"Did you know 'twas _right_?" Martha demanded. "A good way to do, when
you don't know a thing's wrong, is, stop a minute, an' make sure it's
_right_. See you folla that rule after this. Meanwhile, doncher let a
hint out o' you, to Ann Upton, or anybody else, about these letters.
D'you hear?"
"Why?" asked Cora inquisitively.
Martha cast about for a reason potent enough to silence the childish,
chattering tongue.
"You don't want to be disgraced, do you? Havin' folks know you pried
into things wasn't meant for you? Such scandals is sure to leak out, if
you whisper'm broadcast. If Mrs. Peckett oncet got a wind of it, you'd
never hear the last."
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Slawson's mind was concerned much less with
Cora's reputation, just at that moment, than with the letters she had
obliged that reluctant young lady to hand over. Now they were in her
own possession what should she do with them? To whom, by, rights, did
they belong?
"The letters's signed Idea Stryker, which, I remember, Mr. Ronald said
that was ol' lady Crewe's queer name, before she was married. But she
wrote'm to somebody by the name o' Ballard, which, I bet, he was the
doctor's gran'pa, or somethin'. Now, who the lawful owner of them
letters is, it certaintly takes my time to decide. P'raps I better
wanda over to Miss Katherine after supper, an' give'm to _her_. An'
_then_, I may be wrong."
The children, properly fed, cautioned "not to light the lamp, but set
outdoors like little ladies an' gen'lmen, an' get the air, an' cool off,
an' listen to the katy-dids doin', till I come back," Martha proceeded
to wander over to Crewesmere.
Katherine had not yet gone upstairs, when she spied the familiar form
approaching through the waning light.
"Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she said, going down the garden-path to meet her.
"I'm so glad you've come. I've been thinking about you, ever since you
were here last, because I'm in trouble, and, I feel, somehow, you can
help me out. You've helped me out before, you know."
Her wistful attempt at a smile went to Martha's heart.
"Well, my dear, helpin' out is my speciality. Reg'lar service I have not
done since I was married, but helped out by the day, as there was need.
So, here I am, an' if I can be of use, I never counted my _day_ by the
clock, an' if the childern fall asleep on the grass itself, it won't
hurt'm none. It's too hot to rest indoors, anyhow."
"We'll go to the back porch, where our voices won't disturb
grandmother," explained Miss Crewe, leading the way.
"P'raps I better tell you right off what brought me," Martha began,
taking the lower porch step to sit upon in preference to the more
comfortable chair, on the level with her own, which Katherine indicated.
"No, please don't!" Miss Crewe protested. "Let me speak first. I'm so
afraid something may happen to interrupt, and I know mine is more
important. I _must_ tell some one."
The girl did not pause, except to take breath between her difficult
sentences.
"You remember the day grandmother had me bring her her linen-chest? It
all dates from that day, I mean my trouble. I thought I knew before,
what trouble was, but _real_ trouble is only what one has to account for
to one's own conscience."
Martha pretended not to notice the sobbing breath, on which the last
syllables caught, and were choked out.
"Grandmother never took her eyes off the chest while I unpacked it,"
Katherine labored on gallantly. "Never, except once. She said she knew
everything that was in it. But she didn't. There was something she
didn't mention. I came on it, lying almost at the bottom of the chest.
An odd, old-fashioned pocket, hung on a strap, as if it had been
suspended from a belt or a sash, and the strap was snapped--torn. A tiny
bit of a shred was caught in the lock of the chest. I saw it, as soon
as I opened the lid. As my fingers touched the pocket, something inside
it crackled. My heart fairly leaped, for I thought 'twas money.
And--oh, Mrs. Slawson, I need money! You mayn't believe it, but I do.
I never have a cent I can call my own, and I'm not allowed to try to
earn anything. You know--my father had plenty, and I ought to have
plenty, if I had my rights. I've sat here evening after evening,
thinking, thinking, what I could do in case of need--in case a time
came, when I couldn't endure it any longer. And when I felt what was
inside that pocket, when I felt it crackle, I thought it was money,
and--it was like a gleam of hope. I watched for my chance. It came at
last--the one time when grandmother glanced away. I grabbed the pocket,
and hid it in my dress. I didn't stop to think what I was doing. But if
I had, I don't believe it would have made any difference. I didn't care
if I _was_ stealing. I _just wanted that money_! It's shameful to sit
here, and face you, and tell about it, but--I guess I'm past shame. And
then she gave me the mull, and was kind. I'd have put the money back
then, but it was too late. She never took her eyes off me again, nor
the chest. And then--later--after you'd gone, I stole away to my room,
and--what was in the pocket wasn't money at all, but letters! Old,
useless, miserable letters!"
"Did you read'm?" asked Martha to cover the painful effort the girl was
making at self-control.
"No, I didn't read them. After I'd taken the pocket, believing it held
money, and found only letters, I was too _honorable_ to read the
letters."
She spoke with bitterest self-contempt.
"I carried them in my dress, because I didn't dare leave them anywhere
else. And to-day I--I--lost them. I know they were letters written by
my grandmother, when she was a girl. Her handwriting hasn't changed
much, and I know if she dreamed they were lying about loose, lost,
perhaps had been found by some busybody, who would publish them all over
town, she'd----"
"That's just what I come to tell you," Mrs. Slawson announced with a
breath of relief. "Thanks be! 'twas my girl, Cora, found the letters,
an' she brought'm home to me. Not a soul besides us two has laid eyes
on'm. Cora don't know any more than the angels above, that the one
wrote'm ain't dead an' gone, with a antapsie held over her remains, this
many a year. So, for all I see, your troubles are over, you poor child,
an' you can lay your head on your pilla, an' sleep sound this night, if
the heat, which it certaintly _is_ prosteratin', don't pervent. Here's
the letters."
Katherine smiled faintly as she took the little packet.
"If I may make so bold, did you mean to be givin' the letters to Dr.
Ballard?" Martha inquired, after a thoughtful pause. "I own up to you,
I ain't been so fussy as not to read the name on the envelopes."
Miss Crewe winced. "Of course. That was right. No, I hadn't planned
to give him the letters. At first I thought I would, but then I was
afraid I might be obliged to tell him how I came to have them, and--I'm
a coward. I couldn't bear to risk it. Do you think it's my duty to
tell Dr. Ballard, Mrs. Slawson? Tell me what you think I ought to do."
"When a body sets out to tell another body what she'd ought to do, he
better be careful," replied Martha gravely. "You never know what you're
up against. For instance, if you're tellin' a fella _love his neighbor
like himself_, that's all right, only you wouldn't be countin' on his
bein' one o' the kind thinks he's a little tin god on wheels. Bein' as
he was that sort, you'd be tellin' 'm make a graven image of his
neighbor, which he'd be constantly fallin' down before'm, an'
worshippin' 'm, like a heathen idol. You can take it from me, tellin'
people what they'd ought to do is a delicate job--too fine for the likes
of Martha Slawson. But I'd just as liefs tell you what you hadn't ought
to do, one o' which is, lie awake grievin' over spilled milk that's past
an' gone. You mustn't lug your mistakes along with you, every place you
go, like they was a basket o' dirty clo'es. Now lots besides
laundryesses has dirty clo'es to wash, believe me. But if you pack'm up
respectable in nice, clean wrappin' paper, with a stout string, or a
decent telescope bag, nobody'll be the wiser, an' your neighbors won't
objec' sittin' beside you in the cars. It's when you force your dirty
clo'es under the noses of the other passengers, an' make'm
uncomfortable, they've a kick comin'. No, if I was you (beggin' your
pardon for the liberty) I wouldn't tell Dr. Ballard a thing 'twouldn't
be a pleasure to'm to hear. I worked for a lady, Mrs. Sherman, an' she
used ta wait to do things for, what she called--now, do you believe me,
I can't remember the name of it! It was some kind o' _moment_. She
talked about it frequent. The--the--sy----" Martha racked her brains
laboriously.
"Could it possibly have been the psychological moment?" suggested Miss
Crewe.
"The very one!" Mrs. Slawson took her up triumphantly. "The
sykeylogical moment! Mrs. Sherman was dead stuck on it. She used to
talk to her brother, Mr. Frank Ronald, about the sykeylogical moment,
till you'd think it'd stop the clock. Now if you know what a
sykeylogical moment is, an' reco'nize it when it comes along, why, you
can take it from me, that'll be a good chance for you to give the doctor
the letters in, but not before."
Katherine laughed. "I'm sure you're right, Mrs. Slawson," she said.
"I'll wait for the psychological moment. And I'll wash my soiled linen
alone, too. You've given me a lot of good advice. I'm much, _much_
happier than I was before you came."
"Well, good-night then, an' God bless you!" said Martha, rising. "Now
I'll go back to my--_other_ childern."
Halfway between Crewesmere, and the main road, she came to a standstill.
"Hello!" exclaimed Dr. Ballard. "What are you doing so far from home at
the witching hour of eight o'clock? It looks suspicious. Don't you
think you'd better stand and deliver?"
Martha beamed, as she always did at sight of those she liked.
"I'll _stand_, all right, all right, sir, but you can search _me_ for
anything to deliver. My husban' he went to New York this mornin', an'
before he went, with all my worldly goods I he endowed, accordin' to
Scripture, as Mrs. Peckett says."
"Ho! Slawson's gone to New York, has he?" Dr. Ballard exclaimed.
"Well, I'm off for Boston, myself, to-morrow. I'm on my way now to
tell--Madam Crewe."
Martha nodded.
"Certaintly you are. You'll find Miss Katherine on the back porch, if
you hurry. But the ol' lady makes her close the house at nine sharp, so
you've not much time to waste on me. Good luck to you, sir. A safe
journey, an' quick return."
The doctor chuckled as she left him.
"That woman's a _case_!" he said to himself, but under the stimulus of
her suggestion he hurried his steps.
"Going to Boston?" Katherine repeated, her brows contracting in a
troubled, triangular way which always gave a touching, childlike look to
her fine eyes. "Isn't that rather sudden? You didn't tell me anything
about it this afternoon--down Cherry Lane."
"No, I'd not made up my mind then. The resolve came later."
"You'll return?"
"Oh, yes. Very soon, if I get what I'm going after. Less soon, if I
don't."
Katherine turned her face away.
"That sounds mysterious. But I remember you like mysteries."
"'Sure I do,' as Mrs. Slawson would say. I like mysteries for the fun
of clearing them up. It's to clear up a mystery I'm going to Boston."
Katherine withheld the question on her lips.
"You don't ask what mystery."
"If you wanted me to know, you'd tell me."
"Well, then--I'm going _to discover the secret of me life_. In other
words, I'm going to see if I can get a line on my grandfather--the
unfortunate gentleman--no, of course he couldn't have been a
_gentleman_, because he was a bailiff!--the unfortunate beggar who got
himself disliked by his employer, and Madam Crewe. Personally, I've no
social use for defunct forbears. It's a bit curious, because I'm a
Bostonian. But professionally I'm all right on them. They have their
uses scientifically. If my grandfather had a bug--I mean _germ_
(disease or vice germ) I needn't necessarily inherit that particular
insect, but there's no denying that if it happens along, I'm more open
to infection, than a fellow whose grandad hadn't specialized as an
entomologist. I've a notion I'd like to read my title clear. So I'm
going to Boston to dig up dead deeds--in both senses, and see what I
have back of me."
"I'd much rather see what I have ahead," Katherine laughed mirthlessly.
Dr. Ballard's chin went up with a jerk.
"Oh, I'm not afraid of what's before me. I'm willing to stand and face
the future. If a fellow's straight goods on his own account, he has
nothing to fear. He'll win out, somehow. But I wouldn't care to look
forward, if I'd lied, or was a coward, or taken what belonged to some
other fellow, or had any other sort of dirty rag of memory trailing
after me. You never can tell when such a thing will trip you up. I
say, you're not cold this broiling night, are you?"
"No. Why?"
"You shivered."
"Did I? It makes me nervous to hear you talk about 'dirty rags of
memory.' I didn't suppose any one lived who hadn't regrets. I know _I_
have."
"No doubt. I can imagine what for. _I'm_ talking of real offenses.
The sort of thing Madam Crewe hints at in connection with my
grandfather. By Jove, I wonder what the poor old duffer was guilty of.
Perhaps, to put it euphemistically, he appropriated funds not his
own--swiped from _your_ great-grandfather's till. Seriously, that's no
joke! I can imagine that even if a chap didn't care much about his
family-tree, it might be a rather scorching reflection to know you'd
descended--_fallen_--from a rotten apple of a thief, or something.
You'd be forever looking for some taint of it to crop out in you. I
confess, it wouldn't rejoice even my democratic soul. But that's what
I'm going out for to discover. So, when next you see me, perhaps you
won't."
Katherine's hand went toward him in an impulse too strong to resist.
"You know better than that," she said in a voice not wholly steady.
Dr. Ballard's large, firm grasp closed about her slender trembling
fingers.
"I know better than that," he repeated gravely. "But there's something
else, not your friendship, I can't be so confident of. When I come
back, if everything's all right, as I believe it will be, I hope you'll
be kind to me, and set my heart at rest about that too."
Katherine could not answer. After a moment of silent waiting, the
doctor gently released her hand.
"I met Mrs. Slawson as I came along," he said in his usual manner.
"She's a trump, that woman. The most normal human creature I've ever
met."
"Her English isn't normal," Katherine said, trying to control the
helpless trembling that was shaking her from head to foot.
"She's an impressionist. That's what's the matter with Hannah!--I
should say, Martha. She gets and produces her effects in the large.
She doesn't trouble with details. After all, I wonder if we'd like her
better, given the possibility of making a grammarian of her."
Katharine smiled.
"She told me, the other day, that she was being made over. She
mentioned the people concerned in it, and the different things they were
making her over into. I don't recollect that grammarian was in the
list."
"If the rest succeed as well in their efforts as I would in mine, if I
attempted to make a Lindley Murray of her, I don't think we need worry.
She'll progress along her own lines. But she's not various. You can't
make a complex organism out of an elemental creature like Mrs. Slawson,
any more than you could make a contemporaneous 'new woman' out of
Brunnhilde."
"Fancy _Martha_ mounted on a celestial steed, bearing the souls of dead
heroes to Walhalla!"
Dr. Ballard laughed.
"Well, I can tell you this, if she saw 'twas for the good of the souls,
not the celestial steed, nor the dead heroes, nor Walhalla itself, would
faze her. If you ever should need some one to stand by in an emergency,
I couldn't think of a better than Martha Slawson. I hope you'll
remember that, when I'm gone."
A moment, and he was gone, had turned abruptly, and left her without
even so much as good-by.
Katherine bent her head to look down at the hand he had held, on which
presently two tears plashed.
"She'll shut me off from that, too," she murmured bitterly. "She'll
shut me off from that too--_if she can_!"
*CHAPTER VIII*
"Say, mother," Francie called in through the kitchen screen-door, "Miss
Claire, she wants you to come on out. She says she wants to show you a
very ol'."
"A very ol' _what_?" inquired Martha, turning from her stack of washed
breakfast dishes, to wipe her hands on the roller-towel.
"I d'know. Only it's up a tree, an' she wants to show you it."
Martha went out at once.
Mrs. Ronald was standing, not far away, gazing intently up into the
branches of a splendid spruce.
"Sh!" she cautioned, as Mrs. Slawson drew near.
"What is it?" asked Martha.
"Look!"
Martha's eyes, taking the direction indicated by Miss Claire's pointing
finger, saw nothing.
"Do you see?"
"No."
"Quick! Look! O--oh! There he goes! He's flown away!"
"You mean that--bird?"
"Yes--a vireo."
Mrs. Slawson's interest relaxed. "Oh," she said with obvious
disappointment.
"What did you think I wanted to show you? Didn't Francie tell you 'twas
a vireo?"
"Certaintly she did. But she didn't say 'twas a very ol' _bird_.
Nacherly, I kinda pictured to myself somethin' like Gran'pa Trenholm, or
ol' lady Crewe a-sittin' up there, needin' immediate assistance. I
thought to myself, that I never have clumb a tree, but if the need was
great, there's no knowin' what I _could_ do."
Mrs. Ronald laughed. "Oh, Martha," she said, "I don't believe you'll
ever make an ornithologist."
"Without knowin' what that may be," Mrs. Slawson returned affably, "I
don't believe I ever will, though I'm ready to try."
"Yesterday, early, early, I got up, and went out, before any one else in
the house was awake. I went down to the ravine, and oh! I wish you
could have been there with me. It was so beautiful! It's not quite so
early now, but, still, I think, maybe, we might hear the veery. Do you
want to come?"
"Certaintly," said Martha.
For a time they walked on in silence, through the fragrant freshness of
the new day. The full chorus of ecstatic bird voices had somewhat
diminished, but, even so, the air seemed set to music.
Mrs. Ronald gave a great sigh. "Oh, Martha, isn't it lovely? When I
think what happiness life holds, and how beautiful the world is, I
wonder anybody can be discontented, or restless, or sorrowful."
Martha seemed to ponder it.
"Well, I guess a good deal depends on the body," she brought out at
length. "As I make it out, the world it goes a-grindin' 'round steady
an' sure, like a great, big coffee-grinder. We all got to feel the
twist, first or last, before we're turned out fine enough to suit. Some
folks feels the twist more'n others. I suppose it's nice to live easy,
but there's this about not bein' too soft: you ain't likely to get hurt
so much. D'you remember, oncet or twice, when I wasn't by, you tried to
pull up the dumb-waiter, down to a Hundred and Sixteenth Street? An' the
coarse rope, it got splinters into your soft little hands. Now, mine's
so hard I could pull till the cows come home, an' nary a splinter. Yes,
it's good not to be too sens'tive. If you are, you're bound to get all
that's comin' to you, an' then some."
"Do you know anybody in particular, who is feeling the _twist_
especially, just now?" asked Mrs. Ronald with interest.
Martha nodded. "I was thinkin' of Miss Katherine," she replied. "She's
right up here, in the middle of all this, same as you and yet--you're
happy, an' she ain't."
"Could I help?"
"I don't know _yet_. I'm keepin' my eye out. If I find you can I'll
let you know."
"Good!" Claire approved. She walked on a step, then suddenly stood at
attention. "Hark!" she whispered. "The veery! the Wilson thrush!"
Mrs. Slawson, halting too, strained her ear to listen. At first her
face expressed only the gentle interest of one willing to be pleased,
but presently her eyes became luminous, her great chest rose and fell to
deep, full breaths of keenest appreciation.
When the wonderful performance was at an end, and the veery had taken
wing, Claire turned to her silent, but questioning.
Martha considered a moment. "When a cow lifts up his head, an' gets
ready to bella, what with its size an' stren'th, you're prepared for the
worst, an'--you get it. But when a tiny little fella, as
innercent-lookin' as that very bird you say is the Wilson's thrush, when
_he_ sits up an' lets a flute-sola out of'm, as elegant as the man in
the band, down to the movies, well, it certaintly _is_ surprisin'. It
somehow hits you right in the pit of the stummick. My! but I bet the
Wilsons is sorry he flew away on'm."
Mrs. Ronald turned quickly to examine a bit of lichen, decorating a
tree-trunk near at hand. When she faced Martha again, her cheeks were
quite crimson.
"Say, you hadn't ought to bend down like that a hot day like this,"
cautioned Mrs. Slawson. "You got a rush o' brains to the head, I should
say blood. You want to go easy such hot wather. I guess the walkin'
took it out o' you."
"Oh, no," Claire assured her heartily. "I'm not a bit tired. And I
tell you what I want to do some day soon. I want to go across the lake
to the South cove. They say there's a blue heron there. I'm crazy to
see him."