SILK STOCKINGS AND LAMB CHOPS.
"Well! What are we to do about it?" queried Nan as the front door closed
on the doctor and their precious torment.
"Do? Do what has come to us to do as quickly as we can. I am going to
see that mother's clothes are packed and father's, too. It does seem
strange to be looking after his things. Oh, girls, just think how we
have always let him do it himself! I can't remember even having darned a
sock for him in all my life," and Douglas gave a little sob. "This is no
time for bawling, though, I am going to let Dr. Wright see that I am not
just a doll baby."
"Dr. Wright, indeed!" sniffed Helen. "Hateful, rude thing!"
"Why, Helen, I don't see why you need have it in for him. I think he was
just splendid! But I can't wait to tell you what I think about him; I
must get busy." Douglas picked up her burden with very much her father's
look and hastened off to do her young and inexperienced best.
"As for saying we can't see Father before he goes, it is nothing but his
arbitrariness that dictates such nonsense," stormed Helen to the two
younger girls. "He is just constituting himself boss of the whole Carter
family. I intend to see Father and let him know how much I love him. I'd
like to know how it would help any to have poor dear Daddy go off
without once seeing his girls. Hasn't he always been seeing us and
haven't we always taken all our troubles to him? How would we like it if
he'd let us go on a trip and not come near to wish us _bon voyage_? You
silly youngsters can be hoodwinked by this bumptious young doctor if you
like, but I just bet you he can't control me! I've a great mind to go up
to Father's room right this minute."
"If you go, I'm going, too," from Lucy.
"Neither one of you is going," said Nan quietly. "Helen, you are acting
this way just because you are ashamed of yourself. You ought to be
ashamed. I know I am so mortified I can hardly hold up my head. We have
been actually criminal in our selfishness. I don't intend ever as long
as I live to get a new dress or a new hat or a new anything, and when I
do, I'm going to shop on the wrong side of Broad and get the very
cheapest and plainest I can find."
"Nonsense! What does this ugly young man know of our affairs and what
money Daddy has in the bank? I don't see that he is called on to tell
us when we shall and shan't make bills. He is pretending that our own
Father is crazy or something. Won't answer for the consequences! I
reckon he won't. Why should he be right in his diagnosis any more than
Dr. Davis or Dr. Drew or Dr. Slaughter or any of the rest of them?
Nervous prostration! Why, that is a woman's disease. I bet Daddy will be
good and mad when he finds out what this young idiot is giving him. How
we will tease him!"
"But Dr. Wright is not an idiot and is not ugly and is doing the very
best he can do. Do you think he liked giving it to us so? Of course he
didn't. I could see he just hated it. He would have let us alone except
he sees we haven't a ray of sense among us, except maybe Douglas. She
showed almost human intelligence."
"Speak for yourself, Miss Nan. Maybe you haven't any sense, but, thank
you, I've got just as much as Douglas or that nasty old Dr. Wright or
anybody else, in fact."
"Well, take in your sign then! You certainly are behaving like a nut
now."
"And you? You think it shows sense to say that man is not ugly? Why, I
could have done a better job on a face with a hatchet. He's got a mug
like Stony Man, that big mountain up at Luray that looks like a man."
"That's just what I thought," said Nan, "and that is what I liked about
him. He looked kind of like a rocky cliff and his eyes were like blue
flowers, growing kind of high up, out of reach, but once he smiled at
me and I knew they were not out of reach, really. When he smiled sure
enough and showed his beautiful white teeth, it made me think of the sun
coming out suddenly on the mountain cliff."
"Well, Nan, if you can get some poetry out of this extremely commonplace
young man you are a wonder. I am going down to see about my new hat, so
I'll bid you good-by."
"If you are getting another new hat, I intend to have one, too!"
clamored Lucy.
"Helen," said Douglas, coming back into the library. "Of course you are
going to countermand the order for the hat that, after all, you do not
really need."
"Countermand it! Why, please?"
"You heard what Dr. Wright said, surely. You must have taken in the
seriousness of this business."
"Seriousness much! I heard a very bumptious young doctor holding forth
on what is no doubt his first case, laying down the law to us as though
he were kin to us about what we shall eat and wear!"
"Helen, you astonish me! I thought you thought that you loved Father
more than any of us."
"So I do! None of you could love him as much as I do. I love him so much
that I do not intend to stand for this nonsense about his going off for
months on a dirty old boat without ever even being allowed to hug his
girls. I bet he won't let this creature boss him any more than I will.
Daddy said I could have another hat just so I get a blue one. He doesn't
think the one I got is becoming, either," and Helen flounced off up to
her room.
"Douglas, what do you think is the matter with her? I have never seen
Helen act like this before," said Nan anxiously.
"I think she is trying to shut her eyes to Father's condition. Helen
never could stand anything being the matter with Father. You know she
always did hate and despise doctors, too. Has ever since she was a
little girl when they took out her tonsils. She seemed to think it was
their fault. She will come to herself soon," and Douglas wiped off
another one of the tears that would keep coming no matter how hard she
tried to hold them back.
Indeed, Helen was a puzzle to her sisters, and had they met her for the
first time as you, my readers have, no doubt they would have formed the
same opinion of her as you must have: a selfish, heartless, headstrong
girl. Now Helen was in reality none of these terrible things, except
headstrong. Thoughtless she was and spoiled, but generous to a fault,
with a warm and loving heart. Her love for her father was intense and
she simply would not see that he was ill. As Douglas said, she disliked
and mistrusted all doctors. If the first and second and third were wrong
in their diagnoses, why not the fourth? As for this absurd talk about
money--what business was it of this young stranger to put his finger in
their financial pie?
She shut her mind up tight and refused to understand what Dr. Wright
had endeavored to explain to them, that there was no time to call in
consultation their old friends and relatives. Besides, he wanted no
excitement for the sick man, no adieux from friends, no bustle or
confusion. He just wanted to spirit his patient away and get him out of
sight of land as fast as possible.
How could a perfect stranger understand her dear father better than she,
his own daughter, did? Nervous prostration, indeed! Why, her father had
nerves of steel. You could fire a pistol off right by his ear and he
would not bat an eyelash! She worked herself up even to thinking that
they were doing a foolish thing to allow this beetle-browed young man to
carry off their mother and father, sending them to sea in a leaky boat,
no doubt, with some plot for their destruction all hatched up with this
ship's surgeon, this one time classmate.
"To be sure, he was nice to Bobby," she said to herself as she sat in
her room, undecided whether to go get the new hat in spite of Douglas or
perhaps twist the other one around so it would be more becoming. "That
may be part of his deep laid scheme--to get the confidence of the child
and maybe kidnap him.
"I'll give in about the hat, but I'll not give in about seeing Daddy
before he goes--I'm going to see him right this minute and find out for
myself just how sick he is, and if he, too, is hypnotized into thinking
this doctor man is any good. He shan't go away if he doesn't want to.
Poor little Mumsy is too easy and confiding."
So Helen settled this matter to her own satisfaction, convincing herself
that it was really her duty to go see her father and unearth the
machinations of this scheming Dr. Wright, who was so disapproving of
her. That really was where the shoe pinched with poor Helen: his
disapproval. She was an extremely attractive girl and was accustomed to
admiration and approval. Her youngest sister, Lucy, was about the only
person of her acquaintance who found any real fault with her. Why, that
young man seemed actually to scorn her! What reason had he to come
pussy-footing into the library where she and her sisters were holding an
intimate conversation, and all unannounced speak to them with his
raucous voice so that she nearly jumped out of her skin? Come to think
of it, though, his voice was not really raucous, but rather pleasant
and deep. Anyhow, he took her at a disadvantage from the beginning and
sneered at her and bossed her, and she hated him and did not trust him
one inch.
"Daddy, may I come in?"
Without knocking, Helen opened her father's door and ran into his room.
He was lying on the sofa, covered with a heavy rug, although it was a
very warm day in May. His eyes were closed and his countenance composed
and for a moment the girl's heart stopped beating--could he be dead? He
looked so worn and gaunt. Strange she had not noticed it before. She
had only thought he was getting a little thin, but she hated fat men,
anyhow, and gloried in her father's athletic leanness, as she put it.
Most men of his age, forty-three, had a way of getting wide in the
girth, but not her father. Forty-three! Why, this man lying there looked
sixty-three! His face was so gray, his mouth so drawn.
Robert Carter opened his eyes and sighed wearily.
"Who is that?" rather querulously. "Oh, Helen! I must have been asleep.
I dreamed I was out far away on the water. Just your mother and I, far,
far away! It was rather jolly. Funny I was trying to add up about silk
stockings and I made such a ridiculous mistake. You see there are five
of you who wear silk stockings, not counting Bobby and me. I wasn't
counting in socks. Five persons having two legs apiece makes ten
legs--silk stockings cost one dollar apiece, no, a pair--fifty cents
apiece--that makes five dollars for ten legs. Everybody has to put on a
new pair every day, so that makes three hundred and sixty-five pairs a
year, three hundred and sixty-six in leap year, seven hundred and thirty
stockings--that makes one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five
dollars--thirty, in leap year--just for stockings. Seems preposterous,
doesn't it? But here was my mistake, right here--people don't have to
put on a new pair every day but just a clean pair, so I have to do my
calculating all over. You can help me, honey. How many pairs of silk
stockings does it take to run one of you? You just say one, and I can
compute the rest."
"Oh, Daddy, I don't know," and Helen burst out crying.
"Well, don't cry about it. It seems funny for stockings to make any one
cry. Do you know, I've been crying about them, too? It is so confusing
for people to have two legs and for leap year to have one more day, so
some years people have to have more--maybe not have more, but change
them oftener. I cry out of one eye about stockings, and the other sheds
tears about French chops. I feel very much worried about French chops.
It seems they sell them by the piece and not by the pound as they do
loin chops--ten cents apiece, so the bills say. We usually get a dozen
and a half for a meal--eighteen--that's a dozen and a half. Now there
are seven of us and the four servants, that makes eleven, not quite a
dozen. What I am worried about is that some of you don't get two chops
apiece. I am wondering all the time which ones don't eat enough. There
is nothing at all on one little French chop, although I'm blessed if I
could make one go down me now. But, honey, promise me if your mother and
I do take this trip that this young man, whose name has escaped me, is
going to arrange for us, that you will find out who it is among you who
eats only one chop and make 'em eat more. I am afraid it is Nan and
Bobby. They are more like your mother, and of course fairies don't
really eat anything to speak of--but it must be of the best--always of
the best. She has never known anything but luxury, and luxury she must
have. What difference does it make to me? I love to work--but the days
are too short. Take some off of the night then--six hours in bed is
enough for any man. Edison says even that is too much. What's that young
man's name? Well, whatever it is, I like him. He should have been an
architect--I bet his foundations would have gone deep enough and the
authorities would never have condemned one of his walls as unsafe.
That's what they did to me, but it wasn't my fault--Shockoe Creek was
the trouble--creeping up like a thief in the night and undermining my
work."
As Robert Carter rambled on in this weird, disconnected way, the tears
were streaming down his face and Helen, crouched on the floor by his
side, was sobbing her heart out. Could this be her Daddy? This broken,
garrulous man with the gray face and tears, womanish tears, flowing
shamelessly from his tired eyes? Dr. Wright was right! Their father was
a very ill man and one more ounce of care would be too much for his
tired brain. Had she done him harm? Maybe her coming in had upset his
reason, but she had not talked, only let him ramble on.
A car stopping at the door! The doctor and Bobby returning with the
notary public! What must she do? Here she was in her father's room,
disobeying the stern commands of the physician who could see with half
his professional eye that she had harmed his patient. She had time to
get out before the doctor could get upstairs--but no! not sneak!
"I may be a murderess and am a selfish, headstrong, bad, foolish, vain,
extravagant wretch, but I am not a sneak and I will stay right here and
take the ragging that I deserve--and no doubt will get," remembering the
lash that Dr. Wright had not spared.
The doctor entered the room very quietly, "Pussy-footing still," said
Helen to herself. He gave her only a casual glance, seeming to feel no
surprise at her presence, but went immediately to his patient, who
smiled through his tears at this young man in whom he was putting his
faith.
"I've been asleep, doctor, and thought I was out on the water. When
Helen came in I awoke, but I was very glad for her to come in so she
could promise me to look into a little matter of French chops that was
worrying me. She and I have been having a little crying party about silk
stockings. They seem to make her cry, too. Funny for me to cry. I have
never cried in my life that I can remember, even when I got a licking as
a boy."
"Crying is not so bad for some one who never has cried or had anything
to cry for." Helen had a feeling maybe he meant it for her but he never
looked at her. "And now, Mr. Carter, I have a notary public downstairs
and I am going to ask you to sign a paper giving to your daughter,
Douglas, power of attorney in your absence. You get off to New York this
evening and sail to-morrow."
"But, Dr. Whatsyourname, I can't leave until I attend to tickets and
things," feebly protested the nervous man.
"Tickets bought; passage on steamer to Bermuda and Panama engaged; slow
going steamer where you can lie on deck and loaf and loaf!"
"Tickets bought? I have never been anywhere in my life where I have not
had to attend to everything myself. It sounds like my own funeral. I
reckon kind friends will step in then and attend to the arrangements."
"Well, let's call this a wedding trip instead of a funeral. I will be
your best man and you and your bride can spend your honeymoon on this
vessel. The best man sometimes does attend to the tickets and in this
case even decided where the honeymoon should be spent. I chose a
Southern trip because I want you to be warm. Very few persons go to
Bermuda in May, but I feel sure you will be able to rest more if you
don't have to move around to keep warm."
"Yes, that's fine, and Annette is from the extreme South and delights in
warmth and sunlight. I feel sure you have done right and am just lying
down like a baby and leaving everything to you," and Robert Carter
closed his eyes, smiling feebly.
At a summons from the doctor, Douglas and the notary public entered the
room. Helen, who had stayed to get the blowing up that she had expected
from Dr. Wright, not having got it, still stayed just because she did
not know how to leave. No one noticed her or paid the least attention to
her except the notary, who bowed perfunctorily.
"This is the paper. You had better read it to see if it is right. It
gives your daughter full power to act in your absence." Dr. Wright spoke
slowly and gently and his voice never seemed to startle the sick man.
"Is Miss Carter of age?" asked the notary. "Otherwise she would have
some trouble in any legal matter that might arise."
"Of age! No! I am only eighteen."
"I never thought of that," said Mr. Carter.
"Nor I, fool that I am," muttered the young physician.
"Oh, well, let me make you her guardian, or better still, give you power
of attorney," suggested Mr. Carter.
"Me, oh, I never bargained for that!" The patient feebly began to weep
at this obstacle. You never can tell what is going to upset a nervous
prostrate. "Well, all right. I can do it if it is up to me," the doctor
muttered. "Put my name in where we have Miss Carter's," he said to the
notary. "George Wright is my name."
"I'm so glad to know your name; that is one of the things that has been
worrying me," said the patient, as he signed his name and the notary
affixed his seal after the oaths were duly taken.