"Yes. I've made it out that she's rather a specialist, when it comes to
life, and that sort of thing. Really, I think it might pay you to
consult her. By the way, she asked me to say that you 'can heave the
perserve trouble off'n your chest.' She is going to see you get a
'rule,' or something."
"Oh, good! That _is_ a load off one's mind. And, speaking of chests,
it can't be very good for yours, to be doing heavy gymnastics, such as
climbing porch-posts. Can it?"
"Why not? My chest's O.K. Nothing in the least 's the matter with my
chest."
"Oh,--I thought----" blundered Katherine awkwardly.
"What?"
"Somebody told me--I don't recollect who--that you had a 'spot' or
something, on your lung. I'm so sorry."
Dr. Ballard flung back his head with a low, boyish chuckle.
"Somebody's got hold of the wrong case. My nerves, mixed with another
chap's bellows. No, I'm not up here on account of any one _spot_--it's
the whole rundown machine that needs repairing. I'm used up. Tired
out."
"Tired out--waiting for patients?" asked Katherine mischievously.
Dr. Ballard gave her a quick look. "That's it. Waiting for patients,"
he quoted with perfect good humor.
"I suppose it's hard work building up a practice in a city as big as
Boston."
"Quite hard work."
"Don't you get discouraged?"
"Why should I?"
"Oh, there must be so many obstacles, hindrances. Even if you are
clever, there must be so many older men with established reputations.
Great physicians, great surgeons."
"Precisely. That's the fun of it. The game wouldn't be worth playing,
if 'twas easy to win out. It's hard. That's why I like it."
Katherine rose slowly, and stood in the window embrasure, looking down
upon him thoughtfully.
"You've given me something to sleep on," she said. "I'll remember what
you've said. 'The game wouldn't be worth playing, if 'twas easy.' And
I have been whining because it is hard."
"Katherine!" shrilled a petulant voice, breaking rudely through the soft
evening hush.
"Coming, grandmother."
"_Good_ night!" exclaimed Dr. Ballard with slangy intention.
The next moment, Katherine saw his agile figure disappear over the rim
of the balustrade. She turned quickly to answer the imperative call,
all the old miserable feelings returning in a rush.
"I want a drink of water."
If Martha Slawson had been in Katherine's place, the mother-heart in her
would have understood that childish call at once. But the girl had no
experience that would help her to interpret the meaning of it. She
supplied the drink with as much promptness, and as little sentiment, as
a nickel-in-the-slot machine.
Madam Crewe drained the glass thirstily.
"It's a warm night," she observed socially.
"Very warm."
"Queer the way my head acts," continued the lonely old woman, obviously
making conversation to detain Katherine. "Sometimes it seems full of
sounds, so I think I hear real voices speaking. A little while ago, I
heard a man's laugh, as clear as could be. You weren't downstairs with
a caller, were you?"
"I haven't been out of my room since supper-time, grandmother."
The words seemed to Katherine to burn her lips, as she uttered them.
She turned abruptly to the door. Her grandmother called her back.
"You know what I've been thinking?"
Katherine stood at attention, but silent, unequal to the task of
counterfeiting interest.
"I've been thinking, I'm going to give the cow to Slawson. It bothers
me when I can't pay my debts, and the woman won't take a cent for what
she's done. Besides, it's expensive keeping live-stock these days, with
fodder so high, and labor even worse. We don't need a cow, just you and
I. Cheaper to buy milk than feed the creature through the winter, and
hire Peter to come and milk. It counts up. Slawson can keep her, and
turn an honest penny letting us have milk at lowest price. See?"
"Yes, grandmother."
"You don't like the plan?"
"Giving the cow to Mrs. Slawson is very nice, I think, but I always hate
presents with strings to them. Having to supply us with milk takes the
cream off the cow."
"Pooh! That's nonsense. You've altogether too big notions. They'll
get you into trouble, if you don't take care. I can see you making
ducks and drakes of a fortune in no time, if you didn't have some one to
hold a tight rein over you. By the way, how about those preserves?"
"I'll put them up to-morrow, grandmother."
"See you do. Else, first thing you know, the fruit will be gone.
Rotted on the trees."
"I promise you, I'll put it up to-morrow without fail," Katherine
repeated very distinctly.
Back in her own room she laughed bitterly, while two hot tears slipped
down her cheeks. "_Promise_! Poor thing! and she believes me! She
thinks my word is as good as my bond. So it is--and neither of them is
worth a rush," she assailed herself. No, she had forgotten. She was
telling the truth about the preserves, at least. Mrs. Stewson was going
to let her have a "rule." But the false impression she had deliberately
conveyed about the caller still "stuck in her crop," as Martha would
have said. And yet, what right had her grandmother or any one else, to
tie her hand and foot, so she must resort to subterfuge if she wanted to
move a muscle?
It wasn't fair that one life should be crippled to serve the whim of
another. If her grandmother insisted on cutting her off from all
natural pleasures, let her take the consequences. She fell asleep at
last, nursing her sense of injury, brooding over her wrongs.
The next morning, while the casual Eunice was clearing the breakfast
table, Katherine heard a sound outside, which caused her to hurry to the
window. The sound was familiar, but the time for it unusual. The
doctor's car was not due at Crewesmere so early in the day. Yet there
it was, and, as Katherine gazed, from it issued, as if in installments,
Mrs. Slawson, a small boy, a big girl, and--a huge, granite-ware
preserving-kettle.
In less than a minute the _tempo_ of the house was changed. Things
moved _vivace_.
"Sammy, you go out with this basket, an' strip them trees as fast as you
can put. Cora, you show'm where to go, after Miss Crewe she tells you,
that's a good girl. Eunice, get me every one o' them perserve-jars
off'n the top pantry-shelf, an' when you wash'm, see the water's good
an' hot, but not so's it'll crack the glass. We'll need them scales,
Miss Katherine. I knew you had'm, or I'd 'a' brought my own. If you
watch me measurin', an' write down what the perportions are, an' how I
handle'm, you'll have a 'rule' for future use, which, if it never took a
prize like Mrs. Peckett's, certaintly never poisoned anybody yet, that
ever et it, so far as _I_ know."
It was wonderful how the load lifted from Katherine's heart.
"I don't know how it is, Mrs. Slawson," she said at length, "but
whenever you're here, I feel about twice as strong and brave, as at any
other time. It isn't alone that you _do_ so much, but you make me think
I can do things too; things I know I'm not equal to, otherwise."
Martha smiled. "Believe _me_, you don't know what you're equal to, an'
don't you forget it. No more do I. We ain't done up in bags, like
seven pounds o' sugar, we human bein's, so's we know what we're equal
to. The heft of us comes out, accordin' to the things in life we got to
measure up to. When I was married, firstoff, I thought I wasn't _equal_
to livin' with my mother-in-law, an' puttin' up with her
peculiar-rarities. But, laws o' man! I found I was. An', what's more,
I found I been equal to one or two other little things since, worse than
her, by a good sight. What helped me some, was realizin' I got
peculiar-rarities of my own other folks has to be equal to."
Katherine caught her under lip between her teeth, as if to hold back
words trying to come out. A minute, and they came.
"But, I don't see why some people have a right to make others unhappy."
"They haven't. No more than a body has a right to make herself unhappy.
But they do it, all the same."
"One wouldn't mind making one big sacrifice, or two, or three, in a
lifetime, if that were all. But, it seems, nothing is ever enough. You
think you've vanquished one thing, and, before you know it, you've got
it all to do over again. Has your life been that way, Mrs. Slawson?
Does one never get through having to give up one's own wishes and will
to the wishes and will of others?"
Mrs. Slawson stirred in silence for a moment the delicious brew
simmering on the stove.
"Did you ever scrub a floor?" she asked, at length. "No, o' course you
didn't. Mostly, ladies thinks scrubbin' floors is dretful low work.
Well, it ain't. Scrubbin' floors'll learn you a lot o' other things, if
you let it. In the first place, there's a right an' wrong way to it,
same's there is to tonier jobs. If you're goin' to begrutch your elbow
grease, an' ain't willin' to get down on your marra-bones, an' attend
strictly to business, you ain't goin' to succeed. Well, we'll say, you
scrubbed a spot, good an' clean. That ain't all. You got to keep goin'
back on yourself, scrubbin' back over the places where you left off,
else there'll be streaks, an' when your floor dries on you, the
streaks'll show up, for all they're worth, an' give you dead away. As I
make it out, it's just the same with livin'. If you begrutch takin'
pains, an' keep your eye out, all the time, for fear you'll do a little
more'n your share, why, you can take it from me, you're goin' to show
streaks. You better never done it at all, than done it so's it'll be a
dead give-away on you. You can't scrub clean with dirty water, an' you
can't _live_ clean, 'less you keep turnin' out all the messy feelin's
you got in you, an' refillin' your heart with fresh, same's you would
your water-pail. But, even when you've done your job right, oncet ain't
goin' to be enough. You couldn't keep clean with one scrub-down, no
matter how thora. It's got to be done over to-morra, an' the next day,
an' so on. If a body don't like it, why, that don't change the fax
any."
"But all of us don't have to scrub floors. And I don't see why, if one
had what you call a _job_ one didn't like, he couldn't change it. Just
say: I won't live like this any longer. I'll have something better. If
there aren't ways of breaking loose from things one hates, and making
happiness for one's self, there ought to be. We should invent them."
"Well, p'raps you're right. They certaintly do a lot o' inventin' these
days. They invented a way o' flyin' above the earth. But there's no
way _I_ know of you can sail over your own particular place in the
world. After all's said an' done, you gotta come back home, an' just
stand flat, with your two little feet planted square in the middle o'
that state o' life onto which it's pleased the Lord to call you."
"Then you don't believe people have the right to make their own
happiness?"
"Certaintly I do. I don't only think they have the right to, I think
they gotta. People have the right to make their happiness out o' every
last thing comes in their way. Every last scrap an' drop they find
anywheres about. Same's you'd make a perfectly good patch-quilt out o'
the rag-bag, an' A1 soap out o' drippin's. Any gener'l houseworker at
five dollars _per_, can make a roast out o' a prime cut o' beef. Any
fool can be happy, if they're handed out happiness in chunks. But it
takes a chef-cook to gather up all the sort o' queer little odds an'
ends in the pantry, an' season'm here, an' whip'm up there, an' put'm on
a dish, garnished with parsley, or smothered in cream, an' give'm a
fancy French name on a menoo-card, so's when they come on the table, you
smack your lips, an' say 'dee-licious!' an' feel you got your money's
worth."
"But if one has tried and tried? And it was no use? Things only got
more tangled?"
Martha pondered for a moment. "Sometimes, with a new spool o' thread,
you get aholt o' the wrong end, an' then you can pull an' pull, an' tug
an' tug, till you're black in the face, an' the more you do, the more
your cotton gets tangled on you. But if you'll go easy, an' wait till
you find the right end, it'll run off as smooth as grease. D'you mind
takin' a sip o' this licka, to see if you think it's sweet enough to
suit? Taste differs, an' some likes more sugar'n others."
* * * * *
"Well," said Dr. Ballard as, toward the close of the day, he was taking
leave of Katherine, having fulfilled his professional duty to his
patient upstairs. "Well, mademoiselle, was Mrs. Slawson of any use? Was
she a help?"
Katherine threw him a grateful glance. "A help? Rather. More of a help
than you'll ever know."
"The preserves are made?"
"You should view the shelves. They're a wonder. I believe we've a stock
that'll last us for the rest of our natural lives."
"And, you say, the Preserver has gone home? I expected to take her with
me."
"That's what she expected. But, about an hour ago, Mrs. Frank Ronald
drove up. She came to call, though, of course, it was my place to go
see her first, as she's a bride, and a stranger. She brought
grandmother an armful of roses. The loveliest things! Long-stemmed
ones, almost as tall as she is herself. Have you ever seen her? Mrs.
Ronald? She's the daintiest creature! She makes me feel a giantess.
And so unaffected, and cordial. So different from Mrs. Sherman, who was
Katherine Ronald. Somehow, I feel as if her being here, were going to
make things pleasanter. I'm happier, more contented, and hopeful, than
I've been for ever so long."
"And Mrs. Ronald sent her car for Mrs. Slawson?"
Katherine Crewe laughed. "'Not on your life,' as Mrs. Slawson says.
Mrs. Ronald just took her along in the car with her, preserving-kettle
and all. You should have seen the footman's expression! I had told Mrs.
Ronald about the preserving, and, as soon as she heard, she proposed
taking 'Martha,' as she calls her, back with her when she went. She's
evidently a democratic little person. I wonder how such goings-on will
please Mrs. Ronald, senior, and Katherine Sherman. They're so
frightfully what, when we were children, we used to call 'stuck up.' I
know grandmother would be horrified. She, also, is stuck-up, as perhaps
you may have gathered."
"Yes, she has made no attempt to hide it. But, I'd really like to know
why _I_ come in for such a large share of her disapproval. To forbid
you to have anything to say to me, now, is really---- If she weren't
such a poor, helpless little old body, I'd have it out with her. Have
you any idea what the trouble is?"
Katherine flushed. "It's all too absurd. A man by the name of Ballard
was bailiff to her father, when she was a girl."
"I know that. My grandfather. What then? A bailiff's is a perfectly
good job. Look at Slawson. He's all right, isn't he? But, anyway,
things haven't stood still since those days. _I'm_ not a bailiff. I'm
a physician. What's the matter with that?"
"Nothing--only----"
"Only--what?"
"She says----" Katherine hesitated.
"Out with it," urged Dr. Ballard.
"She says you've no practice. No income."