Lottie was late. Shockingly late. Even though, tardily
conscience-stricken, she had deserted walk, sunset, and lake mist for
a crowded and creeping Indiana Avenue car at Forty-seventh Street, she
was unforgivably late, according to her mother's stern standards. This
was Friday night. Every Friday night Henry, Belle, and Charley Kemp
took dinner with the Paysons in the old house on Prairie Avenue. Every
Friday night. No matter what else the Kemps might prefer to do on that
night, they didn't do it. Each Friday morning Belle Kemp would say to
her husband, "This is Friday, Henry. We're having dinner at mama's,
remember."
"I might have to work to-night, Belle. We're taking inventory this
week."
"Henry, you _know_ how mama feels about Friday dinner."
"M-hmph," Henry would grunt; and make a mental note about an extra
supply of cigars for the evening. His favorite nightmare was that in
which he might slap his left-hand vest pocket only to find it empty
of cigars at 8:30 on a Friday evening at Mother Payson's. The weekly
gathering was a tradition meaninglessly maintained. The two families
saw quite enough of one another without it. Mrs. Payson was always
"running over to Belle's for a minute." But these Friday dinners had
started before Charley was born. Now they constituted an iron-clad
custom. Mrs. Payson called it "keeping up the family life."
Lottie, hospitable by nature, welcomed dinner guests; but she rather
dreaded these Friday nights. There was so little of spontaneity about
them, and so much of family frankness. Some time during the evening
Belle would say, "Lottie, that dress is at least two inches too long.
No wonder you never look smart. Your clothes are always so ladylike."
Lottie would look ruefully down her own length, a mischievous smile
crinkling the corners of her eyes. "And I thought I looked so nice! Not
chic, perhaps, but nice!" Her slim, well-shod feet, her neat silken
ankles, her sensible skirt, her collars and cuffs, or blouses and
frills were always so admirably trim, so crisply fresh where freshness
was required. Looking at her you had such confidence in the contents of
her bureau drawers.
"Oh--nice! Who wants to look nice, nowadays!"
Mrs. Payson always insisted on talking business with her courteous but
palpably irked son-in-law. Her views and methods were not his. When, in
self-defense, he hinted this to her she resented it spiritedly with,
"Well, I ran a successful business and supported a household before you
had turned your first dollar, Henry Kemp. I'm not a fool."
"I should think not, Mother Payson. But things have changed since your
time. Methods."
He knew his wife was tapping a meaningful foot; and that Charley's
mischievous intelligent eyes held for him a message of quick
understanding and sympathy. Great friends, he and Charley, though in
rare moments of anger he had been known to speak of her to his wife as
"your daughter."
Mrs. Payson was always ready with a suggestion whereby Henry Kemp
could improve his business. Henry Kemp's business was that of
importing china, glassware, and toys. Before the war he had been on
the road to a more than substantial fortune. France, Italy, Bohemia,
and Bavaria meant, to Henry Kemp, china from Limoges; glassware
from Venice and Prague; toys from Nürnberg and Munich. But Zeppelin
bombs, long-distance guns, and U-boats had shivered glass, china,
and toys into fragments these two years past. The firm had turned to
America for these products and found it sadly lacking. American dolls
were wooden-faced; American china was heavy, blue-white; American
glass-blowing was a trade, not an art. Henry Kemp hardly dared think of
what another year of war would mean to him.
Lottie thought of these things as the Indiana Avenue car droned along.
Her nerves were pushing it vainly. She'd be terribly late. And she
had told Hulda that she'd be home in time to beat up the Roquefort
dressing that Henry liked. Oh, well, dinner would be delayed a few
minutes. Anyway, it was much better than dinner alone with mother and
Aunt Charlotte. Dinner alone with mother and Aunt Charlotte had grown
to be something of a horror. Lottie dreaded and feared the silence that
settled down upon them. Sometimes she would realize that the three of
them had sat almost through the meal without speaking. Lottie struggled
to keep up the table-talk. There was something sodden and deadly about
these conversationless dinners. Lottie would try to chat brightly
about the day's happenings. But when these happenings had just been
participated in by all three, as was usually the case, the brightness
of their recounting was likely to be considerably tarnished.
Silence. A sniff from Mrs. Payson. "That girl's making coffee again for
herself. If she's had one cup to-day she's had ten. I get a pound of
coffee every three days, on my word."
"They all do that, mother--all the Swedish girls."
Silence.
"The lamb's delicious, isn't it, Aunt Charlotte?"
Mrs. Payson disagreed before Aunt Charlotte could agree. "It's tough.
I'm going to have a talk with that Gus to-morrow."
Silence.
The swinging door squeaking at the entrance of Hulda with a dish.
"No; not for me." Aunt Charlotte refusing another helping.
Silence again except for the sound of food being masticated. Great-aunt
Charlotte had an amazingly hearty appetite. Its revival had dated from
the acquisition of the new teeth. Now, when Aunt Charlotte smiled, her
withered lips drew away to disclose two flawless rows of blue-white
teeth. They flashed, incongruously perfect, in contrast with the sere
and wrinkled fabric of her face. There had been talk of drawing Mrs.
Payson's teeth as a possible cure for her rheumatic condition, but she
had fought the idea stubbornly.
"They make me tired. When they don't know what else to do they pull
your teeth. They pull your teeth for everything from backache to
diabetes. And when it doesn't help they say, 'Pardon me. My mistake,'
and there you are without your teeth and with your aches. Fads!"
She had aired these views most freely during the distressing two weeks
following Aunt Charlotte's dental operation, when soft, slippery
shivery concoctions had had to be specially prepared for her in the
Payson kitchen.
Lottie would scurry about in her mind for possible table-talk.
Anything--anything but this sodden silence.
"How would you two girls like to see a picture this evening, h'm? If we
go early and get seats well toward the front, so that Aunt Charlotte
can see, I'll drive you over to Forty-third. I wonder what's at the
Vista. I'll look in the paper. I hope Hulda saved the morning paper.
Perhaps Belle will drive over and meet us for the first show--no,
she can't either, I remember; she and Henry are having dinner north
to-night. Most of Belle's friends are moving north. Do you know, I
think--"
"The South Side's always been good enough for me and always will be. I
don't see any sense in this fad for swarming over to the north shore.
If they'd improve the acres and acres out Bryn Mawr way----"
Mrs. Payson was conversationally launched on South Side real estate.
Lottie relaxed with relief.
Sometimes she fancied that she caught Great-aunt Charlotte's
misleadingly bright old eyes upon her with a look that was at
once knowing and sympathetic. On one occasion that surprising
septuagenarian had startled and mystified Mrs. Payson and Lottie by
the sudden and explosive utterance of the word, "Game-fish!" It was at
dinner.
"What? What's that?" Mrs. Payson had exclaimed; and had looked about
the table and then at her sister as though that thoughtful old lady had
taken leave of her senses. "What!" They were undeniably having tongue
with spinach.
"Game-fish!" repeated Aunt Charlotte Thrift, gazing straight at Lottie.
Lottie waited, expectantly. "Your Grandfather Thrift had a saying:
'Only the game-fish swim upstream.'"
"Oh," said Lottie; and even coloured a little, like a girl.
Mrs. Payson had regarded her elder sister pityingly. "Well, how
did you happen to drag that in, Charlotte?" In a tone which meant,
simply--"Childish! Senile!"
On this particular Friday night the Kemps were indeed there as Lottie
ran quickly up the front steps of the house on Prairie. The Kemp car,
glossy and substantial, stood at the curb. Charley drove it with
dashing expertness. At the thought of Charley the anxious frown between
Lottie Payson's fine brows smoothed itself out. Between aunt and niece
existed an affection and understanding so strong, so deep, so fine as
to be more than a mere blood bond. Certainly no such feeling had ever
existed between Lottie and her sister Belle; and no such understanding
united Belle and her daughter Charley.
The old walnut and glass front door slammed after Lottie. They were in
the living room--the back parlor of Isaac Thrift's day.
"Lottie!" Mrs. Payson's voice; metallic.
"Yes."
"Well!"
Mrs. Payson was standing, facing the door as Lottie came in. She was
using her cane this evening. She always walked with her cane when she
was displeased with Lottie or Belle; some obscure reason existed for
it. She reminded you of one of these terrifying old dowagers of the
early English novels.
"Hello, Belle! Hello, Henry! Sorry I'm late."
Charley Kemp came over to Lottie in the doorway. Niece and aunt clasped
hands--a strange, brief, close grip, like that between two men. No
words.
"Late! I should think you are late. You knew this was Friday night."
"Now, now mother." Henry Kemp had a man's dread of a scene. "Lottie's
not a child. We've only been here a few minutes."
"She might as well be--" ignoring his second remark. "Tell Hulda we're
all here. Call Aunt Charlotte."
"I'll just skip back and beat up the Roquefort dressing first. Hulda
gets it so lumpy.... Minute...."
"Lottie!" Mrs. Payson's voice was iron. "Lottie Payson, you change your
good suit skirt first!"
Henry Kemp shouted. Mrs. Payson turned on him. "Well, what's funny
about that!" He buried his face in the evening paper.
Belle's rather languid tones were heard now for the first time. "Lot,
is that your winter hat you're still wearing?"
"Winter?--You don't mean to tell me I ought to be wearing a summer one!
Already!" Lottie turned to go upstairs, dutifully. The suit skirt.
"Already! Why, it's March. Everybody----"
"I slipped and almost fell on the ice at the corner of twenty-ninth,"
Lottie retorted, laughingly, leaning over the balustrade.
"What earthly difference does that make!"
A rather grim snort here from Charley who was leaping up the stairs
after her aunt, like a handsome young colt.
Lottie's room was at the rear of the second floor looking out upon the
back yard. A drear enough plot of ground now, black with a winter's
dregs of snow and ice. In the spring and summer Lottie and Great-aunt
Charlotte coaxed it into a riot of colour that defied even the South
Side pall of factory smoke and Illinois Central cinders. A border of
old-fashioned flowers ran along either side of the high board fence.
There were daisies and marigolds, phlox and four-o'clocks, mignonette
and verbenas, all polka-dotted with soot but defiantly lovely.
On her way up the stairs, Lottie had been unfastening coat and skirt
with quick, sure fingers. She tossed the despised hat on the bed. Now,
as Charley entered, her aunt stepped out of the suit skirt and stood in
her knickers, a trim, well set-up figure, neatly articulated, hips flat
and well back; bust low and firm; legs sturdy and serviceable, the calf
high and not too prominent. She picked up the skirt, opened her closet
door, snatched another skirt from the hook.
Mrs. Payson's voice from the foot of the stairway. "Lottie, put on a
dress--the blue silk one. Ben Gartz is coming over. He telephoned."
"Oh _dear_!" said Lottie; hung the skirt again on its hook; took
out the blue silk.
"Do you mean," demanded Charley, "that Grandma made an engagement for
you without your permission?" (You ought to hear Charley on the subject
of personal freedom).
"Oh, well--Ben Gartz. He and mother talk real estate, or business."
"But he comes to see you."
Charley had swung herself up to the footboard of the old walnut bed
that Lottie herself had cream-enamelled. A slim, pliant young thing,
this Charley, in her straight dark blue frock. She was so misleadingly
pink and white and golden that you neglected to notice the fine brow,
the chin squarish in spite of its soft curves, the rather deep-set
eyes. From her perch Charley's long brown-silk legs swung friendlily.
You saw that her stockings were rolled neatly and expertly just below
knees as bare and hardy as a Highlander's. She eyed her aunt critically.
"Why in the world do you wear corsets, Lotta?" (This "Lotta" was a form
of affectation and affection.)
"Keep the ol' tum in, of course. I'm no lithe young gazelle like you."
"Gained a little, haven't you--this winter?"
"I'm afraid I have." Lottie was stepping into the blue silk and dancing
up and down as she pulled it on to keep from treading on it. "I don't
get enough exercise, that's the trouble. That darned old electric!"
Charley faced her sternly from the footboard. "Well, if you will insist
on being the Family Sacrifice. Making a 'bus line of yourself between
here and the market--the market and the park--the park and our house.
The city ought to make you pay for a franchise."
"Now--Charley----"
"Oh, you're disgusting, that's what you are, Lotta Payson! You
practically never do anything you really want to do. You're so nobly
self-sacrificing that it's sickening. It's a weakness. It's a vice."
"Yes ma'am," said Lotta gravely. "And if you kids don't do, say, and
feel everything that comes into your heads you go around screaming
about inhibitions. If you new-generation youngsters don't yield to
every impulse you think you're being stunted."
"Well, I'd rather try things and find they're bad for me than never try
them at all. Look at Aunt Charlotte!"
Lottie at the mirror was dabbing at her nose with a hasty powder-pad.
She regarded Charley now, through the glass. "Aunt Charlotte's
more--more understanding than mother is."
"Yes, but it's been pretty expensive knowledge for her, I'll just bet.
Some day I'm going to ask her why she never married. Great-grandmother
Thrift had a hand in it; you can tell that by looking at that picture
of her in the hoops trimmed with bands of steel, or something. Gosh!"
"You wouldn't ask her, Charley!"
"I would too. She's probably dying to tell. Anybody likes to talk
of their love affairs. I'm going to cultivate Aunt Charlotte, I am.
Research work."
"Yes," retorted Lottie, brushing a bit of powder from the front of the
blue silk, "do. And lend her your Havelock Ellis and Freud first, so
that she'll at least have a chance to be shocked, poor dear. Otherwise
she won't know what you're driving at."
"You're a worm," said Charley. She jumped off the footboard, took
her aunt in her strong young arms and hugged her close. An unusual
demonstration for Charley, a young woman who belonged to the modern
school that despises sentiment and frowns upon weakly emotional
display; to whom rebellion is a normal state; clear-eyed, remorseless,
honest, fearless, terrifying; the first woman since Eve to tell the
truth and face the consequences. Lottie, looking at her, often felt
puerile and ineffectual. "You don't have half enough fun. And no
self-expression. Come on and join a gymnastic dancing class. You'd make
a dancer. Your legs are so nice and muscular. You'd love it. Wonderful
exercise."
She sprang away suddenly and stood poised for a brief moment in what is
known as First Position in dancing. "Tour jeté--" she took two quick
sliding steps, turned and leaped high and beautifully--"tour jeté--"
and again, bringing up short of the wall, her breathing as regular as
though she had not moved. "Try it."
Lottie eyed her enviously. Charley had had lessons in gymnastic dancing
since the age of nine. Her work now was professional in finish,
technique, and beauty. She could do Polish Csárdás in scarlet boots,
or Psyche in wisps of pink chiffon and bare legs, or Papillons d'Amour
in flesh tights, ballet skirts aflare and snug pink satin bodice, with
equal ease and brilliance. She was always threatening to go on the
stage and more than half meant it. Charley would no more have missed a
performance of the latest Russian dancers, or of Pavlova, or the Opera
on special ballet nights than a student surgeon would miss an important
clinic. In the earlier stages of her dancing career her locomotion
had been accomplished entirely by the use of the simpler basic forms
of gymnastic dance steps. She had jeté-d and coupé-d and sauté-d and
turné-d in and out of bed, on L train platforms, at school, on the
street.
Lottie, regarding her niece now, said, "Looks easy, so I suppose it
isn't. Let's see." She lifted her skirt tentatively. "Look out!"
"No, no! Don't touch your skirts. Arms free. Out. Like this. Hands are
important in dancing. As important as feet. Now! Tour jeté! Higher!
That's it. _Tou_----"
"Lot-_tie_!" Mrs. Payson's voice at the foot of the staircase.
"Oh, my goodness!" All the light, the fun, the eagerness that had
radiated Lottie's face vanished now. She snatched a handkerchief from
the dresser and made for the stairs, snapping a fastener at her waist
as she went. "Call Aunt Charlotte for dinner," she flung over her
shoulder at Charley.
"All right. Can I have a drop of your perfume on my hank?" (Not quite
so grown-up, after all.)
As she flew past the living room on her way to the pantry Lottie heard
her mother's decided tones a shade more decisive than usual as she
administered advice to her patient son-in-law.
"Put in a side-line then, until business picks up. Importing won't
improve until this war is over, that's sure. And when will it be over?
Maybe years and years----"
Henry Kemp's amused, tolerant voice. "What would you suggest, Mother
Payson? Collar buttons--shoe strings--suspenders. They're always
needed."
"You may think you're very funny, but let me tell you, young man, if I
were in your shoes to-day I'd----"
The pantry door swung after Lottie. As she ranged oil, vinegar, salt,
pepper, paprika on the shelf before her and pressed the pungent cheese
against the bottom and sides of the shallow bowl with her fork, her
face had the bound look that it had worn earlier in the day at Celia's.
She blended and beat the dressing into a smooth creamy consistency.
They were all at table when Great-aunt Charlotte finally came down.
She entered with a surprisingly quick light step. To-night she looked
younger than her sister in spite of ten years' seniority. Great-aunt
Charlotte was undeniably dressy--a late phase. At the age of seventy
she had announced her intention of getting no more new dresses. She
had, she said, a closet full of black silks and more serviceable cloth
dresses collected during the last ten or more years. "We Thrifts," she
said, "aren't long livers. I'll make what I've got do."
The black silks and mohairs had stood the years bravely, but on Aunt
Charlotte's seventy-fifth birthday even the mohairs, most durable of
fabrics, began to protest. The dull silks became shiny; the shiny
mohairs grew dull. Cracks and splits showed in the hems and seams and
folds of the taffetas. Great-aunt Charlotte at three-score ten and
five had looked them over, sniffed, and had cast them off as an embryo
butterfly casts off its chrysalis. She took a new lease on life,
ordered a complete set of dresses that included a figured foulard, sent
her ancient and massive pieces of family jewelry to be cleaned, and
went shopping with Lottie for a hat instead of the bonnet to which she
had so long clung.
She looked quite the grande dame as she entered the dining room now,
in one of the more frivolous black silks, her white hair crimped, a
great old-fashioned cabachon gold and diamond brooch fastening the
lace at her breast, a band of black velvet ribbon about her neck, her
eyes brightly interested beneath the strongly marked black brows.
Belle came over and dutifully kissed one withered old cheek. She and
Aunt Charlotte had never been close. Henry patted her shoulder as he
pulled out her chair. Charley gave her a quick hug to which Great-aunt
Charlotte said, "Ouch!"--but smiled. "Dear me, I haven't kept you
waiting!"
"You know you have," retorted Mrs. Carrie Payson; and dipped her spoon
in the plate of steaming golden fragrant soup before her. Whereupon
Great-aunt Charlotte winked at Henry Kemp.
The Friday night dinner was always a good meal, though what is known as
"plain." Soup, roast, a vegetable, salad, dessert.
"Well," said Mrs. Carrie Payson, "and how've you all been? I suppose
I'd never see you if it weren't for Friday nights."
Charley looked up quickly. "Oh, Gran, I'm sorry but I shan't be able to
come to dinner any more on Fridays."
"Why not?"
"My dancing class."
Mrs. Payson laid down her spoon and sat back, terribly composed.
"Dancing class! You can change your dancing class to some other night,
I suppose? You know very well this is the only night possible for the
family. Hulda's out Thursdays; your father and mother play bridge on
Wednesdays; Lottie----"
"Yes, I know. But there's no other night."
"You must dance, I suppose?" This Charley took to be a purely
rhetorical question. As well say to her, "You must breathe, I
suppose?" Mrs. Payson turned to her daughter Belle. "This is with your
permission?"
Belle nibbled celery tranquilly. "We talked it over. But Charley makes
her own decisions in matters like this you know, mother."
As with one accord Great-aunt Charlotte and Aunt Lottie turned and
regarded Charley. A certain awe was in their faces, unknown to them.
"But why exactly Friday night?" persisted Mrs. Payson. "Lottie, ring."
Lottie rang, obediently. Hulda entered.
"That was mighty good soup, mother," said Henry Kemp.
Mrs. Payson refused to be mollified. Ignored the compliment. "Why
exactly Friday night, if you please?"
Charley wiggled a little with pleasure. "I hoped you'd ask me that.
I'm dying to talk about it. Oo! Roast chickens! All brown and crackly!
Well, you see, my actual class-work in merchandising and business
efficiency will be about finished at the end of the month. After that,
the university places you, you know."
"Places you!"
Mrs. Carrie Payson had always had an uneasy feeling about her
granddaughter's choice of a career. That she would have a career
Charley never for a moment allowed them to doubt. She never called it
a career. She spoke of it as "a job." In range her choice swung from
professional dancing (for which she was technically and temperamentally
fitted) to literature (for the creating of which she had no talent).
Between these widely divergent points she paused briefly to consider
the fascinations of professions such as licensed aviatrix (she had
never flown); private secretary to a millionaire magnate (again the
influence of the matinee); woman tennis champion (she held her own in
a game against the average male player but stuck her tongue between her
teeth when she served); and Influence for Good or Evil (by which she
meant vaguely something in the Madame de Staël and general salon line).
She had never expressed a desire to be a nurse.
In the middle of her University of Chicago career this young paradox
made up of steel and velvet, of ruthlessness and charm, had announced,
to the surprise of her family and friends, her intention of going
in for the University's newest course--that in which young women
were trained to occupy executive positions in retail mercantile
establishments. Quite suddenly western co-educational universities and
eastern colleges for women--Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr--were
training girl students for business executive positions. Salaries of
ten--twenty--twenty-five thousand a year were predicted, together with
revolutionary changes in the conduct of such business. Until now such
positions had been occupied, for the most part, by women who had worked
their way up painfully, hand over hand, from a cash or stock-girl's
job through a clerkship to department head; thence, perhaps, to the
position of buyer and, later, office executive. On the way they
acquired much knowledge of human nature and business finesse, but it
was a matter of many years. These were, usually, shrewd, hard-working,
successful women; but limited and often devoid of education other than
that gained by practical experience. This new course would introduce
into business the trained young woman of college education. Business
was to be a profession, not a rough-and-tumble game.
Charley's grandmother looked on this choice of career with mingled
gratification and disapproval. Plainly it was the Isaac Thrift
in Charley asserting itself. But a Thrift--a woman Thrift--in a
shop!--even though ultimately occupying a mahogany office, directing
large affairs, and controlling battalions of push buttons and
secretaries. Was it ladylike? Was it quite nice? What would the South
Side say?
So, then--"Places you?" Mrs. Payson had echoed uneasily, at dinner.
"For beginning practical experience. We learn the business from the
ground up as an engineer does, or an interne. I've just heard to-day
they've placed me at Shield's, in the blouses. I'm to start Monday."
"You don't say!" exclaimed Henry Kemp, at once amused and pleased.
He could not resist treating Charley and her job as a rare joke.
"Saleswoman, I suppose, to begin with. Clerk, h'm? Say, Charley, I'm
coming in and ask about----"
"Clerk?" repeated Mrs. Payson, almost feebly for her. She saw herself
sliding around corners and fleeing up aisles to avoid Shield's blouse
section so that her grandchild need not approach her with a softly
insinuating "Is there something, Madam?"
"Saleswoman! I should say not!" Charley grinned at their ignorance.
"No--no gravy, thanks--" to Hulda at her elbow. Charley ate like an
athlete in training, avoiding gravies, pastries, sweets. Her skin was a
rose-petal. "I'm to start in Monday as stock-girl--if I'm in luck."
Mrs. Payson pushed her plate aside sharply as Henry Kemp threw back his
head and roared. "Belle! Henry, stop that laughing! It's no laughing
matter. No grandchild of mine is going to be allowed to run up and down
Shield's blouse department as a stock-girl. The idea! Stock----"
"Now, now Mother Payson," interrupted Henry, soothingly, as he
supposed, "you didn't expect them to start Charley in as foreign buyer
did you?"
Belle raised her eyebrows together with her voice. "The thing Charley's
doing is considered very smart nowadays, mother. That Emery girl who
has just finished at Vassar is in the veilings at Farson's, and if
ever there was a patrician-looking girl--Henry dear, please don't take
another helping of potatoes. You told me to stop you if you tried.
Well, then, have some more chicken. That won't hurt your waistline."
"Why can't girls stay home?" Mrs. Payson demanded. "It's all very well
if you have to go out into the world, as I did. I was unfortunate and I
had the strength to meet my trial. But when there's no rhyme nor reason
for it, I do declare! Surely there's enough for you at home. Look at
Lottie! What would I do without her!"
Lottie smiled up at her mother then. It was not often that Mrs. Payson
unbent in her public praise.
Great-aunt Charlotte, taking no part in the discussion, had eaten every
morsel on her plate down to the last crumb of sage dressing. Now she
looked up, blinking brightly at Charley. She put her question.
"Suppose, after you've tried it, with your education, and the time,
and money you've spent on it, and all, you find you don't like it,
Charley--then what? H'm? What then?"
"If I'm quite sure I don't like it I'll stop it and do something else,"
replied Charley.
Great-aunt Charlotte leaned back in her chair with a sigh of
satisfaction. It was as though she found a vicarious relaxation and a
sense of ease in Charley's freedom. She beamed upon the table. "It's a
great age," she announced, "this century. If I'd died at seventy, as I
planned, I'd be madder'n a hornet now to think of all I'd missed." She
giggled a little falsetto note. "I've a good mind to step out and get a
job myself."
"Don't be childish Charlotte!"--sister Carrie, of course.
Charley leaped to her defense. "I'd get one this minute if I were you,
Aunt Charlotte, yes I would. If you feel like it. Look at mother!
Always having massages and taking gentle walks in the park, and going
to concerts, when there's the whole world to wallop."
Belle was not above a certain humourous argument. "I consider that I've
walloped my world, Miss Kemp. I've married; I manage a household; I've
produced a--a family."
"Gussie runs your household, and you know it. Being married to father
isn't a career--it's a recreation. And as for having produced a family:
one child isn't a family; it's a crime. I'm going to marry at twenty,
have five children one right after the other----"
The inevitable "Charley!" from Mrs. Carrie Payson.
"--and handle my job besides. See if I don't."
"Why exactly five?" inquired Henry Kemp.
"Well, four is such a silly number; too tidy. And six is too many.
That's half a dozen. Five's just nice. I like odd numbers. Three
would be too risky in case anything should happen to one of them, and
seven----"
"Oh, my God!" from Henry Kemp before he went off into roars again.
"I never heard such talk!" Mrs. Payson almost shouted. "When I was
your age I'd have been sent from the room for even listening to such
conversation, much less----"
"That's where they were wrong," Charley went on; and she was so much in
earnest that one could not call her pert. "Look at Lottie! The maternal
type absolutely, or I don't know my philosophy and biology. That's what
makes her so corking in the Girls' Court work that she never has time
to do--" she stopped at a sudden recollection. "Oh, Lotta, Gussie's
having trouble with that sister of hers again."
Gussie was the Kemp's cook, and a pearl. Even Mrs. Payson was hard
put to it to find a flaw in her conduct of the household. But she
interposed hastily here with her weekly question, Hulda being safely
out of the room.
"Is your Gussie out to-night, Belle?"
"She was still there when we left--poor child."
"And why 'poor child!' You treat her like a princess. No washing, and a
woman to clean. I don't see what she does all day long. And why can't
she go home for her dinner when you're out? You're always getting her
extra pork chops and things."
Henry Kemp wagged his head. "She's the best little cook we ever had,
Gussie is. Neat and pleasant. Has my breakfast on the table, hot, the
minute I sit down. Coffee's always hot. Bacon's always crisp without
being burned. Now most girls----"
"Henry, she was crying in her room when I left the house to-night.
Charley told me." A little worried frown marred the usual serenity of
Mrs. Kemp's forehead.
"Crying, was she?"
"That sister of hers again," explained Charley. "And Gussie's got so
much pride. Jennie--that's the sister--ran away from home. Took some
money, I think. It's a terrible family. Her case comes up in Judge
Barton's court to-morrow."
Lottie nodded understandingly. She and Gussie had had many unburdening
talks in the Kemp kitchen. "I think Judge Barton could straighten
things out for Gussie. That sister, anyway."
Belle grasped at that eagerly. "Oh, Lottie, if she could. Gussie's mind
isn't on her work. And I've got that luncheon next Tuesday."
Lottie ranged it all swiftly. "I'll tell you what. I'll come over to
your house to-morrow morning, early, and talk with Gussie. To-morrow's
the last day of the week and the Girls' Court doesn't convene again
until Tuesday. Perhaps if I speak for this Jennie when her case comes
up to-morrow----"
"Oh, dear, Tuesday wouldn't do!" from Belle.
"Yes, I know. So I'll see Gussie to-morrow, and then go right down to
Judge Barton's before the session opens. Gussie can come with me, if
you want her to, or----"
Mrs. Payson's voice, hard, high, interrupted. "Not to-morrow, Lottie.
It's my day for collecting the rents. You know that perfectly well
because I spoke of it this morning. And all my Sunday marketing to do,
too. It's Saturday."
Lottie fingered her spoon nervously. An added colour crept into her
cheeks. "I'll be back by eleven-thirty--twelve at the latest. Judge
Barton will see me first, I know. We'll drive over to collect the rents
as soon as I get back and then market on the way home."
"After everything's picked over on Saturday afternoon!"
Lottie looked down at her plate. Her hands were clasped in her lap,
beneath the tablecloth, but there was a tell-tale tenseness about her
arms, a rigidity about her whole body. "I thought just this once,
mother, you wouldn't mind. Gussie----"
"Are the affairs of Belle's kitchen maid more important than your own
mother's! Are they?"
Lottie looked up, slowly. It was as though some force impelled her.
Her eyes met Charley's, intent on her. Her glance went from them to
Aunt Charlotte--Aunt Charlotte, a spare little figure, erect in her
chair--and Aunt Charlotte's eyes were on her too, intent. Those two
pairs of eyes seemed to will her to utter that which she now found
herself saying to her own horror:
"Why, yes, mother, I think they are in this case. Yes."