Читать книгу Making Over Martha - Julie M. Lippmann - Страница 4

"'Little drops o' water, little grains o' sand.'

"Guess she'll think she's had her dose o' both, to-night, all right. Say! Hark! Is that a auta-horn? Sounds like Sammy's."

"Then he's brought Dr. Driggs!" Kate Crewe cried joyously.

"Well, you can take it from me he's brought Dr. Somethin'. It mayn't be Dr. Driggs, but Sammy wouldn't have the face to come to me, 'less he'd got somethin', that'd, at least, pass for what I sent'm out for," observed Mrs. Slawson suavely.

As it happened, it was not Dr. Driggs whom Sam had brought. Kate Crewe, going to the door to admit them, saw, even in the dark, that neither of the men before her was of the familiar build of the old physician she knew so well. But there was no time for regret, and, after a few brief words of self-introduction, she led the way upstairs.

Meanwhile, Martha had made what she called "a fist" at clearing away all traces of her recent ministrations, so, when the doctor appeared, he found an orderly room, from which she quietly slipped as he entered.

Downstairs she found Sam.

"You see, Dr. Driggs was off somewheres, up the mountain, and no one could find him," he explained. "I couldn't make out to get him, the best I could do. Then I asked wasn't there some other doctor in the place, but short of Burbank, twenty-five miles off, there wasn't. Dr. Driggs has all the practice 'round these parts. Then, all at once, somebody happened to think of a young fellow from Boston, here for his health—same as I, I guess. He's a M.D. all right—laid up for repairs, as you might say. He's boarding at the Fred Trenholm's. A wink's as good as a nod to a blind horse, and off I went to Milby's Corners. At first, Dr. Ballard—that's his name—said he didn't know about coming. But, after a bit, he decided he would. He's a fine, outstepping young gentleman, as ever you saw. You'd never think his lung had a spot in it, more's the pity."

"Neither would you think yours has," Martha rejoined simply.

Sam searched her face for a moment. "Say, you're not worrying about me, are you, mother?" he put to her gently.

Mrs. Slawson turned to fill her scrubbing pail with hot water from one of the kettles on the stove.

"Worryin' about you? Sure I'm not. What'd I be worryin' about you for? You're chesty enough, ain't you, goodness knows. An' your cough has almost went. I like sleepin' outdoors nights. The wide, wide world ain't too big a bedroom for me. An' this air certaintly is more healthy for the childern, than down home—I should say, New York."

"Only—you kind of miss the old town, eh, mother?"

Martha scrubbed away in silence for a moment. "Well, not as you might say miss. Certaintly not. But I guess I'd find it hard work to live in any place else, so long as I lived in New York (havin' been born there), an', that bein' the case, a body thinks back to it oncet in a while—which, of course, thinkin' is by no means missin'."

Sam considered. "How'd you like to take a day off, and go down with me, after Mr. Ronald gets back? There's some things he wants me to see about, I'll have to look into myself in the city, and you might as well come along. We'll leave the children with Ma, and just go off on a spree—us two."

Martha sat back on her heels, and looked up at her husband out of a face that glowed.

"Say, Sam, could we? Somehow, it don't seem as if we could. We two never been alone any time, since we begun keepin' comp'ny. Firstoff, there was Gilroy! He wouldn't believe I perferred you to him, till the marriage-lines was ackchelly read over our heads. He was always hangin' 'round. Then, there was Ma, an' then come the childern. So, take it all in all, we certaintly been, what Mrs. Sherman 'd call, 'carefully chaperoned.' Are you sure it'd be proper, the two of us goin' off alone, like that?"

Sam grinned.

"Let's us go," said Martha. "It'll be like the weddin'-tour we didn't have, when we was married."

Again Sam smiled. "Sure we'll go. You fairly earned a day off, mother. All these sixteen years, working like Sam Hill, and never a grouch out of you. Yes, we'll go—and, I tell you what's more, we'll spend some. We'll just let go for once, and spend some, on something we don't have to. I haven't made out to do as well by you as Peter Gilroy would, Martha. He used to say, if you'd marry him, he'd put velvet under your feet. It's been more than I could do, sometimes, to put good shoe-leather."

"Well, I never been Little Barefoot, yet, have I?" inquired Martha blandly.

Sam shook his head. "Since we been up here, we made out to save a bit and, by this and by that, we got more coming to us. We never could seem to fix things, before, so's we could lay by. Couldn't square the bills, and save, but——"

"It's a kinda stunt to square your bills, an' lay by when, every week, nothin's comin' in."

"Sure," said Sam.

Martha meditated in silence for a moment. "If Cora knew what's goin' on inside me this minute, it'd be my finish in the bossin' business, so far as she's concerned. She's almost got to the place, now, where she feels she could give Moses points on the Fifth Commandment. She's pretty near caught on to the little game that parents is a grand bluff, an you're wastin' time to bother with their figaries. But she'd do it sure, if she knew how I feel at present—just as much of a silly kid as her."

Sam's satisfaction broadened. "Good work!" said he.

"An' talkin' o' work," his wife took him up quickly, in an altered tone, "we better get busy on ours, or we won't be done this side o' mornin'. You get a move on, Sammy, an' bring in a good stock o' wood, out o' the shed there. An' when you got that done, we'll talk about coal from the cella."

"What's the matter with the old lady hiring her own help?" inquired Sam practically. "She's got money to burn, hasn't she?"

"Sure. But, she don't burn it. It's to keep the young lady from a wintry chill, I'm lendin' a hand. An' if it comes to that, a body as close as ol' lady Crewe, you'd have to feel sorry for her, on her own account. She must be cold comfort to herself, with a heart like that inside her. Them kind, that's so wrapped up in their money, some part of'm's bound to go bare. A thing like money won't reach all the way 'round a human creature, not by a long sight, an' you can't make it. Them kind needs help in their nakedness, as much, an' more, than the rest of us."

Sam making no attempt to dispute it, the two worked on in silence, until they were interrupted by the abrupt opening of the door.

"Mrs. Slawson!"

Martha raised herself slowly from her kneeling posture, at sound of Katherine Crewe's cry of appeal.

"The ol' lady—she ain't—worse?"

"Not worse, but—unmanageable. She won't let Dr. Ballard go near her. We can't do a thing with her. Won't you, please, come up and try what you can do. You made her mind about the bath, you know."

Martha rinsed off her soapy wrists with soapier hands in a gesture, as of one preparing for the fray. "Now, what do you think o' that!" she observed calmly. "The size of her! No bigger than a minute, an' gettin' the best of a able-bodied pair, like you an' that fine-appearin' young gen'lman upstairs. Don't it beat all?"

Katherine did not stop long enough to admit that it did, but hurried on ahead, leaving Mrs. Slawson to follow closely in the rear, pausing outside the sick-chamber door, where the doctor stood like a sentinel on guard. Martha passed them both without a word, entered the room, and made directly for the bed. She slid a gentle arm beneath the narrow old shoulders, drew out the pillow, and replaced it, shaken into more comfortable shape.

"There! That's a whole lot better, ain't it?" she inquired amiably.

No answer. The old woman glared up at her hostilely, but it was noticeable that the worst fire had been drawn from the angry eyes.

Martha picked a thread from the carpet, and, winding it neatly about her forefinger, put the tiny coil into her apron pocket. Presently she plunged an exploring hand beneath the bed-covering.

"Say, them hot-water bags ain't been a mite o' good to you. Your feet's like two lumps o' ice. They extend clear up to your knees. Did the doctor know, before he went, you had cold feet like that?"

No answer.

"He can't be much of a doctor, an' no mistake, to go off, an' leave a patient with such a chill on 'er, so even arthurficial heat couldn't get in its fine work. I'm surprised! My husband was the one brought'm here, I must confess. He couldn't do no better, I guess. Dr. Driggs wasn't home, an' poor Sam took what he could get. When nothin's left, the king can't choose. But wouldn't you think any fella that called himself a doctor would know enough not to leave a lady, so the ones about her wouldn't know how to handle her case, an' she'd get worse by the minute, so to speak, for want of a stitch in time, that'd save her nine—meanin' doctors from the city, per'aps, an' trained nurses, night an' day, so the expense alone would kill her, not to mention other complercations. I call it a shame!"

It was not impossible for a shrewd observer to follow the mental processes of the active old brain, for they were clearly enough revealed in the passionate, too-expressive eyes.

Mrs. Slawson, appearing to notice nothing, bided her time, while, little by little, her "ol' lady" betrayed herself, in all her mean guises of misanthropic distrust, growing self-doubt, and, last—overwhelming all—susceptibility to the suggestion of fear, response to the stimulus of—money.

"Call—that—man!"

The words were rapped out with the brevity and precision of a military command.

"Eh?" said Martha, appearing to rouse from a spell of complete inattention.

"Call—that—doctor!"

Mrs. Slawson moved her massive frame slowly in the direction of the door.

"Miss Katherine! Miss Katherine!" she shouted past the two silent figures, just outside the threshold, "Say, Miss Katherine! Are you downstairs? Yes? The doctor gone yet? Say, hurry! Get Sam to go after'm, an' see can he call'm back! Your gran'ma wants'm!"

CHAPTER III

Katherine Crewe awoke next morning to find Mrs. Slawson standing by her bedside, bearing a breakfast tray.

"It's earlier than I'd 'a' chose to disturb you," Martha explained apologetically, "but I gotta go home an' feed my fam'ly, an' see the raft o' them gets a good start for the day."

"But you haven't had any rest! You made me go to bed, but you must have sat up all night." The girl spoke with compunction, looking regretfully at Mrs. Slawson's heavy eyes.

"Me? Now, don't you worry your head about me," Martha returned, as she placed the tray in a convenient position, and arranged the pillows back of Miss Crewe, so they gave her comfortable support. "I got along all right. An' your gran'ma slep' fine. I went parolin' 'round, every oncet in a while, to see if she'd need anythin', an' each time she was breathin' as peaceful as a baby. You'll think I'm awful, but whenever I remember las' night, an' me carryin' things with a high hand against her will, I almost kill myself laughin'. Poor ol' lady! the way she looked at me! It was like a song they learn the childern to sing, down home—I should say New York, in the high school Cora went to.

"'Drink to me only with thine eyes——,' whatever that means. With your gran'ma it was, Cuss at me only with thine eyes. She didn't open her head to say a word, but what she meant was plain as preachin'—only not quite so pious."

Miss Crewe bit her lip to keep from smiling. "You've been very kind to us, Mrs. Slawson. I don't know how to thank you," she said.

When Martha had gone the girl rose, hurriedly bathed and dressed, then made her way to her grandmother. She did not know much about nursing, but she knew she must not carry a long face into a sick-room, and the question was, how to help it. Her heart was very heavy. Ever since the attack yesterday afternoon, her mind had been going over and over what this sickness was bound to entail. Things had been hard enough before, but she saw how this might add intolerable burdens, and, in the face of it, she must look cheerful, give no sign of the discouragement she felt.

That was the way it was with everything in her life, she brooded. She was continually under some sort of crushing necessity to hold in, and hold back. She had never been free, as most girls of her age are, and there seemed no prospect that she ever would be. On the contrary, there was every likelihood she would be more and more confined and restricted, as the years went on, if, as the doctor had said, this was but the beginning of the end. The future looked desperately black. As for the past, she could remember a time, away back, when she was a little girl, when things had been very different.

A child's mind does not measure and weigh according to scale, and Katherine could not fix the precise degree of her mother's grace, her father's dashing beauty, the luxury of the home in which they, all three, lived. But she had more than her memory to rely upon. There were likenesses, there were relics, there were the continual jibes of her grandmother through recent years, to the effect that she "had been brought up like a fool; it was time she learned better."

At her mother's death, her father had carried her to his parents' home. Looking back, she had no sense of having suffered surprise or disappointment by the change. The new home must have compared favorably with the old. She could remember her grandfather's table—a most formidable function, to which she was conducted, at dessert, by a nervous nurse, "afraid of her life there'll be a to-do if you don't look right, an' hold up your head, an' speak out when you're spoken to, Miss Kath'rine."

Her father's sudden death had made no change in outward conditions. It was when her grandfather passed away that there was a difference. Then, suddenly, she seemed to wake one morning to a realization of lack. She could not be at all certain her impression was correct. The alteration might have been so gradual, she had failed to notice it, and it was her consciousness of the fact, and not the fact itself, that came upon her abruptly. The way did not matter, the fact did. It all summed itself up to this, that the grudging hand was certainly not her grandfather's, much less her father's. They had been open-handed to a fault. The one who stinted, of whom the country-people 'round about said: "She'll pinch a penny till the eagle screams," was—

"Katherine!"

The girl started guiltily at the sound of the thick, labored syllables.

"Yes, grandmother." She was at the bed's side in a moment.

"That doctor—— He's not to come again, understand? Call Driggs."

"Yes, grandmother. But perhaps Dr. Driggs will refuse to come. You found fault with his bill last time, you know, and he didn't like it very well."

"Tush! He's forgotten that by this time. But——"

"Well?"

"If he should refuse, and I have to have—the other, understand, you're not to have anything to do with him. I forbid it!"

"Yes, grandmother."

"Ballard! I know the tribe. Leave him alone, and see he leaves you alone."

"Please don't excite yourself, grandmother. I'm sure the doctor wouldn't want you to."

"Where's that woman?"

"You mean Mrs. Slawson? Gone home. She has a family to see to. She told you, didn't she, she's the wife of Mr. Ronald's new superintendent?"

"How much'll she charge?"

"Us, you mean? For what she did last night, and this morning?"

"Uh-huh."

"Nothing, grandmother."

"Nonsense! Compel her to set price. If she won't, it's because she hopes you'll pay more than's the custom. I know the trick. Don't be caught. Pay her regular price, and say she mustn't come, 'less we send. Won't pay, when we don't send."

Katherine felt herself flushing furiously from neck to forehead. "I wouldn't dare offer Mrs. Slawson money, grandmother. I can't imagine what she'd do, if I did. She came to help us out of pure friendliness. She did more than we could ever pay her for. She's put me under deep obligation."

"Pooh! Obligation! One in that class! When you've paid her, you've paid her."

Katherine turned her face away. "Let's not discuss it, grandmother. You oughtn't to talk much, just yet. Let's see! First, I'll get a basin and warm water, and give you a lovely bath, and afterwards, you can have your breakfast. I'll go down myself and prepare it, as soon as——"

Madam Crewe gave vent to a sound Katherine was painfully familiar with—something between a sneer, a snort, and a groan of exasperation.

"How many lovely baths d'you calculate I can stand in twelve hours? One last night. Another five A.M. and, now, you want to give me a third!"

"Mrs. Slawson bathed you before she went?" Katherine demanded incredulously.

"Yes, and what's more, gave me breakfast. Good breakfast! Better than you can p'pare."

"She couldn't have slept a wink all night," the girl mused self-reproachfully.

Madam Crewe made no rejoinder. Apparently, she did not consider it necessary for one in Mrs. Slawson's class to sleep a wink all night.

Katherine turned away, pretending to busy herself with setting the room in order. In reality, she was very differently employed. Her stern young mind had constituted itself court, counsel, and jury, to sit in judgment upon her grandmother, and, according to the findings, convict her without privilege of appeal. She could see nothing that was not contemptible in the old woman's mode of living, her view of life. If she were poor, it would be different. There might be some excuse then, for this paltry measuring of everything by the standard of a copper cent. But, her grandmother had plenty, and more than plenty. If she stinted, it was merely to add more to an already ample fortune. And, meanwhile, youth, hope, dreams, all were vanishing. The best of life was being wilfully sacrificed to a mean whim. She knew the people 'round about, the "natives," turned up their noses at "ol' lady Crewe," and pitied her, Katherine, for being the granddaughter of a "tight-wad." It made her shrink from meeting the commonest acquaintance, when she considered how odious her position was, and how well every one knew it.

The doctor came early, while she was still smarting with a sense of her wrongs.

"I've brought a battery," he explained, indicating the instrument Sam Slawson was assisting him to unearth from the bowels of the runabout. "It's not my own. Dr. Driggs kindly lent it. I had a chat with him over the 'phone last night, after I got home, and he agrees with me that electricity will be——

"If Dr. Driggs is back, why didn't he come himself?" Katherine interrupted, so sensitively on edge that the most innocent suggestion jarred.

The young man before her looked blank for a moment. Then a tolerant smile stole into his fine, wholesome face.

"Precisely the question I put to him. But, he said he'd thank me kindly if I'd go on with the case."

Katherine winced. She knew why Dr. Driggs was not keen on coming to Crewesmere.

Dr. Ballard noticed the painful twitching of her brows, and instantly regretted his reply. To mend matters he began, at once, to explain why he was obliged to borrow of a fellow-practitioner, and to call upon Sam Slawson to be his charioteer.

"You see, I'm not here in the village in my official capacity. I only came for—well, on a sort of venture. But I like it, and I've sent for my—I mean, I've sent for a machine to get about in, by myself. I was feeling a bit seedy. I'm here for repairs. I belong in Boston—my office is there, and my heavy artillery's in it. But if electric treatment seems to agree with Madam Crewe, I'll send, and have my portable battery shipped on with the motor. It's quite at her service, as I am. It's rather more modern than this, and—more—effective."

As Sam Slawson remarked to his wife later, he was surprised at the manner in which Miss Crewe received the doctor's friendly advance.

"She gave him a look, like he'd trod on her toes, and hurt her bad, besides taking the shine off her patent leather."

Martha smiled. "Anybody'd know you'd been a strap-hanger, Sam Slawson. You give yourself dead away."

"Well, she gave him the look, and said she: 'Thanks, but please don't send. My grandmother is much improved. She may not require the services of any doctor, very long.'"

Mrs. Slawson nodded. "She's sore on the subjec' of her gran'ma. She knows her peculiar-rarities, an' she knows she's got to stand by the ol' lady, but it kinda gives her a turn, every time she thinks anybody's noticin' her doin' it. If Dr. Ballard wasn't such a great innercent of a fella, he wouldn't 'a' give it away that Dr. Driggs is on to the little madam, and just as lief dodge her, if convenient. A party with more tack to'm than Dr. Ballard would 'a' kep' that dark. But there's where you can't have everything at oncet, in human bein's. If a fella's got a lotta tack, an' the kind o' light fantastic toe that, every time he opens his mouth, he don't put his foot into it, he's more than like to be the kind that thinks twicet before he speaks, which, it may be wise, but ain't as hearty, an' uncalkerlatin' as I'd like in a husband. On the other hand, a fella that speaks, without stoppin' to count the costs, why, it's ten to one, a woman'll have to pay 'em, in the end, but anyhow she'll have the comfort o' knowin' his heart's in the right place, which, it ain't forever takin' the elevator up to the top floor, to consult with his brains. I'm sorry them two young things got in wrong as regards each other. But it won't stop the course o' human events, so far as they're concerned, even if it does delay it some. I'm not a bit worried."

Sam paused in the act of pulling off a boot.

"Say, Martha, you don't mean you're at it again?"

"'At it'! Me? No! What I mean is, Nature's bound to get in her fine work, no matter what kinda mater'al's handed out to her. You remember Miss Claire an' Lord Ronald? They started in complercatin' the pattren, as hard as they could, but 'twas no use. They couldn't get the best o' Nature, an' the consequence is, we're lookin' for 'em home from their weddin' tour any time now, an' if we don't get busy, the decorations won't be ready for my celebration proceeding."

The morning of the great day on which the Ronalds were expected to arrive, Martha was astir at sunrise, summoning her brood with the call: "Miss Claire's comin' home! Miss Claire's comin' home!"

"I'd call her Missis, considering," suggested Sam, yawning as he tucked his pillow more comfortably beneath his rough cheek.

"All right, call her it, if it's a comfort to you. Only get a move on," his wife replied, plucking the pillow unceremoniously out from under, giving it a mighty shake, and setting it across the sleeping-porch rail to air.

"You can take it from me, my hands is full this day. I've no time to parley, fussin' over my articles of speech. Besides, Miss Claire knows me an' my ways. If I was any diff'rent from what she's used to, she'd be disappointed."

"I thought Mrs. Peckett was making you over. To say nothing of Cora, and Ma. Perhaps Mrs. Ronald will take a hand at it, too. You never can tell."

"True for you, you never can," Martha admitted. "Who'd 'a' thought, now, ol' lady Crewe would ever be troublin' her head about me, an' yet one o' the first things she said, when she got her power back, an' could pronunciate clearly, was—'You'd oughta keep a cow!' Knowin' the risks run by those that does, from the effects o' hoofs an' horns, an' simular attachments, I mighta thought she wanted to see my finish, because o' the way I lit in, an' give her a rub-down against her will, the night she was took sick. But she didn't. She don't bear no ill will. It was just she thought keepin' a cow would be cheaper for our fam'ly, than keepin' the milkman. She wants to turn me into a farmer, an' who knows! You never can tell, as you say. That's what I may turn into before I'm done. But what I'm occupied with at the present moment is—did you get that la'nch fixed up good last night, like I told you to? As soon as the breakfast dishes is washed, I wanta take the childern, an' go acrost the lake to get laurel for my decorations."

Sam paused in the act of shaving, to turn his lathered cheek toward her.

"The launch is O.K., but I'm uneasy every time you take her out on the water alone, mother. I'm not sure you understand the motor. And if a squall blew up sudden——"

"Now, don't you worry your head over me, that's a good fella. I understand that la'nch, an' the auta, as good as if all three of us hada been born an' brought up by the same mother. The things I can't seem to get a line on is animals. Hens, an' cows, an' so forth. They take my time! O' course, to look at 'em, you'd know hens ain't very brainy.—Look at the way they behave in front o' autas, or anythin' drivin' up! They're as undecided as a woman at a bargain-counter, thinkin' will she buy a remlet o' baby-blue ribbon, or go to Huyler's an' get a chocolate ice-cream soda. They're hippin' an' hawin', till it'd be a pleasure to run 'em down. Cows ain't got that trick, but they're queer in their own way, an' the both o' them is too, what Mrs. Sherman calls, temper-mental to suit me. Now, who'd 'a' thought all them chicks woulda died on me, just because they got damped down some, that cold, wet spell we had along in March? If they'd 'a' told me they wanted to come in outa the wet, I'd 'a' fetched 'em indoors, or I'd 'a' went out an' held their hands. Anythin' to oblige. But not on your life! They was mum as oysters. They just up an' died on me, without so much as a beg to be excused—the whole bloomin' lot o' them. The Lord tempers the cold to the shorn lamb, but I notice it aint reggerlated much of any in the case o' chickens. An' talkin' o' chickens, I wonda if that same Sammy done what I told'm an' whitewashed the henhouse thora inside. Mrs. Peckett says you gotta do it every oncet in a while, to keep the vermin down. The quicklime kills 'em."

Breakfast well under way, Mrs. Slawson went out on a tour of inspection. Evidently what she found did not satisfy her, for, when the family had had its meal, and was about to rise and disperse, she held Sammy back with a detaining hand.

"Say, young fella, how about that henhouse you was to fresco with whitewash yesterday?"

"I did it, mother."

"Well, you let the brush kinda lick down the walls, but what I call a thora coat you did not give it! Now, I like my jobs done thora. There's a good pail o' whitewash waitin' for you outside, to say nothin' o' the brush to lay it on with. An', while the girls an' me goes over to the other side o' the lake to get laurel, you get busy on the inter'or o' that hen-residence, my son. An'——"

"Oh—oh, mother-r!" Sammy's wail came from a stricken heart.

It failed to make the slightest impression apparently.

"You knew you was botchin' all the time," Martha pulled him up short. "After a while, you'll get on to it that you can't palm off careless work on me—I know too much about it."

"I did what you told me, mother," the boy managed to bring out, between heavy sobs.

"What did I tell you?"

"You told me—do the inside o' the henhouse, an' I done it!"

"Yes, but how about the roosts? You never touched brush to the roosts. It's a pity if a child o' mine's gotta be told do every last thing, when he knows better. You can take it from me, I ain't bringin' you childern up to be the kind o' household pets servants is, nowadays. I wanta learn you to think for yourselves, sometimes, an' do a thing the right way, because it's right to do it that way. Never mind if anybody sees it, or not. Now, you listen to me, since you're so partic'lar: You go into that hen-house, with your pail, an' your brush, an' you whitewash down every last thing in it, roosts an' all. Don't you leave a thing go free. Do you understand me?"

Sammy's pitiful face moved his father to raise a voice in his behalf.

"Say, mother, Sammy knows he's been a bad boy an' he's got to take his punishment. He's got to do the henhouse over. There's no doubt about that. But suppose he passes his word of honor to you, as man to man, that he'll do it thorough next time, will you be easy on him, for this once, and let him go across the lake with you and his sisters, and do the whitewashing later?"

Martha shook her head.

"Sorry I can't accommodate you, but when anythin's to do, there's no time like the present. If Sammy learns his lesson this trip, he won't have it to learn again, on another occasion, when p'raps he'd miss more than goin' acrost the lake. Besides, he's got some other little trifles hangin' over'm, I let him off easy on, at the time. We'll just settle up his account now, for them an' the henhouse, all together, an' call it square."

There was a terrible finality in his mother's words and aspect, that dried Sammy's tears, quenched his sobs. Where was the good of struggling? Sammy was a small boy, but he had sagacity enough to realize he was face to face with fate. He turned away mournfully, and disappeared in the direction of the henhouse.

Mrs. Slawson's severity fell from her, as if it had been a mantle.

"The poor fella," she said commiseratingly. "I'd give a lot to leave'm go along. But with childern, you got to strike while the iron is hot, or you'll be forever warmin' their poor little hides, which constant naggin' is death to their dispositions. But if I'd 'a' had my choice, I'd 'a' selected a differnt way to punish'm. For, firstoff, I won't enjoy the fun, knowin' he's left behind, an', second, I really need his help with the laurel and with the la'nch. But p'raps I need a punishment on my own account, for leavin'm grow to this age without knowin' he can't string his mother. If I do, you can take it from me, I got it."

CHAPTER IV

Miss Claire's entry into her new domain was triumphal.

As the motor approached the lodge-gate, she plucked impulsively at her husband's sleeve.

"Look, Frank, look! See! An arch of pink laurel! Flags! And—and—what's this?"

A quartette of children's voices singing brought the motor to a halt on the hither side of a wonderful, lettered strip, stretched, like an unrolled scroll, to span the driveway, from the tips of two lofty uprights. Mr. Ronald bent forward attentively. Immediately his firm jaw began to twitch, and, as he spoke, his lowered voice betrayed a treacherous tremolo.

"They're singing Hail to the Chief. But its own mother wouldn't know it."

Claire threw him a reproachful glance, as, to the consternation of the new footman, she flung open the door of the car herself, alighted unaided, and impetuously clung about Martha Slawson's neck.

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" she cried.

There were tears of joy in Martha's eyes.

"God bless you, Miss Claire, ma'am! God bless you, dear."

"I say, Martha, which of us are you hailing? Which of us is Chief?" broke in Mr. Ronald lightly, nodding a salutation toward Sam, Ma, and the children drawn up by the driveway in martial array.

Martha laughed. "Between youse be it, sir. Time'll tell. Sam didn't want me put it up, but I says to him, you both started in with a fair field, an' no favor, an' let the best man win. Guessin' which of you'll come out ahead, maybe'll relieve the monoterny of married life for you some."

If Sam Slawson had been a boy, he could not have felt more eager to "show the boss" what he had made of the place during his absence. While the two of them were exploring, the children and Ma busy with the treasures their fairy princess had brought home to them from the other side of the world, Martha devoted herself to "mothering" Miss Claire.

"My! To be brushin' your hair like this takes me back to a Hunderd-an'-sixteenth Street, an' no mistake!"

Mrs. Ronald's eyes, peering through her bright veil, met Mrs. Slawson's in the mirror.

"Tell me, Martha, you miss the city sometimes, don't you? Would you like to go back?"

Martha's reply was prompt. "I am goin' back, for a day or two, with Sam, when Mr. Ronald sends'm down on business next month. That is, I'm goin', if I can raise the price o' my ticket. We're goin' on a spree. Just us two, all alone by ourselves."

Mrs. Ronald clapped her hands. "Good!" she cried enthusiastically. "But you haven't answered my question. I'll put it another way. Do you feel quite contented up here? Does the country suit you?"

This time Mrs. Slawson paused to consider. "I like the country first-rate," she brought out at last. "I like it first-rate, notwithstandin' it ain' just exackly the kinda pure white, Easter-card effect it's gener'ly cracked up to be. When you think o' the country, you naturally think o' daisies, an' new-mown hay, an' meddas, an' grass which it don't have signs all 'round to keep off of it, an' blue skies you ain't gotta break your neck peekin' out o' the air-shaft ground-floor winda to see. Well, true for you, the whole outfit's here all right, all right, but so's more or less o' human bein's, an' whenever you get human bein's picnicking 'round, complercations 's sure to set in. Human bein's, if they ain't careful, clutters up the landscape dretful. An' they do it in the country, same as down home. You're goin' to slip up on it fierce, if you think the city's got a corner on all the rottenness there is. There's a whole lot o' news ain't fit to print is happenin' right up here in this innercent-lookin' little village. You wouldn't believe it, unless you knew. There's parties bein' bad, an' other parties bein' good. Folks doin' mean tricks, an' folks doin' the other kind. It's all just about the same's in the city, when you get right down to it. Only, there ain't so much of it. But it makes me tired to hear Mrs. Peckett behavin' as if the country was the whole thing, an' New York wasn't in it. New York is bad in spots, but it's good in spots too, an' don't you forget it!"

Mrs. Ronald smiled. "You're a loyal soul, Martha. But you'll love the country better, when you know more about the birds, and the insects, and the flowers. I'm going to set about directly teaching you. I'm going to make a naturalist of you, do you know it?"

Mrs. Slawson's smile was large, benign. "Certaintly. I'd like to be a nateralist. Mrs. Peckett's goin' to make a New England housekeeper outa me, an' ol' lady Crewe is tryin' to turn me into a farmer. If I get all that's comin' to me, it looks as if I'd be goin' some, before I get through."

"'Old lady Crewe'?"

"Why, don't you remember? That little ol' party looks like a china figga you'd get at Macy's, down in the basement. They have'm leanin' against tree-stumps, for match-boxes, an' suchlike. White hair, an' dressed to beat the band, in looped-up silk, with flowers painted onto the pattren. Ol' lady Crewe reminds you of one o' those. She was 'born a Stryker,' they tell me—whatever that is—an' her folks owned about all the land in these parts Lord Ronald's folks didn't, in the ol' days. She's got no end o' money, but——" Martha hesitated.

"Oh, I recollect now. She's the one they say is a miser."

"Now, I wouldn't call her that," said Mrs. Slawson slowly. "I kinda hate to clap a label onto a body. It's bound to stick to'm, no matter what. It's like a bottle. Oncet it's had POISON marked on it, it's under suspicion, an' you wouldn't make free with it, no matter how careful it's been washed. Ol' lady Crewe certaintly is savin', that no one can deny, an' I'm sorry for Miss Katherine, but——"

Again Mrs. Ronald let her curiosity escape in the repetition of the name Martha had just mentioned. "Miss Katherine?"

"Miss Katherine's the ol' lady's granddaughter, an' you can take it from me, you wouldn't see a han'somer in a day's travel."

"Oh, Martha, Martha!" cried Miss Claire, pretending jealousy, "I've got a rival. I see it! I know it! You don't like me best any more."

Mrs. Slawson laughed. "'Like you best'! Well, I guess you won't have to lose no sleep on that account, Miss Claire. But Miss Katherine's certaintly good-lookin', I'll say that for her. When I come home the next mornin', after seein' her firstoff, Cora says to me, 'What did she look like? was she anything like Miss Claire?' An' I told her: 'Miss Katherine's the han'somest appearin', but Miss Claire is the delicatest. Miss Claire's the most refinder-lookin'. An' that's God's truth. Miss Katherine's tall. The sorta grand, proud-lookin', I-would-n't-call-the-queen-my-cousin kind. An' you——! Well, you'll know how a body feels about you, when the blessed lamb comes home in August, which, believe me, the news of it is the joyfulest ever I heard in my life. You'll know how a body feels about you, by the way you feel about it. Like pertectin' it, an' caressin' it, an'—an'—keepin' harm away from the innercent heart of it. If you don't believe me, ask Lord Ronald."

"'Ask Lord Ronald,' what?"

Mrs. Slawson turned composedly to face the master of the house, as if his appearance in the doorway, just at that precise moment, had been "according to specifications." "I was tellin' Miss Claire—beggin' your pardon, Mrs. Ronald—about ol' lady Crewe, up-the-road-a-ways."

Mr. Ronald disposed of his long person in a cretonne-covered lounging chair.

"Do you know her, Frank?" As Claire spoke she slipped into her adjoining dressing-room, to arrange her hair and put on a fresh frock.

"Why, yes—and no," he replied. "Of course all the neighborhood knows about Madam Crewe. I used to hear my father talk about her. But she is rather a formidable little person. She is not to be approached lightly. I doubt if any one knows her. She was Idea Stryker. An only child. 'Very beautiful,' the governor said,—'a great match.' Her father was exceedingly high and mighty. An English younger son, with feudalistic notions. Nobody over here was good enough for him, except my father, with whom he was uncommonly friendly. Stryker was difficult, a choleric, fiery-tongued individual, much disliked in the state, though, my father always said, he meant well."

"Somehow, I ain't no use for folks that mean well," observed Mrs. Slawson. "That is, o' course, I don't mean I ain't no use for'm, but I think they're kinda nuisances. When you have to explain that a fella means well, you can take it from me, he ain't makin' himself very clear on his own account."

Mr. Ronald laughed. "Well, perhaps that's true. In any event, Squire Stryker made himself so cordially disliked that when, one day, he and his bailiff, as he called him, had a big scene, and Ballard, the bailiff, was turned out, neck and crop, public sympathy was all on his side, though no one knew anything about the facts in the case. My father said Squire Stryker spoke of the man as 'scamp' and rapscallion,' but, he never really openly accused him of misdemeanor. There was the scene, and the next day Stryker closed his place, and took himself and his girl off, to parts unknown. The dismissed bailiff, a handsome, prepossessing chap, my father said, disappeared, and nothing more was heard of him. Idea married, and came back Mrs. Crewe. Young Mrs. Crewe, in those days. 'Ol' lady Crewe up-the-road-a-ways,' now."

"Well, what do you think of that!" ejaculated Martha. "So that's the reason why, when she hears it, the name Ballard's like a rag to a red bull! Now, what do you think of that!"

"What do you mean?" Mr. Ronald asked.

"Why, the ol' lady was took sick suddently a few weeks ago, an' Sam, he couldn't get Dr. Driggs, who was out at the time, an', besides, wasn't achin' to go to the poor ol' body, anyhow, to have his head snapped off, an' then haggle over the bill, into the bargain. So he took the best he could get, meanin' Sam did, which was Dr. Ballard, a fine young fella from Boston. The minute the ol' lady clapped eye to'm, an' heard his name, she up an' had a kinda Dutch fit. Wouldn't see'm. It was all I could do, what with talkin' an' contrivin', to make her, an' then she set about layin' down the law to Miss Katherine, forbiddin' her parley with'm, or see'm at all, which is as good as sayin', 'Bless you, my childern!' over their married heads, if she but knew it!"

Frank Ronald laughed. "The wisdom of Socrates! I tell you what it is, Martha, we'll make a philosopher of you, yet!"

"Anything you like, sir. Sever'l has lately mentioned wantin' to make things outa me. The more the merrier. An' if, in the end, I ain't good for nothin' else, maybe they'll hire me in a circus, for a side-show freak.—THE MADE OVER LADY. WHICH, SHE WAS ONCET JUST PLAIN MARTHA SLAWSON. BUT IS NOW SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS, IT'D MAKE YOU DIZZY TO LOOK AT HER. But I must be goin'. Them childern o' mine will 'a' turned the house upside down with their rapchers over the presents you brought'm."

Mrs. Ronald laid a hand upon her husband's shoulder. "I'd like to take a walk, Frank. Won't you come?"

"An' on the way I'll show you my new hen-house," promised Martha. "One o' the things I'm learnin' to be, is a chicken-raiser. I'm learnin' hard, an', you might say, the chicks is learnin' harder. But it'll all come out right in the end, if both parties hang on, an' keep a stiff upper lip. The first time a brood died on me, I 'most fretted myself sick. But now I learned not to hitch my heart to no hen. I do the best I can by 'em, an' leave the rest to proverdence, an' the inkerbater. Only, you can take it from me, them inkerbaters may be a improvement on the old way, but they certaintly is death to the mother-instinc' in hens. Hens is like women. The less they have to do, the less they do, especially if they keep well. The minute you begin turnin' your offsprings over to other parties, to be brought up, that's the time your sect is goin' to run down. An' the chicks don't grow up with no more feelin' o' reverence for their elders, an' them that bore'm, then the childern we're raisin' nowadays. It's all wrong, these modren contrivances is. We think we're smart, shovin' our ways in, ahead o' nature's, but just you wait, an' see what comes o' this generation o' kids, give'm time to grow up to be men, an' women, an' so forth. You can take it from me, George Washin'ton an' Abraham Linco'n wasn't brought up in cotton-wool, so that every time somebody crossed'm, an' they got red in the face with temper, there'd be a trained nurse to pop a the'mometer under their tongues, to see if they had a 'temperachure.' What kep' their childish fevers down was a good fannin' with mother's slipper, an' they grew up to tell the truth an' fear the devil, along with the other grown-up members of the fam'ly. But, these days, everything's for the kids, an' they know it. Believe me, my heart bleeds for my grandchildern. An', talkin' o' grandchildern, here's the model henhouse o' New England. Internal decoratin' done by Mr. Sammy Slawson's son, junior."

Martha held her little party back long enough to relate the tale of Sammy and the whitewashing.

"An' I told'm," she concluded, "he could walk his little self back, with his little pail o' whitewash, an' his little brush, an' get busy an' keep busy, till every last thing in the place got a good coat. I told'm, 'Don't you leave a thing go free, young man!' so I guess we'll see a thora job this time, or I'm mistaken."

A spotless interior, gleaming, white, proved her surmise correct. Sammy had evidently made "a thora job" of it this time.

Claire would have been satisfied with a brief glance, but her husband detained her.

"I say, Martha," he addressed Mrs. Slawson, "what is it you told young Sam? 'Not to let a thing go free'?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, he's a model boy. He has obeyed you to the letter. Look here!"

Martha, looking in the direction indicated, saw a bunch of animate white, huddled disconsolately against a far corner of the white wall.

"What is it?" she asked.

Mr. Ronald made a clucking sound, and the bunch separated sluggishly, proving itself to be two very thoroughly whitewashed hens.

Martha stared a moment aghast. Then gradually, as the truth dawned upon her, her broad shoulders began to shake.

"The joke's on you, Martha!" Mr. Ronald said, smiling quizzically.

Martha turned grave in a moment. "Beggin' your pardon, sir," she returned, "I'm afraid it's on the hens. But, what'll I do to Sammy? He's a young villain, o' course, only I ain't a leg to stand on, for to punish'm. He's just been mindin' his mother."

"'And the moral of that is,' as Alice would say, that even obedience can sometimes be too complete," observed Mr. Ronald with relish.

Whatever misgivings young Sam might have entertained, nothing in his mother's demeanor, when she, Miss Claire, and Lord Ronald arrived at the Lodge a little while later, seemed to justify them.

Perhaps she hadn't seen the hens. Perhaps the hens had licked or lapped the whitewash off, an inspiration derived from his experience with Flicker, the dog, and Nixcomeraus, the cat. In any case, Mrs. Slawson was apparently undisturbed, standing by (young Sam noticed his mother never sat in the presence of ladies and gentlemen "like Mr. and Mrs. Ronald, Dr. Ballard, or Miss Katherine") as Miss Claire inquired after Ma's health.

"Fair-rly, fair-rly, thank you kindly," the old woman was responding, "I'm thryin' a new remidy, now, an' I think it's goin' to help me. Ol' Mis' Harris says, 'no matther who ye a-are, or what ails ye, if ye get a nutmeg, an' bore a hole through't, an' string it on a white-silk t'read, an' a black-silk t'read, an' hang't 'round your neck, ye'll be surprised,' ol' Mis' Harris says."

"I'd be surprised anyhow," observed Martha. "I'm always surprised."

"And you like living up here?" Mrs. Ronald gently put to the old woman.

"Well, tolerabl', tolerabl'. I don't mind the livin' in it, as ye might sa', but——"

"Ma means, as long as she lives she'll never die in the country," Martha supplied.

"Well, if it comes to dyin' itself, I'd rather die where there was moar to be folla'in' me. I sa' to me son Sammy's wife, often an' often, 'When I die don't ye go to anny gr'reat expense for me funerll. I should want ye lay me out decent, but plain, an'——'"

Martha shrugged good-naturedly. "An' I always answer back, 'Don't ye trouble yourself. In such cases they ain't accustomed to consult the corpse.'"

"But you're not thinking of dying yet," Claire said. "I'm sure you're not."

The old woman shook her head. "No, I don't wanta die—not while the sun shines so bright, an' the evenin' star's so pretty."

"Of course you don't. And you're not going to die for ever and ever so long. You only feel a little low-spirited sometimes, perhaps. Isn't that it? The country seems strange to you, I have no doubt. Why don't you make some visits to your other sons and daughters?" Mrs. Ronald suggested craftily. "That would be a fine plan, I think. How glad they would be to see you after your long separation. And, oh, Martha, talking of visits—you know the visitor I told you we are expecting in August? I'm thinking of fitting up a little room especially for—for her. I have sent to Grand Rapids for all my dear old things, because I've a fancy they'll help to make her feel as happy as they used to make me, and perhaps then she won't get homesick, and want to slip away from us as—as visitors do, sometimes. My curtains were lovely, but I think they need a stitch here and there. If you will put them in order for me—mend them thoroughly, and launder them in your finest style, I'll give you—let me see! the cleaners in town asked me fifteen dollars. I'll pay you fifteen dollars."

Fifteen dollars! Martha's eyes gleamed. Here was her opportunity to earn the price of her ticket to New York and back.

"You'll do it?"

"You betcher—I'll do it with pleasure, an' thank you for the chance, Miss Claire. An'—my! but if here ain't Dr. Ballard, comin' up the walk!"

Martha performed the act of introduction with dignity, then quietly effaced herself, silently signaling her family to "fade away, an' make room for your betters."

Claire "took" to the newcomer at once, predisposed in his favor by a certain shadow of resemblance she saw, or thought she saw, to a friend of her youth, a certain Bob Van Brandt who, once upon a time, had laid his heart at her feet. There was the same manly frankness, the same touch of boyish impetuosity. She wondered if there were the same fatal lack of determination.

What time she pondered, her husband was harking back to otherwhiles, when a Ballard had lived in the neighborhood.

"My grandfather," the young man said quite simply. "He was bailiff, as they called it in those days, to Squire Stryker."

Frank Ronald liked that. It rang true.

Martha was not listening to the conversation. Her mind was full of the thought that now she could conscientiously go honeymooning with Sam.

"It wouldn'ta been right to take the money outa the little we got saved," she ruminated. "That's gotta stay where it is, no matter what. But if I do the curtain-job, I'll have my own cash. I can go with my own man, an' I wouldn't call the queen my cousin."

When, at length, the Ronalds took leave, Dr. Ballard, lingering, said:

"I'm in a hole, Mrs. Slawson." He paused, hesitated, then colored. "I say I'm in a hole—really it's Miss Crewe. My difficulty is, I want to help her out, and, up to date, haven't been able. Madam Crewe is fretting herself into a fever because the fruit on the place is going to waste. Confound it! She's making Miss Crewe's life miserable, teasing her to 'do it up.' Miss Crewe doesn't know how to do it up, she tells me, and, there you are!"

"What about Eunice Youngs? The girl I got to accommodate for'm, at four dollars per," inquired Mrs. Slawson.

The doctor laughed. "Nothing doing, I gather, else Miss Crewe wouldn't be in so deep. This morning I managed to kidnap her—Miss Crewe, not Eunice. Took her for a drive. She needs fresh air and change. I took her to Mrs. Peckett's, because I knew Mrs. Peckett boasts she's the best housekeeper in New England."

Martha folded her arms across her bosom, and half closed her eyes.

"'If I do say it as shouldn't,'" she repeated in Mrs. Peckett's fat, self-satisfied voice. "'If I do say it as shouldn't, no one can beat me on jells and perserves. My jells and perserves have took first prize at the country fair, as far back as I can remember.' I ran in oncet to ask, would she give me a helpin' hand, or, rather, a helpin' tongue, on the perserve question. 'Why, certaintly,' says she. 'I'm always delighted to oblige, I'm sure. My rule is simple as ABC. There's no art in it at all. It's just my way o' doin', I s'pose, for every time I give my rule to anybody else, it never comes out right.' An' then she give me her rule, an' I knew the reason why.

"'You take what you're goin' to jar, and you wash it, if it's berries, or pare an' cut up if it's pit-fruit. Add water, an' set on the stove in a kettle till you come to a boil. Add sugar an'——'

"'How much sugar?' says I.

"'Accordin' to conscience,' she says.

"'How about if you haven't got a conscience?' I says. Mrs. Peckett looked like she'd drop in her tracks with shock. 'Why, Mrs. Slawson!' says she, 'everybody's got a conscience.'

"'Oh,' I says. 'You see, comin' from the city I didn't know. I suppose some keeps theirs just to measure by, when they're puttin' up fruit,' for I was tired o' seein' her dodge from the table to the stove, always tryin' to shut me off from seein' how she done things. As if she couldn't o' refused firstoff, if she didn't want to help. I wouldn't 'a' minded. If she done the same to Miss Katherine, I don't wonder she's just about where she was before—in the same old hole."

"That's just where she is," Dr. Ballard admitted. "Have you any suggestions for getting her out?"

Martha pondered a moment. "Well, I never took a prize at no country fair, or city one either, for my jells, or perserves, or anything else. I ain't a boss housekeeper, an' I don't pertend to be, but my suggestion is—bright an' early to-morra mornin', me an' my perservin' kettle will wanda out to Crewesmere, as they call it. I'll bring Sammy with me to pick, an' sort the fruit, an' Cora to wash, an' heat the jars. They're used to it. An'—you just tell Miss Katherine, if you'll be so good, that she can heave the perserve-trouble off'n her chest. Tell her don't worry. Mrs. Peckett ain't the only one's got a 'rule.'"