to a

Hunderd-an'-sixteenth Street, an' no mistake!"

Mrs. Ronald's eyes, peering through her bright veil, met Mrs. Slawson's

in the mirror.

"Tell me, Martha, you miss the city sometimes, don't you? Would you

like to go back?"

Martha's reply was prompt. "I _am_ goin' back, for a day or two, with

Sam, when Mr. Ronald sends'm down on business next month. That is, I'm

goin', if I can raise the price o' my ticket. We're goin' on a spree.

Just us two, all alone by ourselves."

Mrs. Ronald clapped her hands. "Good!" she cried enthusiastically.

"But you haven't answered my question. I'll put it another way. Do you

feel quite contented up here? Does the country suit you?"

This time Mrs. Slawson paused to consider. "I like the country

first-rate," she brought out at last. "I like it first-rate,

notwithstandin' it ain' just exackly the kinda pure white, Easter-card

effect it's gener'ly cracked up to be. When you think o' the country,

you naturally think o' daisies, an' new-mown hay, an' meddas, an' grass

which it don't have signs all 'round to keep off of it, an' blue skies

you ain't gotta break your neck peekin' out o' the air-shaft

ground-floor winda to see. Well, true for you, the whole outfit's here

all right, all right, but so's more or less o' human bein's, an'

whenever you get human bein's picnicking 'round, complercations 's sure

to set in. Human bein's, if they ain't careful, clutters up the

landscape dretful. An' they do it in the country, same as down home.

You're goin' to slip up on it fierce, if you think the city's got a

corner on all the rottenness there is. There's a whole lot o' news

ain't fit to print is happenin' right up here in this innercent-lookin'

little village. You wouldn't believe it, unless you _knew_. There's

parties bein' bad, an' other parties bein' good. Folks doin' mean

tricks, an' folks doin' the other kind. It's all just about the same's

in the city, when you get right down to it. Only, there ain't so much

_of_ it. But it makes me tired to hear Mrs. Peckett behavin' as if the

country was the whole thing, an' New York wasn't in it. New York _is_

bad in spots, but it's good in spots too, an' don't you forget it!"

Mrs. Ronald smiled. "You're a loyal soul, Martha. But you'll love the

country better, when you know more about the birds, and the insects, and

the flowers. I'm going to set about directly teaching you. I'm going

to make a naturalist of you, do you know it?"

Mrs. Slawson's smile was large, benign. "Certaintly. I'd like to be a

nateralist. Mrs. Peckett's goin' to make a New England housekeeper outa

me, an' ol' lady Crewe is tryin' to turn me into a farmer. If I get all

that's comin' to me, it looks as if I'd be goin' some, before I get

through."

"'Old lady Crewe'?"

"Why, don't you remember? That little ol' party looks like a china

figga you'd get at Macy's, down in the basement. They have'm leanin'

against tree-stumps, for match-boxes, an' suchlike. White hair, an'

dressed to beat the band, in looped-up silk, with flowers painted onto

the pattren. Ol' lady Crewe reminds you of one o' those. She was 'born

a Stryker,' they tell me--whatever _that_ is--an' her folks owned about

all the land in these parts Lord Ronald's folks didn't, in the ol' days.

She's got no end o' money, but----" Martha hesitated.

"Oh, I recollect now. She's the one they say is a miser."

"Now, I wouldn't call her that," said Mrs. Slawson slowly. "I kinda

hate to clap a label onto a body. It's bound to stick to'm, no matter

what. It's like a bottle. Oncet it's had POISON marked on it, it's

under suspicion, an' you wouldn't make free with it, no matter how

careful it's been washed. Ol' lady Crewe certaintly _is_ savin', that no

one can deny, an' I'm sorry for Miss Katherine, but----"

Again Mrs. Ronald let her curiosity escape in the repetition of the name

Martha had just mentioned. "Miss Katherine?"

"Miss Katherine's the ol' lady's granddaughter, an' you can take it from

me, you wouldn't see a han'somer in a day's travel."

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" cried Miss Claire, pretending jealousy, "I've got

a rival. I see it! I know it! You don't like me best any more."

Mrs. Slawson laughed. "'Like you best'! Well, I guess you won't have to

lose no sleep on that account, Miss Claire. But Miss Katherine's

certaintly good-lookin', I'll say that for her. When I come home the

next mornin', after seein' her firstoff, Cora says to me, 'What did she

look like? was she anything like Miss Claire?' An' I told her: 'Miss

Katherine's the han'somest appearin', but Miss Claire is the delicatest.

Miss Claire's the most refinder-lookin'. An' that's God's truth. Miss

Katherine's tall. The sorta grand, proud-lookin',

I-would-n't-call-the-queen-my-cousin kind. An' _you_----! Well, you'll

know how a body feels about _you_, when the blessed lamb comes home in

August, which, believe _me_, the news of it is the joyfulest ever I

heard in my life. You'll know how a body feels about _you_, by the way

you feel about _it_. Like pertectin' it, an' caressin' it,

an'--an'--keepin' harm away from the innercent heart of it. If you

don't believe me, ask Lord Ronald."

"'Ask Lord Ronald,' _what_?"

Mrs. Slawson turned composedly to face the master of the house, as if

his appearance in the doorway, just at that precise moment, had been

"according to specifications." "I was tellin' Miss Claire--beggin' your

pardon, _Mrs. Ronald_--about ol' lady Crewe, up-the-road-a-ways."

Mr. Ronald disposed of his long person in a cretonne-covered lounging

chair.

"Do you know her, Frank?" As Claire spoke she slipped into her

adjoining dressing-room, to arrange her hair and put on a fresh frock.

"Why, yes--and no," he replied. "Of course all the neighborhood knows

about Madam Crewe. I used to hear my father talk about her. But she is

rather a formidable little person. She is not to be approached lightly.

I doubt if any one _knows_ her. She was Idea Stryker. An only child.

'Very beautiful,' the governor said,--'a great match.' Her father was

exceedingly high and mighty. An English _younger son_, with feudalistic

notions. Nobody over here was good enough for him, except my father,

with whom he was uncommonly friendly. Stryker was difficult, a

choleric, fiery-tongued individual, much disliked in the state, though,

my father always said, he meant well."

"Somehow, I ain't no use for folks that mean well," observed Mrs.

Slawson. "That is, o' course, I don't mean I ain't no use for'm, but I

think they're kinda nuisances. When you have to explain that a fella

_means well_, you can take it from me, he ain't makin' himself very

clear on his own account."

Mr. Ronald laughed. "Well, perhaps that's true. In any event, Squire

Stryker made himself so cordially disliked that when, one day, he and

his bailiff, as he called him, had a big scene, and Ballard, the

bailiff, was turned out, neck and crop, public sympathy was all on his

side, though no one knew anything about the facts in the case. My

father said Squire Stryker spoke of the man as 'scamp' and rapscallion,'

but, he never really openly accused him of misdemeanor. There was the

scene, and the next day Stryker closed his place, and took himself and

his girl off, to parts unknown. The dismissed bailiff, a handsome,

prepossessing chap, my father said, disappeared, and nothing more was

heard of him. Idea married, and came back Mrs. Crewe. Young Mrs.

Crewe, in those days. 'Ol' lady Crewe up-the-road-a-ways,' now."

"Well, what do you think of that!" ejaculated Martha. "So that's the

reason why, when she hears it, the name Ballard's like a rag to a red

bull! Now, what do you think of that!"

"What do you mean?" Mr. Ronald asked.

"Why, the ol' lady was took sick suddently a few weeks ago, an' Sam, he

couldn't get Dr. Driggs, who was out at the time, an', besides, wasn't

achin' to go to the poor ol' body, anyhow, to have his head snapped off,

an' then haggle over the bill, into the bargain. So he took the best he

could get, meanin' Sam did, which was Dr. Ballard, a fine young fella

from Boston. The minute the ol' lady clapped eye to'm, an' heard his

name, she up an' had a kinda Dutch fit. Wouldn't see'm. It was all I

could do, what with talkin' an' contrivin', to make her, an' _then_ she

set about layin' down the law to Miss Katherine, forbiddin' her parley

with'm, or see'm at all, which is as good as sayin', 'Bless you, my

childern!' over their married heads, if she but knew it!"

Frank Ronald laughed. "The wisdom of Socrates! I tell you what it is,

Martha, we'll make a philosopher of you, yet!"

"Anything you like, sir. Sever'l has lately mentioned wantin' to make

things outa me. The more the merrier. An' if, in the end, I ain't good

for nothin' else, maybe they'll hire me in a circus, for a side-show

freak.--THE MADE OVER LADY. WHICH, SHE WAS ONCET JUST PLAIN MARTHA

SLAWSON. BUT IS NOW SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS, IT'D MAKE YOU DIZZY TO

LOOK AT HER. But I must be goin'. Them childern o' mine will 'a'

turned the house upside down with their rapchers over the presents you

brought'm."

Mrs. Ronald laid a hand upon her husband's shoulder. "I'd like to take a

walk, Frank. Won't you come?"

"An' on the way I'll show you my new hen-house," promised Martha. "One

o' the things I'm learnin' to be, is a chicken-raiser. I'm learnin'

hard, an', you might say, the chicks is learnin' harder. But it'll all

come out right in the end, if both parties hang on, an' keep a stiff

upper lip. The first time a brood died on me, I 'most fretted myself

sick. But now I learned not to hitch my heart to no hen. I do the best

I can by 'em, an' leave the rest to proverdence, an' the inkerbater.

Only, you can take it from me, them inkerbaters may be a improvement on

the old way, but they certaintly is death to the mother-instinc' in

hens. Hens is like women. The less they have to do, the less they do,

especially if they keep well. The minute you begin turnin' your

offsprings over to other parties, to be brought up, that's the time your

sect is goin' to run down. An' the chicks don't grow up with no more

feelin' o' reverence for their elders, an' them that bore'm, then the

childern we're raisin' nowadays. It's all wrong, these modren

contrivances is. We think we're smart, shovin' our ways in, ahead o'

nature's, but just you wait, an' see what comes o' this generation o'

kids, give'm time to grow up to be men, an' women, an' so forth. You

can take it from me, George Washin'ton an' Abraham Linco'n wasn't

brought up in cotton-wool, so that every time somebody crossed'm, an'

they got red in the face with temper, there'd be a trained nurse to pop

a the'mometer under their tongues, to see if they had a 'temperachure.'

What kep' their childish fevers down was a good fannin' with mother's

slipper, an' they grew up to tell the truth an' fear the devil, along

with the other grown-up members of the fam'ly. But, these days,

everything's for the kids, an' they know it. Believe me, my heart

bleeds for my grandchildern. An', talkin' o' grandchildern, here's the

model henhouse o' New England. Internal decoratin' done by Mr. Sammy

Slawson's son, junior."

Martha held her little party back long enough to relate the tale of

Sammy and the whitewashing.

"An' I told'm," she concluded, "he could walk his little self back, with

his little pail o' whitewash, an' his little brush, an' get busy an'

_keep_ busy, till every last thing in the place got a good coat. I

told'm, 'Don't you leave a thing go free, young man!' so I guess we'll

see a thora job _this_ time, or I'm mistaken."

A spotless interior, gleaming, white, proved her surmise correct. Sammy

had evidently made "a thora job" of it this time.

Claire would have been satisfied with a brief glance, but her husband

detained her.

"I say, Martha," he addressed Mrs. Slawson, "what is it you told young

Sam? 'Not to let a thing go free'?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, he's a model boy. He has obeyed you to the letter. Look here!"

Martha, looking in the direction indicated, saw a bunch of animate

white, huddled disconsolately against a far corner of the white wall.

"What is it?" she asked.

Mr. Ronald made a clucking sound, and the bunch separated sluggishly,

proving itself to be two very thoroughly whitewashed hens.

Martha stared a moment aghast. Then gradually, as the truth dawned upon

her, her broad shoulders began to shake.

"The joke's on you, Martha!" Mr. Ronald said, smiling quizzically.

Martha turned grave in a moment. "Beggin' your pardon, sir," she

returned, "I'm afraid it's on the _hens_. But, what'll I do to Sammy?

He's a young villain, o' course, only I ain't a leg to stand on, for to

punish'm. He's just been mindin' his mother."

"'And the moral of that is,' as Alice would say, that even obedience can

sometimes be too complete," observed Mr. Ronald with relish.

Whatever misgivings young Sam might have entertained, nothing in his

mother's demeanor, when she, Miss Claire, and Lord Ronald arrived at the

Lodge a little while later, seemed to justify them.

Perhaps she hadn't seen the hens. Perhaps the hens had licked or lapped

the whitewash off, an inspiration derived from his experience with

Flicker, the dog, and Nixcomeraus, the cat. In any case, Mrs. Slawson

was apparently undisturbed, standing by (young Sam noticed his mother

never sat in the presence of ladies and gentlemen "like Mr. and Mrs.

Ronald, Dr. Ballard, or Miss Katherine") as Miss Claire inquired after

Ma's health.

"Fair-rly, fair-rly, thank you kindly," the old woman was responding,

"I'm thryin' a new remidy, now, an' I think it's goin' to help me. Ol'

Mis' Harris says, 'no matther who ye a-are, or what ails ye, if ye get a

nutmeg, an' bore a hole through't, an' string it on a white-silk t'read,

an' a black-silk t'read, an' hang't 'round your neck, ye'll be

surprised,' ol' Mis' Harris says."

"I'd be surprised anyhow," observed Martha. "I'm always surprised."

"And you like living up here?" Mrs. Ronald gently put to the old woman.

"Well, tolerabl', tolerabl'. I don't mind the livin' in it, as ye might

sa', but----"

"Ma means, as long as she lives she'll never die in the country," Martha

supplied.

"Well, if it comes to dyin' itself, I'd rather die where there was moar

to be folla'in' me. I sa' to me son Sammy's wife, often an' often,

'When I die don't ye go to anny gr'reat expense for me funerll. I should

want ye lay me out decent, but plain, an'----'"

Martha shrugged good-naturedly. "An' I always answer back, 'Don't ye

trouble yourself. In such cases they ain't accustomed to consult the

corpse.'"

"But you're not thinking of dying yet," Claire said. "I'm sure you're

not."

The old woman shook her head. "No, I don't wanta die--not while the sun

shines so bright, an' the evenin' star's so pretty."

"Of course you don't. And you're not going to die for ever and ever so

long. You only feel a little low-spirited sometimes, perhaps. Isn't

that it? The country seems strange to you, I have no doubt. Why don't

you make some visits to your other sons and daughters?" Mrs. Ronald

suggested craftily. "That would be a fine plan, I think. How glad they

would be to see you after your long separation. And, oh, Martha,

talking of visits--you know the visitor I told you we are expecting in

August? I'm thinking of fitting up a little room especially for--for

her. I have sent to Grand Rapids for all my dear old things, because

I've a fancy they'll help to make her feel as happy as they used to make

me, and perhaps then she won't get homesick, and want to slip away from

us as--as visitors do, sometimes. My curtains were lovely, but I think

they need a stitch here and there. If you will put them in order for

me--mend them thoroughly, and launder them in your finest style, I'll

give you--let me see! the cleaners in town asked me fifteen dollars.

I'll pay you fifteen dollars."

Fifteen dollars! Martha's eyes gleamed. Here was her opportunity to

earn the price of her ticket to New York and back.

"You'll do it?"

"You betcher--I'll do it with pleasure, an' thank you for the chance,

Miss Claire. An'--my! but if here ain't Dr. Ballard, comin' up the

walk!"

Martha performed the act of introduction with dignity, then quietly

effaced herself, silently signaling her family to "fade away, an' make

room for your betters."

Claire "took" to the newcomer at once, predisposed in his favor by a

certain shadow of resemblance she saw, or thought she saw, to a friend

of her youth, a certain Bob Van Brandt who, once upon a time, had laid

his heart at her feet. There was the same manly frankness, the same

touch of boyish impetuosity. She wondered if there were the same fatal

lack of determination.

What time she pondered, her husband was harking back to otherwhiles,

when a Ballard had lived in the neighborhood.

"My grandfather," the young man said quite simply. "He was bailiff, as

they called it in those days, to Squire Stryker."

Frank Ronald liked that. It rang true.

Martha was not listening to the conversation. Her mind was full of the

thought that now she could conscientiously go honeymooning with Sam.

"It wouldn'ta been right to take the money outa the little we got

saved," she ruminated. "That's gotta stay where it is, no matter what.

But if I do the curtain-job, I'll have my own cash. I can go with my

own man, an' I wouldn't call the queen my cousin."

When, at length, the Ronalds took leave, Dr. Ballard, lingering, said:

"I'm in a hole, Mrs. Slawson." He paused, hesitated, then colored. "I

say I'm in a hole--really it's Miss Crewe. My difficulty is, I want to

help her out, and, up to date, haven't been able. Madam Crewe is

fretting herself into a fever because the fruit on the place is going to

waste. Confound it! She's making Miss Crewe's life miserable, teasing

her to 'do it up.' Miss Crewe doesn't know how to do it up, she tells

me, and, there you are!"

"What about Eunice Youngs? The girl I got to _accommodate_ for'm, at

four dollars per," inquired Mrs. Slawson.

The doctor laughed. "Nothing doing, I gather, else Miss Crewe wouldn't

be in so deep. This morning I managed to kidnap her--Miss Crewe, not

Eunice. Took her for a drive. She needs fresh air and change. I took

her to Mrs. Peckett's, because I knew Mrs. Peckett boasts she's the best

housekeeper in New England."

Martha folded her arms across her bosom, and half closed her eyes.

"'If I do say it as shouldn't,'" she repeated in Mrs. Peckett's fat,

self-satisfied voice. "'If I do say it as shouldn't, no one can beat me

on jells and perserves. My jells and perserves have took first prize at

the country fair, as far back as I can remember.' I ran in oncet to

ask, would she give me a helpin' hand, or, rather, a helpin' tongue, on

the perserve question. 'Why, certaintly,' says she. 'I'm always

delighted to oblige, I'm sure. My rule is simple as ABC. There's no

art in it at all. It's just _my_ way o' doin', I s'pose, for every time

I give my rule to anybody else, it never comes out right.' An' then she

give me her rule, an' I knew the reason why.

"'You take what you're goin' to jar, and you wash it, if it's berries,

or pare an' cut up if it's pit-fruit. Add water, an' set on the stove

in a kettle till you come to a boil. Add sugar an'----'

"'How much sugar?' says I.

"'Accordin' to conscience,' she says.

"'How about if you haven't got a conscience?' I says. Mrs. Peckett

looked like she'd drop in her tracks with shock. 'Why, _Mrs. Slawson_!'

says she, 'everybody's got a conscience.'

"'Oh,' I says. 'You see, comin' from the city I didn't know. I suppose

some keeps theirs just to measure by, when they're puttin' up fruit,'

for I was tired o' seein' her dodge from the table to the stove, always

tryin' to shut me off from seein' how she done things. As if she

couldn't o' refused firstoff, if she didn't want to help. _I_ wouldn't

'a' minded. If she done the same to Miss Katherine, I don't wonder

she's just about where she was before--in the same old hole."

"That's just where she is," Dr. Ballard admitted. "Have you any

suggestions for getting her out?"

Martha pondered a moment. "Well, I never took a prize at no country

fair, or city one either, for my jells, or perserves, or anything else.

I ain't a boss housekeeper, an' I don't pertend to be, but my suggestion

is--bright an' early to-morra mornin', me an' my perservin' kettle will

wanda out to Crewesmere, as they call it. I'll bring Sammy with me to

pick, an' sort the fruit, an' Cora to wash, an' heat the jars. They're

used to it. An'--you just tell Miss Katherine, if you'll be so good,

that she can heave the perserve-trouble off'n her chest. Tell her don't

worry. Mrs. Peckett ain't the only one's got a 'rule.'"

*CHAPTER V*

The day had been sultry, and sunset brought no relief. Evening fell

windstill, breathless.

For once Katherine was glad to obey her little martinet grandmother's

arbitrary regulation: Lights out at nine. She sat by her bedroom window

looking out over a white, moonlit world, thinking black thoughts.

Suddenly she rose, for no better reason, apparently, than that a quick,

inner impulse of impatience against herself, must find vent in some

outward act.

"It's dreadful! I'm growing bitter, hard, deceitful. I'm living a lie.

Acting as if I were obedient, and respectful to her, and--feeling like a

rebel every minute in the day. I've got to end it, somehow. I can't go

on like this any longer."

Just outside her window a little balcony (the railed-in roof of the

porte-cochere) shone like a silver patch against the darker foliage.

The shadows of leaves cast an intricate pattern upon the moonlit space,

and Katherine gazed at it abstractedly until a moving speck in the

motionless night caught her attention, and fixed it. As she watched,

the speck became a shape, the shape an automobile moving rapidly, almost

noiselessly, toward the house, along the white ribbon of a driveway.

Just before her window it stopped.

"Hello!" called Dr. Ballard softly.

Katherine hid a radiant smile in the folds of her shadowy curtain.

"Sh!" she cautioned. "You'll wake grandmother."

"Then come down. I've something to tell you."

"No. Too late!"

"Nonsense!"

"I can't."

"Oh, very well."

His instant acceptance of her negative was not altogether agreeable.

One moment, and he was bending over his steering-wheel, busying himself

with the gear, probably preparatory to driving on and away. The next,

he was out of the car, had scaled the porch-pillar, vaulted the low

railing, and was calmly sitting not two feet away from her,

Turk-fashion, upon the balcony floor.