Читать книгу Clover and Blue Grass - Eliza Calvert Hall - Страница 4

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"With this chart, madam," said the agent, "you are absolutely independent of dressmakers and seamstresses. After the instructions I have just given, a woman can cut and fit any sort of garment, from a party gown for herself to a pair of overalls for her husband, and the chart is so scientific in its construction, its system of measurement so accurate, that anything cut by it has a style and finish seldom seen in home-made garments. I have handled many things in the course of my ten years' experience as a traveling salesman, but this chart is the most satisfactory invention of all. I've been handling it now about eight months, and in that time I've sold—well, if I were to tell you how many hundred, you wouldn't believe me, so what's the use?—and I have yet to hear of anybody who is dissatisfied with the chart. The last time I talked with the general manager of the International Dressmaking Chart Company, I said to him, said I: 'Mr. Crampton, you could safely give a guarantee with every one of these charts—offer to refund the money to any one who is dissatisfied, and,' said I, 'I believe the only result of this would be an increased sale. You'd never have to refund a dollar. About a year ago I sold one to Mrs. Judge Graves in Shepherdsville; you may know her. Her husband's county judge, and they are two of the finest people you ever saw. The judge has a brother right here in town, Campbell Graves, the grocer. Your husband knows him, I'm sure. Well, I sold Mrs. Graves this chart a year ago, and I stopped there again on this trip just to say 'how d'ye do' and see how the chart was holding out. And she said to me: 'Mr. Roberts, this chart has saved me at least fifty dollars worth of dressmaker's bills in the last year. My husband thought, when I bought it, that five dollars was a good deal to pay for a thing like that, but' says she, 'he says now it was the best investment he ever made.' I had intended to make a thorough canvass of this neighborhood, but at twelve o'clock to-day, just as I was sitting down to my dinner, I got a telegram from the house telling me to go immediately to Shepherdsville. But I'd already ordered the horse and buggy, so I ate my dinner as quickly as I could, and said I: 'I'll drive three miles out into the country and stop at the first house I come to on the right-hand side of the road beyond the tollgate, and if I sell a chart there, I won't feel that I ran up a livery bill for nothing. And the first house on the right-hand side of the road beyond the tollgate happened to be yours, and that's how I came to give you all this trouble."

Here the agent paused with a pleasant laugh. He realized that the psychological moment was approaching, and he began gathering up the various parts of the chart with an air of extreme preoccupation. The gleam of a ruby ring on his little finger caught Mary Crawford's eye, and she noticed how white and well-formed his hands were, the hands of one who had never done any manual labor. She stood irresolute, fascinated by the gleam of the red jewel, and thinking of her little hoard up-stairs in the Japanese box in the top bureau drawer. Five dollars from thirteen dollars and sixty-five cents left eight dollars and sixty-five cents. It would be three weeks before John's birthday came. The hens were laying well, the young cow would be "fresh" next week, and that would give her at least two pounds more of butter per week. Then, the agent was such a nice-mannered, obliging young man; he had spent an hour teaching her how to use the chart, and she hated to have him take all that trouble for nothing.

She looked over at her husband, and her eyes said plainly: "Please help me to decide."

But John was blind to the gentle entreaty. He had fixed ideas as to what was a man's business and what a woman's; so he tilted his chair back against the wall and chewed a straw while he gazed out of the open door. His mental comment was: "If that agent fellow could work his hands just half as fast as he works his jaw, he'd be a mighty good help on a farm."

The agent looked up with a cheery smile. He had folded the chart, and was tying the red tape fastenings.

"I've got to get back to town in time to catch that four o'clock train for Shepherdsville. I'm a thousand times obliged to you, Madam, for letting me show you the working of the chart. Sometimes I have a good deal of difficulty in getting ladies to understand the modus operandi of the thing. Unless a woman remembers the arithmetic she learned when she was a schoolgirl, she is apt to have trouble taking measurements. But it's a pleasure to show any one who sees into it as readily as you do. Most married women seem to give up their mathematical knowledge just as they give up their music. But you've got yours right at your fingers' ends. Well, good afternoon to you both, and the next time I come this way—"

"Wait a minute," said Mary. "I'll take the chart. Just sit down and wait till I go up-stairs and get the money."

The agent made a suave bow of acquiescence, and then stroked his mustache to conceal an involuntary smile of triumph.

"You have a fine stand of wheat, sir," he said, turning to John and gesturing gracefully towards the field across the road, where the sun was shimmering on the silvery green of oats.

John made no reply. He scorned to talk about farming matters with a raw city fellow who did not know oats from wheat, and he was laboriously counting out a handful of silver.

"Here's your money, young man," he said dryly. "Now skip out, if you can, before Mary gets back."

The agent gave a quick glance at the coins and thrust them into his pocket. He seized his hat and valise, darted out of the house, and was climbing into his buggy when Mary appeared at the door, breathless and distressed.

"Come back!" she cried. "You've forgotten your money."

John was standing just behind Mary, smiling broadly, and making emphatic gestures of dismissal with both hands. The agent understood the humor of the situation and laughed heartily as he lifted his hat and drove away. Mary started to the gate, blushing scarlet with vexation and perplexity, but John held her back.

"I have heard of agents forgettin' to leave the goods," said he, "but I never heard of one forgettin' to collect his money. Go and put your money back, Mary; I paid the man."

"Then you must let me pay you," cried Mary. "I really mean it, John. You must let me have my way. I know you're hard run just now, and I never would have bought the chart, if I had not intended paying for it myself."

She tried to open John's hand to put the money in it, but John took hold of her hand and gave her a gentle shove toward the foot of the stairs.

"Go on and put up your money, Mary," he said. "If half that agent fellow said is true, I'm in about a hundred and fifty dollars. Before long, I reckon, you'll be makin' my coats and pants and the harness for the horses by this here chart."

And Mary went, but her gentle protestations could be heard even after she reached her room and had dropped the money back into the little box that was her savings bank.

She hurried through her after-supper tasks, her mind full of the cutting and fitting she wanted to do before bed-time. Hers was a soul that found its highest happiness in work, and she unfolded the chart with the delight of a child who has a new toy. The agent's tribute to her knowledge of mathematics was no idle flattery. Her quick brain had comprehended at once the system of the chart, and she flushed with excitement and pleasure as she bent over her scale and found that her measurements and calculations were resulting in patterns of unmistakable correctness and style. It was like solving the fifth proposition of Euclid. She laid aside her work that night with a reluctant sigh, but a happy anticipation of the sewing yet to come. The anticipation was fulfilled next day by the completion of a shirt waist so striking in design and fit that even John noticed its beauty and becomingness and acknowledged that the chart was "no humbug."

"You must wear that waist Monday when we go to town," he declared. "I never saw anything fit you as pretty as that does," and Sally McElrath echoed John's opinion when she and Mary met at the linen counter of Brown and Company's dry goods store; and Mary told her of the wonderful chart as they both examined patterns and qualities of table linen and compared experiences as to wearing qualities of bleached and unbleached damask.

There is a system of communication in every country neighborhood that is hardly less marvelous than the telegraph and telephone; and before Mary could put her chart to a second test, all Goshen knew that Mary Crawford had a chart that would cut anything from a baby sacque to a bolero, and that she was willing to lend it to any one who was inclined to borrow.

Sally McElrath was the first applicant for the loan of the chart. Whatever the enterprise, if it had the feature of novelty, Sally was its first patron and promoter. But her promptness ended here, and her friends declared that Sally McElrath was always the first to begin a thing, and the last to finish it.

Accompanying the chart was a set of explicit rules for its use, and Mary read these to Sally, explaining all the difficult points just as the agent had explained them to her.

"Now if I were you, Sally," she said warningly, "I would try some simple thing first, a child's apron, or something like that, so that you won't run the risk of ruining any expensive goods. Everything takes practice, you know."

"Oh," said Sally confidently, "I'm goin' to make a tea jacket out of a piece of China silk I got off the bargain counter the last time I was in town."

"What's a tea jacket?" asked Sally's husband, who had been listening intently, with a faint hope that some new shirts for himself might be the outcome of Sally's interest in the chart.

"It's a thing like this, Dan," said Sally, producing a picture of the elegant garment in question.

"Why do they call it a tea jacket?" demanded Dan.

"Oh, I don't know; I reckon they wear 'em when they drink tea," said Sally.

"But we drink coffee," said Dan argumentatively.

"Well, call it a coffee jacket, then," retorted Sally. "But whatever you call it, I'm goin' to have one, if I don't do another stitch of spring sewin'."

Dan was gazing sadly at the picture of the tea jacket with its flowing oriental sleeves, lace ruffles, and ribbon bows.

"I can't figger out," he said slowly, "what use you've got for a thing like that."

"I can't either," snapped Sally, "and that's the very reason I want it. The only things I've got any use for are gingham aprons and kitchen towels, and they're the things I don't want; and the only things I want are things that I haven't got a bit of use for, like this tea jacket here, and I'm goin' to have it, too."

"All right, all right," said Dan soothingly. "If you're pleased with the things that ain't of any use, why, have 'em, of course. Me and the children would like right well to have a few things that are some use, but I reckon we can get along without 'em a while longer. However, it looks to me as if that chart calls for a good deal of calculatin', and it's my opinion that you'd better get out your old Ray's Arithmetic and study up awhile before you try to cut out that jacket."

"Maybe you're right," laughed Sally. "Arithmetic always was my stumbling block at school. I never could learn the tables, and the first year I was married I sold butter with just twelve ounces to the pound, till Cousin Albert's wife told me better. She'd been takin' my butter for a month, and one Saturday morning she said to me: 'Cousin Sally, I hate to mention it, and I hope you won't take offence, but your butter's short weight.' Well, of course that made me mad, but I held my temper down, and I said: 'Cousin Ella, I think you're mistaken, I weigh my butter myself, and I've got good true scales, and there's twelve ounces of butter and a little over in every pound I sell.' And Cousin Ella laughed and says: 'I know that, Cousin Sally, but there ought to be sixteen ounces in a pound of butter. You're usin' the wrong table.' And she picked up little Albert's arithmetic and showed me the two tables, one for druggists and one for grocers; and there I'd been using druggist's weight to weigh groceries. Well, we had a good laugh over it, and I put twenty ounces of butter to the pound 'till I made up all my short weight. I never did learn all the multiplication table, and all the arithmetic I'm certain about now is: one baby and another baby makes two babies, and twelve things make a dozen. I wouldn't remember that if it wasn't for countin' the eggs and the napkins. But maybe Dan can help me out with the chart."

"Don't depend on me," said Dan emphatically; "my arithmetic is about like yours. I know how many pecks of corn make a bushel and how many rods are in an acre, but that sort o' knowledge wouldn't be much help in cuttin' out a woman's jacket." And early the next morning Sally returned the chart, acknowledging that its mathematical complexities had baffled both herself and Dan. "And besides," she added, "I don't believe there's enough of my China silk to cut anything. I'll have to match it and get some more the next time I go to town."

One after another the neighbors borrowed Mary's chart, and each came back with the same story—there was too much arithmetic about it, but if they brought their goods some time this week or next, would not Mary show them how to use it?

Of course she would. When did Mary Crawford ever refuse to help a neighbor?

"Come whenever you please," said she cordially. "It will not be a bit of trouble, and you'll find the chart is easy enough, after I've given you a little help on it."

They came, sometimes singly, sometimes by twos and threes, and Mary straightway found herself at the head of a dressmaking establishment from which every business feature except the hard work had been completely eliminated. The customers sometimes brought their children, and often stayed in friendly fashion to dinner or supper, as the exigencies of the work demanded a prolonged visit. Mary played the part of the gracious hostess while she cut and tried on, and planned and contrived and suggested, slipping away now and then to put another stick of wood in the kitchen stove, or see that the vegetables were not scorching, or mix up the biscuits, or make the coffee, or set the table, using all her fine tact to keep the guest from feeling that she was giving trouble.

Mary was social in her nature, and the pleasure of entertaining her neighbors and her unselfish delight in bestowing favors kept her from realizing at once the weight of the burden she had taken on herself. But she was a housekeeper who rarely saw the sun go down on an unfinished task, and when she took a retrospective view of the week, she was dismayed by the large arrears of housework and sewing; and all her altruism could not keep back a sigh of relief as she saw Mandy Harris's rockaway disappear down the road late Saturday afternoon. She sat up till half-past ten sewing on a gingham dress for Lucy Ellen and a linen blouse for little John, and the next day she knowingly and wilfully broke the Sabbath by sweeping and dusting the parlor and dining-room.

Monday dawned cool and cloudy, more like March than April, and when the rain began to come down in slow, steady fashion, she rejoiced at the prospect of another day unbroken by callers. By Tuesday morning April had resumed her reign. A few hours of wind and sunshine dried up the mud and put the roads in fine condition, and an extra number of visitors and children came in the afternoon. Lucy Ellen and little John were expected to entertain the latter. But Lucy Ellen and John were by this time frankly weary of company, and they had a standard of hospitality that differed essentially from their mother's. It seemed to them that hosts as well as guests had some rights, and they were ready at all times to stand up and battle for theirs. Lucy Ellen could not understand why she should be sent an exile to the lonely spare-room up-stairs, merely because she had slapped Mary Virginia Harris for breaking her favorite china doll; and little John was loudly indignant because he was reprimanded for calling Jimmie Crawford names, when Jimmy persisted in walking over the newly-planted garden. For the first time, both children had hard feelings toward their gentle stepmother, and she herself longed for the departure of the guests that she might take John's children in her arms and explain away her seeming harshness.

Wednesday repeated the trials of Tuesday with a few disagreeable variations, and Thursday was no better than Wednesday. By Thursday night Mary had abandoned all hope of finishing her own sewing before May Meeting Sunday. Her one aim now was to do a small amount of housework each day and get three meals cooked for John and the children, and even this work had to be subordinated to the increasing demands of the dressmaking business. At times she had a strange feeling in her head, and wondered if this was what people meant when they spoke of having headache; but sleep, "the balm of every woe", seldom failed to come nightly to her pillow, and all day long her sweet serenity never failed, even when the trying week was fitly rounded out by a simultaneous visit from Sally McElrath and Ma Harris. Sally had just "dropped in", but Ma Harris came, as usual, with intent to find or to make trouble.

Ma Harris was John Crawford's "mother-in-law on his first wife's side", as Dave Amos phrased it, and it was the opinion of the neighbors that if John and his second wife had not been the best-natured people in the world, they never could have put up with Ma Harris and her "ways."

She had exercised a careful supervision over John's domestic affairs during the first wife's lifetime. When Sarah died, she redoubled her vigilance, and when his second marriage became an impending certainty, Ma Harris's presence and influence hung like a dark cloud over the future of the happy pair.

"There's only one thing I'm afraid of, Mary," said honest John. "I know you'll get along all right with me and the children, but I don't know about Ma Harris; I'm afraid she'll give you trouble."

"Don't you worry about that," said Mary cheerily. "I've never seen anybody yet that I couldn't get along with, and Ma Harris won't be the exception."

Popular sentiment declared that Ma Harris took her son-in-law's second marriage much harder than she had taken her daughter's death. Her lamentations were loudly and impartially diffused among her acquaintances; but it was evident that the sympathies of the community were not with John's "mother-in-law on his first wife's side."

"I reckon old Mis' Harris won't bother me again soon," said Maria Taylor. "She was over here yesterday with her handkerchief to her eyes, mournin' over John marryin' Mary Parrish, and I up and told her that she ought to be givin' thanks for such a stepmother for Sarah's children, John Crawford was too good a man, anyhow, to be wasted on a pore, shiftless creature like Sarah, and her death was nothin' but a blessin' to John and the children."

Ma Harris soon found that she had never given herself a harder task than when she undertook to find fault with John for his treatment of Mary, or with Mary for her treatment of the children. It vexed her soul on Sundays to see John ushering Mary into his pew as if she had been a princess, but what could she say? Did not all the inhabitants of Goshen know that John had carried "pore Sarah" into the church in his strong arms as long as she was able to be carried, and nursed her faithfully at home until the day of her death? Then the children fairly adored Mary; and Mary, being a genuine mother, and having none of her own, was free to spend all her love on John's little ones. Not only this, but she treated Ma Harris with such respect and kindness that complaint was well-nigh impossible. Altogether, Ma Harris began to realize that the way of the fault-finder is sometimes as hard as that of the transgressor.

"Well, Mary," she said, as she dropped heavily into a rocking-chair, "I heard yesterday that you had a new dressmakin' chart and all the neighbors was usin' it, and says I to Maria, 'I reckon Mary's forgot me, and I'll have to go up and remind her that Ma Harris is still in the land of the livin' and jest as much in need of clothes as some other folks.'" And she threw a withering glance in Sally's direction.

"Why, Ma Harris!" said Mary. "Didn't John give you my message? I sent you word about the chart last week, and I've been looking for you every day."

Ma Harris's face brightened, for Mary's words were as a healing balm to her wounded self-love.

"There, now!" she exclaimed, "I didn't think you'd slight me that-a-way, Mary. So it was John's fault, after all. Well, I might a' known it. It's precious few men that can remember what their wives tell 'em to do, and I used to tell Joel that if I wanted to send a message I'd send it by the telegraph company before I'd trust him with it."

Mary breathed a breath of deep relief. Peace was restored between Ma Harris and herself, but she knew that between her two guests there yawned a breach that time and frequent intercourse only widened and deepened. Once in an uncharitable moment Sally had likened Ma Harris to Dan's old wall-eyed mare, and more than once Ma Harris had made disparaging remarks about Sally's cooking. The bearer of tales had attended to her work, and thereafter the two seldom met without an interchange of hostile words. Mary was of those blessed ones who love and who make peace, and for the next hour she stood as a buffer between two masked batteries. If a sarcastic remark were thrown out, she caught it before it could reach its mark, and took away its sting by some kindly interpretation of her own. If a challenge were given, she took it up and laughed it off as a joke. If the conversation threatened to become personal, she led its course into the safe channel of generalities; and for once the two enemies were completely baffled in their efforts to bring about a quarrel. But only Mary knew at what cost peace had been purchased, when she lay down on the old sofa in the hall for a moment's rest before going to the kitchen to cook supper and make tea-cakes for the May Meeting basket. After supper she sewed buttons on Lucy Ellen's frock and little John's blouse and, being a woman and young, she thought of the pale blue dimity she had hoped to wear to the May Meeting, because pale blue was John's favorite color.

But in the matter of women's clothes, John was not quick to distinguish between the new and the old, and there was nothing but loving admiration in his eyes the next morning as he stood at the foot of the stairs and looked up at Mary in a last year's gown of dark blue linen with collar and cuffs of delicate embroidery. He helped her into the carriage, and away they went down the elm-shaded road. The carriage was shabby, but there was a strain of noble blood in the horse, that showed itself in a smooth, even gait, and Mary's eyes brightened, and the color came into her face, as she felt the exhilaration that swift motion always brings.

The poet who sang the enchantment of "midsummer nights" might have sung with equal rapture of May mornings, when there is a sun to warm you through, and a breeze to temper the warmth with a touch of April's coolness; when the flowers on the earth's bosom, touched by the sunshine, gleam and glow like the jewels in the breastplate of the high priest, and the heart beats strong with the joy of winter past and the joy of summer to come.

Mary leaned back with the long, deep sigh of perfect happiness. Of late she had been striving with "a life awry", but now her soul