"What a perverted point of view," she said, for the sake of saying
something.
"Do you know what I think?" Mrs. Slawson continued. "I think now is the
zoological moment to catch Buller, an' see what kind o' animal he
is--_if_ he's got the makin' of a man in'm. If he could be got to give
up the drink, I do believe he might amount to somethin' yet. You can't
know what a fella reely is, when he's always steepin' in licka. It's
like pickles. You wouldn't know if they're dill, or sweet or what they
are, till you take'm out o' soak an' test'm."
"I should think _you_ might influence him," suggested Miss Crewe
impersonally. "You're so strong and wholesome and steady."
"Land, no! Buller wouldn't listen to me," said Martha. "How would _I_
be reformin' anybody, when so many is reformin' me?"
"Mrs. Peckett, then?"
"Mrs. Peckett's way o' doin' things makes some folks nervous. It's like
as if she said: 'I'm goin' to raise the tone o' this town, if I have to
raise it by the scruff of its neck!' She's a good woman, Mrs. Peckett
is, more power to her! Yes, she's as good as old gold, and--just as
dull."
Katherine was amused. "Does Mr. Buller require people to be so very
brilliant, then?"
"Land, no! _He_ don't. But his _case_ does. There's a differnce. The
fella that gets the whip-hand of'm is the fella he's goin' to respec'.
No others need apply. If there was anybody in this town could kinda
give'm the fright of his life on the licka question, it'd be dead easy
tame him to'm afterwords."
Miss Crewe's face lost its apathetic expression. A light of interest
shone in her eyes.
"I wonder if an idea that has just occurred to me would be of any use?
Last winter I attended a course of lectures at Columbia College, and one
of the lectures was illustrated by lantern-slides, showing the effect of
alcohol on the body and mind of habitual drunkards. They were enough to
give one the horrors! If Buller could see those pictures----!"
Mrs. Slawson brought her hands down upon her knees with a sounding slap.
"There, didn't I know you'd strike on just the right idea, quicker'n,
sure'n anybody else? An' you've done it!"
"But it would cost a lot of money to get that lecturer here. We might
not be able to get him at all, even if we could raise the money to
pay----"
"Raise nothin'--beggin' your pardon!" Martha exclaimed. "Mr. Frank
Ronald is always doin' things for everybody. Why couldn't you go to
him, an' tell'm what you've just told me--that you're interested in
savin' Buller's soul from destruction, not to speak o' the rest of'm,
an' that you know a gen'lman down to Columbia with slidin' pictures, can
do it, if he got the price of his ticket, an' somethin' to boot? I
betcher Mr. Frank'd have'm up in no time, an' thank you for givin'm the
chance."
Katherine shrank back. "Oh, no! I'd never dare," she said. "Mr.
Ronald is dreadfully unapproachable, I think. His eyes are so stern,
and he is so silent. He doesn't help you out at all--just seems always
to be looking you through and through, and finding you very inferior."
"Have you see'm smile?"
"No."
"Well, you go down there, an' get'm to smile for you oncet. An' if you
don't swear by'm ever after, my name ain't Martha Slawson. You can take
it from me, Mr. Frank is true blue, like his eyes are. D'you think, if
he wasn't, Miss Claire'd ever have married'm? Not on your life! She
took'm for first choice, when she'd the refusal o' the pick o' the land,
an' I know what I'm talkin' about."
By the time Martha was ready to go, Miss Crewe had decided that she
really must see Mr. Ronald, and find if it were possible to interest him
in her village-improvement plan.
If Mrs. Slawson would take her down to the big house, she could easily
walk back before dinner-time, she said.
"Say, you make a chance, an' ask about Mrs. Ronald an' the baby. You'll
get'm quickest, that way. An' even if you ain't used to infants, it
won't be no lie to show you're dead stuck on this one, for she's a
beauty on a small scale, an' no mistake," Martha dropped as they drove
along.
Before Katherine was really aware, she found herself being escorted
upstairs to his wife's sitting-room by Francis Ronald himself.
Burning logs were glowing on the open hearth, the place was warm and
bright, and fragrant with hothouse blooms. Claire Ronald, looking like
a delicate flower, of a very human variety, rose from her low chair
before the fire, to greet her guest, and from that moment Katherine's
constraint was gone.
She told of her plan, and the Ronalds were interested from the first.
"I think it's a capital idea, don't you, Frank?" Claire cried, in her
quick, impulsive way.
"There is something in it, no doubt," he admitted cautiously, smiling
down at her with very different eyes from those Katherine had dreaded.
"But I don't think much could be accomplished by one lecture. If these
people are to get anything, they've got to get it in good doses, 'repeat
when necessary.' You can't be sure you've made your point, until you've
hammered it in, given it what the journalists call 'a punch.' This can
only be done by repetition, emphasis. But a _course_ of lectures--with
lantern-slides--a course extending through the winter--that would be a
great scheme, I think."
Katherine's face fell. "We could never hope to have a _course_," she
mourned.
"Why not?"
"The expense. Think what the cost would be!"
"It would be cheaper, in proportion, than one."
"In proportion, yes. But I doubt if we could raise the money for one,
much less the course."
Mr. Ronald's eyes scanned her quizzically. "You should drill under
Martha Slawson," he said with a touch of seriousness in his lighter
manner. "She would never recognize the obstacle. She leaps it, or she
mounts it, or she kicks it out of her way--but she never _admits_
it,--and the consequence is,--it isn't there. Now, suppose you were not
required to raise the price of the course. Suppose the price were
guaranteed? Would you guarantee to raise the audience? Get enough
people to pledge themselves to attend, so the lecturer would come up
with the fair assurance that he'd face something beside empty benches?"
"I could try."
"How would you go about it?"
"There's a man named Buller----"
"Yes, I know him. A bad lot! Got his hand chewed up in a fox-trap,
while he was on his way to my Lodge, to fire it, for the purpose of
revenging himself on my superintendent's wife, Martha Slawson. Dr.
Driggs told me about it. Gangrene set in, and the fellow'd have lost
his arm, if not his life, if Dr. Ballard hadn't operated as promptly and
skilfully as he did. Yes, I know Buller."
Katherine, considerably dashed, took up her theme again,
notwithstanding.
"He's very ignorant, very debased, of course. Yet, I think, as Mrs.
Slawson does, that he could be helped. He's very low in his mind just
now, because he thinks his neighbors shun him on account of his
accident."
For the first time she heard the hearty ring of Frank Ronald's laugh.
"Well, and this poor, abused soul is to aid you?--How?"
"He owns a horse and buckboard. It occurred to me he might be willing
to help us, to the extent of taking me about from house to house, when I
go to canvass. Incidentally, if the people see he's engaged in work we
are interested in, it may re-establish him with them--with himself.
He's lost all self-respect, all self-reliance. Mightn't it help him to
get them back, if he felt he were concerned in some worthy enterprise,
connected with reputable people?"
"It might."
The early autumn twilight had fallen before what Martha Slawson would
have called their _conflab_ ended.
While Mr. Ronald was giving orders for the motor to be brought around,
his little wife displayed the wonderful baby, and Katherine, holding the
tiny soft creature to her cheek, suddenly felt her heart melt toward
that other tiny creature, not so soft, but almost as helpless, who was
sitting solitary and alone in the chill and dreariness of what she
called, by courtesy, _home_.
*CHAPTER XIV*
Martha found an almost disorganized household when she got home.
"Say, this is never goin' to do in the world!" she exclaimed in
astonishment. "I got to pull you all up with a round turn. The whole
raft of you, from Ma down, needs a good whackin' into shape. Say, Ma,
what you sittin' there whimperin' for? You look as if you'd lost your
last enemy, an' had nobody left to take any comfort out of. I wouldn't
put it before you to be yearnin' for the gayety o' little old New York
again. That so?"
Ma drew in her lips plaintively. "No, it ain't so. I'm contented here,
enough, only---- 'Tis not the same place at all when you're not in it.
Never a one o' them to think o' drawin' me a cuppertee, nor set a match
to the fire, when the wind is blowin' that chill, it's enough to rattle
the teeth in your jaws. When I feel cold, I feel--_poor_!"
She began to cry.
"Now, Ma, you stop that, double-quick, or, you may take it from me, I'll
give you something to cry _for_. I'm as cross as your grandmother's
worsted-work. I could bite the head off a tenpenny nail. Keep out o' my
way, everybody, till I get my house lookin' like a house again, an' my
fam'ly in order, so's they'll have the appearance o' civilized human
bein's, no matter what they reely are. Cora, you set the kettle on,
while Sammy an' me goes down cellar to start a little fire in the
furnace, to take the chill out o' the air an' the grouch out o' Ma.
Francie, while you're restin' run down to the store an' get me a pound
o' tea--I see there ain't a leaf left in the caddy. You can take Sabina
along for comp'ny, only don't forget to bring her back. We might need
her for somethin' sometime. You never can tell. For goodness' sake!
Is that rack-a-bones Flicker Slawson? Well, what do you think o' that!
I bet there ain't been one o' you ever thought to give'm, or Nix either,
a sup or a bite, since I been gone! Such a measly-appearin' dog an'
cat, _I_ never see. I'm ashamed to look'm in the face."
As she talked, Martha passed from room to room, tidying up,
straightening out, getting the household wheels back into their
accustomed grooves and, all the while, unconsciously transforming the
atmosphere of the place, and the persons in it, until they reflected her
own wholesome, vital air of well-being, well-doing.
Ma, drinking her _cuppertee_ from the saucer, reveled in the genial
warmth her daughter-in-law had caused to come up out of the cold, dark,
nether regions into which she, herself, never descended, and felt a
sense of virtuous satisfaction in her own personal benevolence, as she
rehearsed all the gossip she had been able to cull from without or
within, since her son Sammy's wife had been gone. Ma did not call it
gossip, she called it news.
"'Twas Mrs. Peckett was in an' out, as usual, an' told me what was goin'
on, or I'd never have known no more than if we'd been livin' in the
Sarah desert, itself. 'Twas her told me what a bloody rascal is Buller
that he'd be after comin' here, in the dead o' night wit' his fagots, to
burn us alive in our beds, to say nothin' o' the gun he was for shootin'
us wit', into the bargain. An' you to be standin' by, an' holdin' his
hand, when 'twas cut off on account of the gangerine! Mrs. Peckett says
every one in the place is callin' you a good Sam Maritan."
"'In me eye,' says Biddy Martin," Martha sang out sceptically.
"Mrs. Peckett was sayin' 'twas the wife's dooty stand by her own man,
an' not another woman's at all. Mrs. Peckett was after sayin' God knows
she's as quick to do a kindness, as the next one, but the evil tongues
some folks do be havin' nowadays, would make you look out for your
repu*ta*tion."
"Say, Ma," said Martha, "did you ever notice how some people'll try to
keep their own place clean by shakin' their dirty rags on other people's
heads? _They_ don't care where the smut lands, so long's they've shook
it off'n their own skirts. The trouble is, they sometimes get come up
with. They don't watch which way the wind's blowin', so they get all
their own dirt, an' then some, blown back on'm, which they'd better
never have stirred it up, in the first place."
Without in the least understanding her daughter-in-law's drift, Ma felt
it desirable to change the subject. Did Martha know that the Fred
Trenholms had "leegially" adopted the three Fresh Air children they had
had with them all this summer and last?
"An' they do be as proud, as proud! The way you'd think they'd a
fortune left them, instead of a ready-made fam'ly to eat'm out o' house
an' home, itself."
"The Trenholms are _bricks_!"
Ma coughed nervously, then tried again.
"That old bachelor brother o' Mrs. Coleses, the one's been so long
sick-a-bed wit' the doctor, he's been took down wit' the meazles."
Martha proceeded with her work.
"Well, that's the way it goes! When a fella's been cryin' wolf for
years an' years, the chances are he'll attrac' some kinda thing his way,
if it's only a meazly little skunk, which is more embarrassin' than
dangerous. Meazles is a kinda come-down, for a party Hiram Parkinson's
age an' ambitions. He's been walkin' around with, as you might say, one
foot in the gravey,--poor soul! I bet it makes'm sore to feel he's with
both feet in the soup. Meazles! I guess I'll send'm a glass or two o'
my slip-go-down jelly to cool his throat."
"I guess he didn't be expectin' _that_, whatever it was he did be
expectin'," Ma dropped complacently.
"Well, you gener'ly get _sump'n_, if you expect it long enough. That's
why it's up to us to be sure we like our order before it goes in, for in
the end we'll have to chew it, anyhow."
Martha drew her chair to the center-table, seated herself, and taking
paper, pen and a bottle of ink from the drawer, prepared to write.
"Goin' to write, Martha?" queried Ma, peering over at her curiously.
"Looks like it, don't it?"
"A letter?"
"Maybe, or else my last will an' prayer-book, as they say."
"I wonder----"
"I guess if you're goin' to wonder out loud, Ma, you'll have to do it
later. I got to get this job off'n my hands right now, an' between you
an' me an' the lamp-post, I ain't so flip with my pen an' ink, I can do
much of anythin' fancy, _while you wait_. I got to take my time at it.
It's the hardest stunt I know of. Firstoff, you got to have somethin' to
write about, an' then, before you're fairly ready to put it down--what
with delays, owin' to spellin', blots an' so forth--it's got away from
you, an' you have to think up somethin' else in its place. While you're
doin' that the next idea gets away, so you're left, whatever way you
look at it. Now, 'silence in the court-house,' as Sammy says."
Ma would have given all she was worth to discover what it was that, for
the next couple of hours or so, Martha was so painfully employed upon.
She did her best to find out, but though she craned her neck, ducked her
head, peeked and peered, it was no use. A substantial elbow curved
around the paper, effectually shielding it from inquisitive eyes.
Dere doct. Ballad you will be supprised to here I am home again but that
is wear I am for Miss Clare is well enough now to spair me and the baby
is doing fine in spite of the nurses witch says she will live now witch
I thank them kindly wen her two cheeks is getting as pink as roses and
round besides so a blind man could see it and never a cry out of her the
hole day long the lamb or night either except wen neccery. Mr. F.
Ronald would not call the quean his cousin him and miss Kathrine is
bizzy getting a party from the city to come and give a corse of
leckchers to show the natives off of lantren slides what there bodies
maid out of and how there jerms looks wen you see them on a sheet verry
much unlarged. miss katrine hopes seeing what the licker does to his
jerms will scair Buller off the drink annyhow he ain't drunk much as
ushal becaus he has bin driving her round in his backboard witch he is
verry proud of besides he has not the time wen he is doing it. Wile i
bean away Hireram parkinsin got meezils if this dont intrust you madam
Crew is verry well but her and Miss Kathrin is still on the outs why i
do not no Miss Kathrine was getting verry thin and wite when you left
she got going to Mr. F. Ronaldses now she looks better do not think that
is becaus ennything accepting the corse of leckchers. MEN is necherly
jellys pardon the libberty but believe me miss Kathrin is trew blew like
if she got found of any party once would not change to get found of any
other party no matter how plutonic as a gent leman i once lived out with
his wife Mr. Grandvil lately maid to a judg told me witch I just looked
it up in the dickshunnery for the speling and it ain't what he told me
it was a tall but relating to regions of fire insted of cool like you
feel for your relations. Buller is heeling alrite so I no he is clean I
told him his hole arm would go if he did not let up on the drink i will
let you no if he lets up I will let you no if Madam crew and Miss
Kathreen lets up all so enny more i think will intrust you I know what
was in your hart wen you asked me so will rite as orphan as I can and no
other soul will knew you can count on me. Love to all Yours
trewly Martha Slawson.
The writing of the letter in itself might not have excited any undue
suspicion in Ma. Once in a long time Martha did actually "sit down to
take her pen in hand" to write to one of the relations, though usually
it was Cora who was offered up on the altar of family concord. But
to-day "me son Sammy's wife's" conduct was exceptional. She wrote and
rewrote, erased, tore up, until, Ma cogitated, "It's fairly a caution,
an' out of all sensibleness, the way she does be destroyin' perfectly
good paper."
Also,
"It'd surely be a stranger she'd be after wastin' all that time an' ink
on, for not one of her own at all would ever be for gettin' the like of
it." The next logical step in the shrewd deduction was--"Who is the
stranger?"
Ma watched the little Mont Blanc at Martha's elbow grow, until finally
it coasted, like a tiny avalanche to the floor. She watched her
daughter-in-law stoop, abstractedly gather up the fragments and stuff
them into her apron pocket.
When the great task was done, she saw the mysterious letter, artfully
resisting, obliged at last to yield to main force, and go into its
envelope whether it would or no. Saw it sealed, saw it stamped, saw it
directed, saw it triumphantly carried, by Martha's own hand, to the
R.F.D. mail-box, though Ma insisted "one of the childern could go just
as good, an' save you the steps, itself."
When Martha returned from her errand she found Mrs. Peckett in
possession of Sam's chair by the table.
"And how's Mrs. Slawson after all her troubles? It's good to see you
home again," the caller greeted her before she had fairly crossed the
doorsill.
"Fine!" returned Martha, "only, I ain't had any troubles."
"That's what Martha always says," Ma observed half-complainingly,
"Martha always says she wouldn't be for callin' what-she's-come-up-wit'
_trouble_. She says, if you don't notice it, 'twill pass you by the
quicker, but if you clap a name to it, 'twill come in an' live wit' chu,
till you'd never get rid of it at all, like yourself this minute."
For a moment Martha felt as if she had taken a sudden dive in a
clumsily-run elevator. Through the "sinkin' at the stummick" that
followed, she saw Mrs. Peckett flush, bridle, and brace, as if making
ready for fight. She flung herself into the breach, laughed, winked
confidentially over Ma's head to their neighbor, and said calmly:
"Mrs. Peckett an' me'll have to grow your age, Ma, an' be the mother o'
married sons, before we reely know what trouble is, won't we, Mrs.
Peckett?"
Mrs. Peckett nodded.
"Though I will say, I never put much stock in all the talk that's going
the rounds about mother-in-laws' suffering at the hands of the parties
their sons married. Whenever I hear that kind of talk, I always point
to Mr. P.'s mother who lived with us a year and a half after we went to
housekeeping. The store she set by me! She was so afraid I'd do too
much, or be worried, or the like of that, that, at the last, when she
couldn't say much of anything, for the weakness, she'd tell the nurse,
'Don't let Beulah in!' When the nurse told me about it, after Mother
Peckett was gone I was so affected I 'most cried. I said to the nurse,
'Did you ever!' and the nurse said to me, 'We reap what we sow!' Just
like that--'We reap what we sow!' I wager she's told the story to many
a family she's been out nursing since. Though, of course, one case
don't prove the rule. But even if I am exceptional, I believe there's
lots of daughter-in-laws better than they give them credit for being."
"Oh, I ain't _complainin'_," Ma maintained. "Martha, here, duz fairly
well, an' I'll say this much for her, she's turned out better than I
expected."
Martha bowed profoundly. "'Thank you, thank you, sir,' she sayed.
'Your kindness I never shall forget!'"
"Me son Sammy was me youngest, an' 'twas hard on me, part wit' him, to
be married. All the time he was courtin' Martha, I was prayin' she'd
turn'm down, or somethin'd happen to come between'm, the way they'd
never go to the altar when the time come. I wanted Martha for to be
takin' another fella was sparkin' her along wit' Sammy, but she didn't.
She tuk Sammy, like as if it was to spite me. It fairly broke me
heart."
"Oho! So you had your love-affairs, like the rest of us, Mrs. Slawson.
Do tell! Is the heart-broken lover still hanging on, or----"
"Heart-broken nothin'!" ejaculated Martha scornfully. "Gilroy's as
chipper as a squirrel, an' don't you forget it!"
Ma wagged a sagacious head. "But he never married, Martha. You know
that, as good as me. An' it's not for the lack of chances, itself.
There's many a girl would give her eye-teeth for'm, wit' the riches he
has, an' dressin' like a dood, the day."
Mrs. Peckett sighed. "Well, well, and I thought you to be such a sober,
steady-going woman, Mrs. Slawson! But it seems _you've_ had your
romance, too! It's a surprise, but--live and learn! Live and learn!"
"That's just it!" Martha returned. "We don't. We live, but we don't
learn, more's the pity. Have a cup o' tea. Ma relishes it, along about
this time in the afternoon, an' it won't be a mite o' trouble. An' you
must sample some cookies I made this mornin'. I'm quite stuck on my own
cookies, if I do say it, as shouldn't."
After her guest had eaten, drunk, and departed, Martha observed with
more than usual gravity,
"Say, Ma, you never want to mention anythin' to Mrs. Peckett you
wouldn't just as lief was posted on a board-fence."
"Why, what call have you to say that to me, I should like to know,
Martha Carrol?"
"Nothin' much, only--I kind, o' wish she hadn't got wind o' Gilroy."
"I do declare!" whimpered Ma, "Did you ever hear the like? If I so much
as open me lips, I'm rebuked for't, the way I'd bring confusion on the
fam'ly. Better for me, if I kep' to me own room entirely, an' never set
foot here at all, to be accused o' settin' the neighbors gossipin' when
'twas never me, in the first place, but yourself alone, mentioned
Gilroy's name."
Martha shrugged. "Come on, now, Ma, cheer up! I didn't mean to hurt
your feelin's. It's just I nacherly distrust Mrs. Peckett. I used to
think she was good, firstoff. But she's as shifty as dust! I wouldn't
put it before her to take anything she got a-holt of--the innocentest
thing, an' twist it into what'd scandalize your name, so you'd never get
rid of the smutch of it, however you'd try. The worst things ever I
heard of the folks in this place, Mrs. Peckett told me. It's took me
over a year to find out most of'm's just mischeevious tattle. You can
lock up against a thief, but you can't pertec' yourself from a liar."
Ma made no response, beyond blinking very fast for a second or so, but
that was enough for Martha. Recognizing it as the sign of a coming
deluge, she hastily changed the subject.
"What do you hear from the folks down home, these days?" she asked
affably.
"No more than yourself. Sam got a letter from one o' them (Andy, I'm
thinkin') this mornin'. Didn't he be after readin' it to youse before he
went out?"
"No, he did not."
"I thought surely he would be tellin' you, that are his wife, even if he
kep' his old mother in ignorance. That's the way it is wit' childern,
these times."
"For the love o' Mike!" Martha murmured beneath her breath.
When Sam came in, shortly after, had silently eaten his supper, and was
preparing to settle down for a bout with _The New England Farmer_, she
proceeded to take him to task on his mother's behalf.
"Ma feels kind o' sore because you didn't show her the letter you got
this mornin' from Andy."
Sam pulled off his shoes with a jerk. "How'd she know I got a letter
from Andy?"
"I d'know. But you did, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, why didn't you read it to her? She's gettin' old, an' the older
she gets, the crankier she gets. I guess it's up to us to humor her,
for, one thing's certain, she won't humor _us_, an' there might as well
be some fun in the house for some one."
Sam caught his lower lip between his teeth and held it there for a
moment.
"There was nothing in Andy's letter would interest her. That is, there
was no family news, or anything. 'Twas a business letter."
Martha proceeded with her work, dropping her questioning at once.
"Well, an' why wouldn't I be interested in me own son Andy's venturin',
no matter if it _is_ business, itself?" insisted the old woman
querulously, when Martha repeated what Sam had said. "If that same Andy
does be makin' a fortune, surely his own mother should be hearin' tell
of it, first; leastwise, so she should in any God-fearin' fam'ly. But
it's more like a heathen I'm treated now, than a Christian woman, that's
raised a big crop o' childern till they'd be able fend for themselves.
Andy is likeliest of the lot, an' now, when he's made his fortune, an'
would be writin' his brother of his luck, his own mother would be told,
'It's only business!' the way she'll not take a natural joy in his
triumphin', or, maybe, look to'm for a stray dollar, itself."
To all of which Martha made no reply.
But later, when Ma and the children were abed and asleep, she looked up
from her mending to find Sam's eyes fixed on her in a stare of grim
desperation.
"For a fella whose brother has just made his everlastin' fortune, you're
the mournfullest party I ever struck," she quietly observed. "You're as
glum-lookin' as one o' them ball-bearer undertakers at a funer'l. Cheer
up! It ain't your funer'l! An' if _you_ ain't made the fortune, your
brother has, so it's all in the fam'ly, anyhow."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"Why, Ma says Andy's letter was to tell you he's made a fortune."
Sam groaned.
"Well, hasn't he?"
"No."
"What was his letter about, then? He ain't after money, to borrow it
off'n you, is he?"
Sam shook his head.
"Because, if Andy wants to try any of his get-rich-quick games on us, he
better guess again. He's got to take his chances with all the other
fancy dancers, that's all there is to it. It's a poor pie won't grease
its own tin."
"He don't want to borrow, Martha. He----"
"Well----?"
Sam swallowed hard, laid _The New England Farmer_ on the table, and drew
himself in his chair a step nearer his wife.
"When I was down in New York, Andy was fairly beset with the idea of
going into a scheme with a man he knew, who'd offered him a chance, if
he could raise the cash, or as-good-as. Andy could talk of nothing
else. The same with Nora-Andy. They told me all about it, and I'm
bound to say it did sound good to me. But I'd no money to give or lend,
and I told them so. Ma'd been blabbing about our having a bit saved,
and Nora-Andy reproached me with withholding it from my own brother,
when it was only a loan he needed, with good interest for the one loaned
it, to take the chance of a lifetime. I told them the money wasn't mine,
but yours and the children's. You'd saved it, not I. And then Andy
said, he'd never lay hand on it, if it was the last penny he'd ever hope
to see. 'Twas not money he wanted of me at all, and he brought out a
paper, that, if I would set my name to it, would help him out, as fine
as money, and nobody hurt by the transaction a hair."
Martha dropped her sewing to her lap.
"You never signed it, Sam?" she entreated. "Of course, you never signed
it. You know better'n me that it's wrong to set your name to any
tool--(ol' lady Crewe's l'yer's very words)--wrong to set your name to
any tool----"
"Instrument," suggested Sam drearily.
"Well, instrument, then. It's wrong to set your name to any instrument
unless you know what you're up against."
"I know it," confessed Sam humbly.
"Well?" Martha plied him.
"I did it, mother. And now, the note's come due, and Andy can't meet
it, and----"
"Well, what do you think o' that!" sighed Martha.
Sam had been leaning forward on his elbows, his palms propping his chin.
Now his face dropped into his hands, as he hid his haggard eyes from her
clear, searching ones.
"How much, Sam?"
"All we got. The whole two-hundred-and-fifty."
For a moment Martha was dumb. Then, straightening back in her chair,
taking up her sewing again, she said, "Well, at least we _got_ it.
There's that to be thankful for. An' doncher break your heart, Sam,
worryin' about your bein' such a fool as sign that tool--I should say
instrument. I done the same thing myself, now I come to think of it.
The pot can't call the kettle black. I set my name to a paper, ol' lady
Crewe ast me to, an' God only knows how much I'll be stung for it, for
_I_ don't.--But wouldn't it kinda discourage you from puttin' by for a
rainy day, when the money you scrimped an' scringed to save, has to go
for a umbrella to keep some other fella dry, which all _you_ get, is the
drippin's--_right in the neck_!"
*CHAPTER XV*
After many days of serious pondering Martha decided that the only way to
relieve her mind was to "march straight up to the captain's office," and
ask Madam Crewe point-blank, precisely what the liabilities would be, in
the event of the paper she had signed, falling due, and failing to be
met by the old lady herself.
"But if she said 'twas her _will_?" argued Sam. "You're all right if it
was her will. You couldn't lose out on that, you know. Unless you were
the kind that'd be looking for yourself. And, of course, if you sign
one as witness, you're sure you can't be left anything in it."
"I don't want to be left anything in it. But, by the same token, I
don't want to be _left_ other ways, either. That's to say, I wouldn't
want to have to cough up a couple o' hunderd now, _just to oblige_.
Especially when I ain't got'm. Besides, it wasn't _her_ told me 'twas a
will. 'Twas the l'yer--which is quite another pair o' shoes. Anyhow,
I'm goin' up there to find out what I'm libel for in case she can't pay,
like Andy."
Sam saw there was nothing to do but stand aside and let her go.
The moment she entered the room, Martha realized that a change had taken
place in "ol' lady Crewe." It was not anything she could "put her
finger on," as she would have expressed it, but it was there
unmistakably, to be felt, to be--feared.
At the sound of her step upon the floor, the little Madam looked up
quickly. A faint smile curled the corners of her mouth for a second,
then vanished.
"Well, and what's brought you here, after all these weeks? I thought
you had fallen into the well."
"I been stayin' with Miss Claire, I should say, Mrs. Ronald. An' since
a week or ten days, when I went home, I been so took up with my house
an' the fam'ly in gener'l, I ain't had a chance," Martha explained
eagerly.
"Never mind apologizing. What's been the trouble with 'the house and
the family in general'?"
"They got kind o' loose-jointed while I was away, so's I had to lick'm
into shape again,--bring'm up to time. An' it kep' me hoppin'."
"You have _hopped_ to some purpose, I hear. You and Dr. Ballard have
been making a record for yourselves."
"Me?" repeated Martha, amazed. "I ain't done nothin'. But pshaw! I
forgot! You're just tryin' to take a rise out o' me, as ushal."
"A _what_?"
"A rise. You know what I mean, ma'am. Tryin' to take my measure.
That's what you're mostly up to--only folks ain't on to you."
Madam Crewe regarded her fixedly for a moment.
"Do you know, Slawson," she pronounced thoughtfully at length, "I've an
idea I'd quite enjoy some of the things you say--_if you spoke English_.
The trouble is, I don't understand your patois."
Martha smiled blandly. "Askin' your pardon, for the liberty, I often
thought the same thing o' you. I don't understand _your_
what-you-may-call-it, either. Nor most of us don't understand each
other's, an' that's what's the trouble with us, I guess. I sometimes
wonder how we get along as good as we do, with the gibberish we talk,
makin' hash o' what we mean, an' sometimes, not meanin' anythin'."
"Right."
"An' the funny part is, the parties we're most likely to slip up on is
them we love the most."
"Go on."
"I was thinkin' how, when my girl Cora was a baby in my arms, I had the
best holt o' her I'll ever have, prob'ly. Her an' me understood each
other then. But now, every oncet in a while, I might as good be a
Dutchman, an' her a Figi Injun for all we make o' each other. I try to
hold in my horses, an' hang on to all the patience I got at them times,
an' I guess she does the same, an' somehow, we manage to rub along, but
you may take it from me it's some of a scratch! The same with the other
childern, as they grow up. Even down to Sabina, who, young as she is,
has a mind o' her own an' sever'l other parties to boot."
"And in the meantime, you and your husband are going without common
comforts, necessities--for those very children, who would turn about and
rend you at the first opportunity."
Martha laughed. "Not on your life they wouldn't rent us--or _sell_ us
either, when it come to the test. If we go without things, to give
_them_ a better start, we're not foolin' ourselves on it, believe _me_!
We're makin' a A1 investment. We don't grumble at the taxes, or the
'sessments or all the rest o' the accidental expenses--so long as we
know they're good. It's when you'd feel you got a bad bargain on your
hands, like it'd be poor drainage, or hard as rocks, or leakin' and
shifty--it'd be _then_ you'd hold back, sendin' good money after bad.
An' then you'd be wrong. For you can take it from me, there's no child
so bad it ain't worth savin'. You read about'm in the papers, how they
steal an' lie an' so forth, an' when all's said an' done, it's like
pictures you'd get of yourself--they ain't as good as you are, bad as
you are. No, you can't spoil a good child, an' you can help a bad one.
So small credit to us, Sam an' I, if we do save. It's for the sake of
our own, which, after all, we know the stuff they're made of. Same as
you and Miss Katherine."
Madam Crewe was silent.
"No, it's not puttin' money in the childern, makes me sore," Martha
continued, "it's when we scraped an' screwed a few dollars together for
a nest-egg, an' then, in the turn o' a hand, it's gone--to pay for
somethin' we never owed, nor no one got any good out of, but the wrong
fella."
"You mean you've been doing something foolish? Speculating? Losing
money?" demanded Madam Crewe abruptly.
"My husban' signed a paper for his brother, an' it let'm in for all we
had put by. I was wonderin' if the paper I signed here early in the
summer, I was wonderin' if _that_ had a sting in it, too? An' if so,
how much?"
"I don't understand."
"I mean, the paper I signed here the time Eunice Youngs an' me both set
our names to it together."
"That paper was my will, woman. It had nothing to do with you."
"That's what Sam told me, but--I----"
"You could not be called upon to pay one copper because of what you did
that day. On the contrary---- No! Never mind! What have you stood to
lose through your husband's foo----"
"He wasn't any foolisher'n me," Martha anticipated her quickly.
"Your husband's misfortune," amended Madam Crewe.
"Two-hunderd-and-fifty dollars. All we had saved. But we'll set about
right over again, an' if we have luck, we can put by some more. An'
anyhow, I'm thankful there won't be another such call on us. That was
what I kinda had on my mind when I come."
"Well, you can shift it off your mind. I give you my word. You believe
me, don't you?"
"Yes'm."
"And I believe you. So far we understand each other. Now, Slawson, I
am going to prove that I trust you. I am going to ask you an honest
question. I want an honest answer."
"Yes'm."
"You are the mother of four children. You have had experience in
bringing them up right. I have had one child--one grandchild. I have
brought them both up--_wrong_. What's the trouble?"
Martha did not reply at once.
Madam Crewe waited patiently, making no attempt to hurry her, and the
room was as still as if it had been empty. At last Martha spoke.
"O' course I d'know what the trouble was, if there was any, with your
boy. But it seems to me, I see where you kind o' slipped up on it with
Miss Katherine."
"Well?"
"Firstoff, the way I look at it, childern is all selfish, which is only
to say they're human, like the rest of us. They're selfish an' they're
mischeevious, an' they're contrairy, for, when all's said an' done,
they're--childern. What we want to do is, learn'm not to be selfish an'
mischeevious an' contrairy. An' how can we learn'm not to be it, if
we're that way ourselves? There's a lady I usedta work out for--(you
know her--Mrs. Sherman, Mr. Frank Ronald's sister). She give her boy
every bloomin' thing money could buy----. But she never give'm a square
deal. You can take it from me, what a young 'un respec's is a square
deal. He mayn't _like_ it, but he respec's it. An' _you_ for givin' it
to'm.
"Now, beggin' pardon for the liberty, I don't think Miss Katherine's had
a square deal, or a fair show. She ain't had what's her rights, an' she
knows it. You kep' her too close on--well, lots o' things. Love an' a
free foot an', oh, lots o' things. She's lived so long, as you might
say, from hand to mouth, that now she don't know which is her hand an'
which is her mouth. An' that makes her look kinda awkward to you. What
I'd rather my childern'd feel about me than anythin' else is, that I see
their side an' try to treat'm white. All the cuddlin' an' the coddlin'
in creation won't help you, if your child knows it ain't havin' justice.
An' all the strictness an' the punishin' won't keep it straight, if it
ain't sure there's love along with the lickin's.
"Miss Katherine's a _good_ child. You couldn't go far wrong, if you
took it for granted she was goin' to do the right thing, like you are
yourself. If I was you, excuse me for sayin' it--if I was you, I'd
kinda open up to Miss Katherine. She's young. With all she's so tall
an' han'some-lookin', she ain't learned all the sense there is. She
thinks, the same's the rest o' the kids, that the only reason she ain't
got the world for the askin' is because her '_mean ol' fam'ly_' don't
want her to have no fun. Give her a chance. Show her you believe in
her. You got to believe folks believe in you, to do your best. Now,
take you, for instance. Your talkin' up so quick an' sharp as you do,
makes most parties feel you're kinda hard to get along with. But my,
_I_ get along with you first-rate, because I ain't fooled by your
outsides. I know your insides is all right, an' that's enough for me.
But a young lady, like Miss Katherine, she wouldn't know. She's got to
be showed, like Sam says they do in Missouri. But, you can take it from
me, you wouldn't have to show her but once. There! I've talked a blue
streak, an' prob'ly tired you all out. Only, you see, when you get me
on _childern_, you got me on a subjec's my speciality, as you might say.
That is, I try to make it my speciality, like Sam does cows an' pigs an'
farm-produc's gener'ly, now he's got to deal with'm. Before I go, can't
I get you somethin', or, maybe, see you safe in bed?"
"Bed?" echoed Madam Crewe sharply. "Why do you suggest bed to me? Do I
strike you as belonging there?"
"Oh, no'm!" lied Martha calmly. "I wasn't thinkin' o' your comfort, so
much as mine. It kinda's got to be a habit with me to want to tuck the
little ones up an' cover'm over, 'n' know they're fixed for a good,
sound sleep, before I leave'm."
Madam Crewe set her lips.
"Well, Slawson, it won't be long before you can do that for me. But not
to-night. Go your way now. It's growing late. But come again soon.
Very soon, you understand?"
"Yes'm."
On her way out, Martha stopped at the kitchen door.
"Say, Eunice," she accosted that placid young woman whom she found
cozily toasting her toes before the grateful warmth of the range,
"where's Miss Katherine?"
"I d'know."
"Who's lookin' after the little Madam?"
"Nobody much, lately. Miss Katherine used to, and she does now, when
she's home, but she's off, mostly, 'n' I have all I can do getting my
work done up."
"Yes, I can see that," observed Martha dryly. "Well, I'm comin' to-morra
again. You can tell Miss Katherine. But in the meantime, if you was
plannin' to go home to-night, _doncher_. Just you stay right on deck
here all of the time, from this on, do you understand?"
"Why?"
"Because I _tell_ you, that's why. You might be needed on short notice.
Now, are you goin' to do as I say or ain't you?"
"Yes."
"That's a good girl. An'--an' if I should be needed for anythin', any
time, just you come for me, quick as you can put, be it day or night,
an' I'll drop everythin' an' come."
Eunice followed her to the doorstep.
"Say, you give me the creeps, Mrs. Slawson."
Martha laughed. "Well, I'm glad if I got _some_ kinda move on you,
young lady. You certaintly need it."
But as she went her way home, Martha was in no laughing mood.
"I got the black dog on my shoulder, for fair," she muttered, hurrying
her steps, spurred on by an unreasoning longing to be home, to see Sam,
the children, even Ma.
Long before she reached the Lodge, she saw the light from the
sitting-room lamp streaming out genially into the chill dusk of the
early autumn evening. It had a reassuring welcome in it that fairly
re-established her with the world on the old terms of good-cheer and
common-sense optimism. The broad, benevolent smile for which Madam
Crewe had so often derided her, was on her face as she turned the knob
of the sitting-room door, pushed it open. A second, and the smile was
there no longer.
"What's the matter?" Martha asked, looking from Ma to Mrs. Peckett, from
Mrs. Peckett to Sam Slawson, in a puzzled, wondering way.
Nobody answered.
Ma sat cowering in her accustomed place. Mrs. Peckett, deeply flushed,
was standing near the window, while Sam, towering over all, showed a
livid, threatening face, the like of which Martha had never seen in all
the years of their life together.
"What's the matter?" she repeated.
Again the question went unanswered, but after a moment, her husband,
with a gesture, bade her close the entry-door.
"Now, what _is_ the matter? For the love o' Mike, one of you say!" she
demanded for the third time, after she had obeyed.
The sharp ring of insistence in her voice seemed to pluck an answer out
of Ma.
"As Heaven's me witness, Martha, I meant no harm," she whimpered
peevishly.
"Well?" probed Martha.
"But to see me own son castin' black looks at me, as if he'd slay
me----"
"Tell me what _you've_ done, never mind about Sam!"
"The day I first see you writin' one o' them letters, Martha----"
"What letters?"
Sam's fist came down on the table-top with the force of a sledge-hammer.
"Hold your tongue, Ma! By God! I won't have my wife's ears soiled with
your dirty gossip. I've listened to you myself long enough, too long.
I'd not have done it, even so, except for the need there is to stop your
scandal-mongering--yours and this woman's here."
Martha laid a restraining hand upon his arm.
"Why, Sam! What ails you?" she asked in wonder. "I never seen you the
like o' this before. Let Ma speak. She was sayin' about letters. What
letters?"
The muscles in Sam's jaws twitched visibly beneath his tense skin. As
Martha looked at him, she seemed scarcely to recognize him for the man
who was her husband. Suddenly, from out of the dim recesses of her
memory, emerged a line she had heard quoted in some far-off, vague time
and association, when she had not consciously taken note of it. "Beware
the fury of a patient man!" Now she understood what the words meant.
"If my wife must know this disgraceful thing, it's I will tell her," he
spoke so low, his words were barely audible, but Ma would have felt
easier if he had thundered. "Now listen, you two, to what I say. Never
for one second have I doubted my woman. Never would I. When I tell
you, Martha, what these have been saying, I don't do so for you to deny
it. You're my wife. I believe in you--and would, against heaven
and--_hell_. It seems, you've been writing letters to some one, lately,
which God knows you've the right to do it. But these two here must
needs spy on you, and sneak about, stealing the stray bits of scribbling
you thought you'd destroyed and thrown away. They gathered them up,
and, when your back was turned, pieced them together, to send to me with
an anonymous letter--only I suspicioned something was afoot, and
watched, and to-day I caught them at it. My God! There ought to be a
separate fire in hell as punishment for such damned muck-raking!"
"Sam!" entreated Martha.
"Suppose you _have_ written Gilroy, who, none knows better than I, how
once he wanted to marry you, and how you turned him down for me.
Suppose you have written to Peter Gilroy, and Peter Gilroy has written
to you----"
"I have, Sam, an'--he has," Martha confessed slowly.
"Surely you'd the right to do it, and I'd be the last to question you."
Martha gave him a long look.
"Did you say Ma an' Mrs. Peckett got a-holt o' my letters to Gilroy?"
Sam nodded.
"Did they give you the letters?"
Sam thrust a clinched fist toward her. It was full of crumpled scraps.
With patient care Martha smoothed out the first tattered shred that came
to hand. Laboriously she read it aloud.
"'I knew what was in your heart when you ast hie so will rite as orphan
as I can and no other soul will no. Love. All yours--MARTHA."
She looked up to meet her husband's eyes.
"Yes, I wrote that, Sam," she said.
Mrs. Peckett's chin, gradually lifting, at last almost regained its
habitual level.
"You see," she observed suavely, "I'm not a liar, Mr. Slawson. And I'm
not the other things you have called me to your shame--not mine. But I
bear you no malice, nor Mrs. Slawson either. I'm not that kind of
person. I'm a Christian woman, trying to do my duty."
"Damn your duty!" exclaimed Sam hoarsely.
"The only thing is," Martha interposed, hastening to cover her husband's
unaccustomed profanity. "The only thing is, these bits here, as I look'm
over, ain't from letters I wrote to Peter Gilroy. They're from letters
I wrote to--another man."
Still Sam did not flinch.
Martha took a deep breath.
"Won't you take a chair, Mrs. Peckett? An' I'll sit, too. An' so will
you, Sam. So long's we got on this subjec', we better come to a clear
understandin'. That's always the best way. As I said at the start, Sam,
I have been writin' to Gilroy, an' he's been writin' to me."
She leaned from her chair to where her sewing-machine stood, pulled open
the drawer of its table, and took therefrom a couple of thin envelopes
tied about with a strand of black darning-cotton.
"P'raps I'd ought to have told you firstoff, Sam, but I didn't, because
I thought your feelin's might be hurt, an'--what you don't know won't
worry you. The day after you had the news of Andy's note comin' doo, I
got a letter from Gilroy. I've it right here now. Also mine answerin'
it. That's to say, a _copy_ of mine answerin' it. The reason I kep' 'm
is, Gilroy is with Judge Granville, an'--well--when you're dealin' with
foxy parties, you got to be foxy to match'm. I won't read you the
letters. If you like, _you_ can read'm. They're here _for_ you.
Gilroy said 'twas him held your note for Andy. He'd took it over, an'
he was writin' me to say that, for the sake o' the days gone by, he
wanted to do me a kindness. He said he'd let you off the note. He
said, well he knew what a poor provider you was, an' we'd prob'ly none
too much, if we had anythin' a tall, an', as for him, he'd _plenty_, so
he'd never miss it, bein' as he is a bachelder, an' right-hand-man to
Judge Granville, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.
"I wrote'm back, post-haste, that I thanked'm kindly, but you'd already
sent the money to Andy. Such bein' the case, I couldn't o' course take
him at his word to let you off the note, but knowin' me so well as he'd
used to, he'd know that I'd like nothin' better than take money off'n a
friend who meant so kindly by me _as his letter showed he did_. Bein'
that kind of a friend, I said, I knew he'd like to hear you're doin'
grand--you're right-hand-man to Mr. Ronald, an' we've all we need an'
more, too, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.
"I took my letter to Miss Claire, before ever I sent it off, to make
sure it was all right, an' Gilroy'd know what I meant. Miss Claire
laughed when she was through readin' it. She said, it was surely all
right, but what he'd read between the lines had illustrations, whatever
that means. Anyhow, it stirred up Gilroy somethin' fierce, an'----"
Martha paused, the blood surged up to her face in a tide. "He wrote to
me again. A whole lot o' love-sick trash. I sent his letter back to'm
(me keepin' a copy) with just a gentle hint o' warnin' to the effec'
that if ever he done the like again, I'd tell you on'm, an' we'd both of
us come down to New York by the first train, an' take a turn out
of'm--first you, an' then me _on your leavin's_. Here's the whole
co-respondence, Sam. I'm glad to get rid of it. It was clutterin' up
my machine-drawer. But, p'raps, before you take it, to lock it
away--Mrs. Peckett an' Ma would like to examine it."
Mrs. Peckett shook her head.
"Then you're satisfied I ain't a callyope?" Martha asked her.
"A _what_?" demanded Sam sharply.
"A callyope. One o' them things whistles on a boat, which, every oncet
in a while we'd hear'm on the river, down home. Likewise, they mean
coqwette."
"You mean _siren_?"
"Yes. Sure. They're called both ways. Madam Crewe says all women are
sirens. Then you're satisfied I ain't a siren, Mrs. Peckett?"
Mrs. Peckett inclined her head, smiling with easy patronage.
Martha regarded her narrowly for a moment.
"I see you _ain't_ satisfied!"
"I certainly am, so far as Mr. Gilroy is concerned, but----"
Sam got upon his feet in a manner to cause Mrs. Peckett to come to a
sudden halt.
"I know what she means, Sam. Keep cool, an' let me handle this, which
I'm the only one can, anyhow. You'd like to know the name o' the party I
wrote them letters to, you an' Ma amused yourselves playin' puzzles
with? Well, I'll tell you his name. It's Dr. Ballard, an' even _you_
couldn't be so much of a looney as think _Dr. Ballard_ would give a
second thought to the likes o' me, that I'd be writin' love-letters
to'm, much less him wastin' time to read'm, let alone write me back.
"Before he went away, Dr. Ballard told me, he'd a likin' for this place
an' every mother's son in it, which, _I s'pose_, that means you, too,
an' he ast would I write'm, to tell how things was goin' on, an' if Miss
Claire an' the baby was gettin' on, an' how Buller was comin' along. I
promised I would. An' I kep' my promise, an' I'm goin' to keep on
keepin' it. Any objection?"
Mrs. Peckett signified she had none.
"Then all that remains is to say good-by," said Martha gravely, rising
and standing with quiet dignity beside her husband.
Mrs. Peckett took a step toward the door. Then abruptly she turned and
extended her hand to Martha.
Sam Slawson shook his head. "No, you don't!" he forbade decidedly.
"I guess we better wait a while, an' see how we feel about each other
later," Martha explained without animus. "My husban' says, 'No, you
don't!' so' o' course that settles it for the present, anyhow. It's a
kind o' pity things has come to this pass, for I don't like to be on the
outs with anybody. But you certaintly took a risk, Mrs. Peckett. If my
husban' had been like _some_ men----! I don't see how you dared do it,
knowin' you're a woman, yourself, with a man o' your own. P'raps 'twas
because you'd set out to make me over, that you hold me so cheap. I
always noticed folks is never so choice o' made-over things. They think
the best wear's out of'm anyhow, an' it don't matter if they do use'm
sort o' careless now. But it _is_ matter, for it's _you'll_ be blamed
for not bein' clean, not the thing you've dirtied. Besides, sometimes a
_made-over_ will serve you better than new. I give you leave to
remember that, Mrs. Peckett."
When their visitor was gone, Ma began to cry aloud.
"The fear is in me heart. I haven't a limb to move, the way I'd be
dreadin' Sam's punishin' me!" she moaned, rocking backward and forward
in her chair.
"He'll not punish you, Ma!" Martha promised.
Still Sam bent stormy brows upon his mother.
"I'll not punish you," he said, "but after what's happened, I guess
we'll all feel happier if you make your home away from this."
"I'll die ere ever I'll go back to New York City to live wit' the likes
o' them as don't want me!" sobbed the old woman explosively.
"A Home, then. I'll see you settled in a good Home."
Ma looked into his stern eyes, saw no relenting there, and turned to
Martha. She held up her hands with the mute appeal of a child begging
to be carried.
And Martha nodded. She would carry her.
"For," she explained to Sam, later, "Ma's only a child, after all. With
no more sense, or as much as Sabina. Let her stay, Sam."
*CHAPTER XVI*
Martha had been gone but a quarter of an hour or so, when Katherine
appeared at her grandmother's door.
It had become a purely perfunctory act, this pausing at the sitting-room
threshold, and asking, "Can I do anything for you, grandmother?"
To-night the answer was startlingly out of the ordinary.
"Yes. Come in. I want to speak to you."
The girl came forward, outwardly calm, inwardly, so shaken with a morbid
dread of what might await her, that she dared not venture to speak, for
fear her voice would betray her.
"Light the lamp."
Her uncertain fingers fumbled the first match, till it dropped to the
floor. The second went out, before she could guide it to the wick.
Only at the third attempt was she successful--and she knew her
grandmother despised clumsy inefficiency.
"Where have you been?"
"To the Ronalds. We're getting up a course of lectures, don't you
remember, for the natives--to run through the winter."
"The natives to run through the winter?"
Katherine shrank back hypersensitively from the foolish banter.
"I am doing the work. Mr. Ronald is giving the money."
"A very proper arrangement."
"It has kept me busy. I hope you haven't felt neglected."
"Not in the least. As usual, everything has been done for me that _had_
to be done."
The little old woman was trying her best to act on Martha's advice, but
her tongue, sharpened by years of skilful practice, could not sheathe
its keen edge all at once. When next she spoke, it was with so studied
a mildness that Katherine stared at her, wondering.
"You probably met Slawson as you came in? You must have passed her on
the road."
"No, the Ronalds brought me home in their car. We drove out along the
mountain-road, to see the foliage. We came back the other way."
"Well, get your things off now. And when you've had your dinner, come
back to me. Or--no! I'll ring!"
It darted through Katherine's mind that her grandmother spoke with
singular self-repression. Again she regarded her with puzzled eyes.
Such moderation could only breed suspicion, in a mind grown abnormal in
solitary confinement.
The girl ate no dinner.
It was late before she heard the silver tinkle that sounded, in her
ears, like the crack of doom.
It was well her grandmother bade her, with a gesture, to sit down. Her
quaking knees would hardly have borne her, standing.
"I'm a coward! A poor, weak coward!" she confessed to herself bitterly,
resenting her weakness, yet apparently powerless to control it.
"I've been thinking over what you told me, and I have concluded to
change my tactics with regard to you," the old woman plunged in, without
preamble. "Perhaps I've made a mistake in the past, keeping from you
things you should have known. All I can say is, I acted in good faith,
for your best."
Katherine smiled faintly. "Isn't that what parents always say when they
punish?"
Madam Crewe raised her chin in her old supercilious manner, then quickly
lowered it.
"I don't know. I've had no experience. I never punished. Perhaps that
is where I made my mistake."
Again Katherine's lips curled slightly in a wry smile.
"You need have no regrets there, grandmother. You have nothing to make
up to me on that score."
"You mean I have punished you?"
"Oh--very thoroughly."
"Curious! I can't see myself doing it."
"I can't see you _not_ doing it!"
Madam Crewe, in her turn, stared, surprised. Katherine was acting out of
all character, in quite a new, unaccountable fashion.
"I suppose I must take your word for it," her grandmother admitted with
an odd sigh. "Be kind enough not to interrupt. You know the story of
the man I did not marry. Now you shall hear the story of the man I did
marry.
"My father took me abroad after--after the Ballard fiasco. I did not
care where I went, what I did. I was quite broken down. Quite, as
Slawson would say, 'broken up.' Nothing made any difference to me.
Everything was distasteful.
"One day, in London, my father brought a young man to me, introducing
him as my future husband. That was all there was to it. I neither
objected, nor approved. I had no mother. I did not understand.
"We were married almost immediately--my new lover was very eager. He
urged haste. Almost immediately I discovered that my father had been
duped by a cheap adventurer, a man without heart or conscience. A poor,
weak wretch of profligate habits, a liar, a cheat. He had posed in
society as a man of means, heir to a title. He was nothing of the sort.
All those he had brought to stand sponsor for him, were hirelings paid
to mislead us.
"For a long time I tried to hide the truth from my father. When, at
last, he learned it, it killed him. He died in a fit of apoplexy,
brought on by rage against the man who had gulled him.
"My fortune was large. My husband squandered a considerable part,
before I had sense to take steps to save it. He was a spendthrift. He
forged my name on checks, he stole from my purse. I presume you wonder
why I did not rid myself of him? In those days divorces were not the
casual things they are now. A woman divorced, was a woman disgraced.
Moreover, there was the boy. For his sake I bore, forbore. For his
sake, I fought to save my fortune. He was my one hope. He was to make
up, by his perfect rightness, for all that was wrong in my universe. I
suppose I spoiled him. Slawson says you can't spoil a good child. If
that is so, my boy must have been bad from the beginning. This I know,
he was always his father's child. He had none of me in him. As a baby,
he was full of soft, coaxing ways. It was torture to see them gradually
becoming smooth, calculating, treacherous.
"Sit still! I know he was your father--but he was my son _first_. I
used to pray, night after night, that he might not live to follow in his
father's footsteps. Useless. The taint was too strong.
"He married your mother precisely as your grandfather had married me. I
would have prevented it, if I had known. It was all so carefully,
secretly arranged that I did not know. Your mother was sacrificed, as I
had been. Her fortune was swept away. She died when you were hardly
more than a baby. I was glad when she died. She was out of it.
"Your father brought you to me to be cared for. The sight of you, in
your little black ribbons, was a constant reproach. I was afraid to
look into your eyes, for fear I should see in them what had killed your
mother.
"One thing I determined, that you were not to be spoiled. I would bring
you up as well as I could. I had failed with your father. I would try a
different method with you. I repeat, I acted in good faith. I did my
best.
"Your father died suddenly--no matter how--enough that 'twas
disgracefully. Within a twelve-month, I was a widow. Behind my crepe I
humbly thanked Almighty God.
"When I came to settle up my estate, I found myself practically
impoverished. That is, everything had been so attached, encumbered, I
could get no benefit from it. My income must be turned back to the
estate, to save it. My only salvation--yours--was to cut myself off
from all but a pittance, until every claim had been met, and I stood
free and quit. That has been done. I owe no man anything. I have
sacrificed much, but not my integrity, and not one acre, one security
belonging to the property your great-grandfather left me, rescued from
my husband. It is all intact. Your inheritance----"
Katherine was on her feet in an instant.
"Inheritance!" she blazed. "You have just told me what my inheritance
is! Fraud, lies, treachery--everything that is base. What does money
matter to a creature like me? I can never get away from what I am. As
you say, 'the taint is too strong!' Hush! _I_ am speaking now. And
I'm _going_ to speak, and you've _got_ to listen! For once in my life,
I am going to have my say--I'm going to forget I am young and you are
old, and I'm going to let you know what I have been feeling, thinking,
_being_ all these years, when you've thought I was a tame thing you
could order about, and scold and ridicule, to the top of your bent.
"I know, now, why I was a lonely, unloved child. I've always wondered,
before, for I _tried_ to be good--even when I was too much of a baby to
be anything else. I know, now, why you watched me out of the corners of
your eyes, as if you were waiting for me to try to deceive you, in some
way. You were waiting for my '_inheritance_' to crop out. How could I
ever have been anything, but at my worst with you? How could I be
clever, when you insisted I was dull? How could I be _myself_, when you
condemned me, by your fears, to be my grandfather, and my father? What
you waited for, came. Of course it would. I stole, I lied. I was a
coward. 'The taint was too strong!'
"But let me tell you this, it needn't have been so. I could have been
saved if, when I was a child---- Oh, I can't bear it! I can't bear
it!"
She shrank together into a wretched heap on the floor, her head bowed on
her knees.
Madam Crewe gazed at her, a strange shadow creeping over her face. As
if to herself, she murmured, "That is what your grandfather used to
plead--and your father. Whenever they were discomforted, they always
said they couldn't bear it. So they didn't bear it. _I_--and
others--had to bear it."
The sound of her voice, low as it was, brought Katherine to her feet.
All the pent-in passion of her life, breaking loose now, beat
mercilessly down upon the defenseless old woman before her. In some
unaccountable way, the two seemed to have changed places. It was she
who dominated, her grandmother who submitted.
The lamp burned low, sending out a rank odor that filled the room. The
clock struck out three deep bell-notes.
Katherine, shuddering, sobbing, felt herself caught up in the
whirlwind-strength of a new impulse. She turned her back on her
grandmother. A moment, and the door of her own chamber shut her in.
Madam Crewe's head fell forward upon her breast.
* * * * *
The clock had just struck half-past five, when Martha groped her way
downstairs.
She had her work "cut out for her," as she would have expressed it, and
must start in promptly. She had just kindled a new fire in the
kitchen-range, and was about to set out for the henhouse, and cow-barn,
when a step on the porch brought her up standing.
In a second she had crossed the room, swung open the kitchen-door.
"Miss Katherine!" she exclaimed, in the breathless undertone of one
brought face to face with a dread turned reality.
Katherine seemed to understand without need of explanation. She shook
her head.
"No--grandmother's not sick. Grandmother is all right. But--I'm going
away. I've left home. I'll never go back! Never! We had it out
together last night, grandmother and I. _Last_ night, and _all_ night.
I'll never cross that doorsill again, if I have to beg in the streets,
or--starve."
Martha quietly closed the door, led Katherine to a chair, then set the
water-kettle on the stove, without asking a question, saying a word.
"I've come straight to you, Mrs. Slawson," the girl continued
breathlessly, "because you're my only friend in the place. The only one
who knows anything about the kind of life I've led, and would
understand."
"But, I _don't_ understand," Martha corrected her. "I thought--that is
to say, I somehow or other, got the idea the two of youse was goin' to
get along better, after this. I can't think how things could 'a' got to
this pass when, the last I heard, everything looked so promisin'."
Katherine took her up quickly. "I don't know what you mean by
_promising_. The day Mrs. Ronald was taken sick, I told grandmother
about--about--what I'd done. You know--the pocket--with the letters.
And she treated me like a dog. Oh, she was cruel. Sent me away, out of
her sight, as if I'd been something hateful to her--which I am. She
hasn't spoken to me since, until last night, except to give some order.
I don't know how you can say you thought things 'looked promising.'"
Martha measured out two heaping tablespoonfuls of freshly-ground coffee
into the percolator, and set it on the stove.
"I saw your gran'ma yesterday, Miss Katherine," she explained. "Her an'
me had a long talk, an', from what she dropped, I got the impression she
meant to turn over a new leaf two-wards you, if you'd give her the
chance."
"Did she say she meant to?"
"No, not eggsackly '_say_.' But----"
"Well, then, I guess you were mistaken. Or, perhaps she _meant_ to try
to do better by me, and, when the time came, she just couldn't, that's
all. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. But no matter what she
_meant_, no matter what _I_ did, the end of it was, we had a terrible
time and--I've come away for--good."
After an interval, during which Martha had quietly relieved Katherine of
the bag she clutched, she set before her a cup of steaming, fragrant
coffee.